Saltilla's night was cool and breezy. Activity in the Barracks had grown to fever pitch, as a legion or more of men and women in vest and slacks so sweated in they became dark purple under the blaze of the Barracks floodlights prepared their stores, inspected their weapons, checked their vehicles and packed extra changes of underwear.
The ground was a maze of empty exosuits, jerry cans, duffel bags, and groundsheets upon which were spread out grenades of different types, flannelette rolls, borehole scrubbers, hypergolic claymores, and, stripped into their individual components, plasma boltrifles and railguns.
"Hey D.B., guess who I spoke with yesterday?"
It was Douglas, goggle-eyed, traipsing between the groundsheets toward Betelgeuse.
Sitting cross-legged upon his own groundsheet, Betelgeuse stared up at Douglas. He remained silent, railgun's helix-rail in hand. A magazine of Ninsei-manufactured armature-rounds lay by his side, fully loaded and ready to be fired. He had inspected the coils of the acceleration-supporting-solenoid and checked the helix rails for any warping, and was then in the midst of reassembling the railgun.
"It was Norma… turns out the Grade Zeros' off-day coincided," Douglas yakked.
Betelgeuse continued connecting the components of the railgun together, ensuring each part clicked satisfactorily into place. Then, he ran his finger across each interface to check its integrity, fingers alert to any sort of warping or damage along the barrel-chassis.
"Not even a little interested in what we talked about?" Douglas poked, craning his head over Betelgeuse' shoulder.
"What was it?" Betelgeuse inquired, his tone flat.
"So, I spoke with Norma today, and she told me you're actually pretty knowledgeable regarding the Incunabula," Douglas began.
"Get to the point, please. We're moving out in two and a half hours and I want to sneak in some shut-eye."
"C'mon, you know what I mean…"
It was clear as day to Betelgeuse that Douglas was curious about the 'mind-control' Strionis Jove had exercised over them. But discussing it out in the open felt like an exercise in stupidity.
"... There is a time and place for everything."
"Come on, man, we're about to go into battle. Don't you think this is going to be important? What if they—"
Douglas had been leaning down over Betelgeuse' shoulder and at this point the latter sibilated and grabbed Douglas by the collar of his salt-spotted vest, dragging his face down close.
"Yer a goddamn fool. I know no way to prevent it so keep your mouth shut."
"But you were the first—you broke the thing first!"
"Where the hell did you learn to whisper? I'm not sure what happened, McKay, but this is not the place. We're in the same team, okay? So we'll eventually have our opportunity, if you just remain patient. Got it?" Betelgeuse hissed. Douglas nodded mutely and glanced surreptitiously to the side, and Betelgeuse released him.
The Grade 1 Personnel beside were all engaged in inspecting their own stores, none of them bothering to give so much as a second glance to them. Beyond the Grade 1 ranks idled a fleet of hulking armored personnel carriers with tracked treads, humming loudly and releasing thin wisps of dark-purple smog into the air. Betelgeuse knew that further down the line would be the bipedal warsuits, and then the Grade 0s, and so on.
The PA abovehead crackled to life, and the fitful activity in the Barracks square ground to a sudden halt.
"Plan-Modification number one. Grade One Personnel and Penal Legion Personnel comprising right pincer-movement: set-off timing nineteen hundred hours; Grade Zero Personnel, Grade Two Personnel and Grade Three Personnel comprising left pincer-movement: set-off timing twenty hundred hours. Command line: set-off timing twenty-thirty hundred hours."
Betelgeuse could hear the activity pick up again with a vengeance, the energy taking on a hard and frenzied edge. They had brought forward the timing by two hours—1900h was a mere twenty-five minutes away.
His breath caught in his lungs cold and icy. His hands moved at a fevered pace, slapping the disparate parts of his weapon together and performing a cursory check of the integrity of his DUS* and fragmentation grenades.
Douglas cut a hasty retreat, rushing back to his place beside Frederica's sporadically locomoting form, and in the process leaving dusty boot prints on the groundsheets of Zachariah, Aminata and Dmitri, triggering from Zachariah and Aminata a spew of vulgarities and from Dmitri a semi-loud grumble.
Thete was at the head of the bustling PLP contingent, the other four team leaders beside, sweaty and disquieted and yelling for her team to "assemble ASAP!" whilst wrangling with the clasps on her exosuit. The ground was grumbling below them like the stomach of a hungry beast as the fleet of warmachines juddered and crunched over rock and pavement and made for Saltilla's main thoroughfare; all around was a bedlam of movement and shouts and clanking equipment and lost screws and the heavy pall of war.
Twenty minutes to set-off.
Betelguese folded his groundsheet over personal effects like extra changes of clothing and a few chocolate bars and stuffed it into the designated crate. The logistics contingent would courier it to the resupply vehicles, which would join the command line column en route to Liberation's Reach.
Then he came before his empty exosuit, working down the serried pouches dangling from its chest, lower torso and belt. Grenades, extra armature-rounds, flares, an extra set of lithium anode batteries, coagulator, expanding plastic sprayfoam and extra oxygen canisters. He scrutinized the gashes in the suit where the Chimera had cut through, checking the integrity of the areas which he had earlier welded shut by dragging a soldering iron across; then he checked the connections on the rebreather and water-recycling systems, verified the exosuit's current battery levels, inspected the emergency release button on the inner thigh, ensured the 'Excretory Aperture' (or 'poophole') could open, and, finally, took his Incunabulum and slotted it into the front-facing torso pouch inside the exosuit, behind the protective blacksteel plating.
Fifteen minutes to set-off.
The PLPs and G1Ps were struggling into their inner-suits now, stripping down to their undergarments regardless of gender. Then it was the exosuits, and a chorus of cursing and panting and sweaty grunts filled the space as the soldiers chafed against the hard shells and struggled with the uncooperative clasps.
Ten minutes to set-off.
Betelgeuse' section assembled before the diminutive Sergeant Jutson, helmets held between the crook of their right arm and their torsos, all of them breathing heavily.
"We're slated for APC-119. To the main road—double time!" Sergeant Jutson yelled. Betelgeuse thought her voice rather squeaky between breaths. Her prosthetic eye was swiveling about and Betelgeuse supposed she hadn't had the time to calibrate it properly.
They split from the other PLPs and started jogging in lockstep, clumping past the sign which read Barracks Block 50, turning a bend, and joining the sea of humanity making for the main road further up ahead. He could hear a cacophony of shouts and cheers coming from that direction, and as they came up the steep incline separating the southeastern-most Barracks (being the Barracks closest to the main road) from Saltilla's main highway, his senses were assailed by a kaleidoscope of colors shooting neon from particolored banners and OLED signage.
The lights made a day of the night, all by themselves.
The main road itself was wide as two tanks set side-by-side lengthwise. On one end, it stretched far out past the cropfields and hydroponics factories into the heart of Saltilla, and on the other end, to the imposing gates separating Saltilla from Desert's barren clime.
To one side of the road idled a column of tanks, bipedals and APCs. All around were soldiers of various colors and sizes running about in various colors and types of exosuits. The operation was not limited to the TAF, Betelgeuse realized with a start. He saw there men and women of such strange features: skin with scales, eyeballs with slitted pupils, ears which looked more like bubblegum than any other ears he'd ever seen.
And it felt like a significant proportion of Saltilla had turned out to bid them farewell. Perhaps they counted kin amongst the swarm of soldiers—Saltillans like themselves—or perhaps they were merely patriotic. The crowd pulsed under the yellow Saltillan afternoon, filling to the brim that interstice between tar road and cropfield. Betelgeuse felt trapped in the middle of a mighty and edgeless vortex made of human souls.
The team of five, comprising Sergeant Jutson and the PLPs Betelgeuse, Federica, Douglas and Voke, came shortly to APC–119, a ponderous mass of vibrating black metal already loaded with other personnel. Sergeant Jutson called inside the open hull for the platoon's commander and a fair-complexioned officer stepped out into the open. Betelgeuse noted a horizontal gash cut across his upper lip like some vicious moustache, marring the man's otherwise fine-boned features.
"Sir—Protectorate Armed Forces, Jegorich Second Division, First Brigade, Second Battalion, Third Company, First Platoon, Subaltern Cacliocos?"
"Yes. You are TAF PLP Sergeant Jutson, I presume…"
Betelgeuse watched the crowd push against the fencing, saw their faces hung with rapt and celebratory expressions, and wondered if that fine-clothed man was hidden somewhere amongst that sea of faces. The air pressed electric against his skin.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
There was a person there at the front row of the crowd who was being crushed against the thin rails. Betelgeuse looked at him and thought him familiar, but found on closer inspection that he was not the man who had sat and conversed with him in that square.
It was a small old man with a vague and faraway look on his face. His mouth was pressed between the rails so that it was stretched over his yellowed, malocclusive teeth. Saliva stringed downward from his splayed lips, and he mouthed, over and over again:
"The sky is falling, the sky is falling."
----------------------------------------
Then there was a long silence whose time was marked only by his own breaths. As specified by the relevant TAF standard operational procedures, all personnel docked in APCs on low- or no-oxygen worlds were required to seal their exosuits during transport. The stated rationale was to lower the casualty rate which might be occasioned by enemy interception of transport column(s).
The inside of the APC was cramped and crepuscular. The only light in the space was a dim compound-bulb affixed to the ceiling, and it cast everything in hues so purple it made Betelgeuse dizzy. He could not discern the features of his fellow soldiers beneath their bulbous visors—could not tell if they were anxious or excited or expressionless—because that interplay of light and shadow molded every face into a grim mask.
His rump ached from the right-angled APC chair, thinking how the thing seemed to have been designed with discomfort in mind. He shifted, trying to crick his back without jostling the persons next to him, to no avail. His hands spasmed occasionally, an artifact of the prior injuries he had suffered.
He looked about for the fifth or sixth time. The inside of the APC was outfitted with two parallel columns of seats facing each other. His PLP section was located furthest from the front, right beside the back-facing hull entrance. He counted maybe twenty people crammed like sardines into the place not including the driver and vehicle commander, and then thought with no great mirth how the Vespertilio's Cage and the elevator rides on Earth had prepared him well for the setting.
"Private comms. PLP section five, do you copy?"
It was Sergeant Jutson's voice, thin and muffled. She was seated to his left at the hindmost part of their column of seats, and was squeezed up against his arm. To his right sat a stout fellow he supposed hailed from the Jegorich forces.
A chorus of "Yes"s from Frederica, Voke and Douglas, in that order. Betelgeuse went last.
"The plan as briefed before our prep hasn't changed much. These guys you're sitting beside, they're from a PAF Jegorich division. We're attached to them as auxiliaries."
"Canonfodder?" Douglas asked, his tone genuine.
"Shut the hell up Downie," Frederica chuckled.
"If that's what you want," Thete said, to Betelgeuse' silent surprise.
"Damn, all that time with Zephyr just to—" Douglas vocalized, before being interrupted by Thete's authoritative voice.
"Settle down. Earlier I had outlined the main phases of the plan—right now we're in the movement phase. It should take us maybe five or six hours—"
"Six hours!"
"Goddammit Douglas, can you let me finish? So it's five or six hours to the Amate mountain range, and then we'll set up a forward relay for the command line to rig their generators and Power Magnifiers, once they come through. Then we'll maybe have some rest before we continue on foot westward and then southward to the set-up point," Thete recapped.
Betelgeuse could see, opposite him, Frederica elbowing Douglas. The length of her legs meant that her knees were scissored between his in that cramped space.
"And the set-up point is where we'll consolidate?" Voke inquired. "Before we launch the attack?"
"Yes, and it's our final restpoint. Once we're there, Subaltern Cacliocos and myself will link-up with the Company's commanding officer for information on overall Battalion strength and movement. Once we firm up the final logistical details, we'll move off to engage."
"Understood," Voke returned.
"Okay. I think, for your benefit, it'll be better to mention what Subaltern Cacliocos had learned from the muster orders. He explained to me that the overall operation comprises a consecutive pincer-movement centered on LR, and we'll be part of the right pincer-movement. We're following the Jegorich brigade as the first ones into the fray, and the idea is to divert enemy attention to ourselves down the southern flank. Following which the left pincer-movement will take the enemy from the side and backside—i.e., the eastern and the northern flank."
"Will we have armor and air support?" Betelgeuse asked.
"Armor will be nominal—a handful of automated bipedals and tanks to draw their anti-armor down to the south. The main bulk of armor will be with the left pincer-movement. Most of the bipedals will probably come down at the northern flank considering how rocky that terrain is. As for air… well, it's a good point to raise—I'm not privy to the comms so I'll have to check in with Subaltern Cacliocos later, though I don't expect it'll make a big difference in terms of coordination, if they haven't already told us."
"Cannonfodder indeedydo," Douglas muttered.
"What I'm hearing leaves the western flank of LR free. Perhaps they're keeping the air support back to cover that route should any of the enemy break in that direction," Betelgeuse remarked. "They're probably monitoring the area of operations via satellite, after all, so they'll know when it happens."
"Hmm, that does make sense…" Voke commented.
"Probably doesn't matter for now," Thete reiterated.
Then, after a moment's pause, she added, "so… how are we all feeling?"
"... What?" Douglas asked, nonplussed.
"If you have any thoughts, general or otherwise, feel free to share them. Even if it has nothing to do with the battle. I am meaning that we have the time."
The vehicle lurched under them, and Betelgeuse felt, momentarily, like he was falling. Then the APC hit the ground, jostling them into each other semi-violently, and settled once more into its tireless trek.
It looked like Thete's offer would remain unanswered.
"I've seen your profiles, of course—Douglas, Frederica and… Be-tel-geez, I saw that you guys managed to take down a Chimera," Thete continued, a trace of awkwardness in her voice.
"Beh-tell-juhz," corrected Betelgeuse. It hadn't been the first time Thete mangled his name.
"Betelgeuse. And Voke, your buddy, it's his first time coming face-to-face with the Chimera. How do you feel about that?"
"... Nothing much," came Voke's response.
It appeared from the fervid shudders of the APC chassis that their transport had come to rougher ground, and its hum crescendoed to a droning whine that attempted to drown out all thinking.
"How did you come by that scar, Sergeant Jutson? The one over your eye." The voice was Frederica's.
Betelgeuse raised an eyebrow. Turned out she had been nursing much the same question as he.
A thin susurration could be heard seeping through the comms, sharp and abrasive. An intake of breath.
"… I hurt it in a battle with the Chimerae. I was much more immature then, though not much younger."
Dull tinkling emanated from the metal plating below their feet, as if a sandblaster were scouring the underside of their transport smooth. The chronic judder reasserted itself.
"… Thank you. Thank you for answering," and Betelgeuse could just make out Frederica's head nodding through the shroud of canted shadows. Silent communication, implicit understanding.
"If you'll allow me another intrusive question," she continued, "what did you do to get sent here? To the PLP I mean. You have our dossier, so it's only fair you share."
'Well played,' Betelgeuse thought, smiling to himself. Frederica could word her questions well when she wanted.
"Can't argue with that. Well, that was a long time ago…" Thete began, and Betelgeuse thought he detected a hint of wistfulness in her tone. "… let us just be saying that my politics had once been much more involved. I came to Jegorich—the capital of the Protectorate for those of you who don't know—when I had already come of age. It was after the Analysis and the Incunabulum, when I got caught up in the whole wave—it was so exciting, the movement… and there were people I fell in with who didn't always agree with the way the government was handling the Secessionists, as they had been known those years ago. If some day you get to know more Desertians, you'll find as a whole we are a quarrelsome people. Cutting the long story short, I did some things that were seen as redounding to the benefit of the Secessionists, which is how I ended up in this position.
"I would share more, but bear in mind all comms activity is recorded."
On hearing this last, Betelgeuse perked up, coughing and straightening in his seat.
"Hrnh. It's an interesting story. More interesting than ours," Frederica said, her voice sounded higher than usual. Betelgeuse exhaled through his nose.
"It is very interesting. I wanted to ask… The recording, Sergeant, when do they take it from our suits?" Betelgeuse inquired, taking care to keep his voice calm.
"Recording? I meant that I can't really share more about my circumstances. There are legal implications, you know—it was a specific condition of my parole. That and the whole PLP business. End of the month they'll make us bring in our exosuits for servicing and when they retrieve the blackbox I'm going to be screwed. So that's that."
The blackbox.
Another length of silence interspersed. Douglas shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"Listen. We've not known each other for very long, but when push comes to shove, you need to know you can trust the person next to you. If you can trust each other, and listen to my commands when it counts, we just might make it home alive," Thete urged. "Don't hesitate when your fellows' lives hang in the balance."
"You speak very good Common," Betelgeuse remarked, even as the familiar chill of breathlessness gripped his lungs.
"I grew up speaking it to my parents. You could say I'm a native speaker," Thete chortled.
Betelgeuse looked to his left and found that he could discern Thete's features in the darkness, given her proximity. She met his staid gaze and returned it with what she thought was a rakish smile.
----------------------------------------
They sat there for a while yet, and then the APC halted, and they sat some more, and bantered occasionally amongst themselves until they were exhausted and then shut off their comms to meditate or take what sleep they could straight-backed and uncomfortable.
It seemed far longer than six hours before they reached the Amate Range, and when they did Betelgeuse thought he might kiss the steaming red sandstone ground they alighted upon. The Jegorich First Brigade and their rumbling mechanical transports were slanted upon the skew of the shortest mountain of the range—the one Thete said the locals called Stin—like a throng of ticks clinging to the hump of a dromedary.
With practiced efficiency and thundering powerdrills, the thousands set to digging out vast quantities of soil. In less than an hour an immense space designated Command-HQ had been hollowed out in the mountain, with a thick dyke of iron-rich gravel laid a kilometer or more in length to either side of it. An aperture just wide enough to allow the APCs to travel through was positioned to the right of the Command-HQ to facilitate ingress and egress to the area of operations.
Already above Betelgeuse the heavens had thrown up a stellar constellation and the red day was waning with the setting of Corydon beyond the Amate. Shuttles of light splayed onto the craggy and undulating terrain which rolled out into a plain of stunted stone shapes centered by Saltilla and its Pit. Some distance away he could see the pale dust of the left pincer edge closer, slowed by a legion or more of shambling bipedal machines.
The Jegorich First Brigade would have a few hours to rest while their support corps took over the grueling work of dredging out four or five other cuboid spaces from the mountain.
The moment their brother contingent arrived, they were slated to traverse the hump of the Amate by rounding the blunted peak of the Stin.