It was the middle of the night, two days following the withdrawal of Poslushi forces from New Vancouver. As Svetlana lay dozing in her bedroll, her dreams were strangely disjointed and nonsensical, an odd occurrence considering that she was normally a lucid dreamer. She was a knight riding into battle to free the damsel in the tower, and then she was the damsel. Suddenly, she was back on her warhorse, but when she spurred it forward, she rode onto the familiar streets of modern Moscow and was surrounded by silent bystanders. Her buckler and lance seemed worse than useless in the face of the faceless crowd. Then, simultaneously, everyone opened their mouths and let forth an earsplitting shriek, knocking her back to consciousness.

Then, she paled a little as she kept hearing the wail. She leapt out of her bedroll and grabbed her pistol, emerging from her tent to see Fort Grozny in chaos once more. Every functional alarm in the city was blaring at maximum volume, and as Svetlana looked up, she saw a red plume in the sky as a spacecraft entered the atmosphere, burning as bright as a star for a few moments. Then, its engines ignited and it began a slow drift towards the ground.

Suddenly, somebody seized her by the hand and pulled her along with them. Looking over, she saw Johann holding her arm, running her over to his tank. As they reached the Leopard, its engine started and its camera mount shone a bright spotlight in front of the vehicle. Johann gestured for her to sit on the back of its hull while he climbed into the hatch.

"What, am I just supposed to hold on?" she cried.

"If you wanted a comfortable ride, you should've asked the Israelis; this isn't a damn Merkava!" Johann yelled back, slamming the hatch to accentuate his point. Svetlana sighed, then grabbed onto the anti-missile caging on the tank and held on tight as the Leopard sped off. A few times, the tank bounced slightly and Svetlana's heart leapt into her throat, but she was never in any real danger of falling off.

The ship had come in for a landing while the Russian fleet was on the other side of the planet, and had come down in an area of the city cleared out by fire and shelling during the initial attacks, just large enough to hold the rather small spacecraft. However, as they approached, no weapons fire from the ship greeted them; in fact, judging by the appearance of the craft, it wasn't military at all.

The vessel took on a vaguely rectangular shape, and possessed no weapons that Svetlana could see. If they had any ability to use their odd mind-melding weaponry, they would've already deployed it. Svetlana watched as one of the ship's airlocks extended a long, sloping gangplank.

"Hold fire, hold fire! They might be diplomats." she barked, hopping off the tank and fetching a flashlight from her pack. She shone it up at the airlock and kept one hand on her holster. The airlock hissed, then flew open and an emissary emerged.

A Poslushi male descended the gangplank with a sort of harried, worried gait, far more upset than she had seen them before. He wasn't dressed in any military uniform either, instead wearing rags. Svetlana put out her hand in a gesture for him to stop. He came to a halt a few steps from the end of the gangplank. Svetlana opened her mouth to say something, but then he began to change.

The antennae folded back on themselves and were absorbed into the body, while the exoskeleton softened and lightened in color. The being grew a bit taller and lost the characteristic stoutness of a Poslushi. All the while, a sickening crackling noise emanated from every joint and limb. Then, the transformation was finished, and Svetlana was staring at a perfect, albeit nude, replica of herself.

Svetlana took a step backward. "What in the hell...?"

The replica looked at her, tears streaming down her face. Then, she said, in perfect Russian, "Please, you have to help us. There's no time to explain; so many of us are wounded."

"Who the hell are you!?" Svetlana replied, drawing her sidearm.

"Please, just get your doctors. They don't have much time left."

Svetlana looked over at the platoon of infantrymen that followed them there. "Sweep and clear the ship. And you, body snatcher, get on your knees and put your hands behind your head."

The replica did as Svetlana told as the soldiers streamed into the craft. Svetlana put her radio to her mouth.

"Base, we've got one prisoner here, about to get a few more. Requesting military police presence."

"Roger that, MPs are deploying to your location."

Svetlana switched the radio off and handed the replica off to one of the officers to handle. Then, she ran up into the craft behind the infantry.

Immediately, she was assailed by the stench of blood and fecal matter. Someone was wailing in anguish, and Svetlana followed the sound through the winding hallways of the ship to find herself in some sort of cargo hold turned triage. Dozens of Poslushi lookalikes lay twitching on the ground, attended by grim-faced nurses too busy to notice Svetlana. The source of the screaming was one of the wounded, holding her bled-white mate and howling uncontrollably. Horrified, Svetlana grabbed her radio once more.

"Base, send the MPs back. Get as many doctors as the APCs can hold. We've got one hell of a mass-casualty here."

"Affirm."

One of the nurses saw her and began backing up slowly, both hands in the air. As the rest noticed her, they began doing the same. "Hey, hey, I'm not here to hurt you." Svetlana said, holstering her pistol and holding her hands out in front of herself defensively. Then, she was unceremoniously shoved aside by a combat medic, who set himself up with the nurses and got to work. Svetlana could see that about one in five of the wounded had already expired, a number that was sure to go up even with advanced medical treatment.

Svetlana, seeing that she would be of no use in the ship, turned around and walked out to make more room for the EMTs when they arrived. When she emerged from the airlock, she found her replica sitting on the side of the road, covered in a thermal blanket. She hurried over to try to talk to her.

"What are you doing here?" Svetlana asked.

"Running." the replica rasped. She was pale and her lips were dry.

"Do you need water?"

"Yes. Please, yes." Svetlana nodded, handing her her canteen. The replica took a long swig.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Who were you running from?"

"Harbingers. Colonizers. Poslushi." there was unprecedented hatred in her voice as she uttered their name.

"What did they do?"

"On the eve of our first trip to the stars, they visited us, told us that they could solve all of our problems. We didn't know that they were lying until their soldiers stormed our capitals. We served under them for a time while we prepared our rebellion, but when the revolution came, it wasn't enough. We've been running and hiding ever since."

"And this ship is what you were hiding in?"

"No. We had a hiding place, a settlement in the forests of the planet the Poslushi called Pollanide, but they found us. Let it be known to you, the Poslushi may call themselves honorable, or humane..." the replica took a breath, collecting herself as she almost starting crying again. "...they're lying. All of them. Our leader surrendered himself to them; we even offered to wear the masks voluntarily, if just to survive, but they cut us down in cold blood. The few who survived ran for their lives. Which brings me to this point: thank you."

"What did we do?"

"You distracted the Poslushi, which gave us the chance to steal this ship and flee here. Without you, they would've hunted the rest of us down."

The armored cars arrived on the scene, disgorging a small tide of EMTs, doctors, and other medical personnel into the ship just as the infantrymen finished clearing it.

"Are they here to help?" the replica asked.

"Indeed. And, sorry about not believing you."

"I wouldn't if I was in your situation. Anyways, my name is Raknashono. My people are called the Irrilings. The Poslushi colonized us because our dexterity made us ideal operators of machines."

"My name is Svetlana. I hope we can help you."

Raknashono smiled. "I hope you can too."

---

There were too many refugees to all carry back to camp in the vehicles, so Johann's tank was almost covered in them as they drove. There had been close to a thousand people crammed into a ship big enough for a tenth of that number. Their ship had already been damaged when they made their escape, and they limped along, narrowly avoiding being caught by the Poslushi border authorities. A few days prior to their arrival on the planet, they had run out of medicine. A day later, the food ran out, and the next day, the overstressed life support system gave way. If they had stayed in space a day longer, the air on their ship would've become too foul to breathe.

As they arrived back at camp, it was a scene of utter chaos. The injured were being offloaded in droves and wheeled into medical tents, while many of the doctors stayed behind for those who couldn't be moved. The bodies were collected and displayed for next-of-kin to identify. All the while, everyone was yelling for some reason or another. They were keeping up with the stream of newcomers, but only barely.

Johann didn't sleep for the rest of that night, as he ferried anyone who didn't need to ride inside a vehicle to and from the landing site. He had to break up a fight between the human denizens of the camp and the Irrilings at one point; apparently, one of the newcomers had turned into somebody in order to take their soap ration for the day. Johann really wasn't looking forward to the coming era of DNA tests for everything.

As day broke, everyone had been sorted out. Those who would die had already done so, and those who would not were being nursed back to health by human technology. People had been reunited with their surviving families, and the leaders of their group, namely Raknashono, were being debriefed by the site psychologist.

Hersch turned the tank's engine off and rested for a moment as the last of the refugees jumped off of its hull. When they were all off, Johann flipped up the hatch and disembarked. Then, he saw that many of the denizens of the camp, civilians, military, and Irrilings all the same, were crowding around a single point, a hastily-arranged array of picnic tables in the capital building's courtyard, chattering excitedly. Hiedrich extracted himself from the mob and ran Johann's way.

"What's going on?"

"Someone found a few kegs of beer in the basement of one of the bars. They're cracking them open now, come on!"

Johann raised his eyebrows, but the temptation was too strong. Besides, he could see Fort Grozny's commander in the crowd, so it wasn't like he could really complain. He and Hersch both hurried towards the makeshift bar, where one of the infantrymen, a bartender in his civilian life, hammered a spigot into the wooden cask. A few strikes later, and a font of lager spouted forth into waiting cups, canteens, and anything else that could hold liquid. Johann collected his fair share, then went to sit with his crew.

"...so I said to him, 'Well, of course I knew the difference, the other twin had a--'" Hiedrich said, suddenly cutting himself off when he saw his commanding officer.

"No, do continue." Johann said, a wry tone in his voice.

"With all due respect, Captain, I don't believe doing so would be beneficial to my status of 'not-on-latrine-duty.'"

Johann chuckled at the joke. Then, someone tapped him on the shoulder. "Mind if I have a seat?" said Svetlana.

"Of course not, Lieutenant-Colonel." Johann answered, scooting over to make a space. Svetlana sat beside him.

"You don't need to address me like that, not when we're relaxing." she said.

"Alright then, Svetlana. What did you want to talk about?"

"Well, I just kind of want to know more about you. Where are you from, exactly?" Svetlana said, cocking her head to the side. Johann suddenly noticed that Hersch and Hiedrich had both vanished.

"I was born and raised in Bavaria, but my mom was from Hamburg and my dad was from Rotterdam. And you?"

"My parents met in Chechnya, but I was raised in Moscow. My mom had run away and joined the army."

"Oh, really? My mother was on the run from her parents when she met my father. Crazy people, those two."

"Were they convinced that there were reptilians working the corner store?"

"No, just a pair of religious nutcases. Your grandparents thought there were aliens in the corner store?"

"Well, not literally in the corner store, but you know what I'm saying. They were convinced that some shadowy force was controlling the world's governments, classic new world order stuff. Eventually, my mom got tired of it and traded out her tinfoil hat for an army helmet."

"Well, my grandparents were convinced that the Pope was actually an imposter. You know who they thought was the real Pope?"

"Who?"

"Beruti Medupe."

"Wasn't he the president of South Africa?"

"He always was a God-fearing man."

This was too much for Svetlana. She practically fell out of her seat laughing. "Oh, you Catholics are just crazy."

"Yeah, that whole fiasco is why I'm Lutheran." Johann said, leaving Svetlana laughing even harder. It took her a few minutes to calm down, during which time the slightest noise would set her back off again. Johann realized that he was laughing alongside her, though not as enthusiastically, being of a more stoic character. He was feeling warm all over, though not entirely from the beer.

"Okay, okay, okay. I have just one more question for you." Svetlana said, drying her eyes with the sleeve of her coat. Then, she became a little bit more serious.

"What is it?"

"Are you... okay with physical contact? Like, right now?" she said haltingly. Johann noticed that she was blushing.

"Yeah, why--" Johann began, but was cut off when Svetlana pecked him on the cheek. In that moment, he realized why he was feeling warm.

"O--oh." he stammered, blinking. Svetlana put her hand to her mouth in shock.

"Oh, was that uncalled for? Listen, I am so, so sorry--"

"No, it was okay. Better than okay, actually. It was lovely, Svetlana, but I... I think I need to process this. Just, give me a moment, please?"

"Of course." Svetlana nodded twitchily as Johann got up and left.

"You put her up to this, didn't you?"

"What are you talking about, of course we--" Hersch began, but Hiedrich cut him off.

"No, we didn't tell her what to do, we just said to Ms. Kuznetsova that you looked lonely and arranged for you two to have a table to yourselves."

"So you put her up to this."

"Look, Jo, we could see that you were both looking at each other in a particular way, and we could also tell that both of you were too skittish to make the first move, so we put you into a situation where you had to do something. Is that really that bad?"

"Well..." Johann said, thinking. "you didn't exactly give either of us a choice in the matter, and we have to keep any further developments here rather hush-hush, since this could raise questions regarding her outranking me..."

Then, his expression softened and he put a hand on Hiedrich's shoulder.

"but thank you."

Then, he turned on his heel and walked back to enjoy Svetlana's company. After all, it was a great way to unwind after nearly a week of action, Irrilings could, in fact, get drunk, and Svetlana looked cute in camo.