---Esme’s perspective---

---Monday, 3rd of September, 2683 Terran Calendar---

---Southern England---

Orange…

This room is filled with orange fatigues!

We’ve been assigned to a desert battalion.

Generally, the UTC tries to assign soldiers to battalions that specialise in climes that resemble those they are most familiar with… people from frigid places go into tundra specialised battalions, people from hot places go into tropical specialised battalions, people from deserts go into desert battalions… etc. etc.

They haven’t actually told us why they’ve chosen to take a desert battalion from the North European Isles (one of the furthest environments you can get from a desert) but… we’ve all got a pretty good idea!

We’re pretty sure that we’re ultimately going to be on the force bound to liberate New Australia.

Occupied fairly early on in the War, that planet has been held by the Galactic Union so long that we have no idea what conditions are like, on the ground!

We don’t know how many Terran survivors there might be, still down there.

We’re able to get close enough to establish that the planet is still there… no planet crackers have managed to slip through the net!

Honestly, the fact that we’ve gone the whole War without a single planet being glassed is a miracle!

Might be something to do with how bloody expensive planetary doomsday weapons are to build and how the GU somehow always manage to build them with glaring weak points!

One trench run followed by the destruction of a prohibitively expensive wunderwaffe too many and the GU seemed to mostly give up on the idea and try, instead, to resolve the War by throwing bodies at it!

They have no shortage of those!

I’m trying in vain to focus on the words of this Sandhurst lecturer, through my brainfog, when a loud voice erupts from every speaker.

“ATTENTION ALL: Breaking News from the Front! We are about to display a press dispatch that recently arrived from the planet Krwndw, in the Nkowr System!”

I sit bolt upright as the system that Oskar and I came a hair’s breadth from being sent to is named.

I turn to Oskar, his expression mirroring mine.

It can’t be good news, can it?

8 weeks is basically exactly enough time for the fleet, that our original batallion left on, to have got there and sent news back!

Were we annihilated on landing?!

A bewildered looking press correspondent in an ill fitting helmet and bodyarmour, civilian clothes visible underneath, appears on screen.

“This is Ken ‘Canuck’ Sato, reporting from the Front…” says the man speaking in a Stateser accent (or maybe Canadian?) “…the date, at time of recording, is Saturday, 5th of August, 2683TC. I’m standing in Wno… the Krwndwr capital…” he gestures to his rubble strewn surroundings in the alien city “…Earlier today, the Krwndwr High Council proffered their complete and unconditional surrender to the United Terran Coalition, marking…”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The room explodes in cheers as the unbridled celebration utterly drowns out the reporter’s words!

I’m on my feet for a moment before I find myself being dipped and kissed by Oskar, doing a valiant attempt at reenacting VJ Day in Times Square(!)

He undips me and the cheering dies down enough to allow the reporter to, once again, be heard “…this announcement is heavily inferred to come in response to yesterday’s arrival of the Terran 104th Fleet here, bringing fresh troops and matériel which the resisting forces knew they were simply unable to withstand. With me now is a soldier who arrived on the 104th… Private Kimberley Bailey, from Earth…”

My mouth falls open as the dark skinned, chubby cheeked girl, I recognise very well, appears on screen. Behind her the pale skin, brown eyes and curly blonde hair of the girl who declared herself my ‘best bootcamp friend’ the first time we met!

“Pvt Bailey, could you tell everyone watching how you’re feeling right now?” asks the reporter, extending the mic to her.

She leans in and says “I mean… I’m absolutely ecstatic!… Winning without even fighting is better than any of us could have hoped for!… I don’t know if you’re allowed to show it but, just over there…” she points to her left and the camera pans that way to reveal a line of +4m tall, 6 limbed, tapir like creatures lining up to dump their weapons onto a massive pile under the supervision of Terran soldiers that they utterly dwarf!… Apparently, they are allowed to show it “…you can see we’re just in the process of disarming the surrendered forces, at the moment… We’re separating out the wounded for treatment… There has been some difficulty in communicating that no harm is going to come to them!”

“Do you feel any disappointment about the fact that you underwent initial training and aren’t able to fight, Pvt Bailey?” says the reporter as the camera pans back to him and Kim.

She shakes her head, emphatically “Not at all! Like I said, I think this was the result we were all really hoping for!… We’re still going to need to occupy the planet until the War is over but, well… speaking for myself, I couldn’t be happier about it!… Uhm… I think my girlfriend would like to speak to some people back home, if that’s alright?”

Charlotte bustles in without waiting for an OK from the reporter and says “Hi Mum! Hi Dad! Hi Tim! And Esme… Esme Reid…!” Every eye in the room turns to look at me “…we miss you here! I just know you and Oskar were innocent and I really hope that got proven as soon as we were gone!… Thank you, Ken!” she says to the bemused reporter before the camera pans to exclude her and Kim from the shot.

The man turns back to camera and professionally continues “Well, there you have it… A major steppingstone on the path to the galactic core has surrendered and is being occupied by the UTC… it is still not certain that the dominoes will continue to fall but, from here, we are one step closer to ultimate Victory… For today though, I say again… the UTC are the Victors!”

Another cheer goes up from the class.

A thought occurs to me.

I tug Oskar’s sleeve to get his attention.

He looks to me and I beckon him down.

Bringing my lips an inch from his ear I whisper “I’ve thought of a name… this one’s a winner!”

---Oskar’s perspective---

---Friday, 7th of September, 2683 Terran Calendar---

The most beautiful girl in the Nine Realms stands in our quarters, looking in the mirror to check her appearance.

“You look fine, Esme. Let’s just…”

“These videos might be his only record of us…! I can’t do it with my hair all mussed up or a piece of spinach stuck in my teeth or whatever! I’ll let you know when I look ‘fine’!!!” she snaps, seemingly only half in jest.

I throw up my hands and allow her to preen for a few more minutes.

I think this might be what you would call ‘displacement’(!)

Finally, she huffs and plods over to one of the seats we’ve set up, facing her holopad.

She throws herself onto it.

Her skin is a lot more tan now, than it was when we first met, from all the time we’ve spent in deserts recently … It only enhances her beauty!

“Are you ready, Esme?” I ask, cautiously.

“No… but I never will be… let’s just do it!”

I nod and sit down on the seat beside her, half consciously folding my arms, protectively, across my stomach.

“Holo, record…” she orders.

The recording light, on the sensor bar, illuminates.

Esme begins to speak, looking at the camera.

“Hey, Victor… my name’s Pvt Esme Reid…and I'm your mum…” she gestures to me “This is, Pvt Oskar Taylor… your dad…” she’s apparently forgotten that we’re NCOs now, but I don’t interrupt to correct her “…and this, right here… ” she gestures to her stomach “…this is you… If you're seeing this, Victor… it means that we… didn’t make it… but you did!… You're still alive… and you're old enough to understand what you're looking at… what I'm saying to you… Know this, Victor; I haven’t even seen your face yet... and I already love you more than life itself!”

As she speaks, I stare into the camera lens, trying in vain to peer through the veil of time to see my son as the man he might, one day, become.