---Esme’s perspective---

---Saturday, 13th of December, 2684 Terran Calendar---

---Central Pangaea, New Australia---

I stand on the inside of the curtain, in the cave nook that Burrows has made his office.

He’s staring at the screen of his collapsible desk and the various bits of administration on it.

“So… Lieutenant…” he says, frowning and not looking up at me while he works “…you want to put Jenkins on respite duty?”

“Yes, Sir.” I say, trying not to show my exhaustion.

“Why?”

“Sir, you saw how he was after today’s engagement… That was a fullblown CSR episode… He’s utterly unfit for active combat right now.”

He sighs and sits up in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I saw, Esme… I did but… what do you want me to do with him?” he asks, not opening his eyes.

“Put him on sentry duty at the camp, put him in charge of cooking or cleaning… put him somewhere where he’s less likely to breakdown in tears about how many people he’s had to kill and watch die…”

“Esme… I appreciate the hard position you’re in, since you took over Command of Lt Vickers’ platoon, but…”

“They’re my platoon now, Sir.” I state, simply.

He gives a tiny nod before continuing “Regardless… If I set that precedent… I fear it will only be a matter of time before half the company are returning from engagements in blubbering fits, hoping to get put on camp duty!”

“Sir…” I say, letting some ferocity into my voice “…Jenkins. is. a. fucking. liability right now!… With his mental state, he cannot be counted upon to properly discharge his duties!… If he randomly performs a suicide charge, or curls up in a ball, or just struts around singing nursery rhymes, or whatever other unpredictable shite he might do the next time we get attacked, he might get the rest of his section killed!… Without them and their support, you might lose the whole platoon!… He’s a weak link at the moment… the pragmatic thing to do is to take him out of the chain!… A stitch in time to save nine! Please trust me to be able to discriminate malingers from Soldiers who’re having genuine mental health crises and give the fakers a good smack to the head, Sir!”

He finally looks at me, letting me see the dark circles under his eyes.

Several long moments of silence follow.

He finally sighs “Alright… your reasoning is… sound… I suppose he’s not doing morale any favours either… I’ll put him on camp duty for the time being… but don’t advertise that to the others! When they ask where he is, just tell them ‘camp duty’ without elaborating!”

“They’re none of them stupid, Sir… I’m sure they’ll be able to work out the ‘why’…” I say, relieved that he’s seen sense.

“I’m sure they will too but, this way, we don’t directly establish it as a precedent!… It becomes ‘Jenkins had a mental breakdown and got put on camp duty’ rather than ‘If you have a mental breakdown, then you will be put on camp duty’!”

“Alright… Thank you, Sir.” I nod.

“Is there anything else, Lieutenant…?”

I shake my head “No, Sir.”

“Good. Dismissed.”

---Tuesday, 1st of January, 2685 Terran Calendar---

Oskar’s birthday and the second anniversary of us getting together and here I am spending it trudging across the scrub without him.

Obviously, not every personal landmark gets to be celebrated when you’re deployed… I’d still really have preferred if our platoons could have at least been dispatched together!

We reach the base of a sheer, red rock cliff.

In front of us is a crack, wide enough to drive a large armoured vehicle through, sloping down between the rock faces.

Something about it makes me… uneasy…

Well… this is the way…

“Let’s go.” I say, my helmet transmitting the order to everyone else’s without the need to shout.

I put my left foot forward.

“I’d not go down there if I was you wankers!” comes an unfamiliar voice from behind us.

I wheel around, gun raised, a split second ahead of my subordinates.

Thankfully, everyone’s trigger discipline holds long enough for me to ascertain that the one who startled us is a Human.

“Guns down.” I order, catching my breath “Christ, kid! Do I need to tell you what an absolutely stupid idea it is to startle two dozen folk with assault rifles!?”

The boy points down the gulch and cocks his eyebrow “Not half as stupid as goin’ down there’d be!”

I narrow my eyes (not that he can see that) and appraise the child.

He stands about a head shorter than me.

Maybe 12?… 13?… Pubescent, certainly.

His face tells me he’s a Sapiens of mostly European extraction (also given away by his shaggy, dark blond hair and blue eyes) though, I’d hazard, he might have had a nonEuropean grandparent, from the tanness of his skin (a tiny bit too dark just to be explained by the sun).

He’s extremely skinny and wears a sleeveless outfit that has clearly been entirely cobbled together from hunted leather by someone who is self taught in sartorial applications!

His feet are bound with cloth but large parts of the bare soles are simply resting on the sand.

On his right hip, a weatherbeaten dagger hangs in such a way as to be easy to draw with either hand.

His accent marks him as a New Australian.

He’ll’ve spent the past six years living under occupation…

It occurs to me that he must have followed us here without allowing himself to be spotted by any of the men and women under my command!

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

He’d surely know better than to play a practical joke on soldiers actively engaged in the business of liberating his homeworld, right?

Pvt Marley starts “Ma’am, he’s just a kid… lets go! We’re losing dayli…”

I hold up my hand and she falls silent.

“Better units than this have succumbed for lack of the kind of intel that this kid seems to be offering us, Private… Take 5, everyone… I’m gonna hear him out…”

Clearly relieved for the chance to rest, my platoon begin searching around for places to sit and drink from their canteens.

I stride up to the child, stopping when I’m about 2m away.

I don’t remove my helmet as I introduce myself “Lt Esme Taylor…”

The boy hesitates for a moment before reciprocating “Steve… Steve Kelly…”

“It’s nice to meet you, Steve… Now, could you tell me what the problem is with this pass?… Why would we be stupid to go this way?”

Rather than answering me, he grins and chuckles “You speak really weird!”

Sighing, I refrain from pointing out that, to me, he’s the one speaking weird or that I’m heavily register shifting into standard English and I’d sound a lot weirder if I was speaking my natural Lallans! Instead, I just answer “Yes… I’m Scottish… Now, about the ravine?”

“You’re from Earth?!” he says, his face lighting up.

“Steve! Focus!… The ravine!?” I snap, losing my patience at his distractibility.

“The what?” he frowns.

“This path! Why shouldn’t we go down it?” I gesture down the narrow gorge.

“Oh…” he says, looking bemused “…fulla belchers is why!”

“And… Steve… baring in mind that we’re not from this planet, could you explain to me what a ‘belcher’ is?”

He gestures, outlining an imaginary object about a metre across, in front of himself “Animal… ’bout this big…”

“And…?” I say, shaking my head, nonplussed “…they’re dangerous or something?” failing to see what threat an animal that size could possibly pose to this many durasteel armoured, assault rifle wielding Humans!

He smiles and shakes his head “Belchers ’emself? Naaah! Harmless!… You could walk right up to ’em and push ’em over and they’d not do much more ’an grunt at ya!”

“Then…?!”

“The gas is what’d kill ya!… Guessin’ those helmets ain’t airtight, are they?”

“Gas?” I ask, alarmed.

“Yeah… they’re mostly stomach… Brew up these lethal fuckin’ fumes! Belch it out and it kills things that breathe it, then they eat ’em!… They like to hang out in places like this ’cause there’s plenty o’ hidin’ spots for ’em, the wind can’t easily get in and the path is bowl shaped to let the gas pool at the bottom…”

I release an exasperated groan before saying “I don’t suppose, Steve… that you might be having a jolly old laugh at our expense, is there? ‘Belchers’ aren’t just New Australian ‘drop bears’… are they?”

“I promise you that belchers’re real and the gas will kill you! 200m in, you’d start feelin’ drowsy. Not long after’d be the point o’ no return, 300m you’d collapse and the belchers’d crawl out to chunder their guts up on ya! Though…” he grins “…as an Australian, I am honour bound to insist that drop bears’re also real(!)”

I roll my eyes at the kid’s flippancy.

“Don’t suppose there’s another way through you could show us?” it’s going to mean calling off the raid, if not!

He frowns “I can’t show ya…”

I narrow my eyes (again, not that he’d be able to see that through my helmet) “What’s with that emphasis, lad?… Who can if not you?”

“I’d… have to get my grandad…”

“What, he’s the only one who knows the way?” I ask, confused at the absurdity of what he’s implying.

Shaking his head emphatically, the boy answers “Nah, nah… I know the way… I just can’t show you it…”

“Why’s that?” I ask, my tone flat, since I’m not a little irritated with the way this situation is developing.

Sincerely, he closes his eyes and states “The Partisan Code…”

“The what?”

“Far as we can, we don’t share information on our movements, locations, secret paths and stuff… Means, if one band gets caught, Vlixie’s forces can’t torture the whereabouts of all the surrounding bands out of ’em! Safety, y’know?”

“O…K… but where does your grandad come into this, lad?”

“Oh… yeah, he’s my Band’s leader… He’s the only one who could decide to make an exception for ya…”

Quite exasperated, I say “Alright, lad… We’ll wait here… could you bring him to us…”

The boy frowns “I’ll get him but… don’t wait here… Unlikely but not impossible that the gas might spill out and kill yah!… Move away from the fumes!”

“Uh… sure but how will your grandad know…?”

The boy laughs, heartily “He’ll find you, Lady! No worries!”

And with that, he turns and disappears.

Despite looking right at him, I’m unable to keep track of him for more than a few seconds before he just vanishes into the brush!

“Alright troops, we’re moving…” I order.

We’re waiting for about 40 minutes, after we’ve moved far enough away from the death ravine to set down again, before a man appears.

He’s slightly above average height, maybe 190cm, and bears a gnarled, red, wooden staff, the same height, bound in twine.

He wears a red bandana on his forehead and a long, yellowy brown, sleeveless tunic over his torso. Beneath the tunic, a cloth wrap is visible on his upper legs. His feet are also wrapped and, over the tunic, he wears a simple knotted belt with a large kukri hanging from it at his left hip.

Even having much darker skin, brown eyes and dark, curly hair (with just the suggestion that he might be about to start greying) the man’s family resemblance to his grandchild is strikingly obvious!

He looks to be in his late fifties but, if he has a teenaged grandson, he’s probably a bit older than that.

Unlike Steve, he’s relatively muscular and fit looking, despite his age!

I stand to greet him.

Transferring his staff to his left hand, he grips my armoured right in a handshake.

“Lt Taylor, right?” he smiles.

His voice is deep and gravelly and he trills his ‘r’s the same way I do, even though he has a thick Aussie accent, not normally known for trilling.

“The very same… Your name, Sir?”

“Yarran… Yarran ‘Axe’ Jurrah.”

“A pleasure, Mr Jurrah.” I answer, politely “Would you sit with me?”

I gesture to the rock I just got up from.

He dips his head and sits, leaning his staff against the rock.

“Could I ask to see your face while we talk, Ma’am.”

I chuckle as I oblige him by taking off my helmet “It feels a bit strange to be called ‘Ma’am’ by a civilian so much my senior, Sir(!)”

His face goes hard as he answers “I’m afraid there are no civilians on this planet, Lieutenant… Not anymore… The civilians are all dead… only partisans left…”

My brow creases as I nod my understanding.

I unclip my canteen from my belt and, before drinking, proffer it to him.

He grins and shakes his head “A kind offer but… I’m not thirsty… you’ll need that more than I do!”

I shrug and take a drink.

He’s not wrong, this heat and durasteel is not a pleasant combination!

The inbuilt temperature control can only do so much.

Having taken a drink, I start “So, Mr Jurrah… Your grandson tells me you’d be able to show us a way through the mountains.”

He nods “I could.”

“Will you?”

“No nonsense!” he chuckles in his bassy voice “Could I just ask… Why d’you want to cross these mountains?”

I shake my head “I can’t share that with a civilian, Sir.”

Flatly, he answers “Ma’am, I told you, I’m a partisan. Please don’t disrespect me like that again.”

Hurriedly, I answer “I’m sorry, Sir! I meant no disrespect!… Regardless, I’m not authorised to share strategically valuable intel with those not cleared to know it… the same way your grandson wasn’t allowed to show us the path.”

He nods “Fair dinkum… but, if I was to guess that you were gonna strike the supply depot on the other side, take what you can carry and burn the rest, you wouldn’t’ve broken the rules, right?”

I stay silent and he grins.

Eventually, I say “Whatever it is that we plan to do on the other side… It will be in service of liberating your planet, Sir… Will you help us?”

He brings a hand to his chin and pulls a considering expression.

“I’ll make you a deal…”

“What deal?” I frown, suspiciously.

“You’ll be burning those supplies, right?… How about, you bring my Band along with you. When you’ve overtaken the depot, you let us come in and take as much as we can carry before you burn the rest?… Do that and I’ll show you the path!”

I sigh “It’s not enough that this will hurry the end of the occupation?”

He shrugs “My people can’t eat the ‘end of the occupation’(!) Fat lot of good a free planet does us if we’ve starved to death first!”

I consider that.

That boy was very skinny…

“Alright… you can come… On two conditions…”

“Name them.” he rumbles.

“First condition; we do the fighting! You wait for us to give you the all clear to come in!”

He shrugs “No complaints here(!)”

“Second condition; that boy, and any other children you have in your Band, do. not. come!”

A scowl breaks over his face “You think my grandson’s not blooded!?… I told you! There are no civilians on this planet anymore! Every single member of my band has killed!… He’s not the fragile, little, city boy he was when the War broke out!”

“Regardless…” I insist “…I am not bringing a minor on a military expedition. Find something else to do with him and any other children you have!… If that’s a dealbreaker for you then I’m afraid it’s no deal.”

His mouth twists and his eyes narrow as he considers.

“Fine… He’s not gonna like this, though!”