Post by thomas on Feb 18, 2010 0:54:53 GMT -5
"Christ, but what I wouldn't give for a temperate continental climate right now," Sean O'Siamh cursed. He unfurled the handkerchief wrapped around his brow, doused his face in it, and replaced it. Then, he began to wipe the Medea's controls with his unbuttoned army jacket.
"You complain too much," Maya Ayoub commented. Her eyes darted back and forth over the map in her lap but she had to blink sweat away every few seconds.
"No, I complain approximately the right amount. I'm positive."
"And I maintain--" she looked up, trying to retain her cool, but with sweat pouring off her face. "That you complain too much!"
"Ah, to hell with you!"
"Pardon me," came a loud, low, sonorous voice from behind them. Nthele Filupe, holding his hat in his hands, his black skin glistening, had appeared behind them. He had to bend his head to fit into the cockpit and this, along with the hat clutched before him, made him look like some sort of giant, humbled butler. "But have you found the village yet?"
"Er, yes. I think so. The problem," Maya said, tilting her glasses down onto her sweat slicked nose, "is that this map hasn't been updated in out five years. Now, if this were, say, Manchester, that wouldn't be a problem. But out here--" and she gestured to the desert expanse outside of the Medea's windshield. "Villages come and go with the seasons. The sands might wash in, cover everything, or maybe the Nile floods or doesn't flood--"
"Y'went to Oxford so you could read maps?" Sean grumbled.
Maya scowled.
"My point is, I'm 90% sure I've found a village big enough that it's permanent."
"Ah." Nthele smiled. "Brilliant." He licked his lips. "After all, we're now out of peanut butter brittle."
With this, he hulked out of the cockpit. In the distance, they heard a distinct munching sound.
"God, that guy can eat," Sean grumbled again. "Our rations aren't going to hold out much longer--what with him and Siggurdson. You know," and now he turned, conspiratorially, to Maya: "I heard a rumor. Siggurdson, he's practically immortal, so long as he's got food. Whenever he gets hurt, he just eats and eats and eats and then he's fine. He's got some sort of ridiculous hyper metabolism."
"I've heard all sorts of rumors about him. I don't believe any of them. He's a fine fellow--maybe a little odd, but he knows what he's doing."
"Who knows what 'oo's doing?"
Both Maya and Sean jumped and looked behind them. The munching noise was uncomfortably close, as was Thorvald, who stood, barechested and kilted, his pale, tattooed body glistening with sweat, chewing on a slab of Earth Federation issued peanut butter brittle.
"No one," Sean said quickly. "I thought we were out of brittle, cap'n?"
"I, er, did some pilfering last night. This brittle, reminds me o' what me ma'd make when I was a wee one."
"Siggurdson--" Maya began, holding up the maps.
"Lieutenant," Thorvald said, saluting.
"That's not required--I'm not really a soldier," Maya said.
"But ye are my superior."
"Only by chance--only in an advisory position," she said, clearing her throat. "We should try for al-Whahat. It's about two-hundred clicks from our current position and they've got a market there--at least they did, five years ago--so we can buy or trade for supplies."
"D'ye think they'd have peanut butter brittle?"
"It's not really a local food but... anything's possible."
"Ahh." Siggurdson smiled, peanut brittle in his teeth. "Brilliant."
~
Thorvald Siggurdson was not used to leading a team of any sort--even when he'd been in a gang, he fiercely avoided any position of responsibility. Now, however, he had...responsibility. It was an odd position, he'd decided, and he tried not to think about it too much. Also, he tried to pawn off any and all responsibility on Lieutenant Maya Ayoub.
Ayoub herself was not a professional soldier. She was not even an amateur soldier like Thorvald--rather, she had been in the process of completing her degree in Arabic literature at Oxford when the Federation drafted her to serve as an interpreter in those obscure parts of the world that it had ignored for the past few decades. The twenty-four year old, London raised Lebanese-Briton was given minimal training (how to fire a pistol, which hairstyles are acceptable for female Federation officers, etc) and shortly thereafter found herself on Thorvald's team.
Besides Maya, Thorvald had taken a special liking to Sean O'Siamh, a Dublin investment banker whose skill at flying his personal jet had recommended him to the Federal airforce, and Nthele Filupe who, while extraordinarily polite, was actually a thrice convicted criminal who had chosen military service over prison six months prior and managed to get himself assigned to a Mass Produced Gundam.
Besides this group of three, there were the Dish operators--triplets from Kansas named Ashley, Milly, and Kelly, who had all signed up together and whom Thorvald could never tell apart.
There was also the GM pilot, a young, nervous Chinese man, whose name Thorvald refused to learn and whom he couldn't look at without a slight shudder.
~
Outside the Medea, Thorvald stood in the shadow provided by the Blue Destiny. He was so close to Marion here that he could almost hear her breathe. He took a pipe out of a tiny pocket sowed into his kilt and lit it up, puffing slowly into the white heat surrounding him.
"Thorvald. Are you alright?"
"Aye, lass. 'Course I am."
He heard her sigh but she didn't press the matter.
~
Roger and Thorvald had driven the dogs for nine hours straight to get back to New Amsterdam. The fires were still burning when they reach the bombed out husk of a base. A handful of Federation soldiers wandered about, dazed, and they paid the two no mind. At first, Roger tried to interrogate them as to where Perry was, but he got only dumb stares in response.
Then, they began the grisly work of helping with corpses--moving them from under wreckage, closing their dead eyes, wiping blood off cold skin. putting faces back together, hoping against hope that this one wouldn't be the Chinese-Canadian medical student who played the banjo at a club in Toronto on Saturday nights.
Thorvald could not say how long they had been working with the bodies. It was past dark but he wasn't tired--sleeping for so long sapped any desire for rest in his muscles. He knew--if he didn't work, he'd drink.
Amidst the slag of what had once been a GM--the glory of Federation industry--Thorvald found him. He'd felt the foreboding as he approached the machine's corpse and, as he pried open the cockpit, his breath released in slow mourning. He crossed himself and called Roger over.
Roger knelt over the body in the snow, sobbing silently, his head against Perry's. He said things, incoherent things, in both Inuit and English but also in the secret, sorrowful language known only to mourners.
Thorvald had turned away, out of respect, and looked back at the hole that once was New Amsterdam.
"Thorvald," Roger finally said. Siggurdson came to the body, knelt next to them.
"Why?" Roger asked, breathless. Thorvald put his hand on his shoulder.
"No one really knows. I don' know what to tell ye... Put your faith in the Almighty and hope for the best. I've seen plenty die already."
He stood again.
"Let's bury him. The least we can do, now."
"No, I don't want to bury him. I love him, I love him, I love him. I don't want him to die."
"Lad, you're in the denial state. What ye've got to do--I've read articles about this now--"
"Who the hell are you? You're not real!" Roger cried. "You should have died but you keep on living. Not everyone's fucking invincible like you, you bastard. Some of us die."
"Lad..." Thorvald said softly. "Ye know I did not mean it like that."
"Why the hell did he die? Why? Why?"
"Why does anyone die? It's not in our power."
Roger turned fiercely to him again. "What was any of this for? You're with the Feddies. Why are you fighting? Why?"
Thorvald's breath caught in his throat.
"You don't know!"
"No, lad, listen--"
"You don't know why you're fighting. No one does. It's bullshit. It's just absurd bullshit."
Thorvald sighed, shook his head, and tried to speak. Roger bent over the body again and Thorvald turned once more. After a few moments, Thorvald heard Roger stand and start towards him.
"Now, lad, let's get--"
Roger reached out, grabbed the pistol stuck in the back of Thorvald's kilt. He put it to his head, his tearful, horrified face meeting Thorvald's. His eyes, all pupil, reflected the fires of New Amsterdam and the cold moon above, which watched serenely and uncaring.
~
Sean, Thorvald, Nthele, and Maya had piled into the only jeep they had and set out early in the morning for the village. The jeep only said four people but, according to Federation regulations, it required two trained operators and Sean and Nthele were the only one's of the group who had been trained to operate this specific jeep. Maya had to come along to interpret and, though Thorvald tried to get out of it, the other three insisted that he join them, being that he was their de facto leader.
The result of the tight quarters was that Maya ended up sitting on Thorvald's lap in the back. It was made all the more awkward because, of course, Thorvald insisted on wearing his kilt and nothing beneath it.
Still, Maya could not, honestly, say she disliked being on the Scotsman's lap. He was different from all the vaguely effete men she'd met and slept with at Oxford--he was rough around the edges, sweaty, and very possibly insane. A thrill rose in her chest whenever he smiled bashfully at her throughout the trip.
"Maya, where the bloody hell is this village? I don't see anything around here that looks even vaguely like a village. Shouldn't there be traffic? You know, people coming to market and all that?" Sean yelled over the roar of the engine and desert winds.
"Maybe it's not a market day!"
"Then why the hell are we going if we can't buy anything?"
"You can still trade if it's not a market day. There just won't be a good selection."
"Oh, right. It's like the day after Boxing Day then, yeah? I don't even leave my house the day after Boxing Day, let alone go to the store."
Maya scowled again and pushed up her glasses. She noticed Thorvald was staring off into the desert and suddenly wished he were looking at her.
"We should be there soon, I bet," she said, really only to him.
"'Course we will. I believe ye', no worries, lass."
"What are you thinking about?" she ventured suddenly. He turned his head and she hurried to cover her tracks: "I mean, do you have any plans for us?"
"Oh, plans? No. I dun' really make plans, y'see. I was thinkin' 'bout a fella' I knew, died up North."
"Oh... I'm sorry."
"Don't ye worry. I just wish I knew what it was for, is all. I thought I knew but only now, I'm seeing that I never did."
He sighed.
"No idea what it's for. What any of it's four."
"Village ho!" Sean yelled. Nthele suddenly threw his cap up into the air in joy and then bailed out of the jeep to grab it as the desert winds quickly began to bury it.
"Get back in!" Sean demanded. "I need two operators for this thing. If the brass finds out, they might stick me in prison. On second thought, that's not such a bad prospect. Roll around in the bloody sand for all I care."
~
"It would seem to me," Nthele said thoughtfully, his cap safely on his head once more, as they strode into the village. "That this village is very quiet--perhaps even deserted."
"Looks like," mumbled Sean. Maya called out in Arabic but there was no answer. The huts were slightly blackened, with holes in the walls. As the other three walked down the dirt road that made the main boulevard, Thorvald stepped into one of the huts. Three bodies lay in a heap next to a smoldering kitchen fire.
"Oh," he whispered, and his legs gave way against the hut walls. "Not again."
By this point, Maya, Nthele, and Sean had also discovered bodies.
"Jesus Christ," Sean was howling as Thorvald came back out onto the road. "This is like a bad fucking dream. Everyone's dead in the homes. What the fuck happened here?"
"No struggle. Everyone in their homes. Appears to be recent. I would say, it was done last night," Nthele said, surveying the huts.
"God, who would do this?" Maya asked no one in particular.
"Zeon," Sean said firmly. Thorvald noticed something glinting out of the sand.
"There, Thorvald."
He plucked it out. A dog tag.
"Second Lieutenant Max Warrington. Earth Federation Ground Forces," Thorvald read aloud.
"Oh, shit, no," Sean breathed.
"No, it can't be," Maya whispered, looking around. Only Nthele seemed undisturbed. He stooped, dug through the sand, and pulled out an empty cartridge that had been buried. He popped a round out of his pistol and held the spent shell next to the live one.
"It would appear that it can be and is," he said, and licked his lips.
Meanwhile, Thorvald had wondered away from the group. He slid into huts, casting his eyes on the bodies, asking himself why, a single why for each. He came to one hut, wherein a little girl had died, prostrate over her dead mother.
"Oh, god, lassy," he said softly. He knelt beside them, and reached out to stroke her hair. The corpse jumped and looked up at him.
Ghost, Thorvald thought. But then, the ghost began to wail, Arabic dialect spilling out of her mouth. She attached herself to Thorvald, her sobs drawing Nthele, Sean, and Maya to the hut.
"A survivor, it appears," Nthele said, stating the obvious. The little girl turned to look at them all but then screamed, howling something in Arabic.
"She says... She says we're dressed like them. Oh, god, she means the--the ones who did this."
The little girl buried her head in Thorvald's kilt.
"So why does she like Thorvald so much?" Sean asked.
"Naturally, because he eschews Federation dress uniform."
Thorvald lifted the girl up, holding her in his bare arms.
"There, love, ye're safe now," he said softly. Though she couldn't understand his words, the meaning was still quite clear. She looked up at him with big, tear filled eyes and sniffled. She reached out and pulled at his beard. Thorvald's grimace brought a small smile to her face.
Ignoring the rest of them, Thorvald carried the girl out onto the street and towards the jeep. As he walked further away, they heard his voice lifting up, over the desert winds:
"And ye'll take the high road--
I'll take the low.
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye--
For me and my true love will nae meet again
By the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond."
"Look," Maya said, pointing to a box in the corner of the hut. "Fireworks. They were going to have a birthday party."
With all his usual solemnity, Nthele knelt and gingerly picked up the box of fireworks to take with.
~
Back at the camp, Nthele stored the fireworks outside of the Medea but what he deemed a safe distance from the campfire, based on his knowledge of dynamite from a bank robbery he'd masterminded in Lagos three years ago.
The girl, whose named turned out to be Fatima, refused to leave Thorvald and insisted that he carry her around his his shoulders. She clutched at tufts of his hair to maintain her balance and sang songs in Arabic or tried to imitate the Jacobite anthems that Thorvald crooned.
Maya typed up an official report on the incident, complete with a demand for an inquiry. She sent it off as soon as it was proofread.
Sean masturbated in the cockpit, which he did on a regular basis, and hoped no one knew.
Once Thorvald had tired of running around the campfire, singing the history of the Battle of the Boyne, he passed Fatima off to the three Kansas girls, who fussed over her hair, and to the Chinese pilot, who produced a guitar and began to play lullabies, a detail which chilled Thorvald.
So the group spent the evening. Thorvald spent the rest of the evening, going into the night, sitting by himself next to the Blue Destiny, puffing on his pipe. Maya approached him.
"Siggurdson, I sent a report to command on the village. This might be war but something like that's not justified. Never."
"Aye."
She sat down next to him. His unique scent, a mix of tobacco, sweat, and gunpowder, thrilled her--the antithesis of the dons and scholars of her past life.
A few moments passed in silence. Finally, Maya broke it:
"Why do you think--"
"Damned if I know, lass. Lieutenant." He smiled. "Lieutenant Lass."
Maya laughed gently to herself.
"I like that. I'll be Lieutenant Lass from now on. That's an order."
"Aye aye, ma'am."
She leaned her head on his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around him. He immediately felt Marion behind him, stiffening.
"This is a bad path you're going down, lass," he said with a smile. He tousled Maya's hair. "I'm not the kind of fellow you want."
"You're exactly the kind of fellow I want."
"No, I'm not--ye're a nice girl and I'm a bad, bad man. Besides, I've already got a lass. I'm practically married to her anyway." He patted the Blue Destiny and smiled at it affectionately; he felt Marion relax immediately.
"Siggurdson--Thorvald. You're a good man. I saw how you took care of Fatima. She loves you."
"Only because I did nae look like the blokes what killed her family."
"No, because you sang to her and played with her when she needed most. She's three years old--that's the most important thing int he world to her."
Thorvald didn't respond for a while, and when he did, it was on a different subject.
"Why d'ye suppose they did it?"
"I can't say. My guess is that they worked with Zeon somehow--retribution killing, maybe. Or they were sheltering a Zeek. Or--God, I don't know. Humans do such terrible things. What if it were just a random occurrence? Like, God woke up one day, decided there were going to be three or four mass killings today and spun the globe to decide where."
"What's it all for?" Thorvald said, sadly.
In time, Maya began to fall asleep and so did Thorvald's arm. He roused her, sent her to bed, and lit up his pipe once more. The pipe was made of good, old Canadian wood. Bought in Toronto at the kind of store that one's great, great, great grandfather used to shop at, back when the city was still young. It had some sort of Inuit half bird, half girl carved around the bowl.
"You've made a new friend."
"Love, don't be jealous."
"I understand. I'm as good as dead--what happens after I get out of this thing? I die, probably. You want something--someone--with a better chance of being around afterwards."
"After what? After this war ends?" Thorvald laughed, suddenly harsh. "Lass, this war'll never end. Don't ye see that?"
"Then why are you fighting?"
"Would that I knew that."
"You said you would help me. More and more, I wonder if you will."
"Lass, I want to help you. But is fighting this goddamned war the way to do it? I don't know. I just don't know anymore."
Marion was quiet now.
"Don't give up on me, though. It's been a rough few days. I'll be on me feet in no time. Ready to give the Zeons what-for again. Fight the good fight."
"I convinced myself the Feddies were the good guys. I told myself that it was Zeon who did this to me. I wanted to kill them for it. Now I don't know. Maybe you're all the same."
"Maybe we are, lass. Maybe it's just one bloody cycle after another, till the ending of the world."
"So why take part in it?"
"I've no choice."
"There's always a choice. Roger made his choice. Roger refused."
Thorvald stood up.
"Good night, lass. Try not to be so jealous in the morning!"
"I'm not jealous! Why would I be jealous of... her. With those glasses. And that hair. She's acne scarred too, did you notice?"
"I never got close enough to her face to see," Thorvald laughed.
"Sweet dreams, Thorvald." Marion's voice was a longing sigh now.
"I'll see you there," he replied.
~
As Thorvald brushed his teeth, he saw a pair of lights moving in the distance. Faeries, he thought. They gradually got closer and larger and in the silence of the desert night, he made out the unmistakable sound of an engine.
The jeep pulled up at the campfire. A Federation officer and two marines piled out. The three Kansas girls had Fatima laid over their laps and the GM pilot had already fallen asleep.
"Is there a Lieutenant Maya Ayoub here?" the officer demanded. The two marines behind him eyed Fatima uneasily.
"Here," Maya said, appearing in her pajamas. Nthele and Sean peeked out of the Medea and then joined her.
"You just submitted a report, about an incident in a village near here," the officer continued.
"I did."
"I'd like you to retract that report immediately."
"I don't think we've had the pleasure--"
"Lieutenant Max Warrington."
"Lieutenant, I've got something of yours," a Scottish brogue rang out. Thorvald strode out of the shadows and Warrington's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the Scotsman. Thorvald held up the dog tag.
"Ye left this behind."
"It's especially important not to leave obvious pieces of evidence at the scene of a crime," Nthele offered, his hand in his hands. Having grown up with an extraordinarily strict grandmother, Nthele could not help himself: whenever in the company of women, he removed his hat without thinking about it.
"That doesn't prove anything."
"Then why do ye want the report erased?"
"Because," Warrington said, shifting uneasily. "Because it'd be bad publicity. It'd be bad for the Federation. Good for Zeon propaganda."
"Better not to have done it in the fucking first place," Sean scowled.
"I'll have you court martialed for talking like that in front of an officer!"
"You're a fucking lieutenant!" Sean yelled back. "If we weren't in the fucking service, I'd buy and sell your ass in a second. What's wrong?" The Irishman's fire had been unleashed and Thorvald smiled appreciatively as his brother Celt took up the battle. "What was it? The bleeding officer correspondence course you took didn't prepare you for this? The second you get a little, tiny bit of power, you freak right the fuck out and start killing children? I know your type. You were a punk when you were a civilian and now you're a punk with medals and a uniform."
"They were providing information to the Zeeks!" Warrington exploded. "Every single thing we did, the Zeeks knew beforehand! They'd send kids to our unit to hang around, collect intel, then it went right into the spacenoid ears. We lost good men because of them. What would you have done?"
"I wouldn't have killed them," Thorvald growled, stepping forward. The marines took aim and he stayed in place. "Oh, maybe I'd have scared them--I'm a scary man, after all, and I know that, because ye brought yer bloody lap dogs here to protect ye. Even they're scared of me. I can see 'em, atrembling."
Thorvald licked his lips, wetting his mustache.
"I bet you did a little research when you heard about Lieutenant Ayoub's report, didn't ye? Ye figured out she was in my unit, figured ye couldn't just knock her off like ye did those villagers. 'Cause you're scared of me and my bloody Blue Devil. You know I could eat you alive if I wanted to."
"Are you threatening an officer?" Warrington screeched.
"Are you threatening my good taste and sense of decency?" Thorvald screeched back in mimicry. Fatima awoke with a loud cry that made the GM pilot jump--they both had slept through the argument so far.
"Bloody hell, we done waked her. Maya, c'mere, help me calm her down."
Thorvald stooped next to Fatima and spook soothingly to her; Maya translated:
"It's all right, love," they said. "Don't worry. I'm sorry we woke you; we're having an adult chat. But, do you want to see something bright and fun? I bet you do."
Fatima nodded through her tears and Thorvald rubbed her head. He stepped back to the group, taking out his pipe. He packed it with tobacco and glanced at Warrington and his men.
"Any of you got a light?"
Warrington hesitated before reaching into his pocket and offering Thorvald his lighter. Thorvald lit his pipe, puffed, and then, with the lighter still burning, tossed it the few yards into the box of fireworks.
"Now!" he roared, but his voice was almost drowned out by the cracking of the fireworks. Fatima clapped her hands in delight as the rockets shot off into the air, sprinkling light and color over their faces. Nthele and Sean tackled the stunned marines and took their rifles. Thorvald bum rushed Warrington, caught him under the knees, picked him up and supplex threw him, landing on top of him.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" demanded Warrington, still confused and surprised. His arm was cranked painfully behind his back and he found Thorvald's lips next to her ear.
"Listen, you son of a bitch," came the whisper. "Every bone in me body is saying, kill 'im, Thorvald, kill 'im. But, truthfully, that's what ye'd do in my place, innit? Innit? Really, it's not me place to judge, no matter how much I want to. So, let's make a deal, yeah? Ye've got till the end of this bloody war to turn yourself in--and it's going to end, someday. Tell 'em everything. Ayoub will withdraw the report. I'm giving ye' a chance to be a good person, for once in your bloody, stinkin' life. I suggest ye' use it."
Thorvald took a single, sharp breath. Warrington glanced at him and then at the fire: in the midst of the flames, he saw a young girl's face and he wanted to scream. She was glaring at him, her hair like fire. She rose up out of the flames, firery wings spreading behind her. None of the others seemed to see her besides Warrington and Thorvald.
"But if it comes to the end and I find ye did nae turn ye'self in... Then I'll find ye' and kill ye'. No matter where ye are, I'll walk this goddamned earth ten times over till I find ye' and so help me God, I'll crucify you. If I have to come back from the dead a thousand times over, I'll do it, just to kill ye. Ye've given me more than just a reason to live, Warrington, ye' son of a whore. Ye've given me reason to fight."
The girl spoke now:
"And once Siggurdson has taken your life, I promise you... I'll take your soul."
"Who... are... you...?" whispered Warrington.
"I'm everything ye've ever been afraid of and then some." Thorvald stood, gave him a sharp kick, and nodded to Nthele and Sean. They released the marines, keeping their guns.
"Get out of my camp," Thorvald muttered. The three dashed to the jeep, fired it up, and rode off into the night.
"Maya," he said now. "Retract the report for now. Wait till the end of the war; he's right about the propaganda. We do nae need public opinion turning against us."
Maya started to protest but she noticed Nthele shaking his head sagely and she nodded in deference.
~
As Thorvald lay dreaming, Marion came to him.
"That was pretty impressive. I know I'm stronger than you but I still get chills up and down my spine when you do something brave like that. And I don't even have a spine anymore.
"You're a bonnie lass, you are."
"I guess this means I've got to keep you alive a bit longer, huh?"
Thorvald smiled.
"If'n ye don't mind. Maybe he'll turn himself in and I can die peacefully. I suspect, though, that I'll have a date to keep with the Lieutenant some day."
He smiled again at Marion's frown.
"Warrington, lass. Not Ayoub. No worries, yeah?"
"You complain too much," Maya Ayoub commented. Her eyes darted back and forth over the map in her lap but she had to blink sweat away every few seconds.
"No, I complain approximately the right amount. I'm positive."
"And I maintain--" she looked up, trying to retain her cool, but with sweat pouring off her face. "That you complain too much!"
"Ah, to hell with you!"
"Pardon me," came a loud, low, sonorous voice from behind them. Nthele Filupe, holding his hat in his hands, his black skin glistening, had appeared behind them. He had to bend his head to fit into the cockpit and this, along with the hat clutched before him, made him look like some sort of giant, humbled butler. "But have you found the village yet?"
"Er, yes. I think so. The problem," Maya said, tilting her glasses down onto her sweat slicked nose, "is that this map hasn't been updated in out five years. Now, if this were, say, Manchester, that wouldn't be a problem. But out here--" and she gestured to the desert expanse outside of the Medea's windshield. "Villages come and go with the seasons. The sands might wash in, cover everything, or maybe the Nile floods or doesn't flood--"
"Y'went to Oxford so you could read maps?" Sean grumbled.
Maya scowled.
"My point is, I'm 90% sure I've found a village big enough that it's permanent."
"Ah." Nthele smiled. "Brilliant." He licked his lips. "After all, we're now out of peanut butter brittle."
With this, he hulked out of the cockpit. In the distance, they heard a distinct munching sound.
"God, that guy can eat," Sean grumbled again. "Our rations aren't going to hold out much longer--what with him and Siggurdson. You know," and now he turned, conspiratorially, to Maya: "I heard a rumor. Siggurdson, he's practically immortal, so long as he's got food. Whenever he gets hurt, he just eats and eats and eats and then he's fine. He's got some sort of ridiculous hyper metabolism."
"I've heard all sorts of rumors about him. I don't believe any of them. He's a fine fellow--maybe a little odd, but he knows what he's doing."
"Who knows what 'oo's doing?"
Both Maya and Sean jumped and looked behind them. The munching noise was uncomfortably close, as was Thorvald, who stood, barechested and kilted, his pale, tattooed body glistening with sweat, chewing on a slab of Earth Federation issued peanut butter brittle.
"No one," Sean said quickly. "I thought we were out of brittle, cap'n?"
"I, er, did some pilfering last night. This brittle, reminds me o' what me ma'd make when I was a wee one."
"Siggurdson--" Maya began, holding up the maps.
"Lieutenant," Thorvald said, saluting.
"That's not required--I'm not really a soldier," Maya said.
"But ye are my superior."
"Only by chance--only in an advisory position," she said, clearing her throat. "We should try for al-Whahat. It's about two-hundred clicks from our current position and they've got a market there--at least they did, five years ago--so we can buy or trade for supplies."
"D'ye think they'd have peanut butter brittle?"
"It's not really a local food but... anything's possible."
"Ahh." Siggurdson smiled, peanut brittle in his teeth. "Brilliant."
~
Thorvald Siggurdson was not used to leading a team of any sort--even when he'd been in a gang, he fiercely avoided any position of responsibility. Now, however, he had...responsibility. It was an odd position, he'd decided, and he tried not to think about it too much. Also, he tried to pawn off any and all responsibility on Lieutenant Maya Ayoub.
Ayoub herself was not a professional soldier. She was not even an amateur soldier like Thorvald--rather, she had been in the process of completing her degree in Arabic literature at Oxford when the Federation drafted her to serve as an interpreter in those obscure parts of the world that it had ignored for the past few decades. The twenty-four year old, London raised Lebanese-Briton was given minimal training (how to fire a pistol, which hairstyles are acceptable for female Federation officers, etc) and shortly thereafter found herself on Thorvald's team.
Besides Maya, Thorvald had taken a special liking to Sean O'Siamh, a Dublin investment banker whose skill at flying his personal jet had recommended him to the Federal airforce, and Nthele Filupe who, while extraordinarily polite, was actually a thrice convicted criminal who had chosen military service over prison six months prior and managed to get himself assigned to a Mass Produced Gundam.
Besides this group of three, there were the Dish operators--triplets from Kansas named Ashley, Milly, and Kelly, who had all signed up together and whom Thorvald could never tell apart.
There was also the GM pilot, a young, nervous Chinese man, whose name Thorvald refused to learn and whom he couldn't look at without a slight shudder.
~
Outside the Medea, Thorvald stood in the shadow provided by the Blue Destiny. He was so close to Marion here that he could almost hear her breathe. He took a pipe out of a tiny pocket sowed into his kilt and lit it up, puffing slowly into the white heat surrounding him.
"Thorvald. Are you alright?"
"Aye, lass. 'Course I am."
He heard her sigh but she didn't press the matter.
~
Roger and Thorvald had driven the dogs for nine hours straight to get back to New Amsterdam. The fires were still burning when they reach the bombed out husk of a base. A handful of Federation soldiers wandered about, dazed, and they paid the two no mind. At first, Roger tried to interrogate them as to where Perry was, but he got only dumb stares in response.
Then, they began the grisly work of helping with corpses--moving them from under wreckage, closing their dead eyes, wiping blood off cold skin. putting faces back together, hoping against hope that this one wouldn't be the Chinese-Canadian medical student who played the banjo at a club in Toronto on Saturday nights.
Thorvald could not say how long they had been working with the bodies. It was past dark but he wasn't tired--sleeping for so long sapped any desire for rest in his muscles. He knew--if he didn't work, he'd drink.
Amidst the slag of what had once been a GM--the glory of Federation industry--Thorvald found him. He'd felt the foreboding as he approached the machine's corpse and, as he pried open the cockpit, his breath released in slow mourning. He crossed himself and called Roger over.
Roger knelt over the body in the snow, sobbing silently, his head against Perry's. He said things, incoherent things, in both Inuit and English but also in the secret, sorrowful language known only to mourners.
Thorvald had turned away, out of respect, and looked back at the hole that once was New Amsterdam.
"Thorvald," Roger finally said. Siggurdson came to the body, knelt next to them.
"Why?" Roger asked, breathless. Thorvald put his hand on his shoulder.
"No one really knows. I don' know what to tell ye... Put your faith in the Almighty and hope for the best. I've seen plenty die already."
He stood again.
"Let's bury him. The least we can do, now."
"No, I don't want to bury him. I love him, I love him, I love him. I don't want him to die."
"Lad, you're in the denial state. What ye've got to do--I've read articles about this now--"
"Who the hell are you? You're not real!" Roger cried. "You should have died but you keep on living. Not everyone's fucking invincible like you, you bastard. Some of us die."
"Lad..." Thorvald said softly. "Ye know I did not mean it like that."
"Why the hell did he die? Why? Why?"
"Why does anyone die? It's not in our power."
Roger turned fiercely to him again. "What was any of this for? You're with the Feddies. Why are you fighting? Why?"
Thorvald's breath caught in his throat.
"You don't know!"
"No, lad, listen--"
"You don't know why you're fighting. No one does. It's bullshit. It's just absurd bullshit."
Thorvald sighed, shook his head, and tried to speak. Roger bent over the body again and Thorvald turned once more. After a few moments, Thorvald heard Roger stand and start towards him.
"Now, lad, let's get--"
Roger reached out, grabbed the pistol stuck in the back of Thorvald's kilt. He put it to his head, his tearful, horrified face meeting Thorvald's. His eyes, all pupil, reflected the fires of New Amsterdam and the cold moon above, which watched serenely and uncaring.
~
Sean, Thorvald, Nthele, and Maya had piled into the only jeep they had and set out early in the morning for the village. The jeep only said four people but, according to Federation regulations, it required two trained operators and Sean and Nthele were the only one's of the group who had been trained to operate this specific jeep. Maya had to come along to interpret and, though Thorvald tried to get out of it, the other three insisted that he join them, being that he was their de facto leader.
The result of the tight quarters was that Maya ended up sitting on Thorvald's lap in the back. It was made all the more awkward because, of course, Thorvald insisted on wearing his kilt and nothing beneath it.
Still, Maya could not, honestly, say she disliked being on the Scotsman's lap. He was different from all the vaguely effete men she'd met and slept with at Oxford--he was rough around the edges, sweaty, and very possibly insane. A thrill rose in her chest whenever he smiled bashfully at her throughout the trip.
"Maya, where the bloody hell is this village? I don't see anything around here that looks even vaguely like a village. Shouldn't there be traffic? You know, people coming to market and all that?" Sean yelled over the roar of the engine and desert winds.
"Maybe it's not a market day!"
"Then why the hell are we going if we can't buy anything?"
"You can still trade if it's not a market day. There just won't be a good selection."
"Oh, right. It's like the day after Boxing Day then, yeah? I don't even leave my house the day after Boxing Day, let alone go to the store."
Maya scowled again and pushed up her glasses. She noticed Thorvald was staring off into the desert and suddenly wished he were looking at her.
"We should be there soon, I bet," she said, really only to him.
"'Course we will. I believe ye', no worries, lass."
"What are you thinking about?" she ventured suddenly. He turned his head and she hurried to cover her tracks: "I mean, do you have any plans for us?"
"Oh, plans? No. I dun' really make plans, y'see. I was thinkin' 'bout a fella' I knew, died up North."
"Oh... I'm sorry."
"Don't ye worry. I just wish I knew what it was for, is all. I thought I knew but only now, I'm seeing that I never did."
He sighed.
"No idea what it's for. What any of it's four."
"Village ho!" Sean yelled. Nthele suddenly threw his cap up into the air in joy and then bailed out of the jeep to grab it as the desert winds quickly began to bury it.
"Get back in!" Sean demanded. "I need two operators for this thing. If the brass finds out, they might stick me in prison. On second thought, that's not such a bad prospect. Roll around in the bloody sand for all I care."
~
"It would seem to me," Nthele said thoughtfully, his cap safely on his head once more, as they strode into the village. "That this village is very quiet--perhaps even deserted."
"Looks like," mumbled Sean. Maya called out in Arabic but there was no answer. The huts were slightly blackened, with holes in the walls. As the other three walked down the dirt road that made the main boulevard, Thorvald stepped into one of the huts. Three bodies lay in a heap next to a smoldering kitchen fire.
"Oh," he whispered, and his legs gave way against the hut walls. "Not again."
By this point, Maya, Nthele, and Sean had also discovered bodies.
"Jesus Christ," Sean was howling as Thorvald came back out onto the road. "This is like a bad fucking dream. Everyone's dead in the homes. What the fuck happened here?"
"No struggle. Everyone in their homes. Appears to be recent. I would say, it was done last night," Nthele said, surveying the huts.
"God, who would do this?" Maya asked no one in particular.
"Zeon," Sean said firmly. Thorvald noticed something glinting out of the sand.
"There, Thorvald."
He plucked it out. A dog tag.
"Second Lieutenant Max Warrington. Earth Federation Ground Forces," Thorvald read aloud.
"Oh, shit, no," Sean breathed.
"No, it can't be," Maya whispered, looking around. Only Nthele seemed undisturbed. He stooped, dug through the sand, and pulled out an empty cartridge that had been buried. He popped a round out of his pistol and held the spent shell next to the live one.
"It would appear that it can be and is," he said, and licked his lips.
Meanwhile, Thorvald had wondered away from the group. He slid into huts, casting his eyes on the bodies, asking himself why, a single why for each. He came to one hut, wherein a little girl had died, prostrate over her dead mother.
"Oh, god, lassy," he said softly. He knelt beside them, and reached out to stroke her hair. The corpse jumped and looked up at him.
Ghost, Thorvald thought. But then, the ghost began to wail, Arabic dialect spilling out of her mouth. She attached herself to Thorvald, her sobs drawing Nthele, Sean, and Maya to the hut.
"A survivor, it appears," Nthele said, stating the obvious. The little girl turned to look at them all but then screamed, howling something in Arabic.
"She says... She says we're dressed like them. Oh, god, she means the--the ones who did this."
The little girl buried her head in Thorvald's kilt.
"So why does she like Thorvald so much?" Sean asked.
"Naturally, because he eschews Federation dress uniform."
Thorvald lifted the girl up, holding her in his bare arms.
"There, love, ye're safe now," he said softly. Though she couldn't understand his words, the meaning was still quite clear. She looked up at him with big, tear filled eyes and sniffled. She reached out and pulled at his beard. Thorvald's grimace brought a small smile to her face.
Ignoring the rest of them, Thorvald carried the girl out onto the street and towards the jeep. As he walked further away, they heard his voice lifting up, over the desert winds:
"And ye'll take the high road--
I'll take the low.
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye--
For me and my true love will nae meet again
By the bonnie bonnie banks of Loch Lomond."
"Look," Maya said, pointing to a box in the corner of the hut. "Fireworks. They were going to have a birthday party."
With all his usual solemnity, Nthele knelt and gingerly picked up the box of fireworks to take with.
~
Back at the camp, Nthele stored the fireworks outside of the Medea but what he deemed a safe distance from the campfire, based on his knowledge of dynamite from a bank robbery he'd masterminded in Lagos three years ago.
The girl, whose named turned out to be Fatima, refused to leave Thorvald and insisted that he carry her around his his shoulders. She clutched at tufts of his hair to maintain her balance and sang songs in Arabic or tried to imitate the Jacobite anthems that Thorvald crooned.
Maya typed up an official report on the incident, complete with a demand for an inquiry. She sent it off as soon as it was proofread.
Sean masturbated in the cockpit, which he did on a regular basis, and hoped no one knew.
Once Thorvald had tired of running around the campfire, singing the history of the Battle of the Boyne, he passed Fatima off to the three Kansas girls, who fussed over her hair, and to the Chinese pilot, who produced a guitar and began to play lullabies, a detail which chilled Thorvald.
So the group spent the evening. Thorvald spent the rest of the evening, going into the night, sitting by himself next to the Blue Destiny, puffing on his pipe. Maya approached him.
"Siggurdson, I sent a report to command on the village. This might be war but something like that's not justified. Never."
"Aye."
She sat down next to him. His unique scent, a mix of tobacco, sweat, and gunpowder, thrilled her--the antithesis of the dons and scholars of her past life.
A few moments passed in silence. Finally, Maya broke it:
"Why do you think--"
"Damned if I know, lass. Lieutenant." He smiled. "Lieutenant Lass."
Maya laughed gently to herself.
"I like that. I'll be Lieutenant Lass from now on. That's an order."
"Aye aye, ma'am."
She leaned her head on his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around him. He immediately felt Marion behind him, stiffening.
"This is a bad path you're going down, lass," he said with a smile. He tousled Maya's hair. "I'm not the kind of fellow you want."
"You're exactly the kind of fellow I want."
"No, I'm not--ye're a nice girl and I'm a bad, bad man. Besides, I've already got a lass. I'm practically married to her anyway." He patted the Blue Destiny and smiled at it affectionately; he felt Marion relax immediately.
"Siggurdson--Thorvald. You're a good man. I saw how you took care of Fatima. She loves you."
"Only because I did nae look like the blokes what killed her family."
"No, because you sang to her and played with her when she needed most. She's three years old--that's the most important thing int he world to her."
Thorvald didn't respond for a while, and when he did, it was on a different subject.
"Why d'ye suppose they did it?"
"I can't say. My guess is that they worked with Zeon somehow--retribution killing, maybe. Or they were sheltering a Zeek. Or--God, I don't know. Humans do such terrible things. What if it were just a random occurrence? Like, God woke up one day, decided there were going to be three or four mass killings today and spun the globe to decide where."
"What's it all for?" Thorvald said, sadly.
In time, Maya began to fall asleep and so did Thorvald's arm. He roused her, sent her to bed, and lit up his pipe once more. The pipe was made of good, old Canadian wood. Bought in Toronto at the kind of store that one's great, great, great grandfather used to shop at, back when the city was still young. It had some sort of Inuit half bird, half girl carved around the bowl.
"You've made a new friend."
"Love, don't be jealous."
"I understand. I'm as good as dead--what happens after I get out of this thing? I die, probably. You want something--someone--with a better chance of being around afterwards."
"After what? After this war ends?" Thorvald laughed, suddenly harsh. "Lass, this war'll never end. Don't ye see that?"
"Then why are you fighting?"
"Would that I knew that."
"You said you would help me. More and more, I wonder if you will."
"Lass, I want to help you. But is fighting this goddamned war the way to do it? I don't know. I just don't know anymore."
Marion was quiet now.
"Don't give up on me, though. It's been a rough few days. I'll be on me feet in no time. Ready to give the Zeons what-for again. Fight the good fight."
"I convinced myself the Feddies were the good guys. I told myself that it was Zeon who did this to me. I wanted to kill them for it. Now I don't know. Maybe you're all the same."
"Maybe we are, lass. Maybe it's just one bloody cycle after another, till the ending of the world."
"So why take part in it?"
"I've no choice."
"There's always a choice. Roger made his choice. Roger refused."
Thorvald stood up.
"Good night, lass. Try not to be so jealous in the morning!"
"I'm not jealous! Why would I be jealous of... her. With those glasses. And that hair. She's acne scarred too, did you notice?"
"I never got close enough to her face to see," Thorvald laughed.
"Sweet dreams, Thorvald." Marion's voice was a longing sigh now.
"I'll see you there," he replied.
~
As Thorvald brushed his teeth, he saw a pair of lights moving in the distance. Faeries, he thought. They gradually got closer and larger and in the silence of the desert night, he made out the unmistakable sound of an engine.
The jeep pulled up at the campfire. A Federation officer and two marines piled out. The three Kansas girls had Fatima laid over their laps and the GM pilot had already fallen asleep.
"Is there a Lieutenant Maya Ayoub here?" the officer demanded. The two marines behind him eyed Fatima uneasily.
"Here," Maya said, appearing in her pajamas. Nthele and Sean peeked out of the Medea and then joined her.
"You just submitted a report, about an incident in a village near here," the officer continued.
"I did."
"I'd like you to retract that report immediately."
"I don't think we've had the pleasure--"
"Lieutenant Max Warrington."
"Lieutenant, I've got something of yours," a Scottish brogue rang out. Thorvald strode out of the shadows and Warrington's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the Scotsman. Thorvald held up the dog tag.
"Ye left this behind."
"It's especially important not to leave obvious pieces of evidence at the scene of a crime," Nthele offered, his hand in his hands. Having grown up with an extraordinarily strict grandmother, Nthele could not help himself: whenever in the company of women, he removed his hat without thinking about it.
"That doesn't prove anything."
"Then why do ye want the report erased?"
"Because," Warrington said, shifting uneasily. "Because it'd be bad publicity. It'd be bad for the Federation. Good for Zeon propaganda."
"Better not to have done it in the fucking first place," Sean scowled.
"I'll have you court martialed for talking like that in front of an officer!"
"You're a fucking lieutenant!" Sean yelled back. "If we weren't in the fucking service, I'd buy and sell your ass in a second. What's wrong?" The Irishman's fire had been unleashed and Thorvald smiled appreciatively as his brother Celt took up the battle. "What was it? The bleeding officer correspondence course you took didn't prepare you for this? The second you get a little, tiny bit of power, you freak right the fuck out and start killing children? I know your type. You were a punk when you were a civilian and now you're a punk with medals and a uniform."
"They were providing information to the Zeeks!" Warrington exploded. "Every single thing we did, the Zeeks knew beforehand! They'd send kids to our unit to hang around, collect intel, then it went right into the spacenoid ears. We lost good men because of them. What would you have done?"
"I wouldn't have killed them," Thorvald growled, stepping forward. The marines took aim and he stayed in place. "Oh, maybe I'd have scared them--I'm a scary man, after all, and I know that, because ye brought yer bloody lap dogs here to protect ye. Even they're scared of me. I can see 'em, atrembling."
Thorvald licked his lips, wetting his mustache.
"I bet you did a little research when you heard about Lieutenant Ayoub's report, didn't ye? Ye figured out she was in my unit, figured ye couldn't just knock her off like ye did those villagers. 'Cause you're scared of me and my bloody Blue Devil. You know I could eat you alive if I wanted to."
"Are you threatening an officer?" Warrington screeched.
"Are you threatening my good taste and sense of decency?" Thorvald screeched back in mimicry. Fatima awoke with a loud cry that made the GM pilot jump--they both had slept through the argument so far.
"Bloody hell, we done waked her. Maya, c'mere, help me calm her down."
Thorvald stooped next to Fatima and spook soothingly to her; Maya translated:
"It's all right, love," they said. "Don't worry. I'm sorry we woke you; we're having an adult chat. But, do you want to see something bright and fun? I bet you do."
Fatima nodded through her tears and Thorvald rubbed her head. He stepped back to the group, taking out his pipe. He packed it with tobacco and glanced at Warrington and his men.
"Any of you got a light?"
Warrington hesitated before reaching into his pocket and offering Thorvald his lighter. Thorvald lit his pipe, puffed, and then, with the lighter still burning, tossed it the few yards into the box of fireworks.
"Now!" he roared, but his voice was almost drowned out by the cracking of the fireworks. Fatima clapped her hands in delight as the rockets shot off into the air, sprinkling light and color over their faces. Nthele and Sean tackled the stunned marines and took their rifles. Thorvald bum rushed Warrington, caught him under the knees, picked him up and supplex threw him, landing on top of him.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" demanded Warrington, still confused and surprised. His arm was cranked painfully behind his back and he found Thorvald's lips next to her ear.
"Listen, you son of a bitch," came the whisper. "Every bone in me body is saying, kill 'im, Thorvald, kill 'im. But, truthfully, that's what ye'd do in my place, innit? Innit? Really, it's not me place to judge, no matter how much I want to. So, let's make a deal, yeah? Ye've got till the end of this bloody war to turn yourself in--and it's going to end, someday. Tell 'em everything. Ayoub will withdraw the report. I'm giving ye' a chance to be a good person, for once in your bloody, stinkin' life. I suggest ye' use it."
Thorvald took a single, sharp breath. Warrington glanced at him and then at the fire: in the midst of the flames, he saw a young girl's face and he wanted to scream. She was glaring at him, her hair like fire. She rose up out of the flames, firery wings spreading behind her. None of the others seemed to see her besides Warrington and Thorvald.
"But if it comes to the end and I find ye did nae turn ye'self in... Then I'll find ye' and kill ye'. No matter where ye are, I'll walk this goddamned earth ten times over till I find ye' and so help me God, I'll crucify you. If I have to come back from the dead a thousand times over, I'll do it, just to kill ye. Ye've given me more than just a reason to live, Warrington, ye' son of a whore. Ye've given me reason to fight."
The girl spoke now:
"And once Siggurdson has taken your life, I promise you... I'll take your soul."
"Who... are... you...?" whispered Warrington.
"I'm everything ye've ever been afraid of and then some." Thorvald stood, gave him a sharp kick, and nodded to Nthele and Sean. They released the marines, keeping their guns.
"Get out of my camp," Thorvald muttered. The three dashed to the jeep, fired it up, and rode off into the night.
"Maya," he said now. "Retract the report for now. Wait till the end of the war; he's right about the propaganda. We do nae need public opinion turning against us."
Maya started to protest but she noticed Nthele shaking his head sagely and she nodded in deference.
~
As Thorvald lay dreaming, Marion came to him.
"That was pretty impressive. I know I'm stronger than you but I still get chills up and down my spine when you do something brave like that. And I don't even have a spine anymore.
"You're a bonnie lass, you are."
"I guess this means I've got to keep you alive a bit longer, huh?"
Thorvald smiled.
"If'n ye don't mind. Maybe he'll turn himself in and I can die peacefully. I suspect, though, that I'll have a date to keep with the Lieutenant some day."
He smiled again at Marion's frown.
"Warrington, lass. Not Ayoub. No worries, yeah?"