* * *
‘Doesn’t it ever stop raining in this place?’ Alba wondered, as she trudged toward camp headquarters. For the better parts of two weeks it had rained and drizzled. The temperatures clung in the low forties, preventing anything from drying out even when the sun managed a brief visit.
Privations were taking their toll on the soldiers, too. If she had been told that these people with perfect minds and bodies could get sick, she would have laughed in the face of the one telling it. But that was truly the case.
The ‘shakes’, as some called it, were growing common in this wet cold. It was what might be termed a flu-type illness brought on by battle fatigue, poor food and sanitation, and living in the never-ending mud. And then there was the dysentery, so prevalent that many just ignored it when possible and went about their duties. Every day the company would send a dozen or more soldiers back to the depot hospital to recuperate.
This was Alba’s second day after returning from the ‘Fortress’ - the name given the Army’s command center - located deep within the newly hewn mountain caves. Convalescing from her injury had taken nearly a month and, truth be said, she was much relieved when doctors gave her permission to return to Rock Company...that is, what was left of Rock Company. Of the five hundred who boarded transports that morning so long ago, there were fewer than one hundred answering roll call each day.
Alba had missed the company’s latest action by less than a week. She regretted the absence, feeling guilty for not having been there to support her fellow troop members.
The army had pushed north and east beyond the nameless river that took nearly a thousand lives to secure the fords. Marine airborne and Navy-based units dropped in behind the enemy while two army divisions advanced head-on against the river fortifications.
Winehardt’s Division was on the right flank of the attack. It made the river crossing with relative ease, finding little resistance. The other division stalled early, meeting one counterattack after another. General Winehardt finally ordered the 2nd Brigade to drive the enemy on its right. The Brigade’s 9th Volunteer Regiment, of which Rock Company was part, pushed in closest to the river and engaged an enemy dug in and supported by rocket, mortar, and heavy artillery companies.
There was a great deal of hand-to-hand combat, accompanied by intense tunnel fighting. It took three long days before the last of the resistance ended, most of the enemy dying where they fought. Rock Company had been fortunate, considering. They only had twenty-one casualties, four killed. Emerald Gold Company suffered ninety percent casualties, with all their officers and sergeants killed or missing in action.
Rock Company was now hunkered down in this dismal low country filled with swamps and sluggish, slime-choked streams. They were over ten leagues east of the river, with few supplies and no heavy weapons. The only way in was by transport or ground flyers, hover-type craft that floated above the fields by using anti-gravitational inductors. The weather had turned unseasonably cold, with occasional flakes of wet snow mixing in the eternal drizzle. Alba sighed, her breath forming misty clouds in the air. Pulling her slicker tight around her shoulders, she sloshed on toward the command tent.
“Come in Lieutenant! Please come in.” A rosy-cheeked Colonel XuraoOsteon stood to greet Alba. He politely bowed, afterward extending his hand to shake hers and motioned to his left. “Sergeant KfirNoiz. I think you have made his acquaintance.”
“Sergeant Kfir?!” She eyed the man, who only smiled back. “Congratulations, Sergeant, on your promotion.”
Sergeant Kfir, standing in front of a cobbled-up, solid-fuel heating stove, thanked Alba, bowed his head in recognition and then extended his hand. “Thank you, Captain. I hope that means you’ll also be pleased having my company.”
Alba stared at Kfir, puzzled by his remarks. The colonel interrupted. “Ah…would you like to sit, Lieutenant?” He motioned toward a chunk of wood that was presently serving as a camp chair. Alba thanked him and sat down.
Colonel Xurao got right to business. “Lieutenant, as you well know, Rock Company has suffered horrific losses. Officially, your numbers are sitting at forty percent, but roll call is often less than twenty. That gives you, the company's senior officer, fewer than one hundred available soldiers. In the past, Army Command would have combined your company with another or others to bring you back up to fighting strength.”
He paused and asked Kfir to put another piece of soggy peat into the stove, and waited until the task was finished. “As I said, normally we combine companies, but not anymore. You see, there are so many volunteer recruits entering the ranks, we are being flooded with patriotic, enthusiastic but inexperienced soldiers. Green troops suffer greater casualties in combat than veterans.” Alba concurred, remembering her own woeful experiences. “So now it has been decided to incorporate these new soldiers into the ranks of depleted companies.”
The colonel glanced at a small notebook resting on a short-legged, improvised table and then back at Alba. “Command believes - and I agree - that combining these green troops with veteran soldiers will provide added training to new troops and save lives. Over the next several days, Rock Company will begin absorbing these inexperienced recruits until you regain your full complement of five hundred enlisted personnel, plus officers.”
He glanced at the notebook again. “That brings us to officers. Until your return, Master Sergeant Kfir was directing Rock Company. He has done splendidly, and I have requested he be sent back to Oros to Officer Training School. Until he departs, I hope for you to use him as your unofficial second in command.” Alba nodded her approval.
“Good! Good!” The colonel grinned. “Now for you, unfortunately, there are few experienced officers to go around. So I’m afraid you will have to suffer new, green officers. ‘Twelve-week wonders’ we call them.” He reassured her, “They’re willing, but few have any battle experience. I think they’ll learn fast. You did. And you’ve become a darn right fine officer, too.”
Colonel Xurao reached into his rumpled coat pocket and pulled out a torn envelope, thrusting it toward Alba. “Here, take this! You will find it all in order and properly authorized.”
Alba pulled the contents from the envelope. They consisted of a braided chevron and two pins to place on her uniform, along with a letter from General Winehardt, promoting her to rank of captain. Alba gasped.
Colonel Xurao extended his hand as he grinned from ear to ear. “Let me be the first to congratulate you, Captain. You are now officially Company Commander of Rock Company.”
Alba sat, slowly shaking her head as tears welled up in her eyes. “Sir, I’m no officer, just a very little person lost in a very big and scary universe. What have I ever been but a mother and wife...just a lowly woman in a long-forgotten world? I’m no warrior. I even wet myself when I’m frightened. You must have the wrong person. It can’t be me!”
The colonel chuckled, leaning forward, speaking in a hush. “Few of us haven’t wet ourselves at least once. War isn’t normal and there’s no real preparation for what one encounters on the battlefield. But there are some who are natural leaders, natural warriors; it’s in their genes. I’ve learned of your past, Captain. They say you’re descended from the Heruls, the Princes of the Iron Sea. It has been said of your kindred that few were more fearsome in war and in peace.”
Alba shuddered. “The Heruls are my ancestors, but I do not feel their courageous blood flowing in my veins. I thought I left hatred and murder behind me when I departed my world in death. Now I find that the part of my family heritage I so much deplored in that life is the reason I’ve been delivered here.”
She stiffened up. “But I will do my duty. If there must be war, then I shall use my heritage to bring it with a vengeance. If there must be death, then I will dispense it with a passion! If I must rekindle the angry fires of my forefathers to gain courage, then I shall set my soul ablaze to attain it!!”
> The colonel beamed. “Excellent! Excellent! I knew we had chosen well.” He then squinted and pointed a finger. “I see your kind, my dear Captain, as becoming the future leaders among us. It has been said by your own prophets it was to be the case. Rock Company is just the beginning for you. I think that, before this war ends, you will lead entire armies into battle as we sweep across the universe to rid the enemy from our sacred ground.”
Alba was appreciative the colonel didn’t continue with that line of conversation. He changed the subject to other matters concerning her responsibilities as company commander, the role that Rock Company was expected to play in the weeks ahead, and most interestingly, how things were going.
“We have attained all major strategic positions in the mountain range and are now pushing out beyond them to give ourselves some maneuvering space. There are natural and newly excavated caverns we’ve accessed, large enough to dock imperial frigates, and soon we’ll have room for the largest of battle cruisers. In time, there will be an entire city operating inside that mountain, independent of outside services, including food production.”
Alba asked, bewildered, “You mean this was our primary objective, not just a feint to distract the enemy from the real invasion?”
Xurao replied, “I don’t know if this was the primary objective or not, but I do know that we have no plans of leaving this place. Once established here, we will have a base of operations for the Navy to assist it in retaining control of Eden’s Gate. If we can hold that jump portal, we will eventually win this war.”
Alba only nodded, but inside her heart a cloud seemed to lift. Doing her duty to win this war was important, even if it was only sharing in a ploy. Still, to actually see her sacrifices and those of her company have a direct impact did make a difference in how she felt. For some reason, the weather was no longer quite so miserable, the camp conditions not quite so deplorable, and the skimpy food rations not quite so meager and tasteless. Maybe being made captain wasn’t going to be so bad. Anyway, she was here so she might as well make the best of it.
The colonel pointed to Alba’s new insignias. “Now do be careful, Captain, and don’t advertise your promotion. Headquarters’ new policy is for all field officers to remain inconspicuous. Your troops will know who you are, and the enemy doesn’t need to. What little confusion this will cause is considered a small price to pay for the lives it should save.” He frowned. “These new rules don’t set well with the old guard, but I think they’ll go along with them, even if it is grudgingly. This invasion proved that colorful uniforms and shiny helmets are not advantageous on the modern battlefield, and that parade-style tactics only get people killed. Nope, the age of crossbow and shield has come to an end. Your kind has seen to that.”
Alba shook her head in question. “How have my kind changed your style of butchering one another?”
Xurao was quick to reply. “Do you think my people haven’t been aware of machine guns and all the other sorts of murderous weapons the people of your old realm use? We were sailing the oceans of the sky before your former world existed. The most basic of our inventions rivals the greatest of yours. Still, we chose to live our lives simply, using our skills and time to create beauty in the things we made.”
He removed his helmet, setting it upside down on the tent floor. “This ‘romancing the arts’ - as you would call it - carried over into our combat. The protocol for making war was as important to both sides as winning or losing. Except for those whose minds had degenerated, like the Stasis people, it was important to practice war by a set of complex, unwritten rules.”
Alba was incredulous. “You mean your people played war like a game? May the best man win, as long as you did it by the rules?!”
Colonel Xurao vehemently shook his head, denying it so. “No! No, Captain, not in the way you imply. Just look at our history of war - something you have done, at least in officer training. Murder, treachery, and deceit have been the trademark of Asotos from the beginning of the Rebellion. He has also used poison, fire, and torture to attain his objectives, but…”
The colonel hesitated in thought, seeking the right words to express his views. “But on the field of battle, among the soldiers themselves, they…we formed a kind of arrangement, a code of conduct, so to speak. There was a general consensus about the way combat was to be fought, how the wounded were to be treated, the way prisoners were handled. It gave us all a sense of stability, a feeling that there was still a little sanity remaining in this insane universe.”
He looked at Sergeant Kfir, who made eye contact. The expressions on the two faces indicated camaraderie of thought, something that a mere glance could convey. He turned back to Alba. “As time passed after the start of the Rebellion, so the violence and denigration of war increased. More and more of Asotos’ followers lost the power from the Web of the Minds and were overcome with the Black Madness, a degenerative disease that slowly breaks down the fabric that makes up a person’s mind.”
“Each day, more of Asotos’ people succumb to that disease. A dark emptiness fills in the voids where the invisible DNA threads of this fabric once were. Sensations produced by love, kindness, justice, mercy, and so forth no longer provide stimulation for the brain to react upon. Hatred, fear, pain, and other feelings are eventually all the stimuli that remain. It’s a progressive disease working faster upon the lazy-minded and weak-willed than upon those of strong, self-willed disposition.”
“Asotos is very strong, and although he has long since lost any real love, he is a man of outstanding control. He has the power to keep his rabble in check. Indeed, he has succeeded in getting many to worship him. You see, when the hopelessness caused by the Black Madness overcomes a person, their need to believe in a divine being grows. Asotos has taken advantage of this situation and offered himself to his followers as a god to worship.” The colonel quickly added, “And others have turned to serving different gods of their own making. There is a pantheon of gods out there today.”
Alba asked in a mildly sardonic voice, “So are my kind to blame for this breakdown of troubled minds?”
The colonel was taken aback. He apologized, “I deserved that, and I’m sorry. My people knew the old ways were over. The last war taught us that. The butchery at Memphis taught us that. Still, our hearts refused to accept its demise. We wanted to ride into glorious battle, banners high, bugles blaring, swords waving. We wanted the war to be won our way.”
“Your people gave us a dose of reality that few were prepared for…still aren’t. You made us look in a mirror that revealed our tattered clothes and bodies of straw. You made the flower of the universe see he was no prince - just a bony scarecrow. My people do not want your ways, the ways we must take. We have no choice. We resist as best we can, knowing in our minds you speak truth.” He shook his head in sadness. “Just like your military fanatics of old who refused to give up the samurai in place of the gun, many of our veterans despise giving up the sword and crossbow.”
Xurao shrugged in mild resignation. “Your Copelands, Finhardts, Garlocks, and others have taken control of the reins of this world. They are unflinching, unmovable, and undaunted. They give us purpose, hope, and confidence, but they also give us someone to resent and blame for changing our world. That, Captain, is something I think your kind must accept.”
Alba leaned forward, asking, “Colonel Xurao, may I speak openly?”
The colonel grinned. “Certainly, Captain. You allowed me my little tantrum. Speak freely.”
“Thank you.” Alba began, “What your world was before the arrival of my kind, I have not been witness to, and what it will become, I can only dream. But let me set down for the record what I see and what I will do if power comes into my hand.”
“I see that the enemy must be destroyed not just defeated. I will pursue said enemy until he is no more. I will use whatever weapon is at my disposal to accomplish it. Colonel, when one seeks to
kill the sewer rat, one must crawl into the sewer to do so. If I must sink to the level of my enemy to destroy my enemy, I will. And all who follow me shall sink into the bowels of that hell to do the same!”
The colonel stared into Alba’s eyes. A visible shudder ran across his shoulders. He finally offered an apprehensive smile. “Captain, were you not the wife of James, the human half-brother to the one we call ‘Michael’, our king?”
Alba confirmed it was so.
Xurao explained, “I heard he once said of you, ‘Her eyes are so deceptive, for they blaze with beauty unbounded, which really hides a destructive inferno’. It is really true, as I have witnessed, that your race is unmatched for its wild savagery in peace and in war!”
Alba smiled. “Thank you, Colonel. I will take all that you say as a compliment.”
The colonel stood, bowed again, and extended his hand in parting. He went on about some other matters and again thanked Alba for her time. Then recommending that she and Sergeant Kfir should prepare to receive the new recruits, Xurao dismissed them. After they left, he remained standing, staring at the canvas flap as it moved in the breeze. Finally, he spoke aloud, smiling. “Well, Captain, you have not disappointed me at all, not at all. With your kind at the head, we will win this awful war.”
Alba and the sergeant stood just outside the command tent. The drizzle was now a cold, steady rain with an occasional icy gust. Kfir pulled his coat snug, commenting, “This is an unpredictable planet, Captain. It was called ‘MueoPoros’, meaning ‘passage into the mysteries beyond’, long before Eden’s Gate had been discovered. One of the mysteries is the weather. To this day, no one fully understands the weather cycles here. It is a place where the rules of the universe don’t always apply.”
Alba looked at Kfir and matter-of-factly replied, “It’s near the vortex of the universe, a place where time and space don’t always agree with each other.”
Kfir’s face filled with disbelief. “No?! How do you know that? Not from one of your ancient prophets, I hope.”
Alba grinned. “When I was waiting the child’s arrival, I spent a great deal of time with General Drorli. He immersed himself in telling me about the great mysteries of your world…” Her face flushed a little. “as well as certain other mysteries.
Kfir nodded knowingly. “They say General Drorli was a great man, one of the best technical engineers in the Army.”
Surprised at his reply, Alba asked, “What do you mean was?”
Kfir was hesitant and apprehensive. He hadn’t personally known Drorli and had not realized Alba and the general were friends…close friends. He broke the news of his death to her as gently as possible.
Alba said nothing, peering off to the north, gazing into the sky, shading her eyes with her hand. “It looks like the storm will break soon. We’d better check on our troops.”
(Author’s note: Alba was but one of the daughters of the Heruls. She was in her seventieth year of life when promoted to captain. True to the colonel’s words, the woman continued to grow in stature and power, eventually becoming renowned, called the ‘Witch of Endor’ by her enemies, partly because Endor was the home of her birth, and partly because of her perceived or real supernatural powers. That name eventually spread among the people of the Children’s Empire.
That is why the name Alba is unfamiliar to the generation of your day. But who has not heard of Endor, the Enchantress? Her castle lair lies hidden in the Secret Mountains, somewhere in the PrasiaOdous mountain range on MueoPoros. Do not seek her face without her invitation, for her Cherubs guard the gates of her kingdom well.)
The second child of the Heruls was yet to bloody her sword, but the hour was drawing close for her metal to be tested.