Delicate Game

“Emotion is not weakness, but there is weakness in emotion. It is an inherent trait that the human mind begets. Thus, a pilot must not be human; when you are upon the saddle of your great war machine, no longer must you consider yourself a member of mankind. In this; purge yourself of all instability; allow the greater mind to behold; become resonant. Beyond the realm of the machine entanglement, you are no pilot.”
Wyatt Jaga, “The First Rule”, Principia Pilotica; or, the Principles of Piloting, Third Edition.

…

Fire and brimstone was reserved for the damned. Choking ash only filled the lungs of those who lived without virtue. Those who deserved, suffered, and those who suffered, deserved. True evil existed in Hellena – they had seen it with their own eyes, after all. And so, for years beyond willing count, they had done their best to oppose this malevolence, to push back against the tidal wave that threatened to drown the world. They had wanted to be a hero, or rather, find whichever corner of the world the ember of Heroism was hiding, and cradle it with both hands.

Those were the lies Colonel Reo Amestine had told themself, over and over, in a never-ending cycle, perpetually upheld by their own convenience. They were flimsy ideals, toppled by the lightest breeze, and maintained by the staunchest of disregard. Of course, this illusion was eventually shattered, though, not by a light breeze, but instead an incomprehensible, thunderous crash.

In the years since, no successor had found its place in Amestine’s understanding of the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’. No angle or perspective seemed to sufficiently account for that unique mixture of blood and iron, sweat and screams, power and terror – and of tears and guilt. Agonising guilt.

Indifferent to their uncertainty, the world marched on, and so they did too, with few convictions left aside from each morning’s alarm, and each day’s orders. An apathetic mind with a hollow step continued to walk Mt. Killian’s grounds, one foot in front of the other. Left, right, left, right. And in time, the Colonel began to teach this method to a recruit, a new apprentice in the lineage from Sulhan to them, and now them to a young, tumultuous girl, full of a confusion that Amestine couldn’t help but empathise with.

The results varied. Oksana did benefit from a step back, from a short withdrawal for perspective and a pause for breath, but she could never quite adhere to the strict absence that had carried them for so long. Amestine did not understand the colours that Oksana assigned to the world, the wild, desperate passion with which one could scrape and crawl for what was ‘good’ without even knowing the meaning of such words.

However, in the Southern Mid-Spring of 149AF, this ideal, too, fell apart at the seams.

Sulhan’s eyes were glazed. A fierce determination burned behind his irises, a sight Amestine had seen just enough times to count on one hand. This only occurred when Sulhan approached his true zenith, when he made career defining choices – or contemplated a particularly challenging crossword – but in that moment, Amestine recognised this face as the height of the former. They both knew.

The explosion had stormed through only a moment before, its riders of flames coursing through the veins of the now-decimated Frederick Block. Wood turned to splinters, turned to ash. Screaming had overtaken what little air remained, as the mix of terror-struck civilians and shell-shocked veterans made their panicked escape, whilst duty-addled guards and military volunteers began a hasty attempt at rescue.

Sulhan stared at the swelling inferno, in brief but intense deliberation. The debris that had collapsed in, taking a good third of the theatre with it, radiated a bright orange smoke, hissing and bubbling from the other side. It took just one look, one profound calculation, before he turned back to Amestine and placed both hands on the shorter officer’s shoulders, and finally, their eyes met.

Amestine refused to decipher the full depth of the expression before them, its shape betraying far too much finality.

“Colonel, I’m taking charge here – even the emergency team will be completely scrambled, I need to direct them.” Sulhan’s voice echoed in their ears. “I need you to gather as many Frames as possible to assist, including yourself. You have my authorisation. Do you understand?”

The instructions registered in Amestine’s mind with a practised efficiency, carefully boxed and compartmentalised just as thousands before them. The computation was made, and The Colonel knew the exact actions to take with meticulous precision. However, something snagged in this well oiled machine – a sickening bundle coiled in their stomach as they looked at Sulhan, and a sudden, overwhelming nausea stopped them from snapping into an immediate salute.

“Do you understand, Reo?” Sulhan urged. Their name fell from his lips, and clutched their heart between each letter, breaking the brief spell of hesitation. Reo swallowed a mouthful of air laced with smoke, soot and ten thousand words. Whatever sensation that gnawed through every organ in their body was of no concern to the Colonel.

So, they clamped down, gripping onto every part of themselves that threatened to stir, their steel demeanour cracking back into place. With composure returned, Amestine uttered the last words shared between themself, and the closest thing they had to a father.

“I understand.” What a foolish thing to say.

Sulhan turned away for the final time, and began to run.

The ringing. Oh, the ringing. Their own words and thoughts rattled like shrapnel in a box, clanging from wall to wall, denting and scratching away, begging to be let out, to be let go. Principles to be burnt, as they were. Ash coated their face, slowly parted by a single rolling note. Desires, wishes, needs, all pointing to one thing.

They wanted to scream, and they had forgotten how.

“Colonel?” A voice cut through the memory, dragging them back to the present. Thin shadows cut through the light above, as a hand waved in front of their face, just a bit too close and a bit too familiar. “Colonel, hello?” The voice drew out the last few syllables, impatient at Amestine’s lack of immediate response.

Oksana was… well, she was a state. Her face, arm, and what remained uncovered of her legs were covered in the purple-yellow blotches of slowly repairing bruises. Several patches adhered to her in points, the very tips of spear-like cuts just escaping the edges where the plasters – some far too small – failed to cover. Of particular note, as Amestine met her emerald eyes, was the several layers of stabilising bandages over her nose that gave her a nasally accent, and the long patch covering over her eyebrow, contorting the hairs around it into place.

“Anybody home?” She prodded, with a chipper smile nailed to her face that accentuated deep, sleepless grooves below her eyes. Amestine breathed out a sigh, pushed her still waving hand out of their face, before beginning a typical line of inquiry.

“What is the problem, Oksana?” They asked carefully, readying for a verbal avalanche.

“I could ask the same to you,” she surprised them, before flicking her eyes to some corner of the room. “You seemed a bit… lost in thought, is all.”

“Am I not allowed to be?” Amestine challenged, in the same tone as always.

“N-no, Colonel- I mean, yes, duh, of course you’re allowed to be-”

“I was kidding, Oksana. That was a joke.” They explained. Same tone.

“…You need to write better ones,” she huffed aloud if only to remember it better, before leaning back in her seat and sighing.

Orders had been given for her to go without her prosthetic for a week, as to let the cuts on her stump heal too, and she squirmed with discomfort in its absence, placing her hand awkwardly in her lap.

“I’m fine, by the way,” she clarified. “Fine and dandy. All fine. Yup.” Her leg rattled against the waiting room seat, and Amestine’s eyebrow twitched with every judder. Whatever nervous reaction resulted in that continuous action irritated them more than it ever had. However, they knew Oksana was hanging on by a thread just as taught and frayed as their own – and if the Colonel retained composure through complete denial, distraction and dissociation, then their pupil was welcome to the same.

“Oksana-” Amestine began, before a new arrival cut their time short. An orderly stepped into the beam of light before then, and pointed downwards, eyes burning into her clipboard.

“Colonel Amestine, sir?” The assistant, a taller, younger woman who looked less military than Sana did in her civvie rags, recited to them. Amestine knew the tone of that ‘sir’, it was a tone employed by those who held no respect for the young Colonel. Not militarily, of course – if one wanted to do that, they’d declare Amestine a coward, a traitor – but instead, their identity was being toyed with, like a kitten playing with string. It was something earnt, not owed. Faust picked her messengers young like that, and trained them personally in how to twist the knife.

Amestine huffed and lifted out of their seat, turning back to Oksana. The girl stopped her tapping against the floor for a moment, and sat up just a little straighter. Reo wished, in a way, that she wouldn’t feel that was necessary with just a glance; she had every right to find comfort in that stifling waiting room, if she wished. Still, they appreciated her slowly cultivated diligence.

“We’ll speak again soon, Oksana.”

“Later, Colonel- I mean, Sir.” And there it was. Reo loosened a small curl on their lips. To anyone else, it meant nothing but a twitch of their face. But to them, it was a wide, beaming expression. They had to work with what they had – a list that had steadily dwindled over the past decade, and rapidly collapsed over the past month

The orderly beckoned them to follow with an impatient slant, and as they strode along the corridor, Amestine glanced at each passing door with a wandering focus. None of the names rang a bell – even someone in their position couldn’t know everyone, not least within ORA’s obsidian fortress of whispers and secrets, but the titles did spark curiosity. ‘Chief Recovery Officer’, one read with a simplistic declaration. Inside, there was only darkness, no one was home. Next was ‘Head of Intelligence research’, which seemed counterintuitive to print out on a door. And, finally, an oak carved frame bleeding light through a frosted window held the emboldened letters Reo dreaded most, “Marshal of the Office of Renewal Artefacts.” The dungeon itself.

The assistant knocked, before some vague affirmation came through the thick wood. They pushed open the door, and beckoned Reo inside, before abandoning them to the maws of the pit.

Hell was finely crafted. Panels of dark, local wood adorned each surface where stone didn’t poke through, challenging the stark impersonality of the outside with a deeply uncomfortable embrace of red warmth instead. The panels all pointed like guiding constellations towards the desk at the centre of the room, flanked by bookshelves. Light came in rare bursts from windows above them, which did not let the outside into the room, but instead framed the world like a prized painting.

Amestine refused to look at the desk. They weren’t so much taking in the office, as they were wasting the time of everyone involved. Meanwhile, the woman sat behind the desk, creased along the forehead like the antique wood that encased her, didn’t even give them the courtesy of looking up. A pen stood upright in her hand as she scribbled away, gripping it like a three pronged claw, ink flowing and smudging across the paper like fresh blood.

The Colonel waited for a moment. And then another. And another. The scratching of papers refused to stop as the woman behind the desk continued her writing. Several seconds escaped them both, before she finally punched down on the stack of sheets, a stapler binding them together. The sheen of her glasses reflected across her face, and her claws reached up, pulling them off and letting them fall on a golden chain around their neck.

“Colonel Amestine.” She nodded towards the chair before them.

“Commodore Faust.” They refused to sit, moving only a step further into the lion’s den.

“Oh, Reo, darling.” Faust returned. “You’re usually so attentive. Didn’t you read the sign?”

Amestine flicked their eyes towards the door behind them, earning an affirmative nod and the twists of a smile on her lips.

“It’s Marshal now. Poor Ysonne couldn’t take the whole… Mount Killian affair, but she was nearing retirement anyways. So, they needed someone new to fill her shoes and, well, there I was, ready and willing.” Faust leant back, wiping clean the edge of her fiery lipstick with her thumb. “Though- the title’s a bit off. It should say ‘Marshal of the Office of Renewal Artefacts and Marshal-Commandant of Mt. Killian, don’t you think?”

Amestine sensed an opportunity, and stabbed forth. “Marshal Sulhan passed away only two weeks ago, even you should recognise such a flaunting of rank is in poor taste.”

“A war is on the horizon, Colonel,” Faust snapped back, resting her arms and lacing her fingers across her abdomen. “And we need to be strong. Steadfast. United.”

Oh. There it was. Amestine could almost hear the bullet points printing from her mouth between each dreadful word in this new slogan of her’s. “The latter is an ambitious word for you, I didn’t realise you knew the meaning of it.”

Faust sighed, like she spoke to a petulant child. “And you would, Colonel? Or must I – once again – remind you of your current, precarious position? Teamwork hasn’t been your strong suit, historically.”

For a moment, Reo resisted the temptation to throw the stapler right at Faust’s temple. It would hurt – good lord would it do damage – but it would also do no good. Faust was not an enemy defeatable but brute force.

“I know what you’re referring to, and I don’t want to hear it.” Reo tiraded. “And what of you, Marshal? What of every malignant thing your department has done? We both know what ORA does – what it really does. I don’t even need to see behind the canvas to know this painting is a forgery. So don’t you dare tell me my hands are dirty when yours are engulfed in mud.”

Reo seized out, before their iron composure returned, their heart clamouring back into their chest. That could’ve been handled better, they reasoned.

“Hmm.” Faust reacted plainly, distracting herself with a bottle of unopened vintage on her desk, and toying with the cork as she scanned its label. “Fair.”

“Fair? That’s all you have to say?” Amestine stifled the curse clawing up their throat.

“Fair,” Faust spoke as she pulled two glasses from behind the desk, “because you’re right. You’re not a child, so I won’t bother lying to you.”

“What-”

Faust popped the cork, releasing the strong alcoholic odour. Port, Amestine scanned across the curving font of the label, as the newly minted Marshal poured the deep, crimson liquid into both glasses. She gently placed the bottle down before lifting one over towards Reo.

“Here, drink.”

The Colonel did not budge. Inaction was preferable to the unpredictable, they had always found.

“Come on, Reo. I just opened it right here, it won’t kill you.” The way she pronounced their name made Amestine wish they could somehow scrub it clean.

“I’m on duty,” They resigned as they took the glass from her covetous hands, which acted a lot more like grasping claws than any human limb.

“Yeah,” Faust scoffed, “so am I.” Not another thought passed before she took a sip. As she stood drinking, hand placed in her pocket, Amestine considered a hundred angles of attack. Few were perfect, some were incredibly petty, but Faust was a petty player, and they knew any advantage was best taken fast.

“Marshal I fail to see-”

“Wow, that is… not great.” Faust remarked absently, looking into the thin spine of the glass and swirling it in her hands. “You spoke of poor taste but Sulhan has a pretty juvenile palette himself. Had, excuse me.”

Reo’s eyes narrowed, cautious and cat-like. “How so?”

Faust pointed at the glass bottle as she took another sip. “It was a retirement gift he’d prepared for me and the other upper command staff just before he left. Well… when he was planning on leaving, anyway.”

The Colonel glanced between Faust’s withdrawn eyes, and the bottle, covered in Sulhan’s finger prints. The hallmarks of things they’d seen a thousand times, in the home they’d been welcomed into long ago, and only now put it all together.

“He was ready to retire?” “Mhm. I mean, the guy was in his sixties, and his whole career had gone poof and stalled.” Amestine heard a flash of guilt shivering at their fingertips as they looked over the label. “No chance of another promotion, even less chance of a high Marshal position in any of the other armed forces… His best options were to make Mount Killian his resting place, or retire. Fitting, eh.”

They spoke slowly, still foreseeing a trick. “This was his favourite vintage.”

Faust feigned a wince. “Wow, look at me, insulting the tastes of a man who hasn’t even had a funeral yet.” She chuckled, and Reo hated every second of it; the sincerity behind her amusement, the conceit that allowed her transparency, and the ruthless apathy that permeated her every breath .

“It certainly is an… acquired taste.” Amestine acknowledged. They’d been offered it once or twice whilst holed up with the Sulhans, and whilst Sulhan and his wife loved the stuff, they could never find an appreciation for it. Even less so now.

“Must’ve grown up drinking battery acid.” Faust stretched, before leaning against the desk, facing away from the Colonel.

“… What is this, Marshal Faust?” Amestine, exasperated, finally urged the question that burned on their tongue.

Faust shrugged. “Let’s say… it’s a test. Of principles, I mean,” she clarified, glancing back. “Tell me, Colonel, are you strong?”

The haze in Amestine’s mind cleared, if only slightly.

“No.” Reo asserted. “I’m just myself.” The Colonel replied.

“What about steadfast, are you that?” Faust stood again, pointing with her hand gripped around the glass.

“Are you questioning my diligence-” the Colonel spoke methodically “-or my loyalty?” Reo narrowed their eyes.

“Such contingency.” Faust tutted. “Doesn’t sound very steadfast to me.”

“Then ‘no’ if you’re so determined,” Amestine clipped with impatience. “No I am not.”

“And why is that?”

“Are you my therapist, Marshal Faust?” They snapped back, and Faust put her hands up in a lazy defence.

“Fine then, fine then. But that’s two areas you’ve faltered, and you can’t be united alone, can you? By definition, it’s a group activity. And we both know what happened last time you commanded anything. Well, anything other than a seventeen year old girl.”

Amestine bunched their fist, but kept it rigid at their side. “You assume that I am alone.”

Faust paused, and then swept around the room with her hands. “Do you see Sulhan here anymore? No. He put his entire career on the line for you, and you’ve been under that wing ever since. Now that he’s gone, you have no legitimacy to your voice. How can the other officers trust a wild dog – one that had to be muzzled away – with its handler dead?”

“Spit it out.” Reo’s knuckles flushed white.

“You need a new source of credibility, a new reason for the brass to give you the time of day. A new… guiding hand, let’s say.”

“… Let me guess.” Amestine sighed and loosened their grip, feeling some relief in, at last, catching a glimpse of her objective. “I need you?”

“Well, of course you do, I’m a Marshal.” Faust explained with infantilising patience. “Who is there to lead but us, but myself?”

“Another Marshal, perhaps.” They hummed into another sip of the awful liquid. “Or maybe some stray Private in the mechanics corps. Anyone equivalent to your expertise.”

“Another Marshal, hm?” Faust brushed aside. “Oh, like you someday? Though… that could never happen if certain documents, pertaining to yourself, were to be exposed…” She played with papers along her desk, tapping them gently with her red painted nails. “That Private would have better chances of being a Marshal, hm?”

“Are you blackmailing me, Marshal Faust?” Amestine observed, adopting a taut composure.

“Technically, yes. But, know that this is a last resort.” Faust’s self-satisfied grin flattened to the close-lipped smile of a businesswoman. “I don’t want to use this on you, darling. In fact, I want to do anything but that. I think we have a chance for a real dialogue here first.”

“Ah, yes,” Amestine glared at the papers, “like all the times you’ve tried that before?”

“Trust, Colonel, is not something I give lightly.” Faust took the stack, and placed it inside her desk drawer. “Previously, you’ve given me little reason or want to try. But right now, in these… trying times, I am willing to put trust in you. Not as Sulhan’s last wish, or whatever the hells you think is going on here. We both know I am not a sentimental enough person to do that. No, instead you have shown that your mental state has… improved, since our last arrangement. Therefore, I’m willing to extend a hand.”

The Colonel mulled the words over, turning and examining them like a business card, over and over and over, looking for every single crack in the façade, every hint of deceit; every barefaced lie the wicked beast had spewed. However, they could sense none. And they hated it.

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll drown.” Faust nodded with knowing pity and hollow sympathy.

Amestine stood in silent contemplation, long enough for an electric hum to fill the suffocating room, until finally, for the first time since entering, they sat. “Go on. Speak. What are you after?”

“Oh, Reo. You still don’t get it. This is a mutual partnership.” Faust explained. “I’ll give you nominal control of Mount Killian, with a promotion to Commodore to boot, just like Sulhan always wanted for you. You’ll have basically free reign over the place… After it’s rebuilt, of course.”

“And in return…?” Amestine braced.

“Two things. Two very simple things. One – you stay out of my way, I stay out of yours. ORA works in private, and we like to keep it so. Sulhan understood this well, and you will too.”

“And secondly?”

“This year’s recruits. Keep them together, as a single unit. Bullshit something into existence if you have to, I’ll justify it to Margrave and the other Marshals.”

“Why?” Reo demanded. The mention of the recruits triggered a hundred alarm bells in their mind.

“They have been through a terrible, awful experience, Colonel. Sulhan rushed them into service, and because of current circumstances, I am not rushing to pull them back out again. But I would much prefer to avoid the media circus that would come about if we lost even a single one of those recruits. Hold them back, give them something trivial over in Bakra, and make sure they don’t get killed, hmm?”

“You didn’t answer my question, Lillian,” Amestine dismissed. “I didn’t ask why a well-adjusted human being would request that. I asked why you did.”

Faust glared Amestine up and down. A small victory, but one they would savour.

“The Kelenov child. She intrigues me. The others are ultimately inconsequential, but I want her in good condition, and as we learnt from these past months, isolation from her peers does her no good, no matter what Sulhan thought best. When the time comes, I will want to speak to Oksana again, and your presence in such a meeting would be… most unwelcome.”

They scrutinised the woman up and down as one would the open palm of an armed man. They glared into her glinting lenses, her eyes disappearing amongst the light. Marshal Lillian Faust was a temptress – there existed no better word to describe her. A bargain made by her was a bargain signed in blood, and that blood had to come from someone.

But, equally, Amestine knew Faust was right, a fact they despised. Without a leg to stand on within the RFI, they could do nothing, and blood spilled by Faust’s schemes pailed before the blood-soaked puppet of a war they could not effect. Without Amestine’s presence, Oksana’s best hope would be becoming another of Faust’s pet projects, a fate worse than whatever awaited the recruits across the sea in some banal assignment.

And beyond all their concern, Reo found a small sliver of self-preservation still lingering in their heart. Through every wrack of guilt, every swallowed shriek, and every unthinking salute that tore off a little piece of themself, remained the terrible desire to keep marching; the awful realisation that they were not yet finished. They did not know whether the world meant to crush them into a diamond, or to grind them into sand. However, Reo did know they could not let this woman toss them aside with a sin they had not yet atoned.

“I have one condition.”

“Bold of you,” Faust remarked. “Go on. Speak.”

“When this inevitably falls apart – when the world finally catches up with us, with you and your bullshit, and ORA is torn up to its very roots – I’ll be wanting that bottle back.”

Faust clasped her hands together, hiding a sly glare behind them. “If it comes to that, Commodore, we will both drown.”

They nodded. “You in your mire and filth, and me in my Port.”

–

Amestine withdrew from the office and walked in complete silence back down the long, glass-ridden hallway. Every door an eye of the Marshal, they now understood. The glimpse of a distinct grey longcoat caught their gaze while passing back through the waiting room, identical to the one caught over their shoulders. There were more figures than when they left; the telltale quintet of mismatched recruits.

The Colonel – or rather, the newly-minted Commodore – pinched their chin in thought, brushing against the soft stubble that pervaded the precipice of their jaw. The worst part of their meeting with Faust – beyond her smug venom, beyond her promises and the certainty she would bend them to breaking point, beyond her gall to spit on Sulhan’s fresh grave – may have been Amestine’s willingness to deal with such a devil, to barter with the fates of these young pilots.

“You must be rolling in your morgue bed, Sulhan,” they mumbled to the air. A soft curve creased their lips, as the melancholia set in like a thick, night-time pall. Again their eyes wandered to the small, gossiping crowd.

“I’m surprised you’re out of bed,” one of the group joked with the other, sharing a short laugh that cursed the air with its painful strings.

“He insisted on seeing y-you,” another explained, still out of focus.

“Hey, in my defence, I didn’t know she’d be on the third floor-”

“We could’ve just waited for her to finish her meeting?” Said another, a more bitter tone on their tongue.

“Couldn’t risk Clara finding me again. She’d probably hit me with my crutches.”

Amestine stepped across the threshold, entering the room proper, and the clouds across their mind receded an inch. Recognition set in, as they saw five recruits – the RFI’s newest ranks – stood in a huddle around one sat in one of the seats, chatting amongst themselves. They absorbed the sight for a few precious moments, before clearing their throat.

“Reo- Sir!” Sana spoke brightly, before her face twisted into small curves of worry. “You were… gone for a while, everything okay? How did it go?”

“Ah, excellent. You’re all here.” Amestine returned, skipping over the concern. “Why are you all here, in fact?”

One of the huddle, who Amestine took far too long to recognise as Gordon Lockwright, pointed at himself with a smug expression, leant on a set of crutches. “I was getting sick of the hospital ward.”

“And he insisted on dragging the rest of us with him, sir.” The bitter voice came from the tall form of Dolly, arms folded behind her back. Amestine nodded.

“Good. I needed to speak with you all promptly, and preferably before…” They trailed off, allowing a small amount of their composure to chip away. “Before tomorrow. And whatever comes after that.”

A sombre tone grasped and choked the air for a moment, before Sana, ever the impatient, piped up. “And why’s it convenient that we’re all together, sir?” Her straightforwardness reminded Amestine of themself. Good.

“I’ve just been made aware of your squadron assignments,” they announced to baited breath, the air becoming thinner in a moment of tension. “And, don’t worry, it won’t be like anything you suspected.”

“’It’, singular?” Dolly raised an eyebrow, and Amestine nodded.

“You are all to be put into a single Fireteam, the first of its size since the Whale Wars in fact, back when we were still trying to… figure all that stuff out.”

They weren’t usually one for theatrics, but after a long, dry dialogue dripping with deception, the simple pleasure of stunning some recruits felt refreshing. Judging by the shocked silence that befell the group, it had worked well.

“That’s-” Kat tried to start from the back, having largely kept to herself.

“That’s unprecedented!”

“Sana, y-you asked me what ‘a vertical’ was the other day,” Kat pointed, a bewildered smile at the edge of her lips. “H-how do you now know ‘unprecedented’?”

“Eh, they’re saying it all the time on the news.”

Marko signed something quickly, and Dolly translated. “Marko’s asking why in general, and I’m asking…well, why us, Colonel?”

“Are we really gonna be stuck with Dolly for the rest of our career?” Gordie joked, yelping at the earned slap upon his shoulder. “Ow, bad arm!” He cried against the intensely smug smile Dolly shot him.

“Faust’s prerogative.” Reo paused, unable to say the words caught at the blades of their tongue, “With Sulhan… gone, we have a new Marshal on our hands. And she has some… interesting new ideas for the next generation of Pilots.”

“Wasn’t she the creep, Kelenov?” Dolly asked loud enough for them all to hear.

“Understatement of the century, that is.” Sana grimaced in return, a brief glint of respect on her tongue.

“And it’s not Colonel anymore, Pilots.” Amestine corrected.

“Shit,” Gordie whistled through his teeth, rocking back and forth on a set of crutches. “They fired you, sir?”

“I’m afraid not.” Why would they be afraid? “You’re to keep this amongst yourselves for now, but I’ve been promoted.”

“To Commodore?” The bitter voice, Dolly, questioned.

“Of a sort.” Amestine continued awkwardly, despising the attention they considered undue. “In either case, you’re now speaking to the de facto commandan of Mount Killian.”

Polite jeering came their way. It wasn’t deserved. A promise to Lillian Faust forfeited any right to heroism.

Marko, the tallest of their number, signed something that Amestine missed. “Marko says that… i-it took them long enough,” translated Kat, the fluorescent lights bouncing off the rims of her square glasses.

“Agreed.” Reo said plainly. “And as your overarching commanding officer – Gordan, return to the medical wing. You need to conserve your strength, as do the rest of you.”

“… What for, Colonel- Commodore- sir?” Sana stumbled forwards, reaching out a hand as Amestine stepped past the group. They turned back for a moment, though only with a tilt of their head.

“First, a funeral.” They listed, before turning to a mumble under their breath as they moved away. “And then, a war.”

…

Edited by Jennifer C.