They clattered across the distance whilst entangled in a fugue disturbance. The ground was solid as reality, but the air and movement had made a strange and viscous harmony which suffused those fleeting moments of existence with something surreal.

  It was halfway to the support line, where the surroundings were darkest, when a light that was purple, blue and white washed over the cramped horizon and made a temporary sun. Twilight to high noon in seconds, and then the vertiginous descent into darkness.

  They had just reached the first vehicles of the APC column when a cloud of dust rose in the distance and the earth resumed its violent quaking; a many-edged plane of stone broke off from the left-side wall and toppled into the churning earth, and their eardrums were blasted to oblivion by the resonant blast of the ensuing destruction.

  It seemed that that was the end of it. They forged onward, keeping the dark line of APCs to their left, and eventually they saw the line dogleg across their path, so that the APC-line cut perpendicular to their direction of movement.

  The quaking restarted. The ground shook with such violence that Betelgeuse nigh lost his balance. He turned reflexively in the direction of sound and saw, out there where they had come from—out there about the front line—a curious orange brightness materializing and growing with terrible speed.

  The whole space started to fill with light as the rock face beneath their feet flexed and heaved and trembled itself to pieces. Steam and smog were ejected into the air and the line of Plasma Leopards, briefly backlit against fire and brightness, was swallowed by the encroaching wall of light.

  The men and women of First Company took to their heels. The ground was collapsing underneath its own weight and behind them several APCs started to buck and turn and crash into each other and then fall into the river of molten lava that was accelerating toward them and consuming everything in its path.

  The endless crack of breaking stone had struck a sudden increase in decibels. Betelgeuse was sprinting full tilt, and his lungs, as usual, were beginning to fail him when Douglas was there beside him and locking his remaining elbow around his arm. Voke took his other arm and together they probed the limits of Betelgeuse' physical stamina, just barely managing to keep up with the rest of First Company; and finally, as they reached the line of idling APCs, they fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs and, turning, saw the lucent river of broiling lava arrest its expansion a mere fifty meters away.

  Above Pyriphlegethon a cosmos of swirling gas coiled snakelike into mythical shapes plucked from the deepest pits of Man's subconscious.

  "Will you look at that, Ballsman's right again," chortled Douglas, regaining his feet.

  "Does he have an intuition for these things or is he secretly a goddamn Silver?" Voke scoffed, reaching a hand out to a coughing Betelgeuse still struggling to catch his breath.

  Betelgeuse took the proffered hand and dragged himself upright and when he turned he saw Thete and the rest of First Company arrayed in loose formation and watching with mute expressions the river of fire boil a savage effervescence; and behind them a multitude of soldiers—hundreds or more—emerged from the spaces between the APCs, their faces illuminated from below, their expressions cast in difficult hues and tortured tones.

  Massive boulders were falling a great height from the ceiling, slamming into the lava a kilometer or more away from the support line and making splendorous light shows of the steaming droplets. The colossal rain of boulders came hard and fast, shaking the earth savagely and damming up the moat of lava and preventing any further traversal of the tunnel-way.

  The lives of thousands of soldiers, snuffed out in mere minutes. The immensity of that revelation was dawning and Betelgeuse could hear Voke muttering silent prayers to God; but because all of the bodies had been consumed by fire and stone, and because he could see none of the death actually occur, Betelgeuse found that all of it hardly affected him at all.

  'Was that really it?' he asked himself, but no clear answer was forthcoming.

  "Subaltern Cacliocos. I see your company managed to make it," a powerful voice cut through the company comms-link, stabbing through their exhaustion and fatigue.

  A man with a Sergeant's chevrons and the callsign "RABID" emblazoned across his chest stalked from the line of silent APC-chassis and came before Cacliocos. He towered over the Subaltern, his physique obviously Earth-grown, standing there silently for several long seconds and sizing up the Jegorichians with narrowed eyes. Then he raised a hand and held out his palm for a handshake, and it was not lost on the myriad observers that he had deliberately avoided saluting; Cacliocos' expression wavered, but after a moment's hesitation, he accepted that proffered hand and locked in a firm handshake.

  "TAF Sergeant Hrodwulf Granger," Sergeant Granger introduced himself, emphasizing what was necessary to be emphasized.

  "... Subaltern Cacliocos," Cacliocos nodded emotionlessly.

  Douglas was jabbing his knuckles violently into Betelgeuse' side, and the latter caught his fellow's hand and frowned. "Fuck me stupid, Ballsman, look at him, it's…" Douglas trailed off, his features scrunched up in a comical caricature of abject shock.

  "Douglas," Voke warned, whipping around and pointing to his wrist-transceiver. Entuban and Cacliocos were still plugged into the section comms-link. It was clear that Voke recognized the Sergeant, dimly remembered though that man's face was. Voke returned his attention to the stand-off and his cheeks tensed.

  Betelgeuse focused his own vision on their 247-B batchmate.

  'Rolf,' he thought, his senses sharpening through the haze of exhaustion. The pupils perched above Hrodwulf's pale and sunken cheeks seemed to glow an arctic blue, and when he smiled his teeth were dazzlingly straight and clean between lightly whiskered lips.

  One of the soldiers flanking Hrodwulf, rank of CFC, snapped off a salute that seemed closer to mockery than respect. "Hey, Messanal, you gotta stop doing that," Hrodwulf chortled raucously. Returning his attention to Cacliocos, he questioned: "Why are you here? Had any command been given to retreat?"

  "I took the decision myself. We received no orders that the line should be held," Cacliocos declared, meeting Sergeant Granger's gaze. Betelgeuse could see out of the corner of his eye Entuban shifting uneasily from foot to foot.

  Betelguese, Voke and Douglas stood approximately ten meters from the APC line where the great fraternization between Cacliocos and Hrodwulf was taking place. Thete was there beside Entuban and Cacliocos, and Betelgeuse couldn't help but notice the fraught glances she was repeatedly casting over in his direction.

  She must have heard Douglas' outburst.

  Hrodwulf's subordinates were brandishing their railguns about him and when Betelgeuse passed his vision over he saw faces staring out through hazy recollections, faces he thought he would never see again. 'NYMPHO' Norma was there, standing between Hrodwulf and an unfamiliar man Hrodwulf had referred to as 'Messanal', callsign 'CHROMIE'. There was Knievel the 'QUACK', Gombrovich the 'SHIT' (who appeared to be sneaking knowing looks at Betelgeuse) and many more besides.

  'They sent the Ash brigade down with the Jegorichians,' Betelgeuse mused. He scanned more of the faces, and somewhere at the back of the Ash contingent, crouching by the APCs and stamped with the callsign "SISSY", Betelgeuse thought he could discern the features of someone he once knew as Edith.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  And to Hrodwulf's left were three PLPs, identifiable by the penal brand crossing above beady eyes. Michael Thane the 'INCEL', 'BLACK' Aminata, dark-skinned as ever, and Zachariah the 'ZIT'. The light from the burbling lava struck their brand from a high angle, casting shadows downward across their lineaments like oodles of brackish blood.

  No, there was a fourth PLP. One whose face Betelgeuse couldn't forget even if he wanted to. The 'MONKEY', Deng Guo Xun, the one who'd triggered it—the cause for his being relegated to the Penal Legion.

  Their presence was not lost on Cacliocos, who had just then begun questioning Hrodwulf in a careful tone: "Sir, those PLPs, I believe all of them had been assigned to the Jegorich First Brigade."

  "And you would be right," Hrodwulf returned, grinning, casting his own surreptitious glances at Betelgeuse, Voke and Douglas.

  "... If I may be permitted, what is your basis for subsuming them under your command, sir?"

  "Cacky, my friend, if you didn't already notice," Hrodwulf said, pointed emphatically toward the vast and seething lake of lava before them, "you're all that's left of the Jegorich First. The unit no longer exists. As their superior in rank and appointment, my decision to commandeer them is well within my authority."

  "According to the Green Book, of course," he added as an afterthought, his young features becoming thoughtful.

  "Sir… what are you meaning? That we are all that's left of Jegorich First… what did you mean by that?" Cacliocos said, his voice almost a whisper. If Betelgeuse didn't know better he could swear Cacliocos' voice was trembling… in fear? No, that didn't sound very like Cacliocos…

  "The rest of them were caught in that," Hrodwulf stressed, pointing again at the fiery flows with his index and middle fingers pressed together.

  "That can't be," Cacliocos asserted, as if trying to convince himself otherwise. "There were three battalions, sir, you must be mistaken. You must be mistaken, sir."

  "Mistaken? However do you mean?" Hrodwulf frowned, shifting his weight from his left to right foot. "The only personnel at support line right now are the comms guys from Support Company, the rest of the TAF First and some gnarly-looking casualties."

  "That…" Cacliocos trailed off, exhaling sharply. His blood-smeared visor obscured his features so that his expression was not easily discernible by Betelgeuse. Sharp pain flashed across his features and disappeared as quickly as it came.

  "... In the absence of a superior officer's direct command, a PDF Subaltern and a TAF Sergeant have equal authority. As a Subaltern of the Jegorich First Brigade, authority over those PLPs devolves to myself, seeing as they had originally been attached as the Jegorich Brigade's auxiliaries. This is also an application of what is in the Green Book. Perhaps you have authorization from command line? From Brigade-com Bincollan? We were attached to Sergeant Khvalynsky and Subaltern Franklin—what about them?" Cacliocos pressed, his brows knitting. In a matter of moments he had regained his composure and nothing of his uncharacteristically perceptible agitation remained.

  'He's trying to bait Hrodwulf into saying something obviously beyond the scope of his powers and trap him with blackbox evidence,' Betelgeuse realized. The Jegorichians' main advantage, it occurred to him, was the technical expertise of their support personnel in dealing with the blackbox. 'Scrubbing', Entuban had called it.

  "Norma?" Hrodwulf called, and a dull tone sounded through the company comms-link.

  "TAF Corporal First Class Norma Myrmec speaking. Sir," She addressed Cacliocos, "Sergeant Khvalynsky and Subaltern Franklin are MIA. We don't hold out any hope that any of them survived. As for Sergeant Grangers decision to commandeer the PLPs, it was an emergency, and as you know we currently have no means of contacting command line, given that the enemy's jammers are still operational and effective. It is Sergeant Hrodwulf's assessment that the emergency situation persists."

  "It is, indeed," Hrodwulf confirmed, his eyes neither moving nor blinking.

  "LTC Pilix? He followed the support line, didn't he? Where is he?" Cacliocos growled. Betelgeuse could sense frustration growing in the officer's tone.

  "Alas, he's en route to Liberation's Reach at the moment. Once the jammers went up Captain Crowley rather bravely took it upon himself to report back to command line," Hrodwulf sighed, shaking his head dramatically, "I believe he took with him the battalion commanders and the Military Auxiliary, as well as the Medicae personnel."

  "LTC Pilix left you in charge?" Entuban blurted out, as if unable to comprehend what he was hearing. The Jegorichian commanders, abandoning the field and leaving their subordinates to their demise?

  "Well, not in so many words. But it is the effect of his actions, yes?" Hrodwulf countered gruffly. "I have half a mind to commandeer your unit as well, Cacliocos, if you do not arrest this line of questioning right this moment. But I much rather you cooperate with me. We have more important things to worry about."

  "Why, I will see you try—"

  "Silence, Entuban," Cacliocos interrupted, shutting down the giant with an evil glare. Hrodwulf folded his arms and looked expectantly at the last surviving Jegorichian officer.

  Cacliocos fell silent and remained like this for a long while and the remnants of the TAF First Brigade shifted silently where they stood, some of them lowering themselves to sitting positions. None of them appeared higher in rank than Sergeant Granger, noted Betelgeuse.

  'The perennial issue of war. Good officers die with their men, and only the cunning survive. And of us survivors, whether Jegorichian or Ash grade, none were considered very valuable by command line, it appears,' Betelgeuse thought. 'None of us were valuable enough to save.'

  "Sir," Betelgeuse rasped through section comms-link, his voice hoarse from the long day's myriad exertions. He addressed Cacliocos, who had yet to drop from the comms-link, "Sergeant Granger is talking about resources. It is the most immediate concern. We don't know how much oxygen, fuel and food Captain Crowley left us."

  "Don't Blink. He has good point." Betelgeuse saw Entuban's head nodding toward him, funneling his private aside through the same comms-link.

  Cacliocos gave no indication that he heard, did not so much as change his expression in any discernible way.

  But seconds later he nodded and raised his bloodstained palm and the temporary alliance was sealed with another firm handshake. Hrodwulf's grin split his face in two and the sharpness of his canines were showing, and Douglas was looking at Betelgeuse with an expression that communicated a keen discomfort.

  "Excellent," Hrodwulf sounded. "Come into the tentages. We must do a stock-take immediately. Oxygen stores have priority. We need to know how much of it we have."

  "Entuban, we need all this sorted out ASAP," Cacliocos instructed, stepping with Hrodwulf into shadow and then passing between the idling APCs and disappearing into the sudden movement of soldiers back to support line.

  In the commotion, Thete had slipped away from the forward group and came before Section Five.

  She rolled her eyes toward the line of APCs, then locked gazes with Betelgeuse and mouthed something silently. What do you think?

  Douglas hung his tongue out of his mouth and was chopping his palm across his neck in some theatrical pantomime for nothing good can come of this.

  Betelgeuse shrugged. No choice.

  When he started moving, Douglas, Voke and Thete came with him, and he walked toward a motionless figure who looked as if she were languishing crouched under an APC wheel. Atop her helmet was stamped the single chevron of a Private, and her gaze was locked to Betelgeuse, and he saw that it was indeed Edith. As he closed the distance he found her face lined with exhaustion and premature age. Her button-nose twitched reflexively and her eyes were filled with a grimness that had not been there before. She hadn't kept particularly well, Betelgeuse thought.

  He passed her and she rose and fell into lockstep with Voke, and then all of them stepped through into support line.

  It took Betelgeuse a moment to register that he was staring into a row of makeshift tentages already brimming with activity. The tentages themselves were ensconced within a square of APC chassis marking out the perimeter of the support line. The darkness was writhing with the movement of shadow shapes and somewhere in the distance, over the tentages and the opposite line of APCs, Betelgeuse observed lights yellow and orange bounce off faraway crags and stone-faces.

  He wondered if the route behind the support line had suffered subsidence as well, and if, perhaps, he was not staring straight at the cause of his own death.

  "So, uh, when can I start blinking again?" Douglas sounded, and Betelgeuse supposed he had the Chimerae to thank for Entuban being too far away to receive the transmission.