The scourge of a broken heart manifests in Frederica Jaine a vexatious depression.

  Frederica Jaine's multifaceted depressions manifest as a psychosomatic sensitivity towards others' emotions.

  - Incunabulum Manifold Tag #3078-2701-00000569

  The operation was long and labored and when finally their coffin of rock and gravel was cracked open by Entuban and the men and women from the Jegorich First Brigade's First Battalion, First Company, their ordeal had lasted ten hours or more. Approximately ten hours from the spacetime inversion that trapped them underground, and six hours from the time that Subaltern Cacliocos had managed, by some stroke of luck, to establish a comms-link with Staff Sergeant Entuban, who at the time had been engaged in Incunabulum retrieval and just so happened to have been passing over what was left of the square.

  Their rescue had been a technical feat which depended for its success not only on the patience and efforts of the retrieval-turned-rescue party, but also the expertise of the Engineering Blueprinter Himmelin Xau, command line Military Auxiliary (abbrev. MA), dispatched urgently via LSV to provide assistance. As the holder of a Bronze Incunabulum, MA Xau's unique and cultivated ability to intuit structural integrities was crucial to estimating the shear strength of the gravel-material and reducing the risk that the ensuing excavation of material would trigger further subsidence. In a situation where the deployment of specialized scientific equipment was unfeasible, MA Xau's skills were invaluable.

  By MA Xau's reckoning, there were two salient risks: firstly, the ground-vibrations occasioned by the ongoing combat at the southwestern portion of Liberation's Reach, and secondly, the process of excavation. Both posed a significant risk of destabilizing the gravel mass and causing subsidence—meaning the entombment and death of Section Five. Given the circumstances, MA Xau indicated in the relevant Green Book Risk Assessment Form that the risk of the rescue operation was 'high'.

  Regardless, the work began in earnest and proceeded patiently according to the MA Xau's instructions, completing in four hours and fifty minutes rather than the originally estimated five hours.

  When the five rescuees emerged, they did so carefully and with gentle steps and passed thereby from darkness into darkness, for the Desert night had once again taken possession of the firmament for the 29,308th time in the 30,294-day sidereal year.

  It was not fifteen minutes from the completion of the rescue operation that a barrage of missiles fell like the hammer of God through that veil of smog which lidded Liberation's Reach, screaming banshee-like and erupting into a monolithic curtain of fire at the distant reaches of the settlement. The impacts shook the surroundings violently, causing the much-feared subsidence and burying the space which the rescuees had not so long ago been trapped within.

  Never been so close to Super-Katyusha impacts, MA Xau remarked to Staff Sergeant Entuban, to which the latter replied: It is not much. Just Katyushas but more super.

  The second barrage of missiles had just begun in earnest when a dull tone informed Cacliocos that a private comms channel had been established. He raised himself to his feet and poked his head absentmindedly around the holobus chassis he had been leaning against.

  "Second Battalion-Com Lieutenant-Colonel Brexar speaking. Have I got acting coycom Second Battalion, Third Company?" came the voice in lightly accented Common, rough, weathered and drawling with exhaustion.

  "Yes, sir, Subaltern Cacliocos speaking," Cacliocos replied. The sound of distant gunfire, though cloaked by the rumble of artillery, had not abated, and his eyes sensed movement where the remainder of Section Five were convalescing near a rubble outcropping stabbing out where a residential block once stood.

  It was Betelgeuse, expressionless, eking a winding path across the street toward the immense concavity which had been substituted for the square. The area had been reported as secured, but it was still a breach of tactical discipline pursuant to Green Book regulations to move around without crouching. Not that Cacliocos had any intention of taking him to task.

  "Report strength," Lieutenant-Colonel Brexar transmitted.

  "Five of ninety-three. Three injured—one broke an arm, one lost an arm and the last has C-O poisoning. We're all that's left of Third Company, sir," Cacliocos reported. "MA Xau's RAF has been furnished with the details of the rescue operation."

  He traced Betelgeuse' slow walk back toward the caved-in entrance, saw that pale face pass from shadow to shadow, and then watched him halt and stare solemnly into space.

  Betelgeuse had been the one to communicate Frederica's last wish to Cacliocos. She wanted to be buried underground, he said, and this had been confirmed by Thete and Douglas, as if by some tacit understanding Betelgeuse was made the keeper of Federica's legacy.

  "... Yes, I'd heard command line saw fit to send in a Bronze," Brexar transmitted. "Curious, that."

  "Sir, there's something else. We saw something in the Labcent, some kind of spliced creature we had to kill."

  "... A spliced creature?"

  "Like a hybrid… like a human-Chimera splice, is the best I can describe it. I could only assess it for rudimentary intelligence in the circumstances, but it had keen combat awareness."

  "We'll get the cleaners up there. Remember to submit all relevant blackboxes once the operation is done," Brexar sounded. A sense of uneasiness had crept into his tone.

  "Sir, it looked like the thing came out of a human woman. It looked like they managed to fertilize her. They must have been trying, because we found other bodies, all burnt," Cacliocos stressed.

  Cacliocos heard some shuffling on the other side of the line, and perhaps some crinkling of paper.

  "... No cleaners then. Keep this under wraps, Tenzhian. Tell those who were with you this information is not to be shared or discussed with anyone. I've just created a file on the Manifold DMS, clearance level secret. Is all this you've told me in the RAF?"

  "No. No, it isn't," confirmed Cacliocos, his voice wavering. Clearance level secret. Outside of relevant administrative personnel, the only Protectorate agents who qualified were Marshals (including the Grand Marshal), Judges of the Peace, Chief Coders, Apparatchiks, the Cabinet and the President himself. It surely meant that their suzerain, the Democracy, harbored a direct interest.

  "I'm assigning MA Xau's RAF clearance level confidential anyway. And I'll arrange for Biotech to poke around. Remember that this is secret, got it?"

  "Of course, sir."

  "... Oh yes, one more thing. I know you'd transmitted this already via Staff Sergeant Entuban, but Brigade-Com asked for another confirmation of the survivors' names. Said the request came from command. Can you enumerate?" Brexar requested. The distinct sound of rapidfire mouse clicks filtered through the comms.

  "PLP Sergeant Thete Jutson, PLP Voke Thatcher, PLP Betegeuse Sakar, PLP Douglas McKay. And myself, Subaltern Tenzhian Cacliocos."

  "Noted. For what it's worth, Tenzhian, Third Company was crucial to securing the northeastern quadrant. There is no shame in being a survivor. Your decision earlier, the decision you made to retreat to defilade position—you went over my head, yes, but it was a sound tactical decision. I know you'd fight with your platoon to the end, I know you wish you did. You're a good soldier. Continue to live, Tenzhian, bring honor to their memory."

  "Thank you, sir. ... Second Company secured the northwestern quadrant?"

  "Yes. Heavy casualties, but not as heavy as Third Company's. Your brother's alive. I confirmed it with his commanding officer."

  "Thank you… thank you, sir," Calcliocos let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

  "It's what I should do," Brexar sighed, and Cacliocos detected in all that weary resignation the hidden edge of bitterness and indignation.

  "I should ask sir… has… Major Storr been located?"

  "He was counted amongst the first casualties. Tenzhian, I'll not skirt the fact that his mistake was very grave. You can be sure I'll lodge a formal complaint."

  "Sir, it's a breach of the Green—"

  "This is the sort of thing that must go on record. The TAF Green Book doesn't care one whit about the guys on the ground. Such abuse only serves to undermine the whole PDF."

  Cacliocos opened his mouth, then closed it again. He scanned his surroundings. By now Betelgeuse had returned to his section. Why was Thete giving him such a strange look?

  "Anyway, I got to wrap this up," Brexar sounded. "What's the unit closest to you right now? The one with Staff Entuban?"

  "First Battalion, First Company. They were engaged in Tzevtao-retrieval, but were requisitioned for our rescue."

  "Yes, yes. Captain Kelokrill's… a right pity to lose him. I'd heard he was good. Tenzhian, you will take command of First Battalion, First Company and assemble at the entrance to the in-settlement mine, SB… what was it, ah…"

  "SB-two-nine-six. If I may, sir, we need medical attention. High urgency," Cacliocos emphasized. He was watching Thete and Betelgeuse closely and observing Thete cradle her broken arm.

  "SB-296, yes. The Saltillan Support Company's Medicae unit is posted there, at the mine entrance, so get yourselves slots with the Rejuvenators. You take command of the remnants of First Battalion, First Company, and LTC Pilix will be your commanding officer until further notice. Remember though, what's secret must stay secret even to him. That's all I have. Any other questions before I pass you over?"

  "Just one, sir. Does First Battalion, First Company have any other surviving officers?"

  "No."

  An uncomfortable silence interspersed.

  "... I see. That's all, then," Cacliocos nodded to nobody in particular,

  "Okay. LTC Pilix will fill you in on the Company's schedule and relevant Plan Modifications. I don't expect any further Charlie Mike, but don't take me at my word."

  "Yes, sir."

  "… I probably shouldn't say this, but something strange is happening between command and the Brigade-coms," Brexar was muttering, half to himself and half to Cacliocos, "they made the Jegorich Second and Third Brigade head the left pincer's offensive, and I heard casualties there were unaccountably high as well…

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  "… Sir?" Cacliocos sounded, not knowing what to say.

  "Ah, dammit. Tenzhian, please remember to get support to scrub your blackbox. Anyway, passing you over now…"

  The distant, thunderous reverberations swelled and waned like an unholy orchestra, and a great conflagration had been raised into the foggy night, illuminating indistinct cliffs and bulges engorging and constricting and falling one into the other. In this shadow play of tumescent things born from artillery fire conducted at a blistering presto, there was no silence and no escape from the tyrannical rule of war.

  The most recent barrage had just melted away into pollen clouds of spangling phosphorus blooms when Cacliocos and Entuban called for the muster, and that band of thirty or less, beaten and tired, went through the dead streets like dead things themselves. Mounds of rubble flanked them, residential blocks turned to sordid cairns overlooking their cautious progress.

  The pounding resumed, and when Betelgeuse raised his head he saw flashes of orange fade to beige under the curtain of fog and realized that the artillery fire had begun triangulating further away. Cacliocos transmitted that they were passing into the manufacturing district, and First Company stepped into a cloud of smog and then out of it, and before them was a flattish field of concrete rubble centered by an enormous ziggurat pluming smoke into the sky.

  A special dread gripped Betelgeuse' heart. His steps faltered. His right hand found its way to his chestpiece and pressed, and he felt digging into his pectorals the edges of what he knew was Frederica's Incunabulum stacked below his own. Somebody nudged him from behind and he turned to see Douglas motioning forward with his elbow., his expression uncharacteristically grim.

  As they got closer Betelgeuse observed small 'hairs' sticking out from the concentric terraces and bent at odd angles. Then it was the faces, flaccid and melted into shapes not quite skull-like, the heads all sporting concave dents like the ends of hard-boiled eggs. There was a sudden realization that these were blackened bodies, human flesh twisted into each other by the heat of fires burnt out the last time the sky was dark; naked, shriveled cadavers long or short, now hidden, now revealed by sparks in the horizon no one could properly see.

  The company crossed into that flatland and found their footing amongst the remnants of factories and storehouses less than ideal, and when they were proximate enough to the meat-ziggurat to count each individual eye-socket through the tangle of burnt limbs, Betelgeuse found himself wondering at the insensibility of it all.

  They must have been naked when they died. A mountain of corpses set afire.

  The Chimerae were an intelligent race, perhaps. What reason, if any, did they have to kill on such a scale?

  "Staff Entuban, you don't need to check it?" Cacliocos transmitted through the comms, looking up at that towering cake of charred flesh when they were almost close enough to touch.

  "Combed through by Second Company. They found no Tzevtao. Not a single one," Entuban returned gruffly. His eyes stared out through dark tunnels and roved along the contours of that mountain, unfazed and stoic.

  "Good. Wouldn't fancy doing it myself," Cacliocos said, bowing his head momentarily to the dead. "We turn right then along the commissary street west."

  And so that procession made a hard right and passed, at the end of that field, between two imposing stone promontories that were enshadowed and tortured and like Scylla and Charybdis; and as they passed through into the dimly-lit beyond Betelgeuse' eyes could not help but widen, as flesh-mound after flesh-mound was revealed to them in all their lurid glory.

  "God…"

  The voice was female and unfamiliar to Betelgeuse. One of Entuban's entourage. But its sentiment was shared amongst all, because few could be unmoved by the scale of death. The street was flanked on both sides by buildings flattened into the ground, and atop the rubble thereof were mountains of corpses all smoking. The human roasts followed the road all the way through that cauterized desolation. Death upon death, a stairway to hell.

  And there was no escaping the sight, for the flesh-mounds had each been tipped by a bulbous lamp shining whitely and left behind by the Allied Forces' Incunabula-retrieval parties.

  Passing by the first mound, Betelgeuse thought he saw a gnome-like figure at the apex, small as a cherub but flayed by the heat into a vertical crust, the bulbous lamp hanging by a long and curved metal handle over the crown of that toddler's head. The sockets of that child were gaping and its jaw was hungry and open and the lamp looked to have been positioned so that bulb hung like an oversized, glowing testicle.

  This is what passes for humor.

  They trekked down the street, some averting their eyes by looking at their fellows' feet, some uncannily fascinated by the ritualistic pyres winding down and up, the lights drawing a grim path overland toward a rockface materializing in the distance. The whole population of Liberation's Reach looked as if they had been jam-packed into that one place and then processed by the Chimerae into dead flesh.

  "The guys here sure keep the commissary stocked," someone said, breaking a full fifteen minutes of silence.

  "Sergeant Belekov," Cacliocos snapped, and at the head of the party Betelgeuse saw him turn, his dark pupils expressive of something dangerous. The troop halted their march and turned to each other. Betelgeuse stood where he was but could not discern from amongst that shuffling entourage the man who was named Belekov.

  They resumed their march and the route eventually took them past the last flesh-mound and through an undulating path and then straight into the side of an embankment peaking three stories high. The wall of the embankment ran on both sides into the darkness further than they could see, perhaps all the way to the tattered walls of Liberation's Reach, and several hundred meters to their right a billowing gout of smoke rose darkly, its source obscured by the night.

  Where the road ended perpendicularly to that rustred cliff of rock was an immense steel door bent and scorched in places, and beside it wound a cylindrical jut so that the panel-face tipping the end of that metallic snake aimed at any would-be entrant.

  No sooner had Cacliocos gone up close when that panel-face flashed to life, projecting a rectangular wall of light which passed over his form from sole to head.

  A female voice, tinny and unemotional as an AI-tableaux, prompted for the relevant authorization. The projection of light winked out of existence, supplanted by a digital keyboard flashing across the panel-face.

  "Good Evening, T-A-F Officer. Please input your Ninsei Ingress security code to Mining Settlement L-R, Subterranean Borehole Number two-nine-six—"

  "Let me, sir. LTC Pilix is saying to use First Battalion, First Company's code," Entuban raised his arm, motioning at Cacliocos.

  "Okay, go ahead," Cacliocos nodded, taking several steps sideways to make space for that man's inhuman width.

  "Hrnh. Fingers too big," Entuban frowned. Indeed, the tips of his fingers were so wide that they bound three digital keys at once.

  Snickering through the comms.

  Betelgeuse turned back, and saw, behind Thete and her crimson pupil, behind gray, leather-faced soldiers, the twin rows of flesh-mounds stretching into the darkness. There must have been a breeze, for the globy lights were swaying lazily.

  "I type, you say," Cacliocos sighed, taking over.

  No sooner had the code been keyed in when the doors juddered and started cranking themselves open in fits, knocking off loose bits of gravel from the sedimentary material abovehead.

  "Welcome, personnel, have a—have—*krrshk*" the woman's voice stuttered, then became completely consumed by the static.

  They entered into dark, metal hallways devoid of light save for red fisheyes staring out the corners of the ceiling, turned one bend, two, then found the exit—another set of doors, these ones shimmying open smoothly.

  An open space awash in light and frenetic activity, its contours evocative of something circular, greeted their eyes. To their left, far to the edge of that large space, idled rows of walkers huge and gray and spewing exhaust into the air. Legions of exosuited soldiers, so many people that Betelgeuse suffered momentary disorientation, were scuttling about like ants, loading crates by the wagon-full into columns of tanks crusted with sediment and scoured matte-black and droning sepulchrally into the night air.

  And in the middle of the space was a terrace of slopes descending into a hole wide enough to swallow Saltilla's megalithic State University whole, a chasm which dwarfed even the teeming might of the Allied Forces in Desert.

  To right of that chasm sat the largest flesh-mound they had encountered yet, still smoldering, still raging faintly. Whole companies of soldiers were dismantling that terrifying sculpture under the aegis of a floodlight, and bereft of its habit of shadows that hecatomb rose misshapen and lopsided like some twisted aiguille.

  "Lieutenant-Colonel Brexar said the Medicae tent's at the SB-296 entrance," Cacliocos transmitted.

  "He is probably meaning the shack down there, at the borehole perimeter. It has elevators that is taking us down to the mine floor. The elevators have been destroyed by the alien," Entuban said, punctuating his explanation with expansive and dextrous movements of his hand and some instructive pointing.

  "Hrnh. So that's how the Chimerae's main force escaped. LTC Pilix confirmed the force retreating overland westward was a decoy," Cacliocos mused out loud. The company had come to a sudden but shallow drop where the road had collapsed due to subsidence, and Cacliocos lowered himself carefully onto the gravel surface below. A line of open-backed flat-topped trucks crossed in front of him, grumbling urgently on tires of incredible thickness in the direction of the bipedals. Betelgeuse traversed the drop and then saw crates jostling within their straps as the last of the trucks passed, their plywood faces stamped in ebon, majuscule helvetica: "AMMUNITION".

  "Ya think I can get my hands on a fresh ZWEN?" Douglas croaked, transmitting via Section Five comms-link, his eyes following the jump of the resup trucks, his arm stump wagging sporadically from an uncomfortable dose of phantom itch.

  "We'll all get a chance to resup," responded Thete, her voice uncharacteristically soft. When Betelgeuse turned to regard her, he thought he detected in her lineaments a tacit glumness, but then wondered if by some unknown operation of his mind he had projected a subconscious artifact upon her face.

  "Maybe they can resup my arm," Douglas said, turning, and corners of his lips curled in a strange mix of pain and mirth.

  "Douglas, once we get to the Medicae unit you will have priority," Thete sighed. The troop had begun moving again, and one of the Jegorichians, abnormally short even by Desertian standards, had raised one of his unusually long arms and deigned to slap Douglas' on his back where the exosuit's clavicle carapace fused to the plastic articulations around neck.

  "Don't mind if I do…"

  As they came closer to the 'shack' the lie of its smallness was revealed and its charred eaves came to loom over them and the churning moil of soldiers all about them. They became entangled in the infectious headiness of that mix and jostle, and somehow Cacliocos managed to navigate through those whirlpools of incessant human activity and lead them before that quonset structure of metal and glass.

  The inside of the Ninsei Factotum was awash in an uncomfortable whiteness sourced from buzzing tube bulbs running the length of the faraway ceiling. Under that remorseless light no shadow was left uncaged, and the troop was left squinting as their vision adjusted, a painful process after so many hours of darkness. Once they had made it through decontamination, they were received by a pale-skinned Support Company personnel dressed in gray overalls which, Betelgeuse thought, wouldn't look out of place in Edom-Zeta's automechanic shops.

  They were asked to remove their helmets, and Betelgeuse tasted dust and mold anew. He was led with the others between rows upon rows of beds upon which half-men and limbless women convalesced, oily-skinned and smelling of iodoform and being waited on by harried field surgeons brandishing gore-stained bonesaws and crusted cauterizers. They were halfway through that field hospital, having passed a portable room divider hung with red curtains and then another room divider with yellow curtains, when the lean and large-eared Support Company personnel leading them pointed forward to curtains colored deep orange.

  "You guys are triaged for Less Urgent, so you can take the beds down in that section. We've allocated the guys there ten or so Rejuvenators, so once they're done First Battalion, First Company can take it over. Just remember to fill in the record book. Its right behind the curtain," he said, and was making to leave when Cacliocos put his hand on the man's shoulder, frowning.

  "Wait. I reported we had some Urgents," he stressed.

  "What? We hadn't received any manifest—"

  "Look," Cacliocos interrupted the man, staring at him with unblinking eyes, wheeling him around with the hand upon his shoulder and pointing with his other hand at Douglas several persons down. "He's lost an arm. The Rejuvenator's going to give him cancer or plastic-poisoning or both. We need the Medicae to look at it."

  "... O–okay," the man stuttered, a host of expressions flashing across his face as Cacliocos exerted more pressure upon his shoulder. "I'll take him to the surgeons…"

  "Not only him," Entuban rumbled, jostling past Betelgeuse and then seven or eight Jegorichians to come up beside Cacliocos. "We are needing oxygen for the three C-O poisonings. Eight splints. Maybe give us ten. We have broken bones."

  Cacliocos released his hand, leaving a dark, grimy imprint upon that man's overalls. "The medical manifest should have come through. LTC Brexar? LTC Pilix?"

  "... We haven't received anything, sir. Only thing we knew is from Colonel Bincollan that you'd be passing by here before being redeployed in the mineshaft," the man managed meekly.

  "LTC Pilix," growled Entuban, turning to Cacliocos.

  Betelgeuse could see Douglas mouthing the word redeployed. It was interesting seeing someone so walleyed attempt to roll their eyes, he admitted.

  "That's enough. Get him some attention," Cacliocos commanded, gesturing with his chin back toward the yellow curtains. The man gave a sheepish smile and made to scratch the nape of his neck, before he arrested himself, brought his arm back down, scowled, and then scurried away with Douglas in tow.

  "I do not like this," Entuban muttered loudly, his wide face twitching. "They make us eat such hard biscuits."

  Cacliocos' fine, dark eyebrows scrunched together. His upper lip curled over his scar. Once Douglas and the Support Company man disappeared from his view, he turned, stalking wordlessly down toward the orange curtains.

  Author's Note: Please let me know what you think about this chapter in the comments!