86 - Volume 3 - Chapter 5.6

INTERLUDE 

GET YOUR GUNS 

Despite the fact that it was after lights-out, and no one but those on night patrol was awake, all surviving squadrons were connected to the Para-RAID. The implication made Lena bite her pink lower lip. 

They had always been prepared for this. 

For this day that would eventually come, when they would have to abandon the Republic to its foolish slumber and fight the impossibly massive tidal wave of Legion, however hopeless their prospects of victory may be. Perhaps they knew what the Reaper of the eastern front once foretold, or perhaps it was their own experience with fighting the Legion that guided them to this answer. But the proud Eighty-Six fought on, knowing today—the day of their deaths—would inevitably come. 

For the time being, she requested the cooperation of all squadrons—to concentrate in the eighty-five Sectors and help defend them. She shut down the Resonance without taking the time to listen to their responses as she went toward the control room. Their responses didn’t matter; if they had any intention of cooperating, they would make their way into the eighty-five Sectors. But before they could do that, she would have to deactivate the minefields in their way and open the gate of the Gran Mur. 

She pressed her fingers against the bosom of her blackened uniform, against the inner pocket of her blouse. 

She did this because that was what they wished for her to do, in the end. 

But as she walked down the corridor, someone stood in the adjacent hallway. 

“What do you mean to do, Lieutenant Vladilena Milizé?” 

Lena turned around with a start, feeling a hand grip her arm, and practically growled the name of the man before her. 

“Commodore Karlstahl…!” 

Shaking free from his grip on her arm, she glared into his eyes as he stood a full head taller. This was the breaking point, the critical moment that would decide whether the Republic—whether the Eighty-Six and Lena—would live or die. She couldn’t let this one trifling man, who willingly let himself be consumed by despair, stand in her way. 

“I’m going to deactivate the minefield and open the gate of the Gran Mur… I will gather all the squadrons inside the Gran Mur and intercept the Legion. If we do that, we still have a chance of surviving…” 

“Leave it. If they have to rely on calling the Eighty-Six for help, the Republic’s citizens would be better off letting the Legion overtake them.” 

“At a time like this, you continue to spout such nonsense…?!” 

He intended to adhere to the asinine rhetoric that the Alba were the only ones who counted as human beings and that the eighty-five Sectors were a paradise only for them? Even as his motherland teetered on the brink of ruin?! 

“The Eighty-Six won’t fight for the Republic.” 

That one sentence stung like a slap across the face. 

“The Republic persecuted them, cast them out, and slaughtered them. They have an obligation to listen to our pleas for help… At most, they would sneer and say that we were getting what we deserved.” 

Lena gritted her teeth bitterly. That much was obvious. 

“They may not be obligated to listen to us…but they still have a reason to. We have the power and the production plants they need. They survived this long on the battlefield, and they know if they intend to keep fighting, our survival is necessary.” 

Karlstahl’s scar-ridden face grimaced, like he had just witnessed something unbearable. 

“If only it were that simple… Yes, at first, they might remain compliant. But they’ll soon realize that fighting on their own is much more preferable to defending these useless citizens who know only how to complain and demand.” 

“…” 

“And what do you think will happen then? If all that awaited the Republic citizens was a massacre, we would be lucky. But you’ve studied history, Lena. You know the consequences won’t be anything so lenient. Especially for a young woman like you.” 

Lena flinched for a moment, imagining the vivid implications of what he meant. 

It was something she considered, of course. Having taken command of a combat squadron, she may have earned the trust of her troops to at least some degree. But from their perspective, before she was their Handler, she was a white pig first, hidden snugly away from harm. So once they were allowed within the walls, the Eighty-Six may just kill them—it was a possibility she was well aware of. And of course, there was the possibility that the violence would not be limited to murder. 

Still… 

Her hand touched the breast pocket of her blouse, where she kept a letter and a photograph stored preciously in a waterproof cover. She cherished them at all times, even as the Legion drew closer by the day. Because they were the final words and sentiments they had left her. 

“Even so…I don’t wish to sit idly by and wait for death. Even if I die, beaten and powerless, I will fight until the end.” 

Just as they lived and died. Shin and the others believed she could live that way, too, and she didn’t want to put that faith to shame. 

The two pairs of silver eyes clashed for a long moment—and it was Karlstahl who looked away first. 

“As you wish, then.” 

He turned aside and began walking down the opposite end of the corridor. She noticed an assault rifle hanging heavily from his large back, suspended by a strap. It was an official Republic 7.62 mm caliber rifle. It was well maintained, but the model number on it was one digit lower than the type she knew: a semiauto three-round burst rifle. The type that had been used when Karlstahl was still in his youth. 

The military issued rifles for the exclusive use of each of its soldiers, and both training and combat were done only with one’s own gun. They were industry-produced assault rifles, but each gun had its own minute quirks, and it was done so each soldier could make that gun their own, flaws and kinks included. Which meant this rifle was the one Karlstahl had received in his youth, the one he’d used to fight the Legion a decade ago, and the one he carried with him to this day. 

“Commodore…?!” 

“Dreaming is a privilege afforded by youth, Lieutenant Milizé. And waking children up from their dreams…making them face the harshness of reality, and dying to defend those dreams…is the duty placed upon adults.” 

He loosened his necktie with one hand and tossed it aside. Lena noticed that he wore a pair of field boots, contrasting with his officer’s uniform. He planned this from the start…? 

“May you taste defeat, Lena. I pray that your childish dreams crumble in the face of reality.” 

“Wha—?!” 

She reached out to her “uncle’s” back…but clenched her fist as she pursed her lips. She then clicked her boots together and saluted his back. 

“May fortune be on your side, Commodore Karlstahl.” 

Whispering those words to herself, Lena set out again through the darkened corridors of the military headquarters, the commodore’s final words echoing in her heart. The letters she read time and time again carving themselves into her mind, beckoning her to come to their final destination like starlight shining through the blackness. 

Yes, Shin. 

I will walk down the same path you did and find your final resting place, no matter the cost. 

In a chance moment of pause between the clashes of the rampaging Legion, Shin’s consciousness was pulled away from the battlefield. He thought he could hear someone’s voice. He was in the midst of a large Legion offensive, walking the razor’s edge between life and death. But as he focused back on the battle in front of him, he’d all but forgotten about that voice. 

He never once stopped to consider that it might be the last time he would hear “her” voice.