Page 5 of Fated in A Time of War

KRALL

S he doesn’t weigh much, but right now it feels like I’m carrying the whole damn planet.

The dust clings to every scale. Sweat slicks beneath my armor, stinging the cracked flesh at my neck and shoulders. Her body hangs limp across my back, bound hands bumping against the small of my spine with every step. My legs burn. My lungs wheeze. But I don’t stop.

I can’t.

I’ve got no comms. My HUD’s useless static. My entire squad’s just ash and meat spread across a half-click of cratered concrete. Lakka... Lakka’s dog tags thump against my chest like a second heartbeat. I don’t look at them. Not yet.

I push deeper into Tanuki’s rotting guts.

What’s left of the city doesn’t even pretend to be alive. Buildings ripped open like carcasses. Roads torn to jagged ribbons. Blackened skeletons frozen mid-run, mouths open in silent screams. There’s ash in the wind and glass underfoot. The sky’s a permanent bruise.

Every few meters, I check our six. Not ‘cause I think friendlies are coming—because I know they’re not. But the Kru might. Or worse. Mechs. Raiders. The kind of monsters that don't need a flag or orders to kill. The kind that do it because it's all they know.

I find a building half-collapsed, sagging sideways like a drunk on a broken leg. The sign out front is mostly intact: “The Crooked Tap.” Must’ve been a bar. Perfect. Booze-soaked walls. Reinforced cellar beams. Maybe a hidden backroom or a panic nook.

I duck through the shattered doorway, dragging her in with me. Her shoulder clips the frame, makes her grunt. Still out. Good.

Inside’s dark and stinks like mold, piss, and scorched plastic. Flies buzz somewhere deep in the shadows. A few stools remain bolted to the floor, bent and rusting. The bar mirror’s cracked but still clings to the wall, reflecting me like I’m some other bastard. I ignore it.

I spot a thick beam hanging loose from the ceiling. I grab it, plant my boot, and kick until it gives with a thunderous crack. I drag it across the entrance and wedge it against the frame, barricading us in.

Then I dump her against the back wall.

She lands hard, coughing once before her eyes flicker open.

Blue. Clouded. Scared.

But not shattered.

I crouch in front of her, nose to nose. Close enough to smell the sweat on her skin and the blood that’s not hers caked along her cheek. Lakka’s blood.

“Wake up,” I growl.

She’s already awake. Just playing possum.

“You’re gonna talk,” I tell her. “I don’t give a damn if you’re tired. I’ve carried corpses through worse terrain than this.”

Her mouth stays shut. Her shoulders tense, but not from fear. She’s bracing.

Good.

“Name,” I bark.

Nothing.

“Rank. Unit. Commanding officer.”

She stares. Not blankly. Just... watching. Measuring. Like she’s trying to decide if I’m a bomb with a faulty timer or just another rabid dog too far gone to bite.

“Tell me how many Ataxian forces are near this sector.”

Still nothing. Her lips are chapped. There’s a scratch on her temple, bleeding slow.

I bare my teeth.

“You think silence buys you anything? You think you’re clever, hiding behind that little zealot medallion? You were skulking around my brother’s corpse while the smoke was still fresh. You think I’m gonna show mercy?”

She doesn’t even blink.

“I’ll break your legs. Right here. Won’t cost me anything.”

Her throat moves. Swallowing.

“Nothing to say?”

Still no answer.

I slam my fist into the wall beside her head. The panel cracks, dust raining down in a dirty cloud. Her eyes twitch but don’t flinch.

“Name,” I growl again. “Unit. You tell me what I want, or I swear to every god you fake-pray to, I’ll make you wish you’d died in that mech blast.”

Silence.

Just those eyes.

Calm. Unyielding.

It’s not defiance. It’s something worse.

She pities me.

Like I’m the broken one here.

Like I’m the one who needs saving.

I stand too fast. My head brushes the exposed beam. Pain lances my skull. I don’t care.

I back away, pacing. My fists clench and unclench, claws scraping armor. I want to hit something. Break something. Rip the world apart until it gives me my brother back.

But she just sits there.

And it’s the silence that cuts deepest of all.

That chews at me.

I’ve heard men die in every way there is—screaming, choking, gurgling through their own blood, whispering for mothers long dead. I’ve heard the silence of corpses cooling and the quiet of people too broken to fight anymore. But this… this is different. This silence isn’t emptiness. It’s a wall.

And it’s driving me out of my godsdamned mind.

“You think I don’t know what you are?” I snarl, jabbing a clawed finger toward the medallion at her throat. “That little scrap of metal says everything. Ataxian acolyte. Fanatic. Spy. Probably the one who lit the beacon that called in the barrage on my squad.”

Her eyes—cold, infuriating blue—don’t waver. Not once.

“You set the trap. Don’t bother denying it. You and your robed freak friends probably toasted yourselves when the mech’s targeting was off by a click. Won’t be the first time zealots killed their own for the cause.”

Nothing. No flinch. No blink. Just that calm, like she’s looking through me instead of at me.

“Go on,” I say, leaning in, my breath hot in the stale air between us. “Say it. Admit it. Give me one excuse—just one—and I’ll make it quick.”

Still nothing.

I slam her against the cracked plaster hard enough to rattle the beam I wedged in the doorway. The dust comes down in gray clouds, settling in my throat like ash from the blast site.

“Do you get it? Do you understand who I am? My brother died out there. Bled out in the dirt while you were skulking around like a carrion rat.”

Her gaze never changes. Calm. Steady. That calm is worse than any insult, worse than any spit in the face. I need her to fight me, to prove she’s the monster the insignia says she is. If she’s not… then I’ve got nothing to aim at. Nothing to burn this rage on.

“Say your name!” I bark, fangs bared.

Her lips stay sealed.

I yank my sidearm free, shoving the muzzle up under her chin. My claw tightens on the trigger until I can feel the weapon’s systems hum under my palm.

One pull, and she’s gone.

She doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch.

And something in my gut twists. Not mercy. Not doubt. Instinct. The same bone-deep instinct that’s kept me alive in more firefights than I can count. The same instinct that told me to move a half second before the mech’s first volley.

I growl, low and dangerous, and step back.

“Fine,” I spit. “You want to play mute? You want to test me? Let’s see how you do tied up tight enough to cut off circulation.”

I shove her down to the floor, drag fresh bindings from my pack, and cinch them until her wrists turn pale under the grime. Then I haul her into the shadowed corner, wedging her between the wall and an overturned table so she’s not in line of sight from the doorway.

The room’s too open. I need warning if anyone comes sniffing.

I step over a blackened corpse—armor scorched, face half gone—and strip two fusion blocks from the ruined harness. They’re still good. A miracle, or maybe just Alliance engineering.

On my knees, I rig the entry point. Two meters in, I wedge the first block under the splintered frame, wires running to the trigger strip I lay across the floor. Anyone trips it, the blast will tear them—and half the doorway—into fine red mist.

The second I set further back, angled to catch anyone trying to duck the first. Overkill’s better than dead.

I stand, flexing my claws, and glance back at her. Still watching. Still silent.

That calm is going to be the death of me.

I leave her where she is—gagged, wrists bound, tethered to a rusting pipe thick enough she couldn’t wrap her arms around it even if she tried. One solid knot in the cable, double-looped. Not going anywhere.

The look she gives me as I stand is the same as before. Calm. Still. Like she’s nailed to the floor with invisible spikes.

“Stay put,” I mutter, knowing damn well she couldn’t do anything else even if she wanted to.

The air outside is hotter, heavier. Smoke and dust mix into a burnt-metal taste that sticks to the back of my throat.

I step over bodies—their armor still faintly warm—and pick my way through the wreckage of the street.

The mech’s path is clear in the gouged ground and twisted steel, a straight line of slaughter.

I need comms. Intel. A scrap of something that tells me where friendlies are, where the next strike’s coming, or just… anything worth carrying.

I get nothing.

The first body I kneel beside has no helmet, no head. His chestplate’s split wide open, and the stink of roasted flesh rises in a wave that makes my eyes water. His pack’s half melted.

The second’s worse. I roll him over and find his torso hollow, like something scooped him out. No gear worth taking.

Half a block away, I find what’s left of a Coalition drone, its smooth shell split in three like a cracked egg.

Wiring spills out in snarls, and the scent of burnt circuitry lingers, sharp and acrid.

I strip the panel anyway, checking for a working comm relay.

Nothing. Dead. Just like everything else here.

By the time I circle back, my claws ache from gripping my rifle too hard. My legs feel like lead. My chest… well, that’s heavier still.

The bar’s as I left it. My barricade’s untouched.

She’s shifted a little, turning so her back’s against the wall instead of the pipe, knees bent, ankles crossed. She didn’t even try the bindings.

That… bothers me.

“You not even gonna pretend to make a run for it?” I ask, stepping inside.

Nothing. She just looks at me.

Frustration boils under my skin, but it’s not all for her. It’s for the way my hands shake when I reload. For the way the ash in my lungs feels like it’s carved a hole in me. For the way my brother’s last breath sounded like the start of a word he never got to say.

I slump onto a stool, the metal groaning under my weight. My rifle rests across my knees.

“Lakka,” I say out loud. My voice sounds wrong in here—too loud, too rough. “Guess it’s just me now.”

I pick at the edge of my gauntlet, pretending it’s easier to talk if I don’t look at her.

“You were always the good one. Always said I’d get myself killed mouthing off. Well, joke’s on you. You’re the one in the dirt, and I’m still breathing.”

The words burn, and I keep going anyway.

“I should’ve been there. Closer to you. Should’ve seen it coming. Hell, maybe I did see it coming and just didn’t move fast enough.”

The silence from her corner presses in.

I turn my head toward her, narrowing my eyes. “Maybe it’s her fault. Maybe she’s the reason we walked into a godsdamned meat grinder. Maybe she was your lookout, huh? Maybe she’s the reason you’re?—”

“I didn’t do it.”

Three words. Quiet. Steady.

They hit harder than anything she could’ve screamed.

Her voice is softer than I expected, but it’s not weak. There’s no quiver, no plea. Just… truth. Or what she wants me to think is truth.

I don’t answer.

My grip on the rifle tightens, and for a long moment I consider standing, crossing the floor, ending this before it can tangle me up any worse.

But I don’t.

Instead, I sit there, in the ruined bar, with her breathing slow and even in the shadows.

And I watch her.