...

"Mayday. Mayday. This is Sandrisco One, we have taken extensive damage and are falling out of low orbit."

"Mayday. Mayday. This is Sandrisco One, we have taken extensive damage and are falling out of low orbit. Alert any mathematicians and prepare debris routes. Mayday. Mayday."

The repeating message was so calm, in spite of its dire content. The speaker had clearly been one of the first to evacuate, was one of the lucky people who now got to sit in higher orbit and watch the destruction, rather than being in or under it. In between his calls of “Mayday” the speaker read out long strings of useless math. Orbital routes, thruster loads, anything that was supposed to help us avoid being caught in the impact zone.

They were broadcasting exclusively on our encrypted radio channels, keeping the precious data within their military ranks. The enemy could go fuck themselves, as far as command was concerned. Eat gigatonnes of molten supersonic steel, assholes.

The problem with assholes was that it's a vague category. It's the enemy, sure, but it can also be civilians who happen to live under the debris path, or any of your own soldiers who are unlucky enough to be on leave and aren't important enough to rescue. As far as our higher-ups were concerned, I was now collateral.

If we had a mathematician with us, we could have used the encrypted radio data and found a safe escape route. They even liked to hang around the pilots when we went on leave, eager to learn the most filthy gossip they could get their hands on. Something about staring at numbers all day must make who's fucking who the math equivalent of opiates.

We probably would have at least one that wanted to tag along, if they weren't such assholes to me in particular.

I switched the radio off. The voice died in a hard fizzle. All around us people waited in a tight circle. Most of the town was here, as close as they dared to our mechs. When I shook my head there was a lot of shouting. We weren't getting any help from our unit, the long range bands were all occupied by the mayday call and we were too far for short range.

Overhead, the sky was turning a blood red color that turned my stomach. The Sandrisco was visible over the horizon, a new temporary sun as its hull started to burn in the atmosphere. The sheer distance and mass of the carrier ship was warped by the planet's curve and atmosphere, making it appear like a mirage.

It had been nothing more than a cloud when we'd gotten into town, early that morning. On a very clear and sunny day the white misty ghosts of capital ships and carriers like the Sandrisco could be seen from the ground. We'd picked this town as the location of our very limited leave as a compromise. Captain had wanted to find a spa, while I wanted to try new foods. This town, very recently taken from the enemy, was close enough to what we wanted. There wasn't a spa, but there were hot springs, and the food wasn't exactly great, but it was the right type of cuisine.

We arrived that morning, spent the time until noon soaking in the coolest of the natural hot springs, and then went into town for lunch.

Joji and Abigail helped me down from my mech's knee. They had been running the fried bun cart that I chose for lunch and we'd started talking while they prepared our food. Mostly, all there was to talk about were the ruins. a large number of scattered frames and square impressions in the landscape were all that was left of the suburban houses that once spread all over this continent. When the nearby city died, the suburbs it fed died off too. The few people that stayed became Joji and Abigail's ancestors.

“No luck.” I said, looking at Captain as she broke from the crowd to stand next to me. “They're on every channel and aren't about to shut up long enough for me to get through to our guys.”

“Okay… we’re on our own.” Captain sighed, her voice flat. “Think we can clear the impact field? Take as many as we can and run?”

“The children,” said Abigail.

“We could try, but it's a crap shoot if we're actually running towards or away from debris. Maybe we're safe here and staying is the only way to survive. Maybe leaving will get us clear. We might die either way.” I paced while I talked through the options. There was no way to know where was going to be impacted.

“Then we shouldn't separate families. If we really can't know, we shouldn't leave. It would be a logistical nightmare to evacuate without a clear safe zone,” said Joji, thumbing a bracelet nervously. His daughter had made it, which she proudly explained while we ate.

“Alright, so we stay. Me and Jingo can keep monitoring the radio, they might eventually give us some useful information, even if it's too late.”

“Go be with your families,” I said. Pushing as much reassurance into my voice as possible, despite every fiber of my being telling me to run. Get into the Minutehand, open all the pipes and get out as fast as possible, no matter that it was pointless. I knew, logically, that I could no more guarantee my safety by running then I could by staying. At least forcing myself to sit still would give the people here some reassurance. If I took off they would panic. They might spend their last few minutes worried that I’d lied to them. That I knew where safety was and had killed them all deliberately.

An alarm broke through the background noise of the departing crowd. A shrill, persistent klaxon coming from Captain's mech that only ever meant one thing. The LASR's scanning deck was much more robust that what I had in the Minutehand, and it was constantly sweeping for enemy activity. Activity it had found.

Captain was already scrambling back up to the cockpit. Joji had grabbed onto Abigail and they were both looking from Captain to me with alarm.

I knew what Captain would want next, so I was already grabbing for the counterweight release switch that would propel me back up to my cockpit. If the LASR was picking up enemy activity we needed to know if they had seen us too. There was a chance that the sensitivity the scout possessed meant that they didn't know we were here yet. I had no idea what we would do either way, but knowing was always the first step.

Flipping through the half dozen switches and searching the usual wide band frequencies yielded no results. I couldn't find whatever was coming our way, so unless they also had scanners as powerful as the LASR’s, we had the upper hand. It was up to us to dictate how contact was going to begin.

I was shouting back and forth with Captain as I went through the basic scanning checklist, while she tried to get a better sense of what exactly we could expect.

“Clear! I've got nothing!” I yelled, leaving the radio to cycle through open frequencies just in case. The local radio stations had all gone quiet with the Sandrisco's imminent crash. I almost lost Captain's reply to the noise of static and panicking voices.

“I can't determine the range. No lock on numbers, either. Density scanning’s fucked because of the atmosphere. They're coming, but I can't confirm numbers, sizes, or capabilities.” Fuck. This could be a single unit or a whole battalion.

Again, that desperate urge to run. This was supposed to be a vacation, we didn't bring anything beyond basic weapons. Hell, I'd filled my sidearm holster with spare clothes and a compact grill kit. We were not ready for hostile contact.

My radio stopped its scan automatically, having found something other than noise to listen to. It was a public frequency, unencrypted. I actually had it saved, because a few hundred miles north of here they played the kind of crunchy, amatuer guitar music that my first girlfriend used to make me listen to when we fucked. At least the commander always let me pick the playlist. I had to get out of here, I had to go back and talk to her again.

I'd gotten so lost in the thoughts of running that I hadn't processed anything the radio was saying. It was hard to make out at first, but became steadily clearer, like the source was moving closer to us.

The enemy. I turned on my external speakers and once they understood what was happening, the remaining villagers pressed closer to hear.

“This is a message from the Lady, Donnegal Strid. Attention: village of The King's Luminous Visage, we are en route with transport vehicles to perform a total extraction of the population. Our mathematicians have calculated a ninety-six percent chance that there will be a catastrophic impact event in this area. Our secure site has a seventy-eight percent safety chance and rising. We are approximately… nineteen Minutes away from arrival. Be prepared and gather on the lawn of your hospital and we will extract all present to the safe zone..” The announcement stopped for a moment, returning with a less formal tone. The Man speaking to them was almost pleading when he said, “please, let’s get everyone out safely.” The radio clicked back to static. I turned it off.

While the town was busy running for the meeting point, I climbed over onto the LASR. Captain was sitting in her chair, head leaned back and her posture slumped. She'd almost slid out of the chair entirely. Her hands were idling over the scanner array, her feet scratched at the acceleration pedals. When I dropped into a sitting position on the edge of her cockpit latch, she rolled her head to look at me. There was directed despair in her eyes. It wasn't aimed at me, but for me. She was moping for my sake again.

Captain had come to the Joint Regiment fresh out of training, in the very first wave of the war. She hadn't had time to lead much of a normal life, hadn't had real relationships or heartbreaks outside of the war. So, where a lot of other people in her position would envy us late arrivals, she instead chose to valorize. I had a kid, the commander had a wife, Dr. Lastrette had a huge family; Captain viewed these things as sacrosanct, they were what she fought for. She’d send everyone else home and fight the whole war herself if it meant that someone else got to be with their loved ones. Obviously, she was suicidal, just too loyal to actually do anything that wouldn't help the cause. Therefore, her current despair.

“Seventy-eight percent is the best our odds are gonna get,” I said.

“If I give you the LASR's power cells there's a chance you can get out fast enough-” I cut her off before she could say anything else.

“Try and think of this as a long term recon mission”

“Your daughter!”

“Isn't the one about to be crushed by a carrier ship. We don't have any other choice.”

“Jingo…”

“Shut up about me. What about you? the LASR is experimental tech, shouldn't you run?” She didn't answer me. “Right. So you get spooled up and I'll call the Lady.”

Captain, with sluggish reluctance, did as I asked.

My talk with the enemy officer was brief. He was surprised, sure, but at the end of the day we were just particularly well armed evacuees. With an agreement about non-aggression and after making me recite about a hundred different disaster related international statutes, we moved our mechs to the rendezvous point.

The whole town was gathered when we arrived. a good number of them had run home and packed large bags full of whatever it was that earth types were sentimental for. Fancy rocks, probably.

“Do you think the Lady herself will rescue us?” Joji called up to me from the ground.

“No way. She'll stay where they can guarantee it's safe. Too big for grunt work.”

“They say she isn't human.”

“You say that about us too.”

“No, like, she's a machine.” Somehow I doubted that a robot would bother sending out rescue parties to save random villagers. “Is that common in space?”

“No. You can't trust in rumors like that. Do you also think that I can shapeshift into a giant jellyfish?” That old conspiracy theory that just wouldn't die.

“It'd be cool.”

I laughed. “Yeah it would.”

The convoy had become visible on the edge of the forest. Long personnel transports and their upright mech counterparts. A few slender scout drones maneuvered silently in the air. Captain and I knelt, placing our metal hands on the ground. As per our quick discussion, they were going to let us pilot until we reached their secure site, since it would take time for their soldiers to learn our control scheme. All the vestigial zero-gravity equipment made moving on a planet more complicated. You didn't want to accidentally turn on gyro thrusters or the thing would fall over.

They rolled in with quick efficiency. Soldiers started herding everyone into the transports before anyone did anything to address us. Their mechs helped to load a few pieces of heavy equipment from the hospital adjacent to the rendezvous. They peeled back the walls and ceilings to do it, plucking the medical tech out like they were toys in a dollhouse. By the time someone came over to speak to Captain and me, almost all the villagers were loaded up.

He was the same person I'd spoken to before, the radio man. His slender face peaked out from his cockpit as soon as the square metal plating was out of the way. I waved and he nodded in return. He waited until we were chest to chest to speak.

“You understand that upon arrival to our secure site you will be taken into custody as captives? There will be no release window until we are able to negotiate one with your military.” He was trying to look apologetic, but wouldn't stop stealing hungry glances at the LASR. “We all don't have the time to quibble over that, so please confirm that you understand or leave immediately.”

“We understand.” I said it fast, before Captain tried to beg me again.

“Alright then.” He tossed me a notebook. “That's the encryption key for the comms channel we're using on this op. I'm Captain Seashore, you'll report directly to me until you're relieved of duty. There are four other villages we'll be evacuating before we're done here. I know it's odd, but we can't afford not to use you for the rescue operation. It's purely civilian, there shouldn't be any contact with your side. No conflicting interests.”

We trekked in a large circle under the reddening sky, picking up another two hundred people along the way. Seashore had us hanging back at the ass end of the convoy to avoid any confusion, but when we’d established contact with a new settlement he put us to work the same as any other pilot.

My dread, which had started to build as we waited for their arrival, was temporarily forgotten. This was work that needed to happen, no matter what side did it. Still, a part of me couldn't stop wondering who would actually get all the supplies we were taking, the villagers or the enemy army? Taking whatever they wanted was their S.O.P. after all.

We arrived at their camp late in the evening. The Sandrisco was so much larger, casting long stripes of shadow over the sky. All color had drained from the world. Everything was red. The quarry which the enemy had declared safe was crowded with mechs, transports, and people. Squatting in a giant hole was the only way to keep out of the wind. It was blowing at hundreds of miles per hour, trees were ripping from the ground and pieces of what had once been buildings had occasionally threatened to smack into us. Captain kept flexing her mech's arm, most likely remembering the last time she'd been hit by flying shrapnel.

Seashore had us set down just inside the mouth of a mine shaft, mechs in a sitting fetal position so they could be more easily strapped down. Eighty minutes until first impact, then the rest of the barrage would last all night. We were taken deeper underground, to a cramped mess hall where some engineers were still setting up additional supports for the shaft’s walls and ceiling. The random mix of civilians, officers, and rank and file soldiers betrayed how dire the situation really was. They didn't have enough space or time to maintain decorum.

“Thank you for your assistance today. You've remained commendably calm and collected given your circumstances. Please, eat and then we'll show you to your rooms.”

“And then that's it?” I asked, ignoring my fear.

“Well, first we survive this, but afterwards, yes. The military will resume its normal function and you'll be processed as her Ladyship sees fit.”

One of Seashore's men brought us our food and we ate in silence. When he'd finished scraping the last dregs out of his bowl, he looked back up at Captain and me. “They're spreading officers out in case of tunnel collapses, so I have to get moving, and we may not see each other again. Good luck, ladies.” He tapped the table twice with his knuckles and left, replaced by another man who took us to our “room.” It was constructed out of tarps and spare mech ligaments, essentially a tent. Captain sat with her back against mine and we leaned on each other. The physical contact should have been nice, but the tunnels were getting hot with all the people cramped inside. I could smell fear all around us, acrid.

It started not long after. The whole galaxy crashed down over us, shattering the land. Every star that hung in the sky must have come screaming down onto us, burning out forever in an attempt to crush us in our flimsy tent. Stars that never should have been visible at all. Their hubris was extinguishing itself on our heads. Everything shook. People screamed or sang or prayed. Dust filled the air. Sounds like explosions tore through the tunnels every so often, another tunnel just like this one, gone. It just kept going, on and on.

I couldn't possibly have slept, but I did dream. Half-conscious overstimulated visions played in my head unbidden. I was a blade of grass and my Minutehand was frolicking through my field turning everything into lifeless mud. It jumped and spun like a child playing in puddles. The LASR was on a rampage, hungry and sobbing. Captain was soothing her crying by feeding her fingers into its beating pistons, then she gave her hand, then her whole arm. She would run out of limbs before the LASR was sated. The enemy's grand tower leaned down its mighty head and took me between its teeth, while the earth held my legs with arms of soil. they pulled on my body until I smeared the sky with red viscera and the tower painted new horrors on the awful blue sky.

Fifteen hours, thirty four minutes, and fifty one seconds between first and last impacts. The Sandrisco was on the ground.

Captain Seashore never came back from the tunnel he'd been assigned to. It collapsed a few hours before the end. In the days that followed I kept thinking about how stupid it was for a surface army to use captain as a rank at all. What was he even captain of? What about such a bullshit title made him have to be the one in that tunnel? My Captain was Captain as a stupid nickname, a joke about how she didn't technically have a rank, this guy was really called Captain Seashore in a landlocked war.

Lady Strid was too busy to see us. A week passed, then two. I found the villagers we had started with, and they were so lucky to be alive. their section had collapsed, but the ad hoc supports had kept them alive long enough to be dug out, days later.

When I convinced a soldier to let us see outside, Captain wouldn't go. Once I had seen the destruction, I couldn't blame her.

Being among the enemy became routine. I finally bothered to learn their name, the Pacifica Federation. Why a federation had a king was another anachronism that bothered me. It was the only non-depressing thing I had left to focus on. The stupid idiosyncrasies of other people.

Captain was drawing a lot. They had given her a sketchbook, the only item from our personal belongings that had been returned to us. She'd done this a lot back at base too. Drawn mundane things in such a detailed hand that you could feel the objects in your hands, the weight and texture of them, just by looking. She filled pages with different angles of the LASR's cockpit chair or bottles of the oil I used to tune my Minutehand.

I took one errant page and kept it in my pocket for days on end, looking at it whenever I was alone. Captain never even noticed it was gone, just kept making new chairs. Almost in neat rows, she had filled the page with renderings of disposable cups from a chain restaurant. A specific brand, one that hadn't branched out as far as Earth yet. The drawings weren't so solid at first, as Captain remembered what shape they took and how the logo was printed on the lid, but later became picture perfect recreations. I hadn't been there in years. I hadn't seen these cups in years. I hadn't imagined I was missing them.

Tiny rough pieces of ice, always too sweet on the first drink since the syrup settled on the bottom, and a nice lingering aftertaste like station filtered water. I could taste it.