I was sleeping on the floor. We had been ordered to stay here since the conquest of the city, two weeks having already passed. I didn't know what the Military Junta was thinking, but it was surprising that there had been such a rush for us to conquer this city and now they just made us sit on our backsides for two weeks. Were they expecting an enemy offensive?
I stood up, the sun was still hidden but the streets were so illuminated that I could clearly see everything as if the sun was directly above me.
If they were expecting an attack, then why hadn't we received an order to fortify our position? We just had the city structure for our defense, no trenches, no sand bags. Maybe we had solved our logistics problems but I could see now that our superior officers were incompetent as fuck. Two weeks to solve the logistics problems, we are expecting an offensive, and we are not preparing defenses?
That's madness.
I started to walk over the paved streets of the city, my hands were shaking and not from the cold. I scowled as I hid my hands in my coat. To show weakness now would be a mistake, I am a replaceable tool, member of a penal division. If my service was considered unnecessary they probably wouldn't spare the cost of moving back to prison. So I would either become a prostitute like some female prisoners that had come here one week ago or I would be killed. Neither option was good for me.
Hiding my weakness was my only option in the view of how little value I had for my superiors and how incompetent they were.
I reached where Yuli was sleeping, he was using his coat as a blanket and his bag as a pillow. As an officer he could sleep in a hotel requisitioned by the officers of the Division, but for some reason he preferred to sleep with the company. It was surprising for me, why would a man decide to be in such a situation by choice? If I was in his position I would be sleeping in the hotel.
Still, as much as I felt he was stupid, I felt something similar to respect for him. It took guts to sleep with your troops, more when they were criminals that were recruited as soldiers.
I thought twice about it, was it worth it to wake up Yuli? He could get angry at me for interrupting his sleep without a real emergency going on… Still, if we were defending this city from a possible attack, staying here without preparing a defense would mean our death.
Yuli… I believe he is a warmaniac, but he is also a rational person. He has heard my suggestions and applied them. I have met many officers in my second life, few would accept suggestions from their subordinates even when they were good suggestions.
"Captain-Commissar" I said, poking him a little bit with my shaking hand, only to hide it when he was about to wake up.
"What is it?" He asked, half asleep, "Are we under attack?"
"No… it's just that I realized that we are likely here to defend the city against an enemy offensive – not to prepare defenses would probably mean our death. I wanted to ask you for permission to take over the company and start preparing defenses in our sector."
Yuli put away his coat that acted as a blanket and sat on it, to avoid getting his ass cold from the pavement, I had done similar things many times.
"Well, it is true that we expect an offensive, but nothing has happened so far. I don't know if it will actually happen. Wouldn't it be bad to tire the company for an offensive that might not happen?" He asked. I believe his question was genuine, but it made him look like a fool or a incompetent. Yet I would never dare to say that openly to someone that has gifted me a chocolate cake.
"I once read in a book…"
"O, here we go again, I will start buying you books! Seems you are an avid reader!" He laughed.
I rolled my eyes. It felt almost like I should be ashamed of how many times I have said the phrase – I once read in a book –.
"Do you want to hear it or not?" I asked, a laugh almost escaping my mouth.
"Yeah, enlighten me."
"Murphy's Law, 'If something can go wrong, it will go wrong'. Precautions save lives at the expense of sweat. Is it worth it to be tired for two days and to have an extensive trench system to cover us from enemy artillery? In my opinion, yes, because even if our efforts prove pointless, if Murphy's Law is true, then the moment we don't prepare trenches we are killing ourselves through inaction."
Yuli sighed, standing up and taking his coat with him, clothing himself for the cold night he looked at the sky – ugly clouds, rain might be on the cards, sooner or later.
"Good girl," he praised, throwing something at me. I didn't process that but my body acted by itself, grabbing the thing he threw at me from the air. When I looked, I saw it was a chocolate bar, I rapidly opened it and smelt the sweet chocolate.
"Thank you Captain-Commissar!"
"Just Yuli, please," he said with a tired sigh as he began to walk. I walked by his side slowly eating the chocolate, very small bites to enjoy the moment for as much time as I could. This treat was something I might not see again for years so this moment had to be taken slowly.
"Sir, I am your subordinate, I don't thin…"
"Then it's an order – call me Yuli."
I nodded as we continued to walk. Soon we were with the rest of the company, many were sleeping and some others were patrolling. Slowly the civil life returned to the city and from time to time a civilian could be seen walking in the street. It was difficult for many to comprehend how people could live their lives in a city that was so near to war… But humanity had the trait of being able to adapt to any environment, and as sad as it sounded, humans adapted fast to war.
"What types of fortifications should we do?" He asked me as I finished the last bit of the chocolate bar. I thought about whether it was undignified to lick the remaining chocolate from the wrapping, but considering I wouldn't see one of these for a long time I didn't hesitate in licking the chocolate from the plastic, only to throw the plastic to the floor once finished.
"The outskirts of the city are in a good defensive position, but right in front of us is lacking," I pointed, one kilometer ahead there was a hill that prevented us from seeing anything. "We should make a defensive outpost on that hill. A system of trenches not only for ourselves, but for the Burias, it would be the first line of defense and would help us to hit our enemies before we are in their range of fire. To have the high ground is always to our benefit."
Yuli looked to the hill, "I believe the ground in this province is very hard, to dig ourselves into this position will make our troops too tired, and if they attack before we are done we might very well have condemned ourselves to fight in a weaker position against the enemy."
He had a point. I looked around to see if I could solve that problem but there was apparently nothing of use in this street…
I then noticed an announcement, very high, almost impossible to read, but I saw it like it was an inspiration. A construction company promoting itself with this advertisement, they showed heavy machinery on the poster – excavators, bulldozers.
"I've got an idea," I commented as I smiled a little bit. Yuli followed my eyes and saw where I was looking.
"I see you are very easy to inspire."
"I prefer to call myself a person able to adapt to situations." I replied, as I noticed my hands shaking again, hiding them in the coat I smiled.
"I think you need to contact the General for the nationalization of some heavy machinery."
"I guess so," laughed Yuli as he began to walk to the hotel where the officers stayed. "Get some sleep, tomorrow in the morning we are going to be digging some trenches!"
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Octavio Ortorio woke up in his high quality bed, covered in silk blankets, the workers of the hotel were already cleaning the room as he woke up, minutes later another worker appeared with a table of food.
"This is the life," said Ortorio with a smile as he enjoyed the food and the commodities of the Hotel. The TV was on, showing the news of the war. Apparently, Tarkin had been a double agent of the Emperor Anakin Skywalker and had betrayed the palpatinist, killing most of the enemy's fleet. The news was good but it didn't matter for the civil war of this planet which was going on separate from the rest of the civil war. In other news, the Separatists were launching a counter offensive to recover their lost territories and for now the Clone Legions were holding their ground with support of the local armies.
How much Ortorio wished that a Clone Legion could have been on this planet – the civil war would have been over in three weeks. But there were not enough of them and the Galaxy faced two civil wars at the same time. What was a planet compared to the Galaxy?
He finished his breakfast and left the room without caring to turn the television off. He walked through the golden and red decorated corridors and after reaching the first floor he sat in one of the couches. Dozens of officers were talking in the hall, civilians entered from time to time but they weren't paying close attention. Almost as if they weren't at war.
One of the captains near Ortorio laughed at one of the General's jokes, only to start talking about how the stupid prisoners that were in the vanguard were digging up the hill. Apparently most of the companies that were the actual defense of the city had coordinated themselves under Captain Yuli to build a defensive line. That took Ortorio by surprise. What was his stupid friend doing now?
He stood up and sighed with discomfort. For some reason his friend had been more interested in hanging out with these lower beings that are the convicts than with the officer corp these last few weeks. Imagine preferring sleeping with them rather than sleeping in the hotel! Madness indeed.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As Ortorio approached the hill in the outskirts of the city he saw thousands of men and much heavy machinery terraforming the hill. The new prisoners sent to replace the casualties were waiting in the outskirts of the city, not knowing what to do, while the apparently now veteran prisoners were part of the construction effort.
Ortorio spat on the floor and began to walk through the grass as he left the pavement behind. There were already holes finished in the ground, apparently there were holes connecting the hill with the outskirts of the city. Inside these holes wooden blankets were put on the sides of the earth, making walls where before there should be dirt. All this effort for what? Why defend outside of the city? It was stupid.
He began to climb the hill, he saw civilians mixing cement on the skirt of the hill and trucks going uphill with materials. When he reached the hill he then saw the true nature of this defensive construction. More than a hundred concrete structures were all around the hill with machine guns mounted on them – they had been re-utilized from the enemy defensive lines on the other side of the city. These concrete placements were all connected by trenches; almost randomly there were big holes for some unknown purpose, bushes had been placed almost all over the hill, where before there was grass now almost everything was covered in a forest of bushes. From pure curiosity he walked inside of one of the trenches, at one point he saw a hole entering inside the hill. With curiosity he entered and saw after some seconds two men digging down, on their back they had their rifles with a piece of plastic over the barrel and a knife for some reason connected to the end of the barrel.
"What are you doing?" Asked Ortorio.
The two soldiers were surprised and turned around, but when they saw that the man that had surprised them was an officer on their side they relaxed.
"We are building a tunnel to create a machine gun nest inside the hill as we have been ordered sir."
He looked to see if he could identify which company they were from but he couldn't tell as they had their coats and shirts off due the heat inside the tunnel.
"Which regiment are you from?"
"The third one sir."
He knew the colonel of the third regiment, he was a man that didn't care about his troops as long as they accomplished his orders.
"Who ordered you to do this on your patrol?" Asked Ortorio.
"Sir, this is not my patrol duty time, this is my rest time."
Ortorio took a second to understand his words.
"Why would you be doing this?"
"Because the first platoon says it, and they know how to handle things. If they say that this will help most of us to survive, then I guess those psychopaths are right. What is a little bit of sweat compared to dying? Ain't I right?" Said the man to his companion, who nodded.
"Aye to that."
Ortorio just nodded, signaling them with this hand to continue, he left the hole and returned to the trench. Walking off the extensive defense he saw soldiers of almost all regiments working in here.
Maybe all of them were working only by pure survival instinct?
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuli looked to his left as Tanya was hamstering a bar of chocolate, they had been digging for hours together with the troop and finally now they had time to rest. He had his coat and shirt off and used his hat to cool himself, using it as an improvised fan. Tanya also enjoyed Yuli's work to create a breeze as she was right next to him, head on his shoulder.
"Hey captain, Thank you!" Screamed some soldiers as they approached, they had a cold beer in their hands. After every work shift a man had the right to one cold beer. He took a loan from the planetary bank in order to be able to buy so many beers. The supermarkets of the city saw in him their salvation from bankruptcy and offered him discounts if he bought in big quantities.
He was economically bankrupting himself in order to keep the troop happy, and didn't even know how many years it would take him to pay things back. Was it worth it? Seeing all the happy faces on these people, it was worth it. Maybe they were criminals, but they were also humans.
He took a cigar out of one of his pockets and started to smoke it. The sweet flavor of this local plant was more comforting than the smoking per se.
"It smells, well, it's weird," said Tanya
"Wanna?" Yuli offered.
"No, thank you"
"Why not?"
"It's bad for your health."
"What? No, where have you heard that bullshit? Look" He said, breaking the cigarette, "It's all organic and smells good."
"Well, lung cancer and all that."
Yuli raised his eyebrows and then proceeded to laugh. "Girl, you are on the frontline all day, risking your life, you almost killed yourself saving me. And you care about a five percent risk of possible cancer? Don't make me laugh. Trust me, take one" he said, throwing the broken one to the ground and taking two, one for Tanya and one for himself. She accepted it but she didn't know what to think. Her shaking hands put the cigar in her mouth and then hid again in her pockets. He ignited the cigar for her and she took a deep breath of it, only to almost cough to death.
"You idiot, not to the lungs, just in the mouth," he screamed, putting his hands on Tanya to stop her falling. Once she stopped coughing, she tried once again, this time keeping the smoke in her mouth and then throwing out the smoke. At first she didn't notice anything, but as she took more puffs she started to feel more relaxed, as she has never been since her first life. She hid her hands even deeper in her coat and started to puff it with her head on Yuli's shoulder.
For a moment she almost started to cry for how relaxed she felt. But then Ortorio appeared.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Asked Ortorio with an almost angry tone, where Yuli saw happy soldiers Ortorio saw undisciplined penal soldiers.
"A little bit of smoking, ain't killing anyone, am I?" Yuli answered with a smile on his face as the smoke escaped through his mouth as he laughed a little bit.
"I mean this entire hill, what are you building here?"
"A fortress? Octavio, I thought you had eyes all this time, but it seems I was incorrect."
Ortorio couldn't understand where Yuli got the guts to speak like that, he always had been a coward that treated his inferiors like shit. A person that only cared for himself and treated all his friends as if they were his personal bosses. Did he get brain damage in the battle and now had changed personality?
"Are you brain damaged? Stop acting like an idiot and tell me who gave you permission to build this useless fortification."
"The General, of course."
Tanya didn't interfere in this discussion, as she was entering her internal world while smoking. She wanted to drink alcohol and black out, she wanted to smoke herself into a relaxed puddle. All her life being stoic and proud, only for that being destroyed by a few moments of happiness. There is a limit to how many years of stress a person can support. Sometimes it is only momentum that allows a person to continue, constant stress, constant moving. Only when you stop you crash.
"Why hasn't he informed anyone else?"
"I dont know and is not my problem, he is probably fucking some kids or something, heard that he likes young ones."
The last part was with clear hate to his superior, a clear show of not caring of insulting his superiors. The Yuli that Ortorio knew was not here anymore. He was a different person.
"What happened to you?" He asked, genuinely surprised.
"What do you mean?"
"You have never been like that?"
"Like what, competent? I guess hearing the suggestions of my little assistant here has made me more competent than I actually am. To think that she is worth ten times me… it showed me some humility, maybe you should try it too."
"See, that again, to insult me like that."
"Insult? when have I insulted you?"
Ortorio tried to answer but didn't know how, so he just remained silent.
"You believe I have changed – that's true, but does it matter? War changes people, maybe the reason you are not changed is because it has never affected you. Always behind lines, always hiding. It is easy to send people to die when you are in the rear. I was once a soldier, it made me a coward. Now as an officer I am in the front with my troops. It's surprising, no? I should be like you, a fucking coward that hides behind his troops and treats them like trash. I will not be like that, I will ensure that as many soldiers can survive this war."
"Survive for what? To become prisoners again after the civil war ends? You are just giving them false hopes!"
"False hopes of what? I just allow them to live, and to live the best way possible in the situation. I give them no hope, just the possibility to live."
"Fucking idiot." Said Ortorio, leaving the trench, to which Yuli only smiled.
"Maybe the idiot is you," he said in a low voice. He looked to his left and saw Tanya smoking as fast as she could. He sighed, she was in her inner world again. It happened to her sometimes.
He put his left hand on her head and started to caress it, taking her out of her inner world.
"What did he want?" She asked, without dropping the cigar out of her mouth.
"He was just bitching around… might I ask you something?"
"Yes, what is it?" She asked.
"If you had the opportunity to run and escape from this system… to be free, would you take it?"
Tanya looked directly to him, as much as they had gotten close he was still the captain commissar. She couldn't be honest.
"I would never escape…"
"You know that after the war you will become a prisoner again, no?" He said, in an attempt to make Tanya ask him for help to run away. He had a friend in one of the space ports, he could get her out of the planet and be a political exile in one planet. It would be the minimum he could do for her. But he couldn't say it to her directly, for if he did someone could denounce him and that would mean he would be arrested.
"Then I hope the war never ends."
Her answer took him completely by surprise, but… if she had given up the idea of being free. It made sense that she wanted the war to continue forever, for she would be almost free if she stayed in the penal division. As much as the idea was horrific, he could understand it.
"Who knows, maybe one day you will outrank me, and then they will give you freedom."
"I doubt it." Tanya took the hands out of her pocket and saw them shaking, "Life is about suffering constantly and living through it because it is your basic instinct. Only a few have the good luck to live as they want. Me wanting to reach the rank of an officer, even outranking you, it's just a dream, for I am just a disposable resource for this planet as long as the war continues. If I make myself useful enough to the army, maybe I can finish paying off my debt out here instead of in the prison."
The comment she made was so depressing that Yuli lost all the idea of continuing the conversation, instead he continued to smoke the cigar while he continued to caress the head of Tanya.
"How much would it cost to pay for your liberty, do you know it?" Yuli asked.
"Four million credits" She said, with a sad tone of voice.
Yuli nodded, he was too poor to buy her liberty, and she would never escape by herself… It felt almost as if fate was impossible to change, as if after this war she was condemned to return to be nothing but a number in a jail and he to be a officer surrendered by arrogant bastards that believed in an ideology that denigrated humans into this.
That… such a genius, not only a person, but a genuine military genius, would be lost forever because of this unfair system…
It made him boil in fury.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuli bought three packets of cigars, each of sweet flavors, the chemicals involved in the plant made it change flavors, but he always preferred the sweet ones even if it was promoted as made for women, and Tanya apparently started to like them too, so it was killing two birds with one stone.
As he was paying, he noticed lottery tickets in the crystal that separated the worker from him.
"How much does it cost to buy a lottery ticket?" He asked.
"Five credits."
"And how much is the prize?"
"One hundred million credits."
"I will buy three," He decided. The worker quickly entered the price in a card reader and Yuli paid for it.
Maybe, just maybe, he would be lucky, and in that case, not only would he be a millionaire but he would free Tanya.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A General looked to the endless grass as his three divisions advanced, they were forces loyal to Palpatine, or the council that now acted after his death. Some weeks ago an industrial city fell to the stupid dogs loyal to Anakin and he was tasked with recovering it. He could already see the hill, so far away that if you weren't searching for it you wouldn't notice it.
That hill showed that he was thirty kilometers away from the city. He ordered his three infantry divisions to double up the march. He would encircle the city and use siege tactics to make them surrender, it was a city and the civilian population had returned almost entirely. So they wouldn't have enough food to resist a siege of some weeks.
This victory would catapult him even further up the ranks.
When they reached two kilometers he finally realized that the hill was strange, dozens if not hundreds of cement structures were in the hill, but it was too late as the artillery fire started to fall over his three divisions.
Rapidly, he ordered all of them to charge, thousands of soldiers charged with the intention to take the hill, the artillery fire was constant and killed dozens of soldiers with each hit. When the soldiers reached one kilometer of distance, suddenly the hill was entirely illuminated in blue, as thousands of blaster shots were fired at them. Machine guns and rifles destroyed each human wave that came as close as one kilometer to the hill.
It was a complete massacre, these three divisions were the elite of the elite of the planet's armed forces, but they didn't have artillery support. And while in the face of thousands of their own dying they kept discipline, slowly the officers asked the General to be able to retreat and prepare a new attack. Yet, the general feared that if they retreated they would still be in reach of the enemy artillery. For the artillery started firing when they were two kilometers from the hill, but he knew it could reach more than ten times that distance. Which meant they were in an ambush, and either in retreat or offensive, thousands would die.
To improve the morale between the troops, he charged his vehicle forward, ordering the surviving troops to take the hill.
Even more thousands die, the human waves had to step over their dead comrades to continue running and take the hill, after three hours advancing they finally they reached the hill and jump over the trenches, only to be slaughtered like pigs as the soldiers loyal to Anakin killed them with their knives crudely attached to rifles. A desperate hand to hand combat happened all over the hill yet, of each ten combats, only one was won by the palpatinists.
Five hours after the offensive started, the General was bayoneted by a blonde girl with blue eyes, his head being exposed on top of the hill. This was the tipping point that destroyed the morale of the elite infantry of the palpatinists, who started to run away.
But they didn't survive.
This was the second battle of the city Lombi, while the first battle was won by the Anakin loyalist with eight thousand casualties and nine thousand palpatinist casualties. The second battle was a unilateral victory.
With 600 casualties on the Anakin loyalist side, and near fifty thousand on the Palpatine loyalist side.
While Tanya and Yuli celebrated an unexpected victory, the Palpanist loyalists on the planet took a special attention of the city, now believing the biggest part of the Anakin loyalist forces must be there, they sent a force big enough to defeat them in a decisive battle.
Thirty divisions marched from all over the planet in order to defeat what the Palpatine loyalists believed was the biggest concentration of Anakin forces. Without knowing that only one penal division awaited them in the city.
But who could have ever imagined one penal division could annihilate three elite infantry divisions?
No one.