I played with the pistol I had, it was unloaded and with the amount of free time I had I was trying to do the movements of the pistol I saw so many years ago in the cowboy movies. Yet, as much as I tried, my hands didn't help a lot in trying to do these movements. I didn't know what I had but I theorized that it was a problem in my head. Most probably post-traumatic tremors…
The pistol fell off my hands and landed in the dirt, I sighed and leaned in order to recover it. But then I saw the remaining blood of one of the enemies that died here. The battle that happened three days ago was a bloody one and since then I haven't seen Yuli. Apparently his presence was constantly requested by the General.
I sighed and took the pistol, putting the gas magazine on and putting it back in the holster. It was clear that I was not going to master the ability of looking cool while holding a pistol, it was better to spend the time instead walking and ensuring that the hill was in optimal condition.
I took a cigarette from my leg pocket and ignited it with a cigarette lighter, the flavor of this parody of tobacco was like mango. It smelled nice and it made me feel relaxed. Probably the only reason for me to smoke it was the sweet flavor and smell that it left behind.
"Good morning Lieutenant Degurechaff!" Said the penal soldiers as I walked by their side. I had my hands in my coat, hidden from everyone's eyes, the cigarette was held by my lips and I puffed without the need of my hands.
Nodding my head to show them that I have heard them I continued to walk. The trenches were magnificent. But they were not perfect, there were no bunkers where to sleep, there was no draining system in case it rained, in order to protect from artillery fire it should have been deeper. Also, the lack of mines and barbed wire left the trench too vulnerable to mass wave attacks…
I continued to walk, reaching one of the towers, an improvised durasteel tower that had the objective of discovering when the enemies were approaching. Two men that could count and have basic math knowledge would take four hour turns to keep constant vigilance and in case that there was an attack they were in charge of telling the Buria operators where to fire.
I took my hands off my pockets and started to climb the ladders to the tower – the smoke of the cigarette danced around me as I moved and puffed at the same time. After a few uncomfortable seconds I reached the top of it, and there were two soldiers sitting and looking into the distance.
"Good morning boss," greeted the pair of them. For some reason I didn't understand some of them had started to call me boss; maybe it was because I was so close to the Captain-Commissar. He was also called boss even if his rank was captain. Back then I tried to enforce discipline but he said that it was okay for them to call him boss.
If it wasn't for that, I would have kicked the balls of every soldier that called him or me "boss".
I looked around as I nodded to answer back. Everything looked right – the two chairs were made of plastic, the marks of cigarettes were all around the tower, also some cups with dried-out caff stains in them. To be in the tower was a boring task but a very important one.
"Seems everything is alright," I still had to master the art of talking while smoking without making the cigarette drop, but the phrase I said was understandable enough for them to nod.
"Also, the bayonets are in their sheaths instead of on the guns. If you want you can take a little bit more of caff or cigarettes in the warehouse. But only one can go – the tower always has to be occupied."
Both men looked happy for the gift, one of them even laughed. "Thank you boss"
"It ain't nothing, good work receives good compensation. Keep it up."
With that I left the tower and continued my vigilance of the hill; everything seemed to be fine. I remember how problematic it was when I first implemented the idea of bayonets. The soldiers had put them on their guns directly and walked everywhere with their rifles on the back and the bayonet on. It was a miracle no one was killed or seriously wounded.
"Crazy eyes!" Someone shouted, I looked to the front and saw my bald, gay, gorilla of a friend.
"Hey! How you doing?" I said, approaching him, he had his right hand bandaged as he'd been wounded in the battle of the hill. For a moment I believed he died but he stopped the blaster shot with his right hand. They said to him that for two hundred thousand credits of debt they could get him a mechanical one. He said no back then and I was surprised, for he was right-handed.
"You know, learning to use the left hand. Is real tough shit," he laughed as he approached me, putting his left hand on my head. "Smoking huh? I thought you hated it, it seems now you are addicted," he continued.
"I can quit whenever I want, it is just a stress reliever." I said, taking a puff and letting the smoke slowly abandon my mouth, it looked almost as if I was a chimney.
"You even sound like a smoker now!" He laughed. "Have one extra for a wounded comrade?" He asked and I sighed, how insolent this bald gorilla could be? I don't even know why I should tolerate him. I should definitely abandon him at the first chance.
"Yes, take one," I said, lifting my leg so he could open the pocket and reach for a cigarette. He then took his own cigarette lighter and lit it up.
"You shouldn't do that to another man, you know, I like dicks so I wouldn't get interested in you, but any other man could get bad ideas from you if you do that" He said, laying his back to the wood blankets that acted as walls in the trench. I did the same.
"I wish a man or a woman would get interested in me." I laughed, "If possible with lot of money to pay for my freedom"
"And what would you give in exchange for that money?" He asked, to which I raised my shoulders because it was obvious.
"The marriage itself is what I would give them. If a person is so desperate to pay the debt of a prisoner and marry that prisoner then it is clear that I am itself the good they are receiving. I get freedom, they get a wife. I see it as a perfect deal, in fact, in a perfect world marriages would make more sense if they were made with the basic understanding of economic trade."
"And what about love?" He asked.
I looked to the sky, there were some clouds and it was sunny, the blue colour was beautiful and it reminded me of the times I was with Visha… Something dark then filled my heart.
"Love doesn't exist" I answered, as I continued to puff. "For thousands of years humanity has invented things in order to feel well. One of those inventions is love"
I spit out my cigarette because it was done and looked at Trut.
"That's…a little bit drastic, don't you think?"
"Drastic? In what sense? Do you believe love exists? Is there a scientific investigation that confirms that love exists? It doesn't. You can feel attracted to a person for psychological needs like attention and company or because of physical needs like fucking or sensing the warmth of a human on your body. Wait, I actually believe the last one is also a psychological need. It doesn't matter anyway, love doesn't exist. It is just a lie like the existence of God or Karma"
"You can't just say that love doesn't exist, even non-human species have it! You are saying to me that thousands of societies and species have love, and somehow it is all a lie that everyone agreed to believe in? Including societies that have been isolated since the start of existence. Like, I don't think you can find a single society that doesn't believe that love exist"
"Every species and society has believed or still believes Gods exist. The difference is that once science replaced God we rapidly forgot him, only the most traditional species still believe in them. The day the sensation of love can be replaced by science, it too will be forgotten"
Trut sighed, "You are so weird, girl." He said with a sad tone of voice.
I frowned a little bit and sighed. I might have believed in love back in my second life, but not after Visha rejected me, laughing at my declaration of love, believing it was a joke… It took me months to get enough courage to say it, only for her to crush it, and with it my self esteem for months.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuli drank with his general and fellow officers, he was surrounded by people that were asking him questions of how he knew and how he did it. All of them called him crazy and now they wanted to gain his favor. But it wasn't that aspect that made him feel the need to puke. It was the General, the General looked so pleased with himself that it was outrageous.
The General saw in Yuli an investment he took and an investment that paid off greatly. Because while he explicitly said that it was Captain Yuli who prepared the defenses and gained the victory, it was still him, the General, that gave him the resources and listened to his advice.
All the glory that Yuli earned would forever help the General's career.
"A toast for Yuli," he said with a laugh. "Teaching those bastards a lesson"
Yuli raised his cup but without emotion or euphoria. The officers around him looked at him with suspicion and even Ortorio could not recognize his old friend in front of him.
Weeks of war, and his friend was so different that he seemed like a stranger who shared the same name.
The general looked at the officers, and repeated himself, insisting the rest follow his toast, the officers followed and toasted but without emotion.
"I guess that could have been worse," said the General as he drained the glass of alcohol. "It has been a rough few weeks and we haven't precisely had a great start, but we are here alive and we have won not only a great victory in conquering this city but also in defeating the elite troops of our enemies. Stop your political schemes and your envy and enjoy the party." He said. This was not him giving a suggestion – his tone was too harsh. It was an order, an order to shut up and enjoy themselves.
Everyone expressed agreement with the order in their own way, either by starting to drink, eating or even giving a timid "yes, general".
Yet Yuli remained silent, looking at his cup; it had a brown-transparent color that made him a little bit sick. He took a gulp and drank the content completely, it burned his throat and after some seconds he began to feel a little bit drunk. It was alcohol of good quality but he was never a big fan of this sort in particular – it was too strong for him.
The party continued with everyone getting themselves drunk. The room was soon filled with cigar and cigarette smoke; the windows were closed and without ventilation it seemed as if there was fog inside the room, with every movement the smoke was altered and forced to adapt, making it look as if it was dancing. The light of the sun that came through the window made the smoke look in some sort of way beautiful. Bathing in gold the fog that filled the room.
"I have become too important in my job, and it is ruining my life," sighed Yuli to himself as he took a glass of cold water and drank it. It was humiliating for him that the ones that had called him crazy now were around him and the General constantly insinuating that he only had Degurechaff by his side because he wanted to fuck her.
He never realized back in all his years living on the planet, but it had always been like this. The people were individualistic, only caring for themselves. They treated most of the people badly and if they were prisoners there was not even a blink of mercy for them. A society that was created around the idea of promoting the individual self-interest that has pushed things to the point of legalizing slavery with the prisoner system. And no one fights against it.
Why was he here? Why did he have the right to drink, eat and smoke in this room when people far more competent than him were forced into slavery, conscripted to the war without any rights or hope for a better future.
If he could change the system, he would do it. But he didn't have that power; he was only a no-one among billions.
"I need a little bit of fresh air," Yuli said to the General, seeking his permission.
"Alright, go," the General answered. He knew that Yuli wasn't comfortable in this meeting, but he thought it was because of the envy his fellow officers had against him, not because Yuli began to hate the system.
Yuli stood up and left the room, his slow pace made it so that he took fifteen minutes to leave the hotel, but he needed that space, that time for himself. He was always surrounded by the soldiers or by the officers. He needed those minutes for himself.
He saw in the street, not caring if he muddied his coat with the dirt of the partially-destroyed pavement. Civilian life had returned and hundreds of cars flew in the skies, but he knew they would have to run away as soon as the war came.
He asked himself, why was he fighting for Anakin's side? Just because he was in the area controlled by them? Was there any logic for the people he killed, for the people he saw dying?
He fought a war for what? To keep the status quo on the planet? To continue the slavery of citizens for laws that were created in order to feed the private prisons with prisoners? To continue living in a society where they could see hundreds of fellow humans dying and wouldn't care?
He was like them once too, but since Tanya von Degurechaff saved his life, risking her own. His vision of the world rapidly changed. He never expected anything from anyone, but then an angel saved him for no reason and she didn't seek anything in exchange for saving him.
Of course, his rational mind said to him that it was her duty as a soldier. But that was a lie, she wasn't forced by any means to save him. She could have left him to die and no one would care. There was no incentive to save him as no one would pay her more money for saving him.
She saved him because she wanted to, in exchange for nothing.
That never happened in his entire life, his mother gave birth to him not because of some instinct of family but because she expected that he would give prestige and money to the family, and she made that clear every time she beat him for not doing good enough.
His father helped to raise him, not because he thought of Yuli as his kid that should be raised in good condition, but because he saw in him an investment for the future. He expected Yuli to help him economically when he grew old so he could live the life he always wanted.
This was the society he lived in. Human interactions were long ago forgotten and replaced with rational thinking. Love was a myth, sacrifice something laughable. Acting without an interest was worse than stupidity.
He remembered how he once helped a fellow "friend" of his when he was young. He had fallen to the floor and was bleeding; Yuli used his family's medical kit to heal him. His father punished him by reducing him to one meal per day for a month. Saying, why would he help another person with a medical kit that cost them money in exchange for nothing? The culture of this planet was wrong, its ideas corrupted.
What right had he to call Tanya a monster, when the society that he lived in believed that the worst version of humanity was its best form. Rational beings, without feelings that would create or destroy life just because it is rational. That helping others is something punishable. Where good intentions are met with distrust, for it is expected that everyone wants something from you.
Where your friends just will use you for their benefit, expecting you to use them for your benefit. Where your parents don't love you, but see you as an investment for their future, expecting you to have children in the future for the same reason, creating a vicious circle of hatred and resentment that is passed on from generation to generation.
Yuli put his hands on his head.
The Emperor Anakin is just another ruler that will not change anything like the thousands of rulers that came behind him. Emperor, Grand Chancellor. What is the difference when the galaxy has stagnated, and when it changes it goes from bad to worse.
Yuli lit up a cigarette and smoked, sighing in frustration.
"Fuck the Emperor, fuck this planet, fuck this galaxy."
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Day is never finished, Boss got me working, someday the army will set me free!"
Tanya hit Trut in the face with a paper fan for singing that song as he excavated the hill, with the permission of the General and Yuli, Tanya had been received the blessing to expand the trenches, including anti-artillery hide outs and sleeping areas protected from any artillery fire, together with expanding the trenches around the city. Apparently four more divisions were coming to defend the city and the General saw an opportunity to shine by showing the trench systems created by his division.
For that reason, for three days straight the soldiers of the First Penal Division had been working like slaves, with the first brigade never leaving the hill in case there was an attack.
"You take all the fun of being slaves of the government Crazy Eyes!" Laughed Trut as he turned around to see Tanya using the fan to cool herself down, the temperature was 40 Celsius and everyone was sweating entire seas.
"Songs are made to raise morale! Not to drop it!" Claimed Tanya, with a laugh as she kept fanning herself.
"You know, I can't use my right hand! Why am I working and you are sitting there watching me work? I see you are fine!" Complained the tall and strong man as he turned around, the rest of the soldiers working in creating the anti-artillery hideout turned around and laughed too. "Yes! It's unfair that you don't work!" They claimed, not seriously, just a small joke. In the weeks that they have spent together a sense of comradery was created among the members of the First Penal Division. Every soldier knew Tanya and Yuli and how much they had done in order to protect the lives of as many prisoners as possible.
"My job is to make sure that the monkeys we have don't escape. It is very taxing work, so I hope you understand that I will not help this time in expanding the trenches."
"A, alright" Said Trut, as he turned around to continue the work.
"Wait a minute – we are the 'monkeys'?!" He asked, everyone laughed, including Tanya.
For Tanya, this felt good, it reminded her of how it felt to be around the members of the 203. It was a family, and while she did not know the name of all the members of this family, she mostly didn't know anything at all about most of the members of this family. Everyone knew about Tanya, that was like an angel that helped them to survive these difficult times. It was a family, a family of criminals. But a family.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The General of the First Penal Division looked with worried eyes to the message he received from the General Staff, thirty divisions of the Palpatinist were preparing to attack his positions. He couldn't understand why this city had become so relevant for the enemy, but he soon realized that defeating their three elite divisions was something that had damaged the honor of the other side.
They were dying of success right now, and it scared him the possibility of dying here. But nonetheless he had orders, and if he escaped he would be executed, so he had to do anything in his hands to increase his chances of surviving…
In his mind immediately appeared the image of Xiure Yuli.
The no-name captain, veteran of the war against Grievous and his droid armies. That captain had become relevant for most of the division's operations and for that reason he was trusted with the creation of the defensive trenches around the city.
The General took his datapad and began to write the order to evacuate any civilian that currently resided in the city; due to the last failed attack he doubted there would be spies but it was better to be safe than sorry. A civilian – the enemy just needed a civilian constantly telling them what was happening in the city and they would be doomed. There was almost no benefit to having them in comparison to the potential danger.
The next order he wrote was his order to Captain Yuli instructing him to prepare the city's defenses, specifying that they would have a force of one hundred thousand men and the enemy would have six times that number.
The last order he wrote was to requisition all the resources in the city in order to ensure that the soldiers have capacity to prepare for the coming battle.
He would work his soldiers to death in order to survive and earn victory.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuli took a sip of lemon flavoured beer and sighed as he looked at the holographic map of the city, it had been updated with the defensive lines created beforehand by him and Degurechaff. The hill was covered in trenches and concrete bunkers, trenches connected the hill with the city, the last three days they had further expanded the trenches to the left and the right of the hill, aiming to completely surround the city. Apparently in one month they would be fighting an enemy force composed of thirty divisions.
He sighed, the General Staff wanted to bait the thirty divisions in siege warfare of the city while they advanced on all the other fronts. The war was becoming longer than any side had expected and it was showing in both the economy and the manpower shortages. There were no longer reserves on any side – all the men were in the frontlines.
One to six, being surrounded. The enemy would have artillery fire and maybe even tanks. There was no chance in hell he would survive this, but he hoped that somehow all the preparation and Degurechaff's ability in strategic and tactical warfare would save as many men as possible.
"Not only we are fucked, we are about to be raped," stated Trut as he looked at the map. He was right next to Tanya, who slapped Trut's ribs because she couldn't reach to slap his bald head.
"Manners in front of the Captain-Commissar, Sergeant Trut," Tanya admonished, as she pointed at the tall city buildings.
"We should create layers of trenches that would allow us to retire to the city. In the case that our only option is defense in depth," she said, drawing on the map with her finger. "The first defensive line should follow the trenches that we created in the hill, then a second trench line should be in the outskirts of the city itself. In the city itself though, we will need a way to create trenches, my recommendation would be to use Hesco Barriers in order to prepare the defense in the streets and use the buildings in our favor in order to put machine guns, snipers and even normal infantry"
Hesco barrier, as an American would say, god bless the Hesco Barrier, a marvelous invention of the British that knew the need of a hegemonic power like the United States to be able to deploy rapidly and with the lowest cost possible; a defense capable of handling small gun fire and explosives. A very big bag tied with wire in order to keep the form and then filled with sand and other materials. Although here the only material we have at hand is dirt it should work well, or at least she so hoped.
"What is a Hesco Barrier?" Asked Yuli, before answering himself the question. "Let me guess, another thing you read in a book?"
Tanya couldn't even answer, a little bit embarrassed she blushed. "It is not fair that I am being judged while helping you Captain-Commissar"
Trut looked with funny eyes at a Tanya he had never seen. She was always so mean, so disparaging of others. Finally he saw her feminine version and it amused him to know that not even prison could destroy the basic nature of a young girl. He assumed that in the middle of war she had gained a crush on her captain. Such a love story was beautiful, he believed.
Trut knew that even if Tanya claimed that love didn't exist, she still had that feeling.
Yuli laughed a little bit before giving her a cigarette and a chocolate bar, she accepted it but she still was a little bit annoyed as she looked at Yuli, expecting for him to light up the cigarette.
"Well, you will explain this Hesco Barrier to me later. But aren't you worried about the enemy's superior numbers?" Yuli said as he lit up Tanya's cigarette.
"Under the assumption that they are not far better led than the previous three divisions we destroyed, I am not afraid. The city is big and if they want to lay siege to us they will have to spend most of their men surrounding it. Their lines will be as thin as ours. How plain the terrain is will also help us to see where the enemy is concentrating forces – in response we would move our reserves before they would attack. Under normal circumstances I would be scared, but I have come to the conclusion that as long as we outmatch them tactically we will be able to hold. Their military theory is backwards compared to that the clones had. The hill will be our first defense to fail, probably they could outrun the following trenches but once they enter the city they will either lose or we will probably hold long enough for them to decide to retreat if they are rational enough. If my theories are true, of course, if they are untrue I fear we both will be executed by the enemy or die fighting it," detailed Tanya, returning again to her normal attitude of a rational woman.
It was almost disappointing for Trut to see his beloved cell-friend turn from a normal fourteen year old girl to a seasoned soldier of war acted rationally. But he understood that it was just how Tanya was.
He really hated this planet, but is not like he could change the planet.
"Tanya," said Yuli.
"Yes?"
"I am officially in charge of preparing the defense of the city. The General had put all his trust in me and is currently negotiating with the General Staff for more support, anything we might need, anything you believe we have to prepare for, anything you even think we should care about. Say it to me, don't believe that something that worries you is stupid, say it all to me, trust me and we will survive this."
He put his hand on Tanya's head as she puffed cigarette smoke. "Alright?" He remarked.
She looked to the map and then down, to the smoke of the cigarette and her hidden hands.
"Yes, I suppose"
She liked Yuli as her boss, it was something not needed in a work relationship like she had with him, but it definitely improved things to be friends with her superior officer and trust him as he trusted in her.
She remembered the last time she trusted her superior and was friends with them, only to quickly remember how she had to kill Rudesdorf on Zettour's order.
She abandoned those thoughts and centered again on the map.
"The defense of this fucking city will be more glorious than the defense of Stalingrad!" She shouted with determination.
"Where is Stalingrad?" Asked Yuli to Trut, to which he shrugged.
"Sometimes Crazy Eyes say things like that, you will get used to it," answered Trut.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Sept looked at the map in front of him, it would take some weeks to organize the thirty division force but as soon as it was organized they would destroy the enemy and then push to the capital of the Military Junta loyal to Anakin – finally ending this civil war. It was already two months since the civil war started, no one believed it would take so long to reach military victory. The CIS campaign on the planet lasted three months; just one month and this conflict would be worse than the droid invasion.
The holographic map slowly rotated the full 360 degrees, showing the city and the hill of the defenders. The survivors of the massacre had made maps of the city before fleeing the battlefield – it was a smart move. An incompetent general, given the rank just because he was lucky, had destroyed their elite veteran divisions that were meant to catch the attention of the enemy.
If the General hadn't died in the battlefield he would have been executed.
"Do you find something interesting, master?" Asked a woman as she bowed, she wore an office uniform and stood to his right, unblinking. She had been a prisoner once and he had bought her, changing her debt with the state to debt with him. The General looked over at the woman without any emotion.
"The city itself will be easy to conquer, the problem is that we completely lack knowledge of the enemy force's disposition. So far we know that there is a penal division present, the first one that had conquered the city weeks ago. Surprising, honestly, those prisoners. I thought they would have zero military value but it seems I was wrong"
"A man with a rifle is dangerous no matter how untrained he is," commented the maid, adding her opinion to her master's opinion.
"Well, of course you are right, but they should lack discipline and coordination. A man with a rifle is dangerous, twenty thousand men without coordination and discipline should be easily destroyed. Either the Anakin loyalists have found a way to keep discipline up, or we have underestimated the submissive attitude of the prisoners. Maybe if the war become longer we should also employ prisoners"
General Sept put his arm around the maid's hips as he dragged her closer, slowly playing with her body to his own desire as he continued to look at the map. The prisoner was intelligent, otherwise he would never have bought her, but most importantly she was a good stress reliever.
"Lets see how the enemy fights us," he said as he began to use the human girl as an object for his own needs. He was the greatest general of the planet, he defended the planet from Grievous invasion for three months until the Republic came to help them, he had the most studies and even was offered to become part of the Republic military staff but he rejected it for he preferred to live in his planet, where the rules both legal and social benefited his style of life.
The maid was an object, his soldiers were objects, all around him was something to be used by him in order to have the best possible life.
Rationally, this planet was the best one in the galaxy.