The next warband died the same way the first one died - loudly, anonymously, and at a distance.
Artillery walked the ridge in measured steps, shells landing with the patience of a man counting down something inevitable. The impacts weren't frantic. They were deliberate. Each round landed where Rus had pointed, where the math said bodies would be when panic overrode sense. The valley shook. Dust climbed into the air and stayed there, a brown-gray ceiling that flattened depth and made everything feel closer than it was.
Rus watched from the observation berm with his arms folded, helmet tucked under one elbow. His tablet glowed faintly, grids and markers updating in quiet obedience. The QTE overlay flickered at the edge of his vision with an idle awareness. There was nothing for him to do right now. The killing had already been decided by others.
Below, the bombardment ended not with silence but with a long, echoing absence. No return fire. No rallying cries. Just the sound of debris settling and fires crackling where scrub had caught.
"Greenhorns moving," someone said over the net.
Rus lifted his binoculars.
The rookies advanced in a loose line, boots crunching over scorched earth, rifles up but wavering. They moved like people stepping into a place they didn't quite believe was safe yet. Some poked at shapes with their muzzles. Others fired single confirmation shots into the ground near bodies, flinching at their own noise.
Berta leaned against the sandbags beside him, chewing on a ration bar like it had personally insulted her. "Another one done without me," she muttered. "This war's allergic to axes."
"Be grateful," Rus said. "Means fewer chances for mistakes."
She snorted. "Mistakes are half the fun."
He ignored that.
TRU moved in almost immediately after the bombardment ended, their teams slipping past the greenhorns with an efficiency that bordered on predatory. They didn't fan out randomly. They went straight to specific bodies, scanners already active, tools deployed with practiced precision.
"They don't even wait anymore," Dan said quietly from behind Rus.
"No reason to," Rus replied. "They know what they're looking for."
One TRU team knelt beside a massive orc body near the center of the impact zone. The creature was larger than most, armor scorched but intact enough to suggest it had survived the first few seconds. The TRU tech scanned, nodded, and motioned for restraints.
"Gods," Foster muttered. "That thing's still breathing?"
"Barely," Rus said. "Enough for them."
The greenhorns, meanwhile, started doing what greenhorns always did when the danger felt like it had passed.
One of them crouched near a body and posed, holding up two fingers while another snapped a picture. Another pried something from a mouth and laughed, holding it up like a trophy. A third kicked a corpse to flip it over, looking for something interesting.
Rus felt something tight coil in his chest.
He keyed his mic and didn't bother softening his voice.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
The words cut across the valley, sharp and sudden. Heads snapped up. A few rookies froze mid-motion, hands still where they shouldn't be.
Rus didn't wait.
"I said, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" he barked, stepping forward so they could see him clearly on the ridge. "This isn't a goddamn souvenir shop."
One of the greenhorns, too young, helmet tilted wrong—stammered, "Sir, we were just—"
"Just what?" Rus snapped. "Just stealing teeth? Just taking pictures? You think this is a fucking vacation?"
He marched down the berm, boots kicking up dust, voice carrying without effort.
"Those bodies are evidence," he continued. "They're biohazards. They're not your fucking socials backdrop."
A few of the rookies looked embarrassed. Others looked annoyed, like they'd been caught breaking some minor rule instead of spitting on a battlefield.
Rus pointed at the one holding the tooth. "Drop it. Now."
The kid hesitated. Rus took another step forward.
"Now," he repeated.
The tooth hit the dirt.
"Good," Rus said coldly. "Because if I see one more of you treating this like a goddamn joke, I will personally see to it that you spend the rest of your deployment cleaning latrines with a toothbrush."
Silence hung thick for a moment.
Then someone snorted.
Rus turned. "Who was that?"
No one answered.
"Yeah," he said. "That's what I thought."
He swept his gaze across the group. "You want to survive long enough to rotate out? Then you act like professionals. You clear. You confirm. You move on. You don't play dress-up with corpses."
He paused, then added, quieter but no less sharp, "And you don't forget that if it weren't for the guns behind you, you'd be lying right next to them."
That landed harder.
He turned away without waiting for acknowledgement and climbed back up to his squad.
Berta watched him approach, eyebrows raised. "You done parenting?"
"They piss me off," Rus said flatly.
"They're kids," she replied. "Kids do stupid shit."
"They do stupid shit that gets them killed," Rus said. "Or worse."
Berta shrugged. "Eh. TRU'll scare it out of them."
As if on cue, one of the TRU teams dragged a still-living orc past the greenhorn line. The creature was restrained, sedated but not fully unconscious, eyes unfocused. The sight of it, alive after everything, sucked the humor out of a few faces real fast.
One of the rookies swallowed hard. Another took a step back.
"See?" Berta said. "Educational."
Rus watched the TRU convoy roll in, armored doors opening to accept their prizes. "They're like vultures," he muttered.
"They don't eat," Kate said. "They collect."
"That's worse," Rus replied.
The greenhorns finished their sweep properly after that with less talking, more focus. Rifles came up. Bodies were checked quickly and efficiently. The line moved on.
Cyma Squad watched without much reaction.
Dan leaned on his rifle. "They'll forget the lecture in a week."
"Probably," Rus said.
Gino shrugged. "At least you yelled. Makes you feel better."
"It doesn't," Rus replied.
Foster squinted at the valley. "You think we'll ever stop doing this?"
Rus didn't answer right away.
The smoke thinned as the sun dipped lower, painting the ruined terrain in dull oranges and reds. The warband was gone. Another set of markers would be erased. Another report would be filed.
"No," Rus said finally. "I don't think we will."
Berta cracked her neck and hefted her axe again. "Then I hope the next one lets me swing."
Rus glanced at her. "Careful what you wish for."
She grinned. "Always am."
Behind them, TRU sealed their containers and departed without ceremony. The greenhorns regrouped, quieter now, the edge knocked off their bravado.
Rus watched it all with the tired detachment of someone who'd seen the pattern too many times.
Artillery. Advance. Cleanup. Lecture. Repeat.
The war kept moving.
* * *
Rus was half dressed when he gave up on sleep.
Boots unlaced. Shirt hanging loose. Vest abandoned on a chair like it had lost the argument. The prefab was too loud even when it was quiet generators humming, distant engines coughing, the bay breathing through metal and wire. The smell followed him everywhere. Cordite. Burnt earth. Something organic that refused to leave his nose.
He stepped outside looking for air that didn't feel used.
That was when he found Amiel.
She was standing near the edge of the lighting perimeter, back to a stack of containers, one foot propped against rusted steel. Helmet off. Hair tucked behind her ear. A cigarette between her fingers, ember glowing faintly like a restrained signal flare.
She didn't look at him.
Kuudere as ever.
Rus stopped a few steps away. Considered saying something. Didn't.
She took a drag. Exhaled slowly. Smoke drifted sideways and mixed with the rest of the night's stink. She angled her head slightly, acknowledging him without turning.
"…You're loud," she said.
"I wasn't trying to be," Rus replied.
She shrugged. "You walk like you're thinking."
"That's unfortunate."
She huffed softly through her nose. Not quite a laugh. Not quite not.
They stood there. Two silhouettes under floodlights. The night pressed in around them, thick with noise pretending to be silence.
Amiel smoked. Rus stared at the dark beyond the perimeter fence. The hills were barely visible now, just shapes layered on shapes. Somewhere out there were bodies no one would ever count properly.
The smell rolled in again.
Amiel spoke first. Short. Flat. "It smells awful."
Rus nodded. "Yeah."
She took another drag. "Worse than yesterday."
"Yesterday had more wind."
"That explains it."
Silence again.
Rus let his mind go blank on purpose. No QTE prompts. No overlays. No imaginary arrows telling him where to stand or what to do next. Just breathing. Just the faint sound of Amiel's cigarette burning down millimeter by millimeter.
She flicked ash away with a precise motion.
"…What will you do after this?" she asked.
He didn't answer right away. The question hung there, heavier than it sounded.
"After Galves?" he said.
She nodded once. "If it ends."
Rus considered it. Not plans. Just an image. A room without alarms. A city that wasn't provisional. A job where no one asked him to point guns at horizons.
"I'll find a quiet corner," he said. "If Libertalia decides."
Amiel absorbed that. Another drag. Another exhale.
"A corner," she repeated.
"Yeah."
She nodded again. "That suits you."
He glanced at her then. She was still looking forward, smoke drifting past her face, eyes steady and unreadable.
"What about you?" he asked.
She shrugged. "Assigned elsewhere. Probably."
"Probably," Rus echoed.
The cigarette burned low. She stubbed it out carefully against the container, grinding until there was nothing left to glow. She didn't pocket the butt. Left it there like a temporary marker.
The smell lingered.
She adjusted her gloves. "You should sleep, Boss."
"Eventually."
She stepped past him, quiet as always. Paused just long enough to speak again.
"…The silence here is worse than the fighting."
Rus didn't disagree.
Amiel walked back toward the lights, her outline dissolving into the base's motion. Rus stayed where he was, half dressed, breathing air that still smelled like death and metal.
He stared out at the dark and waited for nothing to happen.