Day 443. 04:00 hours.
Central Luzon.
The SCTEX.
Kilometer 42.
The charcoal sky had not lightened in fourteen hours, the freeze holding the dawn hostage, the sun buried behind the cloud cover that had choked the northern hemisphere since the Event four hundred and forty-three days ago. The SCTEX stretched east and west, a fifty-kilometer ribbon of cracked asphalt connecting Subic Bay to the ruins of Clark Airfield, and the highway was a graveyard.
Burned technicals lined the median, their frames twisted by artillery, their mounted fifty-cal barrels pointing at nothing, their crews reduced to charred shapes that the rain had been washing into the asphalt for two days. Mortar craters pocked the eastbound lane, some still smoking, some filled with black water that reflected nothing. A bus had been hit at kilometer 42 — a civilian bus that had been trying to reach the Angeles evacuation corridor, now a shell with its windows blown out and its roof peeled back, its passengers scattered across three hundred meters of highway in pieces that the rain was trying to bury.
The pieces were not buried. The pieces were arms and legs and torsos and heads, mixed with seats and luggage and children's backpacks, the particular debris of a bus full of civilians that had taken a direct hit from a seventy-five-millimeter mortar round fired by a Pampanga artillery battery targeting the Subic eastern column. The round had missed. The miss had killed forty-seven civilians, the explosion visible from the Subic forward position four kilometers west, a bright orange flower in the charcoal dawn that Navarro's scouts had reported and Navarro had filed and Navarro had not mentioned again because naval officers maneuvered.
— • • • —
Day 443. 05:00 hours.
Subic Forward Position.
Kilometer 38.
The SCTEX.
Captain Ricardo Navarro stood on the roof of the command technical with his binoculars raised, his fifty-three-year-old eyes scanning the eastern horizon where the Pampanga line was dug in across the highway. The binoculars were military-grade, looted from the Subic Naval Station armory on Day 6, the same armory that had given him the rifles, the mortars, the technicals, and the twelve thousand men who had followed him out of the Freeport and into the corridor to take what the mayor had and the mayor would not trade.
The Pampanga line was three kilometers east, a barricade of burned vehicles and sandbagged positions running north-south across the highway and the adjacent rice fields — the line Gutierrez had built after the fall of Clark, the line Gutierrez believed would hold, the line Navarro was going to break in two hours.
"Captain." Lieutenant Reyes climbed onto the roof, the young officer's boots finding the rungs, his rifle slung, his face gray with exhaustion. Reyes was Navarro's son, twenty-six, a Navy ensign before the freeze, now a combat officer in a war no naval academy had trained him for. "Eastern column reports ready — three technicals with fifty-cal, two mortar teams, forty infantry. Western column reports ready — four technicals, one mortar team, fifty infantry. Reserve at Clark, six hundred, ready to advance on your order."
"The mortars — targeting." Navarro lowered his binoculars, his dark eyes finding his son.
"Eastern mortars targeting the highway barricade, grid reference seven-seven-niner. Western mortars targeting the rice field positions, grid reference seven-seven-four. Firing solutions computed, ready on your order." Reyes reported, his voice steady despite the gray in his face.
"Fuel status." Navarro pressed.
"Eastern column has six hours of fuel, western column has four, reserve at Clark has eight — total force fuel: enough for the assault and forty-eight hours of consolidation." Reyes confirmed.
'Forty-eight hours of fuel — after that, we walk.' Navarro filed, his dark eyes on the eastern horizon.
"The civilians." Navarro pressed.
"Scout reports show approximately twelve thousand civilians remaining in the corridor, concentrated in the Angeles ruins and the northern rice field settlements — the evacuation corridor collapsed yesterday, the civilians are trapped." Reyes reported, his voice flat, the officer who had learned to file civilians as data because filing them as people would break him.
'Twelve thousand trapped between us and the rice — I am not stopping.' Navarro filed, his jaw tightening beneath his gray beard before the jaw unclenched and the decision held.
"Order the eastern mortars to fire on my command — western mortars to fire thirty seconds after." Navarro commanded, his voice low, the particular voice of a man who had given orders for forty-three years and who had never given orders like this. "Eastern column advances on the fire, western column flanks south through the rice fields, reserve holds Clark until the line breaks, then advances to exploit."
"Copy." Reyes confirmed, his hand finding the radio.
Navarro raised his binoculars. The Pampanga line. Three kilometers. The burned vehicles, the sandbags, the mayor's men behind the sandbags with hunting rifles and ex-police weapons and the particular desperation of men defending their food, their families, their rice.
'The mayor believes — naval officers know.' Navarro filed, his binoculars on the line.
"Fire." Navarro commanded.
— • • • —
Day 443. 05:02 hours.
Pampanga Line.
Kilometer 41.
The SCTEX.
The first mortar round hit the highway barricade at 05:02, a seventy-five-millimeter shell that struck a burned bus at the center of the barricade and detonated the bus's remaining fuel. The explosion lifted the chassis three meters into the air and dropped it onto the sandbagged position behind, crushing two defenders who did not have time to scream because the burning chassis landed on them and the burning fuel followed, their uniforms igniting, their bodies becoming fuel themselves, the screams coming after — the screams the defenders on either side heard and filed and did not respond to because responding meant leaving cover and leaving cover meant dying.
The second mortar round hit thirty meters north in the rice field positions, landing in a foxhole that held four of Gutierrez's civilian volunteers and converting them from men into fragments. The foxhole became a crater, the four men became a red mist that settled on the rice field and the adjacent foxholes and the faces of the defenders crouching three meters away who were now deaf and bleeding from the ears and covered in the remains of the men who had been their friends.
Sergeant Marcelo Reyes, Pampanga Militia, crouched behind the sandbag wall with his hunting rifle across his chest, his ears ringing from the first explosion, his face wet with rain and blood mist from the second. He looked at the burning chassis, looked at the crater where the foxhole had been, looked at the sandbags, and understood.
'The mortars are walking — the next round is on us.' Marcelo filed, his hands shaking on the rifle.
The third mortar round hit the barricade five meters from Marcelo, striking the sandbag wall directly, passing through the sandbags and detonating behind the wall. The blast sent sand and bodies and rifle parts into the air, killing three defenders instantly, wounding five more, opening a gap in the barricade six meters wide.
Marcelo was not killed. Marcelo was not wounded. Marcelo was on his back in the mud three meters behind the barricade, his rifle gone, his ears silent, his vision a spinning gray, and he could feel something warm on his face and he did not know if it was rain or blood and he did not care because the gray was filling his head.
'Get up — move.' Marcelo's mind screamed, but his body did not move, and the gray took him, and Marcelo lay in the mud with the rain falling on his face and the mortars falling behind him and the line breaking above him.
The fourth round. The fifth. The sixth. The eastern mortars walking the barricade, each round finding a new section of sandbags, each round opening a new gap, each round converting defenders into fragments and mud and silence. The western mortars walking the rice fields, the rounds landing in foxholes and trenches, converting civilian volunteers into red mist and crater water.
The barrage lasted four minutes. In four minutes, the Pampanga line ceased to exist as a defensive position. The barricade was a series of burning gaps. The rice field positions were a series of smoking craters. The defenders who survived were falling back, running west through the mud, throwing their rifles away because the rifles were heavy and running was more important than fighting because fighting was dying.
The eastern column advanced.
— • • • —
Day 443. 05:06 hours.
Subic Eastern Column.
Kilometer 39.
The SCTEX.
Lieutenant Reyes led the eastern column from the lead technical, his hand on the mounted fifty-cal, his body braced against the vehicle's roll bar, his dark eyes on the barricade that was burning three hundred meters ahead. The technical accelerated, the engine roaring, the tires finding the cracked asphalt, the fifty-cal swinging on its mount as the gunner tracked the burning barricade for targets.
The targets appeared. Pampanga defenders, running west through the gaps in the barricade, their rifles gone, their uniforms burning, their bodies bent double as they ran. The gunner opened fire.
The fifty-caliber rounds crossed the three hundred meters in less than a second. The first rounds struck the asphalt, throwing sparks, walking up to the running figures. The rounds hit the first figure in the back, the heavy bullets punching through the man's torso and exiting through his chest in a spray of red that the rain could not wash away fast enough. The man dropped, his legs still running for two steps after his torso stopped — the particular physics of a body hit by fifty-caliber rounds at three hundred meters.
The second figure fell. The third. The fourth. The fifty-cal walking the running men, each burst finding a body, each body falling, the technical closing the distance, the gunner adjusting, the kills stacking.
'Twelve — thirteen — the gunner was trained to shoot boats, and he is shooting men.' Reyes filed, his hand on the roll bar, his body braced, the officer who had never killed a man before today and who was now watching thirteen men die and who was filing the number and moving on.
The technical reached the barricade at 05:08. The burning chassis was still burning. The sandbags were scattered. The gap was open. The eastern column poured through — three technicals and forty infantry, advancing into the Pampanga rear that was supposed to be defended and was not because the defenders were running or dead.
"Through — we are through, the line is broken, the rice is ours." Navarro's voice came through the radio, the captain listening from the command technical four kilometers west.
"Western column, advance, flank south — reserve, advance to Clark, exploit." Navarro commanded, his voice low, the warlord maneuvering.
— • • • —
Day 443. 05:30 hours.
Pampanga Rear.
Kilometer 43.
The Angeles Ruins.
Mayor Antonio Gutierrez stood in the ruins of the Angeles municipal building with his boots on the broken concrete and his hands on the map table that his staff had set up in what had been the mayor's office before the freeze, before the war, before the mortars had started walking his line at 05:02.
The map showed the line. The line was red. The red was moving west. The red was his men dying.
"Mayor — the line is broken, the barricade is gone, the rice field positions are gone." Captain Dela Cruz crossed to the table, the ex-police officer's face gray, his uniform muddy, his rifle slung. "We have lost approximately two hundred defenders in the first thirty minutes. The eastern column is through. The western column is flanking south. The reserve is advancing from Clark."
'Two hundred in thirty minutes — I told them the line would hold, and I lied.' Gutierrez filed, his hands on the table, his jaw tight.
"The artillery." Gutierrez pressed, his voice flat.
"Eighteen rounds per gun remaining — we fired six in the initial exchange, twelve per gun remaining." Dela Cruz reported. "The guns are in the rear, but the Subic eastern column is advancing on the rear. If the guns do not move, they will be captured within the hour."
"Order the artillery to fall back to the granary — all guns, all ammunition." Gutierrez commanded, his eyes on the granary compound fifteen kilometers west. "Order the remaining defenders to fall back to the San Fernando line, ten kilometers west. We hold San Fernando. We hold the granary. We hold the rice."
"The civilians." Dela Cruz pressed, his voice careful.
'Twelve thousand in the corridor — if we fall back, they die.' Gutierrez filed, his hands on the table, his eyes on the map.
"The civilians will have to find their own way west." Gutierrez declared, his voice flat. "We cannot hold the corridor and fall back. We cannot protect the civilians and save the rice. The rice feeds my people. The civilians are the cost."
'God forgive me — the math favors the rice.' Gutierrez filed, his jaw tight.
"Copy." Dela Cruz confirmed, his voice flat.
— • • • —
Day 443. 06:00 hours.
The SCTEX.
Kilometer 44.
The Angeles Evacuation Corridor.
The evacuation corridor had been a road — the only route west for the civilians of Angeles, the civilians who had been told to evacuate, the civilians who had walked west with their children and their grandmothers and their suitcases and their dogs because the mayor had said the corridor was safe.
The corridor was not safe. The corridor was a kill zone.
The Subic western column had flanked south at 05:10, four technicals and fifty infantry moving through the rice fields to cut the evacuation corridor and seal the Pampanga retreat. The western column reached the corridor at 05:45, the technicals deploying across the road, the fifty-calibers aimed west at the stream of civilians still walking west, the civilians who did not know the corridor was sealed.
The first civilians to reach the western column were a family — a man, a woman, and two children, the man carrying a suitcase, the woman carrying the younger child, the older child walking between them. The family had walked three kilometers from Angeles and was now looking at four technicals and fifty men with rifles blocking the road.
The man raised his hand. The man opened his mouth to speak. The fifty-cal fired.
The family disappeared. The rounds hit the man first, punching through his torso and through the woman behind him and through the child behind her, converting the family into a red spray that settled on the road and the suitcases and the dogs that had been walking with them and that were now running in circles, barking, the dogs that did not understand what had happened to their people.
The western column did not stop. The fifty-cals walked the road, finding the civilians who were two hundred meters behind the first family, the civilians who had heard the shooting and were now turning to run east, caught between the western column behind them and the eastern column advancing from the east.
The civilians died in the corridor. They died on the road, in the rice fields, with their children and their suitcases and their dogs. They died because the corridor was a kill zone and they were in it and the Subic column was not going to open it.
'Three hundred — the corridor is sealed, the retreat is cut.' the western column commander filed, his hand on the fifty-cal, his eyes on the road, the officer who had been a customs enforcement sergeant and who was now a killer of civilians.
— • • • —
Day 443. 08:00 hours.
Olympus.
Level 2.
The Command Deck.
The map pulsed on the main screen, the Subic-Pampanga corridor updated in real time, the thermal signatures shifting as the Subic columns advanced and the Pampanga defenders retreated. The crew of Olympus watched the war that was not yet theirs but that was coming for them in ten days.
Mei stood at her station with her crimson hair pulled back and Chocho curled in the carrier on her chest, the fox's small ears flat against her head, pressing closer to the warmth of Mei's body.
"Subic eastern column has broken the Pampanga line at kilometer forty-one — the barricade is destroyed, Pampanga defenders falling back west." Mei reported, her fingers pulling up the thermal overlay. "Subic western column has flanked south and sealed the Angeles evacuation corridor. The corridor is a kill zone."
"Kill zone." Jae-min repeated from his chair, his dark eyes on the map, his hands folded on the table.
"ARTEMIS shows approximately twelve thousand civilian thermal signatures in the corridor — the western column is engaging civilians." Mei confirmed, her voice steady. "Estimated civilian casualties since 05:45: three hundred and rising."
'The war is not just soldiers anymore.' Jae-min filed, his jaw tightening.
"Pampanga response." Jae-min pressed, his dark eyes on the map.
"Pampanga forces falling back to the San Fernando line, ten kilometers west — artillery falling back to the granary compound." Mei continued, her fingers tracking the retreat. "The mayor is consolidating at the granary. The rice is the anchor. The mayor will hold the granary or die trying."
"If the mayor holds the granary, the war becomes a siege — if the mayor loses the granary, the war is over." Elaine observed from the long window, her black eyes on the map. "Navarro takes the rice, consolidates, marches south."
'Ten days — Navarro has twelve thousand, Olympus has six frames.' Jae-min filed, his hands on the table.
"Casualties." Jae-min pressed.
"Pampanga defenders: approximately four hundred dead since 05:00. Subic forces: approximately sixty dead. Civilians: approximately three hundred and fifty dead in the corridor, rising." Mei reported, her voice flat. "Total corridor casualties since the direct war began: approximately eight hundred in three hours."
'Eight hundred in three hours — the corridor is a meat grinder.' Jae-min filed, his jaw tight.
"The KOKO — status." Jae-min pressed, his dark eyes finding Mei.
"Koko has completed its diagnostic sweep of the GENESIS and begun mapping the SAMURAI — learning at fifteen data points per second." Mei reported, pulling up the workshop feed. "The next eight KOKOs are at twelve percent fabrication. First AEGIS structural frame at four percent. Timeline unchanged: AEGIS in five weeks, next KOKOs in twelve days."
'Twelve days for the KOKOs — the war is in ten.' Jae-min filed, his hands on the table.
"The proxies." Jae-min pressed, his dark eyes finding Gabby.
"Lia blinked at four-point-two meters yesterday, Renz flew at six-point-one meters vertical for twelve seconds." Gabby reported, her golden eyes lifting, the brightness finding its way through. "Four weeks is the timeline. The war is in ten days. The proxies will not be ready for the war."
'Six frames — no ASSASSIN, no SONIC, the formation at six.' Jae-min filed, his jaw tightening.
"Olympus holds." Jae-min declared, his dark eyes on the crew. "Six frames, the void, the Satellite Link, the Spatial Storage, the fortress. Olympus holds."
"Copy." The deck confirmed, and the crew turned back to the map, the corridor burning, the civilians dying, the war grinding, and the ten days counting down.
Jennifer sat on the bench by the window with her icy-blue hair loose and her blue eyes on the map, her hand on her belly where the seventeenth was three weeks and two days old. She was watching the civilian dots winking out, each dot a person, each person a life, each life ending on a road five hundred kilometers south while she sat on a bench in a warm fortress and carried a child.
'They were carrying children too.' Jennifer filed, her blue eyes wet, her hand tightening on her belly.
Alessia's hand found Jennifer's, the fundamental holding the telepath, the doctor holding the patient. Alessia did not speak. She held Jennifer's hand and watched the map and felt the five signatures in her chest — Jin, Jennifer's, Ji-yoo's, Yue's, Gabriel's — all stable, all present, all hers to hold.
'Five lives — five reasons the fortress holds.' Alessia filed, her hand on Jennifer's hand, her black eyes on the map.
Hua stood in the doorway with Eun-hae in the sling, the fifty-day-old baby sleeping against her mother's chest, and Hua's violet-blue eyes were on the map, on the civilian dots winking out. Hua had died and come back. She understood what it meant to lose and to be given back. She understood that the civilians in the corridor were losing and that no one was giving them back.
'The children on the road are Eun-hae's age.' Hua filed, her hand on Eun-hae's back, her violet-blue eyes on the map.
The map rotated on the main screen, the corridor in false-color thermal, and in the corridor the eastern column advanced, the western column sealed, the Pampanga defenders retreated, the civilians died, and the war that would reach Olympus in ten days ground the corridor into meat.
The war had begun, and the corridor was bleeding.
— • • • —
Day 443. 07:00 hours.
The SCTEX.
Kilometer 44.
The Angeles Evacuation Corridor.
Maria Santos had been walking since 04:00 with her two children — a boy of seven and a girl of four, the boy carrying the family's remaining rice in a pillowcase slung over his shoulder, the girl carried on Maria's hip because the girl's legs were too short and the girl was too tired and the girl had been crying for three hours and Maria's arm was numb from carrying her but Maria did not put her down because putting her down meant the girl would stop, and stopping meant dying.
Maria had been a teacher before the freeze. Third grade at the Angeles elementary school. Reading, arithmetic, the names of the planets, the capitals of the provinces. She had believed the world was a place where children learned and grew and became something, and the freeze had taken that belief and ground it into the mud of the evacuation corridor.
The corridor had been safe. The mayor had said the corridor was safe, the Subic column was east, the corridor was west, the civilians should walk west. Maria had believed the mayor. Maria had taken her children and her rice and her pillowcase and walked west.
West was not safe. West was a kill zone.
Maria heard the shooting at 06:00 — two hundred meters ahead, the sound of fifty-caliber rounds and the sound of screaming and the particular silence that followed when the screaming stopped. Maria stopped walking. Maria looked at the road ahead. Maria saw the technicals.
Four vehicles across the road, mounted guns aimed west, firing at the civilians who had reached the technicals first, the civilians who were now dying on the road ahead, their bodies falling, their suitcases scattering, their children screaming.
Maria turned. Maria ran east with the girl on her hip and the boy running beside her, the boy's pillowcase bouncing on his shoulder, the rice spilling from the open end because running was more important than rice.
'The rice is gone — the children are everything, run.' Maria filed, her arm numb, her legs burning, her breath tearing in her chest.
The boy fell. The boy tripped on the broken asphalt, the pillowcase spilling the last of the rice, his knees hitting the road, the boy crying, the boy not getting up. Maria stopped. Maria turned. Maria ran back to the boy, grabbed his arm, pulled him up, pushed him forward.
"Run — do not stop, run!" Maria screamed, her voice raw, her eyes on the boy.
The boy ran with his bloody knees and his empty pillowcase and his tears. Maria ran behind him, the girl on her hip screaming, the shooting behind them getting closer because the western column was advancing east through the corridor, clearing the corridor, killing everyone in it.
A round hit the asphalt three meters behind Maria, throwing concrete chips into the air, the chips stinging her legs. Another round, closer, hitting a suitcase that a fleeing family had dropped, punching through the suitcase and sending clothes and photographs into the air — the photographs of a family that was ahead of Maria and that was also running and that was also dying.
Maria saw the rice field. Maria saw the ditch. Maria saw the water in the ditch. Maria grabbed the boy. Maria jumped.
The three of them hit the ditch water together, the cold water closing over them, the mud at the bottom sucking at their clothes. Maria pushed the children's heads under the water, pushed her own head under, the three of them lying in the ditch with the water above them, the mud below them, the shooting above them.
The shooting passed. The technicals drove past the ditch, the fifty-cals firing at the civilians who were still on the road, the civilians who had not found a ditch, the civilians who were dying on the asphalt above Maria and her children.
Maria lay in the ditch. Maria held her children under the water. Maria held her breath. Maria counted. One. Two. Three. The shooting moved east. Four. Five. Six. Fifty meters away. Seven. Eight. Nine. A hundred meters. Ten.
Maria surfaced. Maria gasped. Maria pulled the children up. The children gasped. The children cried. Maria held them in the ditch, the three of them covered in mud and ditch water and shaking, the three of them alive.
'We are alive — the column passed, we are alive.' Maria filed, her arms around her children, her body shaking.
Maria lay in the ditch. Maria held her children. Maria waited for the dark.
— • • • —
Day 443. 12:00 hours.
Central Luzon.
The San Fernando Line.
Kilometer 33.
The San Fernando line was the second defensive position, ten kilometers west of the broken barricade, a line Gutierrez had ordered built three days ago in anticipation of the fall of the first line — a line the mayor had not told his defenders about because telling them about the second line would have been admitting that the first line would fall.
The line was better than the first. Foxholes dug deeper into the rice fields north and south of the highway, sandbags thicker, positions supported by three ex-AFP armored personnel carriers that Gutierrez had acquired from the Camp Olivas armory, the carriers mounting fifty-caliber machine guns at three hundred meter intervals along the line, giving the line teeth that the first line had not had.
The line was held by four thousand defenders — the survivors of the first line, the men who had run west, the men who had thrown their rifles away and been issued new rifles from the San Fernando reserve, the men who were shaking and gray and who had seen their friends die in the mortar walk and who were now being told to hold again, to hold a different line, to hold a line that the mayor said would hold, the same words the mayor had said about the first line.
Marcelo Reyes was among the four thousand. Marcelo had survived the first line, had woken in the mud with his ears ringing and his face bloody and his rifle gone, had run west with the others through the burning barricade and the rice fields until he reached the San Fernando line, where a police officer had given him a new rifle and a new foxhole and a new position and had told him to hold.
Marcelo was in the foxhole. Marcelo had the rifle. Marcelo was holding.
'This line will break too — then I run again.' Marcelo filed, his hands on the rifle, his ears still ringing, his eyes on the eastern horizon where the dust cloud of the Subic advance was rising.
The dust cloud grew. The eastern column was advancing, three technicals and forty infantry moving west along the highway, the column that had broken the first line and was now coming for the second, believing the second line would fall like the first.
The column was wrong.
The eastern column reached the San Fernando line at 12:15. The column did not mortar, did not flank, drove straight at the line — three technicals accelerating, fifty-cals opening fire, believing that speed and shock would break the defenders the way the mortars had broken them.
The defenders held. The defenders fired. The three armored personnel carriers opened fire.
The first technical took a fifty-cal round through the engine block at two hundred meters, the round punching through the hood and detonating the fuel tank, the technical becoming a fireball that rolled three times and came to rest burning with the crew burning inside it, the gunner screaming for four seconds before the ammunition cooked off and the screaming stopped.
The second technical took rifle fire from the foxholes, the rounds pinging off the roll bar, the driver hit in the shoulder, swerving, the technical rolling into the rice field ditch and flipping, the gunner thrown clear and landing in the flooded rice field, drowning in two feet of water because his body armor weighed him down and his broken arm could not pull the buckle.
The third technical braked. The third technical reversed. The third technical fled east, the column broken, the assault repelled, the San Fernando line holding.
'The line held — they ran, the line held.' Marcelo filed, his hands shaking on the rifle, his eyes on the burning technicals, the farmer who had been given a rifle and who had just survived a charge and who was now realizing he would live another hour.
'Four hundred dead at the first line, seven at the second — the APC changed the math.' Gutierrez filed from the rear, his hands on the map, his eyes on the San Fernando line. 'Navarro will not charge again — he will mortar, he will flank, he will maneuver.'
The war continued. The war ground. The corridor bled.
And in ten days, the winner would march south, and the winner would reach Olympus, and Olympus would hold.
— • • • —
Day 443. 23:00 hours.
Olympus.
Third Floor.
The Master Attic Sanctuary.
Jae-min lay in the dark with Alessia beside him, her hand on his chest, his hand on her hand, Jin kicking beneath their joined hands fifty days from arrival. The captain was not sleeping because the captain was watching the ceiling and filing the day.
Eight hundred dead in the corridor in three hours. The San Fernando line holding. Seven Subic dead in the repelled charge. The war grinding. The civilians dying. The corridor bleeding. Ten days.
'Ten days — Olympus holds.' Jae-min filed, his dark eyes on the ceiling, his hand on Alessia's hand on his chest.
"The war is ten days — Jin is fifty, the war arrives before Jin, the war arrives before everything is ready." Alessia murmured, her black eyes on the ceiling, her voice soft.
"The war always arrives before everything is ready — that is what war is." Jae-min confirmed, his dark eyes on the ceiling. "We hold."
"We hold." Alessia confirmed, her hand tightening on his, the fundamental holding the void, the wife holding the husband, the mother holding the baby, the fortress holding the war.