The shellfire stopped.
More precisely, it felt as though it had stopped.
The barrage that had shaken the entire trench only moments ago ceased as if it had been a lie. But the enemy had not withdrawn. Faint movement still continued beyond the fog.
My body remained rigid, braced for the next explosion.
"Effective immediately, the Sector 3 defensive line is transitioning to a lull state."
A dry order laced with mechanical distortion came through the communications vox.
"Rear-echelon relief personnel are being deployed. Reorganize the frontline and evacuate the seriously wounded. All squad leaders are to prepare for personnel handover."
Then squelching footsteps began to sound from beyond the dirt wall at the rear of the trench. Relatively clean military boots, not yet soaked through with mud and blood, stepped into the sewage. Medics carrying stretchers and rear-echelon support troops bearing ammunition crates forced their way through the narrow communication trench into Sector 3.
Sergeant Yakov rose, wiping his mud-caked face. He briefly jerked his chin toward Talia and Brix, sprawled across the trench floor.
"Load those two first."
The medics rushed over and practically rolled Brix's enormous body onto a stretcher, then supported Talia by the shoulder. Talia tried irritably to bat their hands away, but she had lost too much blood. Her legs gave out, and she buried her head against a medic's shoulder.
I watched them being carried to the rear without expression as I checked the power-cell coupling on the lasgun in my hands.
Remaining power: 33%.
Right-side firing arc clear.
I stamped down once more on the spot where Lazar had lain and waited for the new relief troops to fill the left or center. Once the defensive line was reorganized, the mechanical routine would begin again.
"Ivan."
Sergeant Yakov called to me in a low, hoarse voice.
"Pack your things."
I looked back at the sergeant without taking my finger off the lasgun's trigger.
"I'm holding the right-side defensive line in Sector 3. I still have more than thirty percent of my ammunition remaining."
"I'm not talking about that. You're pulling back too."
It was an order I could not understand. My flak armour was not torn, and there was no physical restriction on moving my limbs. The filter in my gas mask could still last for several more hours.
"I'm not wounded, Sergeant."
I answered in a dry voice.
"There is no impairment to my combat capacity. I can still hold a gun."
Yakov stared silently at me with eyes saturated by exhaustion. Chewing on a crushed cigarette butt, he spat cloudy saliva into the sewage at his feet.
"Holding a gun and being able to fight are different things."
His words were neither a lecture nor an expression of concern. They were closer to the cold diagnosis of a mechanic assessing broken equipment.
"Look at your eyes. Are you standing there now to shoot the enemy, or have you just become part of that mud wall? Go with the evac detail, service your gear, and get some sleep. That's an order."
The moment I opened my mouth to object, someone abruptly squeezed in beside me.
"I'm the new man here to take over the right-side firing arc."
He was a soldier in a clean gas mask that had not yet absorbed even the smell of gunpowder. Hesitantly shoving me aside, he planted both feet in the sewage pit where I had stood moments ago—where dead Lazar had once stood.
The soldier rested his lasgun in the shallow groove along the trench lip where I had placed my barrel. Even the angle was identical to mine.
Pushed a step from my position, I blankly watched the new recruit's back.
Until just moments ago, I had thought the right-side defensive line would be breached immediately without me.
As I laboriously filled Lazar's empty place, I had believed I was an indispensable cog in this trench.
But I was not.
The instant I moved my barrel away, another barrel filled that spot without the slightest error.
The power cell I carried was at 33%.
A fresh power cell was slotted into the new recruit's lasgun.
The trench did not wait for me.
Another soldier stepped into the space I had left, and the defensive line continued as though nothing had happened.
As I watched, something inside my chest strangely seemed to have hollowed out.
I did not know what had been emptied.
My pride.
Relief.
Or the belief that I was still a human being needed here.
I did not examine it.
There was no need to.
"Move, Ivan."
Sergeant Yakov's order came again.
I looked once at the ash-gray fog over the new recruit's shoulder, then slowly slung my lasgun over mine.
I stepped into the communication trench leading to the rear.
But the sticky blood and mud clinging to the soles of my combat boots did not come off easily.
No more shells fell.
As I walked along the communication trench, the sound of shellfire lingering in my ears gradually receded.
In its place came the particular noise of a field hospital: ragged screams, the urgent shouts of medics, and the wet sound of mops wiping up blood pooled on the floor.
The enormous tent serving as both a rear staging area and a temporary field hospital was no more pleasant than the frontline trench. The stench of disinfectant and coagulant mingled with sweat and excrement, while in one corner of the tent, corpses stripped of their dog tags were mechanically packed into standardized black body bags.
I perched on an empty ammunition crate in the corner of the tent.
"Get some sleep."
Sergeant Yakov's order came back to me, but my body was rejecting it.
Unconsciously, I surveyed the tent's layout.
Two entrances. If an explosion occurred, the tent canvas would not stop shrapnel. If the enemy launched a surprise attack, the first place to take cover would be behind the stacked medical-supply crates diagonally to my left. The firing angle from there to the entrance was approximately forty-five degrees. A perfect defensive position.
My gaze kept moving between the entrances and the paths people took through the tent, while a finger twitched faintly beside the trigger guard of the lasgun resting on my knees.
"Have you forgotten how to breathe?"
I turned toward the rough voice.
It was Talia. In place of the right shoulder plate that had been blown away, a thick bandage and a sickly-colored coagulant patch had been wrapped around her. Limping over, she dropped onto a crate opposite mine.
"Put the gun down."
Talia said it with a jerk of her chin toward the lasgun in my hands.
"Regulations require equipment to be carried at all times."
"This isn't the mud pit in Sector 3, idiot. We're far from the frontline. No enemy shells are falling here, and there aren't any rats chewing on corpses either."
Talia stared silently at me with eyes drenched in fatigue.
"But even after getting out, you're still there."
It struck the mark. I did not object. No, I could not. My body was inside a dry tent, but my senses were still open toward the right-side defensive line of rain-lashed Sector 3. The silence itself made me uneasy. The tension that a shell could fall at any moment had rigidly tightened my spine.
Then a medic carrying a data slate for records approached.
"Are you the survivors of Second Squad, Second Platoon?"
"That's right," Talia answered curtly.
"We've just assessed the wounded, but there are omissions in the casualty records, so I came to confirm them. Please verify the names and service numbers of Second Squad personnel killed during the fighting in Sector 3."
At the medic's mechanical question, Talia's lips froze for an instant. Her gaze fell to the floor. Silence flowed, as if a heavy stone had been tied to the tongue that normally spoke so freely.
"That..."
As Talia's lips moved, I spoke first.
"Lazar."
My voice was dry and flat. The medic and Talia both turned to look at me.
"Lazar of Second Squad. Killed in action by a penetrating abdominal wound on the right-side defensive line of Sector 3. His body was lost beneath the sewage due to the trench collapse."
The medic nodded and quickly tapped something into the data slate.
"Confirmed. Get plenty of rest."
Even after the medic left, Talia kept staring at me. Her eyes were like those of someone looking at an unfamiliar mutant.
"How can you just rattle that off without changing your expression? Does none of it bother you?"
"Reports need to be accurate and prompt."
I answered indifferently and touched the lasgun's power-cell coupling again.
But at that moment, my fingers hesitated for the briefest instant. Power cell, 33%. Lazar's final legacy. A faint tremor came through my fingertips against the cold metal surface.
It was not that it did not bother me.
Inside my head, everything functioned as the perfect mechanical component of Istra, but the one thin shell left of the human being called Ivan had developed a tiny crack at Lazar's name.
To keep her from noticing the tremor, I gripped the lasgun tightly.
"I'm tired."
Avoiding Talia's gaze, I forcibly closed my eyes.
A safe rear area, beneath a tent that kept out the wind and rain, in a place where the explosions had vanished.
But ash-gray fog began to creep over my closed eyes again. The silence here was far too loud. I was already broken enough that the trench beneath falling shells felt more peaceful.
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