Earlier that morning, the mutants struck down General Owlson of the First Army with a spear. Olivia watched alongside his mourning soldiers as his body was carried away in a bloody stretcher. It was a black day for humanity.
"Take aim!" the officer said.
Bolt-action rifles clacked in the distance.
"Fire!"
Smoke engulfed the firing squad as they shot their rifles in unison. A few meters ahead of them, the group of mutants who had sneaked inside their camp and assassinated the general collapsed lifelessly to the ground.
The soldiers cheered as vengeance was served, but revenge didn't solve their situation. They were still outnumbered, without leadership and reinforcements were nowhere in sight.
Olivia turned and walked towards the vehicles, thinking about the assassins.
They knew this would be their fate. One couldn't expect to murder a general and live to tell the tale, but theirs was a savage warrior culture like no other. A fitting end. Olivia thought they deserved no better.
Paris was already mounted on the back of his jeep despite finding himself in a sorry state, bandages wrapped around his swollen face. He had a sizeable squad with him.
"Let's go, Olivia." He loaded the machine gun. "It's payback time."
"What are you up to, Paris?"
"The chain of command has been broken, if you haven't noticed, and we can't even coordinate a retreat without risking getting smacked from behind." Paris looked at her. "I'm high-ranking enough that I can lead these fine gentlemen here into their deaths, but I need a scout for this mission."
She crossed her arms.
"Which is?"
"Since General Constantino is a coward and left us to die, we'll cut off our enemies' reinforcements as well, to buy our dear officers time to agree on a plan before we get swept off the map." He spat on the ground. "Bickering idiots."
"And how do you plan to do that?"
"That's for you to find out."
Olivia arched an eyebrow.
"Do you want me to destroy the mutant army while I am it as well, Your Majesty?"
Paris scoffed.
"Listen, I'm not going crazy. There's an unpassable river behind them which would take days to go around, but their numbers keep increasing by the day, which means—"
"There's a bridge."
Paris raised his arms.
"There's a bloody bridge!"
Olivia sighed.
"Alright," she said, pulling the keys from her pocket. "Let's do it."
"She said yes, lads! Let's blow that bridge to pieces."
The disorderly squad entered the cars with loud cheers behind him.
"Don't get me wrong, they seem more like a highly motived mob than a squad," she said.
"They'll do."
"Alright."
Olivia mounted her bike, glancing up at Paris. He was always a bit bitter, but this time was different.
"What exactly happened to you, Paris? You spoke to no one save for the higher ups."
He clicked his tongue.
"They killed everybody, and I escaped by a thread. That's it. Are you happy?"
"Everybody? No one in the garrison survived other than you?"
"Of course not. Those animals take no prisoners."
"That's vile..."
Paris looked away.
Olivia frowned. Something was most definitely bothering him today, but she thought it was better not to press the subject, especially not before battle.
He checked the squad one last time, and seeing that everyone was ready, Paris smacked the side of his jeep.
"Let's roll."
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
Kai said what he came to say and crossed his arms, surrounded by silent officers. Orion smashed his fist against the table, glaring at him. He would have dismissed Kai straight away had they been alone, but concern was starting to show on the officers' scarred faces.
"Good men died to give us this chance," Orion said. "We must strike while the humans are leaderless!"
Kai didn't budge.
"We don't know where the second human army went," he said. "They disappeared from the battlefield many days ago and we haven't heard from them again."
The officers murmured, arguing amongst themselves.
"It could appear behind us when we move out," one of them said.
"What if it's not a trap? We'd be wasting our advantage."
Kai turned to face them, something else a lot more important than strategy on his mind.
"We haven't evacuated the civilians yet. That bridge is unstable, and it needs constant patch-ups just to keep it from sending crossers to the bottom of the rapids."
Orion gritted his teeth.
"If we lose this region, they are good as dead anyways. Where else can we find fertile enough lands to feed that many mouths?"
"So, it's an impasse. We can abandon our people now, or risk abandoning them later," Kai said.
The officers were starting to agree with him.
Orion shook his head in disappointment, closing his eyes as they argued.
One of the warriors stepped up as they seemed to reach a consensus.
"Very well. We'll wait, warrior Kai."
Kai suppressed a smile.
"Thank—"
"But." The officer raised his hand, cutting him short. "This is not your place. Which means you'll be responsible for everything that happens because of your unorthodox strategy."
Orion opened his eyes.
"Are you ready for that, Kai?"
Kai exhaled, relieved.
"I am."
"You better go oversee that bridge then. The garrison is in your hands."
⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘
Finding the bridge was the easy part. It was a huge, unwieldy thing hovering above a violent river. Between breaks and fixes, groups of mutant warriors trickled in from the other side. It was raised behind an ancient city in ruins, which they filled with tents and used a fortified camp.
Olivia watched the garrison through her old spyglass.
They brought a dozen humans tied by the wrists forward and threw them on their knees.
She cursed under her breath, recognizing them from Paris' squad. There was a strange bulge under the jackets of some of them. Concealed explosives. The mutants didn't seem to notice them.
They most likely tried to kamikaze the bridge on their own.
"I can't believe these guys..."
Someone new was coming up.
It was a red-skinned mutant warrior, accompanied by others. His bare torso was covered in healed scars, bone spikes protruding from his muscular shoulders. Judging by his sheer size, and the almost noble way he carried himself, that must have been the boss.
He stood before the captured men, scanning them with black eyes, a massive glaive in his hand.
Yellow puddles of urine formed beneath some of them.
She remembered Paris' words.
"Of course not. Those animals take no prisoners."
The mission was a failure before it even started.
She refused to watch the incoming execution. Olivia sighed, and was halfway through closing her spyglass, when she noticed a commotion in the distance.
She brought it back to her eye.
The mutants argued heatedly with their boss, but the latter didn't seem convinced.
He waved his hand dismissively, ending the discussion.
They carried the prisoners away and chained them inside a see-through, ruined shackle without a roof, then dispersed, going back to their chores. At the same time, a group of mutants arrived at the edge of the camp, civilians by the looks of them.
She turned her attention back to the boss, curious to see what this was all about.
He led them towards the bridge himself, and they seemed to grow at ease around him.
Refugees?
Olivia snapped the spyglass shut and rode back towards Paris' hideout to warn him.
This was bad. A race against time.
Reckless squad members aside, they couldn't bring down the bridge without those incendiary bombs, and who knew when the mutants would finally sniff them out. Until then, their numbers would just keep increasing. But also...
Did he spare them? No... He went against the others to spare them.
Olivia frowned.
Some questions demanded answers.