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Time is a tree with many branches. Take the twig upon which rests the present of Oleksandra Vasylovna and follow it back far enough, and you will find where it intersects with a very particular person. For what, the man then known as Vasily Andrevich Tometchko, believed to be the very last time. Of course, Hawke did not know Vasily Andrevich as Vasily Andrevich. Hawke knew him as Grigoriy Popovych, a Ukrainian merceny who defected from Wagner when the war broke out. That this is absolutely the case helps quite a bit. He was a captain to a company of irregulars and volunteers, homeguard and militia mostly. All with a brevet from the new Post Maidan government. The gold and blue on their shoulders may be newly sewed on, but they came from a government in Kyiv. And for most of the people here, that counts for something.
Rohzypne is a speck on a map, a nothing town on a nothing front of a war nobody cares about beyond five hundred miles drive. What happens here tonight won't make the news. If it runs on the wire in Kyiv it will be of 'another engagement today in separitist controlled Donbas'. What makes Rozyhpne special, apart from the pine forests and picturesque old houses is that here is where the man who is not presently known as Vasily Tometchko has tracked the final member of the Pylon that had been operating here. It's a battle both know is coming. It's a battlefield they both agreed upon. Which is why the man not known as Vasily looks so uncharacteristically nervous as he moves along the line of his company, checking in with each platoon, and then each squad of that platoon. Always the same questions.
How is your ammunition? Is your weapon clean? Are your socks dry? When did you last eat? Is your canteen full? Do you need a cigarette?
There is only so much one Acanthus can do for a company sized force. But he's done it. The heavy machine gun in his arms he carries like other men do sniper rifles. With that level of consideration, care, and implied precision. It's a calming thought to consider that amount of fire supporting an advance. It's one reason he lets the men see him carrying it.
But the walk is mostly pretense. Morale boosting pretense, but pretense. Because where he's headed is to the Marine observer attached with his first little foray into the new Ukrainian Homeguard. That marine will have the radio on the other end of which are men with helicopters. And people looking down from satellites. They may even reach one of those giant circling artillery planes everyone's always talking about. He just needs to convince the aforementioned Marine to use it.
When he reaches Hawke, he switches to quiet English. Which helps hide their conversation from most. There's a glance paid his watch. "Your next satellite fly over Rozhypne is in about nine minutes." He holds up a hand. Don't argue. He knows. "You get us a live uplink, I lose fewer men. I'm under orders to take this position by sunrise. Help me." The way the man carries that meat sweeper in his hands, he likely isn't talking about with a rifle.
Newly promoted Captain Nisha "Hawke" Taishi, according to them, vehemently, wasn't even ever supposed to be here. An assignment at the embassy, standing still, interpreting as needed, was supposed to be their first taste of the 'real world' after training. A chance to get to put their Ukrainian to use. To spite all the sons of bitches who looked surprised and got that mean twist to their mouth when the short brown kid with the mild accent dared suggest they know another language than their first, second, third.
And then people started fucking dying, for real. And their Captaincy came without any ceremony - hell, they didn't even have the double bars, yet - and here there are, permanent frown lines etched onto their young face now, opening their mouth to protest just as Popovych tells them not to argue.
"I..." A slow breath. "Sir - Captain Popovych - with all due respect..." Even as they trail off, unsure of what they can say, it's clear they're struggling to make a choice. Doing the job they were assigned to do - that is, keep their official US fingers out of any official pies - and standing by to watch...whatever it might be that comes? Or putting their neck out there, with no one but this ragtag company watching? In this tiny city, a tiny battle in an increasingly huge war?
Instead of continuing to speak, they grimace, and fidget with their radio.
Time continues to pass -- at least, for those who can't turn it back, it moves only in one direction -- and above them, the satellites paid for by the Department of Defense but owned -- at least on some level -- by forces far older and far more sinister, continue to sweep above them.
There's one more Seer out there (he hopes, he prays, just one more Seer) and a lot of men wtih families, with hometowns, these tiny irreplaceable universes under the care of a Masque and the ostensible man behind it.
The wind snaps through the late-Winter trees, rattling bare branches against each other like bones clattering into a charnel crypt.
There are times that people can speak words without opening their mouths. The silence that answers the 'with all due respect' could bend light in sufficient volume. It's that big. The merc cum captain shifts the heavy machine gun in his arms up to his shoulder with a rattle of the strap of ammo.
He's a captain. She's a captain. Even if she weren't, he has no real authority to order her to do anything. He stares, and he stares, and just when it seems he might just go on staring, he turns away and starts forward to the line's center.
There's never any real ceremony to these things. The Ukrainian captain murmurs into his radio, and the thumping of the mortars and howitzers can be heard both near and further off. The hissing of shells and whistling of mortars overhead begins slamming down on and around the known forward positions around the village.
The first rounds land short, sending up smoke to cover the Ukrainian advance. The platoon officers, Poppa included, pop their own smoke and hurl them as far forward as they can. The next volley of shells begin landing with explosive impact, and the Captain shouts into the radio, "Second and third platoon, move in. First platoon on me. Let's move."
Hawke can get on the other Captain's ass or get left behind, it seems. "SLAAAVA UKRAIIINIIII!" And over the top he goes, followed by the rising bodies of his platoon and company. The small arms open up on the three fronts of the attack, with the Ukrainians leaving a potential escape open back in the reverse axis of the Russian advance.
Hawke opens their mouth like they're going to speak again - but what the fuck is there even to say. The silence stretches out, breathless, until the other captain turns away. Too late, for whatever it was.
But she does follow, hefting her own rifle, one that, on a frame barely five foot in boots, looks nearly as oversized as the hulking thing Popovych carries. At least she knows how to carry it - which means she might even know how to use it.
Hawke stays close on the Ukranian's heels - out of place in his platoon only because of her uniform. She knows how to fall into line when she needs to.
Just not enough to make a call herself, yet. But give it eight and a half minutes, or so. Maybe she'll change her mind.
Poppa has a whole lot of ammunition tossed over his arm and shoulder during the advance. Enough that hosing down the face of the advance with suppressing fire is something he can do with some frequency without fear of running out of bullets. And should he run out of bullets, well. Things will be going so badly, rifles will be lying around just waiting to be picked up. That, and the bandolier of hand grenades.
He's screaming in Russian, calling the enemy fascists, oinking like a pig, and generally provoking them to show themselves. Inadvisably, in the event they fall for it. Clearing the open ground between the culvert and the village's edge proper simply can't happen fast enough, even with the shells buzzing overhead in an effort to cover them. The last one will land, and people will still be running. That's just the nature of these things.
There's a sense of unreality which pervades these moments, both too real and outside one's own body. The heart pounds in the throat, blood rushes to the muscles, to the brain, sending oxygen and energy to hungry cells, tendons stretching, muscles working, senses working overtime. It's too much, and there's sort of a feeling of detachment, an odd stillness at war with the franticness of the moment.
The ground seems to pitch and tilt under their feet, torn up by munitions landing but also each step carrying up the distant thump-thump-thump of artillery, vibrations traveling through boot soles and shaking up their legs. There are screams, distant and nearer. Worse, though, is the inhuman grunt of a man tumbling out of this vale of tears with 50% less head than he had half a second ago, too quickly to even cry out.
"ADVANCE!" Poppa is screaming at the top of his lungs, not indifferent to the bodies dropping around him, but committed instead to making their wounds count for something. "KEEP MOVING! ADVANCE!" He sprays a stream of bullets across the back of the building he's heading towards, silencing what fire he'd been receiving from within. He impacts the back wall of the gas station with a grunt, dropping into a crouch to begin offering covering fire for 2nd Platoon coming in from the right.
Some of his men pile in behind him and four begin stacking up to clear the building they're all using for cover. With flanking fire covering the 2nd Platoon advance, the Russians would be silly to try to hold their position on the right of the village's outskirts, save perhaps those in the upper rooms who might not be able to displace in time. Even then, that's decision is a suicide. Unless they can displace Poppa, of course. Who, dug in like a tick, continues serving fire like borscht at chow time.
"How about medevac, Captain? Does your radio bring that?" Another bark of fire. He waves a hand at one of his men from 2nd, apparently signaling the link up on that side of things. A glance to the watch, a glance to Hawke. The clock keeps ticking down. "Watch for traps," he calls into his radio, "clear the houses. Keep the pressure up until we've finished the link up with 3rd platoon."
The Captain grabs the back of Hawke's armor and begins hauling her along the line, pausing at the edge of the building before charging across the street to take cover on the opposite side. He sends some fire downrange to cover Hawke moving to join him and explains as they keep moving, "Going to help second squard link up with 3rd platoon on our left." He ducks fire before it comes, which is an odd thing to see. But there it is, a spray of fire where his head had just been. He grins, laughs, and then sprays more fire in answer. "Once we're sure we've got the perimeter, they either retreat or they lose it all. We won't have to clear the village, they'll run." He hopes.
At another time, in another place, a question like that would get Poppa a fond 'fuck you' before Hawke made the call.
Now, the radio is in front of their mouth before he even finishes speaking. Their hand shakes a little - from the vibration of the bullets spraying into buildings and bodies ahead of them, if from nothing else - but their voice is steady. As steady as a shout can be, to be heard over the the cover fire as she sprints to meet him.
"Got you a medevac." English, Ukranian, who knows what they're speaking in between breaths. A beat pause, and they reach out to grab him, to wrench him away from the fire even as he ducks.
"And an uplink. You owe me a pack of fucking cigarettes, after all this." Maybe she's green enough to be truly optimistic, but the determined grimace on her face implies that it's more bitter, dark humor, than anything else.
There's a sense of time slowing, bending around Vasya in a way he's unfortunately all too familiar with, and in the seconds which follow, a cold realization which will follow him, the same way that all the other cold realizations follow him. These terrible moments stack up in the life of someone like Vasya, the second you know you will have to make a Choice.
The Acanthus can sort back decision trees, and normally, this gives him an awful lot of choices -- turn left instead of right, wait another thirty seconds, dive and roll here instead of there, and the world changes -- but sometimes, the decision he'd have to change in order to give himself a meaningfully different outcome is either too far in the past or carries too heavy of a burden.
Being someone like Vasya means continually solving the world's shittiest and least-theoretical trolley problem, over and over and over again. It's like that episode of The Good Place, except there's no demon that the Guardian can convince to be a better person so Ted Danson's lookalike stops torturing him. No! It's just the unrelenting march of time and circumstance!
No wonder he drinks.
In this moment, Time and Fate open up in front of him like the dreadful bloom of an exploding grenade, and he can see ahead of him two choices, with no meaningful third choice, because of the inevitability of progression and story:
Either he can attempt to counterspell the incoming Mind effect which crackles across his peripheral Mage Sight or he can grab Hawke and move them out of the way of the bullet he sees coming.
He cannot do both.
"Fourth Platoon, have your reserve squad come forward with stretchers. Clear the advance. We have choppers coming for the wounded. Move quick, 1st is holding on by the fingernails." He scoots over to the edge of the building they're using for cover to try and peep what's holding up 3rd Platoon on the left. Once he spots some concentrated fire coming out of the steeple of a church, he falls back to take the uplink from Hawke. The machine gun is set down to cool and smoke while he begins locating that building on the uplink. And then he's on the radio again.
"Fire mission fire mission. Map Four A 3 Feature Two Right Fifty Elevation twenty." There's some chatter then the distant whump of artillery and the scream of incoming fire. It clips the top off the church entirely and lands smack dab in the parking lot, blasting a whole lot of cars but leaving the architecture largely in tact. Hawke might remember watching this man snipe with someone else's howitzer from four miles distance. Might remember the raised arms to indicate the kick was good. She might.
The where of the gunfire is far less interesting to the Guardian than the what of the spell. What will shame him, in the aftermath, isn't that he made the choice he made. It's that he made it just so easily. So utterly casually. Hawke called for medevac. Hawke handed over the uplink. From that point on, she was extraneous personnel. Grim. Grim, awful shit. But in the moment, the moments are stretched not to buy him more time to make up his mind; it's to spend more time studying the imago. The resonance. That delicious, delicious nimbus.
It's even her rifle he picks up to replace the machine gun he'd spent getting them here. The link up complete, the uplink secured, the Guardian continues to clear the village with the uplink in hand, calling in artillery fire the way hustlers call pool shots. Blasting the roofs off hard points, setting great fountains of AP in the intersections when the enemy gets out into the open. All of it encouraging them to retreat, to give up the advance. To displace. To go.
The sooner the Russians are gone, the sooner he'll find the Seer. The sooner this can be over. The sooner the killing can stop and he can go home.
In the movies, time would slow, keep stretching even after that one choice was made. Hawke would have time to wheeze, to slump against the wall, to have time to hear the Mage make some sort of grand speech about avenging their death. It would be a stomach wound, a slow bleed out.
How many times had Hawke's father told her that the USMC isn't the fucking movies?
She takes a breath, stumbles. the bullet hits an artery, punctures a lung. Eyelids flicker, shoulders twitch at the impact of the artillery on the parking lot. Her rifle falls to the ground, half a second before she drops.
Who can say why Vasya didn't feel the Time effect that came in after the Mind one? Maybe it's because he's so focused on studying that Imago. Maybe because the Mind one was sent out like a beacon, loud and visible, so that he'd miss the Prime-cloaked Time effect which followed. Maybe it's because he's so eager to get forward, to get home, to have the killing stop so he can try to find his way back to Firebirds and the worried hands of the woman he calls Krasnaya, Red.
If he looks back -- as if he'd look back now -- he'll see Hawke droop. He won't see the way the blood stops running, frozen in Time. He won't see the Incognito Presence which slips across the battlefield like an erstwhile Angel of Death, plucking Hawke from the choppy earth, the upturned mud of Donbas. The agents who come afterwards.
(The lights that Hawke wakes up under, falls asleep under, never quite coming to until much later, so much wetware installed when consciousness returns, those lights are somewhere else, where a smoothly inhuman face blinks above them as they lay on a cool table, where there are half-remembered conversations about 'not my chosen project' from a smooth, somehow genderless voice, all its rough edges sanded off, and a gruff voice answering indistinctly but ever-so-clearly sarcastically. Those are elsewhere, those tables, that rehabilitation, the years of learning to use the new installations, the places Hawke gets sent. Those are in another place, at another time.)
In Donbas, at this place, in this time, the fight continues, and a man who calls himself Grigoriy Popovych leads his men forward, towards the last Seer of yet another Pylon.
The satellite passes by, above. In the darkness of space, signals pulse to and from it like a heartbeat, and its lens turns down towards the earth, a distant, silent, and watchful eye.
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