===== Veil of Powderfire =====
> A personal account published in the *Arctica Review of Military Letters* and featured in The Copper Press, 4 August, 2158 A.M.

=== Foreword ===

What follows is an edited excerpt from the field journal of **Lieutenant-Colonel Maeve Hardin**, 3rd East American Expeditionary, written during the seventy-third month of the American Forever-War. The editors have retained her spelling and syntax wherever possible; redactions appear as ███. Judge for yourself whether her decisions were heroism, folly, or something neither Choir nor Legion could tally.

=== River of Dust ===

6 January — Red Plains Front

They call this stretch the **River of Dust**, though there’s no water left, only shale and bone-white silt that drifts like snow when the south wind comes. Our “forward camp” is a trench cut into powdered clay, reinforced by shattered rail sleepers shipped from Murmansk. The sleepers hum faintly—someone in logistics coated them with cheap Shard varnish so they’d repel insects. Instead they sing at night, echoing with half-formed prayers.

I haven’t slept in two days. Artillery on the West American ridge pumps star-bright shells—Shard-charge inside iron casings. They bloom overhead in green sunbursts, etching every shadow razor-sharp. The men whistle and call them **Witch Lanterns**. I tell them to keep their heads down and their faith private.

My orders are clear: hold the clay river, deny the ridge, and prepare for an assault no one can afford. Command insists the ridge is “strategic high ground.” I suspect it is only **visible**, and visibility passes for value among generals who draw maps in smoky rooms three hundred leagues away.

=== The Visitor in Steel ===

8 January

The supply dirigible touched down under cover of fog, disgorging crates of powdered rations, replacement rifles, and an **Angel-Engine Chaplain**—model E4, serial etched beneath the brass collar. It looks almost human until it moves; then the joints betray the clockwork. The Choir in Atlantian cathedrals claims these constructs carry slivers of angelic will—//“Compassion mechanised.”//

Our doctor, Hale, scoffed. //“More like a phonograph with a prayer reel.”//

Even so, the men lined up for its benediction. The engine set its hand—too warm—on each brow, reciting the **Litany of Endurance**. I watched Corporal Lennox blink tears he hasn’t spilled since the Fargo Retreat. Perhaps the machine carries comfort whether heaven lives in it or not.

Afterwards the Angel-Engine sought me. Its optics whirred, focusing.

//“Blessed are the steadfast,”// it said, voice female, polite. //“Your burden approaches culmination.”//

//“I need ammunition, not poetry,”// I replied.

//“Ammunition is en route. Poetry is merely excess prophecy.”//

I asked whether the ridge justified the blood already paid. It considered, gears ticking.

//“Value is measured by what is spent acquiring it.”//

Useless. I dismissed the machine to triage. Yet I envied its certainty.

=== Orders from Glass Towers ===

10 January — Night

Courier pigeon arrived with silk-wrapped cipher. I broke the wax: NEW DIRECTIVE. At 0400 we are to **advance across the River of Dust**, seize the ridge, and **detonate Package A-3** should resistance prove stiff.

Package A-3 rides in a lead casket guarded by Provosts. Only I possess the sigil key. Hale asked what was inside; I lied. The truth: a **Shard-Flux Obliteration Core**—radius two hundred paces, consumes stone and sin alike, leaving clean glass behind. High command wants a quick, bright report to pin on their wall charts.

I drafted protest, then burned it. Officers in this war do not question, they execute. Yet an old dread follows me: if we obliterate the ridge, we create only another desert to be captured, abandoned, recaptured—ashes traded for ashes.

Midnight now. Men sleep fitful. I pace the trench and imagine dawn.

=== Assault ===

11 January — Dawn

Shelling softened the ridge at first light. Our ***Basilisk* steam-tanks** churned the river bed, their treads throwing sodium sparks on clay. Infantry followed through the dust-wake, masks on. Witch Lantern flares burst overhead, shredding more nerves than flesh.

Halfway across, I saw something absurd: ragged West American conscripts waving **white canvas sewn with angelic sigils**—a flag of parley painted in Choir iconography. They stood in the open, rifles lowered.

Commanding doctrine: *The enemy may feign surrender.* Yet my binoculars showed real terror in those boys’ eyes. Some wore civilian coats, patches of farm guilds. I signaled for ceasefire. Gunnery Sergeant Orren balked.

//“Ma’am, ridge guns’ll tear us.”//

I overrode him. Whistles blew; firing stilled. Dust settled, revealing no artillery batteries—only **field hospitals** dug behind shattered howitzers. The ridge had been a triage site, not a fortress. Our intel stale by weeks.

A medic approached carrying a blood-spattered ledger. He spoke with Plains drawl: //“We’re pulling wounded from both flags, Lieutenant-Colonel. Your shells already crushed half our tents.”// His gaze fell to the lead casket on our supply sledge. //“What’s in there?”//

I could not answer.

Shots cracked from our rear lines—some trooper panicked. Return fire erupted. Within breath the ceasefire dissolved. I saw Corporal Lennox spin, guts unspooling in violet steam—Shard bullet. The medic dropped, ledger erupting in flame.

Basilisk turrets roared. Men screamed surrender, others revenge. Dust became mud from blood and fear.

=== A Decision Carved in Glass ===

Minutes—or years—later, my lines faltered. Enemy reinforcements climbed the far slope, blue coats flapping. No time left. Protocol demanded I arm Package A-3, end the ridge, end the mistake.

I unlocked the casket. The Core floated in mag-field, a shard so pure it refracted sun into choir-colored halos. Its hum drowned thought.

Then the Angel-Engine stepped beside me, hand raised.

//“Obliteration negates stewardship,”// it said.

//“This ridge was never ours.”//

//“Nor theirs. Choose guardianship.”//

It offered its brass heart key—interface rod. If fused to the Core, its angelic lattice would **invert** the flux, turning annihilation into a **stasis bubble**—a quarantine sphere freezing everyone within for one hour. Enough to drag out wounded, exchange prisoners, maybe talk.

It was theory; maybe fantasy. Either way, fewer dead than the Core alone.

I jammed the rod into the emitter.

Light crashed outward. Sound stopped. Dust hung mid-air like amber insects. Soldiers of both sides froze mid-scream, bullets glimmering motionless.

Only the Angel-Engine and I moved, its hymn stabilising the field. We dragged bodies—enemy, ally—outside the shimmer. We cut the Core’s power at fifty-nine minutes; time roared back, but now the ridge lay silent, guns cold, men too shocked to raise them.

In that stunned hush, medics from both banners walked unarmed into no-man’s-land and began to work.

=== Letters Never Sent ===

12 January — Dusk

High command demands explanation. I sent one: *Package A-3 malfunctioned; casualty mitigation improvised.* They may court-martial me, but courts require witnesses, and every witness today bled under that same dusted sun. Perhaps they will stay quiet.

The Angel-Engine’s core over-stressed, gears fused. It sings no more. We buried it upright on the ridge it saved; men of East and West alike piled stones, a cairn without flag.

The unofficial truce holds—for now. Soldiers share cigarettes, swap charms, curse officers. By tomorrow, couriers will carry fresh orders, rifles will rise, and the Forever-War will yawn awake. But some of us will remember that one hour when time itself took pity.

Last light paints the River of Dust gold. It almost looks like water again.

I write this so someone beyond the blast radius might weigh my choice. If I damned myself, let the Choir tally it. If I saved a few souls, let those souls argue to the contrary when the ledger comes due.

Either way, the ridge still stands—and that, for a soldier, must be enough.

—  Lt.-Col. Maeve Hardin