Numb to it now, heavy losses in and around the South coast. The same story all over the country.
An acceptance, a matter of time, a forgone conclusion.
We go down fighting.
We go down fighting.
Pen Dinas watching ominously. A seagull, solitary yet congruous in a copper mist sky.
The last of the boys in blue now in green.
Coedlan y Parc empty, it is a different green uniform now, Bishop is lined up with the rest of them.
You thought this was impossible at one point. A scare tactic of some government that never spoke for you anyway. Now as you receive your orders, it is all too real. The death toll on the news reports you watched had reached unfathomable numbers. Your small town seemed undisturbed, the students still sliding back and forth. The sporadic rumble of a jet overhead a solemn reminder of a sinister reality increasingly encroaching.
Lieutenant Colonel Brân Pierce looks over the row of men.
Private Pwyll is unsteady, an embodiment of overwhelming anxiety. Sweat builds and bulges on his hairline then rolls off resting on a twitching brow.
Unit Three! U-nit Th-ree! - Prepare for dispatch.
A frenzy of coordinated commotion. A clatter of boots as lines form leading to vehicles, the vehicles in lines waiting to leave. All ordered, organised, structured by some command that hoped their plans and proposals would never be needed.
Another APC leaves with a load full of unprepared men not quite sure of the circumstances.
An artificial exoskeleton of synthetic fabric to protect them. A headset, a machine gun, an RPG. A backpack with a roll mat and an MRE ration. Some spare tools and weapons that time had not sufficed to train them for.
Wheels rumbling, starlings above converging, adolescents onboard undiscerning.
Pwyll and Jarman are opposite each other. Eyes hazy and unsure.
Ya' know this is it, right?
If it's as bad as they say it is.
Enough of that, boys.
The last look at something resembling a familiar place. Not long until they make it here as well. Turn it into whatever they want to. Power will always corrupt, no one thinks they are in the wrong.
Araf, Afon Rheidol with John the Baptist preaching on its banks about the imminent return of the messiah. If God had been listening to the prayer at Ysbyty Cynfyn.
It had started with warnings, war on foreign lands, then a flurry of nukes and anti-nukes. Dispersal of troops. Drones, EMPs, explosions, eroding infrastructure. Mandatory conscription, strained resources, a pile of corpses.
Helmets bobble on agitated heads as the vehicles move through the gentle slopes and meandering hills. Only military vehicles on these roads now. Sisyphus's stone rolling towards a certain fate.
A small window in the vehicle allowed for them to observe the Welsh countryside as they moved through it. A waterfall on the mountainside, a horse grazing in a field, the persistence of nature, detached houses seemingly uninterrupted by the world's chaos, Sergeant Davies's phone lit up like some bioluminescent creature.
A Tuesday morning - arrival at midday - 51.465° N, 3.164° W.
Expect immediate engagement with the enemy.
She still has hope, free from tangible evidence and shrouded in clouded judgement. A princess in need, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza will rescue her. Save her. The windmill is Y Ddraig Goch o Cadwaladr, it is nothing to be scared about.
