Blood Curse - Red Queen Fan Fiction

Chapter 27

Mare POV

After all, the choke still reeks of ash, smoke, and death. Not because I'm caught with others in a trench, nor because we're marching over it. Actually, we're even a few kilometers beyond the former battlefield. But these scents have left impressions you can never escape in nights of fighting, no matter how tight I try to close my eyes, mouth, and ears. Because the gasmasks are for solders in zones with real danger of chemical weapons while I'm standing off enough to be safe from the bombs I can't stop from falling. That's my task here, to take the Lakelander airjets off the sky before they shoot their missiles, so all explosives going off happen only because I let them.

On my first day in the fights, General Akkadi personally showed me what she wants electricons like me to do. She pointed to the sky and told me to impair the enemy planes flying over the choke. "They don't have a large air force, and it's less advanced than Norta's too," she said. "That makes them easier targets, and it's more likely we'll stop their aerials attacks soon." Then she lifted her binoculars to the twilight sky and began to warn me off the enemies above us seconds before they became visible, using her Newblood seer ability.

It took me a few tries to find the right timing and reach to hit them, and thus, I was left to wonder what they'd do, who'd suffer because of them. It was a very sobering, very frightening thought. One that continues to keep me going.

Akkadi was patient. Calmly, she reported the next jet, one after another, and every time, I tried harder until the first jet exploded in a flash of fire and purple lightning. Akkadi patted my shoulder and asked me to watch out for the next, and the next, and the next. She told our gunners when they'd make a better hit and reminded me to think of that myself. "You aren't supposed to be able to take every plane own," she said.

But we still shouldn't allow any bombs to fall.

"The seer I'm assigning to you knows this as well, and he'll point out who'll be best," she added.

I startled, and she shook her head. "Unfortunately, we don't have as many seers, nor electricons, as I'd like, so occasionally, I do this duty as well," she answered my unasked question. "But most of all," she looked at me and over to the gunners in my team, "it is your duty, soldiers."

So, this is what I've been doing in most days and nights in the weeks hence.

I came to share Tiberias's fascination for the different types of planes as to know them helps immensely to decide how to impair them. And often, I feel pride to perform these acts to protect our army and the rest of the country. Yet, the task itself is either tedious or a surge of adrenaline. I, the gunners and the scouts securing the slope of our outpost, are supposed to look out for Lakelander soldiers sneaking in, but honestly, I doubt I'd notice them before the scouts do or our seer, Roman Eagrie, despite his eyes being fixed to the sky. They know what they're doing.

Tonight, there aren't much enemies coming for us. It's always both relieving and unsettling as although I don't have to kill anyone this way, it might just mean the Lakelanders have found a new tactic to surprise us, or that they're aware of the Lightning Girl taking down their air force.

Eagrie said the same thing once. "Your lightning is pretty much a sign to them by now, Operative Barrow. So I have hopes you're all ready for the time they come for us," he said cynically.

I shrugged. "What else can I do?"

For once, Eagrie turned away from the sky to look at me. "I've heard the Lightning Girl is a very skilled opponent in every confrontation," he said, and grinned. "Since we're already trusting you with our lives."