Excerpts from "Squad VI"

Excerpt One

With a gentle motion, Evan stirs a boiling pot of cabbage and carrots. He is mesmerized enough in watching the orange circles chase each other in the little whirlpool that he seems to forget the fact that he is currently being hunted down for escaping a foreign government's prison. On the ground in front of the fire, he's sitting in almost the shape of a ball with his head tucked into his knees. A smile forms on him as he keeps stirring the pot, and then a small hand lays itself on his shoulder. It's Cille.

"So, Chef." She leans in towards him on the ground, but Evan keeps his gaze trained in the pot. "When do we get to eat?"

He mutters. "A minute, or two." He stops playing with the food for a moment to withdraw a carrot slice and then he plops it into his mouth without blowing on it. Then, his eyes widen when it's too late to realize what he's done. He brings his hand to his mouth as if to spit it out, but he fights it, chews it, and then swallows it. "Yeah, another minute, I'd say."

The breeze is blowing gently but steady through the large square hole windows of the building, making the place chilly, and with hardly an hour or less left of sunlight in the day, it will be soon time to put out the fire. It would be a mistake to leave it going as a signal-that's something they all learned in the academy. In the meantime, Evan keeps himself warm at the pot while he still can. When it's time, he lowers the pot off the metal rack and onto the stone floor, and the bubbles in the water quickly flee. From the other side of the room, Kasnoj, Ike, and Ian look over, hungry. It'll be the first and only meal of the day for them. The three of them want to rush over, but they wait for Evan to wave his hand at them for dinner to begin. With no utensils to eat with, the five use sticks broken off of trees in order to fish bits of vegetable out of the pot.

While that is all going on, Stannet finally returns from his short trip into the city. While being invited to dinner, he retrieves a few papers from his small sack of a backpack and passes them out to the crowd. "I didn't really encounter any problems, except that I couldn't speak their language."

"Naturally," Ike says. He fixes his concentration on the single half sheet of paper, trying to read it. But he can't. All it is to him is an unfamiliar language, letters on a paper, black and white art that he cannot understand. He attempts to sound out the single sentence on the top of the page. "Par la glóra de Doso e yel reino de Cuver."

"For the glory of God and the Kingdom of Cuver." The whole group looks up at Stannet, who seems to understandmore than anyone how to read it. "I didn't realize it beforehand, but Santeanseems pretty similar to Savoutra, my native language. Of course, I wouldn't beable to speak it, but I can read it somewhat." He fixes himself on the shortmessage and reads the whole thing aloud.

42 criminales internacionales hean esgüepto de la prísna e yima estran futivos. Conectaísa la mitrara con informas par boscarlen.

Kasnoj scratches his head. "Whatdo you make of it?"

Stannet nods at the paper. "42 international criminals... escaped from the prison and... are fugitives. Connect with the military with information for finding them. That sounds about right. Right?

None of the group really has aresponse, as they've all decided to defer to Stannet's intelligence. After amoment, Kasnoj breaks the silence. "Stannet... you're amazing. To be able to readthat? I'm jealous."

Ike's gaze is still trapped on the paper. "Pretty similar..." It was Ike's idea for only Stannet to venture out into the public scene, as he is the only person who could get around without being looked at twice. He has the standard olive skin, dark brown hair, and hazel eyes of almost anyone born in Gourh, the region just across the ocean to the south of Cuver. Ike has pictures in his head of the people here-they look somewhat like Stannet, a boy born in the Zhargou Islands to pirate parents. It's odd for him to think that Stannet could have emigrated to Delvan to become a citizen and even a soldier in its military, considering Zhargou's infamy for being basically run by pirates with a false façade of a government.

He watches his friend tilt hishead gently and smile to Cille, who is handing him a carrot slice from the pot.After all that walking around, Stannet must be the hungriest of them all.

He looks to the rest of the group. With these flyers going around now, the rest of them would be caught dead going outside. As the top graduate of their class only a month ago, he feels responsible for all of them; if someone will make sure they get home, it will be Ike. He cannot bear the thought of seeing these people die on him, not any of them, because they are both his friends and his people, regardless of where they came from.

The group finishes the bare, plain meal as the sun continues to fall out of the sky.

"Corporal Ennisui." Ike's voice is commanding, and it demands attention.

The sudden formality of his tone catches him off guard, but Evan is quick to stand up and give his attention to his superior. "Sir," he says. The soldier is frozen in place, waiting for orders. He's one of the shorter boys, Evan, but even with his smaller, frailer build, something about him still makes him seem tall like the rest of his comrades. Perhaps it's the way he holds up his chin, or perhaps it's that those dark eyes of his hold attention when the rest of his physique cannot. No matter what, something about him will not let him hide.

"Put out that fire." Ike turns his head towards the window gently. "The sun's about down now. We can't have our location broadcasted."

Evan nods. "Yes, sergeant."

One of the perks to a high graduating rank is a higher starting rank in the military, where the top twenty start out as sergeant. Ike and Stannet, being numbers one and two in the class respectively, are the only two sergeants in the room. The other four-Evan, Cille, Kasnoj, and Ian-all graduated in the next thirty, earning them the rank of corporal, right below sergeant. Because of Ike's long held reputation and the status of ranks, he's the uncontested leader of this impromptu six-man team.

He stands up. "Tomorrow, we search for the others. If there are 42 escaped, then there are 36 more to find." These five comrades of his all look him in the eyes, nodding in agreement. "There's still a lot of work to do, before we can get out of this damn place."