Respite of the storm
Jul. 2nd, 2007 09:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runmakitarunThe storm proves to have more endurance than most. By noon the day after she gets back, Makita knows that it’s going to last all week. When it eventually passes the city will find itself covered in white. The evidence of the fighting will be buried, at least until new bodies pile up and high explosives melt the blanket that lies over the old ones.
In the early days of fighting both sides would continue to kill one another in the blinding whiteness and freezing wetness, but things have changed. The Reds have learned, painfully, that the storm is no place to fight the ‘Gorkas. Almost every Red advantage is nullified and the children strike out of the howling wind and then fade into the storm’s darkness. After the second blizzard, in which they lost an entire Fleet company without a trace, the Reds started pulling all their troops back to the Skyfurnaces and rising above the storms to wait them out.
Makita knows that this means she won’t get a mission until the Reds begin gating their troops back down. Regular squads will be busy reinforcing defensive positions and scavenging what supplies they can from abandoned Red base camps, but those are team projects. Independent operatives are expected to link up with a squad to chip in.
It’s an informal system, and that means that there’s a bit of leeway. She should have time to find Proto and whoever they have him partnered with this month and make sure they hook up with the same squad. The thought brings a genuine smile to her face.
She doesn’t have a direct communications link to Proto, but that’s okay. She knows just where to find him, just where he will go to find her. Makita tightens the straps of her combat harness and shoulders her RKG-41.
Then she steps out into the storm. The wind cuts through gaps in her coat, and she pauses for a moment to tighten the belt which holds it closed. She also takes the chance to pull her oversized hat down farther over her ears and neck and to check her boot laces. That makes her grin.
People sometimes make fun of her for having boots three sizes too large and a hat fit for a man more than twice her size, but papa knew what he was doing. The hat covers her neck down past the collar of her coat, and the only way to get boots so large to fit properly is to wear five pairs of socks. She knows it may look silly, but she stays warm.
The stockings though, sometimes she thinks they’re a mistake. While they’re made from an extremely good heat insulator, they’re just not very tough; the rips and tears that fighting in the streets inflict on them means that the cold wind raises goose bumps across her legs. Of course papa knew what he was doing there too. The best way to keep your legs warm in the storm is to keep moving, and the best way to stay alive in Bahamut is to keep moving.
Makita smiles; maybe she and Proto will be able to hook up with papa’s squad to work out the storm. As warm as she’s going to get, she lopes through the falling snow headed for Proto, headed for the garden.
In the early days of fighting both sides would continue to kill one another in the blinding whiteness and freezing wetness, but things have changed. The Reds have learned, painfully, that the storm is no place to fight the ‘Gorkas. Almost every Red advantage is nullified and the children strike out of the howling wind and then fade into the storm’s darkness. After the second blizzard, in which they lost an entire Fleet company without a trace, the Reds started pulling all their troops back to the Skyfurnaces and rising above the storms to wait them out.
Makita knows that this means she won’t get a mission until the Reds begin gating their troops back down. Regular squads will be busy reinforcing defensive positions and scavenging what supplies they can from abandoned Red base camps, but those are team projects. Independent operatives are expected to link up with a squad to chip in.
It’s an informal system, and that means that there’s a bit of leeway. She should have time to find Proto and whoever they have him partnered with this month and make sure they hook up with the same squad. The thought brings a genuine smile to her face.
She doesn’t have a direct communications link to Proto, but that’s okay. She knows just where to find him, just where he will go to find her. Makita tightens the straps of her combat harness and shoulders her RKG-41.
Then she steps out into the storm. The wind cuts through gaps in her coat, and she pauses for a moment to tighten the belt which holds it closed. She also takes the chance to pull her oversized hat down farther over her ears and neck and to check her boot laces. That makes her grin.
People sometimes make fun of her for having boots three sizes too large and a hat fit for a man more than twice her size, but papa knew what he was doing. The hat covers her neck down past the collar of her coat, and the only way to get boots so large to fit properly is to wear five pairs of socks. She knows it may look silly, but she stays warm.
The stockings though, sometimes she thinks they’re a mistake. While they’re made from an extremely good heat insulator, they’re just not very tough; the rips and tears that fighting in the streets inflict on them means that the cold wind raises goose bumps across her legs. Of course papa knew what he was doing there too. The best way to keep your legs warm in the storm is to keep moving, and the best way to stay alive in Bahamut is to keep moving.
Makita smiles; maybe she and Proto will be able to hook up with papa’s squad to work out the storm. As warm as she’s going to get, she lopes through the falling snow headed for Proto, headed for the garden.
