Jason thought he knew what being cramped felt like. He’d spent weeks at a time out on the Whisker after all, and Shil’vati craft didn’t get much smaller than that.

By contrast, the Gentle River was a massive troop ship, capable of transporting an entire regiment with their accompanying armor. Sure, they’d had to get a little creative with space, given that the Terran First had a tank company rather than a second exo one, but it had all more or less worked out.

Still, as he had quickly learned over the last week of phase travel, sharing a tiny ship with seven other people was not entirely different from sharing a massive ship with four thousand strangers. Because in many ways, the latter was worse.

Much worse.

“How’s it going, Champ?” A burly Marine asked as he slid into the seat opposite him, the other members of the young man’s pod taking up seats beside him. “Any more trouble from the tanks?”

Jason sighed, letting his dessert spoon hit the table with an inaudible plink.

For all that he spent most of his time with the officer’s side of the regiment, he was still technically an enlisted. Which meant that when it came to dining in the mess hall, he had to sit with the enlisted rather than at the officer’s table.

Not that he’d had an issue with that. If anything, it was rather relaxing. Most of the time he had a table to himself. The boots were usually too intimidated by his rank to get close, and the veterans kept to their ‘own’ end of the dining hall. Beyond Yaro – and occasionally Nora – he was alone to enjoy his meals in blissful silence.

It truly had been a wonderful two days.

Naturally, it had been an extrovert that had brought it to an end. By doing what they always did when they forced themselves into the carefully cultivated safe space of introverts.

So it was that on the eve of the third day of travel, a plucky boot named Martinez had made his way over to politely ask about the events of Gurathu. Because, as it turned out, Jason had somehow managed to cultivate a reputation amongst the boots that, while not quite legendary, wasn’t too far off either.

Jason had humored the young man, i. Impressed by his audacity if nothing else. He’d kept his recount of the events as cold and clinical as he could. He wasn’t the type to boast.

That had been a mistake.

Because once one person spoke to him and emerged unscathed and with tales to tell, others had gotten the courage to do the same.

Like the trio of boots before him.

“No,” he said slowly, ignoring Yaro’s amused snickers. The overgrown furball knew very well how much these little interruptions annoyed him and delighted in watching him suffer through it. “At least, not if we count the occasional surly glance.”

Which Jason most assuredly did not.

Unfortunately, it seemed he was one of the few in the regiment who did so.

“Good,” the brunette woman next to the first Marine said as she scooped up a dollop of the flavored ice that the Shil’vati seemed to favor over ice cream.

The aliens weren’t a great fan of dairy. Not that he could blame them. He’d seen a Turox, and he pitied the fool that tried to milk one of the overgrown crocodiles. Mainly because the scaled beasts couldn’t be milked, but also because of the claws. And the teeth.

Ignorant of his thoughts on her choice in dessert, the female Marine continued. “About time the elitist bastards shut up and got in line.”

Jason just made a non-committal hum as the brunette’s compatriots nodded in vehement agreement.

He really didn’t want to hear about this. It was just a rehash of the exact same conversation he’d been subjected to before coming down here. Friska and her tankers against the rest of the regiment. Well, most of the rest of the regiment. Even the tankers weren’t crazy enough to make an enemy of the logistics company. If anything, they were more respectful of the collection of cooks, engineers and medical practitioners than even the boots.

Of course, as much as he cared nothing for it, it wasn’t like he didn’t see the cause of the growing division in the regiment.

In basic training, it was reinforced over and over again that teamwork was what mattered. Unity was the aim of the game. For a recruit to succeed alone was in many ways little different from a failure in the eyes of most instructors. The reverse could even be said to be true for group failure. When it came to kit inspections, a minor infraction was looked upon far more leniently if every recruit made the same mistake in the same manner.

Recruits were rewarded and punished as a group. One recruit’s fuck up was everyone’s fuck up. One recruit’s success was everyone’s success. Eventually this approach meant that errors were self correcting, and the instructors could rest on their laurels as recruits set about policing themselves.

It was a clever system. More to the point, it was a system that worked.

Of course, said approach had drawbacks.

He who chose not to conform was the enemy, for their actions might bring punishment down on me and mine.

And the tankers weren’t conforming.

Jason glanced up to where they sat, taking up nearly a sixth of the available seating space, the group of men still managed to account for more than half the noise echoing around the room. Speaking mostly in English with a smattering of Shil, the veterans stood out like a sore thumb.

It wasn’t like they were even doing anything particularly disruptive. They just spoke a little louder. Gesticulated a little more widely. Laughed with abandon. Yelled to each other from across the table as they told stories of the one thing they all had in common.

Perfectly normal behavior.

It was only the presence of the rows upon rows of hunched over and quietly chatting boots that made the group of tankers seem… rowdy.

A boot ate quietly. His head down as he shoveled food into his mouth as a habit born from the need to eat quickly in basic training. If he or she spoke, it was only to those immediately next to or across from him. They did so as quietly as they could while still being heard, lest some sudden lull in conversation result in them standing out with a loudly spoken word.

It was a study in contrast. Subtle contrasts to the untrained eye perhaps, but contrasts all the same.

And Humans loved to divide themselves over lines real and imagined.

Not that it’s any of my business, Jason thought as he turned his attention back to the food in front of him. Leave that shit to the officers to work out…

He paused, even as he thought the words. Hadn’t he thought something similar once before? Right before everything had gone down on Gurathu?

How had leaving things to his betters worked out there?

“Hey, uh, you gonna finish that?” A swarthy guy – Indian by his accent – was eying Jason’s mostly untouched pudding covetously.

“Dev,” the brunette hissed, scandalized. “You did not just ask the Champion that, you fatass!”

Given the Indian man in question had the lithe build Jason most commonly associated with that region's populace, he could only presume that the fatass comment had more to do with the man’s eating habits than his girth.

Still, that appetite seemed to have been curtailed by the sudden reminder of just who he’d been speaking to, the man’s swarthy complexion paling quite noticeably as he leaned back.

Sighing, Jason didn’t say anything as he deftly slid the dessert over, the boot’s visible surprise, before standing up.

Suddenly he found that he wasn’t hungry anymore.

He barely noticed as Yaro stood up as well, following him out.

“What was with that?” he heard someone ask from behind him, the sound carrying surprisingly well across the busy room.

“Dunno,” Dev’s distinctive Indian accent responded. “I guess he wasn’t hungry anymore.”

“I still can’t believe you asked him for his leftovers.”

--------

In different circumstances, Jason imagined he might have felt some trepidation about what he was about to do. He didn’t though. If nothing else, his time aboard the Maw had put certain things in perspective. Namely, that any situation where one of the possible outcomes wasn’t ‘death’, wasn’t all that intimidating.

“Whatever you’re planning, it’s terrible.” Nora said quietly from his right. A sentiment Yaro echoed from his left with a barely perceptibleaudible nod.

“Noted,” Jason said, not breaking stride.

That wasn’t to say that he didn’t feel any disquiet as he stalked through the halls of the Gentle River Towards his destination – just that, more than anything else, it was overrode by a bone deep sense of fatigue. A general feeling of exhaustion over the whole situation.

It was nearing the ship’s evening cycle, and as such, most of the regiment had retreated to their bunks to take care of the mundane necessities of military living. Washing. Ironing. Some pre-sleep napping. The usual end of day chores.

Of which the regiment’s tank company was no exception.

Naturally, his presence didn’t go unnoticed. Marines stared at him as he passed by them in the hall, and it didn’t take more than a moment for every head in the room to turn in his direction the moment he stepped into his chosen bunk room. Silence fell almost instantly as his presence was registered, the previous conversation and laughter giving way to dead-silence.

“Well, if it isn’t the regimental mascot.” Kincaid was naturally the first one to break the silence, looking up from the game of cards all four men present had been engaged in. “Come to tuck us in?”

Standing behind him, he felt more than heard Yaro bristle at the insult, but before Jason could respond to either of them another voice beat him to it.

“Shut the fuck up, Kincaid,” one of the other men said in a low tired voice. The man looked and sounded like a bear, his beard as thick as the Russian accent that spilled easily from his mouth. That wasn’t what Jason was interested in though. His focus was on the pair of sergeant’s stripes that ran across his breast.

“What can I do for you, Champion?” Dobry, according to his nametag, asked from his seat as he carefully laid down his cards. His tone was neither welcoming nor impolite. Nor was it particularly curious. If anything, it simply sounded resigned. As if this was a conversation long in waiting.

Which was a surprise to Jason, given that he hadn’t decided to even have this conversation until a few hours ago.

ThisWhich, for whatever reason, irritated him. Because if the man knew what this talk was going to be about, they really shouldn’t have had to have it in the first place.

So he decided to be difficult. “Can’t a man check in with the troops, Sergeant? As Champion, one of my duties is keeping an eye on the morale of the regiment after all.”

Kincaid twitched, obviously about to say something, before the man next to him elbowed him in the side. The Corporal shot the Private a mutinous look, but kept his peace. He did continue to stare daggers in Jason’s direction though.

Which was fine with him. Let the man glare all he wanted. He didn’t come here to be liked. He came here to resolve an issue before it became an even bigger clusterfuck.

Still, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t aware of the crowd he was attracting. Other members of the tank regiment were now poking their heads out of their bunk rooms or gathering in the hall. The mood among them seemed more curious than malicious, but there was no denying that a certain amount of tension was in the air. A tension that was not aided by the way Yaro and Nora’s gazes were challengingly sweeping over all of them.

Jason ignored what was going behind him. His business was with the man in front of him.

Dobry leaned back in his seat consideringly. “Of course not, Champion. I only ask because it is unexpected. You have not shown much interest in our company prior to now. So I can only say that this sudden evening visit comes as a surprise.”

There was just a hint of a rebuke in there and Jason had to struggle not to bristle. He’d come here with an agenda, but standing before the much older man, he couldn’t help but feel like a particularly slow student brought before the headmaster.

“I’ve been busy,” he stated. “This is a new role for me. I’ve been spending my time familiarizing myself with my duties.”

“Floundering in the deep end, you mean?” It seemed Kincaid couldn’t resist getting that shot in. “Because you’re-”

“Quiet, Kincaid.” Dobry’s voice didn’t rise, but it still managed to hold all the icy coldness of a Siberian winter – something the former-Captain didn’t miss, given the way that Kincaid’s mouth instantly clapped shut.

Yeah, Jason had to concede as a small sympathetic shiver ran up his own spine. That was the kind of sheer force of personality that comes from being a former Major in the Russian Army.

It seemed he’d picked correctly in coming to the man before him. While Kincaid might have been the most vocal and ‘famous’ member of the tank company, there was no denying that Dobry was the one that held the most influence over the veterans. Regardless of which nation they originated from.

And my plan was to come in here and try to browbeat that man into submission? Jason thought incredulously.

Nora was right. That was a terrible idea. Which only reinforced why it was such a terrible idea to have him in charge of anyone. He dealt with machines, not people!

Well, nothing for it. He would just have to default to his usual programming. Being as blunt as humanly possible.

“Fine,” he sighed. “I’ve been avoiding you all. Just as you lot have been avoiding the rest of the regiment in favor of huddling together in your little tanker cult.”

Dobry’s gaze turned distinctly icy and Jason had to resist the urge to flinch as the tension inside the room and out rocketed up a few notches.

While he didn’t honestly think anyone would do anything, no matter what he said, it was still a distinctly unpleasant place to be. Surrounded by men for whom violence was their vocation and had been playing that vocation since before he had been toilet trained.

“Perhaps,” Dobry allowed. “Yet, what issue is this? That we keep to our own? Amongst people who share our values and our experiences.”

Jason gratefully leapt onto that line, despite the clear warning in the man’s tone. “That!” He hissed. “Right there! Your experiences. This regiment is probably the most top heavy regiment in Imperial history. Most of you were officers before the Shil’vati carted you up here. So why the fuck aren’t you sharing any of it with the boots?”

The Russian was clearly unimpressed. “Why would we? Those Imperial – the Purps – came to us and demanded our skills. Many of my compatriots denied them. And I praise them for it. Their fortitude is a lesson for us all.” Dobry leaned forward, placing one pointed finger on the table before him. “These soldiers you see around yourself now though? They are the weaker ones. Those for whom soldiering is the only life they know. The only life they could conceive of knowing.”

There was some grumbling around the room at that, but Jason noted that none of the discontent rose above that. He didn’t know if everyone present agreed with the former Major’s words, but they all respected him enough not to directly contradict him.

At least, not while Jason was still present.

Dobry barely seemed to hear it anyway, his eyes had gone a little soft. As if he were staring at something else. Suddenly, though, he snapped out of it, leaning back in his seat.

“The Purps desire our skills as tank operators. I will give them this. It is my calling and I am glad to return to it.” He frowned. “But they insulted us. I was a Major before Russia fell. The Purps did not care. They consider me little more than a child in command and strategy. The only skills of me and mine that they care for is our skill as tankers. It is for that reason alone that I am awarded the ‘lofty’ rank of meritorious Sergeant.”

Next to him, Kincaid spat on the floor.

Which was all kinds of gross from Jason’s perspective, but not a man around him seemed to notice. They were all focused on Dobry.

“If they will not respect my previous skill as a commander and tactician, then they will not benefit from them.” The man gestured around the room. “A sentiment echoed by all those present.”

This time there was another grumbling, only it was one of agreement.

To which Jason had just one thing to say.

“Horseshit.”

The sudden silence that followed his statement was so profound, one could have heard a pin drop.

Well, this is how I die, Jason thought, just a little lightheaded as he realized what he had just done. Beaten to death by a crowd of angry tankers for contradicting them.

Well, if he was going to die, he might as well get a few words in first.

“You, all of you, think this regiment is headed for disaster.” Jason spat. “I see it in your words. In your actions. And in the way you snicker at the boots at every opportunity.”

Dobry scowled, but didn’t deny it. “The Colonel – this Cleff woman – is a decent commander. A little aggressive for our my liking, but competent enough in the fields she knows.”

“Unfortunately, she knows dick about Humans,” a muffled voice called from the back.

Dobry’s eye twitched, but he nodded. “Strengths. Weaknesses. How far a man might march. How much supplies he might carry. How far a woman might march. How long they may operate before the need for rest makes them ineffective. The differences between a child of nineteen and a man of twenty five. These things are imperative for a commander to know. They form the basis of long term strategy. The Colonel, she knows these things only in theory – and there are many gaps in that knowledge.”

Jason nodded warily. He knew this. The fact that he occasionally had things to input in high level strategy meetings made that more than obvious.

Doby continued. “More to the point, her underlings are the same. Aliens. A strong core of NCO’s is the lifeblood of military endeavor. Both a prod for the commander and a voice for the troops. Yet these Shil’vati, they don’t understand the boots under them. They treat them as Shil’vati. They push too hard in certain areas and are far too lax in others. This regiment is not a well run machine. It shudders and staggers.”

Jason nodded again.

“Then why aren’t you trying to fix it!?” He all but hissed the words.

Kincaid grinned. “Because, as the old man said, we weren’t asked to. Imps don’t think our knowledge is worth their time? Fine. They won’t get it. We’ll just watch as this regiment crumbles to pieces around them.”

Noticeably, this time Dobry did not contradict the man. He didn’t look happy about it, but he didn’t argue either.

Which only served to stoke Jason’s anger. It would be one thing if the former-Major looked satisfied by what Kincaid had just said. Happy. But he didn’t.

Which meant he knew it was wrong.

“So it’s all just vindictive spite,” Jason said slowly, it all finally coming together for him. “You want the regiment to fail because the Imperials didn’t come to you on their knees and beg?”

It was just so… petty.

Dobry said not a word, simply sniffing disdainfully.

“…Fine.”

It took Jason a moment to register what he’d just said. More to the point, words continued to spill from his mouth.

“I’ll do it then. I’ll beg.” He pointed to Kincaid. “That one’s always calling me an Imperial lapdog. Alright then, so be it. That makes me as Shil’vati as any Purp.” He gritted his teeth. “So I’ll beg you. Please help the regiment. Share what you know. Don’t let all those kids go into a meat grinder over nothing.”

He lowered his head, as he gazed at the floor, ignoring the bristling of Yaro behind him. To be honest, he was surprised she’d managed to keep quiet this long. He’d need to thank her for that later.

Because sometimes, the hardest thing of all was to not act.

“I don’t see you on your knees.”

…Of course, Kincaid had to go and ruin that.

“You seditious beast!” Yaro snarled.

Jason thoroughly believed that it was only the fact that she’d have to shove him aside to get through the doorway to get at the other man that kept her from doing so. Despite the fact that the rest of the tankers would invariably side with their comrade.

“Enough, Yaro.” He said, cutting through the woman’s snarls.

“But…” The Rakiri sounded positively wounded.

“It’s fine,” he said, trying to sound as comforting as possible, before his tone hardened. “If that is what it will take to get the people here to get off their asses, then so be it.” Before he paused. “Also, Nora, hand off the gun.”

Because that would go very poorly indeed. Again, he didn’t think the Scandinavian had any intention of actually using the weapon. It had just been an instinctual reaction to a situation that looked to have a rising possibility for violence.

Not exactly what Jason had intended when he’d come down here. Though to be honest, he had no idea what he’d intended when he’d come down here, beyond a muddle plan to get the tankers more involved with the regiment.

It certainly hadn’t been for him to end up… begging.

Still, if that was what it took to save some lives? Well, his pride was a small thing to pay. Little different from choosing to work with the Imperium, if he was honest. Just condensed into one movement, rather than a slow acceptance over years.

So he slowly started bending his knee...

“Stop!”

The word rang through the room with more force than a gunshot. Surprised, Jason looked up to see Dobry standing from his seat, eyes full of an emotion he struggled to placerecognize.

“Enough,” the old man said. “Enough.” He sank back down into his seat, suddenly sounding tired. “You have made your point. I do not know what you expect from us, but I at least am willing to provide some advice to the boots. I do not know if it will be enough to deviate from the disastrous heading this regiment is aimed towards, but if it will save Human lives…”

Jason could barely believe his ears as he awkwardly straightened up.

“And the others?”

Dobry glanced around the room. “I do not speak for all of them officially. As I said, I am but a Sergeant now… but I think that many may rethink their stance after today. And I am willing to talk to those who do not.”

Jason smiled, relief flooding through him. “That was all I ever wanted.”

“Now get out.”

He did, happy to be away from there.

As he was walking down the hall, he felt Yaro shuffle up next to him.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said. “You shouldn’t have had to do that.”

“If not me, then who?” He shrugged. “What’s done is done.”

------------

He was at his table once more, surrounded by boots. None of them were speaking though. If anything, they looked like they wanted to be anywhere else. A fact he would have normally luxuriated in, were it not for the reason as to why the boots wished to be elsewhere.

He was simmering with irritation.

Nothing had changed. The boots sat together. The tankers sat together. Neither spoke to the other.

And Jason stewed. Perhaps almost as much as Yaro.

He was about to get up and say something when it happened.

One of the tankers stood up, tray of food in hand, and wandered over to the nearest table. Much to the surprise of the boots sat there. From where he was sitting, Jason couldn’t hear any words of the exchange, but he could read the tense body language of all involved.

Still, after a few moments of conversation, the nearest boot shuffled over, making room for the man to sit down. Which he did. Tentatively.

Then he began to speak. And the boots listened. Not entirely one sidedly. Jason could see every time there was a muttered response from the group. But the tanker, to his credit, bulldozed on.

And as he watched, more members of the ‘tanker’s table’ made their way over to sit with the rest of the cafeteria. Slowly. Alone, or in groups of two or three. But that was enough.

Jason sat back in his seat. Satisfied.

Especially because none of them came over to sit at his table.