I immediately take up residence in the loft, the stairs naturally corral any would be attacker up them to get to me, and if push comes to shove and they surround the entrances I can force my way through the thin wall to escape. I start gathering any hay into the loft upstairs, the dirty straw, while disgusting, is better than sleeping on the hardwood. I leave my SERE kit upstairs and focus for a moment to decide what I’m going to do next. I need to learn the local language. The best way is to get someone to teach me. I can’t pick the best one because I can’t communicate so I just need to grab anyone.

Bang, bang, bang.

My flimsy door shudders on the impact of someone trying to get my attention, the pistol hidden underneath the dirty rags I haven't changed in days I open the door to find out what they want. The man who guided me to this run down shack is back with a small bag of stuff and hands it to me, it’s filled with some tools, food, bowls, mugs and the sort.

“Honoth.” I say to him and he frowns and mumbles something, I point to myself and state my name, “November.” He audibly groans as he has probably realises I’m attaching myself to him now.

“Senir” he replies back to me, I place the bag inside next to the door and my pistol underneath it, I won’t be needing that until I return later. Stepping out of the barn and closing the door behind me he has to take a couple of steps back, I gesture towards the village and then mime splitting wood. As we walk into the hamlet I point at things and call them out in English. He doesn’t catch on immediately but after pointing to myself a few times and saying my designation he discovered I want him to give me the names of the objects.

He guides me to his home, the one he got angry that I pointed at early and leads me around the back. There’s a large stump and a pile of wood, some have been split and some haven’t. Senir points to the large pile of disorganised wood and then to the neatly stacked split wood that’s closer to his house. I nod in understanding so he enters his house and I get to work.

I picked up one of the easier to grab wood, finding a good grip and pulling it apart. It doesn’t come apart neatly as the wood has yet to fully dry, I hear Senir’s voice mutter as he holds an axe in his hand, his door swings closed behind him. Picking up the half split wood I pull it apart again so it fits to size with the other ones.

“Nhueat ae foockhet…” Senir states in a disbelieving look, he rushes over to look at my hands but they’re still covered by the undersuit that I wear, just small fragments of wood coat it. A look of confusion appears on his face as he looks and feels the material. I’ll have to remove the undersuit to better blend in, its capabilities are useful but not what I require at this time as it draws too much attention. Wanting to distract the primitive I shake my hand loose and point towards the tool he brought out.

“Axe.” I state.

“Aaaa-ks.” Senir repeats, but then switches to his own language and states what it is, he waves his hand dismissedly. Pointing to me and then the ground he’s trying to convey for me to stay here.

“Honoth.” I reply, I need to find out the proper words for; yes, no, and okay. Senir rushes back through his home and disappears from my line of sight. Rather than wasting my time by standing around with my thumb up my ass being told to “hurry up and wait.” I figure I might as well get my original job done, I pick up the axe where Senir left it and get to work chopping wood which was my goal to begin with.

The sound of wood splitting snaps out in the rear garden, it doesn’t require much concentration at all and allows me to do a detailed scan of my surroundings. Aside from the initial impressions I usually take when just scanning for the Enemy. The infrastructure of the village can only be described as crude, there is no metal, tarmacked, paved roads or footpaths of any sort. Dirt is allowed and is everywhere.

Most buildings, if not all, are made out of flammable materials and are not properly spaced if there was a fire or firefight in this area. The houses would only provide cover from unfiltered sight, other specialist cameras I would have on an exo-suit would make any enemy clearly visible. I would just walk through their homes as if they weren’t there. These people are unable to defend themselves should the enemy make their presence known, I barely have the equipment to fight.

Despite how limited the infrastructure is it shows development of humans which means they can establish a fixed homestead. Having a fixed homestead means they have had time to build and not be massacred by the Enemy. A reasonable assumption with no major leaps in logic, Humans cannot coexist with the Enemy. One must be destroyed for the other to live, which could possibly mean that Humans may have won. However, being the cynic I am, I know that things can’t ever be that simple.

Senir quickly comes back with someone following him, “November.” He calls towards me and I stop to look at him, he’s the exact same but there's another person with him, wearing inefficient armour of leather and chainmail. Senir mimes at me, informing me that he wants to see my original method of chopping the wood and I comply. Embedding the axe into the tree stump it sinks deep into the wood until the head is almost gone. I then pick up a block of wood and tear it in half before throwing the two halves towards the tidy stack.

Senir’s friend, who I assume to be a Baseline Human guard or hunter, his jaw drops and Senir laughs at him. His friend waves his hand at me and calls “Phulluues mehd” ushering me to follow him and I do.

He takes me back to the centre of the village and leads me into a nondescript house, however inside is completely different than what I would assume a normal house looks like. Several tables across the room each displaying weapons and amour. It takes a few minutes be Senir’s friend just works on getting me sized up.

It looks like I’ve found some reliable work to integrate myself, with water, food, and shelter secured. I can devote all my attention to learning the language.