Sam stared into the six-foot diameter hole in the ground. The walls were hewn of smooth stone, but the bottom was lined with small ruffles to provide traction for the crew of Dwarves that regularly exited the system with full sandbags, stacking them by the entrance for other soldiers to grab and fortify the base further.

Periodically, small candles sat in grooves in the wall, providing the only light within the subterranean cavern. He was honestly impressed at the quality and speed of the muscular Dwarves work.

“Made the Viet-Cong proud, Kara,” he chuckled under his breath as he stepped further into the bunker, stopping at every intersection on the sloped pathway to admire her rooms. The bulbous protrusions would make for impressive housing for his soldiers, provided they survived the next week or so.

After nearly three hundred meters of winding, shifting tunnels, he finally set eyes on Kara, taking a rest near an unfinished section of the tunnel, drinking steadily from her canteen as the other Dwarves worked at filling sandbags with piles of earth that had been stripped from the walls.

“Damned fine work here, Kara,” Sam admitted, walking up next to her and leaning against the tunnel wall. “Having an Earth-Mage on hand sure is handy.”

She quirked a brow at him from where she sat, sweat and mud staining her brow and forearms.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment, sir?” she asked, looking genuinely confused.

“Yeah, yeah it is,” he replied absentmindedly, admiring her handiwork.

“I always heard that Etalumarrunians were an odd bunch,” she snorted, taking a bite of a piece of hardtack, “You certainly don’t disappoint.”

“I’m not odd!” Sam groused, turning to look at her with a confused expression.

She stared at him blankly with a raised brow before snorting and shaking her head.

“Well, uh, is there anything I can do to help?” he inquired, changing the subject after a moment of uncomfortable silence.

“Feel like hauling sandbags to the top?” she asked, clearly intending it as sarcasm. Sam rolled his sleeves to his elbows, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and grabbed one of the burlap sacks off the small pile the Dwarves had stacked. He hefted it to his shoulder in one smooth motion, and began his trek back to the top, waggling his eyebrows as he passed Kara, who stared skeptically at him.

So went the remainder of his afternoon, helping the tunnelers add another hundred meters of tunnel, raise the walls by two feet around the camp, and an extra four feet of thickness. He also regularly brought the stubborn workers rations and water, having to order them several times to take a break, and just sit. By the end, Kara informed him that they had six feet of ground left between the end of the tunnel and a location several hundred yards down the hill in a small draw.

Kara had intelligently given their entire camp a plausible escape route in the case of a situation like Fourth Platoon. The majority of the camp could flee into the bunker system, which she could easily collapse behind them, and then pop the exit door open like a cork, giving time for a fighting retreat deeper into the valley.

It gave Sam all kinds of ideas for turning the pass into a guerrilla fighter’s wet dream with tunnels spanning both sides of the jagged valley walls, but he doubted he had the time to spend to allow her to go all-out. This would have to do.

He was slurping greedily from his canteen when he heard dense footfalls from the cavern behind him. He turned to see Kara leading a small convoy of Dwarves out of the mouth of the tunnel. She stopped next to him as each of the workers gave him stoic nods when they passed.

“You proved your point,” she sighed as the men left earshot.

“What point was that?” he asked after taking a deep gulp of air.

“That you’re willing to get your hands dirty,” she stated bluntly, admiring the pink and orange hues of the dying sunset. “I’m impressed; you clearly studied the handbook on how to earn your soldier’s loyalty, and followed through.”

“Handbook?” he asked tiredly, raising his gaze to the side of her face. She turned to him, the evening light igniting her hazel eyes a deep gold as she watched him quizzically.

“Aye, that lines up,” she admitted, chuckling and rolling her eyes. “I doubt you’ve read any field manual in your life. Sir bottom-of-his-britches Volkjel!”

Sam was about to retort when he realized, that as of late, she was actually very accurate. He had been flying by the seat of his pants, improvising everything. It wasn’t like he could make a coherent plan when he didn’t even really know his objective in the first place.

“You should get some sleep,” she commanded. “You did more work today than most officers do in a year, if you don’t count paper-pushing and meaningless briefings.”

‘You really should come back. you’re going to wanna see this,’ Ellie added in his head.

He exhaled, running a hand through his short hair before he nodded once.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he said, screwing the cap on his canteen as he stood. “Hell of a good job today, Kara. Thanks to you, our chances of survival just went up from astronomical to only unlikely.”

“Happy to be of service, Lieutenant,” she sniped back sarcastically with a half-hearted curtsy.

Sam groaned and began his trek to his hooch.

“Whole goddamned Platoon of fuckin’ comedians,” he muttered to himself, shaking his head with a smile as he rounded the side. Ellie was leaning against the door-frame, much to his surprise.

“Hey Ellie,” he said tiredly, stretching his back, “What’s so important that I need to see?”

She snickered once, and opened the door wide for him. Gazing into the darkened space, he found it ransacked, if in an organized way. His desk was flipped upside-down, with his sleeping bag laid out atop it, almost like a miniature tent. Warm light from what he assumed was an oil lamp spilled out from the interior through small breaks and folds in the fabric. His trunk had clearly been raided, its contents fanned out around the chest, oddly situated in organized piles.

He squinted as a confused smile split his lips.

“The hell happened here?” he muttered under his breath, spying that Ellie’s bedroll had been left untouched.

“Sir!” The exuberant voice of Zee came from within the blanket fort. A moment of soft rustling later, and the enthusiastic Goblin scrambled her way out of her impromptu den with a bright smile, clutching a large pile of papers to her chest. She stood up, barely coming up past Sam’s belly button. If he had to guess, the goblin was around four and a half feet tall, at best.

She giggled happily, and extended her clutch of organized papers to his chest. He took the stack of papers, which were rotated ninety degrees every ten or twenty pages. Taking one of the separated stacks, he handed the pile off to Ellie as he began to absentmindedly pick through the small manual.

What Zee had managed to put together in less than a day was honestly impressive. At least four fifteen-page, exquisitely hand-crafted field manuals had been produced, with each of the eighteen inch by twenty-four inch pages of the old sketchbook being divided up into four equal sections.

Neat drawings of tactics, along with copious descriptions of what he’d lined out were written on each page, with a small number at the bottom right corner. He smiled at the first page of his stack.

‘Lieutenant Volkjel’s Combat Survival Guide, First Edition.’

Beneath the title sat an impressively well-done drawing of his sword-like bayonet, underlining the title.

“Fuckin hell, Zee, this is outstanding!” he remarked, eyeballing a drawing of room-clearing tactics. “Where’d you learn to do this?”

“Oh!” she said excitedly, “I was in school to become a Courtroom Scribe for the Ducal Legal Council before the war broke out! I got drafted, and they told me to go here.”

“Sorry to hear that, Zee,” Sam said, noticing the somber change in her voice. Ellie passed the packet back to him with a nod.

‘Promote her,’ she said in his head, ‘NCO’s can serve as aides to an officer officially, and it’s well within your rights as a Lieutenant to battlefield promote her to Corporal.’

‘Aren’t you my aide?’ he shot back, quirking a brow.

‘I am, but I’m significantly better at organizing your chain of command to get what you want done in the background,’ she shrugged, ‘A scribe would be invaluable for runners, sketching enemy encampments, and more manuals. You’ve got all those twenty-first century small-unit tactics locked away in that head of yours, and you’re not very good at explaining them. She seems to understand what you’re saying well enough.’

Realizing that she had a point, he weighed the options. He had some sincere concerns Zee’s earlier antics, but her value as a scribe for disseminating training and information to his soldiers was incalculable, especially in the moment. He exhaled deeply.

“Zee, I’m promoting you to Corporal,” he said, turning to the plucky Gobliness. “In addition, I’m making you my personal scribe. Does that sound good to you?”

Her over-sized dark eyes widened for several seconds as she seemed to consider the implications of his question. She rapidly looked between Sam and Ellie with a quizzical expression.

“Isn’t she your aide?” Zee asked after a second, cocking her head.

“Yeah, she is,” Sam answered with a nod, “But she handles organizing the platoon like the First Sergeant. I need you to help me teach and train by doing this.”

He finished with a gentle tap on the sheets of paper in his hand, indicating that he was talking about her quality work. She smiled widely, flashing a pair of exaggeratedly long snaggletooth canines back at him before extending her hands out to the stack of impromptu field manuals.

“Alright Zee, get back to your bunk. I’ve gotta get some shuteye,” Sam remarked, stepping around the diminutive woman into his room. The door closed behind him, and he began to strip out of his uniform. After several seconds, he piled the bundle of his blouse and pants atop the chest, not really having the wherewithal to reorganize what the Goblin had pulled out.

He turned around, intent on pulling his sleeping bag and blankets from Zee’s impromptu fort, only to find the diminutive woman scuttling back inside. He flashed a glance to Ellie, who had a hand held before her face, trying and failing to stifle a giggle.

‘I think she’s moved in,’ she remarked, flashing him an image of one of the squad rows of tents with its bedrolls and kit missing that she’d spotted earlier.

‘Why the fuck would she do that?’ Sam shot back, more than a little uncomfortable at the now severely cramped space that he occupied.

‘I believe she’s a House-Goblin,’ Ellie clarified, shrugging as she looked at him, ‘Though she’s unusually… developed.”

‘The fuck does that mean?’

‘I think she might have some Human, or at least Elven blood in her. Maybe in her family history, someone got a bit too frisky with their House-Gob-‘

“Stop that, please?” remarked Zee from inside her den, “I don’t know what kind of telepathic magic you two share, but every time you two stare at each other like that, it’s like there’s a magical itch behind my ears that I can’t seem to scratch!”

Now Ellie stared at the Goblin’s small abode in shock as she seemed to internally process what had been said.

“What do you mean, Vomfreet’zee?” Ellie asked pensively, absentmindedly licking her three sets of canines as she flicked worried glances between Sam and the blanket fort.

“My grandpa always said you travelers have some magical ‘mambo-jumbo’ that whatever power brought you here gave you!” Zee admitted without a moment’s hesitation, “When Xek’vrenit brought him here, he was turned into a very powerful Triple-Mage, and saved my tribe from a cruel master. When Lenit fought for independence two hundred years or so ago, he took the entire tribe with him, along with marrying my grandmother!”

“I… uh,” replied Sam.

“It was incredibly frowned upon at that time for a human to marry a Goblin, let alone any species outside the Big Three, but he lovingly took her as his fourth wife! Gave her my three uncles and mother, too!”

“T-traveler?” he asked, glancing up to Ellie.

“Not from here,” the goblin answered, crawling out of her abode, “Grandpa told me that people are sometimes chosen by the Gods, brought here to accomplish a goal, and then left to their own devices. Happens once every few hundred years or so.”

“Zee,” interjected Ellie, “Just who is your Grandfather?”

“Oh,” she giggled, beaming up at the pair, “He’s Kaiser Dietrich Von Schatz of the Principality of Schatzstadt! I don’t think they realized who I was when they pulled me into the recruiters office.”

“Why isn’t your last name Schatz, then?” Sam inquired, passing a look to Ellie, who appeared beyond amused.

“My mother married another from the tribe, took his name,” Zee admitted, “My grandfather was the one who paid for my education in the Gerra University.”

“So, you’re a noble?” he pressed, unsure of what to do with the little enigma.

“Eh, technically,” shrugged Zee, “Grandpa talks a lot about how he’s set up a council elected by the people to rule after he passes, as he says ‘The age of kings is ending’ at practically every family dinner.”

Sam, thoroughly uncomfortable with the moment, still had to stifle a chuckle at Zee’s overdone impression of a deep-voiced German accent when she mimicked her grandfather.

“Ooookay then,” Sam squeaked hesitantly, shooting Ellie a pleading gaze, before he shook his head with a snort. “You know what, I’m too tired to deal with this now, I’m going to bed.”

Sam stood, stretched his back, and walked to his ruck, grabbing a wool-lined leather jacket before throwing it on. His insulated sleeping bag had been ‘tactically acquired’ by the House-Goblin to build the roof of her small nest inside the overturned desk.

Thankfully, his sleeping pad itself hadn’t been touched, meaning that he didn’t have to sleep directly on the cold ground tonight. He began to think about their meager supply cache on the outpost, a small hooch like his own stacked with ammunition and rations, but he doubted there would be a spare sleeping bag crammed in the ramshackle mess.

“There isn’t,” Ellie stated, once again inextricably tied to his internal monologue. “Though, I think mine is big enough for two!”

Sam eyeballed the mischievous Drow for a second before realizing she was right. If the previous night had been any indication, the temperature could drop well into freezing up here, especially in the wee hours of the morning.

‘It’s just sleep,’ he reassured himself, ‘How is it any different than sleeping in the field next to other men for warmth.’

He internally groaned at that line of thought, pinching the bridge of his nose as he chastised himself.

‘Of course it’s different, fuckhead,’ Sam growled at himself, ‘It wasn’t with a Drow who is far too pretty for her own good trying to lure you into her bed any way she can.’

He shot a surreptitious glance at Ellie, who had walked past him, and was working her uniform top off. The rough green-brown fabric slid over her shoulders in a fluid motion, giving way to the pale lilac flesh beneath. Wiry muscles flexed beneath a sleeveless white undershirt, the shadows of the oil lamp flickering over her skin inviting him to admire her more.

Ellie bent over in front of him, undoing the belt of her trousers and sliding them to the floor, exposing her long, toned legs, wide hips, and her firm rear to him. Blinking in shock as he took in deep eyefuls of her shapely body, he wondered if she’d forgotten he was right behind her.

Ellie turned and gave him a teasing smile over her shoulder, batting her eyelashes several times as she clearly invited him to join her.

‘She knows exactly what she’s doing,’ Sam realized as he sighed, stripped off the jacket, and stepped towards her.

Ellie unbuttoned the sleeping bag all the way down, spreading it wide like a blanket across both of their pads, smiling brightly up to him as she happily wriggled her way into her side of the impromptu bed. She rapidly patted his side twice as she softly bit her bottom lip.

Exasperated, tired, and rapidly warming to the idea of sharing a bed with her, Sam knelt down and crawled into his side of the open-faced sleeping bag. He reached up and turned off the oil lamp on top of the chest, having been moved from its home on the desk by the Gobliness.

He heard a soft swish of fabric before Ellie’s back and rear pressed against his side. She grabbed his arm and wrapped his bicep and forearm around her neck, using his arm as a pillow. Sam decided to push back, hoping his forwardness would push his companion further away.

He turned on his side, spooning her, and wrapped an arm around her waist. She made a soft cooing noise and wiggled herself further into his embrace, shifting her hips just a second too long. Sam realized his mistake then. She’d been hoping, even inviting him to do this. Now he was trapped, with both arms wrapped around his warm, soft, and cozy partner.

Even as he considered rolling to face the other direction, his heart sank at the prospect. In no small part because he himself enjoyed the feeling of her warm body pressed against him, but primarily because he was afraid of hurting her.

Sam wasn’t a total idiot, he knew she was interested in him at some level. He wasn’t sure how much was her teasing nature, and how much was truly because of her feelings towards him. If their discussion the other day was any indication, her feelings were genuine, at least a little.

He accepted the position he’d found himself in, and pulled her closer to himself as she nuzzled the top of her head beneath his jaw happily, murmuring something inaudible before Sam closed his eyes and felt sleep rush up to meet him.

* * *

Sam awoke. The loud pounding on his door that shook him awake continued to ring in his eardrums. Groaning, he extricated himself from the tangle of limbs that made his bedroll. At some point in the night, Ellie had turned around and wormed herself into a deep hug, pulling him against the front of her body.

Sam stood, grabbing his trousers and putting them on quickly. He moved for the door, opening it with a jerk. Kara stood there, fear etched on her face.

“Morning, Kara,” he stated blearily.

“Sir, a dragon is circling the camp,” she stated professionally. Sam didn’t miss her glance at the half-naked Ellie, and very topless Goblin peeking her way out of the den as she spoke, a momentary flash of anger rippling across her face before the professional, if nervous expression returned.

Her words definitely served to wake him up, however. He nodded, and spun for his gear. He hastily threw on his uniform top, boots, and belt. He checked the chamber on his pistol before re-holstering it and repeating the process for his rifle.

Within a minute, he was following Kara out the door as Ellie and Zee readied themselves significantly slower. Ellie was softly whispering to Zee as he shut the door behind himself, waving a hand at Kara to indicate for her to guide him to where he was needed. He glanced above to the blue, pre-dawn gloomy sky, the beautiful stars still proudly twinkling away even as the sun threatened to crest the horizon.

He followed Ellie to the gate of the camp, stepping up to the now significantly larger sandbag wall than when he’d arrived. He passed a glance at the First Sergeant and Henfri, who were watching the sky above and followed their eyes.

In the distance, he caught sight of a large black shape that blotted out the sky and stars as it flapped its massive wings. The dragon held a slow pace as it circled above the camp, not doing anything aggressive, just floating lazily along the air currents, menacingly.

“First Sergeant,” Sam stated, getting his attention, “Rouse the men, I want guns pointed in every fucking direction. Set up machine guns at the apexes, do your best to provide intersecting fields of fire. I don’t want any more surprises this early in the morning.”

“Sir,” Stahlbrecher nodded, “Yes sir.”

Sam listened as the older man dropped down to the ground and began to bark orders at the men, the sounds fading as he went in the direction of the sleeping quarters.

“She looks like a younger dragon, sir,” Henfri acknowledged, motioning with her snout towards the circling figure. “My guess is no longer a juvenile, not yet a full-fledged adult.”

“Can your rifle take her down?” asked Sam, eyeballing the large anti-tank rifle on Henfri’s shoulder.

“With the right shot,” she nodded in reply, pulling the rifle off and resting its bipod on the sandbag wall, “Though I doubt I’m good enough of a shot to hit at this distance, let alone her speed.”

The dragon dove in that moment, folding its wings to its side as it dropped like a rock towards the ground. As it neared the tops of the trees, she extended her wide wings, arcing out of the meteoric drop she’d been in to speed above the treetops. Sam knelt on the sandbags, resting his rifle atop them as he sighted in on the big lizard.

He knew his rounds probably would do nothing to it, but he hoped desperately that he could at least affect the pilot.

As the beast neared the camp, Sam readied himself for the roiling inferno to spew forth as it had for the other camp, but none came. In fact, the lizard of unusual size flared its wings as it came ever closer, and slowed to a stop before the camp, landing with a soft thud a hundred meters down the sloping path to the gate. Two individuals stood from the back of the dragon, with the third remaining put atop it.

One of the two figures raised a white rag on a stick above their head, waving it back and forth as they approached the gate. Sam didn’t move, merely trained his rifle on the figure in the lead. The pair approached, stopping twenty meters away from his position.

“Ho the wall!” called a heavily accented female voice. One of the pair stepped forward into view, an early-middle aged Elf with ice-blue eyes and black hair. Her ostentatious dress uniform clattered as she stepped closer, the massive stack of medals across her left breast rattling as she walked. The crisp blue and gray uniform looked almost pressed, as if it had been ironed before coming here.

“The hell do you want?” Sam growled back at her, remembering the brutality with which they had treated their sister platoon.

“I’m here to offer you terms of surrender!” she called back. “I am Colonel Valeria Contressor, of the Seventy-Sixth Darabadian Republican Guard Regiment.”

“I accept your surrender, Colonel!” Sam yelled back, placing the iron sights of his rifle between her eyes, “I don’t think I have room for your men, though.”

She shot him a glare, looking utterly nonplussed at his response.

“Just get me your officer in charge, so I can speak with someone… competent, please?” she sighed.

“Speakin’ with him!” he shouted back, adjusting his grip on the rifle, “Unless you’re here to surrender, how about you get the hell off my lawn before I turn you and your friend to pink mist!”

“Did you not see what I did to your friends across the valley?” the Colonel asked, gesturing to the singed mountainside across the way.

“I did, which is why I’ve got your skull in my sights!”

“What a disappointment,” sighed Colonel Contressor, “So be it then.”

She spun, gesturing for the man in a Mages uniform to follow her, and walked back to the dragon. The dragon extended a wing for the pair to climb up, and after several seconds, they were situated. The beast took off, flapping its wings as it climbed skyward. It sped away from the FOB, and Sam exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“We should expect a firefight within the next hour…” He trailed off as he watched the dragon bank and turn, flying directly back at the camp. “Shit, shit, shit!”

He stood, grabbing Kara by the shoulder and pointing at the bunker she’d made.

“Kara, get everyone in there! Go!” he barked, looking back to the rapidly approaching dragon. In that moment he knew he wasn’t going to make it. He just wouldn’t have enough time.

He leapt off of the sandbag wall, rolling as he hit the ground six feet below. Sam rose to a knee, sighting the rifle on the dragon as he fired almost a dozen rounds in rapid succession. The dragon opened its mouth wide as fire began to ignite and illuminate in its throat.

“Run!” shouted Sam at the top of his lungs, turning as he stood from his kneeling position as the dragon’s wing-beats sounded loudly across the camp. White fire poured out around him as he ran, the searing heat giving way to nothingness as the fire melted his nervous system.

His world went black as his eyeballs charred in their sockets, his last thought sluggish in his head.

‘I’m sorry, Ellie.’

As the fire consumed his body, the world roared in his ears, and he heard himself hit the ground.

Sam knew no more.