~01~
Year 2510 - One year before the "Battle of Serenity Valley" and seven years before the present...
Crouching low in his close-cropped hair, long brown coat and heavy black boots, Lieutenant Raymond Kan-chiang could smell the smoking and seeping devastation and death. His shoulder-strapped weapon ready in the smog-shrouded sunrise, the thirty-year-old policeman-turned-soldier rose above the crumbling wall and dashed from broken pile to broken pile.
He breathed evenly as the harsh reality weighed heavily upon him. As far as he knew, he was the last survivor of his squad, perhaps the last of his platoon. From his hilltop position, he peeked over the smashed section of another wall to the quiet hillside below. And his heart sank in utter emptiness and profound loss.
The colorful rows of sun-grown green and clay-roofed red that he had patrolled and protected and enjoyed as a local deputy sheriff no longer existed. Sadly, only his memory of its former beauty and grandeur remained. And now, in its place, stood the bleak ruins of whispering gray and black.
He paused in the light breeze. Yet the destruction seemed to whisper -- "Help me" -- from the distant wind.
"Please... help me..."
Suddenly, blinking his slightly-stinging slender eyes, Kan-chiang realized he actually heard the call. Wait a sec!
"Help me..." the voice whimpered.
With the shards of plaster and concrete and clay cracking and crunching beneath his leaping boots, Kan-chiang rushed from the building remains and down the tattered hillside. Strewn in unnatural backward or twisted positions, the bodies of both friendly and enemy soldiers lay scattered to his left and to his right.
"Help..." the voice seemed to weaken.
He blinked again. As he reached the leveling foot of the hill, his dark narrow eyes watered amidst the intensifying sting of the smell and smolder. He couldn't risk calling out. Not yet. He just needed one more call, maybe two, to locate the owner of that desperate voice. Come on. Just one more call!
"Please... help..."
That was all he needed.
~02~
"Please... help..."
With the cold littered ground crunching beneath his boots, the lone Independent lieutenant dashed to an isolated pile of shattered bodies, and pulled aside the first body, then the second, then the third, until... At the bottom, the shivering form of a young soldier lay helpless and half-conscious, his slender Asian eyes squinting red in the stinging air, and his gray uniform stained maroon on the blood-drenched earth. Gray! An Alliance soldier!
Reflexively, Lieutenant Kan-chiang reached for his knife and kneeled over the uniform, ready to kill the faceless enemy, but...
With blinking watering eyes, the youngster softly began to cry to an unseen sight. "I-I'm sorry, Arria... s-so sorry..."
Kan-chiang paused in the hollow breeze. The smog-layered sky seemed to glow golden above the rising sun. Wispy white cloud strands seemed to hang like frozen feathers in the sky. This so-called enemy was no faceless monster. On the contrary, the Asian looked to be in his mid-twenties, in utter desolation and despair, and in no condition to fight back or even care. What's the point in killing him, here and now, just one more body in a war of countless thousands?
The lieutenant stood up and straightened. Then with a firm deep voice, he barked, "Soldier! Are you hurt?"
Shocked into silence, the youngster blinked and glanced upward in confusion.
The lieutenant repeated, "Soldier! I asked you, 'Are you hurt?' "
Another whistling breeze.
"I-I d-dunno, s-sir..." The squinting soldier stammered and stumbled in a peculiar post-Australian accent, "I think... I think me arm... m-me eyes..."
"Soldier, my name is Ray Kan-chiang. Can you tell me your name?"
"Y-yeah... yessir..." He hesitated as if struggling with the memory. "M-me name's Jacob... J-Jacob Mandara."
~03~
"M-me name's Jacob... J-Jacob Mandara."
Upon further inspection of the young soldier amidst the chilly morning breeze, Lieutenant Kan-chiang not only found a broken arm, but a fractured leg to match, as well as a considerable impact wound to the side of his ribcage, the same side as his broken arm. Probably due to flying concrete fragments. And probably resulting in several cracked ribs. In any case, the bleeding didn't look good. But it could've been worse.
Blinking in the stinging air, the lieutenant surveyed the stark landscape. The cold lonely shards of former buildings. The stained gray uniforms of former lives. You could've been dead.
Weakly, breathlessly, the youngster murmured, "Me name's Jacob..."
The lieutenant needed to act quickly.
Gently sitting up the injured youngster, Kan-chiang pulled off his long brown coat and carefully slipped it onto the shivering soldier. Then, hauling the soldier up, he moved underneath the body to let it drape over his broad back, its limp arms hanging over his strong shoulders. Finally, reaching back with both arms to grasp both dangling legs, he rose cautiously with his semi-conscious cargo.
"Argh!" Kan-chiang growled in the offensive air as he fought to maintain his burdened balance.
"Ma namma cobba..." the youngster mumbled.
"Hey! Jacob!" the lieutenant barked, his deep voice resonating as his heavy boots crunched across the landscape. "Stay with me! You hear me?"
"Manamma... ria..."
"Hey! Soldier!"
"Uh, wha?"
"That's better!" the lieutenant grunted as he lumbered towards the foot of the hillside. "Come on! You gotta stay awake!"
"W-wha' cha' doin'?"
"Tell me a story! T-Tell me about her..."
Carrying the young soldier uphill upon his back, Kan-chiang seriously hoped the nearest triage point still survived and operated at its original location. If so, it would be no more than a mile past the hill. Just a mile away! But with Jacob's injuries, it could be his last hope. Or his last mile. Come on, Kan-chiang! Pick up your feet! Just a mile away!
"Come on, Jacob! Tell me about Arria..."
