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Entry tags:
- * setting: gallipoli 1916,
- armitage hux [star wars],
- ashitaka [princess mononoke],
- bucky barnes [marvel],
- daenerys targaryen [asoiaf],
- eren yeager [attack on titan],
- hei [darker than black],
- heine rammsteiner [dogs],
- kylo ren [star wars],
- lup [dungeons & dragons],
- mamoru hijikata [until death do us part],
- merlin sawall [the chronicles of amber],
- midnighter [dc],
- mordred [fate],
- morrigan [dragon age],
- noctis lucis caelum [final fantasy],
- prompto argentum [final fantasy],
- rey [star wars],
- ryuji sakamoto [persona],
- siegfried [fate],
- soldier 76 [overwatch]
AND THE ANZAC LEGENDS DIDN'T MENTION...
AND THEN SOMEONE YELLED OUT "CONTACT!";
and the bloke behind me swore
THE SILENT WAR
The news of the day of the retreat spreads like wildfire through the Trenches. Leading up to the final date, all soldiers on the ground are instructed to limit their gunfire, to make it look like the usual traditions for warfare, which have determined much of human history up until this point: no one really goes to war in winter. Everyone is to maintain a verbal and physical presence, but the time to confuse the Turks has really become paramount. At times, whole sections are ordered to be perfectly quiet until the last possible second and then spring out before the Turks can get too close.
Which is just how it is supposed to be. In fact, for COST recruits, there's a real sense that this might just go according to plan.
Around this time, the Rear Guard signup starts. COST recruits are met with some surprise by Captain Lewis; he will blink in surprise at a group so new wanting to volunteer so readily, but he's glad and gives everyone who joins a big warm handshake.
Each day gets closer and the mood of the soldiers becomes more jubilant and tenser; the erratic sense of relief that they might be leaving what has become the graveyard of so many friends and, often times, family, combines with the frustration of not being able to do anything but wait. This leads to more than a few fights breaking out, often over nothing important. Just the edge of temporary relief.
Then, before dawn on Jan 7th, the evacuation begins in earnest. It's possible to see it from the top of some sections: a bustling populace until it trickles down to the ghost of the Trenches, where there is nothing left but the rear guard. It's a smooth, efficient evacuation.
The Rear Guard
This is a skeleton army, just enough to make it seem no one has left. Everyone is encouraged to come up with ways to make it seem like there are more men than there actually are.
The local soldiers have come up with a particularly sneaky one - a rope is wrapped around the trigger of a rifle, just loose enough not to pull it, and from the end of it hangs a bucket. Another container slowly drips water into the bucket until it fills and drops, pulling the rope around the trigger and firing the gun. Soldiers are tasked with emptying the water, refilling the cannister, or checking the gun if it looks like it has jammed.
Outside of that, if someone has a sneaky idea to keep up the ruse - even if it's lighting small fires or singing loudly in a chorus to give the notion of people still around - it's all encouraged.
THE THUNDER OF GUNS
Everything is going well. It's not even that worrying when a thick mist comes up, heavy and difficult to see through. But, for those with powers, it prickles oddly on bare skin, followed by a pressure that builds in the back of the mind. It seems to dull any extra powers or senses; magic and its ilk are still usable, but require more concentration to reach now.
In the stillness of the night, however, there is no breeze to move the fog on and it settles like oil through the trench.
It's 1am when the first shell drops. It falls to the east of the recruits' position at Lone Pine. It's a shell that comes down and splits apart the night air in an explosion of shrapnel, dirt and heat. Then a second, then a third, now starting from both sides.
All the soldiers' clamour out of the way and Captain Lewis can be heard shouting over the din: "Into the Tunnels!"
But not everyone can make it. The shells are coming steadily now and one step in the wrong direction is the difference between life and death in such a small space. It's chaos - some soldiers are killed outright. Others get buried under the debris and dirt. Others catch shrapnel that, if not fatal, is enough to throw them and make it hard to get up. But COST's mission is the same as it always is: save as many of these men's lives as possible.
There are four direct entries into the tunnels, all about four or five meters apart, and they're all interconnected within the tunnels themselves.
One by one, however, shells fall and destroy the entrances to the tunnels.
WARTIME ARCHEOLOGY
It takes another three hours for the bombardment to stop and, once the tunnel entrances collapse, it becomes very dark in there. Might be time to fish out a match and strike up a torch.
While Officers previously told soldiers to keep out of the tunnels and otherwise left them ignored, these tunnels are huge. Not like the ones in other sections of the coast; here, they seem to go far into No Man's Land. They're crudely constructed and only some sections are reenforced with heavy beams of wood. But once journeying into them, there are all sorts of things to be found. There are old gas lamps that can be used to light your way or hung on a secure nook or cranny. The stone has been worn smooth in some sections, and other parts have been carved with graffiti of the soldiers who cut them out.
Some locations go down a few steps, while others go up and small holes seem to have been dug through the roof of the tunnels.
It's definitely best to get away from the front of the tunnels, where the bombing is still going on. There are wounded to be seen to and secured from bleeding out, people to find to make sure everyone is still alive. Maybe you want to go farther into the interweaving tunnels to see what else can be recovered. Or maybe you're being stubbornly sensible and looking for a way to dig your way out again, once the bombs stop firing.
Either way, it's a long, exhausting wait in the dark as the ground shakes, showering dust and rocks over everyone.
INTO THE DAWN
The sun has risen when the firing stops - and it's time to search for a way out of here.
Stepping into the light reveals utter destruction. The concentrated bombing has done its work; everything is strewn or buried in dirt and rubble. Machine guns are overturned and parts of the Trench have collapsed; going over the top would be disastrous, given that the Turks have no idea what is happening and will pick off anyone who sticks their head up.
There also isn't...anyone else around. All that's left is this one segment of the rear guard, just 500 men and the COST soldiers. It isn't possible to discern if the other groups have been evacuated or killed at this point.
It's time to consolidate, count their losses, see who is alive and who isn't, and salvage what supplies are left after some digging clean up is done. Work out who needs to stand watch. For now, Captain Lewis' orders are to use the tunnels as a new base of operations.
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
They appear first as a shimmer of off-light, no more than a haze against the resettling mist. A faint shape against the grey - the long lines of a dog's face, almost Jackal-like, in a clean black uniform that gives more to the appearance of shadows - moves closer, but not too close. They could almost be a trick of the light, out of the corner of your eye. Almost intangible.
They're not moving closer, however, choosing to hang back in the rubble of the Trenches. The ANZAC soldiers don't seem to notice them at all.
Ten minutes after they're first spotted, Commander Grothia issues a priority message:
Contact. Regency soldiers. Do not engage.
If a shot does get fired that way, whether it's from Turkish or ANZAC soldiers unknowingly or from COST operatives: it's quick but, as the bullet seems to come into contact with them, the air around them shimmers blue, like it's hitting a field of light. This effect seems to be stronger when they're standing close together and, as of now, they remain unhurt.
Moving closer to them increases that feeling of mind fog on powered characters; for the unmagical, a sense of unease prickles up. It's a feeling not unlike the beginnings of the time-step, the hum of sensation that marks a transfer through time. Veteran recruits will easily recognize the buzz that dances through their bones before it stills as they move away; rookies might recall it from their initial arrival from BASE.
READ THE OOC INFOPAGE.
no subject
She listens to him when he tells her to do something this time, falling in step behind him and even reaching out to put a hand on his back to keep track of him, physically, while she looks behind herself to make sure there's no one else following them, no enemy soldiers or additional shells coming their way.
Under her hand, under his uniform, he feels warm and solid and real, and it's like that moment they had shared in Snoke's quarters. On the same side, moving with the same goal, and the aching desire to have this be permanent takes her breath away. It's almost painful to feel him so close and still be so far away.
She wants to say something but she has no idea what would be helpful now, so she just keeps her mouth shut for now, focuses on their escape from the battlefield.]
no subject
He was similarly reminded of their fight against Snoke's guards. It had been such shocking proof of their bond, regardless of Snoke's claim that he'd been the one to forge it. It should have died with him if it had been that unimportant, just a tool or something to toy with them. It felt less immediate here, though, and less urgent. Easier to ignore, which was as relieving as it was disappointing.
Grunting under the weight of the man, Kylo bent to deposit him on the ground a little less gracefully than necessary. A little jostling wasn't going to kill the soldier, anyways. He turned back to Rey, looking down at her hands before he looked at her face.]
Were there others?
no subject
It's all much nicer than she tends to be, but she's taking these duties seriously.]
I don't know. I was going to go back out and check.
[She looks up at him then, measuring his expression, trying to read on his face what he thinks of her unending desire to save the people that she can.
She expects him to mock her, honestly, and she wishes that he would. It's easier to hate him when he's being himself.]
no subject
I'm going to make certain these tunnels don't collapse on us. Go out and check if that's what you want to do.
[He hesitated, as if debating whether or not he should keep his mouth shut about it. She had that look about her, the same one from Snoke's throne room. Confused, begging, pleading, wishing, wanting -- he hated it now. It was like how Luke had looked at him, or Leia and Han. Not understanding him but wanting him to accept their diagnosis, their treatment and their judgement. When he spoke, he couldn't keep his tone neutral, instead snapping:]
And stop looking at me like that.
no subject
[She's not, not anymore. Where she was searching his face to try to read him before, now she's just- closed off, tired of this. She doesn't rise to meet the way he snaps at her, is too tired after all the times she's pulled on the Force to save the men in these tunnels too fight with him now.]
Do what you want, you will no matter what anyone says.
no subject
[Their moments of camaraderie or kinship seemed doomed to be just that: moments. Short-lived, frustrating, and infrequent. That served him just fine. Giving her one last withering look, he turned to head deeper into the tunnels, somehow in a worse mood than he'd been in before their paths had crossed.]
no subject
She makes a few trips, some taking longer than others as her strength starts to fade, and one of the times she's heading back out she reaches for the Force to scan for life.
But she's not paying attention to just how deeply she reaches. She pulls, and it has the added effect of ripping their connection back open in a rush. It's unintentional and she doesn't want it, but for a moment he can feel everything she is.
Fear and loneliness, like he's felt from her before. Hopelessness is new, spurred on by this place and how everything only seems to get worse, how little bright spots of victory there are.
Sadness.
And then, a flash of white-hot pain that rips across her arm, the graze of a bullet fired by an enemy soldier brave enough to try to see who in the mess of bodies he can pick off.]
no subject
Kylo fell to his knees in the middle of the tunnel, bearing his teeth at the combination of pain and the flood of her emotions. Someone stopped to ask after his health, retreating when he swatted them away. There were tears in his eyes by the time he managed to rein it in, to try and staunch the flow, until --
He slapped his hand over his arm, sympathy for a phantom pain of an injury he hadn't sustained. It wasn't a fatal blow, and hardly anything he ought to care about. Don't, he thought to himself, trying to instill it as mantra. Don't go after her, don't move, stay put. Don't, don't, don't, don't --
He was on his feet again before he knew where they were taking him, but that was obvious: Rey. Of course, where else? The bond was like a tension string between them now, pulling him along against his will. He shoved more than one soldier out of his way, breaking out into a full run once he was outside the tunnels.]