The machine gun nest is two hundred meters north of the queue.
Jakub and I move along the dune line, using what little cover the sand provides. The nest is still setting up—two Germans arranging ammunition belts, adjusting the weapon's position, preparing to open fire on thousands of exposed soldiers.
We have maybe five minutes before they're ready.
"Approach from the right," I whisper. "I'll draw their attention. You flank left, take them from the side."
"You'll draw their attention by getting shot?"
"By shooting first. Suppressing fire. Make them duck. Gives you time to close distance."
"That's a terrible plan."
"You have a better one?"
He doesn't. We both know it.
"On three," I say. "One. Two—"
The machine gun opens fire.
Not at us. At the queue.
The sound is horrific—rapid fire tearing through packed soldiers. Men screaming. Falling. Scattering. The orderly lines disintegrating into chaos as hundreds try to find cover that doesn't exist.
"Now!" I'm moving before I finish the word.
We sprint across open sand, rifles up, firing at the nest. My shots hit the sandbag position—suppressing, forcing the Germans to adjust aim.
The machine gun swivels toward us.
"DOWN!"
We hit the sand. Bullets snap past, kicking up geysers where we were standing. The gunner has us spotted, is walking fire toward our position.
We're pinned. Twenty meters from the nest. Exposed. No cover.
This is how we die.
Then Jakub is moving.
Not backward to safety. Forward toward the gun.
"JAKUB, NO!"
He's running, firing, shouting something in Polish I don't understand. Drawing fire. Drawing death.
The machine gun tracks him. Bullets find him.
He goes down.
Not all at once. Not cinematically. He stumbles. Falls to his knees. Tries to rise. Falls again.
But he's drawn their attention away from me.
I'm moving before thinking. Twenty meters. Fifteen. Ten.
Close enough.
I throw my last grenade.
It arcs through the air, lands in the nest. The Germans see it. Try to scatter.
The explosion tears through the position. Machine gun destroyed. Germans dead or dying.
Silence crashes down.
I run to Jakub.
---
He's lying in the sand, blood spreading from multiple wounds.
Chest. Abdomen. Shoulder. The bullets found him, and they were thorough.
"Jakub!" I'm beside him, hands pressing wounds, trying to stop bleeding that won't stop. "Stay with me. Medic! MEDIC!"
"Rio." His voice is quiet. Wet. "Stop."
"I'm not stopping. You're going to be fine. We're getting you to a boat—"
"Młody." He coughs blood. "I'm dying. We both... know it."
"No. No, you're not. You're—"
"Listen." He grabs my hand with strength that shouldn't be there. "Listen to me. For once... you listen to old man."
I stop talking. My throat is tight. My vision is blurring.
"You survive," he says. "You get on boat. You reach England. You expose Monarch." Another cough. More blood. "You make this... worth something."
"Jakub—"
"My children. Zofia and Tomasz. If they survived... if they're still out there..." He pulls out the photograph from his pocket—wife and children, worn from handling. Presses it into my hand. "You find them. You tell them... I died for something. Not just... not just stupid war. Something that mattered."
"I will. I promise. But you're going to tell them yourself—"
"Don't lie to me. Not now." He's smiling slightly despite the pain. Despite everything. "You have old soul, Rio. You survive wars. You come back. So... so you remember me. This life. Next life. You remember Jakub who called you młody. Who fought with you. Who died so you could live."
"I'll remember. I swear I'll remember."
"Good." His grip on my hand is weakening. "You're good person. Stubborn. Obsessed. Probably insane. But good. Don't... don't let war take that from you."
"Stay with me. Please. Jakub, please—"
"Ewa," he whispers. Not to me. To someone I can't see. "I'm coming home."
His eyes fix on something beyond me. Beyond the beach. Beyond everything.
Then he's gone.
---
I don't know how long I sit there.
Could be seconds. Could be hours.
Jakub is dead in my arms. Blood on my hands. His dog tags around his neck—I take them, add them to the ones I already carry. Davies from Warsaw. Now Jakub.
The weight of the dead I've failed to save.
Behind me, the beach is chaos. The machine gun killed dozens before we stopped it. Wounded screaming. Medics overwhelmed. The evacuation continuing because it has to, because stopping means everyone dies.
But Jakub is dead.
And I'm still alive.
And I don't know if that's victory or failure or just the universe being cruel.
---
Someone approaches. Harris, limping on his wounded leg.
"Rio." His voice is gentle. "We need to move. Germans might send more."
"He's dead."
"I know."
"He died saving me. Saving everyone."
"I know." Harris puts a hand on my shoulder. "And we honor that by surviving. By getting off this beach. By making sure his death meant something."
"How do I make this mean something?"
"You do what he asked. You expose Monarch. You find his family. You remember him." Harris kneels beside me. "But first, you stand up. You walk back to the queue. You get on a boat. Because dying here doesn't honor him. It just wastes his sacrifice."
He's right.
I hate that he's right.
I close Jakub's eyes. Arrange his body as best I can. Take his rifle—he'd want someone to use it.
Then I stand.
The medallion burns against my chest—hot, not cold. Like it did during Fletcher's ambush. Like it does when death is close and I'm becoming something other than human.
The fragments are screaming. Overlapping voices from a hundred lives, a hundred deaths, a hundred losses that feel exactly like this one.
And underneath it all: rage.
Pure. Focused. Burning.
Fletcher sent us to Warsaw.
Monarch used us as pawns.
Fletcher tried to kill us.
And now Jakub is dead on Dunkirk beach because all of it—all of it—led here.
To this moment.
To this loss.
Someone is going to pay for this.
---
I walk back to the queue in a daze.
Harris is beside me, supporting me though his leg is worse than mine. MacLeod sees us coming, understands from our faces what happened.
"Jakub?" he asks quietly.
"Dead. Machine gun nest."
"Christ." He looks north toward where the nest was. "Did you get it?"
"Yeah. We got it."
"Then he died saving hundreds." MacLeod's voice is heavy. "That's something."
Is it? Does knowing he saved people make the loss hurt less? Does it matter that his death had purpose when he's still dead?
I don't know.
I don't know anything except that Jakub is gone and I'm still here and the war keeps grinding forward regardless.
---
We rejoin the queue.
Soldiers around us have seen what happened. Some nod respect. Some look away, not wanting to acknowledge death that could just as easily be theirs.
The line keeps moving.
Slowly. Methodically.
One step closer to boats. One step closer to England. One step closer to whatever comes next.
I'm numb. Operating on autopilot. The medallion burns hot against my chest. The fragments won't stop screaming. And Jakub's dog tags hang heavy around my neck.
Two hours later, we reach the water.
A boat is loading—civilian fishing vessel, maybe forty feet long, taking on fifty soldiers. Too many for safe capacity but no one cares about safety when the alternative is staying on the beach.
"You three!" A naval officer is coordinating. "Next group! Move!"
Harris, MacLeod, and I wade into the water. Cold. Shockingly cold. But real.
Hands reach down, pull us up. We collapse on deck among dozens of others—exhausted, wounded, hollow-eyed survivors.
The boat pulls away from shore.
Behind us, Dunkirk burns. Thousands still wait on the beach. Aircraft still circle. Artillery still falls.
But we're moving away. Toward England. Toward safety.
Toward a future that Jakub will never see.
---
Someone offers me water. I drink without tasting it.
Someone asks if I'm wounded. I shake my head. The blood on me isn't mine.
Harris sits beside me, leg finally getting proper medical attention from a naval medic. MacLeod is nearby, shoulder being checked.
And I'm sitting on this boat, alive, carrying evidence that could expose Project Monarch, carrying Jakub's dog tags and his last request to find his family, carrying the weight of surviving when better men died.
The medallion finally cools. The fragments quiet to whispers.
And for the first time since Warsaw, I cry.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just silent tears for a friend who deserved better than dying on a beach for a war that's already lost.
Harris sees. Doesn't comment. Just sits beside me in solidarity.
The boat crosses the Channel.
Behind us, France burns.
Ahead, England waits.
And somewhere in the space between, I'm changing.
Hardening.
Becoming the weapon everyone seems to think I am.
But this time, I'm choosing the target.
Fletcher.
Monarch.
Everyone who profits from sending good men to die in wars designed to steal evil.
Jakub asked me to remember him.
I will.
But I'll do more than remember.
I'll make them pay.
---
Hours later, we dock at Dover.
White cliffs. British soil. Safety.
Medical personnel swarm the dock, triaging wounded, directing evacuees, processing the flood of soldiers escaping Dunkirk.
I walk off the boat on numb legs.
An officer with a clipboard approaches. "Name and unit?"
"Rio Castellanos. Warsaw volunteer. Mixed unit, evacuated from Dunkirk."
He makes notes. "Any wounded?"
"No."
"Report to the processing tent. They'll assign you quarters, provide meals, figure out your next assignment."
"Thank you."
I walk toward the tent in a daze. Harris and MacLeod are somewhere behind me, also processing.
Around me, hundreds of others do the same—survivors, but at what cost?
I'm alive.
Jakub is dead.
And nothing about that feels like victory.
---
In the processing tent, they give me forms to fill out.
Name. Rank. Unit. Next of kin.
I write mechanically. Most of it is lies or simplifications. But they don't care about truth. They care about paperwork.
"You're being assigned to barracks on the base," someone tells me. "Rest for forty-eight hours. Then report to your commanding officer for reassignment."
"What about friends? Other evacuees?"
"If they made it out, they'll be processed through here. Check the roster tomorrow. Names get posted as people arrive."
I nod. Take my assignment papers. Walk toward the barracks.
Inside my pack: Project Monarch documents, carefully preserved through everything. The medallion around my neck. Jakub's dog tags beside Davies's. His photograph of Ewa and the children.
And in my pocket, Kasia's embroidered cloth—K.N.
The ghosts I'm carrying. The people I've lost. The evidence that might mean something.
I find my assigned bunk. Collapse onto it fully dressed.
And for the first time in days—maybe weeks—I sleep.
Not peacefully.
Never peacefully.
But sleep nonetheless.
Tomorrow, I figure out what's next.
Tomorrow, I start planning how to expose Monarch.
Tomorrow, I begin hunting Fletcher.
But tonight, I grieve.
For Jakub who called me młody.
For Warsaw that burned.
For Kasia who might be dead.
For every person this war has taken and will take before it's finished.
Tonight, I grieve.
Tomorrow, I become something else.
Something dangerous.
Something that doesn't forget.
Something that doesn't forgive.
Tomorrow.
But tonight, the grief is enough.