"Prepare to advance."
The words cut through the trench like a blade.
A murmur stirred—boots shifting, rifles tightening. Then someone found the nerve to speak.
"Ma'am… that would be a death sentence. We can't just—"
Commander Voss stepped forward and seized the soldier by the front of his coat, dragging him half out of line with effortless force.
"Did you just deny a superior officer?" she asked calmly.
"N–no, ma'am," he stammered. "It's just—it doesn't make sense to abandon our defensive trenches."
She released him and turned her attention down the line. Her eyes stopped on me.
"Lieutenant Surge," she said. "Why are we here?"
I swallowed. I knew the answer. We all did.
"To eliminate the opposing forces in the trench system ahead," I answered.
"Correct," she said, pleased. "And why do we do that?"
"For the Empire."
She smiled faintly.
"You see?" she said, addressing the line. "Perfectly sensible."
She gestured toward the field ahead, smoke drifting lazily over no man's land.
"Yes, leaving cover is dangerous," she continued. "Yes, many of you will die. Statistically speaking, most of you."
She said it the way one might comment on the weather.
"But consider the alternative," she went on. "If you hesitate, the enemy advances. If the enemy advances, the Empire retreats. And if the Empire retreats—well."
She spread her hands.
"That would be unacceptable."
Silence held us.
"So you will advance," she said lightly. "You will fight. And if necessary, you will die."
She leaned forward slightly, eyes alight with conviction.
"And what could be more honorable? To offer your lives so the Empire may take another trench, another mile, another step closer to victory?"
Her arm rose, pointing into the smoke.
"Tell me," she said. "What better use is there for a soldier's life?"
The answer came unevenly—some voices firm, others dragged out of us by habit and rank.
"For the Empire," we said in unison.
Not all of us believed her ideals—some of us didn't believe in anything anymore. But belief wasn't required to die.
We followed her anyway—she had led charges like this before, and the Empire remembered her victories.
Commander Voss blew her whistle. The sound cut through the trench, sharp and final, signaling it was time to go.
We went over the top, charging into the chaos ahead.
The world exploded into noise—rifles cracking, machine guns tearing the air apart, men shouting prayers and curses as they ran. Mud sucked at our boots, dragging us down, daring us to fall. Anyone who did didn't get back up.
I fired without thinking. Training took over. Years of it.
A man popped up from the opposing trench ahead of me, eyes wide, rifle shaking in his hands. I knew him. Or I had, in another battle, another sector. Same face. Same fear.
I pulled the trigger.
He dropped without a sound.
My stomach twisted—but my hands stayed steady. Experience had taught me the truth I hated most: hesitation killed faster than bullets. Not fighting back didn't make you better. It just made you dead.
We hit their trench hard. It wasn't glorious. It was close. Too close. Bayonets, rifle stocks, fists slick with mud and blood. Someone screamed for their mother. Someone else screamed for mercy. Both were drowned out by gunfire.
Two of our men went down, shot before they could even react.
"Clear left!" someone shouted.
I turned and fired again. Another body fell because of me. I didn't look at the face this time.
Commander Voss was everywhere.
She moved through the chaos like she belonged to it—issuing orders, dragging soldiers forward, executing the wounded enemy who reached for weapons instead of surrendering. No hesitation. No malice. Just efficiency.
"Keep pushing!" she shouted. "Do not stop! Do not even dare think of stopping!"
A man beside me froze, staring at the corpse he'd just made.
Voss didn't slow. She struck him across the helmet with her pistol.
"Move," she snapped. "Or you'll be there with him."
He moved. So did the rest of us.
We pressed forward, inch by bloody inch. The trench walls shook with gunfire and explosions. Men screamed. Bodies fell. Mud, smoke, and fire choked the air. Every step forward felt like dragging ourselves through hell.
The resistance fought back viciously—bayonets thrust, rifles cracked, shouts and curses tore through the smoke. A man fell beside me, screaming, and I barely had time to glance before moving on.
And then, slowly, the pressure broke.
The opposing line wavered. Hesitation turned to fear. Panic spread like wildfire. Weapons were dropped. Men scrambled out of the trench.
"They're retreating!" someone shouted, voice cracking with disbelief.
We continued firing at the fleeing enemy, picking off a few stragglers before they vanished into the smoke and rubble.
The gunfire faded. The noise drained out of the world, leaving only heavy breathing and distant cries. Someone laughed—high and broken. Another dropped to their knees, murmuring prayers.
"No way… is it really over?" another muttered, staring at the emptying trench ahead."We… we won!"," a third added, laughing shakily, fists clenched in triumph.
Cheers rose in jagged waves—ragged, exhausted, and alive.
"For the Empire!" someone shouted.
"For the Empire!" others echoed.
I turned with them—then stopped. Commander Voss stood apart from the celebration.
She was still. Perfectly still.
She'd advanced farther than the rest of us, alone in the churned field beyond the trench. I saw it before anyone else did—the faint outline beneath her boot. The telltale shape half-buried in mud.
A mine.
There was no way back. No safe step forward. She looked down at it, then up at us.
Our eyes met. For the first time, I wanted to shout. To warn her. To tell her to freeze, to stay still, to let us find a way.
But she already knew what was going to happen.
Slowly, deliberately, Commander Voss raised her hand and snapped it into a salute. "For the Empire," she said, lifting her foot.
The blast swallowed her.
Mud and earth erupted into the air, tearing the field apart. Light seared my eyes, heat slammed against my skin, and pressure shoved me backward. My vision flared red as her body arced through the air, a splash of crimson across my sight, painting everything in shock and fire. Screams and shouts were instantly drowned out by the roar of destruction.
Men froze, mouths open, weapons clattering to the churned soil. Smoke curled thick and black, twisting over shattered bodies and splintered wood.
The ground itself seemed to quake, folding jaggedly beneath us. Trees bent and snapped as though the sky itself had collapsed. Horizons fractured into shards of light and shadow.
And then—
"So you will advance," a familiar voice said lightly. "You will fight. And if necessary, you will die."
The trench was back—mud under my boots, walls pressing in, the stink of sweat and cordite. My hands clenched around my rifle, whole and unburned. My ears rang, but not from the explosion—from the sudden absence of it.
She was standing in front of us—Commander Voss.
Alive.
She leaned forward slightly, eyes alight with the same terrible conviction. "And what could be more honorable?" she continued, exactly as before. "To offer your lives so the Empire may take another trench. Another mile. Another step closer to victory."
My heart hammered in my chest as I swept my gaze down the line. The same faces stared back at me, unscarred, unbloodied, unknowing of the carnage that had just occurred.
Her arm rose, pointing into the smoke. "Tell me," she said. "What better use is there for a soldier's life?"
The chant came, uneven, automatic. "For the Empire!"
I didn't speak. My mouth was dry. My pulse still thudded from a death no one else remembered.
No one could have survived that blast. Not her. Not anyone. The heat, the pressure, the mine ripping through the ground—it was impossible.
Maybe it had all been in my head.
Maybe I'd imagined it—the mine, the explosion, her death. Maybe my mind was finally cracking, worn down by years of blood and war. After all I had seen, after all the death and suffering, perhaps that alone could explain it.
The whistle blew again like before. We went over the top, charging into the chaos before us.
Smoke rolled in the exact same way, but that meant nothing—battlefields always looked the same: mud, fire, men screaming themselves hollow. My hands moved on instinct, rifle barking, and bayonet finding flesh.
A man begged as I put him down. Another laughed while he burned. Someone sobbed for his mother. Someone else silenced him with a knife.
Cruelty wasn't exceptional. It was routine.
So of course my mind would invent patterns. Of course it would imagine Commander Voss dying. Everyone hated her. Everyone fantasized about it, even if none of us would ever admit it aloud. A leader like her didn't inspire loyalty—only results.
We broke the enemy line.
They ran. Victory came like it had before— sudden, messy, and undeserved.
Cheers rose behind me. Men embraced, laughed, cried. Some dropped to their knees, thanking whatever gods still bothered to watch us.
I turned—
And my stomach dropped. Commander Voss stood alone in the churned field again, frozen mid-step. She looked down at her boot.
Then she looked up—unflinching, as if nothing could touch her.
For a heartbeat, our eyes met. Slowly, deliberately, she raised her hand in a sharp, perfect salute, just like before.
"For the Empire," she said.
I couldn't move. My eyes stayed fixed on her, on that impossible calm, that eerie certainty. The mine detonated, and the world tore itself apart around me once again.
I gasped, choking on mud and dust—and found myself back in the trench, alive and unhurt. The dead were gone. The screams, the fire, the carnage—all erased.
The whistle was still hanging from Voss's hand, seconds from her lips.
That was when the truth slammed into me. I hadn't imagined it. Hating her hadn't caused it. I couldn't pretend it was some cruel trick of my mind.
Something else had done this.
And it was going to happen again.