Post

"You're not going to report my address? Good."

"Listen. I know what people are going to say. That I was wrong, that what I did was right. I'm not here to debate this. I'm here to tell my story."

"It had been a long day, ok? I'd been up eighteen hours, fighting off those savages from the Union. We'd pulled back, and respite was in order, while others slowed them down. Then, well. The general was riding through, all statesmanly like, and one of the guys from this town, Anto-ee-darva. Well, he spat at the general, and he'd lost a lot. The general was a good man, but he was just. Well, not happy. Anyways, he just shot this man dead, yeah? Turned to us, and said that he thought we needed to teach a lesson.

"And Forrester, he's dead now, well. He led this thing. Got out some matches, his boys stood ready, and we all just kinda started lighting it up. First his house, that man who spat. Then the neighbours, the elderly grandmother, anyone nearby. And I could smell barbecue, but the elderly grandmother, someone thought she'd fled and we went with that. And it got worse. Fire was catching, and who cared. The general was all cool-like, and we just kinda thought that was the end. The town would burn, it had to burn, and that was the end of it."

"We'd herded all these people out, yeah? Like cattle, I used to have cattle out on the highlands before the war. Led them into this big field, all scarred with artillery craters and stuff. Long trenches, and the general got us to line them all up."

"We fixed our bayonets, and sure. Maybe it was wrong, but we were tired, and y'all don't know what it was like. But we did our duty. First the men. They went down all stoic like, even as Murphy's lot. Well, there'll be kids at your place, and we don't want them to hear this. Them's the future. But it was bad."

"But was that the end, no? Because now it was all the women and kids, kids younger than mine are now. Dixie and Archie, 'case you were wondering, six and four. And we were angry now, and they were there, and well."

A moment of silence, before Mr. Clemens speaks

"We just laid into them, and they were all screaming and bleeding and such. And this one woman, just a girl really, she had her baby, and clearly she could speak a little Allessian, because she was grabbing my leg, even as she was bleeding, and she wasn't making it through. I can still hear it now, that voice. Herr Offizier, Asseblief, my baba. I thought it was a bundle of rags at first, but it was a baby. So I, well. She didn't make it out. The baby, I pushed it into the pile a bit, and hoped the Union folks would be there in time. Never learnt."

- Samuel Clemens (Name changed since), Age 47

"As we, um, sorry. Recording? Ok. We were just getting ready for bed, Ma, Da, me. My cousins were here. Dan had his girlfriend with him, I think her name was Mary, and her baby. It's been a while. My sis, baby, was in Ma's room."

"We'd heard about how the Union was coming, and they weren't the planters, and sometimes you could hear the big blasts, just south of us. A plane flew over us, one of those fast jets. Didn't matter. Da told us to stay out of their view, not give them a target, they'd let us be. That was how it was during the first war. The islands are too big, too many houses. Food was too valuable, them that wanted to fight could, the rest of us could keep our heads down and we'd be off free."

"Sky went orange first, that's when we knew the fires happened. Didn't know where yet, but then there was smoke in the sky and sparks raining down. Almost night before we saw the flames coming from the south."

"It was the dry season. Winter, spring, autumn, we woulda had a load of wet plants, and that woulda slowed it down. 'stead, the fields were going up like tinder. Da told me to grab the baby and run, and Ma was telling us all to run. Baby was quiet, still is."

"We started running, all of us. Probably fifteen in all. Through the Tayro fields, and it was dark. The watering hole was a few kilometres north, we could get in there and be safe, fire wouldn't touch it. Didn't grab anything, just ourselves, and it was dark. We were running, shouting names to keep track of each other. Found myself next to Max, and his girl, and she was done for, hacking and coughing. He tried to carry her, he really did. If her parents see this, want you to know he loved her. But I looked back, and she was too heavy, and he got slowed down. Went up like a candle, the both of them. Still remember him singing."

"I heard a scream. Think I saw Dan before, well. Mary made it out, but heard she died in Antoidava. Don't know what happened to the baby. Slipped, and I still had my sis, and just fell directly into the pool. Flames passed around us, sis never cried. After it passed, it was sunny then, and I got out. Tried to look for them, couldn't. Couldn't see anyone."

"I wandered in the fields for three days. It was hot, and we had water from the pool. No food. Sis stopped crying, and I knelt down to dig. Felt she at least deserved a proper burial, best I could give her. All burnt black."

"Tayro. The Tayro'd been baked well. Lived on it for two days, until some Union guys found us. Some guy from abroad, said to check for survivors. Glad he did."

- Evelyn Morse, Age 18

"Battle of the orchards, they said. Hell of a thing. Fate of the north, decided among some burnt wood."

"General Tojosoa, he was tired. We all were, by then. But we couldn't stop. Been marching for a day, bit more, because word was that the Planters were holding Ankisira hostage. They did that a lot, destroyed it when they could. Think that was what happened at Antoidava, near as we could figure out. And we wasn't the south, with the Mitsa. Nobody was coming for us except us."

"Battle was a day and a night. You'll hear it was glorious, and those lot can leave Marovoay. No glory, not for us."

"Shot ammo until we'd shot ourselves out, and by then we were half of us dead, then we all sprinted forwards. Burnt trees blocked ways, but that didn't stop us. Barside brawl more than anything, but no bartenders or police to shut it down. Fought like animals, with stone and stick and hatchet. Saw more kids die that day than anyone should, good kids."

"But we was falling back, and all was falling apart, and then the General was there. Riding on a tank, if you can believe that. He'd managed to get a call out, and he jumped off, and he was like a man out of hell. You hear about his heroics, about throwing a planter clean through a tree, his arm taken off and he still beat one to death with it. True, every word of it. It took a dozen of the bastards to bring him down, and he was all done in, and still killed one. Chest ripped up, face mangled, arm off and he kept fighting."

"Couldn't give up after that. Woulda been a shame to his name. Bare hands, rocks, whatever we had. It was like down in Bandabe, those butchers. No glory, but no shame. All of us'd do it again. We went to Antoidava, and I'll tell you. Good thing that we'd killed the planters before the battle. Pulled a baby out myself, last one of the 1,700 people there alive."

"Story still gets me drinks, even in planter country. Lost an eye myself, ya know."

- Eric Rabenja, age 34

"How can they say it was worth it? Everything gone, and for what? Never knew mum, was in an orphanage from earliest I could remember"

- Adèle Rasoarizay, Age 11

"No names? Good. Don't want anyone to hear. Was one of you, so to this. Ain't right."

"I shouldn't talk, but gotta tell someone. What I did. Not right, and it's been eating me up."

"Caught a planter. Round about October, after the orchards. Not long after. Before the accords. And we were all out on the praries, and we saw this boy in blue and red running. Nowhere to hide on the praries. We got him quick."

"Just a kid. Maybe nineteen, twenty. Heard they were accepting them, but this was something else."

"And we had no idea what to do with him. Kill him? Had to. He had no info, general was gone and we wanted revenge. Old Morse, he lost everyone, we was cut off from our cells, so no orders. Couldn't take him, he was a liability."

"He was crying, kid didn't know what he'd gotten himself into. Told us his name, his parents, his pet. Wouldn't shut up about the pup. Said he knew where a baby was hidden, during the massacre. That he didn't want this."

"We kept passing around a gun. His gun. None of us had the courage, we ain't trained for this. But then he leaned forward, and vomited. And those tags fell out, the bronze ones they gave to all the foreign volunteers. Donated them to the institute."

"And old Morse, he just lost it. Didn't grab the gun, know he wanted to but didn't. Grabbed a knife, and just started carving this kid up. Like the ham we had, after the accords. He lost his girls in that fire the frogs had started, frogs. That's what we called the planters, on account of their colours like the dart frogs."

"But he just started carving, and screaming. And none of us stopped him. Baby daughter, older daughter, nephews. And his wife, Maybelle. Lovely woman. Boy lasted an hour before Morse hit the artery, not sure if he meant to."

"He's dead now. I was in barracks, hear a bang, and his head was smashed like a melon. But if anyone who knew him ever hears this, the body of Michael Kipps, it's on down by the river. Underneath one of those firewood trees, the one with a cross in the wood. We carved that."