Flying is often portrayed as a graceful, or powerful concept. The apex of a prey animal, the peak of artillery, the most efficient and streamlined form of transportation to get you to a to be, to get b to a, to seize whatever you need. The ground is a limit, and humanity was desperate to break that limit, it has been desperate to break that limit for a very long time.

As Belle moved through the air, she had a moment of soaring, like she'd taken flight or had been launched from a cannon, it lasted only a moment. The momentum catches higher, and she starts to spin, the spinning worsens, shes ten, twenty feet off the ground? She can't process it very well. She considers, for a moment, how much she hates being high up, how when she had an option to learn to fly infantry for the resistance or be a foot soldier she didn't even consider the latter. What good did that do her, in the end? She's going to die from falling anyway. Everything starts to feel slow, behind the dizzying sickness, behind being a rag-doll tossed into the air, and slowly, as if she has time, she begins to run along her life and what led her to this moment…

It's nothing special, there aren’t really any memories that culminate into this moment or give her any peace, it's just an acknowledgment that things happened— a brief one, but an acknowledgment. The whole thing feels like it goes on a while. She remembers chewing on rocks as a kid, going to schooling briefly until she could work, and the job she was mandated for a while. She thinks a bit, just a little of her family, and where she might be right now if they had been kinder. She remembers coming out and finer details of the past years living as herself. It all feels so short. She feels like she's falling, explicitly, now- is this it? The calmness leaves and panic starts to fill her, was that her entire life? A small blip of any happiness doing something she cared about only to get slapped by a big robot and hi-

Thunk, Rustle

Her guts and all the spit in her mouth empty at once as she flies into a tree, stomach first, retching down eight feet below her, she barely processes a crackly feeling in her spine before her eyes roll up and her vision darkens. Comically, she sits indented into the tree for a moment, before her body starts being peeled off of the trunk by gravity. She falls again, this time only a few feet, down onto the dead grass below the tree. She's only barely conscious at that point, she coughs some blood up before she really passes out, filled with a vague burning. In that moment it's over…

For a foot soldier, whatever their purpose may be at this point in time, flight means death. Most things mean death. The only reason they still exist, fundamentally, is because the resistance of this planet lacks the material to match the coalition. It is largely a death sentence in hopes you will take down, in numbers, even a single one of their many pilots. They get tossed around like ants, fodder to hopefully distract for one moment so a rebel pilot can get in there. In a sense, perhaps flight is their own tool in war, as pebbles of sand to distract the behemoths. Belle wanted nothing to do with them, she has never wanted to be any more than five feet off the ground, but it's found her here regardless.

It felt scarier than actually dying for a second there, is her last thought before losing consciousness…

Hours pass and dust settles over her body, barely breathing, keeping itself alive for some reason. In any other world, in any other conflict, it would be a pointless endeavor. Her organs have been totalled. Here, though, there are freaks and perverts itching to defile corpses and root up dead trees for grafting. You leave a body around, maybe it resurfaces as some kind of monster, months later, the face of a friend turned on you, a familiar voice ripping into you with a chained blade as you scream and die. The true horror of the coalition lies not in just their destructive powers, but their re-animative abilities.

Stepping is heard crunching down the grass, distantly, followed by more, the beeps and clicks of walkie-talkies and the shuffling of jumpsuits, the ticking of a few safeties going off and vague chatter. The initial footsteps stand out though, there's something weightier about them, more careless. A pattern of walking that does not need to answer to anyone filled with a chatter of stepping that knows it must meet a certain quota of reverence to its superiors, a display of power or privilege, both likely. These footsteps walk along the parameter and cross pass with what should have been Belles corpse. The footsteps slow down for a moment, just a moment, like someone stopping to glance at a cool bug or road-sign as they’re walking past it— but it halts. Imagine that road-sign says your address, an immediate, jarring halt ill-befitting of the nonchalance in the air beforehand. There's confusion amongst the other footsteps, shuffling and stopping and surrounding who the imposing one's belonged to.

An older woman with tied back gray hair, wearing not just an officers uniform- but the officers uniform. This is not just a high ranking member of the coalition, a random general, a vague leader, no this is one of two monsters that have existed since the very beginning of their destructive conquering of space. She stands at 6’7, never seen out of uniform, never seen anywhere she isn't instilling fear into somebody. When you see a public execution, an announcement of acquisition, anything important, it's either her or the other one. Not much is known about her, there are whispers about her name being Penelope but many chalk it up to an satirical rumor circulated by several planet's resistances now. Most that exists about her are just rumors, along with her compatriot.

This is someone a common foot soldier should never even be bothered with existing in the same air as but, for some reason, shes staring down at her. Intently. Like shes trying to focus on something. None of the scouts following dare question her, though, they wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of any ire. They try to study the soldier and understand what shes looking at, it looks, common, unremarkable. Its wearing the same soldier slack and coat as any of the other resistance members with a busted up robotic arm. Dust has settled and caked onto its shorter brown hair, and its open wounds, it probably just got hit by one of their mechs.

“…”

She tilts her head, then reaches her foot out to lean the soldier's face back up, then she leans down to look closer. It lasts an uncomfortably long amount of time, those behind her can only awkwardly shuffle in silence, too nervous to pick any of their communications devices up after hearing them ring out. After a period of staring, though, something odd happens. The officer flinches, flinches of all things, it's like seeing a god jump at a mouse. Her expression is unreadable, and, despite their attempts, no one is able to tell what she mutters next looking down at the battered soldier. She reaches and picks it up by the collar of its coat, sullying her gloves, she shakes her a bit too. The audience is trying not to look concerned or confused, now just trying to stand still at attention.

After a huff and checking if its still breathing, she picks it up under its armpits and shakes it some more. Her eye twitches a bit.

What happened to her face? Why doesn't it look right? 

She keeps squinting, but…

“God- damn-“ she says, looking around and gritting her teeth, she glares back at the dying soldier and for a moment is wordless, before throwing it at the crowd behind her and yelling “all of you, make sure she doesn't die!” 

The sweep of the area wasn't over yet but her orders are more important, so they all pick her up and start looking her over, while trying to keep pace with the officer. Most of them are annoyed by this turn but would refuse to show it, in the face of possible reprimand. On her lead the group heads back to one of the convoys, so they can return to the main base of operations on this planet, but before they load up she orders a proper medic to look the soldier over- well, more, threatens, really. She watches over expectantly as they check her up.

“Sir, I, it looks like, I don't,” one of the medics blubbers out, looking at the dying pretty much already corpse in front of them. Her stomach sloshes whenever it’s felt-

“You do not what? Does she need intensive care or not? I didn't get you to work miracles, dumbass, I got you to tell us if we need to make a stop!” She stomps, angrily, already pissed about losing more time.

“Oh- I- yes? Yes!-“ They say, wanting to add ‘of course’ to that but afraid of the consequences, they just continue with “It’s bleeding a lot internally it needs care now if you want it to-“

“Shut up.” The officer grunts and pushes the medic away, then just takes the soldier and starts walking to one of the small convoys. The medic falls onto the ground and growls a bit under their breath, but makes no issue and stands to dust themself off.

“Never should’ve defected…” They mutter to themself as they turn around and check for anyone else that needs medical care, now covered in dirt.

The officer goes to her personal convoy, knocking where the driver is located.

“GET THIS BACK TO MY QUARTERS! I'M CARRYING TOO MUCH SHIT TO HEAD BACK IN IT!” She barks out, turning around, again without heed of a response. She does not need one, really, niceties are for people without power. She heads into one of the convoys, telling some scouts to move and not even really giving them time before she shoves the smelly half corpse of some random soldier into the seat next to her. Her face smushes against the plastic the benches are made of, the officer groans and picks her up by her hair to shove her a bit further. She looks…strangely ticked off about something, but hunching down a bit more she sits down, crossing her arms and waiting for the opening to close. The scouts in the convoy look, briefly, concerned and worried, though they force themselves to straighten up in her presence. She looks at them, though.

“One of you tell the driver to take us to a hospital-“ already, there's shuffling, but she cuts in with “NOT one of the shitty ones!” They obey, going to let the one running the vehicle know. Regardless of their feelings on having to stop somewhere before returning to base, everyone knows how this goes already and nobody wants to be a hero. After all, if they did why wouldn’t they be elsewhere?

The officer sits cramped and out of place in the convoy, angrily staring down at the soldier, the scouts observe her muttering to her occasionally, but don't want to risk staring at her to make out what shes saying. None of it sounds particularly nice. They all sit up straight and stare forwards as the convoy starts, holding their guns up properly, nobody gets to be comfortable on this ride. 

…

…

Back at the site Belle was found at, smushed in the dirt sits her destroyed radio and resistance identity documents. The radio pisses static in its dying crackles. Covered in dust and blood now, they'll surely be destroyed as it rains and as the terrain is blown to hell, over and over again. Belle looks hopeful in her picture, smiling a bit, it's out of place when you look at any other picture of her. She only had this documentation for a few months, it said everything right, it was the first identification paper that said anything right, and just as soon as it came it will be burnt away. She stood no chance in this world, but this isn't the place where you get to just die entirely.