The prisoners arrived on a fallbox jettisoned from an orbiting starship; unmarked and unnoticed, it burned in a halo of fire as it sheared through atmosphere and downed into a marsh, splattering the mud as the morning lark shrilled. Its sides steamed, but I could make out the insignia--the six-pointed star of the Unity, scrawled over with spray-on gilt graffiti. Mud squelched under my boots as we approached--a long line of soldiers, faces hidden behind iron masks. I sidestepped a clump of marshweed that sprouted from the soil, its roots like tangled fisherman’s wires. First I felt the heat wash over me, throbbing and pulsating, like the box contained a beating heart. Then the frigid feeling of spectral piano fingers dancing along my spine as the box’s hatch automatically opened on an engine’s oiled electric whirring.

Burlap bags covered their countenances. They wore torn linens, with faded red sashes tied crudely around their waists. Their hands were knotted behind their backs with fraying ropes. Their heads were down, dejected and defeated. They stumbled forward. Like sheep.

I grabbed the first one as my comrade grabbed the other. Swamp mists coiled themselves around our legs like serpent trying to strangle us. My prisoner lurched forward, tried to run, escape, flee--whatever its motivation. I held it back by the scruff of its neck, drew my knife and pressed the cold steel length against the tender flesh of its cheek. A black blot of blood bled through the threadbare sack. I grimaced, pushed the captive ahead of me. Beneath the burlap, the thing whimpered.

The thing.

My commander, a hawk-nosed man with piercing hazel eyes and a mussed cap of brown curls sticking out from under his floppy beret, pointed me onward. I withdrew my knife--it wouldn’t run, and if it did it wouldn’t go far.

Behind me the sun broke the horizon. The mists began to recede. They writhed, cavorted, twisted--the exaggerated death-throes of a sentient beast.

Next to me, my comrade manhandled his prisoner, shoved it forward then yanked it back; it moaned under its sack. He was snarling, prodding the slumped form onward. I could still hear the lark somewhere, singing to a wet desolation of nothing. My eyes scanned the world through the lifting mists. Mounds of earth rose before me, wreathed in the withering vapors. Clumps of grass brushed my legs; my boot sank into the mud; gnats buzzed before my vision; amber rays of sunlight pierced the swirling misty monotony; clicking creatures watched me with invisible eyes from their burrows in the muck; a flock of birds cast their fluttering shadows on the ground.

Before me stood a figure, a cowl pulled low over its face. I squinted, trying to make out features. “You should be proud,” the revolutionary said as I approached, a woman with a pinched mouth stained red with lipstick. She was an observer for the new government, a powerful figure with powerful friends. One single porcelain finger traced my jawline; she smiled, a succubus’ seduction. “You are changing the world.”

I knew I was. That’s why I’d signed the forms, cast my dice in with the recruiters, shipped off to fight a war I barely knew existed. They promised me fame, glory, wealth, riches. But I got there too late. The war had ended, the rich had fallen. The Unity had been stripped down to nuts and bolts and cogs and gears, handed over to idealists and visionaries who’d carve something new, something wonderful out of the discarded pieces of a mangled imperial past. So they sent me on the executioner’s run. I didn’t mind.

“Down,” my commander barked through the silence. I stopped. The thing wailed. I blocked the sound out. “Off.” The second order was familiar. I grabbed the burlap by its hem, pulled it off slowly.

The scared man I’d uncovered gasped. “Oh no oh Flame no I don’t want it to end this way it wasn’t supposed to finish I was a titan--”

Except he wasn’t. No one was. We lined them up facing the dawn: a man, a woman, three children whose faces I’d never see. We lined them up and shot them. It was over in an instant.

The bodies crumpled forward. I’d felt the rifle recoil in my hand, jar my shoulder with the kickback. The man I’d shot staggered, blood flowering through his linens. Then he fell into the mud. Tossed away like a broken doll.
The revolutionary walked over to me. My hands were trembling. It felt good. Like a solid hit--bitter but fulfilling, like black coffee or needle juice. Her hand graced my arm. She smiled, all glitz and ivory teeth. “That’s what it feels like to be a hero.”