SENJO – FIRST SQUAD<br/><br/>I did not agree that Lance Corporal Beneke was the correct choice to hold a perimeter while the rest of us worked. My calculations told me that I would make the most effective observer of the jungle around us and given the emotional range Private Sakuraba's face had shown on seeing Private Law, and the noisy response by the Lance Corporal I thought he would be better suited for the work of dealing with the dead. For a reason that tickled frustratingly at the edges of my understanding but would not fully form, I thought… it was right that he should.<br/><br/><em>"Widow."</em>There. There it was. That expression he had worn then. I stopped working – I was near the dead Leftenant's desk pulling field dressings and drugs from a locker and adding them to two belt pouches I had selected. Now I paused, quite still, the objects held in my hands but forgotten.<br/><br/>There it was. A connection the living keep with the dead. One I could not understand but one I could infer was powerful. I remained motionless a few moments, then finding no mechanism inside myself to empathize with these emotions, I resumed working. I added some of the drugs to my own equipment and offered the Sergeant and Private DeSilva additional belt pouches of medical supplies as well. I then went around the burst-open lockers and pulled out all the useful ammunition, splitting the stash into equal loads and passing it among the squad. There were boxes of shotgun shells but only Private Law had used a shotgun. I left the shells where they lay. The squad had no use for them now.<br/><br/>I stepped down the ramp and found, with a mild notion of surprise, that I had spent the whole time inside the crashed ship, busy with… things that I had found to keep busy with.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">“Present for you. For a rainy day. And I think a storm’s brewing.”</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div>When the flamer soldier had given me the extra demolition charges to add to the satchel I had already taken I said nothing, merely held her gaze a moment and nodded silently once.<br/><br/>The others had laid the four bodies in a depression in the ground and Private Sakuraba was covering them with brushwood. I stood a small distance away and did not…<em>intervene</em>was the word I was seeking. I was thinking the word was<em>help</em>but had corrected myself. Something alien to my experience was transpiring here and I did not wish to intervene. Something<em>human</em>was occurring. I was not part of it.<br/><br/>The Japanese woman finally turned away and put her armoured helmet on, hiding her face but in that brief glimpse I had as she turned, I took in the message in her eyes. I marveled at the flow of emotions through humans. At times I was grateful that I could not experience them, at others I wished I could. Now I was wishful.<br/><br/>Unlike Private Sakuraba I didn't have any words for the fallen. There were none inside me. Perhaps a lack of programming? Perhaps a deliberate choice during my schooling. Feeling Private Law's cool metal forked dart at my throat I moved across to Lance Corporal Beneke and offered him an M56 ammunition drum and two batteries, fully charged.<br/><br/><strong>"Here. Ammunition and power. Would not want you to run low when you need them."</strong>I slung my rifle, picked up the two bulky UA-571-C cases and balanced my weight carefully, ready to move out.