Impacts hammered at the gigantic barrier as the spectres started slamming on them repeatedly, and Aziz took a deep breath. He nodded at Marie, who bobbed her head back, and the two began to organise the retreat.

Fortunately, for formations of this scale, there had been ample effort in making it idiot-proof. Not only were there instructions written in the control room, but Marie herself had apparently been taught how to operate the thing for reasons Aziz hadn’t quite gotten. After all, no one expected the two leaders of the First Aerial to be stuck in Camp Starfall, which meant that either someone was eerily prescient or utterly bored.

Aziz didn’t know which was the better answer, but all things considered, this was a really good thing.

“Line up slowly!” Marie shouted.

“Only stand on the area marked out in blue!” Aziz joined in, before sending out some qi to gently nudge a little lost sheep out of the dangerous areas. Any place that was not marked with blue had a chance to coincide with cargo or other people, which was…dangerous, to put it mildly.

The other officers present began to shout and help too. Walking up and down the line, the little lieutenants started to herd the confused and scared soldiers, and Aziz nodded in approval. These guys had found an outlet for their burgeoning fear and insecurity, channelling their emotions and putting it to good use.

“Don’t push and jostle each other! If one of you falls down, the person in front will do the same, and the whole line will be a mess!”

“Stay calm and keep moving! Don’t cry or whine; you lot are soldiers, not toddlers! It won’t take too long, and you’ll be out of here in no time!”

“The colonel and the marshal are the ones that will be fired, not you! So don’t worry about your job!”

Aziz twitched at that particular last sentence, but it probably wasn’t quite off the mark. Given that the two of them had signed off on an abandonment of the main basecamp on enemy territory, effectively consigning the efforts of the past few months by the whole of Orb into oblivion, Aziz harboured no delusions about the fate that would soon avoid them.

They had made this decision with all due considerations, executing them with a light-heartedness that should only be seen when playing in a park. Deep down, however, Aziz knew that this was probably to end his career forever, along with Marie’s. Even though the two of them had joked about it a few times in the past, now that he was facing the prospects of being dishonourably discharged…

Aziz shook his head. The most important thing was getting these people alive right now.

“First wave, prepare to be teleported!” Marie shouted. “Everyone else, stand back and stay in the marked-out safe areas!”

Aziz herded some worried lambs away, and the officers present followed suit. The faint light of teleportation swept across the hundred people assembled inside, and they vanished a moment later, headed for the logistics camp at the Southern Continent. Once there, they would help pave the way for the next wave, preventing any accidents from happening.

As the second bunch of worried, injured soldiers filed into the formation, Aziz found himself wondering. Did the people outside already figure out that the entire advance had gone south? That the Abyss Sovereign had somehow stopped Shot artefacts, from handheld ones to ones mounted on Locomotives, from functioning whatsoever?

It was a question that should have been pondered over a cup of tea or something, not in the midst of an evacuation, but he never claimed to have much in the way of mental discipline. Shouting and herding the next hundred soldiers, Aziz and the others watched in silence as the light of teleportation filled the area once more, sending these people to safety.

In time, he fell into a steady routine, a routine that was occasionally disrupted by the heightening frequency of the ripples and shocks that ran through the barriers. Without the suppressive might of the Straight Shots and the emplaced defences here, there was no way a mere thousand or so people could have held off this many spectres.

“No one wants to talk about the sea of spectres above us,” Aziz muttered.

“On the plus side, the sight above has improved our efficiency in getting these guys out.” Marie pressed down on a button for the ninth time, and the light of teleportation covered the hundred people in the formation once more. The crowd had shrunk by a great deal within minutes; once the routine of lining up and filing into the area had been established, it just took mere minutes for a hundred people to leave this continent.

“Yeah, I like it this way,” Aziz replied. “Right, you should take some photos with your Display. Just so we have at least some evidence as to why we ordered an evacuation of the camp here. Once we get corroborating evidence that there’s no way our active defences could work, we should be able to stave off the danger of being court-martialled and charged for cowardice.”

“The fallout will still end our careers, though,” Marie noted.

“But at least we won’t be at the receiving end of a firing squad,” Aziz replied. “With the disaster of this magnitude, we were never meant to retain our positions. Even if it’s no doing of our own, the fact that we ordered an evacuation…”

“It’s okay,” said Marie. “It’s okay. I was…intending on…retiring anyway, you know. And it’ll be for the best too. Minister Pauline…or whoever that succeeded her — if she fell here — will be under great pressure to punish us from this gigantic debacle. It’s our part as soldiers to help our nation.”

Aziz nodded quietly. “Such is our fate, I guess.”

The light of teleportation flared up once more, leaving behind one-third of the original garrison here. Aziz watched on, a quiet pride burning in his hearts. With their orders, the two of them had saved these people, sparing them from a pointless death in a battle that could never be won.

“Keep moving.” Marie’s voice was somewhat shaky, but if anyone noticed, no one had called it out. Like clockwork, the queue continued to shorten, and under the rippling sky, the evacuees eventually dwindled down to the last hundred.

“Come on, Marie.” Aziz took a deep breath. “Let’s go. And don’t give me that lousy excuse that you need to stay back to activate the formation. It can be activated remotely.”

“Tch.”

“What, honourable sacrifice? Don’t do that, please.” Aziz sighed. “Or else I’ll be stuck facing the pressure by myself.”

“…That’s an unfair thing to say.”

“Deal with it.” Placing his hands on Marie’s shoulders, Aziz steered her onto the teleportation formation, before shooting out a palm-sized blob of qi. At the same time, a small hole appeared in the barrier above, and the black tide began to charge through the opening.

As the light of teleportation rose around them, Aziz couldn’t help but wonder about the outcome, had they delayed for another minute or two.

All these, however, was none of his business anymore.