One by one, the rest of the platoon joins us. There is muted conversation. Commander Giado is the last to emerge from his sleeping roll, limping along, dragging one gangrenous foot behind him. Giado is a good officer, even wounded and tired. Two weeks ago the town where his wife and child live was all but wiped off the map by an enemy Wormer. He has not smiled since, and I think only his dedication to duty keeps him going.

Harado, our medic, tells us a joke he claims that he dreamt. It’s instantly forgettable, but genuinely funny, and gets a few chuckles. Commander Giado snorts, as if exasperated, but I can see the corner of his mouth twitch. The tin of biscuits is passed around.

I leave Giado and Aleta to talk about a possible raid and follow Bellara out of the canyon, walking slowly, hands in my pockets. The canyon floor is littered with motorcycle parts and empty supply canisters, most of them stolen from the enemy. Selvie has skipped breakfast and gone straight under one of the bikes, trying to repair an exhaust manifold, and I kick her gently as I walk by. She swears at me and asks for a #3 wrench. I find it for her and then continue on after Bellara.

They say that the Bavares is the largest plateau in the world. It is a featureless, inhospitable place covered in scrub brush and devoid of animal life but for the llamas and ground squirrels. The plains are occasionally broken by jutting towers of rock, a spine of mountains that stretch for a thousand miles in either direction. I wonder sometimes why the enemy bothers trying to conquer us, when we live in such a shitty place.

Our platoon shelters in one of the countless canyons that snake through the mountains. We are a few miles from an inactive volcano that makes the air smell like sulfur, and our canyon lets out directly onto the plain where a tiny smuggler’s runway provides a safe landing spot for Rodrigo and Benny. It is a risky hiding place, easily discovered by anyone with the air superiority of our enemy—or it would be, without Bellara’s illusions.

I exit the canyon to find Bellara sitting in a small cave on the side of the mountain, perched above a forty-foot length of scree. She has taken to sitting there every morning for the last few weeks. It is not a good lookout spot—it faces southeast, without a vantage of either the enemy air base across the plain, or our own tiny runway.