[i]Fire. Smoke. Choking.[/i] He could see it, the flames eating at the mother-of-pearl walls. Panels and glass and bodies ripped from the air and sent into the gaping light. Steel bending as it tore asunder, and walls buckling under the pressure. He couldn't breath. He could only smell smoke. He heard the ear-punching scream of the oxygen as it was sucked out the hole, but he did not feel it. He felt like he was swimming, staring as the light swallowed everything around him. And then a shadow passed, and he saw Landfall - a glass donut, glazed in steel and stretching across miles of alien forest. He reached out, his heart lifting with hope only to be dropped into his stomach as a bloom of flame licked up the walls. He was afraid to die, and his hand was wet.

Herc woke up in a cold sweat. Sticky slobber dripped from his hand where Yipp has licked it. He looked down at the dog, and the dog looked back up at him as if he were the oldest friend it had. Yipp yapped twice, as shrill as any alarm.

"Okay, okay." Herc said gently. He pawed for his wallet and pulled it sleepily to his face. [I]Hercules Ofakimuli.[/i]. It was his. He stuff it lazily in the pocket of his jumpsuit and crawled out of bed.

The cold touch of the tarp floor against his bare feet sent a chill up his legs, and it crunched like sticks with every step. It had been weeks, and he had yet to get used to sleeping in a tent. Or in a camp. Every day brought a new bad smell to the mix, and some days the wind would catch it right and cause him to gag. The smell of shit and piss and rotten food. On bad days, the putrid stench of decomposing corpses added to the mix. 

He changed jumpsuits, leaving the top half hanging off his waste like the half-peeled rind of a banana. The jumpsuits hardly covered his girth, and his height only made it more awkward. It was more comfortable to wear the undershirt and leave it at that. The camp had grown increasingly informal anyway. Soldiers wore disheveled uniforms, using their plasma rifles or rail guns as badges of authority rather than their appearance. Old men grumbled in front of their tents wearing nothing but stained pairs of underwear, and toddlers eschewed clothes all together if it meant they could play in the mud. 

Herc moved through his morning routine in a dull blur. He ate no more then a cut of flesh from one of the airborne mushroom-trees that filled the air like balloons during the day and landed on the ground like parachutes at night. They had become a staple crop - easy to find, and capable of feeding many. They were nearly flavorless, like eating air with a bitter earthy aftertaste. Sometimes, it made him wish for the gruel he often ate in the morning back home in Hawaii so many light years away. 

There were more soldiers today than most days. That made Herc nervous. They were there to protect them, and in many cases they did, but it seemed that the drama they managed to create was often worse. The camp commanders had started to argue about who was in charge, or who was disobeying orders, or about what they should be focused on. It has created a tension that spread through the rest of the camp. Herc was afraid that people would begin taking sides in a more violent way, but so far they had not.

The Infirmary - a glorified name for a series of larger tents protecting the infirm, with a silvery climate controlled tent serving as a place to safely perform surgeries - was also busy with soldiers. Herc entered, looking for some answer.

"Hercules, my boy." he heard a familiar voice, stuffy and aged. Dr. Kumar stuffed a chart to Herc's chest. "I was afraid you had overslept. These men are with Lieutenant Babalola. They claim they had some trouble with a handful of acid barrels. Minor burns, nothing more, but I need you to handle this." Before Herc could speak, Kumar walked off, his grey dreadlocks tapping against the wrinkled brown of his skin.

[i]Lieutenant Francis Babalola[/i]. He hadn't been taken care of yet? Confused, Herc went to find him.

Babalola was still in his armor, even in bed. It was thicker then Wen's, but made from the same plastic-like material that caught the light in stripes. He was a black-skinned man, and his moon like face showed little hint of emotion. When he saw Herc, he spoke calmly with only an underline of marshal sternness. 

 "I told the Indian doctor that I was to be treated last. Go find one of your other patients."

Herc looked at the chart in his hand and flicked the page. "You are the only one I have." he said gently.

Babalola sighed. "Fine then. It is nothing. Just a burn."

Herc looked, taking the mans sinewy arms and turning them. Simple burns, in pink and tan spots across his skin. "How did this happen?" Herc asked.

Babalola leaned back, wincing as he wounds were treated. "That is classified." he said. "I cannot say."

Herc smiled. "Who classified it?" 

There was no answer. [i]This one is cold[/i] Herc thought. He left him to heal.