#we’re all pieces of the puzzle but all our boarders connect

[citrus-system]

On this episode of “Thinking about Lee Makes me Cry”; friend called him the sun character while I was the moon character

[aquietwritingcorner]

Whumptober 2020 Day 16: A Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day—Forced to Beg/Hallucinations/Shoot the Hostage Word Count: 1810 Author: Katie/Ally (aquietwritingcorner/realitybreakgirl)   Rating: T Characters:  Heymans Breda Summary: Breda doesn’t have many good days in the west. This one definitely isn’t a good one. Notes: I would like more information about the west please and thank you.

 Hostage Situation

 Heymans Breda cursed. He didn’t curse out loud as much as he cursed in his head, but he still let a few slip. This was not good, and he didn’t see a good way out of it. What frustrated him even more was knowing that it had been set up that way. His fist tightened at his side as his mind raced down possibilities and pathway. He had to calm down. He had to think. He needed to start at the beginning, with what he knew.

One, that the Cretian forces had moved into the disputed town and had a large number. (due to mysterious lapses in a proper guarding of the boarder)

Two, the Amestrian forces stationed there were small. (due to there being a paperwork stall in getting more forces sent there)

Three, there were civilians left in the town. (due to a lapse in communication warning them to leave)

Four, the lines of communication between the Cretian soldiers and the temporary Amestrian command center had failed several times. (due to several different accidents.)

Five, the Cretians had demands, and had threatened to shoot the hostages if the demands weren’t met. (due to several deals that had been reneged on Amestrian generals before).

Six, the whole point of this bloody war was to kill as many on both sides as possible. (due to this entire messed up freaking situation!)

Seven, he was the highest-ranking officer here at the moment. (due to the higher ups not letting him get too settled and start laying his own network down)

He had taken charge of the situation the moment the terrified young face of the communications officer looked his way and relayed the message. Breda shoved any thoughts of resemblance of his own (now former) teammate out of his head, and had immediately started laying out the puzzle pieces and seeing if he could end this without anyone dying—or at least as little as possible. He might could do it. If he had the time. Someone from command had to be on their way by this point. Once they arrived, his time to try to save lives was over. They’d override him and get everyone in that town, in the building they’d holed up in, killed.

“Can you get their leader back on the line?” he asked, gruffly.

“Y-yes, sir,” the young private said. She was a pretty thing, young, and shouldn’t be out here. Breda just hoped that working a more support role would save her. He pushed that thought out of his head and focused on the moment. She flipped some switches, and then nodded to him.

“This is Second Lieutenant Heymans Breda,” he said. “Am I speaking to the leader of the Cretian forces inside of the building on 8th and Popular?”

There was a crackle of static, and then an accented voice responded. “Yes, you are. What do you want?”

It was a response. Breda wasn’t sure if it was good or bad, but it was a step forward. He could at least keep going with that.

“That’s what I want to know from you,” he said. “You’ve taken people hostage and threatened to shoot them. I want to know what your demands are.”

“They are insurance,” the man replied. “This town is a Cretian town. It was built by Cretian hands. You Amestrians shouldn’t have been living here. We want what we built back.”

Breda couldn’t argue with the man on that. The town had been taken by Amestris at least a decade prior in a bloody battle. He was sure that there were plenty of people who still remembered that. Breda wracked his mind for as much information on the town as he could find. He wished Falman were here. He’d know every detail about this rotten little town and the men who were occupying the building.

“I can’t do anything about the past,” Breda said, talking even as he thought. “All I’m concerned with now is the present.”

“And we the future!” the man spat back. “This was our town and it will be again! Even if we have to kill ever Amestrian in it to gain it back!” There was the sound of women and children screaming in the background, and Breda cursed in his mind again.

“What do we have available,” he muttered to the girl at communications.

She blinked at him for a moment. “What?”

“What kind of forces? A small team, a sniper, what?”

“Oh! Um, give me a moment.”

Young. They were all so young. Breda turned his attention back to the radio.

“I understand what you’re saying,” Breda said, trying for a stern understanding instead of his usual brusque nature. Negotiating wasn’t his forte, but he tried to think of what he’d heard from Mustang in the past, or even Havoc, who had a way with people that Breda sometimes envied. “But you realize that, if you kill those people with you, you won’t have a future yourself. The Amestrian military won’t let you get away with killing their citizens, whether they deserved to be there or not.”

He could hear the man spit on the other side of the radio. “At least my son will have the chance to grow up in the land of his fathers!”

Personal connection. That would make things worse. The girl handed him a paper and he looked at it. They had next to nothing. Most of the troops were in that building too, and the few that weren’t were so green they wouldn’t last a second. The only sniper they had was brand new from the academy and hadn’t faired to well after his first mission. He wasn’t sure if he could put him reliably in the field. What he wouldn’t give for Hawkeye right now.

“I get that, but if you do this, then he won’t grow up with his father. Is that worth it? Who’s going to teach him about this place if you die here.”

He read further down the paper, and mentally cursed again. There was a general on the way with more troops then the Cretians currently had here. It would be a blood bath if Breda didn’t resolve this.

The man on the other end insulted Breda’s mother, and continued talking. “It doesn’t matter! We’re dead if we surrender, too.”

The man wasn’t’ exactly wrong. Prisoners from wars didn’t seem to hang around for very long. He’d have to convince him to stand down somehow. Breda took a breath. This was a do or die moment. Could he do it? Could he convince the Cretian troops to stand down? Could he order these troops in there and it end without bloodshed? He’d be putting his own neck out there pretty far, considering how many times they’d tried to stop him from stopping more death, but this was his chance. There were no higher-ranking officers around—yet.

“It doesn’t have to end like that.”

The words felt like they had a physical weight to them. He could feel every eye looking at him, but he kept looking at the radio. There was a silence from the other end.

“…Amestris doesn’t negotiate,” the voice replied finally. “We all know that.”

“I’m not talking a negotiation. I’m talking a temporary truce,” Breda said keeping his voice steady and sure. “Both of us pull back. You let the hostages go, we pull our forces back. You pull yours back as well. We both abandon the town for now. You don’t die fighting for it, and neither do we. No body dies in an impossible situation. We both live to fight another day.”

There was silence from the other end. Breda looked at his watch. He knew that whatever general was arriving would be here soon. If he could get this negotiated, then maybe—

“We accept,” the man on the other end said. “We will let the soldiers go first. Call them back. Then we will let the women and children go.”

Not the way he wanted to do it, but it was a negotiation for a reason. “Alright,” Breda said. “Release them, and I’ll relay the order to fall back.”

The radio cut off.

“Relay the order to fall back to the field commanders,” Breda told the comm officer. “We need to honor our end of the deal.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, relaying the order. It took a few minutes but reports of the men who were captured being released and falling back came through. Breda began to feel just a touch of relief. Maybe this was going to work. Maybe there was going to be no bloodshed after all. Maybe—

“Sir!” the comm officer turned to look at him. “Sir, I’m getting reports of troops moving in!”

“What?” Breda growled. “Where? Who’s their commander?”

“They’re… it’s from General Gleason, sir! He’s moving these troops in now.”

“Get him on the line!” Breda said. “I need to talk to him now!”

“I’m trying, sir,” she said. “I—here he is!”

“General! This is Second Lieutenant Breda! I negotiated a temporary truce, but your men need to pull back.”

The general’s voice crackled over the radio. “That’s not your job here, Lieutenant,” he said. “And you had no authority. We don’t negotiate until the enemy is dying.”

“Sir!” Breda protested. “They have civilian hostages. We can—”

“Enough! Clear this line! I’ll deal with you when I get to camp!”

The line cut off, and the comm officer frantically switched frequencies. “Sir, I have the Cretian leader on the line and he—”

“Put it through.” Breda said with grit teeth.

“—lied to us! Not to be trusted, I knew it!”

“I didn’t lie to you. My commanding officer overruled me. But what I said about your life if you kill those hostages is still true. If you kill them, you forfeit your life.” Maybe he could at least get the civilians out. Maybe he could still do something.”

“No,” the voice said. “Our lives are forfeit anyway. Shoot the hostages.”

“No—” Breda tried to protest, but there was no time as suddenly the sound of gunfire followed by shrieks and screams came over the radio. Breda tried to say something, but there were no words to say as the shrieks poured from the radio. And then, a distant boom, the sounds of an explosion both through the radio and in the distance. It was followed by silence.

That silence pervaded the tent.

“…sir,” the comm officer said. “I… the building was destroyed. It… it doesn’t look like there were any survivors.”

Breda slammed a fist onto the table, rattling everything on it. His anger burned white-hot in him. He was trapped, and nothing he could do would change this stupid, bloody, senseless war.

Except one thing, and he would relish the day these men went down.