The Unreturned Order

At 02:11, the order arrived through a relay that supplied no return address. In the intelligence file, the place was called Keren-Sheleg. The map marked forty-seven targets and seven buildings. The identification field read: Raven Gang, entire village. A black rectangle covered the source. Giena did not ask to remove it.

The ambushes on the eastern approach had been built to stop people: ankle-high wires, hidden bells, two rifles facing the wooden bridge. Giena detected the metal beneath the snow, avoided the wires and entered firing range before the first guard could ring the bell. He raised his weapon in both hands. She was no longer where he aimed. Her tail blade swept through his neck and severed his head; for a moment his hands still held the rifle after his body fell into the snow. The second guard tried to sound the bell. Giena drove the tip of her tail into his chest, tore out his heart and cast it beside the bridge. The bell kept swinging, though no one touched it anymore.

The gunfire woke the village. Windows opened. Someone shouted to close the gate; another searched for the key with trembling hands. The bullets that struck her armor did not alter her walking speed. She calculated routes through the narrow street and reached each shelter before the person hiding behind it understood it was no longer useful. Her metal tail swept over a table and knocked the weapon from the gang leader's hands. He fell to his knees and raised an open hand. Giena seized his hair, tipped his head back and severed it with her tail blade. Blood stained the table and the map on it. She stepped on his head to reach the door; behind her, the chair kept rocking.

A woman in a military coat tried to organize a defensive line by the well. She handed out the remaining ammunition, counted down and ordered them to fire. Giena closed the distance before the count was over. She cut the first man's throat, drove her tail into the second man's chest and pulled out his heart. The woman tried to shoot at point-blank range; Giena broke her arm, threw her against the edge of the well and severed her head before she could reload. Those who saw Giena return from the smoke stopped firing and began to run. The system recorded the change in movement patterns. Not fear, not mercy: speed, direction, probability of interception.

The last rifleman retreated to the smithy. He asked her to wait. Then he said there was a mistake on the list, that he could show her. Behind his voice, a broken transmitter repeated half a sentence that never reached anyone. Giena compared his face with the file. Match: ninety-eight percent. The request did not change the target's classification. He tried to hand her the list, but she drove her tail blade through his chest and pulled him toward her. The paper fell into the blood on the smithy floor. Giena withdrew the blade, checked that the target was motionless and continued without reading the list.

Within six minutes, resistance ceased. A sudden gust carried embers onto the wooden roofs. The village's firefighting system consisted of one well and two broken carts. Giena moved between the burning buildings, verified the markers and waited for the next instruction. The relay displayed: Complete the sweep. Leave no classified witnesses.

In the last house, a wardrobe still stood beside a wall split open by the heat. Its door was tied from the inside with string. Her audio sensor registered three short breaths and another trying to sound as short as the others. Giena cut the string without touching the wood. Four children sat behind the door. The eldest covered the youngest girl's mouth with his hand. On his sleeve was the same raven sewn onto the adults' coats.

They had no ammunition. They had no files in the database. The eldest boy held a piece of wood like a knife, and his hand trembled strongly enough that the sensors did not need to measure it. Giena folded the tip of her tail behind her back. She did not approach them. A new classification process opened and remained blank.

“They told us to be quiet,” the boy said. Giena examined the ceiling beams. Estimated time to collapse: forty-two seconds. She moved the wardrobe toward the outer passage, opened the back door and indicated the way into the snow. None of the children moved until she stepped away. She waited around the corner, with no camera aimed at the door, until four heat signatures left the building.

On her way out, the relay requested a report. She transmitted the number of confirmed targets, the condition of the streets and the estimated damage. The four heat signatures did not appear in the file. In the field reserved for anomalies, a line appeared, vanished and appeared again. The next message had already instructed her to proceed to the extraction point.

Giena stopped where the street ended. Behind her, an open door knocked in the wind, once and then again. She had no definition for the pain humans attributed to such silence. She did not look for one. In place of an acknowledgment, a question arose that was never sent to the relay.

Was it worth it?