Anarkos

Private Niko Han, second class; conscript; ID number, 2966A4723; current posting, Trench 37b.

That's me. One stupid little farmer's boy stuck in the middle of a war I didn't start and don't really understand. Something about secessionists, and doing what we can for our homeworld.

Three years ago, I didn't really care about that. Yeah, there was always a war raging somewhere, and there were always a few stupid little sons o'bitches who dreamed of growing up to be a heroic marine saving far away worlds from far away enemies. Those kids never seemed to listen to the old territorials and corpies, and, come to think of it, nor did I. Missing limbs and bullet wounds seemed so far away.

Some were struck the dream of heroism, the fucking idiots. There are no heroes in a war. The most heroic man I've ever met was Private Karlo Sheng. Man saved my life a few times, and now he's fucking dead. The way I see it, being heroic is like being suicidal, only more fatal. All I have to remember Karlo by now is his boots. Lucky me, they were my size, and about all the shell left of him. A bitch to clean though. Still, dreams of heroism don't do you much good stuck in a muddy trench beneath a clouded sky. Good boots do.

And, then, o'course, there were the kids like me who just plain didn't spare a thought to war. I was more interested in girls than old men with missing limbs. Haven't seen a girl outa uniform in 'bout two years now. Seen men and women with missing limbs every goddamn day. Got one leg? Man the static guns. Got one arm? You're fucking recon. Soldiers are in short, short supply here, so it's damn hard to get invalided home.

Home. That's something I don't like to think about. Not just 'cause it's half a world away, but because it probably doesn't fucking exist anymore. Yeah, we were real proud back then. Even the walking wounded from the last colonial war didn't shake us, and nor did the fact that all our terraforming was nearly destroyed in the corporate wars, just three decades ago. If they hadn't fucking finished it back on Earth so damn fast, agricultural worlds like ours would've been the target.

Starving the bastards was a plan, y'see. Food is big business, and synthetics can't feed everyone. The industrial worlds need verdant green colonies like the home I remember to feed them.

And, now, word is, the terraforming has collapsed. I knew all about that, once. Father wanted me to take over his farm, hold it in the family and away from the corps for another generation, even we hadda pay them to sell our produce. And to do that I woulda needed to know all about how we kept our artificial ecosystem going; were the nitrogen and oxygen came from, how we controlled carbon levels, all that.

And now, it's all so much shit. You wanna know a good way to raise carbon levels? Declare fucking war.

Word is, we're back on synthetics and hydroponics now. Can you fucking believe that? We used to be a supplier of premium quality real foods for systems all around us, and now, we're eating shit grown in vats and tanks, and it fucking tastes like it too.

I'd believe that. You look up at the sky, and, shit, it ain't hard to tell that atmospheric levels are out of whack. Even the dust clouds thrown up by the shells and cruisies shouldn't fuck the sky like that.

Truth is, even I, a second class fucking private can tell that our terraforming plans are going down the tubes. This war is killing our fucking planet.

Home's gone. Fitting, really. It's been six months since we got comms from anywhere but military command. Lenic tells me that the satellites are down. Me, I think it's just those fucking clouds interfering.

This war killed my home, and day by day it's killing this fucking colonial farmer's boy.

Sometimes, I wish we'd never fucking terraformed it in the first place. Then maybe there'd be nothing to fight over. At least then there wouldn't be any fucking flies. Or mud. There was no fucking surface water back then.

I used to love this planet. Now I hate it. Even sitting in a trench, with low brooding clouds of dust and who knows what else protecting us from long range strikes, I hate it.

It's my day off, by the way. Once a week, they cycle us poor buggers back from the lines, for rest and recovery. Some fucking rest. A grade-b trench might not be under direct fire, but it's still fucking close. You can hear the whistle of shells and see their gun emplacements. And hours.

Sarge bursts into the bunker, wakes me from my grimy bunk. Yeah, it's a fucking war. I noticed. We're supposed to be fighting.

Oh.

You mean now.

Sarge barks orders with an authority authority born out of experience. Back home, he'd have been one of those old men we ignored. Here, he's an old dog, a survivor. Like those fucking roaches under our feet, you can't kill him.

And that makes him my best chance of getting out of this shithole alive.

"They're almost on us," he says. Grab your guns, man your posts. Just like a drill. Kill them, don't die. Point the end of your gun with a hole at the enemy (Tomas got that one wrong last time. Spread his brains over the whole fucking squad).

We tumble out, and take aim across the wasteland. Fires are everywhere, even more than usual.

The clowds seem lower and darker too.

This feels like the end of the fucking world.

Out of the smog, I see shapes. I hear a gun firing beside me.

"Idiot!"

Sarge's voice. My gun. I didn't even realise I was holding it.

"They're ours, Han. If you weren't such an awful shot, you'd be up for a court-martial."

The next lot, they aren't ours. Or the next, or the next after that.

We hold the line, dying one by one.

And, then, just when I consider following that bastard Tomas's example and blowing my own brains out before the enemy could have the pleasure, I hear a roaring, whistling noise, like a shell or cruisie, but somehow, more, louder, bigger.

It's behind me. I'm in the trench, scared now to look over the parapet even to fire, and it's a easy thing to turn and look for the sound. If Sarge Fanic wasn't otherwise occupied, he'd have had what's left of my skinny hide for that. Cowardice, he'd call it.

A thunderous crash. Thunder, I'd never heard that, back when the terraforming worked. Now, it's a nightly companion, but even it isn't as fearful as what I see behind the trench.

Black, bulbous, armoured.

Motherfucking drop-pods. Worse, they're unmarked. No fucking stateside would be unmarked like that.

Looks like our enemy has us flanked.

I contemplate my gun barrel real fucking closely.

And then, from beside me, a cheer. I knew that some of the idealistic fucks in my unit still hope that Earth will see fit to send us some marines, and I figure that it's just that stupid fucking hope of theirs kicking in.

There's no damn place for hope here.

And, then, I hear the guns. Behind us. Big fucking guns. The sort of gun marines carry. Well-built, well-maintained, not like our cheap generics.

And, what's more, they aren't shooting at us. They're shooting over us.

Praise motherfucking be.

I risk another glance behind us, and realise that we've been delivered from the frying pan straight down into the fire.

If war is fucking Hell, they are it's demons. Even I'd heard of them. The mighty fucking Five-Four. Highest casualty rate of any unit. Last in, first out. The Regiment they send when no one else can get the job done. Stone-cold motherfucking killers to the man.

And they're here.

I hadn't thought things could get any worse, but it damn well looks like they just did.

"Reapers, to me! Advance!"

They don't deploy Reapers where there's hope. That would be a waste of corpses. They deploy them where there's no other fucking way, and where they want their enemies torn apart like fresh butter against a diamond-saw.

And, then, they're in the trench beside us. Despite myself, I feel jealous. They aren't malnourished and skinny like us. No, not flesh and bones. They look almost healthy, beneath their unmarked armour.

But, then, I remember, they're Reapers. Dead men walking. They aren't flesh and bones. They're just fucking skeletons. Even if they don't look like it, they're the fucking Grim Reaper incarnate.

Sarge springs forward, towards their leader. It's obvious who he is. He's the only man lunatic enough to be standing bolt upright in a trench barking orders, wearing dress uniform no less.

"Where is the officer in charge of this trench, soldier?"

His voice is loud like the roar of artillery. Sarge seems almost timid and quiet in his reply.

I'd be pretty fucking ashamed too, telling those Spaceborne maniacs about our good Leiutenant.

You might think I'm taking war hard. No fucking way. When your best mate is a fine a fine fucking red mist, and all you've got to remember him by is a good, albeit smelly pair of boots, you tell me that. No, taking this shit hard is what the Lootie did.

Well, whatever you think, I ain't taking war hard. I still like to think I'm almost sane.

Truth is, in a place like this, if you take it to damn hard, you're dead. Dead like Tomas, with his brains spread all over his mates. Dead like Tomas, with his own damn gun up against his skull.

But for Sarge, I reckon, we'd all have collapsed then. Suicide is catching, but Sarge kept us busy. Made a joke out of it. Helped us forget.

He was right though. Tomas's own head was the only damn thing he ever did hit. Man couldn't hit the fucking ground with a mortar.

O'course, if you're an officer, things are a bit different. No matter how crazy you are, other people will always die first. Even if your brain is shitting gaskets like a broken harvester, you ain't the one that's gonna die.

And that sums up our poor demented little Lootie. Taking shit hard. Going complete raving apeshit. Yeah, he's lost whatever little rich-kid mind he ever did have. All he ever does is sit in that bunker and shake.

Without Sarge, the coupla hundred men under his command would probably all be dead by now. But Sarge is a survivor, and a smart old bugger. Man fought in the Corpie Wars and lived, stayed an NCO, never fucking got promoted, spent thirty fucking years as a Sergeant.

Fifteen squads in this line of trenches, sector 37b they call it. Or called it. I guess we're the A trench now. Guess that there aren't fifteen squads here anymore. Be lucky if there five left at half-strenhth or more.

But those that're alive, and the corpses, before they got shot, every one of them does or did what the Lootie tells'em to.

But the Lootie, he ain't talked in weeks. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. I notice these things. Always have, even back on the farm.

Y'see, Sarge is the senior NCO in these parts. The way I see it, Sarge tells everyone what it is that the Lootie said. Even tells the poor nutjob with the stripes on his shoulders that he said it.

And the sobbing wreck? He probably believes it too, if any of his brain is still there. Which I damn well doubt.

Wiley old bastard that he is, I can't see Sarge dealing well with introducing the Lootie to a fucking Reaper.

But, still, he knows he ain't got a choice, and down he goes into the dark earthen bunker.

For a few minutes, I get the dubious pleasure of watching the experts at work. They've stopped the advance, that's for sure.

And over the gunfire, I hear one man's voice. He's still standing, somehow, half his chest sticking out over the parapet, a pistol in one hand, pumping out shot after shot.

By rights, he probably should be dead. I know that if I or one of us did something as stupid as that, Sarge would kill us if they didn't get to us first.

"Rico, Havill, get over the top, I want sniper cover now. Advance, advance."

Spurred on by his words, two of the black-clad lunatics leap out of the trench, diving through mantraps, razor wire a tripmines.

Somehow, they survive.

"Armour, incoming, five suits, left three-two. Hit them hard."

I wonder what Sarge is doing down below with the Lootie.

"You, soldier, stand up, fight. Are you a soldier or a cleaner? Your uniform says soldier, so stand up and fight. Stop trying to clean mud out of this trench with that ugly mop of hair and do your duty."

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I can't believe I'm doing this. My consciousness screams that the only safe place is on the floor of the trench.

My body, it yells "Sir, yes, sir!" and does what's told.

Looking over, all I see is dead bodies. Armoured, suited, even vehicles, all blown apart. Blood, mud and oil all mixed into one mangled heap. In the foggy distance, I can make out vague shapes.

I hate this place.

As scared as I've ever been, I empty my clip. Maybe I was aiming, maybe I wasn't. I don't know. I know that some of those vague shapes fell down.

And, then, Sarge is back. Strange how comforting his familiar bulk is, even with the flesh-and-bone Lootie beside him.

I turn to watch.

If I'd been paying attention like a good soldier, I'd have heard the mortar round falling.

Sarge and the Lootie vanish from the doorway in a storm of hot metal. I find myself lying on the floor of the trench again.

Only, I'm not. I'm still resting on the wall. It's just caved in a little. Now, it may as well be floor.

I'm bleeding. It take me a while to realise it.

I can't hear anything.

Slowly, I regain an understanding of my circumstances, and my memory of what just happened.

The first thing I hear is his voice, of course.

"Get up. Stand up. Are you men? Reapers, to my side. Colonials, I am now the ranking officer in this hole, and as such am assuming direct command of this unit. To disobey me is to disobey a direct and legal order. That is treason and I will punish it with death. Get up!"

I find myself struggling to find my feet. More than anything else now, I don't want to make this man my enemy.

Not after what I'm now realising I just saw.

The flash. The bunker door collapsing. The two corpses flying forward, disintergrating as the shrapnel tore through them. Bodies around me flying, men dying.

And, less than one standard unit away from the blast, that motherfucker standing bolt upright, as immobile as the fucking battlefront used to be.

"Incoming! Cover, now!"

I hit the ground again. Out of the corner of my eye, I see two Reapers die.

"Jansen, patch me through to the corpsemen. We don't leave our dead on the field."

It amazes me, somehow, how he can be heard over the roaring gunfire and screaming shells.

It's about now that I realise that we're in the middle of a full-scale bombardment. Just mortars, close range. They're probably set up in what was our front trench.

And, then, I see that he had followed my same thought processes.

He's cut, I notice. Blood is streaming down from a wound on his forehead. His dress uniform is in tatters. The peaked cap is gone, and the long black greatcoat with the ornate shoulderpads is hanging open.

Beneath it, I see, his uniform is all function.

That little, smart, sane reasonable part of me realises that the dress uniform was just for show, to impress us silly little colonial militiamen.

And, then, he picks up some guns from the ground. One of our rifles gets slung over each hand.

"Rico, Havill, you still out there? Do we have a clear route forward?"

That's when I realise why he's so loud. I still have my helmet on. Somehow. It sounded like it was right in my ear, because it was. The man was running on our comms frequency.

"Phoenix, sir, we're keeping their heads down, go."

And, then, I work out just who's in front of me, and I wish I'd been lucky enough to die before he landed.

"Reapers, soldiers, in the name of Earth, of Terra, of State, advance!"

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

Chris Miller

You write well from a technical standpoint. It's nice to see a piece in which numerous grammatical/structural errors do not leap out at me.

I found the POV static and dull. After being in this guy's head for 2000 words I neither liked nor disliked him. So I really didn't give a fuck (if I may use his vernacular) what happended to him. Yes, he uses "fuck" way too much. "Fuck" is the word of choice for the illiterate. It's okay in dialogue sometimes. But to over use it in a narrative is distracting.

Except for the "reapers", which I didn't quite get, it does not feel like Sci-fi. Where is all the cool new technology? This read like scenes from WW1.

What is your message here? War is bad?

I will be disappoined if when we engage in battles with inter-stellar beings, the fighting is so mundane. It reminded me a litttle of The Forever War without the sci-fi metaphor and imagination.

__________________
the fairwriting blogs

Barcelona Review story: http://www.barcelonareview.com/64/e_cm.html

Fishbar

I agree with what chris said...

The swearing is a little out of control. It doesn't add anything and actually detracts quite a bit...

Let me give you an example:


See how he says 'stupid little sons o'bitches' and then says "and, come to think of it, nor did I."

Nor? Why the hell would he say 'Nor' ? If he's as foul mouthed as it seems, nor wouldn't be the kind of thing he'd be spouting. It takes you out of the context...

I have no problem with swearing in general, but in writing all it does is clutter.

Cleaning up the language makes it more readable and makes more sense... Even your trashiest talking mouth isn't going to write 'fucking' out longhand because he's probably lazy as it is... that's what all the swearing tends to suggest... too lazy to be eloquent, gotta use shock.


Other than that, cut a lot of the time out of this piece. It needs to be shortened, you can collapse a lot of it, make the description and the back story tighter.

like:


Ok... What shells? What are 'cruisies' ? I'll assume shells are like artillery? And Cruisies are like large space ships?

Ok, assuming that I need to know more...

I want to read something more like this: The big passenger cruisers taking off would send up huge clouds of dust, hundreds of tons would spray into the atmosphere, and that never looked as bad it did now."

See what that does? It tells me what a cruiser is, and why he's making this comparison. I understand he's making a passing reference to something someone IN the story would probably understand... but the harsh reality is that people OUTSIDE the story just get confused or angry that there's no more explanation.


Good luck bud, good imagination on you, now flex the writing muscle.


-fishbar

Anarkos

A couple of caveats I probably should have posted at the start -

1/ This is entirely unedited. Hence some stuff is too long and wordy, other stuff is too short and brushed over.
2/ This is not finished per se. Some of the later stuff - the Reapers being the main example - are not really covered in any depth because of that. It's not that I'm not going to, it's that I haven't got up to it yet.

Cheers.

Interesting. He is supposed to be cowardly, ignorant and selfish, but utterly self-pitying (eg, acquiring new shoes of his dead best mate). If you don't dislike him already, then either you hang out with some high-grade scumbags, or I'm not doing a very good job.

Probably the latter.

Point taken. I tend to use cheap shortcuts in my writing to build tone/atmosphere. I wanted the narrator to sound bitter and jaded, so I made him swear a lot.

Um.

Right.

Why did I ever think that would work?

Which, largely, is because I read someone writing about the horrors of WW1 and I thought "damnit, I can do that better". Whether my loudmouthed little ego is right is an entirely different matter...

The sci fi? Well, the whole damn setting for one thing; an uprising on an agarian terraformed planet, where the war has raged on four a good few years, and is now undoing the terraforming efforts bringing about a planet-wide ecological collapse.

I suppose that doesn't really come across all that well though, when you're looking at it from the perspective I chose. Hmm.

And, on the Reapers, here is the way I envisaged 30th century military structure: On the one hard, there are colonial militias. Their job is to defend individual colony worlds from external aggression, or, more often, internal insurrection. Soldiers who pass a series of exceptional physical and mental tests may either volunteer or be transferred to the naval Spacebourne Marine Corps, regiments funded either by government/State or corporate/Cartel sponsors. (Naturally, of course, there is also a navy outside the marines and their troopships). Of these regiments, many are famous for one thing or another.

The Reapers, to put it bluntly, are famous for being bad motherfuckers, and their youthful commander has already earned himself a similar reputation through a career in murder, assassination, vigilantism and general brutality.

Hmm. Good question. More along the lines of:
1) War is bad.
2) War is always gonna be with us; we are always going to be stupid enough to kill our fellow man.
3) Whatever fancy, fruity technology we have, infantry will always play a part, and a conscript's life will always be nasty, brutish and short.

Haha, indeed. Crucial point to make, o'course, is that this is not war with extra-terrestrial beings. Rather, it's just humans fighting humans.

Interesting comments though, chur.

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

Chris Miller

Hi Anarkos,

Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comments. I have re-read the piece in light of them and feel I better understand it now. I feel I was too harsh in judging it based on my stereotypic expectations from Sci-fi. The scientific evolution you project and describe is political/social, and not technical/physical. But I still think you need both in the genre.

The face of war has changed a lot in the last few centuries. I think it will change even more in the next. You will see technologically lopsided, non-territorial confrontations. Insurgents, revolutionaries, invaders and the status-quo all stirred and mired together in the ubiquitous crumbling infrastructures of our civilizations fighting over a myriad of desparately shifting agendas and waning resources. Whew. See, you got me thinking. Ow.

It does not feel particularly unedited, but I can see where it might belong in a larger scenario.

Here I will still disagree. He does not strike me as particularly cowardly, selfish or self-pitying. He strikes me as pragmatic, objective and resonably self-aware and articulate (save the "fuck"s). But I still don't feel I like or know him. If anything, he seems a little shallow--empty.

I look forward to the next cut.

__________________
the fairwriting blogs

Barcelona Review story: http://www.barcelonareview.com/64/e_cm.html

Anarkos

No worries. Thanks to you for taking the time to respond to my writings.

Hmm. Agreed. I feel, however, that too many sci-fi writers (especially amateur ones) fall in to the trap of technological idealism. Technology solves certain problems, but also creates new ones.

It's not so much that the world I envisage has undergone greater socio-political change than technological as that technology is far from evenly distributed. The narrator in this story is a farmboy on an agarian world who has been conscripted into the colonial militia. The way I see it, if someone like him was given high-tech weaponry, not only would it probably cost more than his whole squad's training, but he wouldn't know how to use it.

I have also used the somewhat artificial devise of collapsing terraforming and vast clouds of smoke thrown up by artillery and cruise missiles to explain why there is no airborne or spaceborne support aside from the odd drop pod. I think, perhaps, that this is one element of the setting that needs some development, and probably from a somewhat more educated perspective than the narrator's.

Take the Reapers as an example of technically sophisticated soldiers. Each is equipped with nano-tech integrated light body armour than hardens on impact and auto-repairs. Moreover, each has medical computer systems strapped to their back, pumping painkillers, blood coagulents (for wounds) and countless other drugs into their bodies...so, basically, unless killed outright, they can keep on fighting no matter their wounds. In a typical conflict, I would envisage them striking quickly from orbit and retreating, calling in orbital bombardment as a normal soldier would use mortars or artillery...

I could go on, but I would kind of like to leave some of their more esoteric high-tech equipment to be unveiled as I write on.

(On a side-note; the commander of the Reapers is mentioned by name. To someone who had read the other work I have written in the same 'world', that name would stir some pretty clear memories...the man is an effectively unkillable rogue corporate 'weapon'...a man engineered in the womb to lead his family's company...but whose conditioning failed in almost every respect, leaving him a bitter, angry and very, very skilled young man...who's first fictional appearance involved a sniper rifle and his father's head. He was, the way I see it, initially posted to the Reapers because he was too damn dangerous to go anywhere else...)

I agree wholeheartedly. Talking of lopsided technological confrontations...that's pretty much what I'm trying to develop here. The dynamic of ill-trained, ill-equipped local soldiers fighting alongside elite well-equipped marines.

(On another note, have you noticed how many sci-fi writers seem to use things like "laser gun" or "pulse rifle" to make their story sound sophisticated, when what these weapons do is really no different to our modern weapons?)

Cheers.

I really need to work on the narration...I want the reader to start out detesting him, but slowly come around to roughly your view; that he was only doing what anyone in his circumstances would.

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

Anarkos

Continued:

And advance they do, their black clad bodies leaping out of the trench into what experience tells me should be certain death.

Soon, I realise that I'm about the only live man left in the trench. Even my comrades are obeying his order.

Now, it's just me and him.

"I gave you an order, soldier. Do you intend to disobey?"

Somehow, I notice that this hand is resting on the handle of his pistol. My cowardly little brain tries to work out where my best chance for survival lies.

Another mortar round hits, behind him, and in his silhouette, I see certain death.

An old saying comes to mind. Better the devil you know. I've been over the top before, and survived. Never stood uncovered in a trench during a bombardment before. That's what bunkers are for. More than that, I've never put a man like him to the test before.

In the hope of saving my own hide, I climbed out of the muddy trench, cursing the Reapers' easy athelticism.

And, to my shock, I don't die. The Reapers ahead of me are moving low and fast, working in pairs. One moves, one fires, and then they swap.

"You know how this works, soldier? Cover me until I hit the ground, then I cover you as you come past."

And then he's in front of me, running, with one of our rifles slung over each shoulder and a pistol in each hand.

It strikes me about then that he doesn't need covering fire, but force of habit leaves me obeying orders.

Second after second, I watch him run, bent-backed, lumping mines and wire. Every moment I expect him to go down. I wonder then how I'm supposed to tell if he's been shot or just taken cover and expecting me to advance.

It's about that I realise that he has passed his comrades. I hear roaring in my ears, and he vanishes from sight.

A mortar shell hits the ground mere meters behind me.

A dark form appears at my side. I turn, bringing my gun up, and then I recognise the matt black uniform.

"Rico," he identifies himself, "you planning out waiting out the war here, or doing what the man told you?"

One of their snipers, I realise, noting the long bulbous shape of his modular railgun.

He lifts from the ground one-handed, and pushes me forward.

I run.

By the time I reach the cover of what was the A trench, it's all over in there. Most of them must've been dead when the Reapers reached the trench, I realise; it's not hard to tell wounds inflicted by a sniper apart.

I hear gunshots beside me. My knees cave in, and I collapse shaking in horror. I thought I was safe. Something warm runs down my leg.

I've been hit. I scream.

After a while, when I realise I'm not dead, I start to piece together what happened. 37a, just like 37b, has a hollowed out bunker.

The gunshots I heard were the sound of Brigadier General Johnny Phoenix emptying the flechette weapon that had been hanging of his belt into it.

The warm liquid running down my leg isn't blood.

It takes me a while to work that out. During this time, they drag my shaking body into the bunker.

As my nerve slowly returns to me, I see that I share the bunker with eleven Reapers and two very scared militiamen.

There is also a lot of blood, and scattered bones.

The actions holos I watched as a child taught me that that meant flechette weapon.

I thought those things were illegal. Now, of course, I realise that the Reapers don't pay much attention to any law but their own.

There is a door at the back of the bunker, I notice. It is closed. I know what's in there, of course; the hardline comms array. With the dustclouds making sattellite unreliable, command had to resort to hardline for long-range communications. The Reapers, I realise, want to access that. They're Spaceborne. They don't like being cut off from their troopship.

I learned that from the holos too.

It amazes me how clear my head is, given my terror.

Phoenix - even without his dress uniform, his bare head is unmistakeable - strides over to the door.

It's armoured alloy, designed to keep hostiles out, even if they've taken the trench. I remember that from the drills we used to run, before the front got quite so chaotic.

I wonder how Phoenix intends to deal with that.

He punches a the keypad beside the door, and then tears of the damaged covering, exposing raw circuity.

His hand goes to his pocket, and pulls out a clump of wire. One end gets jammed, seeming half-hazardly, into the circuit board.

He plugs the other end into the socket behind his ear.

I stare in astonishment. The bastard is jacked. I'd heard about jacking, of course. Every freighter shipping our farm's good would've had a jacked pilot, and I'd heard rumours that Army Intelligence even had a few Operators in their midst.

Meeting an Operator was something I'd always been apprehensive about. You hear stories, about how weird they are, about how they become addicted to the nets, to data, about how they don't ever seem to be quite human.

I'd never thought that I'd see one in combat.

The door opens.

Phoenix steps inside, the wire automatically detaching from the socket in his skull.

The Reapers, I notice, are busily checking, cleaning and reloading their weapons. Phoenix's hardware, I see, is no surprise to them. My fellow army boys, of course, look just as shocked and terrified as I must.

Almost of their own accord, my eyes turn back to the General. He is a General, I recall. That's almost as shocking as his jack. A general, fighting? A general, who's closer to my age than his centenary?

It hear a thud, a hiss of escaping breath. My eyes snap into focus.

He's not alone in there. An enemy uniform, an officer too. Intelligence, I guess. Insitinct tells me to do something to help. Reason tells me I should be running.

My eyes tell me I don't need to.

The man comes flying out of the comms room, his nose obviously broken. He slowly struggles to his feet. One arm, I notice, is lying limply by his side. The other is struggling for a knife.

The Reapers seem to have suddenly taken a great interest in the doorway back out to the trench.

"I told you to drop your weapons." His voice is a hiss.

The soldier raises his knife.

Phoenix breaks his arm in three places. I can tell by the way it bends.

The knife clatters to the ground.

"Now, Captain, you are going to tell me what you were doing at that hardline access. If you don't, I will break another bone."

The man is doing something with his mouth. I can't tell what. The only thing I can tell is that he's not talking, which seems like a bad move to me already.

Phoenix's blur. One hand clasps around the Intelligence mans throat. The other pries open his jaw, and tears out a white capsule.

"Intelligence, I see. Thought so. You will answer my questions. Then you will die. If you don't answer my questions, you will also die, but it will be much slower and more painful. Am I understood?"

The man attempts a kick that even looks amateurish to me. The block catches it with a heel to the kneecap. He goes down, and I wince, guessing that yet another bone has been broken.

Phoenix bends down over the man, hands grasping for the man's collar.

The Reapers, I see, still aren't paying any attention to their commander's brutality. Not what I'd expected, really, given their reputation for violence. My own comrades, more predictably, are open-mouthed.

A blade appears in Phoenix's hand. Realising what is about to happen, I close my eyes.

The screams will always haunt me.

The man talks, of course. His bloodied body is something I try not to look at.

"Jansen, deal with comms. Tell colonial command where we are, and pass this on too. Their intel will thank us for doing their job."

For the first time, I hear static in my earpiece. A databurst, I realise.

These Reapers are just full of bloody surprises, and I can't say I'm too happy about it, even though I guess I owe them my life.

"The rest of you, we've got some mortars to kill, and Nico and Havill could do with some downtime by now."

The Reapers move off.

We three pooe colonial militiamen are left in the tender company of their commander.

"You three, up against that wall, now. The one with a bench."

We do what we're told. I can't help but wonder if he wants us lined up neatly to shoot.

"Soldiers, you've done well, all things considered. I've seen marines take fire worse. Han" - he knows my name, he knows my name - "you're falling apart on us, but I need you. There aren't many soldiers left in this sector, and we need everyone we can get to hold the line. My men won't be staying long, and nor will I."

One of the others, a girl, not from Sarge Fanic's squad, though from our unit, she's braver than I am.

"You, you tortured that man!"

"And in doing so, I've saved hundreds of lives. Maybe if your command had known all he told us five hours ago, your unit wouldn't have been slaughtered."

"B-b-but..."

"And you really think what I did was that bad? I've seen worse in bars!"

That silenced her. Phoenix walked slowly and casually to the door of the small bunker.

"Clean yourselves up. I want to see some soldiers in here when I get back. Han, follow me."

I don't know how I stood up. Perhaps fear overpowered fear. One foot after the other, I followed him.

"Niko, you're a survivor. I've seen your record - don't look so surprised, I've seen the record of every soldier on this front - and I know you've been here for years. In the military, a survivor is either cowardly or resourceful. Me, I don't think you're a coward."

A little treacherous voice inside of me disagreed.

"You've taken a lot. I know about your family."

With a courage I didn't know I had, I turned my back on him. A man like him, a murderer, a torturer, he didn't deserve to talk about my family.

"I know the cruise missile hit your farm. And, believe me, I understand how you must feel about this war now."

I turn back, tears streaming down my face. My dead father's voice echoes in my ears. Sorry dad, boys do fucking cry.

Somehow, I don't know how, I tell him how I feel. How he could never understand, with his expensive weapons, his cold detachment, his jacks and nanoweave armour.

His eyes flash, and for the first time I see humanity in his expression.

"You're 21, Han, your family died two years ago. My father died when I was eighteen, but we hadn't spoken, and, truth is, he only got what he deserved. My mother? She died when I was only twelve. I know how you feel."

Those last words tore into me like bullets. I slumped against the wall of the trench.

In that strange way my terror-stricken mind works, I realise the Reapers must've destroyed the mortar batteries.

Phoenix puts his hand on my shoulder. Against all reason, that hand, which had only minutes ago tortured and killed a defenseless man was comforting.

Without meaning to, I began to speak. "I don't understand this war. It makes no sense. We're killing ourselves. Look around, would you believe that our people turned this world from a lifeless rock into a verdant paradise? Would you even believe it was what it was? And, look, we've made it fucking hell!"

As if to accentuate my point, a cruisie explodes somewhere nearby.

"No, Han, this isn't Hell. Stop personalising everything. Get hard. Get cold. You think this is bad? Try looking through my eyes! I've seen men die in viral attacks, I've seen men burned to death in orbital bombardments, I've led boarding parties onto ships that've suffered reactor leaks, and seen men who's skin didn't burn but belt. I've even ordered the annihilation of entire planets! You think this is the worst? Trust me, soldier, you will survive, and so will this planet. Your people terraformed it once, and they can again."

And, suddenly, our moment of empathy was over.

"Fuck me dead."

My voice. I've gotta learn to control that. If Sarge heard me talk like that, he'd...no, no, he wouldn't. Sarge is dead.

"Fuck me, dead!"

A black form drops into the trench beside me. This time, it doesn't shock or scare me. It's a Reaper sniper.

Just? I never thought I'd find myself saying that. Those holos I'd watched as a dumb little kid - and, truth is, I'm still pretty dumb, and little compared to the Reapers - they never showed the Reapers. That wasn't why I was scared of them. Oh, no.

I was scared of them, because everyone was. Even the characters in the holos were. If someone ever mentioned a Reaper, whether they were a holo star, a soldier or just a lucky civilian, it was with awe and fear.

And, somehow, me, cowardly, foul-mouthec little Private Niko Han was starting to think of them as just Reapers.

That scared me about as much as they do.

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

horrorcrafter

Hey 19, Read the whole thing. My critique: now you know how it feels to be reviewed with less than two sentences.
Horrorcrafter

__________________
Canadian Lynx are beautiful sensitive creatures which are very good mothers and they make a wide variety of sounds such as meows, purrs, cough-barks, growls, and screams like a woman. She is the next mammal to become extinct in North America largely because we waste so much paper. Please reduce, reuse, and recycle. Cheers, Horrorcrafter

Anarkos

As, as far as I can recall, I have never responded to any of your stories, I'm not entirely sure what you are responding to.

Got any relevant comments, bro?

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

Chris Miller

Hey Anarkos,

I see you've beefed up the tech part a bit. Your character still comes across a bit dry and, in this cut, if anything, a bit more likable. I still find him and therefore the story a little unengaging. This could be only a matter of taste. Your writing style is clean and readable. I just find it hard to care what is going on. The big picture is tough to grasp and depressing anyway.

I find it curious that you have managed to write an entire short story (short stories lie between fiction and poetry) without using a single simile or metaphor. I think this is the main reason your prose fails to capture my imagination--weak descriptions--no tangential thinking--therefore no relevance to me. I hope you don't mind my making this complaint/observation.

__________________
the fairwriting blogs

Barcelona Review story: http://www.barcelonareview.com/64/e_cm.html

Anarkos

Actually, there are quite a few metaphors especially, and some similes. My main problem there is simple; the imagery that comes naturally to me would be entirely inappropriate for the narrator. I don't really have the time or space in a piece as short and, well, stark as this too build up the backstory and setting enough to make internal comparisons and so on...

Hmmm, that's actually a topic which I think deserves it's own thread; crafting worthwhile comparisons in sci-fi (and, I suppose, fantasy).

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.