by A. S. Hames
I’m useless. I know it. I’m the wrong type of person for the job. Why don’t they have tests to weed out people like me? The Nation deserves tougher volunteers, like those southsiders. What use am I? My shooting is untried and my unarmed combat skills are barely average. I don’t even like fighting. I prefer walking, reading and singing. Damn it, those kids at school who said I was only chosen as Head Girl because of my brother were right. Ax was the best Head Boy the school ever had. While he was brilliant at sport, I wrote poetry. Poetry, for God’s sake. What use is that here!
There’s movement in the outpost. Ax stops but waves half of us on past him. That includes me, Von, Taff, Ben, Essie, Tallboy, and the damned film team. We’re going to attack the building from the right. I try again to shut my empath sense down. I can’t take any more of what others are feeling. I’ve never been in a group all expressing such powerful emotions. It’s like I’m drowning.
I gather myself and follow Tallboy who’s now, damn it to hell, a leading trooper. When did all these promotions take place? Was I out walking Von?
But it makes sense. Traditionally, kids who go through school and join the army as young adults are promoted first – and I’ve profited from that with my own leading trooper appointment back at training camp.
But is that right? In the middle of a war, don’t we need to promote kids who are ready to kill and give orders under fire? It’s not like a poetry recital is going to form any part of the attack.
That said, Tallboy moves faster than Ax, which I don’t like. Maybe they shouldn’t have promoted him after all. To me he seems reckless. Perhaps I should stick to the pace Ax originally set or maybe go back and check with him for an opinion. No, Ax would strangle me in a quick display of his unarmed combat skills. I must keep going or I’ll become an isolated target. Look, the enemy will say, shoot her, the idiot in the middle with the wolf.
I don’t like it. My mouth is dry. I have a headache. I’m not even seventeen yet. I shouldn’t be allowed to represent the Nation in war. That should be reserved for older men and women who know what’s what.
To my right, Essie is moving steadily. He’s only twelve and he’s already killed a man. He shot his elbow off first, then hit him in the mouth, sending his teeth out the back of his neck. I think of imaginary birds scattering from a tree. I wonder what it would feel like to fly. I wonder if peace among all people is something we should have worked harder for.
Oh, it’s not rain on Essie’s face. He’s crying. He has no chance of attacking anything or anyone. My heart feels heavy. My wet body feels like an iron weight. And the camera is coming in close to my face, to get all that fear and determination. The real thing, up close. I don’t think any of us are coming back from this. Why have they sent us? Why didn’t they send experienced troops?
Of course, I know the answer. They can’t afford to waste experienced soldiers. Troopers like me, Ben, Essie, and Taff are more plentiful. Okay, so we’re not technically a suicide squad. It’s just that our prospects in open battle amount to the same thing.
For me, it’s a matter of deciding if I’m going to do this as a coward, screaming and running away and getting blasted in the back, or whether I’ll try to become a Hero of the Nation, standing, facing the enemy. I know which is right, but it’s hard to step over the line from coward to hero.
To my left, fifty yards away, Sergeant Seven-Nine’s group is level with us in their approach. So they speeded up too. Maybe that was the plan all along. I just wish someone would let me know. I can be trusted with battlefield information.
My mind is a mess. What does a bullet smacking into your teeth actually feel like? Do you feel the bullet and teeth tear through the back of your head? Or is it a blur followed by nothingness? I clamp my teeth together. And as I do so, there’s an old man peering through an outpost window. He gives me a little wave.
I’m stunned.
Krak! Krak!
Gunfire! To my left, Sergeant Seven-Nine is engaging the enemy. And we’re up too. We’re running at the outpost.
Krak! Krak! Krak!
This is it!
13. The Strangest Things
BEN
Bullets smash into the farmhouse. Windows crash in, timbers splinter, voices cry out. I’m running in with Jay and Von. I fire at the building. She fires at the sky.
The outpost has six or so defenders but they’re all trying to flee. Their shock and fear has stolen away the will to fight and they’re going down easily. I don’t think they’ve managed a single shot in return.
I feel a surge inside me. I want to yell at them. I want to punish them for the fear they’ve caused. I want them to beg for mercy and promise they’ll never threaten the Nation again. I don’t want to shoot them though.
So, even as they run and fall with holes in them, and their blood rushes into the wet earth, I want to cry out for us to stop. There is no need to kill these people. But I do my duty and I fire directly at them. I wish I could fire at the sky like Jay and let the clouds take my anger.
The last of the outpost defenders cries out. “What the hell are you…?” But he falls silent too.
The captain joins us. “Cease fire!”
And that’s it. I’m alive. I’m shaking, I’m breathless, but I’m okay. Thank God.
“Congratulations,” the film woman says to Jay. The camera is moving in close to her left side while the other camera moves in to her right. It’s a pincer movement. The third member of their team is poised with pen over paper.
I look to the dead man at our feet. Nobody seems to notice he’s there.
“How do you think the Leader of the Nation will react when he sees this?” the film woman says.
Taff’s throwing up. Von’s sniffing the corpse’s face.
Jay does well to compose herself. “He’ll probably wish he could meet Von.”
The writer notes it down, no doubt to be narrated in countless halls across the Nation.
The captain pats her on the shoulder and takes Von. He goes off with the film woman to discuss something. Then the cameras roll and he runs with Von and shoots into the empty farmhouse.
“Death to the Enemies of the Nation!” he yells to the camera. The film crew’s writer notes it down.
They go inside. The film team moves in closer. The woman says, “Having killed fifty enemy troops, Captain Ax-Kane Two-Five and Hero of the Nation Von have entered the enemy outpost where redcoats conspire alongside rebels without uniforms to destroy the Nation.” Again, the writer notes it down.
But it’s a mistake. There are no redcoats here.
“The enemy is dead!” the captain cries as he and Von re-emerge. “Long live the Leader!”
“Okay, that’s great,” the film woman says.
Me? I’m confused.
JAY
As the camera team packs up, Ax hands Von back to me along with a badge. I’m staring at the body of the man who waved at me. Judging by the heavy strapping around his ankle, he wasn’t likely to get far before a bullet tore through his body.
“I’m promoting you to sub-lieutenant.”
“Me?” I stare at the small metal circle with a single slim vertical bar across it.
“You held your nerve. Others will have no doubts following you into battle.”
It’s a mistake. I don’t feel I’ve proven myself.
“Okay, listen,” Ax says to all, “let’s keep our concentration. We’ll be attacking the town soon enough.”
Attacking the town? My heart pounds. Everything’s happening too fast and there’s no time to think about what’s happened before the next danger rears up.
“Check your weapons and ammunition,” Sergeant Seven-Nine says.
“Hey!” It’s Dub with the colonel, the lieutenant, and the rest of the Forbearance-Pinedale group strolling oh-so-easily over terrain I crawled across inch by inch in total fear. Even the rain is stopping for them. I find it raises an emotion in me that I can’t identify. It’s like our group belongs to something an
d they don’t. Like they’re trespassers.
“Hey!” Dub calls again. He’s soon over, smiling, patting my shoulder, and handing me back my faulty weapon. “Great job,” he says, relieving me of his.
We’ve swapped guns. I’m back with the rifle that could explode if I fire it. As a sub-lieutenant I could order him to swap back. But it’s Dub. He’d only disrespect my authority and cause me endless trouble.
Looking past Dub’s shoulder, Tallboy has the colonel’s spyglass. He’s looking toward the town. I’m still holding my new badge, so I pin it to my tunic.
“You’ve been promoted,” Dub says, a little surprised.
I hand Von to him and go over to Tallboy.
“May I?”
Tallboy looks at me and my badge, possibly with disdain. All the same, he hands me the spyglass and departs.
I feel its weight. I’ve never used one before. With the weather improving a little, I lift the ten-inch cylinder to my eye and I can see the town. It’s then that I notice my hand is shaking. I have to be calm. I have to be aware of everything going on if I’m to survive.
I try the spyglass again. Wow. The town is a mile away but it looks so much nearer. It looks so ordinary, too, like it doesn’t belong in a war.
It reminds me of home.
I should be readying myself for the attack but I can’t resist using the spyglass to find other objects. A bent-over tree. Some buzzards. I check the higher ground to the north. Although it’s a long way off, I can see the Prospect-Inspiration Group. They appear to be victorious too because I see nothing but mossbacks by the cabins and…
How incredibly strange.
I lower the spyglass.
“Impossible,” I mutter.
But I know what I saw. About twenty troops, a film team, and a wolf. A wolf with a coat like a storm cloud. The double of Von. Except it was limping badly. I want to tell everyone, to shout and share the strangeness, but it could be secret information, and you can’t go around yelling about that kind of thing.
“You okay?” Ben asks.
I still can’t get over it.
“Did you hear?” It’s the eleven-year-old Pinedale leading trooper addressing us all. “The colonel made me a sergeant!”
He’s pointing proudly to the badge of three fat horizontal stripes pinned to his tunic and is unaware of Von sniffing his crotch. As far as I’m concerned, the world is losing its bearings. He’s only been in the army three days. But now the boy with the burned hair is being whisked away by the film team. Seems he’s the youngest sergeant in the army.
The colonel comes over and I hand him the spyglass. I say nothing.
“There’s a ditch over there,” he says to those nearby. “Any volunteers to throw the enemy into it?”
I raise my hand. I want to make sure the bodies are properly treated. And I’m right to volunteer, because already a Pinedale boy trooper is repeatedly kicking the soft stomach of a dead woman.
“Cowards! They tried to kill us!”
I go over to take charge of the situation.
“I’m Sub-Lieutenant Two-Five,” I tell the body-kicker. “Just take her to the ditch.”
“Yes,” the new child-sergeant says, “do as the sub says and get the bodies into the ditch.”
There’s definitely something wrong here. Judging by the strapping around the woman’s leg, she wasn’t likely to run far before a bullet struck her neck and felled her.
Feeling more than a little ill-at-ease, I take a dead boy’s hands and see that one of them is bandaged. I don’t have to look too closely to know it’s missing all the fingers. Not that it’s a worry for him with two fatal shots through his middle. I feel sorry for him as I drag him to the ditch – which is, in fact, a rocky crevice. In this way, we dispose of our shot-up enemies: two teenage boys, a teenage girl, a middle-aged woman, and three old men. If I’m seeing it right, they were all hampered before we attacked, either through injury or infirmity.
One of them waved at me.
Just as I’m thinking we’re nearly done, the last of the bodies – that of a teenage boy – snags on the side of the crevice. I could leave him like that, but it doesn’t seem proper, so I climb down a little and try to push him over the rocky obstruction. As his body turns, blood leaks out of his punctured stomach – so move my gaze to his chest, where I notice a rectangular shape in the top pocket. I undo the button and take out an ID card. It’s marked 223-66-TY.
I’m surprised. It looks just like mine, even down to the little holes. But of course these turncoats once represented the Nation, so they would have ID cards like ours.
But that’s strange too. If you’ve left the Nation, why keep an ID card? I half-think to mention it to Ax, but instead I tuck the card into my pocket. I have an uneasy feeling.
“Okay, listen up,” Ax says. “Endeavor is a Nation town that has turned against us. It’s a town we have sacrificed many lives to protect. We owe them nothing. They may not wear the blood red tunic, but they are heavily armed and just as guilty. Now check your weapons and be ready to move in five minutes.”
I check my weapon. As always, the dented barrel looks dangerous. I don’t want to assault a fully-armed town with a faulty rifle. Hell, I don’t want to assault any kind of town at all. But I do need protection so I check the outpost defenders’ weapons which the sergeant has gathered together.
“You’re not to touch them, sub,” he says. “Colonel’s orders.”
It doesn’t make sense, so I wait for him to go then I check them all the same. None of the weapons have any ammunition loaded. I can only suppose we’ve taken it for ourselves, although I didn’t see that happen. And if I’m honest, I’d say all these guns look in bad shape. I’d have to test them to know for sure, but…
I think of that old man waving to me.
No, that would be insane. I have to put that idea out of my head.
I’ll find a weapon once we’re in the town. If that’s possible. I have a job to do. A duty to perform.
The waving man, though… I can’t get him out of my head. Did he have a useless weapon? Were our opponents’ deaths made certain by something other than our bullets? Something that took place before we even set out? Was my terror during that crawl to the outpost an unnecessary fear?
Not for the first time, the general’s words come back to me.
It’s likely a greater good is being served that you might not know of.
I’m angry but I must concentrate on what’s to come.
An attack on the town.
A real attack? Or a staged one?
I’d prefer it if the town just surrendered then there wouldn’t have to be any kind of attack at all. That would be the best outcome. In fact, if our full strength is just over fifty troopers there’s no way we could take a whole town in a real fight, is there?
“Is it a big town, sir?” Ben asks Colonel Five-Five.
“Don’t worry, trooper. While we go in from here, the Prospect-Inspiration Group will be attacking from the north. We also have forces coming in from the south and east.”
A four-way pincer movement. That’s sensible soldiering, but I’m guessing that’s only around two hundred of us. I just hope the town surrenders and that no shots need be fired, otherwise – if this isn’t an arranged attack – it might be the suicide mission Dub has been going on about ever since we volunteered.
14. Assault on Endeavor
BEN
Under thinning clouds, we’re on the march, two hundred yards from the town, and Lieutenant Three-Two is giving us encouragement.
“Be ready and do not hold back. Everything depends on our will to destroy, to bring down, to crush, to hurt, to punish.”
His voice has real authority.
“There will be no rules, no limits. Only pain for our enemy and glory for the Nation.”
No rules? No limits? Will that bring Endeavor’s wrongdoers to justice? Or will it punish everyone and make things worse? If I were the captain, I’d push Lieutenant Three-Tw
o aside and persuade the colonel to delay the attack until we can get thousands of regular troops here. Then I’d take the town and arrest the ringleaders. Ordinary people would be free to resume their lives while we dealt with those responsible for all the problems. But not everyone thinks like me. Buoyed by the lieutenant’s words, I sense a mood of determination. Our steady march is gaining pace and pushing me on. I can feel its power.
JAY
“Move to the front, sub-lieutenant.” It’s Ax with his hand behind my elbow, propelling Von and me to the head of the group. “We want the town to see the Leader of the Nation’s symbol. Glory awaits us all.”
His voice has a power that sets each word on fire. I can feel the effect on those around me as they make way to let Von and me through.
Why me, Ax? Why me?
I glance back to Taff and Ben and Dub. We don’t look capable of being on the wrong side. We’re good people. We won’t go in with No Rules and No Limits. We can’t. Everything would turn bad. We’d have to live the rest of our lives with our heads full of evil acts. We’d be poisoned. Surely, Ax knows that.
With fifty yards to go, we reach the town sign.
Welcome to Town 193
(Endeavor)
Population 4,222
I’d assumed that Endeavor was town number 227. If it isn’t, then where is town number 227 and why did its traitorous son T-Y 66 come to defend Endeavor’s outpost when there’s a whole town full of traitors right here?
I don’t like where my thoughts are taking me.
Even so.
What if Endeavor doesn’t have outposts? What if those people at the farmhouse weren’t who we thought they were? What if they were tricked into thinking the whole thing was a practice?
He waved at me.
What if the missing Pinedale bodies were never dead bodies at all? What if they were still alive and sent to defend places like that farmhouse, purely for the benefit of the cameras? What if troopers like me shot them dead?