Coalition Defense Force Boxed Set: First to Fight

by Gibbs, Daniel

  As soon as Sarah opened the door and processed what was happening, she screamed, “No! No! No! No!” and fell into a chair.

  David rushed to her, not sure what was going on. Sarah grabbed David and pulled him to her, trying to cover his ears so that he couldn’t hear them.

  “Mrs. Cohen, I regret to inform you that your husband, Major Levi Cohen, was killed in action,” the soldier on the right said. As he spoke, his voice broke, and tears rolled down his face.

  The other soldier, who had the payes, or curled sidelocks of a rabbi, had tears in his eyes as well.

  “No.” Finally, she looked up. “How?”

  “The ship your husband commanded was destroyed in combat, ma’am,” the soldier on the right said. “May we come in?”

  Sarah nodded and stood to close the door behind them. The two soldiers joined Sarah in the living room after she sent David to his room, though he stayed in the hall to listen. For the next few minutes, the soldiers attempted to console her with little success. Unable to give her the information she so desperately wanted, the two eventually departed after the rabbi prayed with them.

  That afternoon, Sarah made several holocalls once she could compose herself. Friends of the family began to arrive along with the rabbi of the synagogue their family attended. As there was no body, they could have no funeral service, per Jewish law.

  The next morning, David helped his mother prepare for shiva, the traditional Jewish mourning period of seven days. He couldn’t quite understand why his dad wasn’t coming home. At night, he cried out to God, asking Him why his father couldn’t have been spared. When news reports had started to name Levi, Sarah always turned them off, but David had gone online and found that his father’s ship had rammed the League flagship leading the invasion. It was even harder for him to accept the idea that his father had chosen to leave them.

  A few days into the shiva period, a visitor that David didn’t recognize came. He was a tall, striking CDF soldier who radiated pride in his dress uniform. As he entered the home and introduced himself to David’s mother, David observed that he wore the flag of the Saudi Arabian state on his uniform.

  “Mrs. Cohen,” the man said in a deep baritone, “allow me to introduce myself. I am First Lieutenant Issa El-Amin. I served with your husband during the battle of Canaan aboard the CSV Salamis.”

  Sarah teared up. “Thank you for coming, Lieutenant,” she said, her voice breaking.

  “Levi asked me to visit you and your son. He asked me to tell you how much he loved you both.” Sarah sobbed as El-Amin continued to speak. “I know my words are of little comfort, but he felt he had to do what he did to save you… to save us all.”

  “What did he do?” David asked.

  “In all my years, I’ve never seen a braver or more selfless act. He knew what would happen when he rammed that butcher’s ship, yet he still did it.”

  David had cried so much that he didn’t have many more tears in him, but at the description of his father’s death, he and Sarah cried again.

  “You should be proud of him. You will see him again in paradise, Inshallah,” El-Amin said with a traditional Arabic expression for “God willing.”

  Sarah gripped Issa’s hands. “Thank you for coming to tell me this.”

  El-Amin bowed his head. “It was my honor and privilege. Almashi mae Allah. Walk with God.”

  After a few minutes, El-Amin took his leave of them. Sarah, David, and the rest of the family continued to sit shiva. After seven days, shiva ended. The friends that had come went back to their normal lives. David and his mother slowly began to continue. There was no normal. The pain didn’t disappear. Thirty days after Levi’s death, the rabbi held a memorial service. At Sarah’s insistence, it was not a major event, only a small gathering held at the family’s synagogue.

  * * *

  David looked back up at Amy with a sigh. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get over losing him. Throughout my childhood, all I ever heard was that my father was a hero and such an incredible man. I just wanted him back. I wanted to see him walk down our driveway and pick me up one more time. I wanted to watch my parents embrace one more time.” As he spoke, tears streamed down his face.

  “David, you have some seriously unresolved trauma from your childhood. Would you consider working with me? We could have sessions remotely once you go back to the front.”

  “I’m not sure it’s the right thing for me. I’m a man now. I need to act like it.”

  “Please? There’s nothing wrong with having to deal with your emotions. It will help you in the long run. I promise.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Okay. Our time is up for today, but I will put an appointment on your schedule for next week.”

  David quickly stood. He wanted to get out of the office and away from the counselor as fast as he could. I hate thinking about all the pain. Better to just bury it and move on.

  “Thank you, Amy,” he said with a forced smile.

  “Of course, David. I hope I’m able to help in some way.”

  David nodded. “Good day,” he said and walked out of the office.

  3

  A week later, repairs on the Artemis were finally completed, and the ship was back underway. In the three weeks she had been away from her carrier battle group, the fighting in her patrol sector had died down, leaving David with time to deal with his thoughts. More than once, he woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare, hitting his head on the rack above him. He experienced the battle over and over in his mind, reliving killing the League soldiers and the death of Beckett. As the nightmares got to David more and more, he decided he would go to the session Amy had set up.

  I should just be able to move on, David thought. I am so ashamed of myself.

  A couple of days later, David sat down at the small desk in the cramped room he’d secured and reluctantly engaged the vidlink. Amy’s smiling face appeared on his tablet.

  “David, how are you today?”

  “I’m okay, Counselor.”

  “David, this is not a formal setting.”

  “I apologize. I’m used to having to address everyone formally,” David replied as he cracked a small smile.

  “I’m glad you decided to continue our discussion. I want to help you get through the trauma you’ve experienced.”

  I will be fine. I don’t need help. “Where do we start?” he asked, working to ignore his thoughts.

  “Last time we spoke, you told me about your father’s passing. What happened after that? How did you deal with the pain?”

  “After we had the memorial service for my father— as there was no body, we couldn’t have a funeral, under Jewish law— I tried to bury my emotions. In time, the pain faded. I put my focus into my studies at the Hebrew school I attended.”

  “I’m sure you received a lot of unwanted attention after what happened.”

  “I heard hundreds, thousands of times what a hero my father was. My classmates revered me. I wanted nothing to do with it.”

  “Why not?”

  David paused, trying to force his innermost thoughts out. “I just wanted my dad back. I wanted a normal life with my family. Instead, we have day-in, day-out, year-in, year-out war. For the last eleven years, I’ve watched it all play out. There were times it looked like the League was going to beat us, but we clawed our way back. Other times, it looked like we would win, but the League just kept coming. They blather on with propaganda about how they want to free us from our superstitions. I may be just nineteen, but I’m smart enough to know a pile of crap when I see it.”

  “You sound very passionate about that, David. I don’t quite understand how you can feel so strongly, yet your file says you attempted to obtain a conscientious-objector deferment to the draft.”

  “Amy…” He used her name to emphasize his point. “I have no objection to serving my country. It’s my duty. I just didn’t want to kill people. Do you have any idea how easy it was to kill those League soldiers? I s
queezed the trigger on a weapon, and they fell over like bowling pins. It shouldn’t be that simple. It shouldn’t be easy. I just wanted to do my duty then follow my calling in life to become a rabbi.”

  “You can still do that, David. You just have to forgive yourself. You did nothing wrong. You defended yourself and the two soldiers under your command.”

  “Not well enough. Private Beckett is dead. On my watch. Under my command.”

  “So you blame yourself for his death as well?”

  “Yes. I shouldn’t have tried to be a hero.”

  “Major Pipes believes you saved his ship.”

  “Good for him.”

  Amy paused for a moment. “What do you want, David?”

  “I want to be a man of peace. I want to try, in some small way, to make this universe a better place.”

  “I might say that you made the universe a better place by saving Major Pipes’s ship.”

  David closed his eyes briefly. “Then why do I wake up seeing those dead Leaguers in my dreams at night?”

  “Because most of us aren’t equipped to handle killing our fellow humans in close quarters without it causing significant emotional trauma. And those it doesn’t affect tend to have some form of mental disorder that prevents them from being in touch with their feelings.”

  David shook his head. “Right now, I almost wish I had one of those disorders.”

  “Trust me. You don’t.” Amy smiled before asking her next question. “What about boot camp? What happened to you once you were denied the draft deferment?”

  “I took the oath,” David said.

  He remembered the day after his eighteenth birthday, when he’d attended the ceremony to take the CDF Oath of Service. He’d known for years that the draft was coming, as it was enacted when he was thirteen years old. And there he was, standing in line with dozens of other young men and women, patiently waiting for the sergeant-at-arms to start the ceremony.

  * * *

  “Good afternoon, recruits. We are gathered here today as you take your first steps to becoming young soldiers in the Coalition Defense Force. Each of you has passed your entry physical exam, been provided with a military occupation, and received your orders to basic training. Now raise your right hand and repeat after me.”

  “I, David Cohen, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the Terran Coalition against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I will obey the orders of the president of the Terran Coalition and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”

  With the oath behind him, David was a soldier. He spent one more night at home with his mother, who, with the pride of a military mother, threw a party to see him off, but David’s heart lacked that pride. As he’d just graduated from secondary school, he didn’t feel ready to go away for four years, but it was his duty to do so, as so many had fought before him.

  After pulling up to the recruit training center for the CDF on Canaan the next day, David stepped onto a transport craft packed with sixty young men and women. Little was said among the recruits on the hours-long journey from the city to the military base as the young adults all waited with naïve eagerness for what would happen next. Early the following morning, the transport craft pulled into the docking bay.

  A drill instructor, who didn’t seem fazed by the time of morning, stormed aboard in a crisply pressed uniform. “Let’s go! Let’s go! Move it! Get off my transport, ladies. Sleep time is over. Welcome to the CDF.”

  David awkwardly stood and made his way forward with the rest of the teenagers, falling into their first formation as directed by the drill instructors. Once they were in formation and separated—men on one side and women on the other—a tall, burly drill instructor stood in front of the formations. The recruits stood at attention simply out of fear and awaited their next command, trying not to be last or too slow.

  “Attention, recruits. Welcome to recruit training station Lancaster. This is where you will become trained soldiers of the CDF.”

  The drill instructors paced between the ranks of recruits, looking for someone to flinch, to remove a hair from their face, or to scratch an itch. David stood as motionless as a mannequin, trying not to attract attention.

  “Staff Sergeant! Did you tell this recruit he could yawn?” a drill instructor asked regarding the heavyset teenager standing next to David.

  “Absolutely not!” the big man in front barked.

  “Recruit, do you need a nap?” the drill instructor screamed at the scared recruit.

  “Uh, no, sir!”

  “Drop down and give me ten push-ups, recruit!”

  The teenager fell to his knees but had trouble getting through the push-ups required. After five, he lay in the dirt.

  “Oh, look here. Momma’s fat biscuit-eater is out of shape. Keep pushing, recruit!”

  After a moment, the recruit finished the push-ups and was roughly returned to his place in line.

  “As I was saying,” the drill instructor said, “when we tell you to, you will pick up your belongings, file off, starting with the front row, and go straight into the room to your right. Women, to the left. The drill instructor at the front of the room will provide you further instructions. File off.”

  With that command, each recruit picked up their belongings and quickly followed the person to their right to complete processing. Everyone was fitted for camouflage fatigues, and as that occurred, their civilian clothes were packed in their bags, tagged, and gathered. Finally, heads were shaved, and they were organized into companies.

  As David went through each section of processing, thoughts flooded through his mind. My father chose to do this. Did he know what he was in for?

  It took several hours to get through all the processing stations. By the time David finished, he just wanted to go home. God, please help me get through this, he kept repeating. Finally, the recruits were reassembled, and David sat with one hundred sixty others, wearing poorly fitting fatigues and with his head shaved, listening to the senior drill instructor introduce himself.

  “Sit up straight. Stop slouching. Act like soldiers!” a short, brutally imposing man with a name tag that read Salazar rasped. To David, it seemed like the man had been doing this his entire adult life.

  “Sir, yes, sir!” the company responded in a completely noncohesive manner.

  “My name is Staff Sergeant Marco Salazar. I am your senior drill instructor. My mission is to train you maggots to become soldiers in the Coalition Defense Force,” Salazar thundered. “A soldier in the Coalition Defense Force is a person who possesses the highest of virtue, obeys lawful orders, shows respect to his fellow soldiers and seniors, and strives to be the absolute best at anything he attempts. Spirit, discipline, and courage are at the core of everything he does.”

  Salazar strolled around the bay as he spoke. “Each of you may earn the right to be called a soldier, and I will give everything of myself to train you, even after you give up on yourself. From now on, I will be with you every single day, everywhere you go, and I will instruct you on how to do everything that you need to learn to be a soldier in the Coalition Defense Force.”

  Pausing for a moment, Salazar glared at them. “I have told you what I will do for you. Now I will tell you what I expect from you. No one will quit. You will give one hundred percent of yourselves at all times. You will obey all orders quickly and without hesitation. You will never give up. Do these things, and you may earn the title of Coalition Defense Force soldier. Now stand up!”

  After jumping to his feet with the rest of the recruits, David marched in place, as he was instructed.

  “Attention on deck! Right face! Forward march, recruits!”

  With that, the recruits halted, turned to the right, and filed out of the bay with the drill instructors barking orders at them.

  * * *

  As David finished rela
ting the memory to Amy, she looked genuinely sympathetic. “I was too old to be called up when the draft was instituted, David. I don’t have a frame of reference for it.”

  “Boot camp itself wasn’t that bad. It was what happened when the drill instructors found out who my father was. I was an easy target.”

  “How did you cope with that?”

  “By trying to stay off their radar as much as I could.”

  “Could you tell me about it?”

  David thought back to his first drill formation, when he’d stood at attention outside the recruit barracks.

  * * *

  “And why did you join the Coalition Defense Force?” Salazar asked David in his raspy voice.

  “I was drafted, sir!”

  “You were drafted? You didn’t volunteer? Do you not want to serve your country?”

  “Sir, I do want to serve my country, sir!” David responded with confidence.

  “Are you contradicting me, recruit?”

  “Sir, no, sir!”

  “Are you confused, recruit? Because you did contradict me!”

  A female recruit behind David snickered at his predicament.

  Salazar immediately turned his attention to her. “Do you think I’m funny, recruit?”

  “Sir, no, sir!” she shouted.

  “Drop and give me twenty-five!”

  The teenager dropped into position and counted off her twenty-five push-ups, laboring harder with each rep.

  Once they were completed, the young recruit ran back into formation as Salazar returned his ire to David. “Now, do you want to serve your country?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” David shouted back.

  “Do you think you’re special? Did your daddy fly his ship into the side of a League battleship or something?”

  “Sir, I don’t think I’m special, but my father did fly his ship into the side of a League battleship, sir.”

  Salazar stared at him for a second. “Well, no shit,” he said, momentarily taken off guard. “So you’re that David Cohen?”