"The War" by David C Colvin

Personal Correspondence Module A1009876-99865ADF

From: PFC Leonard Kelson – Alpha Squad, 1^st Platoon, Charlie Company, 2^nd Battalion

To: Annie Tyler <Mail Stop 25B4987 Kirkdale, Phoenix, Arizona, 89635>

Date: 25 March 2369 -  22:65 GST

Dear Annie,

                  I’m not sure how to write this letter.  I have so many mixed emotions, I’m so confused about everything that’s going on.   I feel like everything in my life is out of control.  I bet you never thought you’d hear me say that.

      It’s just that…Tom was killed yesterday.  Our company was sent to secure a plateau as a landing area for the transports.  2^nd Battalion is the spearhead of a new offensive in this sector and Charlie Company is right up front.  It was supposed to be an easy…it was supposed to be cake…but when we got to the top, we found a group of lisks burrowed in…they tore us apart Annie.  Two guys next to me went down..and I watched as the flesh was burned from their faces and necks..their screams…Somehow we managed to scramble down the ridge and set up a perimeter..Captain Shelby, one of our comtechs, one of the heavyd’s all went down in a mass of blood and gore…no one was sure who was in charge anymore.   Tom grabbed a handful of us and pulled back…tried to provide some cover for the others…but we couldn’t..I was so scared, I dropped my rifle twice.  And the lisks just kept coming…they didn’t stop.  Tom shoved me back and I fell, sliding and crashing down the hill…Tom was edging down, firing back and .and then they came at him all at once…and he fell.  The things tore and ate at him,.,.all I could do was watch…I was so helpless.

We lost 23 people before we killed the last lisk.  I am a failure at being a solider annie..I was so sure I’d make a good one…and now, I’m layin in the tent on some backwater moon and wishing only to be in your arms. 

I love you…I cry every night wishing to be with you.

Leo

Phoenix, Arizona – Earth, UED Zone 1

     Annie Tyler watched the man beside her as he slept.  They had made love two hours ago and now Zack was asleep while she lay awake, watching his lips twitch as he breathed in and out softly.  She curled her bare legs up under the sheet covering her naked body.  It was chilly in Phoenix this winter, colder than it had ever been to her memory.  The news weather people seemed mystified by the very un-Phoenix-like weather and tried to pass on their bafflement to their viewers through smirks and hearty laughs.  Most of the time, Annie simply rolled her eyes and turned off the vidbox. 

    Zack fidgeted in his sleep, grinding his teeth slightly.  He settled down a moment later and murmured something Annie couldn’t catch before turning over.  For a moment she stared at his back, wishing him gone from her bed.  It wasn’t that she didn’t like him, she did.  And honestly Annie told herself, he was very good at…the evening’s activities.  He was kind and sweet, intelligent and honest with her in every way.  She couldn’t ask for someone better.  And yet….

     Annie slid out of the bed, snatched a t-shirt from the bureau and padded into the kitchenette.  The suites that the university provided were spacious and the kitchens fully equipped with appliances.  She swept her blonde hair out of her face before grabbing a glass and hitting the water dispenser on the fridge.  Annie took her water to the table, sat down, and looked out the window into the still Phoenix night.  She glanced down at the surface of the table, saw that one of her suitemates had left a newspaper strewn across it.  She violently shoved it aside, some of the pages dropping to the floor.  The last thing she wanted to hear about was the war.  And of course, that was all there was everyday, every week – more news and headlines about battles on distant planets against an enemy she had only seen in news broadcasts and pictures.  And the worst part of all, the absolute worst was the section every paper across the nation, across the UED had in it somewhere- the CWL - the Casualty-Wounded List.  The name, personal IDN, and military IDN of every man and woman confirmed killed or wounded in action.  Some days, the section was only twelve or thirteen names long but on bad days, it could run two or three pages.  One day last September, the CWL was 8 pages long with an even smaller font than they normally used.  The campus had been very quiet that day – students and professors alike distracted and weary.  Everyday, her dorm director would post the CWL of the previous day on the public board and like a ritual, everyone on their way out would check, if they hadn’t the previous night in their own newspapers or on the inet, to see if they knew anyone on the list.  Annie did the same, usually on the inet the night before- checking the T section for her brother and sister, the K section for Leo, and the R section for Tommy.  Thankfully, she had never seen their names..but secretly she was never really convinced they were ok until she got a military PMC or Mom and Dad called to say they had received one from Joan or Michael. 

     Annie sipped the cool water, watching a few bugs fly by the window, moving in slow motion due to the cold.  She heard Melanie get up and use the lavatory and heard her stumble out into the kitchen.  Predictably, Mel fumbled and found the light switch and plunged the kitchen into the harsh glare of the sterile lightpanels lining the walls. 

     “Oh hey, Annie”, Mel patted her shoulder as she got her own glass of water. 

     “Hey Mel…how are you?”  Annie pulled the tshirt a further down modestly to cover her almost nakedness.

     “Ok, you?” Mel took a long pull of water, waving off Annie’s attempt at modesty.  “Don’t worry..I have the same equipment, it’s all good.”

     “I’m ok..little tired…and restless, you know?”

     “Yeah, I know…”  Mel leaned against the fridge as she sipped her water and Annie turned to face her.  Mel was dressed in pink shorts, a white tshirt and those dog ugly camel-skin slippers.

     “Pretty late for you to be up isn’t it?  Don’t you have class in like 3 hours?”

     “Yeah….I do..”  Melanie’s voice trailed off as she held her glass in one hand and was pulling at the hem of her tshirt with the other.  Annie frowned at her suitemate’s vagueness. 

     “You ok?”  Annie stood, pushing her chair in and carrying her glass to the dish washer.

     “I’m ok…I was with Doreen most of the night.  Her sister Patty….”  Melanie’s voice trailed off, her eyes falling on the open newspaper on the table, part of the CWL showing.  Annie pursed her lips, sighed, and faced the brunette. 

     “Patty’s on the CWL.”  Melanie’s eyes met Annie’s, moistening slightly around the edges. 

     “Doree’s parents got the notice this morning, called her this afternoon.  Patty was with the 5^th Battalion, Windward Company when they were ambushed at Caryet Sigma.  Apparently, the entire company was killed, no bodies recovered.”  Melanie looked about ready to cave in as she spoke, so Annie pulled her close into a warm hug.  They stood there like that for a minute or two before Melanie parted and smiled slightly, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand.  “I’m sorry..I just..after being there for Doree all night…I just am so tired of seeing that list and-“

     “Mel, it’s ok…I know what you mean.  I was thinking that same thing when you came in…You know, I was reading that, if the trend of the war continues this way, more than 65 percent of the population of the UED will have known or been related to someone who was killed or seriously wounded in action.”  Annie expelled a large breath.

    “You ever think about enlisting?”  Mel looked at her when she asked the question, staring into her eyes.

     “My parents would kill me.  After all their and my hard work, I get a university exception pass, then to give it up and join the Marines? Or the Fleet?”

     “Annie, I didn’t ask what your parents would do…I asked if you ever thought about it.”

    Annie paused for a moment, unable to meet Melanie’s eyes.  Finally, she raised her head and slowly nodded.  “Yeah, sometimes, I think about it.  Sometimes I think about Joan or Michael, Tommy or Leo and think like, what makes me so special to not have to go fight..you know?”

     “Yeah…I know.”  Melanie paused and slid around Annie to put her own glass into the dish washer.  “I’m going back to bed….thanks for talking.”

Re’clysion Deux

The trail from Base Camp ForestBeck to the frontline at the Stat Pass

     They marched in formation, column after column, kicking up a dust storm so fierce that no one could possibly mistake them for anything else than who they were: the entire 2^rd Battalion and Toulon Heavy Artillery Company detached from their own battalion of the UED Marines Corp.  Over five hundred soldiers and vehicles trotted and rumbled through the dry desert heat of the southwestern hemisphere’s biggest wasteland.  Grim-faced, in full battle armor and weapons primed, they came.  Men and women alike, they stared ahead, bracing themselves for the action to come.  Every few minutes, a gunship battle chopper would zoom by kicking up even more dust causing nearby marines to shield their faces involuntarily, though the helmets they wore kept most grit and sand from their eyes and lungs.   The marines’ boots thundered in relative harmony as they marched.  The heavier, out of sync metallic sound of the Goliath armored artillery/infantry assault vehicle kept an offbeat.  I’m sure poets could write you a ballad of the beauty of half a thousand souls marching in step towards an uncertain future.

     Lieutenant Felton glanced back at her platoon.  None, even Private Winters, looked winded or tired, she noted with pride.  Shading her eyes, she looked to her left where a Goliath marched, it’s operator glancing down at her from the viewport and nodding in acknowledgement.  The aerial gunner behind him took notice of the exchange as he continued scanning the skies for signs of enemy intel gatherers.  For a moment, Felton drifted back in her mind to the last night she was with her wife and child…

    Marta had looked so beautiful, holding little Kay in her arms, nursing her while staring at the child with only the love that a mother can exude who is holding her joy in her arms. 

     “Don’t go, please Nance.”  Marta had begged her as she stacked her gear in the hallway, preparing to leave for muster at Austin Rathers Marine Base in Oklahoma City. 

     “I have to babydoll…Zebra Company’s been called up…now, we talked about this babe, ”  Nancy Felton bent down and kissed little Kay on the head.  The two women exchanged a look, sharing with one another all the love they felt for one another.  They had been married two years this April.  Marta had known what marrying a Marine meant, especially with the war going on but she had never really prepared herself for Nancy being called away.  She had seen her little brother eagerly enlist along with her uncle and cousin.  They had left from a Costa Rica muster point in South American and she hadn’t seen them go, living in California at the time.  Now, her wife would be going to those places the papers talked about, facing those things and ….maybe wouldn’t be coming home.  Marta looked up at Nancy’s face, vision blurred by tears.  Felton leaned down and kissed the younger women’s lips lightly and whispered, “Remember I love you.”

Lance Corporal Ava Reins drew the collective back, elevating the chopper into the air above the rear guard.  She sighted along the crosshairs of the twin ED-20s mounted on either side of the gunship.  The com crackled, interrupting her imaginary target practice. 

      “Hawk 2, this is Hawk Leader, copy.”

     “Hawk 2 copy,” Reins answered the battle group leader.  She thumbed the volume on her ear piece up a notch. 

     “Confirm, Hawk 2.  Proceed out to section 1-AD on the local grid.  Sweep for burrow traps, over.”

     “Affirmative, Hawk Leader. Proceeding, Hawk 2 out.”  Reins glanced down at the nav board and steered her course over the top of the marching column to section 1-AD.  She watched her fellow marines as they toiled, step after step along the valley floor.  Within two hours, some of us will be dead, she thought.  How many this time?  She glanced up as Hawk 5 flew by her front port and waved from his cockpit.  Reins thumbed the general com freq.  “Hey ugly, what’s shakin?”

     “Not much, just watching you fly like a drunk hooker.  You know, Hawk 2, you fly like I screw: awkward and messy.  You’re aware of that, aren’t ya?

     “Thanks for the input Hawk 5…when you said drunk hooker I thought you were talking about your sister..every pilot in Hawk Group’s been hittin that.”

     “Did you get a good rate from her?”

     “Sounds like they’re coming from the northwest…I’m only getting lisks, no tuskers or metas yet,” Qati handed off the handwritten report to his Platoon Commander, Lieutenant Charlie Simmons. 

     “Could be worse, Specialist Qati, could be worse…take a break okay?”  Simmons was under the not so incorrect assumption that listening to bug intercepted transmissions for more than 5 hours at a time would drive the human mind over the edge, even for this talented young man.  Specialist First Class Perry Qati was one of the best ComTechs in the company, which is why Simmons had snatched him up as his personal communications-technical officer for the platoon command squad.  Qati had proven himself amazing with field communication equipment, repairing that which was thought beyond repair and ease dropping on enemy communications where battalion intel had said there was no enemy. 

     The blond haired man stood and stretched his legs.  He had been at this since the battalion had been dropped on Re’clysion Deux five hours ago.  Listening and sorting, weeding out and connecting all the intercepted uvulations and ear numbing screeches that made up the bug language.  It had taken the scientists three years to make some semblance of the varied sounds recorded by battlefield data bots during early skirmishes.  The bugs didn’t have a language per se, no recognizable alphabet or syntax.  But if you were disciplined enough to listen repeatedly to the whirs and chatters, the screeching and mumbling for hours on end, it was possible to pick up some inflection or variation, something useful that, when combined with field reports and intelligence gathering, could point to substantial happenings in the command structure or movement of the enemy.  Qati had a knack for it – he could speak eight languages, could read twelve, and understood enough of the ones he didn’t know to be at least conscious of what was being discussed.  Not bad for a boy from a slum in Dubai. 

     Qati yawned and walked to the other end of the command tent, poured he and his Lieutenant a cup of coffee and returned to his chair, relaxing and lighting up a fauxcig.  Fauxcigs were what you smoked because tobacco was banned in the Corps.  Made of herbs and spices wrapped in a fiber casing that burned like a real cigarette, most marines found them annoying sweet when smoked.  Qati liked them and usually had good supply since the others in his squad hated them.  As he puffed, he picked up a pair of headphones and switched the comset to the general chopper freq. 

     “Hawk 5, this is Hawk Leader.  Make your perimeter larger, expand out, then move south.  Continue to scan to the rec zone and report back.”

     “Hawk 5 copy and out.”

     “Hawk 2, your scan report, over?”

     “Hawk Leader, Hawk 2 copy.  Nothing hiding out here…just a crapload of sand, sir, over.”

     “Hawk Leader copy.  Hawk 2, proceed to backup position on Hawk 5 then until further orders, over.”

     “Hawk 2 copy and out.”