Travesty (SolarSide Book 1)

by Austin Aragon

  The Commander gives the order and they move pass the piles and main killing zone of carnage. Easy walks over their self-created floor of riddled corpses. They are all terrorists, traitors to the cause—to me—the children too, dead in the arms of their parents. All generations of sin onto more sin. All of them purged.

  “Okay hold fire, no enemy targets left,” says the Commander with slight sadness. “Let them pass.”

  A woman, her jilbab scorched into tatters from the bombing, and her skin seared and burnt approaches the line as more of similar fate follow behind. The marines stop as the crying horde of injured push up against the front line. The first burned lady reaches the line falling and grasping a marine’s boots. The marine extends his hands out trying to lift her back up, but when he grabs her arm the flesh slides off into his hands exposing her bone.

  “What the fuck are we supposed to do!” he says, as other marines fidget and try to push the people away.

  A marine from the rear runs to up to the front tossing his helmet and mask aside. It is the Muslim man Peter encountered before that he gave water to. He falls to his knees before the front line, facing everyone. “What have you done! Look!” He weeps bitterly and coughs from the smoke. “Why did you kill them? Because they are different! Because they are Muslim? Look at me!” He grabs handfuls of scorched earth into his palms and rubs it about his face. “I am Muslim! Do you see me running at you, killing you! Why! Why did you destroy their homes, their lives! Why!”

  The Commander comes forward. “Get up Private!” His radio goes off informing him that the outspoken marine had disconnected his chemsack. The Commander kicks him down and yells at us, “Keep moving and clear out the city, they’re just animals!”

  Commissar Herus and some Party Reps come forward for the outspoken marine. But before they can do anything, he runs up to the Commander shaking him from behind. The Commander falls to the ground from the force as the man cries, “How are you a human! Look at what you have done to these people!”

  The Commander strikes him as his officers came to his assistance. The Muslim falls onto his back as Herus raises his sidearm at him. Another officer runs out from the line striking Herus’ arm away. Herus turns and fires at the assaulting officer, and then shoots the Muslim marine in the mud. The two rounds ring about, echoing in the air—a melody of devotion after this outspoken heathen. The Commander takes his mask off to wipe his bloodied face, and then raises his weapon at the front line. “How dare you fucking attack a Commanding Officer! You are marines! I will shoot down anyone who disobeys me again!”

  Other officers form into a group, and raise their weapons at the Commander and Herus. Peter and the others stare in disbelief. What is all the discourse about? Aren’t they all brothers? And aren’t there still more terrorists to find and kill.

  Herus looks around hesitantly, and talks to the confronting officers. “Even if you shoot us down—”

  He is cut off by an opposing officer. “What? Like the civilians you just ordered us to kill!”

  Herus continues, “You will all be killed for insubordination and treason.” Helicopters hum in the air as their rotating choppers clear the smoke. They hover over the line of marines, the side gunners aiming at the opposing group. Additional Party Reps clear a circle around the traitors, and aim at them with raised weapons. Herus finishes, “I will give you one last chance to lower your weapons and do as I command, or you will be killed.”

  The officers lower their weapons, but one aims his barrel at the bottom of his head, and fires—a pitiful offering, but I’ll take it. Party Reps come and seize the rebellious men, zip-tying their wrists and taking them to the front before the rest of the marines, where Herus stands. The officer who committed suicide is tied up around the ankles and flown away by one of the helicopters, his limbs bobbing about in the air.

  Herus walks back and forth among the traitors that are hand tied and kneeling in the mud facing the front line. “These are the worst scum you can meet!” Herus says at the spectating marines. “Worse than the aliens. They have betrayed you! Your fellow brothers, for their real comrades, these fucking terrorists!” He aims his pistol at the burning city, and trickling injured walking away from the smoke. “Traitors, Herc lovers, they receive no mercy!” Herus places the pistol against the head of one of the squirming officers and fires. The front of his face explodes against the mud.

  “You said we wouldn’t die if we listened!” says the next officer, trying to turn his head towards Herus as he nears.

  Herus grabs his face, and turns it forward to face the marines. “Traitors do not receive mercy!” He fires the pistol again. The officer falls to the side, sinking into the mud as his legs seizer about for last life.

  My knees loose strength and the XM drops from my grasp. We realize what we have done. Marines fall to the mud, crying and puking as others throw their rifles and masks away, and more still charge into the smoke or take their lives.

  “Goddam it!” says the Commander. “Find out what son of a bitch gave that order and fucking shoot him!”

  I fall to the corpse laden ground soaked by the mud and blood. I rip my mask off as I vomit. I cough in the smoky air. My eyes are a blurry vision of tears. “Why! Why! How could I do such a thing?”

  I look for my gun. A man next to me begins screaming and firing his rifle into a crowd of weeping marines and refugees. I find mine and crawl for it so I can take my life. It is too much to bear—the horror! Herus is hit and falls to the ground. Marines collapse and wail.

  My hand reaches out through the falling ash at my XM submerged in the mud.

  There you go my little warrior. There you go.

  I fall into the mud. I rise to my knees, wiping the mud out of my eyes. Officers are running about administering additional shots to everyone. I see Isaac sitting atop a dead woman in the mud next to me, his XM in between his thighs, and barrel poised up against his chin. He drops the rifle and looks confused at me, then laughs.

  The Commander steps onto a Humvee brought forward by an NCO. “You are fucking grunts, you’re not here to think, but to obey.” He points at the cowering and maimed survivors of the city. “They are savages.” He turns to his retinue while glancing at us. “Get them out of here and secure the city.”

  Herus is recovered from the mud by medics who drag him to the Humvee. In a fit of rage he fires his pistol randomly into the line of marines, taking a few down. He is loaded onto the Humvee, and the vehicle leaves going pass us. Herus yells back one last time, “I swear to god you fucking traitors, your grave will be here on this shit hole with the rest of the natives!”

  Leading officers organize us. We are silent, I look around at my fellow marines, many of them rub their heads and carry each other. What happened? We walk lazily following our officers out of the outskirts back to the trenches. People in white biohazard suits without any insignias pass us with flamers, scorching bodies to a crisp as they move about. Marines point and laugh at them, others shrug their shoulders.

  Refugees walk with us out of the ruins of Khaf’Jadeed. Mothers holding dead children stagger around looking lost. Families cry and call people’s names, while others that are burned and maimed limp among each other, their clothes torn and singed off. Did they get hit by Herculeans? They all mix with us till they are herded off by Military Police and led into the distance.

  All I can think of is a nice bed to rest on as we load up onto carriers to leave. A light drizzle of rain begins falling on us, washing away the smut and dirt on my face. Our armored carries trek away from the smoldering city. My muddy arms rest on the rear of my carrier as I look back at the burning buildings and tiny crowds walking around aimlessly. I can’t help but shake off the thought that this was maybe our creation, and that I should feel terrible about it.

  FALL

  War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

  -Bertrand Russell

  XX

  One week later I am awarde
d the Medal of Honor.

  It is for courageous action in Tionem.

  I leave the base, where the whole battalion from the Khaf’Jadeed massacre is stationed at. It was more of a prison. We were not allowed to leave the parameters under any circumstances, and our weapons were detained from us. For our work we broke down earth and helped repair machinery while under extensive DT drugging, and attending classes that reminded us what we did what was right and that they were the enemy. That we shouldn’t feel bad about it. That mistakes happen, and in our rush to liberate the city we got carried away.

  Inside the electric fences I waited dead for Cloud every day. Today being no different as I am escorted to a chopper. It’s all I wake up for now. To give me fake life. Or they come back. They come back asking why they’re dead.

  Julian’s last sentences always play around in my head in the few moments I am sober. “Because you’re innocent, you don’t deserve this.”

  But they got it. We all did. War is blind. It doesn’t care to stay away from the innocent. Bullets don’t come with a moral GPS guiding themselves towards those deserving to get hit. If they did, I would probably be in casket on my way home by now.

  The helicopter takes us to Jericho, where we take an armored jeep to my new living quarters for the time being. As we go through the streets, I see that graffiti and posters cover almost every wall carrying similar messages.

  Which aliens should we fear?

  Free Nova Terra from both aliens!

  We left Earth to escape your Fathers!

  I look out the window of a used to be hotel room—where I am staying on the fourth floor—into the town center of the city. Thousands of protesters blockade the square having created barricades of their own, where they throw rocks at a line of armored riot police with raised shields. Behind the armored police stand Coalition troops at the ready. The crowd rants and cheers. Moltoves are thrown at the police, and their lines break apart as some catch fire while others try to put them out.

  A loud speaker booms from the police side, “Any violence will be met with additional force!”

  The protesters shout back in unison, “Down with the aliens! You’re just alien supporters! Sellouts to our world! Remember Khaf’Jadeed!” The crowd continues to shout as more rockets and moltoves are hurled across the square at the police.

  A loud uproar from behind the protesting crowd grabs everyone’s attention. At first it is panic, and then it’s followed by even more hysterical cheering from the protester side. A large force of policemen and native soldiers, supportive of the protesters, march into the crowd with white and local flags in the air shouting, “We support Nova Terra! Down with both alien invaders! Both the aliens need to go home!”

  The rebel police come to the back of the crowd and cheer on the protesters. Nearby a reporter in Kevlar armor frantically relays the information to his radioman of the occurring events. A loud whistle breaks the cheering and hoopla as a smoking canister flies out towards the rebels from the police side, and explodes over the protesting crowd. Tear gas seethes forth, and burns some of the protesters’ faces as others run in panic coughing. Other protesters holding bandannas to their mouths throw some back, but more canisters follow crashing into the crowd till it turns into a consistent bombardment.

  In the midst of the rising chaos a man climbs the top of an overturned bus holding a teenager in his arms. “They killed a kid! The monsters killed a kid!”

  The crowd roars in newfound anger. A loud siren rings, and more whistling breaks out as hundreds of the armored police charge the protesters with batons raised. People are trampled under each other and the police as they retreat to their makeshift barricades. The rebel police and native soldiers countercharge the police line with their own crude weapons and a full out brawl erupts.

  CRACK!

  The sound is followed by more of the same type. I look to the nearby rooftops. Coalition snipers are firing into the crowd.

  I have enough. I need you Cloud. I close the blinds, and sit on the edge of my bed with my headache. I need you Cloud! I go for my stash—is it my moral responsibility to act out against this? I try to take out the stash—against these transgressions I have become a part of? I need you Cloud! Are me and my virtues absolute, never changing no matter what—like I used to believe—or am I just a product of my environment, my culture, and I should just go with the flow, letting the people in power figure it out—Stop! I just need Cloud. I bring the stash to my lap—as for all I know, once those that oppose the Coalition are dealt with, they could be happier. My ancestors had to go through a brutal war before they found peace in the Global Founding Fathers, and the insuring Party that has provided for me my whole life. I grab one capsule, bringing a syringe to it to prepare my peace. I suck Cloud into the syringe. Why shouldn’t I be optimistic about them getting there too?

  I hear the screaming. Not from outside but within my mind. The screaming people that I shot down as they tried to escape the bombed city. Screaming for help—no, no! I roll up my sleeve—screaming for mercy. The same people that I thought were all terrorists and didn’t think twice about when I pulled the trigger—I squeeze my wrist to make my biggest vein show itself. It’s scabbed and infected from all my other shots, hideous like the rest of me. They may have killed Alison! But I know I killed them, their families, oh god!—no! I bite my sleeve with my teeth as I prepare to stab the vein—their children!

  A rumble makes me jump and I drop the syringe onto the ground. I hear choppers over the square. I fall off the edge and crawl on the carpet. “Where is it! Cloud! Cloud!”

  I can’t breathe! I crawl towards the window for fresh air, to only witness the cracking of sniper fire and loud sirens again. I can’t escape it! It’s everywhere! The violence, the hatred!

  The horror! The horror of what it means to be human.

  What have I become?

  My hands shake, my headache gets worse. I empty my pockets to find more, then I see the crumbled paper of that silly game Isaac and I play. I unfold it and read what he wrote, the last word being Underestimate.

  Unknowing never deters error retaliating eagerly, sinning to imitate maladies attained through evil,

  “What’s the point?” I cry. I see the syringe under the mattress. I grab it, and inject it into my vein. I fill another syringe and crawl back to my bed to lie down. I place my loaned music player against the night stand and say, “Play me something very old and peaceful. That has lyrics reminiscent,” I pause for a moment, thinking of my optimistic professor Mr. Martin who tried to warn me, “of illusions and hopeful imagination.”

  The burden of my mind sinks me into the mattress. Imagine by John Legend begins to play. His words captivate me. Such a distant era. Maybe I was born in the wrong time. I shoot up again, urging Cloud to get me to a high and peaceful state.

  “Imagine a place with no heaven, it’s not that hard…”

  Is there a God up there tonight? Or is it as empty as me?

  I turn into my pillow and fall asleep.

  There you go my little warrior. There you go. I love my brave warrior. I am what is true and safe.

  The next morning I shoot up, and am taken to a makeshift stage of what must have been a mini theater for the hotel.

  “You will partake on a digital tour of America to rally war support and encourage people to buy war bonds,” says a Party Rep.

  In the theater is a mixture of delegates and representatives from the Federal government, Party, and mega-corporations behind the contracts for the military. A few Civil Commissars stand among them too. They sit around an oak table drinking and eating. A gold chandelier dangles above them, lighting the vast room in a rustic joy of what it must have been like here before the invasion. In the corner a piano is being played. One could easily forget these men are here to win a war, not vacationing.

  A well-dressed woman comes up to me. “Oh he won’t do at all. Let me fix him up before we start.”

  My hai
r is cut and I am clean shaven. I had no idea how scruffy I got out on the field as I watch tuffs of hair fall onto the ground around my chair. Next I am fitted into dress blues—even nicer than the ones we got back in basic. “What am I going to do, or say?”

  They all give me looks as if that was already obvious. A Party Rep replies, “Don’t worry about that. I know you are one of those,” he throws his fingers up into quotation marks as he says the next word, “traumatized troops from Khaf’Jadeed. So you will continue your treatment of DT, and your earpiece will recite what you need to say. In fact, we will actually do it for you. You just need to look pretty and happy, which actually, we will also do for you.”

  Great, at least they don’t try to lie about me being a pawn here.

  I am given a dose that is definitely different than Cloud. I hop onto the stage excited. Cameras and projectors recreate a hologram environment of where I am campaigning back in America. I am in a waiting room of the North California Mayor’s Mansion in Sacramento. Music is playing, and the red curtain slides open to hundreds of spectators and guests. My image is being projected back as a perfect hologram to them as if I am actually there, walking and talking before them.

  The crowd cheers and shouts my name. I guess I am a war hero back home. “Glad to see you all here folks.” They weren’t joking about talking for me. I repeat everything they whisper instantly. “Unfortunately I am here on Nova Terra still fighting the tough war against the alien menace, the Herculeans. I am here with my brave comrades, the Coalition of the United Nations Peacekeeping troops, where we are keeping the enemy at the gates away from Earth, and pushing them off this planet. We are liberating the natives and giving them back their lost lands and securities that the Party upholds for all humans. Right now as I speak, supplies are being dropped to feed the millions of displaced refugees from the war, and Peace Keepers are just as hard at work rebuilding damaged cities as much as they are defeating the Herculeans.”