Travesty (SolarSide Book 1)

by Austin Aragon

  Isaac slides in knocking Thomas to the side a bit. “This is my spot.”

  Thomas scoots over towards me and dusts off his camera. “Okay, I get it, you all don’t want to deal with someone like me. I’m not part of the brotherhood thing you guys got going on and whatever. So I’ll leave, I just want to ask a few questions and take a few pictures, okay?”

  “I already told you all you’ll need to know about being out here a few seconds ago paperboy,” says Isaac grinning as he grabs the vapstick from Vance.

  “Well I forgot to photograph it, so you’ll have to enlighten me with actual worded responses.”

  “Or you could just wait a few more hours, I’m sure to piss again.”

  Thomas turns to me. “The Medal of Honor recipient! What is it like fighting fellow humans, after you came freeing them from aliens?”

  Straight to the point. My hands tremble slightly and I grasp my XM tightly to hide it. “I guess we had it coming,” I say.

  Thomas looks at me with bright eyes as if I just revealed some hidden truth he has been searching for. “Please explain.”

  Before I can reply Blake appears standing over our foxhole. “He is not at liability to answer any questions from the public. You can interview me as I am the highest ranking official here at the moment. However, you won’t get anything interesting, I can guarantee you that.”

  “What does he mean, sir? You guys had it coming?” says Thomas.

  Perhaps, if I wasn’t so high I’d blurt out as much of the truth as I could—but why let them bring me down? It’s already hard enough to reach Cloud, meddling in this shit will make it harder. I sit idly by, listening to them beat around the bush to nowhere. Thank god Blake took the pressure off of me, last thing I need is to someone ruining my mood.

  Blake replies, “What this Private meant is that no matter what happens, as shown in all of history, some part of the native population will never like the people coming to try and liberate them.”

  “What about Khaf’Jadeed? That was the start of the rebellion, what are your thoughts on it?”

  A tingle shoots down through my spine as if I got a dose from my distributor. Why am I so edgy still? It’s been a few hours since my last—I guess I need more. I look around at the others in the foxhole. They too, are looking at Thomas with zoned in eyes and are fidgeting uneasily. As if Blake can sense our discomfort, he intervenes before Thomas can look around. “I think nothing of it. We are just assigned out here to fight the remnants of what happened there.”

  “But the population there? What really happened to them? I was able to get a glimpse of the destroyed city from afar. What went down?”

  “As I said, we are only out here to fight insurgents. This is all I know. You need to leave my marines alone, they are on guard duty. You can hang out by the depot till I inform you of anything we plan on doing.”

  With that Thomas sulks out of the foxhole and back to the center of camp. Blake sits near his foxhole atop a sandbag wall staring at Thomas uneasily, occasionally glancing back at us.

  “I wonder if he knows we were there,” whispers Isaac.

  “I doubt it,” says Vance, “He seems clueless, to everything.”

  “What, what do you guys think about it?” I say.

  Tommy coughs, leaning away from his mounted MG. “I feel like the bad guy.”

  We look down at our boots, our vapsticks resting tense in our fingers as the vapor trails wisp about into the air.

  “Shit wasn’t right,” says Isaac.

  “There was nothing we could do, we were under orders and Buzz,” says Vance.

  “Some of them were terrorists and what not too,” says Tommy. “But I don’t feel any better about it still.”

  “It was just some fucked up shit, nothing more to it. We had to,” says Isaac.

  “War didn’t,” I mention.

  “There it is,” says Vance.

  “There it is,” we all repeat.

  I watch as Thomas swats away insects and takes random pictures of the foliage and foxholes. Dmitry at one point walks to the depot to get another charge pack for a sentry turret, and Thomas bombards him with questions. Before Dmitry can say anything Blake growls out at him to shut up. In moments the scene is the same as Thomas sits bored on an ammo crate, and we slump about in our foxholes.

  A whistle breaks the silence and we duck for cover. A single explosion erupts at the depot where Thomas is. I raise my head from between my knees. Tommy sucks on his scarf while lighting up the jungle with the MG alongside the sentry turrets, and Blake calls Command.

  I look over at the depot. The ammo boxes have started sparkling and popping from the mortar strike, and Thomas rolls around screaming and howling as he clutches his leg and stomach.

  “We gotta go get him!” says Isaac.

  “I don’t know if it’s safe man,” says Vance.

  We turn back to the infinite jungle and fire our rifles till the magazines are empty, and then load more and continue shooting at nothing as Thomas screams in the background.

  Blake orders for us to stop. No more mortar shells fall, or even responding gunfire from the jungle. An AC-130 gunship arcs in a wide circle above the canopy way up in the distance, its side cannons occasionally firing into the thick foliage. If it’s actually targeting anything of a threat, I doubt it.

  We scramble out to reach Thomas, but it’s too late. He has already died from blood loss. Blake calls for a little bird to retrieve his corpse. Thomas’ camera remains perfectly intake under his shrapnel ridden body as we lay him out properly for a dustoff.

  “Funny he wanted to protect it so bad, can’t take pictures when you’re dead,” says Rommel.

  I grab his camera out of interest and click the button to view his recent pictures. What I see is the unfolding events of moments ago. The entire time he was screaming for help he was also taking pictures of us firing into the jungle.

  At one shot I see myself peeking out of the foxhole back at the camera—this must have been when I heard him scream. I look so small and empty. My eyes, they are cast in shade from the helmet visor but I can still see it, they have that thousand yard stare in them, is that really me? The large blue helmet covers most of my head down to my brow, my face dark with dirt and sweat lines. I can see my cheek bones protruding too. Only my birthmark distinguishes me as the Peter before the war. Jesus, this morphine was taking one hell of an effect on me. I guess the others just figured I wasn’t eating from how I felt over the past few weeks. Blake brought it up once. I told him I just can’t keep the food down so he prescribed me some nutrients pills. They don’t fill the up stomach though.

  I am finished with the camera and put it down. I gaze at his corpse. I never really looked at a dead person without being under the effects of Buzz or DT before. The morphine makes me careless to myself, but not to viewing death unbiased as the field drugs do. As I stare at him I feel sick. It’s not natural to look at the dead. It fucks with a person after a while, showing us how deranged and misplaced our bodies can get. Alien insects zip around and about his shattered legs, landing on the gore and getting stuck in the puddle of blood forming around his lower torso. His legs are bent in all weird directions due to his bones being shattered. And that god awful yellow bloated effect forms all over his body, poking out of his shredded clothing where shrapnel hit him. His face, pale and estranged from any motion a living person could create, looks up at the sky. He was talking to me only a little bit ago, full of life and excitement. Now he is full of nothing.

  Blake comes over and sits on a crate nearby with his face in his hands. After a while he throws his helmet off and starts rubbing his head sporadically while looking at Thomas. He frequently looks away in disgust and horror, sometimes even at me.

  “What does that mean?” says Blake, pointing at my helmet.

  I take it off. “The quote, sir?”

  “Yeah you all have it, what is it?”

  “It says Fool’s
Gold, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “We used to be the Golden Youth. Now…”

  He snorts, looking down at his thighs. “I fucking killed him,” he mutters. “I should have never made him stay out here in the open. I made him an open target. Why would I do that?”

  He looks back at me, his eyes wild. “How do you do it? How, how, how do you just keep going on, huh? How do you just sit there and take it all in and not get fucking gut wrenched over it all?” He sucks on his bladder for a while, then coughs spitting the water out onto his lap. “How the fuck are we supposed to go on like this!”

  Isaac and Vance come over to Blake’s yelling. The others poke out of their foxholes and watch too.

  “I don’t know, sir,” I say.

  “That’s it? So no one fucking knows?” Blake takes out his knife and looks at it. “What we did in Khaf’Jadeed, no one knows? I told him,” he points his knife at Thomas’s body, “I told him to stay away from you guys to protect us. Nobody really knows, let alone understands anything about it. Just like us, huh?”

  “Should we have told him, sir?” says Isaac.

  “Maybe, if we did though, who knows what would happen to us,” says Blake as he twirls his knife between his fingertips. “Just like you said Peter, our own war hero,” he aims his knife at me, “even he doesn’t fucking know either. No one does. We all do know though, that we aren’t supposed to talk about it. That’s what they hammered into us when they rounded us up and said what really happened. What really happened even though we know, we know what really happened. And yet, we don’t know!”

  The little bird hums from afar, and the AC-130 does one last sweep firing its cannons for dramatic effect into the canopy before leaving.

  We sit quietly, most of us smoking and looking out into the infinite jungle surrounding us. The bird arrives, and we tie a rope around Thomas’s body and he is lifted up with his small bag of belongings. As he is lifted through the air his gored foot falls off and smacks onto the ground before us. The chopper leaves unconcerned and we stare at his foot for a while. Rommel plants a branch at the depot area and sticks the boot crudely on top of it. I forgot to place the camera back on his body before he was taken away, so I tie its strap around the top of the pole with his boot.

  “Maybe he’ll get a story out of us after all,” says Vick.

  His ever vigilant foot camera watches over us as we sleep.

  XXIII

  “Where are all the animals local to this planet?” says Tommy. It’s our eighteenth—I think, I stopped caring—day here in the country of Kuplar province. All of us have nearly forgotten about Thomas, besides the pole that still stands in the center of our foxholes holding his camera. Blake had Rommel remove the boot as it began to rot. Half our unit slumps about lazily resting in a foxhole, XM’s lying against the earth walls and we’re all smoking. The other half of the unit is out on patrol by the village nearby. The bizarre jungle trees on either side of us moan in the slight wind. It is starting to get colder now, and we wrap ourselves in our camouflage cloaks to keep our precious warmth.

  “What do you mean?” says Isaac, grabbing an ancient and lighting it.

  “You know, the animals special to this planet,” continues Tommy. “All I’ve seen lately are just cows and sheep and chickens, stuff from our planet. But nothing here alien or different like.”

  “That’s an interesting question, coming from you Tom,” says Isaac.

  “None of you guys paid attention at all in school?” says Vance. He lowers his red notebook he was writing in and wipes away his forehead. “Scientist believe this planet, in fact system, is extremely new. That’s why it was perfect for us humans to colonize here and why it’s so rich in raw resources. We wouldn’t be taking some other sentient being’s home away from them, and we can then cultivate the planet Earthen style.”

  “What was that word you said?” says Tommy. “Seeentient?”

  “Sentient. It means intelligent creature, Tom. Something our own species is still working on,” says Isaac, chuckling as he takes a drag from his ancient. Tommy didn’t seem to get the insult.

  “And smoking something that kills you is not very intelligent,” I say while grabbing Isaac’s ancient and hitting it hard, releasing a small cough.

  “Trying to be a tough boy there, Peter?” says Isaac as he snatches it back and takes the longest drag out of us all, ending in a French inhale. “That’s how you smoke, boys.”

  “Yeah, yeah, shut your mouth,” says Vance getting a vapstick from his chest pocket. “Why are you smoking then, Peter? I mean, especially that ancient tobacco stuff that’s worse for you.”

  “Like you said, our species is still working on intelligence. Or we wouldn’t be in a war right now. So I might as well join in and enjoy stupidity.” Vance nods, taking another drag with me.

  “But if this place is new, why would that mean no alien animals and stuff?” says Tommy.

  “Since its new here, evolution hasn’t taken its full course yet,” says Vance. “So most of the organisms are still floating around in the water and bacteria flying in the air or on plants.”

  “There are still fucking bugs here though,” says Isaac. “Those annoying ones that look like ants.”

  “Right, and that is super interesting,” says Vance. “Especially look at all the plants and foliage here, it’s so similar to ours on earth. The theory, which in reality makes sense, is that since the atmosphere—which is also still forming—has the same make up as ours, evolution here would follow a similar design as what Earth and us went through, because we all are using and taking in the same minerals and resources, and living in relatively identically climates and needs to survive.”

  “You mean, human looking things could evolve here too?” says Tommy.

  “Well no, not anymore. If this planet was left to its own devices for millions of years, maybe something resembling at best, but since we got involved very early and messed around with this place, I highly doubt it. I don’t even think any special animals will form besides the few insects it has, since we are bringing in intrusive species of our own. The planetary evolution here is pretty much stagnant thanks to us.”

  “I’m surprised the Party didn’t worry about this place’s environment like they do back home, when they ordered a few hundred thousand marines here,” howls Isaac, “that’s an invasive species!”

  “But the aliens we are fighting,” says Tommy after we finish laughing. “They look like us kinda because of your evolution thing you said.”

  “Yeah, pretty much actually,” says Vance. “Evolution seems to declare that a humanoid appearance with around four limbs and a developed frontal lobe is the most superior thing that it can evolve and create itself into to. At least, like I said earlier, on planets with somewhat similar climates and geography, which we suspect the Herculean’s home world to be like.”

  Tommy looks down at his lap for a while. “My preacher told me every Sunday that we humans were special and such, created form God himself. Either he was lying, or God’s been cheating on us.” We all break out laughing again. “What’s so funny?” he says hurt.

  “Jesus, Tom,” says Isaac as he wipes his eyes and tapes his ancient on a crate, “that was the funniest, somewhat intelligent shit I have ever heard you say.”

  “That was a good one is what he’s saying man, you’re a clever one,” says Vance.

  “Well thanks, I guess,” says Tommy.

  Muffled noises came out from the radio.

  “Oh shit, Peter get the sacks off it,” says Vance. I move the bags of field supplies off the radio. The transmission comes out loud and clear.

  “Easy-Bravo!” says Conal through the radio. “Easy-Bravo! Do you copy? Need support and suppressive fire on our location,” the radio cracks and has a fit of static from nearby bullets fizzing around on their end. “Need support as we withdrawal.”

  “Easy-Alpha! Easy-Alpha! We copy, what is your location
?” says Vance. He was made Squad Leader of Bravo today when Blake took Alpha out for patrol.

  “Directly in the middle of home camp and Rickshaw Village. About one and a half kilometers down the path from your location!” says Conal. “Hurry up and get over here!”

  “On our way!” says Vance. “Let’s move guys! Tommy, you grab the XM-12. We’ll need lots of smoke so grab as much as you can.”

  Tommy grabs his backpack and satchels of endless rounds for the LMG, while Vance lifts up the radio and a bandolier of smoke canisters. Isaac wraps a red bandana around his helmet and a machete to his belt. My helmet also has a red bandana wrapped around it with my Medal pinned to the side against Rosa—I hope it doesn’t make me stick out too much for a sniper. I grab the sack of medical supplies, a fold out stretcher, and jug of distilled water. Dmitry who was busy setting up a sentry turret agrees to stay behind and watch the foxholes. We vault out of the hole and form into a single file line down the dirt path into the jungle. Vance leads with Isaac, Tommy, and I following behind.

  “Easy -Bravo! Easy-Bravo!” says Conal through the radio, screaming can be heard in the background. “Have one hit. Repeat one man is down and needs medical attention! He won’t make it, need you to call Command for a dustoff!”

  “Fuck, Isaac you heard. Right here is good,” says Vance. Isaac pulls out a red smoke canister and throws it at a clearing to the side of us. The feint noise of guns firing carries down the path. “Peter! You and Isaac will need to take our down man all the way back here. The evac won’t land under fire since it’s a little bird.”

  “I know, let’s get down there then,” I say.

  “Administering Buzz now guys,” informs Vance. He tabs his control pad. Being Squad Leader today, he is given special permission to do so for this mission too.

  Concern for their hurt brother turns into outright anger, that those rebels got another good marine.

  “Command! Command! This is Easy-Bravo. Easy-Alpha is pinned under rebel fire. We need a medevac for a down man on my smoke,” says Vance into his radio. They continue running down the path, Vance’s radio antenna bobbing against his helmet.