Green Zulu Five One: And Other Stories From the Vyptellian War

by Scott Whitmore

  Rumors began circulating almost immediately, growing more and more outlandish as the days passed. One, told to Tyko and Caviness in the rec hall by a wide-eyed pilot from First Wing, was that a mysterious disease was sweeping through Vyp ranks, killing so many aliens they had no choice but to retreat. Lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, the pilot added the disease was a bio-weapon perfected in a military-controlled lab on Xhialgong.

  Tyko and Caviness laughed about this conversation later, sure that even if Command was desperate enough to try such a weapon the last person to uncover such highly classified information would be a teenage pilot on a front-line base station. But when the first whispers about Vyps converting to remotely piloted ships reached his ears, Tyko made an appointment with his squadron commander to assure her he hadn’t said a word. To his relief, she nodded and told him she knew he hadn’t. An officer in one of the other air wings was to blame.

  In time, Fleet command revealed the Vyp remote piloting experiment as part of the order directing the line of base stations to move deeper into territory previously considered to be enemy-held. Tyko’s part in uncovering this new intelligence was not mentioned by Fleet but the Air Group commander added it in a post script, creating a stir throughout the station.

  His squadron mates, including the three pilots on the patrol with him, were shocked that Tyko knew such a large secret but hadn’t said anything. Henrik shook his head and wondered aloud what other information he was keeping from them, drawing in response a sheepish grin from Tyko.

  He was more worried about what Caviness would think. He felt a vague uneasiness about keeping the secret from her, but wasn’t sure why — which in turn created more anxious feelings. But her nightly e-note was filled with congratulations and excitement at the role he played, and like everyone else she wondered if there was a larger purpose behind what the Vyps were doing.

  In his reply note he confessed to being afraid she would be upset with him, but in her next message she wrote she understood and trusted him, and the euphoria he felt reading that lasted from breakfast until lights out.

  That was yesterday. Now, as Tyko watched, one of the auxiliary ships suddenly began pulling away from the station — a move accompanied by a sudden rise in the noise level on the observation deck. He looked around again, searching for Caviness, and felt a sudden pang of nervousness at the thought of seeing her again.

  As her temporary duty assignment with his squadron drew to a close, Tyko realized how much he would miss her. He wanted to tell her that and to ask about keeping in touch, but never got the chance. Two days before she was to return to her own squadron, Tyko learned that she had been recalled early because a member of her squadron had been slightly injured in the rec hall.

  The deep depression he felt — Tyko barely remembered the pre-flight briefing, the patrol itself, or walking from the flight deck to his quarters — disappeared when he found an e-note from her in his message queue. That first message was just a few sentences, written before heading off on patrol. It was to tell him why she left, but it lifted his spirits to know she wanted him to understand what had happened. They wrote each other at least once a day after that and whenever Tyko entered his cabin he automatically looked at the net terminal, hoping to see the blinking green light indicating a new message.

  Their schedules kept them apart so they filled their e-notes with daily activities: what they ate, how their patrols went, what they read or what vids they watched, and what they did in the rec hall. In no time (Tyko was surprised at how quickly, yet subtly, the shift occurred) they were sharing information about their families and hometowns, their goals, and even what they thought about the war.

  Tyko was initially concerned about this development, knowing how everything they did was monitored by support officers, but neither of them wrote anything that wasn’t openly discussed in ready rooms and mess halls. Mostly, they wondered how much longer it would take to defeat the Vyps.

  The second auxiliary ship began to move, drawing Tyko’s attention from the crowd. As the gray craft grew smaller on the viewscreen, he felt someone brush against his arm and then a small, sweaty hand slipped into his, interlacing fingers. He turned with a smile, his breath catching at the sight of her. Caviness’s face was flushed after running from the Third Wing flight deck. She mouthed “Morning” and matched his smile, leaning into him until they were touching from her shoulder against his upper arm to their hips.

  Somewhere in Tyko’s mind a small voice told him their time was limited, but everything he had wanted to say evaporated from his thoughts. All he could do was look into her eyes. Instinctively, he leaned in and a wave of panic swept through him as her eyelids narrowed. He paused, worried about her reaction, but then her eyes closed and she tilted her chin up.

  Their lips met and in that moment there was nothing else in the universe but the two of them.

  War Stories

  Uncle: Greetings from the Talneptine system. I’m sure you’re surprised to receive this note outside normal channels, but when I heard about a back-channel to send notes home (I suspect run by Fleet airmen), I decided to give it a try. I’m sending this to you and not my parents for reasons I’m sure will be obvious.

  When I enlisted (What…ten months ago now? Seems so much longer!) you didn’t argue against it like they did. I don’t think you liked the idea, but you respected my decision. I know they were just scared of what may happen to me. I see from their notes that hasn’t changed. I just couldn’t live my life not knowing whether I was able to do this or not.

  Things are strangely quiet here and if the rumors are to be believed, everywhere else, too. Are they telling you that back home? I bet they are. I’m sure they’re saying at long last we have turned a corner, have the Vyps on the run, the end is near, etc. That’s what they’re telling us, at any rate. Maybe it’s true, too. I don’t know — I’m just a foot soldier and we’re not paid to think.

  But that’s exactly the problem, Uncle. I can’t stop thinking right now.

  Command learned a lot about taking care of combat soldiers the past sixteen years. We rotate in and out of the battlezone regularly. Where I am now (about a half-hour from the battlezone by transport) has hot food & water, portable vid devices, and even a makeshift quantam court. The daily routine is light on duty so mostly I’ve slept, but I’m still new to this. The ones who’ve been out here the longest seem to have the least need for sleep. They’re up all hours watching vids, reading or playing quantam.

  In the field there isn’t time to think: I’m hyper-alert all the time. Talneptine is quiet now, but just a few months ago (before I got here) there were battles lasting weeks. Now we patrol and look for Vyps, and they do the same. Sometimes we find each other and then we try to kill each other.

  The Vyps have hunter/killer drones just like us, their cannon shoot as far as ours, and their shells are as powerful. They attack at night as much as during the day, which is to say any time they want. I’ve been taught how to kill them, and I have. I think that’s the first question you’d have for me (but may not know how to ask). It would be my first question, too.

  I killed two Vyps less than a day after getting here — one with my rifle , the other with my knife. There was no way not to, really. Out here we’re like two wild animals thrown into a cage and only one can survive. I should not be surprised, or amazed by that — what else is war, really?

  Still, it is jarring to see a soldier reading, or tossing a quantam around, and to remember him using a rifle to club a wounded Vyp to death just days or even hours earlier. We don’t take prisoners, but we do leave the bodies of their dead — or what’s left — for them to find. Sometimes we place hidden explosives on the corpses, but not every time — no sense getting predictable.

  There is no time in the battlezone but back here I wonder about these small insults: if they serve a purpose or are just us expressing our anger and fear. I don’t know if Vyps have emotions, but if they do they don’t seem to respond to o
ur provocations. Of course, they don’t leave bodies behind to plant bombs on, or to show us for certain that our wounded have been brutalized and murdered, so how can we know?

  How long would they lock me up, do you think, if I wondered aloud if there isn’t a chance that humans and Vyps are related species? Surely Command has conducted tests on prisoners and knows for sure. If so, what does it say about our evolution if the lizards are the higher form?

  Don’t worry, I’m not going soft on the Vyps. How could I? They’re trying every day to kill me, and may yet succeed. But they aren’t the only ones trying.

  Time to get to the point, I suppose. Here’s a quick war story for you, Uncle — the war story that won’t leave me alone.

  A squad from another platoon in my company was assigned to break the trail for our movement from one location to another. It’s dangerous, so going first — on point — gets rotated between platoons, and within platoons between the squads, and within squads between fire teams; sooner or later everyone gets the chance.

  This squad left the perimeter at first light and we followed a couple hours later. After tramping along a rocky trail for some time we came up a small rise and found an injured soldier sitting with her back to a small dirt mound. Her head was leaning forward and one of her arms was off at the shoulder, a spot where the tourniquet feature of our armor isn’t very effective. She also had wounds to both legs and one hip, but the arm was the most serious.

  Blood was everywhere (something else you learn: there is so much more blood in even the smallest human than you realize until seeing it spread out) and my lieutenant immediately dispatched a fire team to follow the red trail marking her path. We only realized she was still alive when her head slowly came up. I saw her face through the shield and her eyes looked unfocused, unsure. The lieutenant put a hand on her uninjured shoulder and asked what happened, but she died without saying a word.

  She was the first dead human I ever saw.

  The officer called in her position and we got moving again. A little bit after that the fire team comm’d to say they’d found the rest of the squad about a klick ahead. There were no survivors; they were torn up pretty good. I think the woman we found must have been at the rear of the formation when the cannon shells, or whatever it was, hit them.

  We marked it down as the Vyps, probably using drones to locate the squad. Everyone was on edge for the rest of the movement, but nothing else happened. I didn’t think about the dead soldier and her squad again until we rotated back off the line.

  I haven’t stopped thinking about them since it came to me while I was eating my first hot food in a week.

  It couldn’t have been the Vyps, Uncle. They don’t leave bodies behind if they have the time, and they had at least an hour (the blood was mostly dry). True, there may not have been a Vyp unit nearby but that isn’t how they operate: their drones provide direct support and don’t roam free over the battlezone.

  Our drones do, though.

  I want to believe we didn’t kill that squad, but I think we did.

  We have good officers in this company and I know they pre-register moves with cannon batteries and ask for drone overwatch. What would happen if the battery or drone controller loses that information? Without optics and network links, from a distance I’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between a human soldier and a Vyp standing side-by side. The coloration of armor is the biggest difference, but what if the drone vid processor shorted out and relayed low-def or even grayscale? Or if the soldier monitoring the drone’s vid feed was tired?

  For whatever reason, a mission was activated and explosive projectiles flew out and chewed up a squad of our soldiers.

  I accept that mistakes happen, and here the consequences are severe. Forget to load your rifle? Don’t seal your armor? Don’t sweep for mines? Do these and you’ll likely die. But are there consequences of the consequences?

  The chain of command on-planet must realize what really happened, right? Of all people, the newest guy in the platoon can’t be the only one to see it for what it is. So, somewhere on this rock are other people who know it was us who killed that squad, and even with the little I know about the military that means there are people off-planet who also know. How far up does the lie go? All the way back to New Earth?

  I’m sure the families of the dead soldiers will never know and there will be no public reports from the Information Ministry. It can’t matter to the soldiers who died, right? Dead is dead. They went away to a war that started when they were in primary school, and they died. Even if there wasn’t a war, some of them would be dead no matter what. An accident, getting sick, a murder or even suicide. But there is a war, and a lot of people die in war, and in a lot of ways.

  So why can’t I stop thinking about this squad of people I didn’t really know? Why do I wonder what their lives would have been like had there been no war or had they lived to see peace return?

  And why did I lie to you before, about sleeping a lot? I suppose I needed to work up to telling you I need the small green pills in the med packs we’re offered when we get to the rest area.

  Right now, if you’re still reading (and I think you are), you’re wondering about sharing this with my father, at least, or maybe both of them. You know as much as anyone how fortunate I was to have such a close family growing up (as you suggested, I’ve indeed seen a wide range of situations among my fellow soldiers). My parents are good and simple people. If I hadn’t enlisted, I know father would have spent whatever was necessary to expand his cultivation plot to keep me exempt from military service.

  I leave it to you to decide what to tell them. If nothing else, pass along my love to them. Perhaps the war really is nearly won and my return is closer than I think. But that’s just a hope, and I don’t have much time for wishful thinking. We return to the battlezone in just a few hours.

  Commitment

  Tyko fidgeted, his feet making small sounds against the colonel’s rug, before leaning back against the cushions on the settee. He turned and looked to his left at the senior officer, who was sitting comfortably with legs crossed and one arm resting on the armrest. Why am I missing a patrol? Tyko thought.

  “Tell me, Flight Officer Tyko. Do you hate the Vyptellians?”

  The question was wholly unexpected. He sat up, dumbly staring at the Air Group support officer, the man every support officer on the station reported to. Was it a trick, another test of his loyalty? Would he ever be good enough again to erase that mistake?

  Quickly his mind searched back through the eight months since his probation, looking for any potential wrong he may have committed.

  “Well, do you?” The colonel’s lips slowly flattened into a thin smile.

  “They’re our enemy. We’re at war.”

  “That is the truth, but not an answer. We’ve been at war with the Vyps for your entire life, and war is hate on a grand scale.” The senior officer leaned forward, his eyes locked on Tyko’s. “Don’t you think you should hate them?”

  Slowly sinking back into the cushion, Tyko pondered the question. He grew up never knowing a time when humans weren’t at war with the Vyptellians. Had he ever stopped to wonder what not being at war would be like?

  Tyko couldn’t remember if so.

  Entire vid channels were dedicated to the conflict, with updates on battles and casualties. Heroes — usually killed in battle — were identified and glorified, extolled to the point where every schoolchild knew their name and what they’d accomplished fighting against an enemy always depicted as cruel and ruthless. In every vid Tyko ever saw, all the net-wide games he and his friends played, the Vyps were the bad guy — the ones they played against.

  Did he hate the Vyps? They were targets to be destroyed, yes … but did he hate them?

  Hate was an emotion Tyko did not have much experience with. He knew from reading that hate was extremely negative, often visceral — a feeling of darkness about something or someone. He got along well with nearly everyone, and w
hile he considered few to be his friends he had negative feelings about no one.

  He was angry after being suspended, but the feeling didn’t last and it wasn’t directed at any one person. Tyko didn’t think it could be considered hate.

  Shouldn’t he hate the Vyps, though? They were the enemy of his species, but no one he personally knew had ever been killed by a Vyptellian. Tyko thought back to Pri-Fly, and the horribly injured men and women there, but even that didn’t stir dark thoughts in him. Those officers were the voices in his headset but he didn’t know their names or anything about them.

  “I should, but I don’t.” He said it so quietly at first he thought the colonel didn’t hear. But then the older man leaned back and nodded.

  “I’m not surprised. It wasn’t a trick question, or a trap. I was just curious. You’re barely teenagers when you get here, and the way you fight, through a screen …”

  The colonel suddenly leaned forward and grabbed an image frame from his desk. He turned it so Tyko could see there were two images inside, both of soldiers in the Expeditionary Forces. One was a male officer who looked to be in his mid-twenties and the other an enlisted female not much older than Tyko.

  “These are my children. My son was killed three years ago on Cyterion-3.” The colonel paused and turned away, his eyes unfocused. “I was informed two days ago of my daughter’s death … well, probable death. Her platoon was overrun. The battalion retook the position later, but there were no bodies to…”

  The colonel’s voice trailed off and they sat in silence, Tyko’s eyes darting from the image of the young woman to the colonel’s face. The senior officer turned and placed the image frame back on his desk, carefully adjusting the rectangular device so it would face him when he sat there again.

  “You see, Flight Officer Tyko, the Vyps don’t leave bodies behind, ours or theirs. That’s not covered in your monthly training sessions, is it?” Tyko slowly shook his head as the colonel leaned forward. “Care to know why?”