Comrades

From Wormhole Sci-Fi MUD Homepage

a short story by 'Artoo'

The battlefield stretched as far as the best artificially augmented eye could see. Laser beams flicked across the night sky, beautiful and deadly. Whole sections of land would suddenly heave upwards as a coordinated barrage struck.

In the middle of all this was a man. He had been part of a section, but they had encountered a stronger enemy force and been pushed back into a minefield while attempting to disengage. As far as Private Tom Ford knew, he was the only survivor. In fact it would be hasty to consider one’s self a survivor in such circumstances, two miles out into no–man’s land with an assault in full swing. Ahead was a crater; a haven where he might shelter until the ebb and flow of the battle had moved elsewhere.

All infantrymen wore combat suits painted in radar–absorbent black, and few soldiers were prepared to use ‘Friend or Foe’ identification frequencies that could give away their position to the enemy. Consequently anonymous, and having strayed from his ordained route, computerised fire control systems from his own side elected to knock Ford out, just to be sure. Machine guns stuttered into action. Zig–zagging madly, Ford had to make sure he arrived somewhere unpredictable by the time the bullets had crossed the battlefield. Perversely, he reminded himself that for every tracer round that flew past him there would be five invisible ones. He ran on. He almost didn’t make it. The crater was fresh, and the soil was loose. Scrambling frantically, he slipped back and it seemed impossible that he would ever manage the climb. Suddenly, with a flash - and presumably a bang though everything was strangely muted - Ford was sailing through the air, spinning over and over. The landing would have killed an unsuited man, but the cleverly jointed armour protected his neck. He arrived near the centre of the crater, coming to rest on a body.

“Hahaha. Just like Tiddlywinks.” said Ford, then shut up when he realised he couldn’t hear his own voice. There was a burning sensation coming from his calf, and a quick inspection showed that he had caught a piece of shrapnel from the blast.

The body he was still sprawled across squirmed. As Ford clambered off, the other man struggled to sit up, straining against the weight of his suit. The mud fell away from his breast, revealing a name: Gerard. Gerard wiped mud off his faceplate and peered out. It was clear that his sensor array was damaged; relying on ones’ own eyes was a last resort, with infrared cameras projecting onto a display within the visor being the best system for these conditions. Ford gave him a pat on the helmet and reached up to unclip the damaged ‘eye’. Closer examination showed that it was partly melted, presumably by a laser. Most soldiers carried spares, and Gerard was no exception, which was fortunate because the design was slightly different to Ford’s own. Some brute force was necessary, but eventually the old part was removed and a new one fitted.

With vision restored, Gerard saw that his friend was wounded, and produced a spraycan from his belt. He connected its nozzle to a valve built into the leg of Ford’s suit for just this purpose. A gel of antiseptic and painkillers was pumped into the section, clotting into a synthetic scab over the hole where the shrapnel had entered. Under battlefield conditions this was the best care that could be attempted, hopefully keeping chemical and biological contaminants out of the wound.

Ford felt the ground shudder and saw the sky light up with flashes, but his world was silent except for a faint buzzing as if a gnat were shut in the suit with him. For Gerard, with undamaged hearing, the din was indescribable. Instead of attempting to speak he tapped at the keypad mounted on his wrist, then transmitted the message to Ford’s pad on a tight optical beam, so as not to give away their position:

+++ NICE OF U 2 DROP IN. WILL SEND U LAUNDRY BILL +++

Ford replied:

ooo IS THIS THE NOISE ABATEMENT SOCIETY CONVENTION? ooo

+++ THANKS 4 SENSOR REPAIR. HAD ME WORRIED +++

ooo WOULDNT WANT 2 B CAUGHT BLIND ooo

With nothing better to do while the battle raged on a titanic scale, the two men continued their conversation. Gerard had been afraid that he might be found and taken prisoner, unable to fight back effectively with his sensors out of action. Both men knew that death was preferable to falling alive into the hands of the enemy. Ford had heard that they were able to brainwash a soldier and put him back on the battlefield as a kind of automaton, while Gerard added that the enemy had been deliberately seeking prisoners, even civilians, for experiments into linking brain tissue directly with machines to produce what he called ‘cybertanks’.

Ford’s dogged approach to resisting battle fatigue was founded on the principle that he would never let the war interfere with his routine. Right now, he was hungry. He produced a tube of concentrates and plugged it into his helmet feeding port as Gerard started typing:

+++ WHAT HAVE U GOT THERE? +++

ooo ARB ooo

+++ TRADE FOR IT? +++

Ford found this amusing. He thoroughly hated ‘Alleged Roast Beef’ since he had often been forced to subsist on nothing else through weeks of active duty. Presumably other units were supplied with a similarly poor variety. Gerard offered two small plastic beads and a tube of his own. Ford handed over his food concentrate and enjoyed the replacement, which was a fish paste of some kind. He also took one of the beads of nicotine substitute and enjoyed a ‘smoke’ after the meal, leaving the other for Gerard who swallowed the capsule before typing another message:

+++ WHATS YOUR PROGRAM? +++

ooo FIRE SUPPORT FOR A SECTION. THINK OTHERS ALL ZEROED. YOU? ooo

+++ TANKS +++

Gerard indicated his missile launcher. Attacking armour was a dangerous business, and his supply of three missiles marked Gerard as something of an optimist. Ford cautiously raised a periscope camera and scanned the landscape. The gunfire seemed to be slackening off. Ford typed:

ooo GLAD I DIDN’T MAKE THE HILL. ISN’T THERE ANYMORE! ooo

+++ WHAT? +++

ooo IT’S CHANGED SHAPE SINCE I’VE BEEN WATCHING. WHOLE NORTH RIDGE GONE ooo

+++ YOU’RE WELL OUT OF THAT +++

ooo NO ARMOUR HERE... TAKE THE REST OF THE NIGHT OFF ooo

Gerard’s suit bobbed up and down a little as he laughed.

+++ WITH THAT WOUND U R BOUND 2 GET A FEW DAYS LEAVE. PARIS MAYBE? OH LA LA! +++

ooo PARIS?? ooo

+++ DIDN’T U HEAR WE RETOOK PARIS? +++

ooo NO. WHEN? ooo

+++ WEDNESDAY +++

ooo DAMN WAR MOVES SO FAST ooo

Within the limited movement allowed by his suit, Ford performed an elaborate shrug while Gerard typed:

+++ LET’S GO FIND SOME WAR. LUCK 2 U +++

Ford responded with a wave, and climbed up toward the crater rim. “Wednesday,” he was thinking. “We didn’t take Paris on Wednesday.” He was having some difficulty working out what day it was, but that didn’t matter. They had held Paris for months. Since early summer. Until... until... last Wednesday.

His mortar would most likely kill both of them if he tried to use if for direct fire. Instead Ford grabbed for his knife as he turned, expecting to be jumped at any second. Gerard’s tankbuster missiles would also be near useless, so the fight was likely to take a more traditional form...

But Gerard was gone.

• Author's note: this story was originally credited to Rachel C. MacBride, my Wormhole character. The story itself is really quite old, now... but I thought I'd share it anyway. A writer writes... that's how you get better. Let's see some other WH players' stories here, eh?