Game: WAR, Part I

Another bit of fiction from a few years ago. This was actually published in a small press magazine called The Argonaut.




RAM (11/23/29)

first sound - the whine of a Mark IV delta missle.

first sight - the face of the drill sergreant looming before me.

first impression - a new day was beginning, and the sergeant was reactivating us. We were under attack again, with a missle package dumped right in our laps.

first action - move!

Sarge did not even have time for a quick curse. As soon as my indicator light read GO! I moved. A quick scan to either side of me revealed the other bucketfaces doing the same. I retracted my mobile limbs and extended my rollers, and moved at triple time. Just as I wheeled to a halt outside the tent the missle hit. Priase to the mechanic that installed my audio boosters; that was all that let me know a missle was coming in time.
Outside I did a quick aboutface, and scanned for Sarge. No sigh of him registered on any of my scanners. It was only when I turned my Heat Receivers toward what was left of the tent that I realized no one had thought to warn Sarge of the coming missle. Sudden danger following quick activation will make us RAMs forget human soldiers do not have the same abilities we do. A RAM takes it for granted that it can hear a missle a mile away bearing down on him, and sometimes forgets a dogface cannot.
The comlink with the rest of the squad asserted that they had come to the same conclusion as I had. The wheels disappeared, and my legs and arms became appendages again. I retrieved a LaserRifle from a fallen dogface who would not be needing it any longer.
Again the whine that is peculiar to a Mark IV missle. I flipped my radar on to pinpoint its POW!down. The schematics flickered through my computer, and came out in flashing red letters: MESS TENT! The mess tent was about forty yards from where I was, and the missile had less than a minute before it dumped itself. I made a beeline towards the tent, this time of the morning it would be jammed with dogfaces, but knew it was useless. I turned my volume control up as loud as possible, and bellowed: MISSILE! CLEAR THE MESS TENT! MISSILE!
The dogfaces came running out of the tent the same time the missile appeared over the horizon. I aboutfaced, and made for cover. A few of the dogfaces managed to throw themselves to safety. But the majority of them were still in the tent when the missile went KAPOWEEEE!
The blue team was sure heaping it on us. I ran an estimate of the amount dead in the mess tent, and came u with figures that indicated we had lost close to half our regiment of dogfaces, and one fourth the bucketfaces within the last week. I ran around a tent, and sent out a call to the rest of my squad to gather at what was the comman tent until yesterday. With Sarge out of commission I was next in line for command, and I was tired of waiting for the blues to come to us. At the rate they were going they could sit back, and continue lobbing missiles in at us, and come pick up the pieces later.
I was going to bring the fighting to them.
0800

Clown (11/23/29)
ain, of god! The pain. Pleast let it stop. No more!

another dream. God when will the dreams end. This time I dreamed that my arms were falling off, and I kept picking them up and putting them back on only to have them fall off as quick as I put them back on. And I kept trying to put my arms on, and the pain was awful.
I rolled over to a sitting position, and discovered that the pain was still with me. But then it never left me. It would sem that after all this time I would be growing accustomed to it. But it still hurts. This time the pain was in my wrist, where the incer was sown on to my left arm. I massaged it, and could barely feel the seam.
I looked towards the camp, and saw the grunts parading around. Funny that word, grunts. Nobody but me used it anymore. Grunts are dogfaces today, I remember the day when they were grunts. Grunts, and a few RAMs too.
I deliberated going into the camp, but I had little choice really. I could either stay here and starve, or turn around and see if the mine field was really off like some said. I knew I wasn't going to sit here the rest of the day, and I was not up to playing guinea pig for some grunt's wild hypothesis about the mine field. So I had only one choice.
I struggled to my feet with a sigh. My stand was slightly uneven since one foot was a roller, and it stood higher than my other foot. I half walked, half skated over to the mess tent. I went out of my way to miss the drunks wallowing around what was last night's campfire. I did not need their biting remarks now.
I was almost at the mess tent when my sonar ear picke dup a missile whine, and I looked up to see us launch another one at the reds. So far our missiles had kept the reds in their camp, which had no missiles, but it could not last forever. Sooner or later, and it would probably be a lot sooner than later, the reds would mount an attack force against us. The missiles were just a disorganizing device, they did not have the fire power to level the red's camp and that was all.
As I pushed back the flaps and entered the mess tent I almost collided with a Regular Army Man. He muttered an apology and wheeled away. The artificial temperature they keep the inside of the tents maded the plastic in my shoulder ache. I clamped a tray in my pincer, and made my way toward a table in the back.
0900

Dogface (11/23/29)
! (no)
! (you got to be kidding me)
! (he can't do it)
? (can he)

Rumors were flying high today. The runsheet had it that the Commander was going to send a squad outside to see what was going on. The Com must be zinked out if he was planning to send out a squad. So far we've been pretty isolated in camp. We sit here and throw missiles at the reds, and they do nothing. So far.
I was leaving the Mess Tent, behind a RAM, just as Clown passed in. I started to make some crack about him, but for some reason decided not to. Poor patchwork, he looked worse than usual this morning. I slung my GrenadeRifle over my shoulder and made for my tent. Another missile whizzed overhead as I walked. I turned to loko at the red's camp, but all I could see in that direction was smoke. If this keeps up this campaign may be over soon. And then we can start a new war.
By the time I got to my tent I was in a pretty good mood. I was going to catch a few blink-outs, but I felt too good to lay down. I decided to take a hike round the camp. I grabbed my I-R goggles, never know when we might get a shut down, and I didn not want to be on the other side of camp if we got one with no way back in the dark to my tent.
I crossed the cleared aread that was still smoldering from last night' fire, and continued to the edge of the camp. I stopped at the beginning of the mine field. The mines were supposed to be off, why turn them on when the enemy is too busy dodging missiles to attack? But if Com is worried enough to send a recon squad out he'll probably turn the mines back on.
I was just standing there thinking when I heard a blood curling scream. I did a quick scan of the camp and located the trouble almost at once. Some reject had detonated a time bomb in the midst of the camp. A tyranosaur res was screaming towards the gods. The reject that started all this had no more worries, the rex had just finished eating him.
As I ran towards the giant lizard my mind idly wondered why it was that over 80% of the time a time bomb will explode a tyranosaur rex. Ah well, that was a thought best left to better minds that mine. When I reached the scene with my GrenadeRifle at the ready I found myself too late. Two RAMs had blasted the rex to death with their body missiles. I turned away just as the bullhorn sounded through camp.
HU449988333200, HU0988454858, HU88422214, RA888459, RA8875953, RA8495854 REPORT TO COM TENT IMMEDIATELY.
HU0988454858 was me.
1030

flashback (9/17/28)
fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzKaPOW!
The reds were staging their biggest advance yet. So this was our biggest defense yet. The sound of their LaserRifles and RAM body missiles merged into one long noise.
fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzKaPOW!
I was in the front line, supposed to hold the rushing horde back. I was firing my GrenadeRifle as fast as it would recycle and arm itself. The dogface on my right was decapiated, but a grenade made sure the red lasered no one else. Another grenade blew a red RAM to pieces.
The trees dripped blod, and the ground was made of guts. A grenade from a fellow blue lodged itself in a red before it exploded. Bits of the red rained on me, and I wiped the blood off my I-R goggles with one hand and kept a steady grip on my piece with the other. To lose it would be to lose my life.
I have always had a flair for composing, and it seemed to bloom during a fight. And this one was no different. I composed a quick poem and recited it to myself.
The rain was red
And the sun blue,
As the Com said
"Don't even leave a few."
I guess I shoudl have paid more attention to what was happening and left the poems to when I was back in camp. I saw the red a second after he saw me. I swung my rifle toward him, but it was too late. He hurled a Laserbomb at my feet. I remember seeing him explode as my grenade hit him, but then his bomb went off. Laser blasts sprayed the air, cutting into me, slicing away, killing me, hurting me, destroying
*
blackness
*
Slowly I made my way up from the bootmless pit my hand had fallen into. First thought was why am I still alive? Second thought was why do I hurt so much? The pain was what let me know that I was still alive. Death could not be this painful.
When I raised my hand saw the pincer at the end I screamed. They told me later that I screamed for two days straight.
(time unimportant)