My squad trusts him, I trust him. Lieutenant pencil pusher has no reason to lie. Through the gate we go bodies converting to energy and back to matter before we know what’s happened. Harsh winds rip around our greatcoats, imperceptible to our focused intent. What is perceptible however, is the muddy trench and bodies. We’re surrounded by a score of corpses, mostly laying in tattered shreds, as if an uncountable number of conscripts were fed into a wood chipper.
This is not an armory.
Nor any kind of staging ground.
Memories rise, how most of the thousand Yurten recruits died replays in my mind. Friendly fire incidents, when artillery shells encountered a strong headwind and fell short, onto our positions. A survival lottery that no skill or action on your part could influence. It simply came down to getting lucky.
Today, we did not get lucky.
Shadows scatter around us, more than I can count. One sprints towards us, tackling seven. I see gills, claws, and bulging eyes. As if this creature is a deep sea fish in too low a pressure. As conscripts we only wear armor over our chests and a helmet to protect our vitals. The logic being those are places where a fight ending injury can occur the easiest, but they missed a spot. Our necks. The thing, whatever it is, clamps down on seven’s neck. Inch long fangs pierce her coat, radiation liner, and flesh. Before I can think the FNX is in my hand, safety off. I’m running. One finger taps the loaded chamber indicator telling me the weapon is fully loaded. I only need to pull the trigger.
Four squadmates join the melee, yanking the creature off its feet. A knife appears, straight edged but with an S curved handle, not made for human hands. Flash training has turned these flabby Americans into hardened warriors. Each hand or foot is bent backwards leveraging digits until the creature is a shattered mess. A fifth squadmate grabs the knife plunging into the creature's eye. Spasms run through the piranha-like humanoid. Jaw clenches shut, severing Seven’s spine.
“No!” Shouts someone, I never learn who.
Drawing the pistol only took a half second, but that’s all the time it takes to end the fight. Nine people are clustered around the two bodies knee deep in violence. The perfect target for any smart artillery. Number one, our sergeant speaks first, unphased by violence as an untrained earthling ought to be.
“We’re clustered, spread–”
Artillery vaporizes number one. Direct hit. A high explosive shell crushes the man, plowing six feet into muddy trench before the proximity fuse understands it hit something. Fire annihilates most of the squad, only tearing me in half. Being second to last has its perks.
Ouch. I hope Jim honors the deal. Help mom. I just wish, I wish I could have mattered. Done more…
Memories remind me that Mom gets nothing if we don’t win these wargames. We must take the planet. The pressure wave knocks me unconscious before I can feel pain, killing Sage Yurten.
—
>Straingineer Zazathur: OW! WHAT THE HELL! WARN ME
>Praetorian Panoptes: Wasn’t me. I’m safe on this Azhurai ship. Tiny quarters though.
>Praetorian Panoptes: I felt it too. Like getting cut in half. We must have a third
>Straingineer Zazathur: had a third. feels like we are gonna die.
>Straingineer Zazathur: what happens if they die?
>Praetorian Panoptes: There is time. have location, can sending my personal nanites.
A moment passed between messages. Information returning to the Azhurai Conglomerate warship.
>Praetorian Panoptes: Extensive damage. Bots need biomass to plug these holes.
>Straingineer Zazathur: shit
>Straingineer Zazathur: die now or tomorrow
>Praetorian Panoptes: I don’t want to die…
>Straingineer Zazathur: Oh man, this is gonna hurt…
>Straingineer Zazathur: take my hip arms
>Straingineer Zazathur: wont need them til the combat drop
>Straingineer Zazathur: can regrow them by then
—
Sage Yurten died. As people tend to do when they are killed.
Her veneer of lies stripped away by unfriendly fire–
–And the bastards left me holding the bag. I became aware slowly, light coming back into my pupils. Legs tingle for several minutes as feeling returns, coming in a distinct wave that starts near my ribs and ripples down, through my pelvis, over my hips, past my groin -I breathe easier, knowing I'm intact-, into knees, calves, feet, and finally my toes. They’re weirdly cold, I look down and find blue arcs of light crawling over my –once again– naked lower half. Weird, how did my toenails get painted black? Sharp too, a hot look for gothic MILFs but pretty cringe for a dude.
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
I shake the distraction, more annoyed at an emergent pattern, one I am already fed up with! What philandering whore leaves a man naked in the trenches? The blue sparks tickle my inner thigh creeping entirely too close to my bits.
“NOPE!” I swat them away, or try to.
Fingers touch sparks and I get gently tased. Like licking a nine volt battery if you mixed the sensation with spicy shaving cream, thick, painfully tingly and now all over my freaking hands! I throw myself sideways, kicking and flailing until my sparkly hands land on the severed torso of twelve. Sparks leap from me to her, encircling her upper half and arcing to her legs, she was cut in half like me, not vaporized like number one. In a sort of negative flash the sparkles and body vanish. One moment they are present, the next I receive a mental alert, so similar to Jim and Haime’s draft notice.
[+1 biomass]
“What the hel–”
Before I can finish the thought, text appears in my mind, so similar to the chat function in Wings of Liberty, a game I once played. It's been years since I’ve seen that style of text, mainly because I have the chat function muted. Nothing is left there except friends who haven’t logged on in three years and edgy politics. Not here. Two people have been having a conversation for what looks like hours. As if they existed while I was still in my cryotube, before Jim ran his tests.
>Straingineer Zazathur: tasty
>Straingineer Zazathur: like radioactive pork thats oversalted and undercooked
>Straingineer Zazathur: wait…
>Straingineer Zazathur: this doesnt taste like the biopools
>Straingineer Zazathur: its not my biomass
>Praetorian Panoptes: Wasn’t me.
>Straingineer Zazathur: Is our other half alive?
>Praetorian Panoptes: Can you have three halves? Hey! Apollo Finley, say hello! You know which buttons to press.
>Straingineer Zazathur: dna is a double helix so this is human
>Straingineer Zazathur: asshole
>Straingineer Zazathur: you sent me human biomass
>Executrix Alaea: Ick. But… Does it matter if you aren’t human yourself?
>Straingineer Zazathur: not really
>Straingineer Zazathur: its the thought that counts
“This can’t be real…” I begin to say, coming up short.
My voice trails off as I stare at my toes, whatever is making the toenails dark isn’t polish. A permanent fashion statement that will forever ruin my favorite flip flops. Yet, I have larger concerns, my legs are no longer the same, already showing more muscle and less fat, although that might just be the perfect shave. I run my fingers over them, glass has more friction than these sexy bitches. I’m dazed. So much has occurred I need a moment.
My mouth works out my thoughts.
“In the past day I was cheated on, conscripted into a galactic military, cloned or something, transported across planets, and implanted with the memories of an entire life. Blown in half and rebuilt by… something indistinguishable from magic. This really isn’t all that strange.” I say aloud, scrambling into the pants left behind by number twelve.
Hey, I don’t like graverobbing at all, but I ain't running around a planet with my penis flopping around! Besides, twelve’s body is gone, no blood or viscera remains, leaving guilt free pants behind. Boots too. Ambient radiation will give me cancer inside of an hour, best armor up. Somehow my pistol survived along with the ring. A small miracle.
I will make it home. Then I’m going to get that 30 day money back guarantee. I swear to myself.
This war feels so lost, hopeless even. Fifteen seconds is how quickly my entire squad survived, from the first man through the gate to the last casualty. Why they sent humans here and not sealed tanks and mechs is a strategic error I struggle to comprehend.
So stupid.
Earth has tanks!
Jim said those were taken, so why not use them?
Through my helmet I hear whistling. More artillery. I can still recall the sensation of being blown in half. Panic ignites my feet. I duck and run, sprinting through the muddy trenches in search of safety or cover. There’s none.
Someone built this trench to be a highway. Thirty feet deep with logs and metal grating to line them. A sort of reinforcement that limits how deep your average fatass would sink into the mud, a Technomancy tactic so their war machines can keep on warring without getting stuck. Useless in keeping an infantryman’s boots dry. I’m exposed here. Dirt trenching alone isn’t enough to protect from bombardment, standard singularity training says bunkers should be placed every quarter mile at a minimum. While the Technomancy standard is looser at a mile or two.
A shell lands in front of me, burying itself in the wet dirt before exploding. Dirt rises in a split second, sending a concussion wave that kicks me in the face. My helmet takes the brunt, and I'm grateful for the integrated gas mask. Quality gear, built to function after a direct hit. Which I’ve taken two of. Together they manage to keep my head intact as the wind forcibly exits my lungs, ears pop. Silence follows. Were it not for the twin glass circles my eyes would be gone as well. Concussed. I lay in the mud for several seconds, wheezing as my entire body reels in pain. Like I’ve been tenderized by a dozen Rock Johnsons. Or a dildo factory, but I repeat myself.
No one comes to save me, there are no weapons here, only the odd chat window. I drag myself onto my feet, wobbling down the trench in what feels like a sprint; hoping to find a bunker where I can get my bearings and link up with Singularity forces. Praetorian Panoptes is right, I know the buttons. The window isn’t really a window, it's a borderless square in the bottom right hand corner of my vision.
>Praetorian Panoptes: Ouch! Please don’t die, Earth needs you. Mom needs you. Can’t heal you again.
>Straingineer Zazathur: I’ll kill you if you die!
>Straingineer Zazathur: Stay alive!
>Straingineer Zazathur: Hide in a hole if you have to!!!!!!
Mentally I press enter, flicking my pinky to open chat.
>Human Apollo: artillery strike. I’m alive. ouch.
>Straingineer Zazathur: what the hell… HUMAN?
>Straingineer Zazathur: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
>Praetorian Panoptes: Ignore him. He’s… uh… I don’t know how to say this, not human anymore? Having a hard time adjusting. Kinda zergy, but don’t worry about that.
>Human Apollo: Is that why my toenails are black? Did you make me half zergy?
>Straingineer Zazathur: HA! serves you right.