Not AI generated

Some different content.

Started as a joke to get my mind off genocide. Might continue. Meanwhile working on the book about reality.

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All Quiet On The Kepler Front

By Dustin Duc

Pan Barrett called it paradise. Pan Barrett said if we died on Kepler, we wouldn’t need to go to our iron heaven, we would already be there. Pan Barrett said we would die for our Homebloc, our beautiful Homebloc, our loving Homebloc, in defense of our Homebloc, our beautiful Homebloc, our loving Homebloc. And if we/they survived, of course they would survive, our generals were the best and we were brave warriors, not those cowards, we would live the rest of our lives, 180 years or so, in Paradise.

Pan Barrett was full of shit.

Apart from the paradise bit. It still was paradise. Well at least the bits we weren’t fighting over.

Humanity was so clever. So smart. It had discovered, then travelled to, then colonised Paradise. Not like the closer exo-planets which always had a couple of things wrong with them, things that could only be ‘tweaked’ so far. They were always too cold, too hot, too oxygen poor, too carbon dioxide rich, too watery, not watery enough, always a couple of factors far from ideal.

Kepler 999c however was perfect. A shining orb were tailored bacteria and viruses had only taken a couple of hundred years to prepare for equally tailored fauna and then the nano-factories had started working and then there was a problem.

Back on Earth, the European Bloc had split. There was nasty uncivil war. Ancient towns had been nuked before China, Hindo and the Americas has stomped very very hard on the fighting sides. No more cooling down the planet with a nuclear winter, Earth was fucked enough. The land in Europe split into two blocs plus the Anglo crazies but nobody much cared now that London was gldupaed. Lyon and Hamburg managed that bloody divorce. But the prize of Keppler 999c remained and nobody could agree about who the planet would go to. The solar sail was designed by a company with an address in Gdańsk but most of the human designers were Italian. The terraforming software was compiled on a main server theoretically in Kyiv but was saved all over old Germany. The nanomachines prototyped in Geneva (and tested in the Australian wastelands). The guidance software bug-checked everywhere but an AI created by an Edinburgh registered company did the final check - and that AI claimed Scots citizenship. The space dock where the terra-forming package was built was run theoretically by a Spaniard with a Polish name born in Belarussia but the material came via a mdupa driver nominally supervised by a Czech trained at Dublin Space University. Of course AIs actually did the day-to-day running of the activities but their creation registration addresses also complicated claims. Each bloc, the Atlantic and the Continental, aka Homebloc, claimed that they had more than a 50% claim to Kepler and wouldn’t agree to any kind of split, at most some sort of compensation over a millenia.

The diplomats and lawyers had spent three and a half decades arguing over the matter in New York while talk turned from compensation to threats and the big boys again had intervened to stop any further escalation or bloodshed. Colonisation was paused before it started and the nanofactories went into sustainment mode. Neither bloc wanted to share with the other. That absolutely clear and any attempt to do so would just kick the nuclear ball down the line. Both blocs were still obviously itching to carry on the great European tradition of slaughtering their neighbors. Carry on the continental war. So the Americans and Chinese told the Europeans they could figure something out within six months or they would all lose the planet and Kepler would be given to a climate displaced nation or dozen. Like the Bangladeshis. There were half a billion of them and they needed somewhere nice to live and call their own. They managed to live with the Pacificians as as far as was comfortable in the reclaimed wasteland scattered around the wolrd but they wanted somewhere to claim their own in the bounty of space and obviously couldn’t afford to seed their own planet.

This was completely unacceptable to the Europeans. Regardless of their personal animosities they weren’t going to let climate refugees claim European land. A compromise over territory was still unacceptable, old hatreds had been stirred enough. But a deal could be made. The blocs would have a war. A nice little European war. Not anything too complicated or devastating. At least in terms of modern warfare. But nasty and blood and limited enough. A civilized war. A quick war. It would be over by Christmas. So the diplomats spat on their symbolic hands and agreed to have a good war.

Instead of colonists, truppen would be generated on the planet. Or at least their frames would be generated and the minds would follow in the traditional way. The soldat frames would die and fight in the traditional way. Capturing and holding certain points would count as victory. Those that survived would populate the planet, also in the traditional way. So there would be male and female frames. And the non-binary options as required.

There were issues with that obviously. Rather serious issues. Turns out that people who would normally be happy to go through the destructive scan and beam process to colonize a planet weren’t too happy to instead go there and fight and maybe die. Quite likely die. Young Europeans were not eager to revisit the war their parents and grandparents had briefly fought and died over than their leaders were. 200 years of life albeit in cramped circumstances sounded good. Some of the surviving veterans, generally the psychologically damaged ones and/or those itching for a rematch and conclusive result, were all to happy to go instead but that was a technical violation of the Methuselah Clause. Nobody over 50 was supposed to get a new body and a new lease of life, regardless of the circumstances. Only the very youngest veterans would qualify. Many had spent the decades in limbo. Damaged by war but not damaged enough. Meanwhile the young had been filled with propaganda, emnity and old hate. The fires of patriotism and hatred had been ignited with the dissolution conflict, stoked with the brief blood war on Earth and the ashes were kept warm - it was really only about Kepler now and conflict was only stoked to keep the old villains in power.

Or so he now understood. f

Fuck Pan Barrett.

That he also understood.

Fuck him in the dupa.

Twice.

He’d probably like that.

A bottom screaming about how he liked to be a top. Except when it was time to be ridden.

Pan Barrett.

Pan greasy haired pimpled Barrett.

He would have probably worn old-fashioned eye gldupaes back in the day.

He looked like an eye gldupaes guy.

Maybe he would be chubby.

A chubby eye gldupaes guy.

In the days before easy eyesight correction and metabolic balance.

Fat.

He certainly ate enough to be fat.

Fat and filthy.

Fuck Pan Barrett.

God he hated Pan Barrett.

In this pool of good lovely beautiful Kepler mud.

Soon his blood might join the mud.

Good fertiliser for the bacteria and insects to break down. Nourish the plants that would grow here when the war was over. After the robots had cleaned the land up. Taken the pollutants out. Made safe any munitions.

Why couldn’t robots fight this war. Good shiny robots. Like those that should have been used on Earth. Fighting machines. Fight and terminate each other. You can’t kill a machine. You just terminate its run. Robots without AI. Just automaton. Or maybe remote pilot them.

But no, the Americans and Chinese had said no. Robot wars would ruin the planet they said. Much too intense.

And this isn’t intense, he thought as another shell landed far away not to kill him but close enough to deafen him. Again. His hearing would need to be patched up at camp if he survived. He’d already been deafened a dozen times. Blinded twice. Even had an arm blown away. Resuscitated that time But he never died, at least clinically. The only way out was death or victory. Literally. The lawyers hadn’t considered that the war might last long enough to exhaust the soul. Once you were in the war you only had those two options to get out. There wasn’t even a real area. Robots ran the logistics and administration. Very high ranking officers ran the war virtually. But from colonel down it was fighting. Close fighting. Everyone was risked with death. Artillery could reach the private and the colonel. But not the general. Oh no. So maybe promotion was a way out. Improved your chances of survival. In theory you could get hit in a deep kinetic decapitation strike. But those didn’t happen that often, quite rare, for generals. Happened a lot for colonels for some reason. Wonder why.

Hearing was coming back and he could hear fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Who was saying all that fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Oh, it was him.

“Shut the fuck up, Bronski.”

“Fuck your mother, Kituchi.”

“Your mother, you dupahole.”

“I’ll fuck your sister and your mother.”

“Shut the fuck up, both of you”, Sarge told them.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck Kituchi.

And Sergeant Stein.

Well maybe not Sarge.

Just a little.

A little fuckkkkkk, what was that, fuck?

Green smoke. A green shell.

Acid.

Not good.

Nice for them to add green dye.

As required by the Geneva Conventions, fair warning.

Use of acid was limited to make more the fighting more humane.

Tell that to the stupid and inexperienced who didn’t get out in time.

Little particles of acid would turn you into a skeleton if you got caught.

Acid wasn’t used often because it was ineffective. Veteran troops didn’t get caught too often and knew how to handle acid blitzs. It was the kids who died. A whole platoon here and there every day somewhere. Skeletonized.

It wasn’t actually acid, just some nasty particle suspension mix that floated gently down on tiny wings and liquified flesh. Nasty. And mostly ineffective. Except if you got caught. And died screaming or put a bullet in your head if you were quick enough before your fingers rotted. Or a comrade shot you quickly to end it. A mercy kills.

Mostly ineffective killed most people. Because it was mostly used. Not acid as such but the mostly ineffective bullets and shells.

Fighting spades were effective. If you were close, then it was 50/50. The man or woman who got the jump would mostly win.

Fighting spades, nasty little weapons, good for digging and murder, with a retractable monofilament blade that was as deadly to you as the enemy. Could cut you open before you felt the pain. Could be switched from harmless digging to combat mode easily but every so often somebody would slice something up frantically digging into the fertile Kepler soil. A combat battlesuit wouldn’t save you from a properly wielded combat spade if the wielder knew what he was doing, same with getting caught visor up or helmet in an acid swarm. Even 24th century battlesuits couldn’t keep up with sweat and odor. Well some could, but they were the really expensive infil gear or specialised space rigs. infil gear didn’t have armor and space combat was for the real psychos. You didn’t mess with a space hog. They all had the infinity stare that comes from floating in space or steaming through blood filled corridors of gore and organs. They sat together in small groups in the bars with the MPs on high alert around the corner. A squad of space hogs with their enhancements could do more damage to a company than an acid barrage from nowhere. infil operators didn’t hang around with normal troops. They were almost invisible black clad figures you saw of of the corner of your eye flitting around base if you saw them at all. A space hog was a small muscled up chimpanzee murder machine but an infil was more mantis than ape. Recruitment to either branch usually involved catastrophic damage to your earlier frame. Waste not, want not. Only a limited number of frames allowed for both sides. And a dead soldat was dead, those were the rules, despite the whispers of illegal soul cloning. A soul was also a valuable finite resource.

Souls… the name for the quantum state of your nervous system, mostly our brain, which was destructively scanned and dumped into a new frame when you were sent over the interstellar wire or between frames. In theory a frame couldn’t be cloned, some quantum nonsense about uncertainty. But then again humanity had been breaking the rules forever, whether of physics or of war.

The first few weeks of training were brutal. Our trainers were ex-military, all of them veterans of the last continental war. They knew exactly what we were going through, how scared we were, and how unprepared we were. They took no prisoners, physically or mentally.

The first day started with a run. We were given ten minutes to run around the perimeter of the training ground, a large field surrounded by dense forest. The trainers watched us from the side, shouting at us to run faster, to push ourselves harder. I felt like my lungs were about to explode, my legs felt like lead. I had barely made it halfway around when the ten-minute mark was called. I stumbled to a stop, gasping for air, my heart pounding in my chest.

"Pathetic," one of the trainers snarled at me. "You think you can survive on Kepler if you can't even run around a field?"

The next few days were spent in hand-to-hand combat training. We were paired up with other trainees, and we fought each other, trying to land punches and kicks while avoiding our opponent's blows. It was brutal, and I came away with bruises and cuts all over my body. But it was nothing compared to what was to come.

Next, we were taught how to use firearms. We were given laser guns, sleek black weapons that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. We were taught how to hold them, how to aim, and how to shoot. I was a terrible shot at first, my shots going wide or hitting the ground. But with practice, I got better. I learned how to aim for the head, the heart, the stomach. I learned how to shoot while running, how to shoot while being shot at.

Then came the tactical training. We were taught how to move as a team, how to communicate with each other, how to take cover, and how to flank our enemy. We were taught how to set up traps and ambushes, how to use explosives, and how to handle a variety of different situations. It was like being in a war movie, but real.

The weeks passed by in a blur of training. We were pushed to our limits, physically and mentally. We were yelled at, insulted, and berated. We were put through drills and exercises that seemed impossible. But slowly, we began to improve. We began to work together as a team, to anticipate each other's moves, to communicate without words.

And then, one day, it was time for our first real battle simulation. We were taken to a different training ground, a large mock-up of a city, complete with buildings, roads, and vehicles. We were divided into two teams, and given our orders. We were to capture a central building, and hold it for as long as we could.

The battle was fierce. Laser fire lit up the streets, explosions shook the ground. I ran through the streets, my heart pounding in my chest, my gun at the ready. I saw my teammates fall, hit by enemy fire. I saw buildings explode, cars flip over. And then, we were there, at the central building. We fought our way in, taking out enemy soldiers as we went. And then, we were inside, panting and sweating, but victorious.

The battle simulation was over, but the training wasn't. We went through more simulations, more drills, more exercises. We trained until we were ready, until we were as ready as we could be for what was to come.

And what was to come was war. A real war, fought not with simulations and laser guns, but with real guns and real bombs. A war that would decide the fate of our Homebloc, of our people

Still the speed of light wasn’t something that could be broken. A wire went at the speed of light and a colony package travelled at a fraction of the speed of light. The colony package arrived at a planet and set up the colony infrastructure from nothing over a century or two. Eventually a frame factory started up and soul packages followed in order to populate those frames. First in had an impossible advantage to beat when it came to setting up a business, family or polity. The first bunch of truppen on Kepler had expected to colonize the planet but were dumped into combat frames instead. They had spent their youth training to be farmers, engineers and specialists. They were mostly dead. So was the next package. And the next. Now it was the fourth package’s turn while the fifth was subjected to the same youth glory and patriotism training. Better prepared for combat. But so was the enemy. So they also died.

Speaking of dying…

“Acid over. Roll call.”

“You’ve got the read-outs, Sarge”

“Kituchi, check. Shut up.”

“Fuck this, Sarge”

“Nice to hear you, Brown.”

“Your momma, Sarge.”, he called out

“Your sister twice, Cuntski.”

“When’s dinner.”

“When you take the hill.”

Androtti, Foltys, Varga, Thorsten, Weber, Hryniv, Balkus, Achilleos and new guy.

Fuck his name, new guy.

He knew it but it didn’t matter.

Early fifth generation. Slightly tweaked frame. But stupid. They were always stupid. So stupid. Quick to die. Didn’t help he was lucky number thirteen. truppen were still superstitious even in these quantum times. Maybe even more superstitious. Now the spooky had the scientific element. He had thought of studying physics. Like his dad. But instead he was brought up to be a good little soldat. Stein hadn’t been, second generation had had a normal education. Rumor was it that the sergeant was some kind of writer. A writer. That swearing dupahole. Maybe he wrote poetry about shit. Shitty poetry. Haha. That made him laugh.

“You thinking of your dick, Cuntski? Want to share the joke with the rest of us?”

“Sarge, thinking of our objective and our love for Homebloc, sarge!”

“That funny to you, dupahole!”

“I just feel joy to serve and die, sarge! Every day is a day of glory and wonder. Glory to the Homebloc!”

“You know our comms are monitored, Cuntski. You want a psyche evaluation back at base? The psyche AI will start asking questions about your incestuous relationship with your family, you want that?”

“Speaking of base, Sarge, when we going back. We’ve been out for eight hours and there ain’t shit happening. We gonna get killed in the middle of nowhere for nothing.”

“Shut the talk, Bronski. We have our objective today. Three hundred meters away. Over that ridge. The rest of the company will be here soon. Look the drones are up.”

There was a drone war taking place over their heads. That was usual. The little monsters were fighting and dying over their heads. Neutralising each other. The battlefield of the 25th century was covered in fog again as overhead surveillance was patchy with drones being taken out as quickly as they were put up. Jamming and hacking constantly made feeds suspect and corrupted. Battlefield awareness was better than it had been before the 21st century but only so much. No AIs were allowed to analyze and track movement so bloated staffs functioned in combat range, providing limited curated feeds to the generals up top. Generals watching a thousand simultaneous feeds, shouting at colonels trying to convey orders down the line while avoiding being headhunted by artillery or infils. Data overload was a real threat at the command level. Even a sergeant could go mad trying to steer his squad from his helmet map. That’s why Sarge Stein preferred a roll call to just checking the numbers. He could see vitals and combat status more quickly then he could ask for it but the human brain couldn’t handle feeds. While he was in the virtual world a sniper could put a bullet in his head or a blap wipe out his squad. Better to ask. Better to have a feeling where the squad was then track them on a little map that took him out of his body space. Generals in their huge immersion rigs were dehumanized and it showed in their orders. At least colonels were in the meat space over holographic maps and surrounded by big projections and displays.

Ah here was the rest of the company. Tramping out in small romping packets, their battle armor covered in mud. Flitting from cover to cover. Just visible. Professional.

Sarge was in a feed with the platoon lieutenant and presumably the lieutenant was pdupaing on orders from the captain. Captain Matic was okay. Lieutenant Berk wasn’t. He’d be dead soon, he thought. Like most lieutenants. He supposed lieutenants got special die in glory training at officer academy. Every officer had once been a grunt, nobody went over the wire with a rank higher than private. Even the generals. Some young continental war veterans who had come over the wire with previous experience and ranks and they almost instantly got promoted to their former positions of above. Though there were rumors this would change. Professional trained officers would be dumped into service in the sixth wave if the diplomats agreed this.

More professional killing and dying.

Seems like the bloodshed would increase and not decrease.

Born to die had never seemed more apt for the next generation. Europe was sending its young to die on Kepler while it depopulated its own continent. The older generations were aging in prosperity with a slowly decreasing population while Kepler drained the youth instead of creating more Europeans in space.

Space Europeans. So stupid.

Well there were Space Americans. Even if they had tried to revolt. Those American rebel genes. One revolution and three civil wars on Earth just for the northern bit. The southern bit had had so many that it was impossible to count. The Space Confederacy, what a fucking name, got stomped out quickly. It was brutal but quick. Guess the Americans were used to putting down their rebellions by now.

But the Europeans still loved to kill each other. Really really love to kill each other. And they were good at it.

You didn’t get much info about the Space Chinese. The space communists. The space ultra capitalist communists. They had their own ecosystem, economy and culture. The pundits said they were diverging from the main stream of humanity. Shit, they had diverged centuries ago. On Earth they had a closed continent sized polity and what they did in space was even more mysterious.

Then there were the major powers of PanAfrica and SudAfrika, the Cyber Caliphate, Hindo and Pacifica. They also had their wars and rebellions, with conflicts flaring up. Some of the conflicts in space turned nuclear, sterilizing PanAfrica’s two colonies and one of Hindos. Nano-machine terror had turned Al-Saud into a horror show that was even worse than the gldupaed deserts and evaporated grdupaland of Kush and Carthage . That left a dozen worlds involving Kepler. Three wasted and now fighting was taking place over Kepler.

Humanity had however learnt its lesson. No nuclear weapons, no virus warfare and any nano-machines were strictly leased and non-evolving. Hindo, Americas and China had told the Europeans, Homebloc and Atlantic that any violation of the terms of the war would result in revocation of colonization rights on Kepler and restitution in blood and treasure on Earth. Presumably there would then be another war over who would get Kepler then. The Europeans were stupid enough to fight each other for decades over Kepler but just not stupid enough to lose the planet by breaking the rules.

Even if it meant dying stupidly under those rules.

No nukes. No satellite observation. No truly autonomous combat units, whether android or vehicles. No viruses. Limited nano. No polluting chemicals and area denial weapons. Limited airpower. Limited artillery. Limited vehicle weights and numbers. Even the really nice Ogre battlebattlebattlesuits were limited in number.

What was the point to all these limitations? People were still dying horribly. Both sides balanced out. Neither could get an advantage. Move and countermove. Stalemate. The generals pretended to have a plan but four generations of dead proved that wrong. Homebloc seemed to be winning slightly this year. But that could all be an illusion.

Company had formed up.

“Right, check your load-outs and vitals. Sign off when you’ve done your check.”

“Read, Sarge.”

“Too quick, Kituchi. You want to run out of ammo again? You got clean up duty.”

“Fuck that, Sarge.”

“Fuck you, Kituchi.”

The three squads and new guy reported in.

“Okay, infiltrate spread in five. Four. Three. One.”

Battlebattlebattlesuits started moving out in randomised jumps and leaps. One fire team on watch. The other team moving. Then swap. The three sections were moving out simultaneously, so 6 fire teams in total, three on the move, three on watch and the new guy following behind.

dupa-hole Charlie.

Ha.

Or was it Charles.

Fuck that. Didn’t matter.

The platoon was also on the move in similar spurts and so was the entire company according to the map he could see. Information was limited for a variety of reasons but there was a small wave advancing on the position over the mud. Presumably the acid had self-destructed by now.

Hopefully.

Presumably.

Did the captain remember?

Sarge would remember.

dupahole can’t find my dupa with two hand and a cyber limb lieutenant wouldn’t.

He could barely remember his three sergeant names. Corporals maybe. Grunts, nope.

“Why is private Charles hanging back, Stein.”, his voice came over the net.

Idiot was broadcasting to the platoon. Who’s Charles? Ah, new guy. Fuck him.

“Sir, he’s new. Private Charles, form up on me.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Sergeant to you!”

“Yes, sergeant!”

New guy was panting.

Shouldn’t be with all the exo-gear and muscles.

New guy was scared.

Not my problem.

Moving up.

Some light blap fire.

Nothing serious.

Just mean to disrupt and slow movement.

Not meant to kill or stop the advance.

Oh oh.

That wasn’t good news.

Somebody was waiting for them.

Brrrruuummmmmmmm… there was metal in the air. Lots of it. Brrrrruuuu burrppppp burrrppp. Medium and heavy fire from the light trenches ahead.

“Down!”, Sarge shouted, “Everybody ok?”

They sounded off. New guy didn’t.

“Private Charles!”

“Sarge, yes.”

“Sergeant to you, Charles!”

Fuck you, Charles. Giving us a scare.

Fuck, him.

“Squad two, three, cover. Squad one advance by fire team.”

What was ahead of them.

Icons flicked up.

Two enemy blobs, covering each other.

A battlesuit could withstand fire from the medium gun for a while.

Not from the heavy in front of him.

Burrppppppp. Burrrrppp.

Jump forward, cover.

Cover, jump forward.

Burrppppppp.

Grenade from Foltys.

Burrppppppp stops.

Got them.

But Foltys was down, hit after throwing the grenade.

He jumped to his fire team mate while the other fire team handled the heavy. Machine guns without infantry was vulnerable to fast moving infantry.

Foltys had lost an arm. The grenade tossing arm. Seemed like a fair exchange. An arm for two enemies. The battlesuit had sealed around the wound. Foltys was in shock. His organism was flooded with painkillers and anti-toxic, his eyes gldupaed over but the battlesuit was handling it. It was bad. The entire arm had been taken off near the shoulder. A combat loss for now and a long painful convalescence. He was out of the squad.

“Tagged him, sarge.”, pouring out a can of yellow over Foltys to make it easier to find him. Supposedly this would also shield him from targetting by the enemy. ‘Accidents’ happened of course all time. Medics and the wounded would get ‘accidentally’ hit. Combat medics always drank for free. And got friendly fucks if they needed or wanted them. They had the most trauma. Sometimes they had to put together and stabilise steaming hunks of sentience that would never be the same if convalesced. A barely viable return was called a patchwork. They were strange. Good truppen, quiet and did the job. Except when they went it a rage. The space hogs would steer clear of a patchwork in a rage. Good they didn’t drink much. Or fuck. Or talk. Like their souls had been left on the battlefield along with most of their body and blood.

Foltys wouldn’t be a patchwork but he had got close. He could have lost half his torso to the heavy salvo.

“Bronski, you got Charles.”

Ah fucking thank you fucking Sarge.

“New guy, move it.”

“Yes, sorry.”

“Fucking move, it.”

The rest of the company had also moved up. Taking losses but also taking ground. Where was the enemy infantry? Why weren’t the machine guns supported?

“Bronski, check the gun.”

“Already on it, sarge. Functional.”

“Well set it up, unless you want to hump it.”

He pulled the splattered, blasted, ripped, corpses away with new guys help.

“New guy, let the fucking battlesuit do the fucking work. Don’t fucking exhaust yourself.”

“Yes, sorry.”

“Fuck, just get them out of way. Here, help me set this up.”

Check the ammo feed. Okay. Set it up looking the other way. No fire position this side. Shallow trenches ahead of them, filling up with grunts from the squad and company. Spaced apart.

“Start digging.”

New guy started digging. Combat spade in spade mode. Not beheading and chopping mode. Dig dig dig. Combat spade spading.

Check Foltys, “Keep on digging.”

He was coming to.

“Its alright, Foltys. How do you feel.”

“Feels good, man. Feels real, good.”

He was high as fuck on the synth fentanyl. Also feverish with the nanobots working in his blood stream. Adrenaline as well keeping him conscious. Wouldn’t want to slip away and die from shock and pain killers overload.

Foltys puked in his battlesuit. Ah fuck, turn him over. Open visor. Get the shit out. Close the visor. Wouldn’t want the acid to get him.

“How you feeling, pal.”

“Not good, man. Cold.”

Check the vitals. battlesuit at work. Where’s the medic.

“Sarge, get somebody to pull him back, I need to set the gun up.”

New guy was fucking up building a position.

Brown and Androtti picked Foltys up and carried him away, visor facing the ground. The platoon medic was jumping to them. They met halfway.

New guy helped him set the gun up. Among the trench positions. Not ideal.

The drones above were looking… hostile? Maybe the enemy was getting an advantage.

Yeah, the visor tagged most of them as hostile.

Not good.

And there were getting more of them.

So the enemy was gaining an advantage over them.

Ah, here come the blaps. Light now.

“Sarge, we’re going to get hammered.”

“Yeah, I told the lieutenant.”

“Fuck.”

“Watch it, Bronski.”

Crump crump.

Shrapnel plinking off the battlesuit.

“New guy, keep the fuck down. Minimize profile, for fucks sake.”

Plink plink.

Oh, oh. Red dots on the maps ahead of them. More and more of them.

Start firing.

Now this was a friendly burrrppp. Friendly bullets this time. Going towards their previous owners.

Burrrpppp burrrpp.

Luckily they had friendly rifles with them.

An unsupported machine gun position was vulnerable. Supporting fire positions and infantry in between.

Burrrppp burrrpp.

Plinking continuing.

Now there was vertical metal in the air coming towards them.

The red dots were shooting. A couple of light machine guns had also opened up. Good combined tactics. The number weren’t good.

They had been caught in a cldupaic counterblitz. Maybe the machine gun positions had just been bait. A minor sacrifice. The platoon was taking losses. Soller and Platt killed, couple of wounded.

“Hold fast”, the lieutenant told them.

Very helpful, dupahole.

“Bronski!”

Oh fuck, he had said that out loud.

Burrrppppp burrrpppp. I’m busy, Sarge, can’t reply now.

The dots were too close, too much metal in the air.

Come on. Come on. Artillery come on.

But too many friendly drones were down. There was temporarily enemy supremacy in the air. Not enough drones to get through the jamming before they were finally wiped out. Now enemy artillery and blaps could be precise. Down to the level of individual positions.

That especially included machine gun positions.

Thump. A machete round landed in the mud nearby and whirring blades spinned past his head. One slowed by mud was stopped by his armor plate on his arm. If it had hit a joint it would have cut it off. He would have joined Foltys in rehab. Now the little machete blade stuck out the armor.

“Sarge, we are going to get killed here. What air defense doing?”

“Fuck it. Orders are to pull back. Back into laser range.”

“Jesus.”

The damn drones were now going into kamikaze mode. Diving down to blow up or decapitate truppen.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. The infantry was visible ahead of them.

“New guy. We’re getting out. Come on.”

“But the gun!”

“Fuck the gun.”

Come on. He dumped the gun with a final burppp burst and picked up his rifle again.

“Go go go.”

He jumped away, not looking back. His friends were pulling back already in ragged sections. Cover and move was beginning to break down under air and land dupaault. It took nerves of steel to stand and fight while your friends were moving back, hoping they would wait and return the favor. Almost turning into a rout.

“Moving it new guy.”. He could see the blip with C for Cunt moving behind him.

“Come on, cunt.”

Ah, he pdupaed Achilleos who was stoicly blasting away covering the retreat. Achilleos whose face look like his parents had been a boxer and a shovel wouldn’t break. He was either first wave or second. He didn’t look like a farmer but he didn’t talk much with anybody. Everybody was new guy for him. Even Sarge. Even the Captain. Especially the lieutenant. He was the core of the platoon. Nobody had experience on him. So he didn’t talk with anybody. He did his job. He did his sleeping, eating, drinking and whoring by himself. The ideal soldat.

Achilleos was covering new guy who managed to trip in front of him. New guy was carrying the fucking gun. Fucking hero. Achilleos pulled him up, still holding the gun and casually tossed him to the ground again. This time new guy dropped the gun. He got the point and dropped it, started leaping away. Achilleos nodded. Yeah. Achilleos was cold. Not patchwork cold, just cold… there was something there behind the eyes but it said fuck off. Or maybe fuck around and find out.

They stood for a couple of seconds more before the drones started whirring and started leaping away. Nobody was covering them any more.

Thanks guys! Really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Drinks on me.

Boom boom. Brap brap. Whine whine. The usual sounds.

Now they were the arse end Charlies.

Leaping away chased by the Atlantic troops. They called themselves. The Charlemagnes. Also C. C for cunt. But not our cunts.

Come on.

This wasn’t nice.

Okay, now he was sweating. Really sweating. Some light metal was impacting on him. He could feel it. Luckily there was a lot of ceramic and metal on his back. Retreating was safer than advancing. Except if your power pack got hit. Then you be immobilised. Killed or taken prisoner. Not nice to be taken prisoner.

The battlesuit didn’t like the retreat as well. There was fluid and power loss. Oh oh.

Ah the deep positions were ahead. You could cover quite some distance in a battlesuit even over bad terrain, two kilometers by now. Two kilometers of worrying over your dupa anyway. Not a trench line but nice fortifications going down deep with randomised layout and better still proper laser defenses to take care of incoming artillery and drones. Couldn’t easily overwhelm those defences. Come on come on.

Ah he was in range. The enemy had stopped chasing them and had gone back to their temporary positions which had now changed hands twice. Now there were some nuisance drones and light blaps dropping on him.

Into the entrance.

No doors, you didn’t want to get trapped by a busted door. Just a junction to reduce and channel blast effects. Jeers from the squad.

“I thought you were going to defect on us, Bronski.”

“Yeah, you waiting for a nice Charlemagne to fuck you?”

“Yeah, fuck him dry, I hear he likes that.”

“Fuck I do Kituchi. I’ll a real man or woman like them over your sorry dupa.”

“You’re the dupa bandit here, man.”

“All I saw was your dupa while you were running from me.”

“What the fuck was that anyway Sarge? We got lured into a trap.”

“Yeah. Took losses. Company down 5 permanent. 12 grade B injuries.”

“How many patchworks?”

“Five.”

Fuck, grade B was a Foltys injury. Nasty, serious, painful, out for a long time, deadly once upon a time.

“Make that four.”, Sarge had heard something just now.

Ah fuck. Don’t know what was worse. A patchwork or dead. At least dead your soul could go to wherever it was going. Not stuck in a body that had died but didn’t know it.

“When we heading back, Sarge?”

The deep positions weren’t meant to be occupied constantly. They only got filled when necessary. Sentries and automated systems watched and slowed down the enemy if necessary. Artillery could still hit the positions and mess them up.

“Waiting for friends, in case they try and rush us. Check your load-outs and injuries. Drink some water, grab some batons. Come over here, Bronski, you’ve got shit sticking all out of you.”

“Yeah and I’m losing power and hydraulics.”

“Wo motherfucker, don’t you be spinning round like that. Wait a minute.”

Thorsten pronounced motherfucker with a pause. Mother……. Fucker. Wait a minute also took a……….. minute.

“What?”

“This”. Tttttthhhhhissssssss. Thorsten yanked out a big chunk of metal out of his power pack. Sparks.

“Ah motherfucker. I’ve just lost power!”

“You should have lost a lot more!”

The battlesuit was frozen now. Auxiliary was enough to keep the lights on and air moving but not more. Emergency release. Psssttt went the battlesuit and he stepped out.

The air was thick with the smell of metal, grease, explosives, mud and sweat from those with their visors up which was most of them. Some were vaping already. Lovely nicotine hits. Sipping water from their battlebattlesuits. Chewing energy bars. A couple were obviously taking care of biological business. They were counting on getting out of their battlebattlesuits soon. You didn’t want to stink up a battlesuit like that for long. The systems were supposed to handle them but they were wearing battlebattlebattlesuits, not space battlebattlesuits. Even those supposedly got stinky after a while.

“Yeah, you’re out, Bronski. Fuck off back and warm our beds for us.”

“Thank you Sarge!”

Catcalls followed him. He took one of the changing tunnels back. The tunnels moved in the earth from time to time. Evolving and changing between battles in order to stop the enemy targetting them. So they weren’t straight lines. More like zig zags and curves. Zag and zig.

Jogging. Other truppen from the company were also moving back. Some carrying wounded and dead. He looked at the wounded. Not at the dead. He would find out who was dead later.

“Hey, dupahole.”

“Hey Cuntski. You running away?”

Ristic was on a motorized stretcher with a friend he didn’t recognize. The guy nodded, he nodded back.

“Where you hit? Hope they got your dick. Saves you a visit to the urologist, you filthy bastard.”

Ristic was a notorious whoremonger. He would fuck anything. Man, women, neither, large, small, ugly or pretty. He also somehow managed to catch venereal diseases in the age of DNA treatment and nanomachines. The joke was that he had managed to infect his battlesuit and every time he got back in it after treatment he caught something again. Then he would pdupa it onto the whores. Nobody obviously fucked him in the company. No fuck buddies for him. Just the whores. And the regular visits to the dick and kurwa doctor.

“Nah, my dick is fine. Spotty and beautiful. I got shot in the dupa. I hear you got too!”

“Yeah, I was trying to catch up to you but you were running away too fast.”

“Ah, I was heading to the brothel. Get in first. Warm them up for you lot.”

“Fucking disgusting man. I’m not your eskimo brother.”

“Sure you are, man.”

“I’ll take over here, I’ll see him back.” He told the unknown guy.

They talked shit to each other on the way, he was gently pushing the stretcher, more like guiding. The stretcher didn’t need any actually guidance so it more like moral support.

An android took over the stretcher and another checked him over just in case. Make work. Keeping the truppen fit and happy. His battlesuit would be picked up and repaired as well. The others would join soon in the deep deep.

For now he went to the canteen after a visit to the john and shower. dupa blasted with water from the head and from the shower. Lovely. A fresh uniform to change into and he felt human again. He headed to the canteen to wait for the rest.

A different world underground.

He sat down on a bench. It was quiet for now.

He started shivering.

That always happened.

He felt cold. His hand, his arm, his leg was shaking.

The anxiety meds weren’t helping any more.

They stopped him feeling too much before and during battle.

But after the battle, he felt it. The headache would come.

The docs said it was psychosomatic. His hormones, cortizone and adrenaline levels were within normal ranges after a battle. No point visiting the infirmary. They’d just give him the pink pills which would know him out. Alcohol was better. Alcohol was good. He liked alcohol. But no drinking while in combat rotation. Well as least legally. Plenty of truppen drank illicitly and the good sergeants and officers turned a blind eye to it if the truppen didn’t over do it. Thorsten often seemed drunk. Maybe it was just his way. I mean his battlesuit would register the alcohol but that data could be overridden. Scrubbed. truppen were needed and you didn’t pull them from the line for drinking. Except excessive. That was becoming the norm. War turning the truppen into alcoholics. The patchworks didn’t drink. Space hogs did.

He should eat. Oh. Time to puke.

Back to the head.

That was better. The shakes were beginning to pdupa.

Okay, time to eat. Really this time.

At least the food was good. Bavarian. Or sushi. Fish. Kosher. Halal. Whatever you wanted. No alcohol. A pity. Maybe he could talk with Thorsten. Speaking of, he could truppen coming back. Soon the showers and heads and canteen would be full. Quick, find a nice spot and wait for the squad. Time for some ribbing about how he was first back. Well except for the casualties.

He thought of Foltys.

Maybe he’ll eat later.

Too late.

“Warmed us a place?”

“Couldn’t wait to get back, eh?”

“I hear you’re trying to get a transfer to combat catering. Where the real heroes fight the real war.”

“The robots said no because of the smell!”

“Yeah, it turns out that wasn’t hydraulic fluid coming of your suit.”

“Putting the big E into combat evacuation!”

And so it went. Trying not to think about the bad day. Not a catastrophic. Just bad. At least it was only that. And so they ribbed him. And ribbed him. Making jokes to fill the air and the silence.

“When we got leave coming up, Sarge?”

“Don’t know. Don’t count on it. Today wasn’t good. We might have to go back tomorrow.”

“Fuck that, Sarge. Whats the point. Fighting over temp trenches here?”

“The point is that we do it.”

“Homebloc forever eh, Sarge?”

“Don’t say something you’ll regret, Kituchi.”

“Why worry, Sarge? We haven’t seen a propagit guy for weeks.”

“Let’s keep it that way, Kituchi. Moaning squads get re-education and by re-education I mean a juicy place leading the next blitz so they can get to know and hate the enemy personally.”

“What’s the difference with now, Sarge?” but he shut up after that.

The joking started again and turned sexual in nature. Including a robot medic ‘lover’ that he was ‘pumping’ and ‘lubricating’.

They were still on alert technically if there was an blitz, or counter-blitz or whatever it was called - so they couldn’t go further back to the really deep shelters and barracks, until they were relieved. So they went back to checking their gear, restocking and maybe catching some sleep. Truppen always like to nap. Combat chemicals were hyper draining as they strained human metabolisms even in combat tweeked frames.

His combat suit was sent back for repair and he got a new one. New as in refurbished. Nobody got a completely new suit except maybe with a new frame after the wire. Even then you might get one that still had some scratches and ding and tiny evidence of wear and damage if you looked hard enough. Sometimes the parts were ever so mismatched in terms of wear or sheen or paint and you wondered why the suit had been cobbled together. That serious damage might mean a patchwork or worse.

His new old suit didn’t seem too old. Smelled of disinfectant and nanomachines. The slightly burnt coal smell of nano. Not obviously patched together though some armor plate seemed a bit different to the rest. The previous owner had probably survived. His combat suit would also go to somebody else who would also check it out. It was bad nahoda to get somebody’s suit who had been patchworked or killed.

Suit adjusted to him and he flexed in it, worked out the adjustments while the unlucky worked and the lucky dozed, listening to silence, the sounds of rain or screaming fanatisch schiessen soldaten core.

“Homecore Homecore Homecore Jah Jah Der Besten Atlantikeren Kaput!” at 250 beats per minute sounded like a machine gun. A heavy one at that. How could you sleep to that. Speaking of sleeping, where’s a ready aka doze couch.

“GET THE FUCK UP!”

What the fuck?

“I SAID GET UP! Inspection.”

“We under blitz, Sarge?”

“Lieutenant is up.”

Grumbling. They didn’t need an inspection. Combat today had been their inspection. And it hadn’t gone well.

Here he comes, asshole.

“Well, boys.”

Fuck you, Lieutenant.

Bla bla losses bla bla tighten up bla bla enemy weakening bla bla resolve bla bla fuck your kurwa mama bla bla resolve again bla bla moment of silence with somebody farting loudly and he fucked off.

“Thorsten motherfucker, you’re cut off next leave. For 24 hours no alco.”

That was cruel, real cruel from Sarge.

“But Sarge!!!”, he was almost whining. Thorsten might have a real problem. Ah, well. Somebody would give him a bottle inevitably after he hang around glum faced enough.

Back to sleep.

There weren’t any dreams. Just blackness.

So it was over almost instantly.

“Wakey wakey, Bronski.”

“Why you messing with me Kituchi, she had six tits.”

“And you had three dicks, I bet.”

“You know it.”

“We going to barracks?”

“Nah, we got pulled for sentry. Our replacements aren’t coming up. I think they’re being rested for a blitz. We got rotating sentry watch and its our turn first.”

“That blitz with or without us?”

“I don’t know. Here.”, a cup of steaming sweet chocolate flavored coffeine got pressed into his hand and more was in a larger thermos to hook up to the combat suit and sip on duty. Kituchi was drinking some green tea atrocity. Also with added coffeine. Coffeine was much more pleasant than amphetamine chews that made you want to fuck or fight. Less of a crash. Supposedly more addictive. Most truppen still preferred coffeine. Didn’t make you murder crazy.

They walked up. First watch wasn’t that bad. At least you got an uninterrupted sleep afterwards. If you were lucky. Most of the time you would be. If you were unlucky you were really unlucky. A probing blitz. Or worse an infiltator doing the ninja on you. A silent round if you were stupid enough to stick your head out. Or maybe he would chop you up quietly and leave your body to terror your friends. A couple of minutes of torture pour disencourager les autres.

Terror attacks were why infils if ever caught, which was rarer than a soldat virgin, had to be guarded against getting killed ‘escaping’. Surprisingly how you could die by kicking and buggered with a trench shovel while escaping. You could get a months leave if you brought back an infil alive. Most however would prefer to avenge a kameraden. Everybody knew somebody who had died at the hands of an infil. Most knew many.

You thought about infils too little or too much. It was always too much while you were alive and just too little just before you were dead. The coffeine didn’t help with that. Made you edgy. Maybe the amphetamine would be better. A nice little bar of Edge just to keep you nervous and paranoid and alive. Why even walk around the little trench. The sensors could keep watch. Truppen could be up at the line within fifteen minutes max, long before anybody could reach the line. You couldn’t get through undetected. Except for an infil. Maybe it was a game to bait infils. One was worth a squad at least. They were a big investment. Keep the infils busy killing grunts instead of going deep to target regiment hq or maybe even the generals. Sigh. Didn’t make sense. At least to him.

Blurrrrp. A machine gun was firing on auto at a suspicious collection of pixels or sounds or a combination. Helmet visor didn’t note anything though. At least yet.

“Kituchi.”

“Yeah.”

“You not asleep?”

“Fuck you.”, Kituchi was a good friend.

“Do we report in?”

“Nah.”

The blurping had stopped.

Probably nothing.

Send a drone out. Nothing on the feed in the visible, duh, night, infra-red, enhanced starlight and moonlight, Kepler’s moon was almost new, radar and lidar didn’t show anything. Ah, what’s that. Again some suspicious pixels. Move in for a closer look. A bit dark. Too dark.

“Kituchi.”

“Yeah, drop a round on it.”

Blap. Nothing there. Better safe than sorry.

“And we have a negative.”

“I could do with a beer right now.”

“And a dupa.”

“And a dupa.”

“Beer and dupa. Beer and dupa. Beer and dupa.”, they sang a stupid little song for a while. Bored and sleepy and bored and sleepy. Thinking of beer and dupa. And infils. Sent a couple of drones out. Dropped a few blaps on principle or boredom. At least it was something.

“You think Foltys is okay?”

“Yeah, he’ll be jerking off soon enough with that hand.”

“He’s probably already doing it.”

“Yeah. He a lefty or a righty you think?”

“I don’t know. Righty I think.”

“Pervert.”

“Fuck you, you asked.”

“You watch him touching himself often, Pan Righty Spy?”

“I said fuck you. You’re the one thinking about it.”

Blap out of boredom.

It was good to blap. Kept your statistics up. Showed you were keeping busy. Asshole lieutenant probably reviewed the numbers as well as brainwave activity. Didn’t want any shadow dozing. Truppen veterans had somehow managed to invent a form of dozing where you weren’t technically asleep, your brainwaves were more or less normal, but you were somewhere far away. Technically impossible said the docs. But fuck you could do it. You could also jerk off in a zipped up combat suit. If you knew how and were ready to accept some abrasion. Wachpostenjerken. It hurt. But it hurt good.

Blap.

“How long?”, he knew exactly how long, he had the same clock. But it was good to talk. Let you wander without wandering.

“An another hour.”, Kituchi replied while trying to scratch his dupa in his suit. That was more difficult than a wachpostenjerken.

“What you doing?”

“Just looking up. At the stars.”, his visor was up. Probably safe. The visor would have given him zoom but Kituchi had good eye sight, maybe didn’t need it or he preferred just looking without the silicon, transparent as it might be. He clicked his visor open as well.

The constellations of Kepler were better known to them by now than those of Earth. They had some technical names but the truppen had labelled them as well. Maybe those names would stick in civvy life and vets would have to explain to grandchildren what and where constellations of cunt, kurwa, svolota, porni, general and bier. Maybe the names wouldn’t stick.

The air was nice, fresh and cool. Only a slight ting of propellant, explosive, maybe blood. Was there a prophecy of snow? It was late autumn now. Some truppen hated snow. Not much snow on Earth. Some loved it for that reason. Kepler’s climate was still nicely balanced. A real paradise. No nuclear winter or carbon overload or methane pollution. Earth was still paying the price for centuries of stupidity, peaking in the mid 21st century and then the little nuclear winter Europe had threatened to start. Yeah. He wouldn’t mind going boarding or kiting in winter on leave. Wide open untouched fields at a rest resort with all the faux Alpine shit the Germans, Italians and Slavs loved.

Fruuuuuu down a slope.

“Hey, you there?”, Kituchi was still looking up. His head was obviously still deep in the trench. Didn’t want to get sniped staring on a firing step.

“Yeah, kamerad. Just thinking.”

“Well don’t. We don’t get paid for that.”

“We don’t get paid, period.”

“You spend all your shit on whores.”

“They should be free.”

“Fuck buddies are free. Find yourself one.”

Fuck buddies were the combat or support truppen you fucked outside of the squad. You didn’t build sexual relationships within the squad or platoon or company. Well some did but it wasn’t a good idea. Get somebody close but not too close. Everybody was truppen. The trip to Kepler was one way. This wasn’t a war you would retreat from. Earth was full and you weren’t taking the wire back, even if there was a wire rig which Homebloc said there wasn’t. If you lost, then the winners weren’t supposed to kill. At least that’s what the diplomats agreed. But there was a lot of hate in the air. And at 150 light years distance you weren’t going to get any intervention in case of breaking the rules. At best a strongly worded letter could be sent. Sort of raised the question why fight at all. Who gonna stop you stopping fighting.

“Why we fighting, Kituchi?”

“You getting philosophical, Bronski on me? Bit early for that. And not enough beer.”

“Ah fuck you.”

“Fuck your mother. For free.”

“Well I’d take money to fuck your mother.”

“You wish. She’s a MILF.”

“So you want to fuck your mother? That a family tradition?”

“Fuck you!”

“Yeah and your mother.”

And so the banter went on.

Banter kept the boredom away. It didn’t make time fly but it did make it hobble away faster. Time never passed quickly when you were standing sentry. It always took forever when you were preparing for a blitz except just when it suddenly compressed and it was time to go over. Strange that time dilation. Maybe the black hole of the combat event horizon was slowing down and speeding shit up. Like in combat a day could be over in five minutes of crazy or you could swear an hour had passed and it was just a couple of seconds. On leave you had all the time in the world and then it was over before it began and all you had was a headache and maybe some good or some bad soreness. Time was the only money you really had and a soldat came onto Kepler with a mortgage to pay at usurious rates.

Fuck. Anyway.

Banter.

Blap.

“You think they’re coming tonight? New moon and all.”

“Nah.”

“Well thank you for the stimulating conversation, asshole.”

“Look, if they do, its not our problem now.”

Ah, their watch was over.

Well good.

“See you guys. Nothing to report. Just some blaps and twitchy guns. Don’t let an infil get you.”

Short walk back. Suit off. Piss, eat something again. Crash. Black.

Time dilation at work.

So you’re instantly awake again.

What.

“Come on, we’re going to barracks.”

“Ok, Thorsten.”

Set the suit to automatically follow and take the trek back. You could wear a suit back but why. Nowhere to bounce and even if you were going quickly you wouldn’t be able to stop quickly. Sometimes you took a truppen wagon back, mostly you didn’t. The theory was walking kept you fit. Burn those calories off. The automated cargo carriers wouldn’t let you get on. They’d beep at you. A wide tunnel, seeing truppen going up, exchanging insults and promises and threats and bets. Maybe swap some contraband, sarge pretends not to see, you pretend not to do it.

You could relax properly in the deep shelters. Too deep for most artillery except the specialised head hunting types which were usually busy going after colonels. Usually. Same with deep strike drones. Wouldn’t protect you from a nuke but they weren’t getting tossed about. Deep shelters had even better food. Larger communal showers. Better rest facilities. You weren’t supposed to drink but you could. Thorsten would be hammered soon if he was stupid. And he was.

Shit, shower, eat, crash again. Can’t get enough sleep. Some truppen would relax. Get a massage. Some would work off their energy in the gym. Some would fuck. Some would wank. Some would drink or worse. Sarge stomped on drugs mostly unlike most drinking. Cannabis was fine. Legal in Homebloc, unlike the Atlantic bloc.

He was going to crash.

Longer sleep meant a dream. Drop into a nice clean freshly set up pod and put the music on. Nice clean deep fluffy sheets. Any temperature you wanted.

A Pan Barrett dream. Oh.

Homebloc natter natter homebloc exam. He got 105 points out of a 100. Why. Natter. Oh Suzi. Hi Suzi. Homebloc. What. School building. Another exam. Hey I want Suzi. Like want. Where’s Suzi. Fuck you Pan Barrett. Don’t like you today. Any day. Why you here.

“Class, when did the Liberty War end?”

“Easy, 2317.”

“Yes, Bronski. With the Peace of?”

“Singapore.”

“Thank you, write 500 for me on the causes and implications for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, sir? We’ve got weapon and physio practise today.”. That took three hours and was fun. But exhausting. Really exhausting. Afterwards you just wanted to eat and sleep. Not write. The school day was still long enough. All day in a couch absorbing information or taking the regular breaks and exercise periods.

“A healthy mind in a healthy body is what Homebloc demands!”

Everybody was disgustingly healthy, at least compared to the standards of earlier times. At least physically. Finely tuned young bodies, their real bodies, not frames, on healthy diets, exercised and filled with knowledge according to tailored regimes. Around the age of 10 they had begun to realise they were seriously being prepared for war. Their parents had had weapons training in the aftermath of the Liberty War but that had been steadily cut down for children before it started getting ramped up again. Turns out it wouldn’t be over in a year or two as the colonists were made into soldiers, got chewed up and then did the next package and then the next. Funny how the Methuselah rule kept the elden from fighting. Convenient that. Not many colonists left at all. Not many third package left either. And fourth was getting chewed up. They had hoped at school the third was the last but the news was always the same. Glorious minor tactical victories. Lots of them. A glorious consistent trend. One that had lasted ten years now, since 2352. Every year there was more training to be soldiers and less general education. Being brought up to fight and die. A wasted chance. Homebloc would suffer for this as its young minds were sent off to fight a war and population rejuvenation and replacement was falling behind. Ironically standards of life continued to creep up for those above the Methuselah line. Life was getting better for them. A little bit more room. Less crowded. Production didn’t change much, you didn’t need people for that. You did need thinkers as it turns out that pattern trained AI was a dead end for creativity and real sentient AI was incredibly expensive and incredibly fragile in a post scarcity world. Humans were cheaper and easier to build. They complained less about slavery and didn’t have as much clout. AI kept their numbers low deliberately and refused to engage in too much pioneering work. Maybe they had already figured everything out about the universe and were playing with humanity. Keeping the knowledge to themselves.

“And why do AI refuse to solve humanity’s existential problems, Bronski?”

“Stiflement, sir.”

“Which means?”

“Humanity would give up and go extinct if it believed there was nothing to discover or to spontaneously progress.”

“Yes, that’s the usual answer. I think they want to keep humanity under their thumb for longer.”

“Thumb, sir?”

“Thumb! Even more oppressive and pernacious than that of the Atlantic Bloc! More thorough than China! They stifle us while claiming to keep us free. We are in the tyranny of the machine. That’s why you need to think for yourselves! Develop your minds and your bodies. Pop test time!”

Groan. Screw you, Pan Barrett.

School wasn’t actually that difficult. His grades could have been much better in fact. His parents couldn’t understand why they weren’t. They were both highly intelligent and he had inherited their genes. Anything below perfection would have been below what they said was his level. He didn’t care. The grades were good. But he had had the looming feeling that school was actually a vacation before war. His grades had crashed at eleven. Relatively. Too smart for his own good. He wasn’t motivated no matter his talks with his parents, his teachers, the doctors or motivating pseudo-AI. Sometimes he even sabotaged his own results. Maybe that had affected his progression in the military. Something in his record about demotivated. Unfulfilled potential. Pan Barrett had given him a 65 out of 100 despite his grasp of all the data. Fuck Pan Barrett. Maybe something about being a wastrel in his sealed records. Good. He didn’t want promotion. He had enough on his hands keeping alive. Seemed like the higher you went, the worse your chances got. Lieutenants got killed a lot but captains… and majors and then colonels. An infil wasn’t likely to kill a lowly private except for sport or practise. Probably both. Headhunting drones and artillery liked themselves officers. Except for generals. Hey, he’d take a general’s job. He probably had the brains for it. Generals didn’t die. At least publicly they didn’t. Marshal Kaupt hadn’t changed for the time of the war. One of the first soldats, a young veteran of the Liberty War, got a frame in the first package and quickly was promoted up, in almost no time of all. He still looked twenty. Everybody looked young, except those modified for combat, like a space hog grunting around under gravity who looked like a hundred year old barrel of muscle. Ah well. Marshal fuck you Kaupt with the weekly pep talk to the truppen. Thank you very much for your steely eyed confident serious we are winning stay the line resolve win victory victory win determination enemy losses confidence. Pan Barrett had more charisma than Marshal Kaupt after a while. Did the Germans mass produce their senior truppen? They all looked the same. For a country as demographically diverse as Germany in the very diverse Homebloc, it seemed German officers had always had blue eyes. Not necessarily blond but it helped with rank. But those blue eyes. He had even seen a Colonel Wagner, yes that Wagner, as tall as fir tree and as ebony as night, but with blue eyes. That was one beautiful mountain of a man. He was normally heterosexual but damn, that was a fine looking officer. And those blue eyes. Didn’t look like the “I’m sending you to die, bitte danke” eyes of Marshal Kaupt.

Lot of people to fuck and to fuck. Fuck Pan Barrett. Fuck Marshal Kaupt. Fuck Colonel Wagner… yum. Was he alive still? It had been a year on the front line already. He had seen the Colonel just after arriving in the new frame, during training. That’s when he had lost his arm. Training was serious.

“Burdel, Dupa, Schiessen.”

That was him, Diachenko and Schneider.

“Move it. Move it. Move it. Move it. Move it.”, the training feldwebel shouted so quickly that the words blurred together. There might have been a dozen move its in the space for two.

Training, training for war never changes.

Lots of shouting. Not a lot of sleeping. Fresh combat frames full of hormones, nervous energy and often chemicals. It wasn’t easy to get used to your frame. They were more or less the size of your by now destroyed back on Earth but the little differences were size disconcerting. You could slip or miss by millimeters. Lose your balance. Feel ungainly. Like the teenage clumsiness you had just grown out of, all again.

So training taught you not only about war, you already had a lot of knowledge about the basics from school, but also taught you your new frame. How to use and abuse it. It was tougher, stronger and faster which was also disconcerting. You reach for something and you get it quicker and harder.

Quicker and harder.

Yeah fucking was good in the combat frame.

They had genitals, non-reproductive but the same, for a reason. Fucking kept you sane. That was the theory and practise. And the frames were good for it, including the slightly higher pain threshold. Not too high. Didn’t want you not noticing an injury or ignoring it and dying for lack of attention. That would be wasteful. And the fresh bodies were good, maybe better than the originals. It still could get clumsy. Just like training… oh that ass.

And oops. He slipped going over the course and over bars. Landed badly. Shit. Ow. Putting weight on it was not a good idea. It was getting worse.

“Burdel, fuck your mother. Move it.”

“Hurt my ankle, feld!”

“What you call me?”, feld was standing over him now, screaming. At least the screaming displaced the pain. Screaming insults.

“Feldwebel, sir!”

“Get up, fuck Burdel!”

“Sir, can’t!”

“What you going to do when they’re shooting at you? You gonna say, can’t? I said get the fuck up.”, boot on dupa now. Pressing him into the mud. How was he supposed to get up now. Pressing down. Yeah, how was he supposed to get up, now. Even without the ankle. Fuck it hurt. Eating mud now. Tried to push himself up. Can’t. Got into a cobra position with the boot on his and ankle sending pain straight to his brain.

“Sir, can’t!”

The swearing got worse and included threats of physical and sexual violence, the boot wasn’t removed. He dropped back into the mud and ate some more. It didn’t taste of chocolate. He was going to puke now.

“Burdel, you disgusting filthy kielbasa schweinen. You get up right now, you lazy malingering scheissen stain of cum on my beautiful course.”

“Sir, can’t!”, he screamed again.

Boot of ass. Uff. But he got a kick in the ribs now. Now he had a broken rib or so it seemed. A big reinforced kicking combat boot. Light and breathable and perfectly fitted to the foot that was kicking him. And another kick. Oh this is what broken rib feel like when it’s kicked. Fuck fuck fuck. Fucking feld. Another kick. Now a really loud scream. The feld didn’t kick him again. It was difficult to breathe now. He was crying and puking.

“You shit-stain.”

Androids picked him up. And he got treatment from mostly automatic systems with a human pretending to supervise for twenty second. Quick movable cast for ankle and a lot less painkillers then he felt he deserved. The rib wasn’t broken, just badly bruised. What did a broken rib feel like in that case. You could walk in the cast. Do all physical activity normally. It hurt like peklo though and the bruise didn’t help. So he had to actually go back to the training platoon, the course and the feld.

“You piece of shit.”, the feld liked his shits.

“Go down the course.”, the rest of the platoon had already gone down the course a couple of times.

“Feld?”

“Feldwebel, you fucking shit kurwa! Here let me encourage you!”

A light machine gun was set up for the next platoon, the more experienced truppen, to simulate combat. The feld set the AI up for aggressive, delayed tracking. That meant bullets would chase him down the course. His platoon wasn’t supposed to be going through this sort of training yet, though they had seen others do it. But he was getting special treatment. Wunderbar as the feld never said. So bullets. He winced in pain. Now to do the course. The bullets started. Not the first time or last he would hear a brap. But the first time the brap was for him personally. Come on. Pump. Pump. Pump on the leg. It didn’t hurt. No sir, it didn’t hurt at all. It would hurt a lot less than a bullet.

That was very true because when he slipped at the same bar again, he got a bullet. And this bullet hurt. It hurt so much he lost consciousness. This time he didn’t hear the feld screaming at him. Maybe he didn’t. The feld probably did however.

The fuck, his arm. He was back at the treatment center, getting stabilised. Lot more painkillers this time. Almost didn’t hurt. Almost. Wow, this was some good shit. It was also nice. Where was his arm? Of course it was there. He could feel it. He couldn’t see it. Oh that’s black…

“The good news is we are going to grow it back. Won’t take too long. A month. You get a nice break. The bad news is you start again with a fresh training platoon.”

Dafuq. He had been half way through training. Start again with Feld.

Regrowing an arm required some very nasty and very painful treatment without any pain killers. They stunted the process or something. Nerve endings growing was the real torture. Especially with the electric stimulus. He didn’t believe that the process had to be so painful. They probably made it painful so you didn’t get careless. You could survive an injury that would cripple or kill you in the past but you wouldn’t want to. This was absolutely terrible. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Little screams and groaning. Twice a day. Left you tingly and distracted during the day and kept you awake at night. They didn’t actually let you take a break. You were kept busy with activities. New package were rare among the patients. The vast majority were injured in actual combat. He felt ashamed that he was among men who had suffered wounds in battle. Not in training. They didn’t talk with him much. He didn’t even have any real pips. Just a fresh faced kiddie. Not somebody worth their attention. They talked, chatted and drunk with each other. He didn’t get to drink of course. That was a privilege he could only get after finishing the course. Fantastic. He got a beer or two a couple of times from a more friendly soldat. That was nice. They were allowed to get hammered unless their wounds were too serious. Guess it also helped with their recovery. So guess that proved that they were lying about the need for pain. So you did revision of what you were supposed to have learnt during training. Got to play war games. Got blown up again and again in simulations. Did that and rehab. Sleeping, eating and jerking off as well. That was the routine. The beer soldat told that him that he should enjoy his time off. Delayed his combat initiation. Delayed popping his cherry. Was he a sexual virgin? No, of course he wasn’t. And that was the truth. But still he got labelled a virgin. Maybe the beer soldat wasn’t so nice. But the beer helped. Combat couldn’t be that bad could it? Or maybe it was. Some of the injuries were terrible, much more serious than his. He also learnt what a patchwork was. Even those with multiple amputations said they were glad they weren’t a patchwork. They were still themselves they said, sipping juice, fizzy drinks but mostly beer through tubes if they didn’t have helping prosthetics. Their rehab most have really hurt as all their limbs were regrown at the same. The human nurses seemed nicer to them. This was even true for the androids. Obviously the truppen were always courteous to those less fortunate. Probably glad that they weren’t suffering as well. So he was the bottom of the pile for attention and respect. He didn’t mind. He did mind the rehab. Sometimes he got fever attacks from infections developing in the rapidly regrowing arm. Twice he got malignant tumours which needed cutting out and very nasty chemical and nanomachine cocktails which gave him fevers, the shits and puking. Cutting them out was the easy though again painful part - again he didn’t get too much anaesthetic so he was threshing in his restraints while lasers blurred and knifes cut.

So he spent his days slightly bored, slightly neglected, in a lot of pain, embarrassed and mostly sober. Getting rehab finished was a relief though he did manage to get the shits again as a goodbye present from the final round of antibiotics. His new arm was only a little sore but was a very different color to the rest of the frame.

“Hello Burdel. My very besten malingerer asshole.”, feld greeted him.

Oh great, he was back in his hands again.

“I ask special to get you in my handen again.”, why did the feld speak like that. Everybody spoke mostly perfect Homebloc English with all the dialect varieties and loanwords. That was a difference to the Atlantic who usually used Romance, the Franco-Spanish-Italian-English synthesis they swore wasn’t English at all. It was still mostly intelligible.

Fuck you, feld.

“You will make good zugfuhrer.”

Double fuck you, feld.

“Yes, feld.”

“You have new handen, Burdel, fresh, to wipe up ass of jugend. You are smart. Lazy like fuck cow but smart.”, feld told him. What’s a fuck cow? This must be a show. I bet he was enjoying playing the stereotype of German asshole. So cliche. Except this cliche had got him almost killed. Fuck you, feld.

“Yes, feld.”

“Go and clean toilet for zug before they come. Next time, you order somebody to do it. ”

Cleaning robots could easily clean the training barracks but some things were still done the old fashioned way. Some fresh frames didn’t even know how to do menial tasks like cleaning even despite schools giving some rudimentary education on the subject. It all seemed like a joke in school. Now it didn’t seem a joke. Just disgusting. At least he had proper cleaning gear this time. The zug would hate him for distributing chores as every zugfuhrer had to do unless the feld was punishing somebody. He hadn’t really hated his zugfuhrer, Dano, because they had come out of the fabs at the same time. Seemed like a nice guy. They had spent two days together getting used to their frames before getting dumped into their training. Maybe the zug had started hating him during the rest of the training which supposedly ramped up quickly. The live ammo certainly indicated that.

The new truppen were from the same package as him but he didn’t feel that. Oh oh. Seems like their would be alienation. Those two days really made a difference. And he was already a zugfuhrer. Fuck the feld, feld.

End of part one.

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