Posted 21 February 2010 - 04:39 PM
I mean it's nice to get some hit's on the topic and some downloads but it would be nicer if somebody could stick around and post a comment
Btw here is the story again.
Lance Corporal Niall Chul was looking from a trench on a little hill down in the plain, he was lucky his unit had been assigned to provide security for a AA-emplacement, and cause of this he could watch the battle that was raging some kilometres away.
It was his first deployment after leaving university for his two year conscription with the 25th New Peleliu Regulars, like almost all of the men and women of his planet.
Because there was war in the Empire of men, again.
Not that you could say there was a "Empire of men", because there was no competition at least on this side of the milky way, and mankind was not united, there were many empires and some big companies running the hole thing.
They might have different origins and traditions, but all of them were aristocracies, monarchies. Some of them might have some sort of democracy on planetary level, but as a hole the fate of hundreds of systems laid in the hands of just a few people.
The biggest powers were the New Kingdom Commonwealth, the Union of Euraka, the Táng Empire, the Nippon Empire, the New Worlds Federation and finally the New Earth Assistance and Trading Pact, respectively the New Earth Company.
These six states guaranteed, that for soldiers and mercenaries would always be work, and because Chul had studied history he knew that war was one reoccurring thing in the history of mankind, today the wars where not about pieces of land or continents, but rather systems.
At the moment the New Kingdom Commonwealth was waging war against the Nippon Empire, and in the plain in front of him Niall could admire how war mankind was when it came to killing each other, not that there had been no advancement in other fields of science, but for a good time now the focus had been on weapons.
This the energy cell of his laser rifle held enough energy to run a small house for half a year, but his rifle would consume this energy in three dozen shots, each lasting 200ms and containing enough energy to kill a human up to 600 meters away.
But he also knew that his rifle wasn't the best, nor could it compete with a vehicle mounted laser.
But at the moment the soldier Chul was not thinking about his weapon or politics, but rather how not to fall asleep again, because last night his sergeant had found him sleeping and so he had night shift for the rest of the week, and if it would happen again he had the bad feeling that it would become really awkward. Because sleeping during shift was one of the worst things you could do, and punishment not only came from superiors, but the comrades as well.
Suddenly he startled out of his thoughts, and automatically raised his rifle, and put a finger on the alarm button.
He thought he had seen movement, somewhere on the side of his eyesight, but he wasn't sure, your eyes sometimes tricked you during these long cold nights.
He scanned the slope with his sight, changed mode from light amplification to infrared and repeated, he couldn't see anything he calmed down a bit.
Just that moment the AA battery came to life, and the next moment the air was filled with the hammering of the flak and the screaming of missile defence systems and missiles that left their rails.
His headphones were lessening the overwhelming sound while his night vision device was shutting down, because it was overloaded.
In his neck he could feel the heat of the rocket engines, while flapping away the night vision device, to see the scene better.
It just took a few seconds till the shells exploded in the night heaven, followed by two trails of flame falling towards the ground.
Possibly two scouts he thought, because there was no tactical warning on his display, although this didn't mean anything, because he didn't have full access to the military network.
Thus he also didn't know how the battle was going, well he would be warned early enough when it was time to move, but it was an impressive scenery non the less.
He took of his helmet so his head would get some fresh air.
Without the headsets he could actually hear the roar of the distant battle.
Involuntarily a smile came to his face, a crooked smile.
A battle was something fascinating, and in its way something terribly beautiful.
From his position he could see a party of this beauty, the light trails of lasers, the tracer lines, the flashes of explosions, the shimmering of the countless fires, and the thick dark smoke above the hole scenery.
Above him fighter-bombers were thundering into battle to drop their deadly load, some kilometres away tanks were rattling and mechs were stomping into battle, conventional infantry taking a ride on the tanks, while battle armour either also catch a ride, moved with breathtaking speed or stormed with flat jumps forward.
Above all this artillery grenades were cutting through the air and artillery rockets and cruise missiles were heading for their targets.
When not being involved it was overwhelming, but he wasn't completely uninvolved, somewhere out there where friends of him, moving into battle at this moment, fighting, lying wounded and screaming on the field, having found the final rest in death, or were on board of one of the medevac vehicle streaming constantly from the battlefield.
The thought of what his friends could endure at this moment was the dark side of the horribly beautiful spectacle.
"An impressive sight, or?"
"You could say so." Niall paused.
Who in hell had asked that question?
HE turned around his rifle raised.
But there was no enemy laughing and waiting to put a bullet through his head, no there was just one guy in a dirty armour, he flinched there was possibly more then one.
"You don't seam to be the best when it comes to guarding duty? Earlier when you had raised your rifle I thought you had seen the last one in our group, but it hasn't been like that I guess. What so ever, close your mouth we are the good guys."
Well the guy had a point there, because he would have been dead a good while ago.
"I'm a special Forces Captain, we are just moving through, and before you miscount again there are ten of us, guys switch of the active clothing, you are confusing the poor guy.
Suddenly coming out of nowhere he could properly see the other guys, cause their armour wasn't transparent anymore, and some of the elite soldiers were taking of their helmets.
"Guys, five minute break, gotta bring this poor corporal back on course."
The officer followed his soldiers into the trench, some of the men where taking of the armoured gloves, that on the right ended into a built in weapon most of the time and on the left into another weapon or a big claw, so they could get something to eat.
He recognized some personal markings on the armour, a woman had a cat on her breast plate, and he could spot crossed daggers on another armour plate.
"Corporal, stop starring at Cat, she doesn't like that."
"I'm sorry Sir, you don't see a special forces unit every day."
"Yeah normally you don't see us. I mean we could have marched through here with no problem, but I wanted to know why the security was so low here."
"I'm sorry Sir, but..."
"I didn't mean you directly, but there is only one guard out here, which is not enough."
"Sir I made a mistake last night, I was on guard alone between 0000 and 0600, and at some point I couldn't hold my eyes open, thus I'll have that shift for the rest of the week.
The in his armour gigantic looking officer smiled.
"Soldier this morning, you'll say to your NCO or your lieutenant that they are idiots."
"But sir ...!!"
"No, don't worry nothing will happen to you, trust me. Take this, it will get you through the night."
The man gave him a package with some pills.
"Simply chew, but just a single one each night. Dragons get ready to move!"
With these words the elite soldier put his helmet and gloves back on.
Only at this moment Chul recognized the shimmering Dragon on the armour plate of the officer, before he and his man vanished into the night, like they had never been there.
Years later the professor of history Neill Chul would tell his grandsons when they asked for his experiences in war about that night, because the man had held his word, his sergeant and lieutenant got crapped on from the company commander the next day, and he was praised for his excellent guarding duty, seamed like the special forces officer had told a little different story.
But he didn't care, he was just happy that he had met the soldier.
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