The Long Year, Part 1

[Lambano]

Omega 16th, 2846

Staff Sgt. Malcolm Greer



It had been six months since this war began. In a way, no one was really surprised—at least, the civilians weren’t. Things have never really sat well with the different camps that had been brewing since the Collapse. Like I said, no one was really surprised. Everyone wanted to usurp the throne, to sit pretty atop it and rule down on their lessers over a little scrap of nowhere. Of course, back then, it was a little scrap of nowhere. Today, Auraxis is the crown jewel of the Arche System.

In a short 202 years since the first settlers landed on Auraxis, the planet had transformed from its once calm and preserved state that was abandoned by the Ignotus (or otherwise known as the Vanu) to a thriving society with lots of room to grow. As my grandfather often said, wagging a wayward finger, “We settled this rock with sixty-thousand, with nary but what we could carry on our backs, and now look at us! ‘Progression Through Aggression!’”

Despite his overly patriotic sentiment, he was right—Auraxis seemed to almost be curtailed for us, with plenty of room to spare. Now we numbered over five million. I’m told it is the highest growth rate in our known history, including before the Collapse, back in the solar system of our original origin. Not that I doubt it, really. When the Republic was still united, everything fell into place. The scientists planned the new settlements, the craftsmen built them, and the Republic oversaw it all.

But, as I said, no one was really surprised when it all came apart.

Now things are a bit bleaker on Auraxis, and I don’t just mean the weather in general. In fact, killing season is coming up soon. Winter will end in three more weeks and spring will be upon us. Then we’ll start a proper year for war—one that will probably last the length at twenty-four months. It’s funny, really. The lengthy planetary orbit of Auraxis might’ve been what allowed us to progress so quickly, but it seems it’s also going to prolong the length of this war.

Right, this war. “The Corporate Rebellion” was the first popular name that popped up on the news vids. Of course, it didn’t take into consideration the number of science divisions that broke off and formed their own separate coalition as well. When they did, it was then known as, “The Rebellion Conflict.” When it became clear it wasn’t just going to be a sparse and quick conflict, it became, “The Unity War.” That seemed more appropriate. After all, the Republic was trying to bring back the two separatist factions back into the fold, in a way.

Of course there are many other names for the war. “The Copper Rebellion,” it’s also commonly called on some of the talk-point shows, referring to how the prelude to war started at a number of ‘copper’ mining facilities. I’m not even sure what ‘copper’ is, but that’s what the first settlers called the cuprum alloy that we use in quite a bit of manufacturing. Anyway, word on the channels is that the corporation with the most vested interest in cuprum mining are the ones that first orchestrated the first shot in Kaorr. Ultimately that corporation belonged to the New Conglomerate, so the stage was set.

However, because some science elements broke off into their own element, others believe that we’re actually fighting two separate wars concurrently. So while we fight the Copper Rebellion with the New Conglomerate, we fight the Cultist Rebellion with the Vanu Sovereignty. Sometimes they’re collectively known as the Rebellion Wars.

Personally I don’t give a hopper mouse’s ass what the war is called. All I know is I’ve nearly had my head shot off seven times and have suffered a couple of fractures and concussions, as well as an episode with perforated eardrums. This makes me unlucky, see. Of the original forty-eight men and women of my platoon, I am the only one still alive. Hell, I think we’ve gone through one officer a month, in fact. Most of the guys—the first-wave replacements—sort of regard me as the “white stag.” Of course none of us know what a stag is, but the vids and books tell us that they’re similar to the antlered bison. Anyway, the later replacements just call me sergeant, and that suits me just fine.

Right now, though, you couldn’t utter a slogan of the Republic without giving away your position. We were all holed up on some nasty stretch called the Traverse on Esamir, the arctic continent. Sure, there were a stretch of smaller islands off of Esamir that held strategic importance, but the main conflict of the north had been taking place here. You’d never guess it, not with your own two eyes, as to why that is. Esamir is a frozen wasteland eighteen months out of the year, and the other six it’s still colder than a steel sling cupped around your balls.

But here we are, on a little stretch of nowhere, between a gaping canyon that seems to stretch as far as the eye can see in either direction. Just over yonder were the NC. Or sometimes it was the VS. Sure enough, everyone seemed to want a piece of this pie. Like I said, I don’t care—I just shoot at anything that isn’t red and that doesn’t have an IFF tag, and not necessarily in that order. That’s part of the reason why I’ve survived for so damn long.

“What’s the other reason, sergeant?” new replacements would often inquire after my first statement of the obvious.

“I’m not an officer.”

It was partly true. The purps were actually pretty damn good about officer assassinations. The worst of it is that it mostly happened outside of action. Bastards and their stealth tech—in the snowstorms here, there’s no way you can listen for their footsteps, and their suits are thermal dampened so they don’t show up on thermals as well. I hear command has finally managed to reverse-engineer the tech, but unless they can cloak us all, I don’t see what use it has. It’s not TR’s style to go in quiet and stealth-like. We’ve got ordnance and we make sure to knock the door down first before ringing the doorbell. “Shock-and-awe” the brass likes to call it. “Kill-em-all” the grunts say, knowing better.

“Are we shooting?”

“What?”

“Are we shooting?”

Some idiots down the line were shouting at each other, asking for permission to engage. It was a common mistake new replacements made fresh out of boot. They try and push them out of basic far quicker than what the original training program called for. High casualties and low equipment stocks will do that, I suppose. Although it doesn’t make much sense to me if they’re not going to have the courtesy to teach them to keep their traps shut during operations.

Sure enough, a moment later you heard the sound of a coilgun echoing across the canyon. A moment later you knew the answer to whether the sniper had found his mark or not.

“He’s gone! He’s gone!”

“Shut up, or you’re next!”

“He’s dead! His head’s gone!”

Another plink of the coilgun ran out, but the screaming continued, which meant the sniper missed his mark. The soldier continued to scream until a single shot rang out along the lines, except this time it wasn’t the coilgun, or the sound of any other NC weapon. It was the unmistakable pift-sound of a Repeater. I absently clutched at the firearm at my side as I tried to clear my head of what that possibly meant or how it probably played out.

I closed my eyes as I lay there below the ridge and counted to ten. I was going to be unlucky again today, I just knew it. And it’s not as if it could be helped. I was already military before all of this started—already had my standard gear. I was one of the few soldiers wearing standard reg armor and that had a full helmet. I kept my TAR close to my chest—partly for my own comfort and also to remind myself that most of the boys out there had to cope with the Cycler or worse—the TRAC-5. Even other poor bastards had AMR-66s.

All of these weapons were part of the new war effort to ensure that the enemy could not collect off the dead and use them against us, so instead of working with the old Nanite Systems weapons before all of this started, we now have to use this mass-produced shit that some lackey who couldn’t make it into the VS science club is now in charge of making weapons that shoot a lot of bullets but don’t really care where they land. I’ll never forget the day they took my NS-11 from me. “Reg-weapons only!” Well hell, the enemy didn’t get that memo.

I tried to clear my head again. All I could think of is that they’d try to make us lay down suppressing fire again, like we did yesterday, and the day before that. All that really accomplished was a show of TR force—that we still had the manpower to waste on the front lines and that there was plenty more where that came from. Otherwise there was little point in being in this little scrap of nowhere other than to ensure that the canyon itself wasn’t used for troop or supply transport.

Before I could finish such a lovely thought, the answer came. Thankfully it did not come from the Commissar’s voice over the headset, but rather from the sky. A triumphant rendition of the Republic National Anthem blared overhead as the buzzing sound of multiple B-27 Annihilators came into focus. We could barely hear over the music the sound of the NC retreat. A moment later, the line across the canyon was lit up with enough incendiary explosives to turn Esamir into a beach paradise. Some of the TR soldiers foolishly leapt up to celebrate or cheer on the bombers, but they were promptly pulled down by smarter NCOs. A few seconds later and the music stopped and the Annihilators were starting to become specks on the horizon. That’s when the order came, but not the one I expected.

“Tactical withdraw, tactical withdraw.” The voice of my platoon officer scratched against my headset. I nodded to my left and right before switching to squad-local to repeat the same. Slowly we got up, crouched and poised toward the other side of the canyon but stepping back slowly. There was a wall of fire as far as the eye could see, and that’s all that remained of the other side. What was behind the wall of fire I had no idea—maybe the corpses of the blueberries that sat on that line against us, maybe a battalion of reinforcements just waiting for the flames to settle down. Either way, we weren’t sticking around to find out.

We humped it back to Andvari Barracks in four hours flat. I don’t know why after the first hour I was expecting Marauders or Raiders or even the blessed Haulers to pick us up, or maybe even a Stork or Condor pick up. Nope, it was clear—this fine company of soldiers was going to hoof it all the way back in the frozen wastelands of Esamir. I’m still not even clear why anyone gives a hoot about this place. Geothermal energy drilling platforms aren’t even anywhere near the Traverse. Most of the stuff here is just research and weather stations, as well as a couple of bio labs. Hell, there’s only one tech plant on the entire continent. In the four months I’ve been here, it just seemed like a tremendous waste of time.

The barracks was abuzz that night with talk of why we retreated back behind the front lines. NCOs didn’t have a clue, and the officers had been called in to emergency sessions with the rest of our battalion that had been recalled from their own forward positions. Like I said, I didn’t survive this long just by sitting still all day to make myself a pretty target for some young-buck blue-belly or for a purple-fluffer. As soon as the officers came out of that room, I hounded down my CO for answers.

“Look, you’ll know for sure tomorrow.”

“Come on, lieutenant. My lips are a vault. Just give me a hint to get my boys prepared—good news or bad news?”

“That depends entirely on what you consider good or bad news.” He was a quick one, I’d give him that. He might last two weeks with us. He wheeled around again as he was about to turn down a corridor. “In your case, it’s good.”

I perked up at that. “What, rotation?”

He laughed a little too hard at that. “No way, Greer. You’ve been around long enough to know what’s what in this man’s army. The brass is going to change some things up for the upcoming year’s offensive, and we’re going to need good men like you to help with the specifics.”

Shit. Why did it sound like I was getting a pep talk to become one of those throat-screechers at Camp Waterson?

“And if you’re thinking just now, ‘Oh man, drill instructing?’ let me just shatter your dreams and tell you straight-out—you’re not that lucky.”

Yeah, don’t I know that.

[Sonny]

Hi Lambano,
That's was really, great - very very well written! I was getting vibes of Yossarian and Catch 22, I liked the mix of humour and horror from the battlefield.

Would love to see more!

Sonny

[Lambano]

Thanks! I'm trying to throw in a bit of everything, and hope to give a different vibe to each faction.

More is definitely on the way!