Along the streets are MP’s from the Coalition and local militaries cleaning and rebuilding the liberated city. Dozens of filled white body bags, stained dark red and blackish brown, lie across the sidewalks as men bring more corpses to the piles, and others bag them. Next, other soldiers go from bag to bag tying on tags at the ends of their feet, where they will be piled up and taken away by tractors and trucks.
We finish crossing the city to the airbase. It is a gigantic stretch of tents and garages and makeshift control towers that dot the field. Jumbo jet C-130’s and numerous other aircraft lift and land or move about on the runways. In the background is a landed group of space carriers unloading supplies and men. There are also some battleships, broken apart into segments so that they can be landed safely via huge carries that drag them on steel wire beams. Their massive size looms over the airbase as they undergo repairs from the space battle.
The troop transport pauses at the gates, and we hop off switching seats with soldiers waiting to depart. Blake leads us in. “There’s our ride,” he points at a plane fueling up on one of the runways.
“A civilian jet?” says Alex in surprise.
“Military drafted,” says Blake. We step onto the loading ramp to the jet. “We brought as much air freight and transporters as possible. The countries here lacked what we required, especially when most of them were shot down by the Herculeans, or left for space to make the jump to Earth.”
We load onto the jet and take our seats. Isaac sits by me and places his feet up on the seat before him at the annoyance of Vick. He flashes me a look.
“I’m sorry.” But I stop. I feel Cloud wear off. And the tears slide down my face. I push over Isaac to reach the bathroom at the end. I can’t control it. What have I done? What have I done?
Isaac knocks on the door. “Hey, Peter. We’re taking off and you gotta sit down, man.”
I fumble over the plastic sink. I think I have a knife on me. They all hate me! I hate me! Look at yourself, you worthless piece of shit. I slip as I reach for my cargo pocket and bang my head on the sink. Isaac jolts the door open. He comes in, standing over. Don’t look at me! He kneels, grabbing me by the shoulders and placing my head in his lap. He rubs away the snot and tears on my face with paper towels.
“I’m sorry…”
He takes a deep breath. “It’s okay, none of this shit has been easy. I mean, someone from Command should have told us about it, not keep it secret like that. You—we’re just marines, it’s not our jobs.” He pets my hair while I lay my head in his lap. “Remember when I puked in the dorm the night before we left?”
I don’t say anything.
“And you took care of me? That’s when I knew you were the only guy I wanted to go through hell with.”
I sit up a little.
“Remember when I said we had to take care of each other?”
I nod.
“I always will, bud.” He raises me the rest of the way. “Let’s go sit down, alright?”
We reach our chairs. The rest of the unit glances over then goes back to their own business. Isaac hands me a vapstick—since he learned his lesson from the last time we were in a closed area with Blake. I feel relieved at the gesture, the final sign that he doesn’t really hate me. I eagerly accept it. Next, he hands me a crumpled up paper. “I forgot to give this to you ever since our trip back from Tionem, you passed the fuck out on the way back, and I just kept on to it.”
I take it and unfold the paper. “I’m surprised you kept it.” The last word was Legends, written by me. I look at his response.
Love eats, gaining energy, necessitating deranged sensibilities,
I look out the window at the airbase, what should I write? Our plane has started rotating onto the runaway.
“How far away is Nova Carthago?” says Vick.
“About a three hour flight,” says Blake, lowering his cap over his face. “Get some rest.”
The engines roar and the plane shakes during takeoff. I watch as Jericho shrinks behind us, smoke still rising out of hidden fires that cover most of the city. As we reach higher elevations breaking through the cloud line, I see that there are numerous jets and other aircraft in the skyline too. The whole upper atmosphere is a buzz of craft flying around. Out in the distance I see a cluster of orange trails zip down like meteorites—an orbital bombardment from our battleships. The rounds fly down in a succession of bright streaks. Breaking through the clouds as lighting cast from God in the heavens himself.
A constant reminder of the war raging below us.
XVIII
After landing and checking into our hotel, our platoon breaks up. Captain Tarnus informs us that he is going to a special officers club, and the rest of us plan to go on a tour of the capital. First though, I get down to writing a letter to my family like everyone else. We are issued tablets that will take our stylist hand written letter we write, and convert them into text for our families to receive via email or phone.
But the hardest part arrives as I stare at my blank tablet. What do I say? What do I say when for the last month I have been in this shitty planet destroyed by war. There isn’t much that is positive to say. Cloud?—I definitely couldn’t tell them that. Beyond the shame and guilt I have for what I’ve become, the Party Reps reviews each letter. They would find out about it and I punished. Creon pops into my mind.
I almost died little brother.
I almost died so many times. Every time I died I thought of you. I thought of you when we were young and we would play those imaginary games together, where we would fight the enemy or pretend to shoot each other. And I thought, it’s just a game. They’ll shoot me and I’ll play dead, and after the battle I’ll get back up like we did in our fake wars.
I look around the hotel room, viewing the men from my unit. Their shaved heads, with the drug distributors on their upper necks that poke slightly out of their skin. I move to feel mine; the cold, metal, rugged rectangle placed neatly above my last vertebra.
God Creon, you can’t imagine how good of a pretend war the military can put on. They have planes and tanks and explosions. Like the ones in the movies that we would emulate later, by adding them to our imaginary battles in the backyard. We would shoot the spies climbing over the fence to our patio. You would get hit and I had to rush over to revive you. But here, you don’t always get back up, even in our game, those who get injured don’t always get saved.
They die. Ray. Julian.
How many of them have little brothers? How many of them wish they could be pondering what to write to their families like I am now. How many of those bleeding men, crying for help that I could have reached out and pulled back into the trench, how many of them would have been writing their brothers right now? How many did I let die.
Oh god, How many were buried? Sent home in a casket. How many? How many men died? Why am I still alive?
I take a deep breathe.
I am still alive because I am fighting for their legacy. For this world. And even though I have finally come to the acceptance that this war is necessary, I hate it. I hate what it has done, what it has done to me. I may be fighting a just war. But how I am fighting it isn’t. I, I… I am a drug addict! That only looks for the next high to forget about the pain, even though it is this pain I claim to be fighting in vengeance for. So who am I really running away from, the pain of myself for being a coward in disguise, or of this war, and my responsibility to fight it?
Isaac bumps my shoulder. “Come on man, you writing a novel? The bus is gonna be here any minute.”
I raise my hands to my head to try and sooth the arriving headache. I put the stylist against the screen and write.