Herus walks back and forth among the traitors that are hand tied and kneeling in the mud facing the front line. “These are the worst scum you can meet!” Herus says at the spectating marines. “Worse than the aliens. They have betrayed you! Your fellow brothers, for their real comrades, these fucking terrorists!” He aims his pistol at the burning city, and trickling injured walking away from the smoke. “Traitors, Herc lovers, they receive no mercy!” Herus places the pistol against the head of one of the squirming officers and fires. The front of his face explodes against the mud.
“You said we wouldn’t die if we listened!” says the next officer, trying to turn his head towards Herus as he nears.
Herus grabs his face, and turns it forward to face the marines. “Traitors do not receive mercy!” He fires the pistol again. The officer falls to the side, sinking into the mud as his legs seizer about for last life.
My knees loose strength and the XM drops from my grasp. We realize what we have done. Marines fall to the mud, crying and puking as others throw their rifles and masks away, and more still charge into the smoke or take their lives.
“Goddam it!” says the Commander. “Find out what son of a bitch gave that order and fucking shoot him!”
I fall to the corpse laden ground soaked by the mud and blood. I rip my mask off as I vomit. I cough in the smoky air. My eyes are a blurry vision of tears. “Why! Why! How could I do such a thing?”
I look for my gun. A man next to me begins screaming and firing his rifle into a crowd of weeping marines and refugees. I find mine and crawl for it so I can take my life. It is too much to bear—the horror! Herus is hit and falls to the ground. Marines collapse and wail.
My hand reaches out through the falling ash at my XM submerged in the mud.
There you go my little warrior. There you go.
I fall into the mud. I rise to my knees, wiping the mud out of my eyes. Officers are running about administering additional shots to everyone. I see Isaac sitting atop a dead woman in the mud next to me, his XM in between his thighs, and barrel poised up against his chin. He drops the rifle and looks confused at me, then laughs.
The Commander steps onto a Humvee brought forward by an NCO. “You are fucking grunts, you’re not here to think, but to obey.” He points at the cowering and maimed survivors of the city. “They are savages.” He turns to his retinue while glancing at us. “Get them out of here and secure the city.”
Herus is recovered from the mud by medics who drag him to the Humvee. In a fit of rage he fires his pistol randomly into the line of marines, taking a few down. He is loaded onto the Humvee, and the vehicle leaves going pass us. Herus yells back one last time, “I swear to god you fucking traitors, your grave will be here on this shit hole with the rest of the natives!”
Leading officers organize us. We are silent, I look around at my fellow marines, many of them rub their heads and carry each other. What happened? We walk lazily following our officers out of the outskirts back to the trenches. People in white biohazard suits without any insignias pass us with flamers, scorching bodies to a crisp as they move about. Marines point and laugh at them, others shrug their shoulders.
Refugees walk with us out of the ruins of Khaf’Jadeed. Mothers holding dead children stagger around looking lost. Families cry and call people’s names, while others that are burned and maimed limp among each other, their clothes torn and singed off. Did they get hit by Herculeans? They all mix with us till they are herded off by Military Police and led into the distance.
All I can think of is a nice bed to rest on as we load up onto carriers to leave. A light drizzle of rain begins falling on us, washing away the smut and dirt on my face. Our armored carries trek away from the smoldering city. My muddy arms rest on the rear of my carrier as I look back at the burning buildings and tiny crowds walking around aimlessly. I can’t help but shake off the thought that this was maybe our creation, and that I should feel terrible about it.
FALL
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
XX
One week later I am awarded the Medal of Honor.
It is for courageous action in Tionem.
I leave the base, where the whole battalion from the Khaf’Jadeed massacre is stationed at. It was more of a prison. We were not allowed to leave the parameters under any circumstances, and our weapons were detained from us. For our work we broke down earth and helped repair machinery while under extensive DT drugging, and attending classes that reminded us what we did what was right and that they were the enemy. That we shouldn’t feel bad about it. That mistakes happen, and in our rush to liberate the city we got carried away.
Inside the electric fences I waited dead for Cloud every day. Today being no different as I am escorted to a chopper. It’s all I wake up for now. To give me fake life. Or they come back. They come back asking why they’re dead.
Julian’s last sentences always play around in my head in the few moments I am sober. “Because you’re innocent, you don’t deserve this.”
But they got it. We all did. War is blind. It doesn’t care to stay away from the innocent. Bullets don’t come with a moral GPS guiding themselves towards those deserving to get hit. If they did, I would probably be in casket on my way home by now.
The helicopter takes us to Jericho, where we take an armored jeep to my new living quarters for the time being. As we go through the streets, I see that graffiti and posters cover almost every wall carrying similar messages.
I look out the window of a used to be hotel room—where I am staying on the fourth floor—into the town center of the city. Thousands of protesters blockade the square having created barricades of their own, where they throw rocks at a line of armored riot police with raised shields. Behind the armored police stand Coalition troops at the ready. The crowd rants and cheers. Moltoves are thrown at the police, and their lines break apart as some catch fire while others try to put them out.
A loud speaker booms from the police side, “Any violence will be met with additional force!”
The protesters shout back in unison, “Down with the aliens! You’re just alien supporters! Sellouts to our world! Remember Khaf’Jadeed!” The crowd continues to shout as more rockets and moltoves are hurled across the square at the police.
A loud uproar from behind the protesting crowd grabs everyone’s attention. At first it is panic, and then it’s followed by even more hysterical cheering from the protester side. A large force of policemen and native soldiers, supportive of the protesters, march into the crowd with white and local flags in the air shouting, “We support Nova Terra! Down with both alien invaders! Both the aliens need to go home!”
The rebel police come to the back of the crowd and cheer on the protesters. Nearby a reporter in Kevlar armor frantically relays the information to his radioman of the occurring events. A loud whistle breaks the cheering and hoopla as a smoking canister flies out towards the rebels from the police side, and explodes over the protesting crowd. Tear gas seethes forth, and burns some of the protesters’ faces as others run in panic coughing. Other protesters holding bandannas to their mouths throw some back, but more canisters follow crashing into the crowd till it turns into a consistent bombardment.