Jack grabs the top handles for support and sits down nearby. I let the numbness take me over. His words flow into my ears. “It was me who chose to spearhead the reinforcements to save y’all from getting completely wiped out. Shit, Marshall Hannibal is probably having a fit that one of his most trusted commanders disobeyed direct orders.”
I glance up at him. So he doesn’t know. Nor how fucked we are for not dying nice and easy here.
“You look surprised. I was called back because I was too valuable to lose. The big man Hannibal just said if things went south to report that y’all meet up, and under overwhelming forces were defeated in a valorous fight to the death—or so how the Party would show it. Anyway, you probably don’t know this, but Hannibal loves his army, he loves you Private. This probably comes as confusing to you considering what I just said. But he really does. If there would have been no adverse effect on the army if he abandoned that surrounded division you were sent out to save, he would have not sent you, so that he could have saved your life. More men died trying to save them than if we left them to their own devices, and that’s what Hannibal would have done, but you know the motto, ‘No man left behind.’”
Jack chuckles, opens a container grabbing a cigar, and rolls it about his fingers. “But that’s also why I came for y’all. Hannibal is one of those fatherly utilitarian kind of figures, he doesn’t want to waste any unnecessary lives of his army, of his men, but he will also do whatever necessary to try and keep y’all happy—while also trying to win—to keep you as best content as possible, and I think that’s impossible to do. Obviously he’s done a shit job on the making us all happy part, but not because it’s his fault, this is a goddamn war, not vacation after all. But also, it’s because of this war specifically, it’s a different type of war. It’s a special war.”
He lights the cigar and takes a puff blowing the smoke out to the wind. “I came to save you guys because you’re all we have; there were no more reserves to send, no more reinforcements. The nations at home can’t get along and shit is hitting the fan there. Our whole Coalition is breaking apart as we know it, ironic how it’s happening while we’re millions of miles away fighting aliens, but it is. And I know you hate me, Private, everyone does, and if you didn’t hate me then I haven’t done my job right. It’s not because I like to be hated, it’s because I have learned I am only hated when I do my job perfectly, so that’s the only way I know I am doing stuff right.”
He puffs his cigar, the red smoldering circle at the end of it continues talking, “As I said though, this is a different type of war. I used you like a part of my tool belt and you became one of my most valuable tools. And I knew I could push y’all far without you needing to hold my hand. Whether you like it or not, you’re a pawn. And I play chess very aggressively. I use pawns to win, I sacrifice them when need to. But I am not a coward or unfair. I don’t play chest from a safe armchair like sweet ol’ Hannibal. I am a marine first, and I wouldn’t ask you men to do anything I wouldn’t. That is why I disobeyed orders and came back to save you. Because I always fight with my men, and two,” he glances at the other marines slumped and bleeding over each other in the hull, “this would have been a waste of a pawn.”
He glances at me for a moment. “You’re looking angry as I expected. You need to hammer that truth into your head Private. It’s what you signed up for, well not really for you, because you were drafted right?” Jack’s mouth grins through the smoke. “Well, it’s what you agreed to when you were born a citizen of the U S of A. You got to see though, Hannibal and I have different philosophies and strategies, but our outcomes and face value decisions are practically the same. See, you would be safe and cozy in your foxhole if Hannibal had his way in not aiding the stranded division, but he had to try even though it makes no sense to me that he did—higher up’s orders I suppose. As for me, you would also be there safe and sound if I were in control, for I would have never sent that division off knowing quite well it would get destroyed. And if I did—even though I wouldn’t—and circumstances were different, I would have sent you out, and then another if you failed, and finally, as what did happened, I still would of rode out to save what was left of my boys regardless. And it looks like you were a lucky one, one of the apples I grabbed out of the orchard that was ablaze and brought home.”
Jack taps his cigar on his boot, and the ash flies off into the wind. “Back to my other point though, this war. When I was young, at the field during recess, I would grab handfuls of ants, and put them near other ants. They wouldn’t fight a lot, mostly try to run away or dodge each other, they only really killed each other if it became a matter of interests, like over a piece of food or if the other colony got to close to home. Well one day I took that handful of ants, and found some termites. I put them down near each other, and you know what happened? They fucking destroyed each other, it was an insect genocide. An insecticide! No mercy, or trying to escape, they ripped each other apart. So I added more to the fight, and for hours they kept on killing. The ants then began building lines from their colony to the termites, and their huge lines swarmed the termite nest. The termites fought back, but at the end of the day, the ants wiped every one of those termites out, even the eggs.”
He takes a long puff from his cigar and stares at me. “You’re an ant Private. This Coalition is a swarm of ants, and those Herculeans are termites. Termites are a lot bigger and scarier, they require lots of ants to take down, but ants are stronger than termites, that’s why they always win. You’re my handful of ants, and when I find a termite, I drop you off around it and watch you duke it out, just like when I was a school kid. These are Herculeans. They are another species, just like ants and termites. And different species like to wipe each other out, it’s an instinct kind of thing. That’s what the Herculeans are trying to do, clearly they see us as a threat, or they need something we’re using. So they are trying to remove us. But my brave handfuls of ants won’t let that happen. And if one handful fails, I send another, the colony will always make more, and more handfuls I’ll send till I win.
“The threat to that strategy is when the colony gets cut off though. And that’s what happened here with Hannibal’s bizarre orders. So sometimes I have to come back and separate the bugs and take mine back. Even though Hannibal loves you, I acted more in your self-interest coming out and saving you, funny huh? Your loving father would have left you, because he has more soldiers he loves elsewhere. But I don’t love you, I can’t, or I couldn’t do this job. When you make the field a chess game and the pawns are insects—or just pawns for that matter—that’s when and how you win a war. Off their skill and use, not some mushy belief that everyone has an intrinsic value to just be alive. Shit, this is war, if we were worried about lives and love, we wouldn’t be having one now would we?”
Jack finishes his cigar, and blows the last inhale of smoke into rings that disappear through the wind, followed by his tossed cigar bud. “You let that all sink in, Private. This war is different, and the Herculeans know that too, that we are all just bugs, pawns, which you use to win. Nothing more. You boys are the cash of war. Before we send you out on a mission, we always estimate first how many body bags we’ll need to order. It seems harsh, but war is a strict merchant.”
The helicopter lands back at base. “This is your stop, marine. Finish this war, and maybe you can go back to your other life.”
“General.”