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PREVIOUS CHAPTER INDEX NEXT CHAPTER Dark Crimson By Nick P. Earth. Shit. I never thought I’d see its blue orb again. But there it was, looming vastly outside my tiny port window. As eyes travelled towards it, the blackness of space lessened into a beautiful blue while stars disappeared. It was Earth that cast away all darkness. Green and brown continents drifted to and fro with sharp and jagged edges that flowed into the single, universal blue that covered the globe. Tiny islands dotted the seas while swirls and puffs of white clouds wrapped around giant mountains, tiny little irregularities as seen from space, and over vast plains. After the desolate, bare, and empty Stroggos, Earth was a feast for my eyes, as well as for my other senses. So long ago, I had wanted war. Now I thought I wanted Earth, but I wasn’t quite convinced. After what I had seen, after what I had heard, nothing seemed to fit together and I wasn’t sure just where I belonged. War had come to me alright, but not the way I had wanted it. It was true war. No heroism, little firing. I had only fired my blaster once or twice throughout the entire mission. It wasn’t what I visualised. No machine gun over my shoulder, nothing. It was all a waste of time and energy and resources. It was death, senseless slaughter, from which we were to gain what? Nothing of importance. The war wasn’t over, but it sure as hell was for me. I didn’t want anymore of it; I didn’t want to be a part of the circus any longer. Of course, I had to work towards getting released. I still hadn’t set foot on Earth, and yet I knew what I was going to do after my debriefing. It was all over. I had done my part, but others were waiting in line to do theirs. And perhaps the United Terra Coalition would someday win what it wanted, the entire planet Stroggos. Or maybe they would finally come to a reasonable realisation and know that it is all a waste of time. Maybe they’ll realise that the only way out is apocalypse. For the last two days, I had been sitting at the Midway, undergoing the usual medical exam before my return. Doctors prodded me with all sorts of devices and things, took skin, urine, and blood samples, all the while keeping me sealed off in an airtight chamber along with Lance and several other gruff, tired soldiers. The trip back across the Stroggian Desert had gone fairly well. Our worries had been that the Vagga Bridge had finally fallen down. When we had gone through on our way in, it sure as hell looked ready to collapse. But when we got there, it was still as before, a swinging, swaying, unstable mass of steel, concrete, and wires. It had probably fallen down, but had been rebuilt as the Chief once said, so ‘the generals can say that the road’s open.’ If it were down when we came through on our way back, I would’ve thrown myself into the canyon. If it had fallen and no one had bothered to prop it back up again, I wouldn’t have been sitting at the Midway, wrapped in a towel, waiting for the last tests and samples to be taken. And finally, on the third day, I was cleared and boarded a return shuttle that landed in Washington D.C. From there, due to the severity of my classified mission, I was to go directly to the Coalition Headquarters for immediate debriefing. These guys didn’t spare time. They were probably going to push the rank of major under my nose. They thought what I had done was heroic. But they didn’t know, they hadn’t seen all that I had seen. The people running the war were blind. The ones fighting it saw the truth. But they had no voice. My mind went blank as the metallic hull around me heated up by the friction with our life-harbouring atmosphere and turned to plasma. All that was to be seen from my tiny window was the bright, blue flame. My brain had seemed to lapse frequently after I had been forced to deal with Kurt. My thoughts would stray away and I would find myself back in that temple, knife at hand, walking quickly and firmly towards Kurt. And I could see his face ever so clearly. Kurt had held many opinionated views that he couldn’t simply say outloud. In order to get his point across, he had to act, and rather severely, too. He had done it, he had left his mark. But what would come from it? I could remember Kurt saying on that tape so long ago: ‘They lie; they lie, and look what has come to because of it! I hate them, hate them, and they must be killed as well.’ I had thought he was talking about the Stroggs, it was only logical to do so at this wartime. But I had been wrong. He had been referring to our own government, the UTC. To ourselves. Landing gears screeched against hard ground and I realised we had landed. From there, my debriefing went as expected. I recalled the entire story, from beginning to end, not mentioning the things I had seen at the trenches near the Vagga Canyon Bridge or the incident with the colonist buggy. All the while, my superiors nodded and typed notes in their portable databases. Everything was being recorded. And when I finally got around to Kurt, a dead silence hung. A great sigh of praise and relief followed. I told them I had shot him with a rail gun, as a sniper. I knew what they wanted to hear, and that’s what I told them. They didn’t care if I was lying, as long as the part about Kurt’s death was true. They hinted at a possible promotion in the coming days, then let me go, telling me to return promptly tomorrow. I was going to deal with them later. But as I was leaving, I was forced to face something else as well. It was Kurt’s son. He met me as I was leaving the building, out in the lobby. I had just finished describing everything in complete chronological order, and that made things only worse. All this told me quite a bit about security these days; some careless officer must’ve let him wander in. I would’ve avoided it, but I knew I had to talk to him. It was what Kurt had wanted. He stood there, a pale, tall, skinny thing that looked like anything but his father. He smiled politely. It was worse than facing Kurt himself. He went on to tell me what a great man his father had been, about his great mind, success, and inexplicable downfall, about which he wanted to know. He knew that I had been there when Kurt had died. Perhaps that was one trait he shared with his father: you didn’t talk to him; you listened to the man. He nearly told me a complete biography of the Colonel, about how he had graduated with full marks, about how he had returned to Earth and never been the same again, and about how his wife’s parents had been against their marriage. And then he paused and statements turned to questions. “How did he die?” I looked away. “He was shot by a sniper.” “Well, did he die quick?” At that question, I paused. What was I to say? I couldn’t hide this portion, I just felt that I had to be honest. “No.” The boy seemed uncomfortable as me as time drew on, and then asked, “What were his dying words? Did he say anything before he died? He probably did, if he didn’t pass away right then, it’s in his nature. What did he say?” I looked into his pale, grey eyes and said nothing. “He must’ve said something. What was it?” But I continued to stand there, unsure of what to do. And I could remember Kurt, his bloodied, disfigured corpse and red lips moving with obvious strain, his tired eyes dancing around wildly. “He said… your name.” He smiled softly and I knew that was what he had wanted to hear. But in my mind, I knew the truth. I could see the troop carriers and the poor natives, I saw their villages, the scraps in the road. I saw the buggy, I saw Chef and the Chief, Lance and Clean. I could see the gunfights, the creaking Vagga Bridge, the bombings and raids. I could see the spy and the downed bomber. The trenches and torn limbs and the pulsating wall of human remains. The temple, the road lined with heads. The Russian. And then, in the collage of moving images, I saw Kurt. I could see his bare head, covered in dark crimson blood, black eyes scanning emptily. I could see his weathered hand, once fine, strong, and crafty, moving feebly in the darkness. And from that very darkness, his voice rang out, ‘Drop the bomb, exterminate them all!’ Yes, I could see him and the pain that ran through him. And then he closed his eyes and the lingering flame fell away from his face. “The horror… the horror…”
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