Soul at War (5 page)

"I did, sir," I answered. The faces of
the crew turned on me. Teeth clenched ready to shatter, the Captain
raised a finger straight at me.

"What the hell for!"

"For examination before destruction
sir. Reports have shown genetic modification and part of my remit
is to make sure every body taken is examined thoroughly by the
medical team.”

"Don't make me repeat myself,
Private."

"That's Lieutenant Shap sir. The man I
was telling you about," Burns said with a hint of
trepidation.

"That still doesn't give him the right
to decide what happens to the rotting corpses of my enemy." There
was silence.

"Answer, Lieutenant," Burns
ordered.

"I was enlisted under Military Office
orders and take authority in this area. Please allow me to go on
with my work. Sir.”

"So you're the M.O special boy then?"
The Captain spat. His face had turned a bright cherry red and veins
bulged out of his left temple, shooting a glance at
Burns.

"Sir, I've read the files. There is
more to this than we thought, these bodies must be examined for
genetic alteration. At least then we might have an idea what we're
up against." The Captain chewed it over like a bear does with a bee
in its mouth. Burns just grinned and looked up to the
ceiling.

“Burns here might think you're
special, Shap. But I've read files too. I'll be keeping a close eye
on the man who walks out when the fighting gets too much for him.
Once the reports have been sent back to M.O I want these bodies
spaced and that ship destroyed. Are we clear?”

“Yes sir.” I said as he turned to
storm away down the corridor.

*

The following day, the Midian had
resumed it's course for the Zion group, leaving the fragmented
remains of the ARC ship in its wake.

"I think you made as many enemies as
you did friends today, John." We were sat in Burns private quarters
on deck twelve, a bottle of sixty-five year old scotch between us.
Burns held his up to simulated candlelight and i swilled mine
around the glass.

"The Captain's an aresehole. He knows
why I'm here he should just let me get on with it," I replied a
little too coarsely.

"There's a lot of hatred towards the
Reds but I suppose that goes for their side too. The Captain has
more reason than most to hate them. He served under Rorsch when he
was on our side. He felt the betrayal more keenly than
most."

“Fair play.” I said. “But the only way
we're going to have a chance is to out think Rorsch because he sure
as hell will out think us. He was one of the best and he will now
make a formidable enemy. I can't think of anyone else I'd NOT want
to be up against.”

“You were there, you served under him.
Why do you think he turned?”

“He was a little bit mad to start
with. His genius on the field came at a price. He was quick to
adopt what ever the Chaplain said – what ever the denomination. He
was always looking for the answers to the big questions and every
victory on the battlefield brought him closer and closer to
believing he was blessed by deity.”

“I never served near him. We always
ended up on other sides of the galaxy. He was a legend though.
People rushed to briefings just to hear what he'd done that month.
A lot of people were devastated once news broke from the
M.O.”

“I was there at his peak. It was he
who got me the Lieutenants stripe.” I downed my drink and poured
another.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. We'd just made planet fall when
we were ambushed. Our drop ship put us down on the outskirts of a
major stronghold we'd been given intel on. As Rorsch' ship landed
on the north side he and his crew were fired upon almost
immediately. He lost several troopers before I took the decision to
divert off mission to support him. When we arrived he and a single
private were the only survivors.”

“Wow. I'm surprised you didn't get a
medal for that one. You crawled right up his arse.” Dan laughed but
there had been nothing funny there at the time.

“Looking back I was in serious
trouble. I'd ignored my orders and gone off mission. It was Rorsch
who put a stop to me being arrested the minute we returned to the
ship. I didn't think it was important at the time but he put a hand
on my shoulder as we left the hangar and said 'boy, when the time
comes I will need people like you by my side'.”

“So even then he was planning to
betray us?” Dan said. I nodded and we were silent for a while. You
could hear the gentle hum of the engines far off into the distant
bowels of the ship. Boots marched outside the door, moving towards
the aft decks.

“Religion eh? We're saving crackpots
from crackpots.” Dan said softly.

“You know it's not polite to talk
about religion and politics in company.” I said,
laughing.

“Well Rorsch counts as politics in my
opinion. So why not go double or nothing?”

“I suppose.”

“Okay then. Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why does god allow this to happen to
his special missionaries out there? That's if there actually is a
god. Why would he let an army like ARC butcher his
'children'."

"Why not? I mean, what is ARC? They're
people like us, not some spawn of Satan. In the twentieth century
Adolf Hitler was deemed the anti-Christ, the devil incarnate. He
was a truly evil man, but how could god allow him to do the things
he did to the Jews? Go back a few years to his early life. You'll
find a young man horribly injured in conflict. You'll find a man
who sees his beloved country being brought to its knees by the
Allies after world war one, being punished repeatedly by
legislation regarding industry and commerce. He does what we're all
guilty of - he seeks revenge. He builds Germany back up, creates a
booming economy and a powerful army to exact that revenge. Did god
play a part in that? No, the Allies did by not learning from their
mistakes. Whether you like the fact or not, if you look at history
and take god out of it, it wouldn't look any different. Moses and
the Israelites, a tribe who fought a bloody campaign to seize and
control modern day Israel.”

"Are you saying we’re responsible for
ARC?"

"It's possible, somewhere. Rorsch
thinks his way of life is better than ours and he's convinced or
brainwashed a whole lot of other people to think the same
way.

"And ARC was the result?"

"In my opinion? Yes. Now we're just
beginning to realise how powerful a belief system is - especially
in the hands of fanatics."

“Some of the guys upstairs, the head
sheds, they're calling this a war between good and evil.” Burns
drained his glass as if in rebellion to the thought. “But can we
call it that? Really?”

“They did the same with world war two.
But which was which? Hitler bombed civilian targets, so did the
Allies. There was torture and guilt on both sides. Dresden.
Nagasaki. Hiroshima. Were the Allies really that good? The Russians
had the Gulags, the Nazis had the Camps. Down to the core, man is
self-centered. I don't mean that in a moral sense, I mean his main
interests first and foremost are to his own needs and desires. It's
natural, a living being must first seek it's own survival in a
hostile environment like this. So everything it does must have,
somewhere in it, a benefit or reward to himself.”

“What's your point?”

“My point is...” I thought about it,
finished my drink. “...life can be summed up not in terms of good
and evil.”

Burns laughed. “But...?”

“The man with the biggest gun always
wins.”

CHAPTER 4

The Midian settled into a low orbit of
the lush green world of Sidon six days overdue. Sentry drones
floating just inside the atmosphere trained heavy auto lasers onto
us, kicking off the alarms again. One of the Techs's told me it was
standard procedure.

"They sense the damage, relay it to
their base and run it through analysis to see probable cause. If it
is detected as damage from conflict the guns arm against a possible
hijack." I'd grabbed him when he walked past my billet just as the
alarms had gone berserk; the guy hadn't even flinched when they'd
started wailing.

"So what happens next?" I
asked.

"We send them security codes that
change on a daily basis."

"Then what?"

"They let us launch landing
craft."

"And if the codes are wrong?" He
sighed, clearly wanting to be somewhere else.

"Then they blast the craft out of the
stratosphere. Have a nice flight." And with that he disappeared
down the corridor, just as Green was coming the other
way.

"Hey Lieutenant. Sarge says planet
fall is at 19:00. Full kit and NBC's to be worn - there's a
chemical leak right where we're landing and we can't divert." I
took down my chest rig and began to pack away my personal items.
Everything else had never left the Bergen since I'd been issued
with it.

*

We were assembled in drop-bay four,
the great gleaming craft suspended on magnetic locks above a sealed
airlock. It was sleek and painted in anti-radar colours that
glistened in the artificial light and the gull-wing hatch was open
on its port side. Techs milled around carrying out last minute
adjustments. It wasn't my first introduction to a drop craft, but
this model was new and a lot more sophisticated than the one I was
used to.

I was one of twenty-three troops lined
up against one wall, NBC masks hanging lazily around our necks and
our kit at our feet in front of us. Sergeant Phillips in similar
dress marched up and down the line doing random checks as he went.
He caught Green's sloppy wrist seals and yanked them into
place.

"You wanna die, Green?" he shouted.
"You wanna suck some funky dust? Maybe get a little high, is that
it?"

"Sir, no sir!" he replied, mask
bouncing around.

"How the hell have you made it this
far, Green? How the hell have you lived without me wiping your ass
for you!"

"Sir, I don't know sir."

"I think I know, Green. I think I have
the answer, Green. I think you're momma dropped you on your head
and you bounced! I think you have a god-damn rubber skull and
nothings gonna kill you."

"Sir, thank-you sir."

"EXCEPT ME IF I SEE YOU DRESSING
SLOPPY AGAIN! UNDERSTAND!" Green's face ran red.

"Sir, yes sir."

"Right babies, haul ass into that
Mercedes over there." We shot forward up the ramp. "Kit to be
stowed in overhead compartments! Nothing loose except your
dicks."

Troopers scrambled around inside the
cramped cabin trying to find their allocated seats. I found mine
near to the cockpit next to the Sergeant and slung my kit into a
hole above it. Then I sat down and buckled up.

Minutes later we were launched from
the Midian. Out of the window on my left I could see the sentry
drones locking onto us. They looked like floating balls with
arms.

"I don't like the looks of those
drones," said one of the troopers.

"I think that one likes you, Walker,"
Shouted Green over the engines. "It wants to do naughty things to
you."

"He'll have to wait, I'm seeing your
mother tonight." The cab erupted in cheers. Private Tony Walker was
Green's other half of a long standing double act. If they weren't
gluing each others property to bulk heads, they were getting drunk
in the bar and chewing over memories of the lunar city they were
both raised in.

"Shut it back there," The Sergeant
yelled. "ETA 12 minutes people."

"Seriously, Walker. Why would anyone
care about you?" Green this time.

"I need all the help I can get,
bailing your ass out of the shit.”

"What, like the ambush on that
training planet?"

"That was different, I did that for
your benefit, you needed it more than I did."

"What about the time you left your
belt kit at the brothel and needed me to run back and get
it?"

"I left it on purpose you idiot -
she'd shit all over it, I didn't want that back anyway."

"You will go for these alien
types."

"She was hardly alien, she came from
London."

"My point exactly."

"What, like your sister?"

"What about my sister?"

"She used to pee when she came. Three
times I got a golden shower screwing her."

"Your sister changed lanes - on
me!"

"You shared sisters?" I threw
in.

"Sorry Lieutenant, you shouldn't be
hearing this," Walker said.

"Why not? He should know what your
family is like. Dinner at your house is served outside in the
trough."

"Sunday lunch with your Dad means
cooking it yourself. Remember the time you got Pizza? Your Dad
thought I'd made it!"

"It was that bad even I thought you
had at the end."