Mission 33
Deepak rolled over in the dark and felt something warm and wet. Half-dreaming, he thought he’d dipped his hand in another bowl of honey his mother extracted from the colony. The chittering of his bunkmates stirred him, and he curled his hand toward his chest and sniffed.
They turned the helmet full of piss over on him. It stained everything. Deepak swung out of bed, shouting and spitting in one loud howl. Laughter fled the scene and bedframes creaked. By the time he got the piss out of his eyes and turned the lights on, everyone was looking around like they’d just woken up. He could have checked them, seen who had bags under their eyes, but he wanted the piss off. Deepak tore off his clothes and walked to the stalls. The laughter echoed behind him until the showerhead creaked and drowned them out in steam.
*
Nolan and Deepak were sent to scout this morning. Sergeant’s orders. They could either go a kilometer out or reach an elevation where the next scouting party could take over. The elevation was close, and Deepak lost two hours of sleep cleaning urine from his hair, so he opted for the latter. Even if he couldn’t breathe after the climb.
They stood atop Old Coyote Cliff, in the midsection of what was once called the northeast. The clearing from their recent eastward mission was open, trees and crags blasted far from the center path.
As today’s scouts, it wouldn’t be enough for Deepak and Nolan to find a westward route. They would have to start burning the new one. Deforestation was a harsh but effective means of clearing the path for not only their trek across the country, but their eastbound brothers. And Sergeant ordered it, so what could they do?
“Dee,” Nolan said. Deepak glanced away from the path. Nolan was squatting on a stone, hands draped over his knees. He’d never do that around the Regiment. Deepak slid his hand from his jacket pocket and took a hit of his inhaler before sliding it back in. He’d never do that, either. “You ever think about what we’re doing?”
“No,” Deepak said after holding his breath for fifteen seconds, five to let him think. “We’re scouting. How do you mean?”
“Signing up for the Regiment.”
Deepak shrugged. “It’s what you do. Everyone eighteen and––”
“I know. But you’re not even eighteen, and you have asthma. And I enlisted two months before I turned eighteen.”
“Why enlist if you were going to be drafted anyway?” Deepak said, returning to his scouting duties now that his chest muscles relaxed.
“Because I was going to be drafted anyway,” Nolan said. “I guess I was just wondering. You’re young. You’ve got bad lungs. They’d have never let you in if they knew. You could still be living south, if your family’s rich enough.”
“They’re not,” Deepak said. “What do you think about that mountain there? What’s it called?”
Nolan took out his binoculars. “Baron’s Peak. Could be good. Looks like it’s been a few cycles since anyone cleared it. Getting the high ground will be hell.”
Deepak shrugged.
Nolan nodded. He tried on a smile. “Answer me this. What do you want to do when this is all over?”
*
“It’s a slaughter, Sergeant!” someone screamed. Deepak had no idea who. Mud and dirt flung from the ground and trees fell in smoldering heaps. A layer of smoke wafted at head-level. He and the other members of the Regiment were on their bellies or crouched ditches.
“Any man who backs down this hill gets shot by my pistol! Understood?” the Sergeant barked. He wasn’t an angry person; usually he told Deepak and the others what to do in a matter-of-fact, “I’ll do this and you do that” manner. Now was different. Deepak could tell the Sergeant was frightened.
He shrugged his way against the earth, elbows scraping against stone and ember while insectile pricks danced atop his helmet. You told yourself it was just rubble from the blasts. Knowing it was the enemy actively trying to pierce through to your brain left some members of the Regiment frozen on the battlefield.
His chest was convulsing, his lungs worn and scratchy. The howl of their Promes expelling flame could almost be confused for white noise, so he told himself that, too.
The pistol sounded off, shattering the reverie. A gunshot was rare in all the calamity. Deepak didn’t look back, but he heard the Sergeant’s voice boom that same warning from below. Now, it sounded certain.
*
They found Nolan’s body at the summit. He’d made the opening that would become the half-kilo-wide birth Deepak and the Regiment burned in. One of his eyes was missing, filament spilling out. His body was charred. His way out, after the enemy made contact.
Privates of the Regiment made a pyre of corpses, sending a smokestack to whoever would see them. A message that this hill, this day, belonged to them.
The Sergeant was talking to Deepak as they looked over Nolan’s corpse. Deepak didn’t get most of it. He was fighting to keep his breaths from spasming.
“When we reach the midpoint, it’s my intention to send you back around. Help our eastward brothers clear the path once more,” Sergeant said. He spoke softly, as if in private conversation. “Maybe we’ll meet again, another mission.” Then, at the same volume, “Take this one to the pyre.”
Two privates came and grabbed Nolan’s corpse by his armpits and ankles. Others traded cigarettes and laughter. Popcorn crinkling in a nearby pan. Music from a radio.
What had Nolan asked him? What he wanted to do, after?
When they moved down the mountain, Deepak was allowed to sit in the rear starch wagon. He watched the helmets of his comrades, half-dreaming. The shining metal bobbled atop their thin necks like dandelions. He imagined the bits of helmet being stripped away, like the weeds in the wind. He never slept.
***
Danny Giancioppo is a Massachusetts-born prose and comic author, previously published in Grim & Gilded and You Might Need to Hear This. While he's not producing literary and speculative fiction, he rides his bike around suburban Massachusetts and hangs out with his cat, Cappuccino.