2023-08-04

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Another shot pings off the pole, ricocheting into my leg. Just when I thought my luck couldn’t get any worse, the enemy sends me another piece of their fine lead. It joins the five in my hip, three in my forearm, and seven in my torso. The rewards for my service, each one of them glancing blows and ricochets. Doesn’t mean they hurt less. Maybe more. Imagine dying to the enemy, near drowning in the mud, and they didn’t even intend to shoot you. I won’t have to imagine.

My comrades left me here, in the end. Thought I was dead, for some reason. I’ll admit I play the role well. Pale cold skin, pool of red blood, continued crazy delirium. You name it and I had. Have it. That’s what you tend to get, after a knife finds you. I had wondered for a time whether I should pull it out or leave it. Now I’m glad I was too weak to do anything. Now I’m fully conscious again, I’m pretty sure something is important where the blade sits. Pull it out? Die, probably.

They had laughed when I announced my intentions.

Don’t be ridiculous.

It’s not our war.

What could you possibly do?

I paid for necessary changes, made the journey, faked the papers, and enlisted. Those at the office didn’t even look twice, didn’t want another face on their consciences. Those old soldiers knew their team was screwed, then and there, and signed me up knowing I was fodder. Three days training: how to shoot a rifle, how to salute to a superior, and how you would die if you didn’t learn those two lessons. Then it was our team who were screwed. A month’s ride for what was a fortnight’s journey only five years earlier. These days the roads and rails are simply gone. Blasted, shelled, or burned by the front as it had surged forwards and backwards. And now, just backwards.

When They stopped laughing, They had asked why. I found my only reply was lame and unoriginal. As I lie in the mud, listening and feeling the enemy flick idle potshots over my trench, I reflect on this.

More eloquent replies come now.

You must rise against tyranny, or else you support it.

The more hands, the shorter the war.

If I don’t, who will?

I wonder what They’d have said to those words and as I wonder, Seragia seems to sit in front of me. She was the loudest critic, but also the kindest.

“You’ve really made a mess this time, huh.”

I tried to look at her, but my eyes seemed to dance around the figure, refusing to focus on her. I went for a shrug, then heaved a reply through my one good lung.

“You won’t even let me die in peace.”

She laughed, seemed to survey my wounds, then became somber.

“That hilt is the wrong shape.”

“Some of the fellas took exception.”

“To what?”

“Helping someone from the other side.”

She glances to the body beside me, dressed in the wrong uniform. Very obviously dead, despite the dressing.

“What was he doing?”

“Coming to kill us all, by the looks. Half a kilo of nitro-glycerine in his pocket, and he came over in the middle of a rainstorm at night.”

“But he failed?”

“Tripped trying to get into the trench. Impaled himself on that,” I replied, raising my hand to point at the broken shards of the flagpole. The enemy had shot it to pieces almost immediately. Half was still up there for target practise, half was down here, now lying flat, end already a dull brown.

“So, you bandaged him, and they stabbed you?”

She didn’t sound impressed.

“Well, not quite.”

“Not equipped for any more casualties. Especially not one of them.”

“Let’s string him up.”

“Nail his balls to the pole.”

“Shove those up his arse and send him back.”

Their voices come back to me now, but I am saved their images. There’s only room for one ghost in this trench.

“I couldn’t let them do it. Any of it. It wasn’t right, enemy or not.”

“And your superior didn’t stop them?”

“They were my superiors. Doing the final rounds, pulling everyone from the trench. Tactical retreat, don’t you know,” I laughed. It didn’t sound right to me. Too much shuddering and sighing, like a rusty door. “None of them liked me, really. I was too green, too foreign, and too human. Ironic.”

Seragia goes for my hand but then retracts her own. Like with my vision, touch just isn’t possible. Too bad.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“Have I had a change of heart?” I reply.

She nods, a movement I desperately want to appreciate, but which slides from my focus. I think on the question, consider my plan, and shake my head gently.

“Even if I can guarantee you a way out?” she pushes, firmly but gently. A hint of desperation, here.

“A way out to where, Seragia? A lifetime drowning in the knowledge I failed? A lifetime of pity to my face and contempt to my back? I’ve quit everything so far. I can’t quit this.”

Anger now.

“You’re a proud idiot, you know that?” she accuses.

I laugh.

“Pride isn’t it. More like fear. I’ve spent my whole life never being good at anything Seragia. Do you know how that feels? To be mediocre at everything? I was never the fastest. Never the strongest. Never the smartest. Nothing I have ever done has won anything or amounted to more than a footnote. With this war I saw a chance to do something that everyone else wouldn’t. To take a stand and do something I could be proud of. If I go back now, what do I say? I gave one enemy a clean death and filled myself with heavy metal. Hardly a legacy worth living for.”

The words had seemed to tumble out, only to finish bitter and dry. I think my other lung is going.

She punches me in the leg and moves my shrapnel. The pain causes me to miss the important part of that moment, for a few seconds.

“Wait, what?” I wheeze.

“How can you be so fucking blind, Gerise?” she accuses, punching me again and stalling any reply I would have had. “You’re not the best at any one thing. So what?! What do you think happens to a sportsperson once they’re past their prime? What about an actor or singer when their voice fails or their face flabs? You think an academic can do anything if they’ve broken a hand?”

She pauses, waits for me to begin a reply, then cuts me off.

“You’re not the best at anything. Big whoop. That, mister, saves you putting all your eggs in one basket. You don’t have to be the best at anything when you’re good enough at everything.”

I don’t have a reply ready this time. Another shot flicks off the pole and thuds into the mud beside me, but I hardly notice.

“And two final things. One: you travelled half a universe to fight in some stupid, brutal war on a cold, primitive planet. Just because you thought it was the right thing to do. And on the way, you saved one sucker the worst death imaginable. I’d say that’s a perfectly fine legacy to endure,” her tone was pure acid by this point. “Two: you are the best at something. You’re just too blind to see it.”

She stood now, and somehow came into focus. I realise it’s because she is no longer closer than my eyes can focus, half-dead as I am. She is dressed in the same uniform as me, but it fits poorly and has some uncomfortable stains. She has had all the same changes as me, to blend in. But she wears them better.

“Are you going to tell me how to defuse that dead man’s switch, or are you going to continue to sit in the mud and make me mad?”

I blink and manage to look down at my hand. I don’t even remember wiring the nitro-glycerine, only remembering that it was me who did it. My last act in this world was supposed to be blowing the trench, hopefully when the enemy finally came wandering over in the morning’s light. I might’ve even won a medal.

I tell Seragia how to disarm the device, and afterwards she pulls it away. Next, she pulls two tins from the mud, empties them, and positions one under the other. She works a hole into the top one, fills it with water from her canteen, ties the detonator switch to the bottom, and surveys her handiwork.

“Deadman’s switch, without the Deadman,” she says, before turning back to me. “Have you worked out what you’re best at yet?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

I shake my head slowly.

She looks me up and down again before picking me up, all too easily. Maybe not all the same changes, then. My shrapnel moves and I gasp in pain. The knife, thankfully, stays. She starts walking and after a few steps, speaks.

“You think I’d go this far for someone who’s mediocre at making me happy?”

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