8FOLD: Pulse War Special # 3, "War Stories"

[Amabel Holland]

I didn't fight for their earth.
I didn't even fight for mine.
Never had a thing to fight for.
If I did, I'd send someone else
to do the fighting and bleeding
and killing and dying for me.
Just like those bastards sent me
and mine to do it for them.

     - Jarl Skullthirst
     Veteran, settler, space pirate

             EIGHTFOLD PRESENTS
########  ##     ## ##        ######  ########
##     ## ##     ## ##       ##    ## ##
##     ## ##     ## ##       ##       ##
########  ##     ## ##        ######  ######
##        ##     ## ##             ## ##
##        ##     ## ##       ##    ## ##
##         #######  ########  ######  ########
##      ##
##      ##   [8F-219][PW-63]
##      ##
##      ##    ###    ########
##  ##  ##   ## ##   ##     ##
##  ##  ##  ##   ##  ##     ##    SPECIAL
##  ##  ## ##     ## ########
##  ##  ## ######### ##   ##        # 3
##  ##  ## ##     ## ##    ##
 ###  ###  ##     ## ##     ##
         WAR STORIES
              BY AMABEL HOLLAND

TUNNEL GODS

The stolen frigate floats dead in the black.

   It's close enough to the celadon planet that gravity will do the
rest. Its presence will be detected before it breaches the atmosphere.
The crew aboard its orbital defense station will intercept it,
bringing it in for inspection.

   And that's when I'll die, thinks Ace. She figures it'll be a shot
through the head.

   At least it's better than freezing to death, like Jack. He died
slow. Better than being cut clean in two like Rex. He kept screaming.
Ace doesn't want to go like that. Doesn't want to scream.

   Doesn't want to go out crying, either. The way Dot did when that
laser cooked her guts while they were still inside her. Ace doesn't
blame her. She would've cried too if that's how she was going to die.
She just doesn't want it, is all.

   In fact, she didn't want to die at all. Least of all in this
universe. For this universe.

   Dot would say that they came to this universe to save their own.
Stop the Pulse here, in their home reality, before they can invade
ours and everyone else's. And maybe that's true. Dot thought it was.

   Ace is more cynical. If the sky class was really worried about
that, it'd be their kids dying for it. But no. They grabbed a bunch of
tunnel punks.

   Dot had said she'd rather die out here. Back home, she would've
died in the tunnels. The years would hollow her out, one bleak day
after another. A lifetime spent hoping and scrambling, slowly being
crushed to death under the weight of her dull misery. That's a life
that wouldn't matter, a death that wouldn't matter. At least out here,
in the black, in this other universe, she'd be dying for something.

   "What did you die for?" Ace whispers bitterly. "What am I about to die for?"

   And she's not going to delude herself. She is going to die. This
whole operation was planned for a full squad. One full squad that
would take over an enemy frigate, disable it, and hide aboard. One
full squad to assault the ODS when the enemy decided to investigate.
One full squad to take over the station, turning its solar cannon
against the enemy installations on the surface.

   Even then, the chances of success were low. Even with a full squad.
But Ace is all that's left. And she read the brief. Crew of this ODS
is made up of Tergites; they don't take prisoners. As soon as the
enemy starts to board the ship, the squad has to open fire, overwhelm
them, fight their way in. Which means that as soon as that door opens,
she'll be shot. Pow, right in the brainpan.

   Of course, that's only if they see her. She could hide. Maybe even
avoid detection entirely. Tergites will spend some time looting the
ship, determine it's harmless, and then let gravity do the rest.
Probably she'd burn up in the atmosphere. That doesn't sound appealing
but at that point she can shoot herself before things get crispy.

   That'd buy her another hour or two of living. For a tunnel punk,
quality of life is never a consideration, so they try to make up for
it in quantity, fighting for every miserable filthy minute. Two hours,
and all she has to do is hide? That sounds like a luxury.

   The obvious place is in the vents running beneath the floor. The
ducts are cramped but cramped is nothing new, cramped is home sweet
home. They're still hot, but like leather in the sun. Long as she
doesn't touch it with her bare skin she ought to be fine.

   Well, she'll be fine until she isn't. But let's not worry about
that right now. Right now, let's just be real still and quiet while
the Tergites poke around.

   It might be because she's peeking up at them through a grate but
the Tergites don't impress. In the briefing materials a lot of
attention was placed on their exoskeleton and its durability. But
these look soft. Vulnerable. Squishy. Like they'd break with the
slightest bit of pressure.

   She counts six of them searching the ship. Two standing guard in
the doorway, weapons ready. Standard crew for a station is twelve, so
there'll be four more ready to charge in at a moment's notice.
   I can take four, Ace thinks to herself. If I'm good and if I'm
lucky, I can maybe take four on my own. But twelve!

   She's not even sure why she bothers to think it through. It's a
moot point. You've got a couple hours left, don't waste it fantasizing
about a way out of this. Make your peace with the tunnel gods, hope
they can hear your prayers in another universe.

   But what would you pray for? Forgiveness? The tunnel gods don't
forgive, and, more importantly, you don't want it. You did what you
had to do, sometimes you even did what you wanted to. And sometimes
you hurt people and sometimes you got hurt, but the last thing you'd
ask a god to do is absolve you of it.

   "They were my choices," Ace whispers. "I stand by them. Who the
hell are the gods to judge me?"

   The way she sees it, the tunnel gods have a lot to answer for. If
anything, it'd be in their interests to keep Ace alive as long as
possible. "That's my prayer. Give me more time, or you'll regret it!"

   She's afraid for a second that she got a little too loud, but one
of the Tergites was shouting, so she thinks no one heard her.
Apparently it found something of value in the captain's quarters. The
two door guards hesitate, presumably mumbling something about
protocol, then rush in with the others to check it out.

   Now there's lots of distant chatter. Have they all left the deck?
Is she alone? Are they that stupid? Is she that lucky?

   She can stay here. Hide here. Wait out her last stretch of time. Or
she can risk it. Maybe she ends up dead right away. Or maybe.

   Maybe the tunnel gods heard her threat.

   She pops open the grate, careful as she can, and shimmies out.
Okay, she's not alone. But the soldiers clumped together on the other
side of the deck all have their backs to her. At least, they do until
her foot clangs against the grate.

   As they turn, Ace is already scurrying for the door. She's on the
other side of it before they can aim their weapons. She closes the
door before they can fire, disengages the lock before they start
praying to their own gods.

   She watches for a moment while the ship floats off back into the
black, on its course for the planet. She wonders how the eight of them
will spend their last hour, knowing that they're doomed.

   One of them must've radioed in, because there are alarms blaring on
the station, alerting the other four crew members.

   Ace readies her weapon. "I can take four."

()

INCENTIVES

They told him it got easier. That you get used to it. First time's the
hardest, but with every life you take, it bothers you less and less.

   What was horrifying about it was the way they talked about it. Like
it was something you should look forward to. An achievement to cross
off the list. Your conscience an inconvenient clumsy thing to be
strangled.

   Lucius wonders if they're just pretending. He is. Every kill is
just as hard as the first. Every kill ruins him anew. Breaks him.
Haunts him.

   But if you talk too much about it, they see it as a weakness. They
don't trust you to be strong enough to have their back, so they sure
as hell aren't going to go out of their way to have yours. You don't
toughen up? Maybe they leave you behind. Maybe that's the difference
between going back and moving on. And sometimes, though no one talks
about it except in glances and smirks, that's how accidents happen.

   So maybe they're all pretending, or maybe it's just him. He hopes
it's the first one, worries it's the second. Either way, he knows
better than to ask.

   The funny thing is, he's not worried about them finding out. He's
good at hiding it, and besides, he's racked up a decent bonus. When
you're discharged, you get paid for every kill. He wonders, idly, if
that isn't evidence that you don't ever get used to killing, if they
need to incentivize it. He also wonders if that might be the reason
why others do get used to it. Maybe you stop seeing the other person
as a person, and you start to see them as a nice suit or a breakfast
nook.

   On this other world, in this other universe, fighting some alien
species, it's hard for his comrades to even see them as people in the
first place. The enemy has black liquid eyes, no nose to speak of, a
star-shaped mouth. Ears on stalks, gray-green skin, fluorescent blood.

   They still look like people to Lucius. He still hates killing them.

   He only kills them when he has to. When it's a question of their
life or his, or their life and a comrade's. He's already stashed a big
enough bonus that no one's going to question his dedication, or so he
reasons. He's even made a point to be seen "feeding" a kill to one of
the rawer recruits, helping them make a down payment on a future home,
helping them save up for an education. Sometimes it feels like if he's
not the one doing the actual killing, the blood isn't on his hands.
But only sometimes.

   Feeding kills has another purpose. It makes him well-liked. And
that, too, can be the difference between going back for you and moving
on. And it's not so much that Lucius is afraid of dying in and of
itself. But he wants to die on the other side of this. After he's been
discharged, after he's cashed in his bonus. Because otherwise, all the
killing would have been for nothing. The nightmares, the haunted
faces, the sick boiling in his stomach. For nothing.

   And that he couldn't live with. Or die with. Which is why he makes
friends when he can. So that they want him to make it back home just
as much as he wants it.

   That pays off the night before they're to drop on the next planet,
when Marcus and Titus ask to talk. He's fed kills to both of them.
Three to Titus, two to Marcus. In point of fact, those were Marcus's
only two kills, for which he's very grateful.

   "That's why we're here," says Marcus, awkwardly. "Titus heard one
of the other squads talking. About layoffs."

   Titus grimaces. "You're on the list."

   You die before you get out, your bonus dies with you. Sometimes
they make a bitter joke out of it; you "did your duty to the
treasury". That treasury is already stretched thin. If the empire had
to make good on every promise it made to every soldier, it would
collapse.

   It's in the empire's interest, then, to pay as little as possible.
Sometimes they "negotiate" a partial payout. Sometimes, they reduce it
by piling on disciplinary penalties. And sometimes, so the whispers
go, sometimes, there are layoffs. Generals are told to reduce the
empire's financial liability. They in turn draw up a list of high
earners.

   A list of targets.

   "Do you know which squad?"

   Titus shakes his head. "Didn't recognize them. Think maybe we
picked them up before the last jump."

   That tracks. There are rumors that there's a secret unit within the
army that only exists to balance the budget. The prevailing wisdom is
that if they were real, they hadn't been sent to this parallel
universe. Lucius always thought the people saying that had it
backwards. If anything, the empire was more likely to do it out here,
where no one was looking. He wonders, darkly, if this whole entire
extradimensional expedition might not be earmarked for some kind of
catastrophic "accident"; that wouldn't just balance the budget, it
would create a surplus.

   He thanks them for the information, and heads to his quarters. His
bunkmate will be playing cards for another couple hours, so he'll have
the room to himself to think on his predicament.

   A few minutes after settling in, the door cracks open. "Bad hand, Gaius?"

   It's not Gaius. "You can say that." The stranger is thin and tall.
Too thin and tall; it's like his legs and arms were meant for a man
that was somehow even thinner and taller. He's an older man, but he's
aged well: youthful skin, no wrinkles. The only thing that's old about
him is the weariness in his eyes, and the bitterness in his
half-smile.

   Immediately Lucius knows that this is a man for whom killing got
easier. A man for whom it's been easy for a long time. "It's true,
then."

   "It is." He pulls up a chair. He sits down: casual, relaxed. He
pulls out his gun, resting it on his leg, pointing it at Lucius:
casual, relaxed. He points it, but he doesn't shoot.

   "You're not here to kill me?"

   The man smiles. There's a meanness to it. Then he answers. "Not if
you want to live."

   "I do."

   "Then I'm here to recruit you."

()


WHAT WE'RE MADE OF

Her left turret is itchy.

  Bell twists it slowly against its socket, luxuriating in the sound
of metal dragging across metal. They'll yell at her when she gets back
to base. Wear and tear. But if she didn't scratch it, that itch would
drive her crazy. Distract her. Maybe she doesn't get the aim right.
Maybe she doesn't pull off a barrel roll when she needs it. You go out
there with an itch, maybe you don't come back, so the way she sees it,
they should let her scratch an itch once in a while.

   Pax is at her three, so she asks him about it. "Buffing out dings
and dents, that's gotta be cheaper than getting a whole new ship,
right?"

   "Conversion costs half what it used to."

   "Half! Must be cutting corners."

   "Not at all, baby bird. They've got these innovations, makes 'em
more efficient, cost-effective. You know what I heard? You know that
thing with the coolant, where it gets mixed up with your blood?"

   "Had that twice already." She's pretty sure a third is on the way.
It's getting harder and harder to tell which pulse is which.

   "Four times for me. I heard they fixed it. But how much it'd cost
to retrofit one of us? It's three times what it costs to make a new
fighter. So they're not gonna bother."

   "That's rough, old man." Bell is about to commiserate further when
she picks something up on her scanning bladder. It's a queasy sleazy
blip bleep vibe. She shifts her vocal chords, speaking to the entire
squadron now: "Heat coming in at one-thirty."

   Pax drifts to the right, widening the gap between them. "Good eye,
bird. Squadron, left, right, center."

   There's a groan of metal as the fighters spread out, forming three
wings. Bell leads the left, Pax the right, with the center hanging
back in reserve.

   There's a sharp pain in her scanning bladder. "They're picking up
speed." She whispers to her wing: "Guns at the ready. But don't shoot
until we know."

   But that last part's a lie. She does know. Feels it in what's left
of her lungs: it's the enemy.

   It's a fight. "Glad I scratched that itch," says Bell as a cluster
of bomblets careens toward her. She banks left, confident her five
fighters will follow her lead.

   The enemy's visible now. She counts twenty fighters, and she
recognizes the make and model from previous briefings. "Drones! They
don't even have people in 'em, burnin' and bleedin' and thinkin' and
fightin'! Don't stand a chance, do they?"

   "No!"

   "Show 'em what we're made of, screamers!"

   She feels the slugs heating up in her arms. There's a satisfying
pop as they leave her turrets, like cracking her knuckles (back when
she had knuckles). She feels the blood pounding in her eardrums, or
maybe the coolant, as her not-lungs fill with not-air and her ten ton
body dashes across the stars and past the bullets and over the bombs
and through the wreckage. Everything happens at once, a single moment,
and everything is stretched into an unbearable infinite ecstasy.

   She used to hate this. Used to be scared during a fight, used to
feel it rotting in her stomach. Sometimes, she thinks she still is.
Heart's beating like crazy, everything's pure panic and instinct,
stomach still folding in on itself like a thousand moebius strips.

   Maybe she's afraid, and maybe that's why she's still alive. She
means that in both senses: that the fear is what keeps her going, and
that the presence of the fear means that she's still a living thing.

   Bell doesn't go in for the existential waxing poetical like some in
the squadron; she rolls her eyes at the whole "am I still human"
sobbing and fussing. But, you know, sometimes there's that nagging
doubt when, reflexively, you try to bend a knee that you don't have
anymore, or you remember colors your new eyes can't see. What have I
given up, blah, blah, blah, how much of me is still me, blah, blah,
blah.

   Three schmucks cluster together, swooping in with guns blazing,
intending to scatter her wing. One advantage for drones is they'll try
stunts like this, because what do they care if blow themselves up?

   She doesn't flinch. Doesn't fire. She even lets some of the bullets
pop against her skin. They feel like little hailstones. They sound
like them too, like hailstones on a rooftop.

   She aims and fires, hits the fuel line of the center schmuck. It
goes up in flames and takes the other two with it. Bell screeches up,
and her wing follows, letting the fireballs fly past them. She feels
the soft hot lick of the flames tickling her undercarriage.

   Yeah, the drones don't care if they live or die, but I sure as hell
do. And for Bell, that's more than answer enough to the blah, blah,
blah.

()

DEVILS

He didn't expect to wake up. When the alien jungle collapsed beneath
their weight, and the pit swallowed them up, Grendel knew they'd all
be dead: Boxer, Hourglass, the whole squad, plus the gangly green
clops that fell in with them.

   At first he thought it was an ambush, but they were as surprised
and terrified as he was. He could tell that much. Mostly he found this
planet and its people inscrutable, but fear is fear. Before he blacked
out, he remembered thinking that he'd almost feel sorry for them if
they hadn't been trying to kill him a few seconds before. Of course,
he didn't blame them for that part, since he and his were trying to
kill them right back. But that's war, after all. Even on another
planet, even in another universe, even fighting for another Earth.

   Hourglass was from that Earth. Grendel's reality, like a few
others, didn't commit a full army, so all the leftovers got blended
together. Hourglass was always full of questions and trivia. She told
him once over drinks that people weren't named Grendel where she came
from. On this Earth, Grendel was the name of a story-monster. He was
born with cursed blood, and the sounds of laughter and song enraged
him. One night, when he couldn't stand it any longer, he attacked the
singers, killing and eating them, and did so nightly for twelve years
before a great hero tore off his arms.

   "Poor Grendel," Hourglass said as she downed a shot. "He was
lonely, and in pain."

   "Monsters usually are," Grendel had muttered. Or he thinks he did.
When he's sober, he's got a habit of remembering himself as being
quite eloquent and insightful when drunk, and has certainly been given
evidence to the contrary.

   "Poor Hourglass," he whispers as he looks away from her broken
body. Near as he can tell, everyone's dead. He's not far off. Legs are
useless. Right arm too. He must have landed on his right side, because
his hip is shattered and his ribs are busted up to hell.

   Probably there's pieces of bone digging into his guts but he
doesn't want to think about that. He gets squeamish whenever he thinks
about his insides, about how wet and fragile they are, about the
physical workings of the body. Even the thought of food sliding down
his esophagus, breaking down in his stomach, passing into his
intestines makes him ill. Makes him feel soulless.

   At least my left arm is fine, he thinks. I don't do anything with
it but wipe my ass, but at least I can do that. And that's so damn
funny that he starts laugh, a dry quiet wheezy chuckle that tears up
his insides. He groans as a reflex, loud and echoing.

   There's a sound like a cat's hiss, if a hiss was also a question.

   "Someone there?" he whispers in the dark. "Someone else alive?"

   He becomes aware of a faint white light behind him. He cranes his
thick neck over his shoulder, and sees the single glowing eyeball. Of
course. One of the clops.

   It takes a moment for Grendel to adjust his eyes to the light, and
to study their features. They look shorter than the others Grendel has
encountered. Maybe only six feet tall? Their face is smoother, the eye
bigger and wider, the green darker. Closer to olives than grass. Maybe
this one is younger? Maybe they're just scrawny. Anyway, one of their
legs is folded up on itself the wrong way 'round. Looks to be in a bad
way.

   Grendel smiles at them bitterly. "Hoisted by your own petard."
(That was something Hourglass used to say.)

   The clops becomes frantic, waving their arms. Grendel understands
immediately. This wasn't a squad of clops stumbling into their own
trap. This is something else. Maybe something worse.

   That gets another dry quiet wheezy laugh. What does it matter now
if there's something worse? Grendel at least feels this laugh coming
up, prepares himself for the pain, strangles the rattling groan in his
throat.

    Well, if he's going to die, he might as well have something other
than pain. There was some chocolate in his left pocket, and he checks
if it survived the fall. It has. He knows it's going to be bitter; the
chocolate from Hourglass's Earth isn't as sweet as what he had back
home. But bitter still dances on the tongue.

   He chews it slowly, making it last. After finishing a little less
than half of it, he looks at the clops and points the chocolate at
them with an open palm.

   The clops hesitates, then nods with their hands.

   "Hope you're not allergic," Grendel whispers. A careful throw; a
deft catch. The alien eats their portion quickly and gives the human a
curious smile with stained teeth.

   Grendel must have fell asleep after that, because he wakes up. The
thing must be at least twelve feet tall, covered in shaggy black fur,
squatting on its two hind legs. It's shaped almost like a man, except
the arms are long with three hinges. The hands have stubby furless
fingers, maybe ten for each hand, arranged in a grasping circle around
the palms. Its horned head is massive. You'd need four men to carry
the head alone. There's no skin on its face, just bone. Grendel can't
tell if that's just how it comes, or if someone or something peeled it
back.

   The thing has picked up Hourglass, looking at her with some
interest. It sniffs her and makes a breathy grunt, disgusted. Losing
interest, it lets her drop to the stone floor of its pit.

   Because this is its pit. Grendel knows that. This is that something
worse. And suddenly that idea's not so funny anymore. There's
something about this thing that is sickening, the same way thinking
about his insides is sickening. It's more than a reflex. It's like an
instinct. He gets the strangest damn feeling, like deep inside every
human brain there exists a fear of this thing in the dark.

   He can't explain that. Because near as he can tell, it finds humans
uninteresting. No, unappetizing. That's the first word that had popped
into his head. That's the true word. Somehow he knew that, even before
it started lifting the green bodies into the air and letting them
slide into its skeletal jaw.

   Grendel looks for the survivor. While he was sleeping, they managed
to drag themselves into a corner of the chamber, hiding behind some of
their dead squad-mates. Maybe they figure they have a better chance
that way of surviving this devil's first feast.

   The devil opens its mouth, raises its head, sniffing deeply. With a
low growl it turns its head toward the corner. Damn. Bad luck, kid.
Grendel turns away. He doesn't need to see this.

   But then he sees Hourglass laying there. And he doesn't want to see
that either.

   He still has his gun. He still has bullets. And he's gonna die anyway.

   Grendel clenches his jaw and holds his breath, then flips himself
onto his back. There's a scream in his belly but he doesn't let it
out. He holds his rifle in his left hand. It's awkward. It feels
wrong. On top of that, the muscles are weak. Considering the blood
he's lost, the pain he's in, and the fact that the only thing he's
eaten in hours is half a chocolate bar, it's a wonder he can lift his
arm at all.

   He takes another deep breath, steadies his arm as best he can. He
aims for the back of the devil's head. (It's in the corner now.)

   I bet you're lonely, Grendel thinks. You're sure as hell going to
be in pain. He squeezes the trigger, firing in rapid bursts.

   His aim is bad. Misses the head completely. He tries to correct it
but only manages to hit the devil's shoulder, then its arm. A dozen
rounds tear it off. It hits stone with a heavy sound. Blood sprays
just as heavy against the walls of the pit. The devil screams.

   Here it comes, thinks Grendel. But instead of attacking, it runs
into the darkness, screaming and howling with more than one voice.
Grendel shoots after it. It sounds like maybe he hits it. Maybe if
he's lucky the thing will bleed to death.

   He must have fell asleep again after that, because he wakes up. The
kid is sitting next to him with their back propped against the wall.
They're holding a gun they took from one of the human corpses,
pointing it at the darkness.

   When they see Grendel is awake, the kid offers him something to
eat. Some kind of melon. It's sweet but mild.

COPYRIGHT 2023 AMABEL HOLLAND