Part 1 (1/2)
PEACE WORLD.
The Peace Warrior Trilogy.
Steven L. Hawk.
This book is dedicated to the families of the men and women who serve in their country's armed forces. Your sacrifice may be different, but it is just as important and often more painful.
PROLOGUE.
”So, General, how many men have you killed?”
The surrounding conversations stumbled, ceased. The silence that followed was awkward, but did not deter eyes and ears from turning Grant's way.
The six-hundred-plus-year-old soldier looked up from his food tray to the twenty-something soldiers seated across from him.
Freakin' Conway.
Grant often ate with the men and women in the mess hall of the mothers.h.i.+p. He wanted to be accessible and open to the soldiers he commanded, and sharing a meal gave him that opportunity. To many of them, he was untouchable-someone to be avoided. He had experienced it before. Troops who were too much in awe of, or in fear of, their commanding officers. But for him, it was amplified. He wasn't just their leader; he was also Earth's hero. He was the ancient warrior who had been resurrected for the sole purpose of rescuing humankind from the Minith.
Blah, blah, blah.
The unwelcome distinction set him apart, isolated him, made him lonelier than he already was.
Breaking bread was an excellent way to show them he wasn't just their general, but someone like them. He was a person with a job to do. A man with a family waiting for him back on Earth. A man stuck on a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p for months, hurtling toward unknown danger and potential death.
Grant sighed.
Conway was an excellent soldier. She had proved that on Telgora and had been promoted to sergeant as a result. She had good instincts, wasn't afraid to take initiative, and had more courage than was good for her long-term health. Grant would not hesitate to put her in charge of a critical mission or task. But her interpersonal skills weren't the best.
”That's not something I like to discuss, Sergeant Conway.” His tone should have dissuaded further inquiries. Did not.
”Come on, General,” the newly promoted foot soldier persisted. ”A hundred? A thousand?”
Grant gently laid his fork on the tray and pushed it away, no longer hungry. He a.s.sessed the looks on the faces of those seated around them. Most had glanced away, obviously in tune with their commander's mood. The few who had not already turned their faces away did so once he looked in their direction.
Becka Conway looked directly at him. Undeterred.
”It's not important, Sergeant,” he replied. ”My days of fighting men are over. All of my attention is focused on the Minith.”
”That's it, General?” she asked. All semblance of Earth Standard language was long abandoned, as it was for most of the soldiers in Earth's new Peace Army. ”You won't give us anything more than that? You're the only link we have to our past. If you won't tell us what it was like when nations fought other nations, how are we going to learn?”
Dammit.
She had a point.
If human beings were to avoid the mistakes of the past, they had to know what those mistakes were.
He also had his troops to consider. If he closed down now, word would get around and damage the progress he had already made. If that happened, he might as well take all his meals in his room. No one would ask him anything for fear of being shut down.
Grant had to give them something.
Resigned, he sat back and smiled.
”Conway, I like you. You're a good soldier and you're not afraid to call me on my bulls.h.i.+t.”
The young sergeant snorted a laugh. The gaze of the soldiers returned. The scene between the new sergeant and their hero general was too good to ignore.
”I'm not going to tell you how many men I killed,” Grant announced, his voice rising above the silence. If he was going to tell war stories, he wanted anyone who was interested to be able to hear. ”But how would you like to hear about my first experience with combat?”
”I think we'd all enjoy that, General,” Conway said. She glanced at the soldiers around her and received several nods and ”yeah's” in return.
Grant simply nodded and thought about where to start.
”Okay,” he began. ”The first thing you should understand is this: Soldiers fight other soldiers, but nations rarely fight other nations.”
”What does that mean?” asked one of the pilots sitting at the end of the table.
”Good question. Let me explain...”
”PFC Justice, you okay?”
Grant felt sick. His head pounded. His stomach sent angry warnings of bad things to come. The ragged up-and-down motion of the helicopter as it followed a nap-of-the-earth course fifteen feet above the trees did not help.
”Fine, Sergeant.” He offered a weak thumbs-up to the rappel master and pasted a fake smile to his face.
Dual trails of sweat rolled from his armpits down the inside of his camouflage uniform. The unders.h.i.+rt he wore was soaked, useless. His a.s.shole-incapable of pa.s.sing a single, tiny t.u.r.d for the past three days-threatened to suddenly end its work strike and return to the job. With a vengeance.
The churning in his stomach and the sudden looseness in his bowels fought for Grant's attention. He wondered which opening would spew its contents first. Hoped for the stomach. His position next to the open door would at least allow him to retain some shred of dignity. If he soiled his pants, he would never hear the end of it from the veterans in the platoon. They already gave him a boatload of grief at every opportunity. c.r.a.pping his drawers during an insertion would gain him a nickname he would not want and could not escape.
He surveyed the faces of the men around him. Stoic, resolute, focused. This was not their first dance. No, he was the cherry of the bunch.
Desperate to avoid a future of humiliation, Grant clamped down tightly on his sphincter, checked his equipment for the hundredth time, and glanced out the door.
The landscape flew by so rapidly it was difficult to pick out individual features of the jungle below. Green, tree-covered hills rolled away in the distance.
How much longer?
How much longer would the trip last? How much longer until he tossed his cookies? Worst of all, how much longer till he c.r.a.pped his pants?
”Ten minutes!” his sergeant cried out over the din of the wind and blades.
Well, there was one answer. Hopefully the others were at least eleven minutes. With the subsequent notifications that the helicopter was five minutes, then one minute out from their destination, Grant felt more confident he would not embarra.s.s himself-at least, not while in the air.
He looked down and saw the faintest patch of opening in the jungle canopy. This would be a tight one, he knew.