Weapons of War

Suddenly the scene changed and I realized, to my chagrin, that I was naked again.  Alone, luckily, or, not quite alone.  I was standing in front of a female soldier type who looked at me with a very business like attitude.  “Today you are going to learn to wear the Cf’s soldier suit.  It is not very complicated, but, still, there are things you need to learn.  First of all, the underwear.  Not that it is ‘underwear’ properly understood.  It is your most intimate garment and will help with your physical needs during combat.”

The garment, underwear and all, would only have taken her a few minutes to put on and, I was assured, a few seconds once she was used to it.  But the explanation of all the various bits… the inbuilt armor… the auto med capability… took at least an hour.  And then there were the weapons… that took the rest of the day.  It became obvious, very early on, that the ‘girl’ was only a simulation, and I relaxed and felt free to ask questions, as many questions as I wished.  Sims were good for that.  With a real person you always felt as if you were annoying them, or embarrassing yourself, asking too many ‘stupid’ questions.

Finally, however, I ran out of questions and the sim proceeded past suit and weapons to actual firing.  A test range and then, hours later, ‘real’ enemies… that is simmed aliens.  Hours and hours, or so it seemed, until, finally, my world ended in darkness and I reached forward to unhook my mask.

The girl next to me was half undressed already, and looked at me.  “Hey,” she said, her voice a bit flat.  “Can you believe it?”

It took me a few seconds to remember the incredible news from this morning.  “I guess I have to,” I said, beginning to strip off my suit.  She finished and put on her robe, coming over to help me.  By now we had several other girls undressing.  “It doesn’t really make a difference, does it?” I asked, thinking about it.  “However we got into the war, we are into it, and we have to win it.”

The girl chuckled dryly, and I realized what I had said.  “I know what you mean,” she said and, dressed, we left together, arm in arm.

—

#

 “Have a hard day?” Andrew asked me, from the shower.  “I should be out in just a second.”

I started to undress.  He finished and we slipped past each other.  “I had a horrible day,” I said.  “They told us the truth.”

I looked out at him, startling him into turning around.  “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s not your fault,” I said.  “They told us the truth today, the truth about the aliens.”

“Ah,” he said.

“Did you know?” I asked him.

“I did a whole simulator on it a couple of days ago, but they told me not to tell you yet.  I wanted to.”

“It was probably good you didn’t,” I said.  “I think I would have freaked.  It was good that you didn’t.”

Everything was silent for a few minutes, and then, when I turned the shower off, he said, “Lights out?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, not bothering with my robe.  After all, I would just have to take it off again in a few seconds.

“How was your day?” I asked him.

“Hard,” he said.  “We went on this incredible run, down a beach yet.  That’s why I took the shower first, I was so sweaty I didn’t think you would even want to be in the same room as me.”

I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to be, but, “Well, that was nice of you,” I said.  “Why did you have to run?”

“I dunno, just part of our training.  I tell you, Grant is great at running.  He beat us all.”

I giggled, “There’s something else he beat you all at, too.”

“Oh?” he asked.

“Jane’s pregnant.”

“Really? That’s so great.” Then, after a pause, he asked, “We’re you upset?”

“Oh, no,’ I said.  It’s not like you haven’t been trying…

<8/5/2095 5:55:00 AM>Day 5 morning

I woke up a couple of hours later to screaming.

“Lights!” I said, rolling over to look at Andrew, who was rolling over and over on the ground, holding his calf.  “What’s wrong?”

“A cramp!” he said, writhing in pain.

“Roll over,” I said.  “here, let me do it.”

“Aaah!” he yelled.  “Not so hard!”

“Sorry,” I said, “here, let me stretch it.”

“Aaah!” he yelled.

“Should I stop?” I asked, concerned.  “This is what they taught us to do for cramps.”

“No, no, don’t stop, it just hurts… aaah!”

I stretched it for a couple of more minutes, until his yelling moved down to a dull roar.  “Let me get you a banana,” I said, moving over to the food processor.

“A what?” he asked.

“A banana,” I said.  “They taught us they were good for cramps,” I added, handing it to him and watching him while he ate it.  “They have potassium or something.”

“OK,” he said, dubiously, swallowing the last of the banana.  “Do you mind if I take a shower now?” he asked.  “I think the hot water will help…”

“Sure, go ahead,” I said.  “I’m going to try to get some sleep.”

“Do I need to turn out the light?” he asked.

“No, just dim it,” I said, pulling the blanket over me and laying back down, as he dimmed the lights.  A few minutes later I felt him crawl in with me.  “Better?” I mumbled sleepily.

“Yeah.  It’s not gone, but it’s better.”

I reached out and felt, eventually finding his ankle, and began a slow, deep rub.

“Oooh,” he said.

“Does that help?” I asked him.

“Ooooh, yes, oooh.”

It was an hour later before I finally stopped.  “Thanks Aliya,” he said.  “You’re wonderful.  Love you…”

“… love you…” I said, not really believing that I was saying it, and not sure whether or not I meant it.  He rolled over and kissed me, then rolled back.

#

<8/6/2095 9:55:00 PM>Day six evening

Our next day’s instruction covered a lot more about the Enemy.  We learned several dozen ways to kill their eggs, and a dozen or so ways to cook their young.  Apparently, if the simulator was any indication, the young ones who had just left the water were delicious, and even the slightly older ones were good.

Cooking them meant, of course, gutting them.  On New Texas pretty much everyone butchered their own meat, but I had never had much to do with it.  This sim insisted I do it all by myself, though, getting all over blood.  Luckily it pretended there was a stream nearby and I got to wash in it.  Not that I was really all over blood, of course, but the sim made me feel that way.

And, of course, in order to gut them I had to kill them first, and that was something girls, on NT, almost never did.  I especially didn’t do it because I had lived in a town, unlike my girl friends.  I would have found it hard, in real life, but of course, in sim, the computer made sure you got your shot right before it let you fire, and then had you practice again and again and again on the same shot until your muscles had it memorized.

That was great for gutting too.  You’ve probably gutted an animal so you know what I’m talking about, but it is all full of tricks, of finding the exact place in a joint that makes a cut really easy, and the end meat roast look really nice.  The computer had me practice again, and again, with each age of enemy and each cut, until my own muscles could do it.  And it told me what I was cutting, too, which was kind of interesting.

The enemy physiology was really different from ours.  They didn’t have a heart, for example.  Instead they had several places in the body where the muscles were moving anyway, like the lungs (which were also really different) and it put a lot of blood through those muscles.  Every time they moved, that pumped blood.  So the enemy never had what we would call a ‘systolic’ blood pressure, the blood just kind of flowed continually.

The liver and kidney were all in one organ, too, a really big, flat, brown organ right above the back with all sorts of arteries flowing into it.  It didn’t use a bladder, but dumped the urine directly into the digestive track.

None of this made much difference in killing it, however.  The brain was in the normal place, in the head and descending down the neck.  And they were super fast, which made them really hard to kill.  That was something else the computer had me practice again and again.

Luckily I didn’t have to practice alone.  For the first time I succeeded in getting June to come and do something with me.  “I haven’t really been able to do so before, dear,” she said.  “Most of what you’ve been doing I’ve already done.  But target practice, well, we all have to do that.”

We shot together for a while, and then she said, “So, how is it going with Andrew?”

I looked at her a bit annoyed.  It seemed she was always prying into my personal affairs.  But I guess she was sort of the pastor’s partner, and so that made it her job.  And I guess it really was important that I get my relationship with Andrew down.  We were going to be partners for the rest of our life.  “Oh, pretty good,” I said.  “Last night was good, I think.  He got a cramp and I helped him with it.”

She made me tell her all about it, dragging stuff out of me… “Well, how do I know if I love him?” I asked.

“But, dear, you are supposed to love him.  It’s not a feeling, you know; or not just a feeling.  Love is an action, a relationship.  You remember I Cor 13?” she said, and proceeded to give me a little lecture/sermon on what I was supposed to be doing to be ‘loving’.

“How does that help me know if I love him?” I asked, when she got done.

“But dear…” she said, sounding as frustrated as I felt.  “Dear, you are his partner.  There are things you are supposed to do.  You are supposed to love him, to act lovingly toward him.  Part of that is telling him that you love him.”

“Even if I don’t know if I do?”

She sighed.  “Dear, tell him you love him, act like you love him, and the feelings will come.  He seems like he is trying hard to be a good partner, in spite of our difficult circumstances.  He has a step up on the rest of the boys in our group, he didn’t drag you in because he committed some crime.  Accept what he is doing as his way of showing that he loves you, and…”

“He just wants to ‘love’ me in bed,” I said, finally bringing up what was really bothering me.  “That’s not all I want out of the relationship.”

She smiled.  She tried to hide it but she smiled.  I guess it must seem funny to her, who was on the second boy in her bed, and having had a baby and all.  “Well, dear, they go together.  The boy wants sex first, and the relationship second.  We girls want the relationship first, and sex second.  Martin talks to the boys about this as well, but I am talking to you.  You need to please your partner in bed, and then hope, and pray, that he will learn and grow in the relationship.”

“Andrew is very, very shy.  I’m sure you have learned that.  Martin tells me that it is painfully evident in his training, and he is sure it must affect your relationship.  You will have to learn how to draw him out.  But you won’t do it very successfully, in my opinion, by threatening him or being cold in bed.  You need to get him to trust you, to really trust you, and then he can open up with you and move toward the kind of relationship you want.”

Just my luck, I thought, getting a shy boy.  She was right, though.  Every time I tried to get him to talk about himself he clammed up.  Unless it was about his art, of course.  And even then he would rather draw me than talk about his drawings.

“I hope I’ve helped, dear,” June said, incongruously right after totally decapitating a Juvy with the rather powerful rifle we were training with.

“Oh, yes,” I said.  “I knew all this, of course, from my mother.  But it’s different when I actually have to live it out.”

“Yes,” she said.  “And I wouldn’t want you to think that I have always done perfectly.  I remember how hurt Martin was when I…”

—

#

I got back to the room that night before Andrew, and made it in, and out of, the shower before he got there… all wrapped up in my robe.  I watched him take his clothes off.  “Andrew!” I said, “you’re all dirty!”

“We had to work in the ‘gardens’ today.  Apparently there will be times when we will actually need to work with real dirt.”

“But, you’re dirty all over!” I said.

“Yeah, well, I had to shovel the stuff.”

I watched him get in the shower and, suddenly, made a decision.  A decision I knew June would approve of and I, finally, was ready for myself.  I slipped off my robe and got in behind him.  “Here, let me wash your back…”

—

#

Our time together that night went much easier than before, and Andrew loved it.  But I was surprised when, when we had finished, he sat up and got out his computer.  “Love?” I asked.

“I keep forgetting,” he said.  “I keep forgetting our worship time.  I remembered today, though, and even had a text I wanted to share with you.  Where was it?”

I sat up, feeling very awkward, and wondering if I should at least put on a robe? I mean, praying and preaching, like this? But Andrew ignored my discomfort, having found his passage.  “Here it is!” he said.  “I was thinking about this passage while I was simming.  Solomon wrote it about the perfect partner.  I don’t know how he knew about you…”

I blushed and leaned over, while he read the passage from Proverbs 31, a passage I was very familiar with.  He tried preaching about it, but, in the end, he kind of just kept telling me how wonderful I was and, eventually, he just prayed for us and we went to sleep.

I lay there, grinning, reminded of when I was a little kid and my folks would come ‘do prayers’ with me.  He was funny, Andrew…