Beyond the Land: A Future Fairy Tale

Prologue: Reclamation War

Prologue: Reclamation War

Southern Reaches, Twenty Miles Outside of the Militarized Zone
Sixty Years After the Azure Storm


Blue Armor 572, Unit B stood under the wing of the light carrier, his faceshield down. The air in his helmet reeked of sweat and the stale remnants of the synthmeal he had eaten two days ago.
His orders were specific. Keep your faceshield down. No exceptions.
But even in the middle of this dust storm, the prospect of fresh air was a constant temptation. Units F through I had gotten the new vacuum pumps that kept their helmets smelling like the sterilized interior of an office building; for the rest, it was tough luck.
He switched his communicator on, bracing himself for the cloud of synthmeal breath that fogged the glass of his helmet whenever he spoke.
“Tanik, how’s the back looking?” He said.
Tanik Dewatz was technically Blue Armor 689, but he was sure that no one was listening in on the comchannels out here.
“All clear.” Tanik’s voice came back. He was a young kid; maybe nineteen or twenty. A Vril-Ya by birth, like most of the men in the platoon, he had cropped his silver hair short, earning him the nickname “Scalp.”
“Listen, Scalp –” 572 began. “I’m not seeing anything on this side, either. Rendezvous back on the deck?”
“Roger.” Tanik replied. “See you on deck, Kal.”
It had been a week since they had been stationed here, with nothing but the two of them, a light cruiser they had taken to calling “Goose,” and a couple of packets of synthfood. Water rations had been deemed uncessary, since their suits recycled body moisture through a purifier and fed it back to them through a small, straw-like apparatus hidden away in the helmet’s mouthpiece.
Maximum efficiency.
And the stuff tasted like a wrung-out sweatsock, because that’s what it was.
They had been put on communication and reconaissance duty, which was a simple way of saying “keep your eyes open for sandsuckers and your ears open for signals from the Top.” Other than that, you can count sand kernels for entertainment and squat behind a rock when you need to take a dump.
And they were the lucky ones – high-bred Vril-Ya kids with Corporate parents who had paid off The Society to keep their kids out of the line of fire.
As Kal loped through the open sidehatch of the cruiser, he caught sight of a blue flash on the horizon. Another Zeitgeist fighter biting the dust.
“What the hell is going on?” He groused through his helmet, as he entered the empty transport bay and threw himself down on a bench. “That’s the third Zeitgeist I’ve seen flash out today.”
“Unstable cores.” Tanik ventured. His father was a Corporate engineer, and he had crammed his head with a library of technical knowledge. “They’re still experimenting with the portable Vril cores. And with Vril rates through the roof....”
“Oh, hang it.” Kal muttered. “You know that’s why we’re here.”
Tanik sat down, shook his head. He wasn’t buying it.
“Don’t be such a cynic.” He said. “You saw what Desert Rose did to the OutCity.”
“Maybe so.” Kal said. “But the timing couldn’t have been better. Everyone’s paying out their butts because The Society racked up a trillion-something-credit debt with The Corporation, and what does President Euller do? Send us off with reclamation rifles and orders to harvest everything that moves and some things that don’t. They’ve even started using a new word for it: reclamation war.”
“That’s enough.” Tanik snapped, rising to his feet and laying a hand on the reclamation pistol at his belt. “If you want out, there’s the hatch.”
Kal sighed.
“I’m sorry.” He said. “I think the stress is getting to me.”
“Yeah.” Tanik admitted. “I think it’s getting to all of us....”
Kal reached up and rapped on the side of his helmet with his knuckles.
“I don’t think I can stand living in this can much longer. I’ve got a splitting headache.”
Standing up, Kal ran his fingers along the curve of his blue helmet, down to a button on his right jaw.
“I’m going outside.” He said. “Take a rest, and check the commrelay for any new messages. I’ll be around front, keeping an eye out for sandsuckers.”
Tanik nodded and watched as Kal vanished back into the swirling sandstorm outside. The wind had been blowing hard these last few days, and that made Tanik uneasy. Sure, they had the best equipment in the world at their fingertips, but this wasn’t the kind of warfare they were used to.
He checked himself and blocked the thought from his mind. Closing his eyes, he settled back into his seat and fiddled with the buttons under his chin in a futile effort to uplink his helmet’s comsystem to the People’s Newswire. He knew better than to expect reception under conditions like this, but he held out hope that a nearby outpost was relaying a signal from Sacrifice.
No such luck.
Standing up, he went into the comcenter and tapped a few buttons on the control panel. The latest intel from the Comraderie flashed across his screen – recent enemy movements seemed to indicate retreat, or at least a regrouping; a few dozen Desert Rose operatives had been captured in the north; and a new shipment of Zeitgeist fighters had just landed on the occupied side of the militarized zone without a hitch. All in all, the pace and direction of the war was looking better each day. At this rate, they’d be home by the end of the month.
Linking his helmet to the computer system, Tanik forwarded the information on to Outpost 380, from which it would then be broadcast to the troops on the Front. Unclipping the helmet’s mic with his teeth, he rattled off his clearance password, and added a sardonic endnote of his own: “Blue Armor 689, Tanik Dewatz. Greetings from the middle of nowhere. Tell my wife I’ll bring her a bottle of sand when I get back.”
Decoding from the comsystem, Tanik slid back in his chair and stretched his arms above his head. His scalp itched. He hadn’t showered in three days now, and he could only imagine what he looked like under his faceshield.
“Maybe Kal’s right.” He sighed to himself, pensively stroking his index finger over the sharp edges of his new face.
He got up and left the commcenter, taking a brief stop in the operations corridor to link his suit to a rest station and relieve himself. When he was done, he went back outside. The sandstorm had gotten worst. Visibility had been reduced to five yards, he guessed, and they’d have a heck of a time scraping the sand out of the cruiser’s engines tomorrow.
Linking to a closed channel, he said to Kal: “Wild out here, isn’t it?”
He waited for a moment before speaking again.
“Command says they’ve confiscated our hydroscubbers.” He said in a sardonic tone. “Guess you’ll be using your toothbrush to get the grime out of the engines tomorrow, Kal.”
He stopped himself, suddenly aware of how sticky his teeth had become since he’d last been out of his helmet. The fuzzy taste of plaque was rancid in his mouth.
“Alright, Kal, I’ll tell ya what.” He said. “Whattya say we tag Dr. Al-Hazmi and use his beard to clean up this mess?”
Still no reply.
“Kal?”
Dang. The sandstorm must have cut his comlines.
Making his way around the bulk of the cruiser, Tanik switched his helmet to infrared and scanned the sea of dust for Kal’s heat signature. He couldn’t be far from the cruiser; not if he was smart, anyway. The thought ocurred to Tanik that Kal might have wandered away from the cruiser and gotten lost in the storm. If so, he’d have enough water to last five days, and a recon squadron would probably pick him up by morning. Still, it was an idiotic thing to do, and he’d be facing sharp discipline for abandoning his post.
Tanik caught himself and shook the thought from his mind.
Kal wasn’t stupid like that. He’d complain from time to time, but he had a level head on his shoulders.
Circling around the rear of the cruiser, Tanik made his way up the starboard side, towards the cruiser’s front wings. He switched his com to another channel, tried again:
“Kal, do you copy? B.A. 572, do you copy? B.A. 572?”
He grinned at his sudden use of official language. Kal hated being called by his serial number. They had exchanged cordial messages as units 572 and 689 when they were in training together, but as soon as they had landed here and the Comrades had waved goodbye, they decided to revert to the informal use of first names.
“B.A. 572, do you copy?”
Suddenly, a light orange outline appeared on the visor of Tanik’s helmet. It was slumped against the frontal landing arm, with its back propped up against the arm and its legs stretched out casually in front of it.
Lazy son of a.... he’s switched his helmet off so he could take a nap.
Tanik waved, then realized that Kal couldn’t see him unless he was also switched to infrared.
Fat chance.
Striding under the wing of the cruiser, Tanik thought about the possibility of slipping a handful of sand down the sleeping Blue Armor’s shirt. But he caught himself short. Something wasn’t right. The orange outline was slowly fading – to yellow, and then a pale green, and finally a dim white.
Sleeping heavy?
Tanik grimaced at the thought. He had been trained as a medic. He knew that a sleeping body didn’t lose heat that fast.
His mouth went dry. Instinctively, he reached for his reclamation pistol.
“Kal!” He shouted under his helmet. As he ran towards the landing arm, he saw Kal’s familiar shape propped up against the steel arm, his head slumped forward onto his chest. His blue helmet was resting peacefully in the crook of his arm.
He took it off.
“Kal!” He shouted again, grabbing the man’s shoulders and giving him a hard shake. Kal’s head tipped against his shoulder on a limp neck. Blood trickled from his forehead.
Snipers.
They had been waiting for them to remove their helmets.
Waiting in the sandstorm.
Diving for the sand, he switched his helmet to bioscan and swept the horizon. There were no signs of life.
They must have struck just minutes after he stepped outside.
A sudden buzzing in Tanik’s right ear shook him to his feet. The buzzing grew louder, and then a series of high-pitched beeps sounded inside his helmet.
The Comraderie’s signal. High priority.
Tanik tapped his helmet, found High Command’s frequency. A disjointed series of blips and buzzes chirped in his ear.
Encrypted. That was typical of messages from High Command. He would have to run it through the cruiser’s comstation to hear the full message.
He looked down at Kal’s body. The trickle of blood ran down his nose and lips, onto the sand beneath him. Tanik’s hand trembled at the end of his reclamation rifle. The buzzing grew louder, and a series of sharp, high-pitched chirps told him that High Command was growing impatient.
It must be desperate, he thought.
Perhaps it was a command to retreat from their present location, or return to Sacrifice.
It had been days since he had heard any news front. Things could have turned sour overnight, and The Society could have been routed back across the militarized zone.
He checked himself. A lot of these thoughts had been ocurring to him since he left Sacrifice. War stress, perhaps.
Stooping down, he picked up Kal’s reclamation rifle and strapped it across his back. He wavered over the body, wondering whether he should take it back inside the cruiser or not. Orders were specific: if at all possible, reclaim the Vril of a fallen soldier for industrial reprocessing. This could only be done within the first thirty seconds after death began. After that, the dead were to be left behind, or carted off to one of the crematoriums for organic reuse. Tanik studied Kal’s rough features. The Vril-Ya had very little facial hair, but a wisp of stubble had appeared on the older man’s cheeks and upper lip. His silver hair was a greasy, tangled mass that hung down into his eyes, which were closed.
The sand would bury him here.
That would be more Kal’s style than vanishing up the chimney of a crematorium.
Tanik turned back to the cruiser and strode towards the hatch. The chirping in his helmet had become more frequent and more urgent. He began to wonder again whether the tide had turned against them.
“Alright, alright.” He muttered, as he made his way through the hatch and down the hall towards the commcenter.
He had decided already that if it were a command to retreat, he’d let the Comrades have it.
He was thinking through how he’d tell them that they were a day short and a dollar late when he crossed the hatch into the communications room.
They’d want to know what had happened, and why Kal was dead. When the Comraderie learned that he had defied orders and removed his faceshield, there would be a lot to explain, and Tanik wasn’t in the mood to discuss it right now.
Running his fingers across the keys, he brought up the communication interface and linked his helmet into the main system. He could hear the computer humming in his ears as it verified his identity.
Again he found himself wondering if things had soured on the front.
Suddenly, his earpiece crackled to life.
It was a voice he had only heard once before, when his brigade had landed outside the militarized zone.
“This is Supreme Comrade Soren Arclion.” The voice said. “Dr. Ibrahim Al-Hazmi has been killed in the fighting and confirmed dead. The war is over. Preparations for withdrawal will begin immediately. Well fought, gentlemen.”
The words rang in Kal’s tired ears.
The war is over.