by Max Barry

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DispatchAccountDrama

by Cbg palisade. . 52 reads.

Teaser — IntGov

    I... um. This... is it..? Yeah, it's on. Well, um, alright, then. Ahem. I... The... the shrinks tell us we should talk about what we've seen, even if it's just to a camera. They say it's meant to help us come to terms with what we've seen. I mean, we all know it's so they can tell who to schedule extra therapy sessions with, but it's not like anyone but Doc Nguyen's going to hear this- hi, doc- and I ain't telling.

    But... doc, bear with me here, I've got a bit of a rant for you. Sorry, I don't mean to lay this all out on you, but I need to get it out and apparently you're the psych who volunteered for this, so we're both in a bit of a cr— position. It-

    It's been two years, 77 days, and nine hours since I enlisted in the espatier corps.

    Give or take a few. My clock's off, sue me.

    Y'know, thinking back on it, I'm not quite sure why I ever signed up; I mean, I'm not the most patriotic sort. I don't care jack-sh— for the flag-wavers and the Network bootlickers, that's for sure. In fact I'd rather see 'em all spaced. Hell, I was only... nineteen at the time, I think. I barely knew anything 'bout life but my own hab and hops to our mining sites. But... the pay was good, and I was... I don't know. Tired. Tired of looking at transit maps and seeing every other system redmarked. Tired of every update-cycle's headlines being nothing but death. Tired of wondering if one day Artur Rudin or Nate Bishop or Felicity Chandler or any of twenty dozen other pirate-masters and warlords were going to choose our hab as their next port of call or not. And so I figured I'd best be getting with the people trying to put a stop to that, even if they weren't the best of folks at the end of the day.

    I have spent two years, 77 days, and eight hours regretting that decision. The first hour was at least a novelty. But when the only difference between a maintenance spacewalk and an antipiracy op is a stiffer spacesuit, a higher chance of death, and a lack of plans as to the hab you're inspecting's layout, things start to get rote. Death becomes rote.

    Of course, it's not all dull work. Sometimes they shoot back. Y'know, once some gun-runners in Devon let us in the airlock then tried to gun down the platoon. They popped me in the shoulder; stop-gel saved most of my arm, and they were able to regrow most of the nerve endings with some sort of medicine I'd never heard of before, but I ain't ever got feeling back in that shoulder. Another time I took a shotgun slug to the thigh. Thank God for composite plates; they had enough of a leg left over to work with that they could fit me with a robotic prosthetic. Some of the other guys weren't so lucky. They can't stick your nerves into fiber-optics if there ain't no nerves left to mess with- poor Marek's been hopping about on a plastic foot every time we're on a wheel for the better part of a year or so now, I think. At least he can kick off the walls with it well enough when there ain't no centrifuge to bunk in. And they ain't taken him off-duty yet.

    And then there's the really interesting times. When they shove you in a box full of translucent green gel and tell you not to rip the cover off your gun until the gel goes red, and then the rocket that box is strapped to decides it'd rather be impaled in some other poor bastard's ship than docked with your own. Christ, those things kick. And then if you make it all the way down without getting your pod turned to gas by some megawatt laser you're stuck on the outside of a foreign ship with nothing but your suit, a gun, and a couple of breaching charges meant to cut through said poor bastards' airlocks and probably not blow your face off in the process. And then there's nothing but hostile guns and killzones and environments where OPFOR can literally change the gravity by throwing the throttle to full waiting for you on the inside, and that's if our own people did their jobs and cleared out the surface guns,, which... they never do, 'else we wouldn't have the missile drones with us. But still. There's a reason our platoons are so big, doc, and you know it. The margin of error is massive on a boarding mission. Hell, even ladders are deathtraps. I've seen idiots take six-gee falls down three or four decks before, it ain't pretty. Sometimes, if you're lucky, there's enough of the fella left over to pull out of the suit. But... yeah. Like I said, death becomes rote. At least there's a cause at the end of the day, right?

    Hell no there isn't. God, it's- you know what? It's all bull. It's completely useless. Everyone I've seen die, all the ships we've lost, all the money the bureaucrats have sunk into materiel and LSS and propaganda and media campaigns and weapons, it's all a waste. None of what we're doing works, you know that? Rudin and Chandler and Keller and Brittany and all the rest all get their guns from van Heerden, and so long as the twinky f—er's got the Veronica lane locked down and we don't have the balls to take it then we ain't stopping him from selling arms to a bunch of psychopaths. All we're doing is catching the small fry and the idiots who don't stick to the red lines. So... yeah.

    I'm probably going to be discharged if you decide to show the unit censors this. Well, good. F— Admiral Tanya high-and-f—ing-mighty Kovalova! F— her, and f— her board! F— security and stability! If they get rid of me then... then I'll be going home. At least if the warlords kill me there I'll die where I can see my family, not choking on some godless frozen void. I didn't sign up for this, and I'm not taking it anymore. I... I'm... I'm done.

    Thanks for your time, doc. I know it's your job, but still. Hey, maybe you don't actually watch these. That'd be a welcome surprise. But if you do, then... please show this to the censors.

    I miss my mum.

    The Coalition's Interim Military Government of Liam's Reach.

    For a secure and stable future.

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      Header Credit: LinkNick DePerno, edited by me

      Cbg palisade

      Edited:

      RawReport