Under other circumstances I might have accepted her invitation.
"Sorry, but I'm not the guy you're looking for."
I turned and started running toward the training field where Sergeant Ferrell was waiting, reeking of sweat and pumped with adrenaline.
"Asshole!"
I didn't stop to return the compliment.
4
Attempt #99:
KIA forty—five minutes from start of battle.
5
Attempt #110:
They break through our line. Yonabaru is the weak link.
"Keiji… that mystery novel. It was that guy eating the pudding who…"
With those words, he dies.
KIA fifty—seven minutes from start of battle.
6
Attempt #123:
The migraines that had started after about fifty loops are getting worse. I don't know what's causing them. The painkillers the doctors give me don't work at all. The prospect of these headaches accompanying me into every battle from here on out isn't doing much for my morale.
KIA sixty—one minutes from start of battle.
7
Attempt #154:
Lose consciousness eighty minutes from start of battle. I don't die, but I'm still caught in the loop. Whatever. If that's how it's gonna be, that's how it's gonna be.
8
Attempt #158:
I've finally mastered the tungsten carbide battle axe. I can rip through a Mimic's endoskeleton with a flick of the wrist.
To defeat resilient foes, mankind developed blades that vibrate at ultra—high frequencies, pile drivers that fire spikes at velocities of fifteen hundred meters per second, and explosive melee weapons that utilized the Monroe Effect. But projectile weapons ran out of ammo. They jammed. They broke down. If you struck a slender blade at the wrong angle, it would shatter. And so Rita Vrataski reintroduced war to the simple, yet highly effective, axe.
It was an elegant solution. Every last kilogram—meter per second of momentum generated by the Jacket's actuators was converted to pure destructive force. The axe might bend or chip, but its utility as a weapon would be undiminished. In battle, weapons you could use to bludgeon your enemy were more reliable. Weapons that had been honed to a fine edge, such as the katana, would cut so deep they'd get wedged in your enemy's body and you couldn't pull them out. There were even stories of warriors who dulled their blades with a stone before battle to prevent that from happening. Rita's axe had proven its worth time and again.
My platoon crawled toward the northern tip of Kotoiushi Island, Jackets in sleep mode. It was five minutes before our platoon commander would give the signal for the start of the battle. No matter how many times I experienced it, this was when my tension ran highest. I could see why Yonabaru let his mouth run with whatever bullshit came out. Ferrell just let our chatter wash over him.
"I'm tellin' ya, you gotta hook yourself up with some pussy. If you wait until you're strapped into one of these Jackets, it's too late."
"Yeah."
"What about Mad Wargarita? Y'all were talkin' during PT, right? You'd tap that, I know you would."
"Yeah."
"You're a cool customer."
"Yeah?"
"You haven't even popped your cherry, and you're calm as a fuckin' whore. My first time I had butterflies beatin' up a tornado in my stomach."
"It's like a standardized test."
"What're you talkin' about?"
"Didn't you take those in high school?"
"Dude, you don't expect me to remember high school, do ya?"
"Yeah." I'd managed to throw Yonabaru off what passed for his train of thought, but my mind was on autopilot. "Yeah."
"Yeah what? I didn't even say anything." Yonabaru's voice reached me through a fog.
I felt like I'd been fighting in this same spot for a hundred years. Half a year ago I was a kid in high school. I couldn't have cared less about a war that was slowly drowning the earth in its own blood. I'd lived in a world of peace, one filled with family and friends. I never imagined I'd trade classrooms and the soccer field for a war zone.
"You've been actin' funny since yesterday."
"Yeah?"
"Dude, don't go losin' it on us. Two in a row from the same platoon—how would that look? And I been meanin' to ask: what the fuck is that hunk of metal you're carrying? And what the fuck do you plan on doin' with it? Tryin' to assert your ind'viduality? Workin' on an art project?"
"It's for crushing."
"Crushin' what?"
"The enemy, mostly."
"You get up close, that's what your pile driver's for. You gonna tell me you're better off with an axe? Maybe we should fill our platoon with lumberjacks. Hi ho, hi ho!"
"That was the dwarves."
"Good point. Well made. Point for you."
Ferrell jumped into our conversation. "Hey, I don't know where he learned how, but he sure as hell can use that thing. But Kiriya, only use it once they're up in your face and you don't have a choice. Don't go rushin' up askin' for it. Modern warfare is still waged with bullets. Try not to forget."
"Yessir."
"Yonabaru."
I guess the sergeant felt he needed to spread the attention around.
"Yeah?"
"Just… do what you always do."
"What the hell, Sarge? Keiji gets a pep talk and I get that? A delicate soul like me needs some inspiring words of encouragement, too."
"I might as well encourage my rifle for all the good it would do."
"You know what this is? Discrimination, that's what it is!"
"Every now and again you get me thinking, Yonabaru," Ferrell said, his voice tinny over the link. "I'd give my pension to the man who invents a way to fasten your—shit, it's started! Don't get your balls blown off, gents!"
I sprang into battle, Doppler cranked, the usual buzzing in my helmet. Just like the other moments.
There. A target.
I fired. I ducked. A javelin whizzed past my head.
"Who's up there? You're too far forward! You wanna get yourself killed?"
I pretended to follow the platoon leader's orders. I don't care how many lives you have, if you followed the orders of every officer fresh from the academy, you'd end up getting bored of dying.
Thunder erupted from the shells crisscrossing the sky. I wiped sand from my helmet. I glanced at Ferrell and nodded. It only took an instant for him to realize the suppressing fire I'd just laid down had thwarted an enemy ambush. Somewhere deep in Ferrell's gut, his instincts were telling him that this recruit named Keiji Kiriya, who'd never set foot in battle in his life, was a soldier he could use. He was able to see past the recklessness of what I'd just done. It was that sort of adaptability that had kept him alive for twenty years.
To be honest, Ferrell was the only man in the platoon I could use. The other soldiers had only seen two or three battles at most. Even the ones who'd survived in the past hadn't ever gotten killed. You can't learn from your mistakes when they kill you. These greenhorns didn't know what it was to walk the razor's edge between life and death. They didn't know that the line dividing the two, the borderland piled high with corpses, was the easiest place to survive. The fear that permeated every fiber of my being was relentless, it was cruel, and it was my best hope for getting through this.
That was the only way to fight the Mimics. I didn't know shit about any other wars, and frankly, I didn't care to. My enemy was humanity's enemy. The rest didn't matter.