The screen turns dark, and the Instructor begins to put his stuff away into a case, and half-heartedly asks, “Any questions?”
Julian, an older guy in my unit, raises his hand and the Instructor calls on him. “When was this passed by the Council?”
“It doesn’t have to be. Executive Order alongside the new War Powers and Protection Act, allows the President and Head of State Chief Commissars to do whatever necessary to prepare the nation’s armed forces in any emergencies. Next question?”
Rommel, some wired young kid, fresh out of high school and intending to have joined the military anyway, raises his hand next. “What’s with us training with these weapons? Most of them are from the Terrible War.”
I could actually answer this but I wonder what the Instructor has to say.
“Good question. But the answer is also in what you asked. Our last war ever, to everyone as you know was the Terrible War. After that event, with nearly half of the world’s population killed or mainly fleeing to the Dolus system for a new beginning once FTL was invented, the recreated UN decided to curb militarization and development entirely. Many of those guns you trained with are actually from the Terrible War. Only recently, since the Peace Protocols implemented by the Security Council have been revoked, have industries begin to reinvent and improve our military. We have a century of catching up to do when it comes to innovating killing. So don’t expect any changes for a while. More questions?”
Vance, a bio major, raises his hand. “So this stuff that we will be pumped with, it’s only temporary? No long term side effects or problems?”
“I would have covered those disclaimers in my presentation if there were.” The Instructor taps his suitcase. “However, now that you mention it, well it’s not really a documented or proven disorder, but the only thing you could maybe encounter is psychological aftershock.”
Multiple hands go up. Aftershock?
The Instructor chuckles, “Now hold on boys. Like I said, it’s not a proven or classified illness or disorder. What this aftershock is… is that you may encounter negative thoughts or attitudes after becoming sober from Buzz or DT use. There is no physical or long term damage at all that you will experience later in life.”
Someone from a platoon over raises his hand, “Why would we have, negative thoughts or whatever, after using them?”
“When under stimulants, Buzz especially, you are under a different mindset, a warrior’s mindset have you. What your ancestors encountered way back in war, not the Terrible War in the early teens but in the smaller wars right before it, was something called PTSD. I am sure you all know a little about it, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t either. It hasn’t really been talked about because soldiers in the Terrible War were given medication immediately after their tours ended to make sure they wouldn’t go through it. The last big conflict where it was experienced was the in Arab Levant wars earlier in the beginning of the twenty first century. Formally known as the War on Terror in your history books.
“PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, is where soldiers are incapable of dealing with former experiences during their live combat tours once back home. We have no need to get involved into the nitty gritty details of it though, as it is practically irrelevant to us at the moment. What I brought it up for in the first place, is that there is a possibility you will experience negative responses to what you did on the field while under these performance drugs, but after you are sober and off the field. Thus aftershock. We don’t expect it to be anywhere as bad as PTSD of old. In fact, if things pan out correctly, these drugs should prevent the chances of PTSD in the first place, because you’ll be mentally protected from experiencing traumatic events during combat thanks to them. So hopefully you’ll have no need to take post-combat medication when you return back to Earth as well.”
He tightens the straps on his case and slides it off the table to his side. “Well I hope that answers a lot of your thoughts about Stims. Good luck men, all of you will be placed in a history book one day, and I mean that. Your task is monumental but the reward, protecting humanity against those Herc bastards, will leave you famous and adored by every generation to come. You can count on that.”
We leave to break for the night. Most of us rest in the bunks again. We’re all quiet for a while, only Alex munching on jerky echoes throughout the room. I bet most of them are thinking about the surgery tomorrow.
Isaac starts the conversation. “This is bullshit.”
“The implants?” I say.
“Yeah bud. Just controlling our mind however they want,” he says.
“I don’t know. I think it’s a good thing,” says Vance. “We are going to be terrified fighting them. It’s fucking aliens. The drugs will get rid of that. We know that, due to training with them.”
“That’s the problem,” says Isaac. “Peter over here—shit we dormed together—can be turned into my enemy in seconds. Just by saying he’s a Herc lover or some other bogus crap. Doesn’t that scare you, how easily they can change us, on the drop of a dime?”
Julian speaks, “I’ve been troubled about it too. I wanted to fight for my country, but not like this.”
“Like what?” Sergeant Blake leans against the doorway. We fidget about awkwardly, not knowing what to say.
Ray, a fully tattooed man from Florida, answers for us, “Buzz, sir.”
“Oh,” Blake rubs his forearms, “it’s something isn’t it?”
We don’t know if we’re supposed to reply so causally to our NCO.
“Trust me, what those Herculeans are, they aren’t some pushover insurgents. Hell, not even some other conventional army from Earth. I don’t need to tell you twice they’re not human. And they won’t take prisoners—reports are confirming that. They won’t second guess the value of your life out on the field. Look what they did to Gemina, cooked an entire planet. For all we know, these could be their best warriors. Trained for their entire lives to fight. And here’s us, a bunch of drafts. Most of us having never fired a gun till we came here. You’ll come to rely on those drugs. You’ll come to appreciate them for the boost they give you. To make you fearless.”
Blake turns to leave, “Get some sleep. If you thought that primary training was hard, wait till those implants are in and we train at full combat capacity for the next month to get you in real fighting order.” He exits, and we are left to ourselves again.
Isaac and I leave to rest in the wreck room, watching the news together. “Soon boy, you’ll be on that TV,” says Isaac, pretending to mimic our Instructor from earlier.
“Probably in a casket coming home,” I say. Part of his old attitude was coming back. Albeit mixed in with his new fuck-it-all mentality. “But at least you won’t die shitting yourself.”
“I’d rather be scared than lose my identity.”
Maybe. “I was told by my favorite professor, to not lose who I was when they drafted me. Never did I think they could actually take that away too.”
“Who told you that?” says Isaac.
“Mr. Martin.”
“Ah, I was going to take one of his classes next semester, but I found a better one.”
“What was that?”
“You’re thick. This place, Einstein. Now I’m taking a class on how to bend over for the Party.”
“The Party also paid for your college.”
“They also must want to pay for my funeral.”
The newsman recites the latest events on Nova Terra, “The Confederate City States have agreed to a joint military alliance to combat the Herculeans who have successfully landed on Russian defended territories in the Eastern Hemisphere. Russia is paying the Confederates and promises to ship weapons to help intervene in the crisis unfolding. Russia, just like the rest of the United Nations, is unable to send boots on the ground till the entire newly formed Coalition is at full capacity. This is to insure cohesion and effectiveness of our global forces once they arrive…”