He looks back at me slightly surprised. “Yes, Private?”
“I will be honest with you,” I cough—you got to finish this. “I fucking hate you. But because you are the only one I can trust now. And because you fucked everyone here who was supposed to die. I have something that I need to tell you.”
XXXI
“You expect me to believe this?” says Jack. We have returned to the northern Kuplar regional HQ base, where I have told him everything in his field office. A clamp has been placed around my thigh wound which takes the pressure off of it when I walk, and my broken distributor cut off.
His radio goes off, “Major General, General of Kuplar Battalion. Answer immediately!” It’s Marshall Hannibal.
Jack turns to the radio, “Yes Marshall I copy. This is Jack, sir.”
“You are to stand down immediately, I repeat, stand down immediately from you post for disobeying orders.”
Jack turns the radio off and looks back at me. “And I thought he was the nicer one. Turns out he’s an asshole too.”
“Is that reason enough now?” I say.
“Well no, I am fucked for disobeying orders…”
The ground shakes around us. An officer runs through the door, “We are under attack!”
“By who!” says Jack.
“It’s an orbital bombardment, our own Fleet I think! Tell them to stop!”
Jack grabs his gear and rifle. “Now I believe you Private.” He turns to his officer. “I can’t. We have been compromised. But if you ever want the truth of your death known you will take this marine to safety immediately.”
“Where will we go General?” says the officer.
“Go to the refugee base ten kilometers south west from here. It’s on your PDA.”
The bombardment continues and we fall from the force of the shelling. “Why there?” I say.
Jack grabs a box and chemical vile and hands it to me. “You will use this vile to undergo facial burning to hide your true identity, so you can get medical treatment there under your new name. You will say you are a native. The ID of a deceased male local not yet reported is in the box. I am giving you refugee clearance and you can take a ship back to Earth.” He stamps a seal of approval on the paper slip of an asylum form. “Fill it out when you get there with the ID’s info. Now get the fuck out of here.”
We exit the field office to the burning base around us. Streaks of bright ordinance rip through the snow gray sky destroying the base. Jack’s field HQ is on a slope on the outskirts of the base, but the bombardment begins creeping towards us.
The officer takes me away on a Humvee and we drive on a trail to a nearby village. The bombardment continues behind me as a lighting storm from the heavens itself. Attacking aircraft are silhouetted in the sky by the bright flashes as they strafe the base.
The office rips my forearm control pad off, then his, and tosses them. He pulls over and kicks in the radio and schematics box in the jeep. “They can track us through anything info related,” says the officer. He turns his head so the back of his lower neck where the drug distributor is shows. “I need you to rip it out for me.”
“Why?”
“Yours was ripped and cut by the General. I need mine gone too. It may have not been known to you Private, but the military has GPS’s on these.”
“How am I going to take it out?”
The officer opens the glove box to the container Jack gave us. In it is a scalpel. “Use your knife to prop it in and the scalpel to pop it out.”
He takes a shot of morphine. We cover our cloaks over us and the Humvee to blend in with the snow storm. I place his cuff down and cut away at the indentation of where the drug distributor is and ply it out. Next I clamp the cord that goes into the spine. He cusses throughout the procedure begging me to stop, but we are done shortly and on our way again. We abandon the Humvee for better secrecy after drones fly in our direction, and use the cloaks to conceal ourselves the rest of the way. We become white with the land.
On our journey I see that little boy from Nova Carthago in the alleyways and the ambush, appear and disappear in between the wind puffs of snow. “Go back Peter! Fight, fight to your last breath!” he says.
Is this really happening?
He begs again. “Go Peter! I want to grow up and go to college and have a family, but I can’t if you don’t fight for my freedom and protect me against the aliens. Fight or they will kill me! Go and fight, fight till you die Peter!”
One moment he is right in front of us stopping me still. He is in pajamas that have palm trees designs over them, and on his chest is splattered blood. “Don’t follow him you coward! Go back and fight! You’re a filthy alien lover. You never loved humanity, Earth! Or yourself. Go and fight till you die, be something for once!”
It’s me. It’s my younger self.
It is just an illusion. It’s not real Peter.
“I am real, I am you with hopes and dreams! The person you’ll never be because you don’t stand up for anything! You won’t go back and fight!”
Listen to him.
You turn around. The officer yells louder.
Ignore him!
Peter walks, but his head hurts again. He falls down against the snow grabbing his head.
Go away!
I never thought I would be so terrified of my younger self, and at the same time, also really fucking hate him.
I turn back towards the officer, towards the apparition yelling at me.
It’s just an illusion.
Is it Peter?
My body becomes colder than the snow beneath me. You’re, you’re—
I never left my brave little soldier. Lie down. Rest in me. See what’s below you? It’s clouds. Remember the clouds? How wonderful they are to you. I was to you?
I have to keep going. I need to—
Hush, my little soldier. Rest. You need to rest.
The snow surrounds my face. But it’s not hard and frozen. It’s soft.
There you go my little soldier. There you go.
“Peter!” Someone shakes my arms. The snow becomes hard and freezing. I can’t stop shaking. My nose is bleeding but it has already frozen over and I can’t breathe out of it.
“I can’t!” I cry. I cough and spit against the snow.
“I ca—” The officer wraps my face in his undercoat and shoots water from his camel pack up my nose. The dissolved blood gushes down my lips.
Peter, what are you doing? Come back to your Cloud!
“I can’t. I can’t,” I whisper into his chest.
He lifts me up and carries me. I see my younger self again! I stumble off the officer and he turns around to grab me. But I hold him off and get up myself.
Come back! Don’t you love me?
I take the step forward and break through the apparition. He and Cloud are gone for now.
We travel through the frozen forests and hide under our cloaks. I discover the officer’s name is Troy. On the second night Troy cries bitterly against my shoulder. We use our cloaks to wrap ourselves together. The cloaks conserve heat perfectly like a warm room. One of the few technological advances I appreciate the military for giving me. He cries, and I cry back to him. My life, where has it gone? Isaac, Isaac, Isaac, I’m so sorry. Isaac, what have I done to you?
“What troubles you?” I ask him the next morning, as we near the village and larger refugee camp next to it.
“Last night? It’s Jack. I never thought he would die… so early, and by betrayal too. He was the only one I confided in, and he to me.”
It all makes sense now. The reason why Jack trusted him so much and his loyalty back to him. They must have had a relationship before the unfolding events a few days ago.