The Isle of Defeat

IMAGES FROM THE ISLAND OF DEFEAT
Eldrige Dwight

 

My world is flat.

 

Though I sit on a shore and scan the vastness of the sea, if I stand, take twenty steps, I'll hit the side of the crater. The illusion of eternity will crack at the stark wall or I'll hit an enviro apparatus or holo generator; the machine which creates this lapping sea, blue sky, eternity and remember I'm in a crater five kilometers deep near thirty five in diameter.

 

From space, old images gave a dead moon with a dimple as if a Cosmic Finger poked wet dough. Jupiter's Red Spot, Galteri's dimple (or navel or whatever a mouth wanted to map it); hallmarks.

 

Galteri's hole became experiment on artificial environments fifty (E.Y) ago, then a mil base and so it remains. A mil base for people who don't have a mil, just a shell of push power for megalomaniacs while we sit and wait for finality.

 

They say dispis will persist if conservation practiced and solar sucking is A-okay and isn't expected to quark.  If we match farmer, real food can supplement and breathing slow and obsoing polluters or air eaters can buy a few more decades.

 

Galteri was supposed to be self contained self fulfilling, but there's a eight hundred extra bods on a squat that could use five hundred less.  No breeding can play and Colonel Pip might soon be capitalizing offenses.'

 

I sit and look at illusion when undesired, Captain Bob Shuman took a near squat.

 

"They've pinged a convoy making a KeyTash/Zechia ride." he announces as if significant.

 

"Mmmm." I'd rather walk my own dogs.

 

"You match it would pleasure more on world than in a hole?"

 

"Word 'pleasure' in human mouth impious."

 

"Life/Hope."

 

"We lost that, didn't we?" I tossed at the man who was my Captain when I was a hot flyboy wanting to ride Monster's wake.

 

Shuman's overly refoed face almost made an expression, but couldn't.  "Who are you blaming for the war's loss, Dwight? Me? Olaffson? SMC?"

 

"All of the above, but in reverse order."

 

"You think Jarufsky's prog played pious, don't you?"

 

I was a tad gigoed to hear him output direct and tossed the orts of my mind to the conferences on the John Glenn when we cusped war and didn't know the word defeat.

 

Enough Brass to furnish a palace glinted in the ready room and only the old crochet was making warning sounds.

 

"She might have been pious." He gave.

 

I got both eyeballs glued to his map for it was a song I didn't think he'd sing.

 

He reached for the bottle of 100 proof I'd pinched from Colonel Phillips' private cache and filled his mouth.
It was on the John Glenn, just getting the output that the 64th Spaceborne was vanqed--2 p.m. (GMT) on 10 July 2496, or some time around there. With space and time and different motherboards it was fluid and uncertain, despite the Mil's attempt to fit it all into boxes.

 

It was then Olaffson had the data dog give us the params; --The 64th was deployed to attack KeyTash;
preemptive strike during an official truce.--

 

We drew first blood.

And we paid.

 

While choking that ugly we were lined Monster had been snagged boxed and shipped to Miunow. Then Captain Shuman could pose the quander war or no with: "Deem eDapktchoy gave the ZCF all classified information he possessed and they have utilized--."

 

The smash of the 64th proved collision not vanqing, proved, in haste to attack KeyTash, our Brass had pushed the envelope and slammed into a Zerk force holding position.

 

Yet he'd spelled it war and that's when Jarufsky asked: "Why was Commander eDapktchoy sent to Miunow?"

 

Some brass ticker gave: "He was tried, found guilty of desertion and treason."

 

But she hadn't swallowed.  "...that was the standard sentence for an Officer in the TSF found guilty of treason?"  

 

The pause and twist underlined we were being lied to.

 

She kept cycling Miunow, they kept outputting prison until she broke.  "That is not a prison! If it is, not a military prison. And he is not human! What they consider mortal insult is what we accept, (dare I use the term)--as enlightened incarceration? Further--he was convicted in absencia--no one even had the decency to ascertain if he were escaping from them, or not."

 

Shuey brings it a little closer to now:  "When Pully, Olaf and I were snatched by Zerks, that was the pin. That's all they questioned--Miunow."

 

It didn't have to play war. It didn't have to play in mega orbits. It started in neutral.

 

I had been posted to the Firestone under Captain Pullson when Monster screened towing a lifeboat with four injured Zerks. He claimed medical emergency, but as the injured were Zerks, like him, a security detachment was posed.

 

I hadn't matched it critical as my Capitano. And short fuse Pull lost his rock, went to face slap, but Monster faster and got the brig.

 

Word was treason. No one wanted to hear a new Louey output medical emergency; Zerks were Zerks; the deader the better.

 

In a few hours the Fire was attacked. Dead in space and I dispatched to the Brig. I clued Monster a Zerk war ship off the bow, the Zerk Captain calling for him by name, and asked because I'd been ordered: "Have you betrayed us?"

 

And in his belly deep voice he output: "How?"

 

He'd been wearing an inside suit, not much hide, and the cell had thick static. Stupid question of the day.
I'd briefed Monster that the Firestone was vanqed and we'd be offloaded to the Zerk boat. I led him to the bridge where he output English to the Zerk captain who replayed in same, then we were transferred aboard the erssavi.

 

We kotched a time and when it was exit, Monster stayed.  Whether volition or captive didn't compute, Monster guilty of treason was the label. Monster guilty, monster to Miunow.

 

"That's all they probed--Miunow." Shuey replays.

 

Miunow.

 

On the Glenn, the old crochet had made it portent; "How could they send him to Miunow? If they had killed him, it would not be so grievous an affront as sending him to Miunow."

 

And I'd output: "What's Miunow?"

 

She countered: "A nightmare."

 

Then went rambling over the past 100 years of her life with nebulous focus. Trying to get her to direct I asked again: "What is Miunow?"

 

But her Alzheimers was in spate.

 

At a breath, reload: "What's Miunow?"

 

And that's when she played witch; "When war begins, when the blood drowns the stars, you will remember when you asked me; " What is Miunow!"

 

"It was Miunow they wanted, the why--." Shuman cut, taking another heavy swallow, then began dripping the drops I'd seen on the holo.

 

I'd served under Shuey on the Invincible. He'd been a Go Captain. Transfer to Pullson's command had been downstep. 

 

Both Pull and Shoe had been on Earth in a kotch when the Zerks door kicked and plucked taking them up and out in a Zee boat. Shortly Admiral Olaffson was added.

 

The Zerks had been able to find the Brass, snatch them, and to stop the harvest, some twisted finger had punched the buttons which ionized the atmosphere, locking the Zerks out, locking the saps in.

 

Shuey was replaying his time as prisoner on the Zerk ship.

 

"When they came for me, we penned it execution time, but only interro by the Zerk in charge and the Pirate. And all they asked: "Why did you send Commander eDapktchoy to Limo II?" "I named ranked and serial numbered so relock."

 

That was a twisty kind of interrogation. I put a question.

 

"What's she match, the Pirate?"

 

"Ugly squared. Dwarf, spotty, unrefoed, medusa hair--."  He took another swallow of my rum, I joined. With his whistle wet he had more sound to play.

 

"The second time I was taken for questioning, Pullson was with me and Monster himself in the lineup. One of them times two--. Always knew he was a traitor--."

 

"Can it and eject, Captain! If he'd been, SMC would have jettisoned--.Match it clean--while he was in the Fire's brig not through heaven or hell could he have sent a message to the galley much less a Zee boat--.He couldn't have called the Zerks. It was Medusa who'd made the scream--."

 

"And you know this?"

 

"Yeah, Captain, I know this--. I was the Louey on watch--and I watched. He never spoke in that cell. Not a word--. All he had on was an inside suit, I could see his body through it--. He never betrayed us--.She--what ever she is--she brought them. She culled our VXs, she was the traitor--not him."

 

"He betrayed us Dwight."

 

"After Miunow." I plotted.

 

I'd seen the holos.  Prob Shuey didn't know they'd asked me to assess him. It was hardpress the C.O. asked me, a Louey, to assess a Captain I'd served under.   Assess his debriefing as if I were S.I. or High hat. I 'd also seen the holo sent to KeyTash and the one sent to that Medusa. The holos which offered to trade eDapktchoy, who wasalready in Miunow, already an organic robot, for Medusa.

 

I didn't want a link with Shoe, prob with any walk foot and feigned interest in the dimming 'day'.

 

"Listen son." He growled, "For 28 years the Zerks weren't sleeping--.They had millions--no fleege, millions of ships--."

 

"And we?" I ask, taking a swallow.

 

"43,108."

 

Eyes make four.

 

"Never penned they were round the clock ship building, never saw multitude, logic can't cart it--but there were over a million erssavis, various kinds--but--."

 

"Thousands of batwings, Shuey--." I traded, making a deep dive into the booze. "In the 3rd sector, in the 4th, maybe a million. I shot down googals--and they kept coming--."

 

"All they wanted was the excuse. That's all Miunow was--."

 

"Yeah, Miunow was the excuse for war--.But no matter how

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 12.11.2021
ISBN: 978-3-7487-9919-1

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