Memoir of a relucant hero
From time to time I come across a picture prompt that inspires me. When inspiration strikes I like to let loose with a stream of concious flow. The image below is one such image. Yes it is AI generated - I wish I was talented enough to have created that myself - well technically I did, the prompt is below the image, but the text is all mine.
Anyway I’m presenting this as a example of how and what inspires my writing process. If you like this then please feel free to add some comments. If you think it needs editing (I’m sure it does) then let me know how and I’ll give it a second pass.
So you think you know what happened. You think you have all “the skinny”, know what went down, the setup, the action, the aftermath - all the gory deets. As you kids like to say.
Well you’re wrong.
Take it from someone who knows, someone who was there. In fact I’m probably the literal definition of last man standing right about now, and at last it’s time to put all the other rumours and fake news to bed.
I’ll tell you what really happened and more importantly why. And, even more importantly why it’s relevant to you, especially now, as you might actually be the one person who can take up the standard and heed the rallying call. It’s too late for me, but it might not be too late for the rest of you.
In all probability if you are reading this, then I’m most likely dead but good luck finding anyone or anything you can use to confirm that. Like everything else written here you’ll just have to take my word for it.
So let’s start at the beginning, but be careful there’s a lot of powerful people who rather you didn’t keep on reading. In fact just being found in possession of this document could get you into a lot of trouble - you’ve been warned.
So like I was saying, let’s start at the beginning. I don’t know if you remember the droughts in ‘53. It was a hard time for all of us and back then I was a lowly grunt schlepping crates around for a pittance of a ration. I’d signed on in ‘51 as a way out of the ‘boonies and was sent off to the stow yards as a crate shipper first class. Two years in and I’d managed to keep my nose clean and my head down. The droughts hit hard that year and even for the grunts there was less and less to go round. By harvest time I’d had enough, and me and a couple of the boys decided to take matters into our own hands. And by matters I meant rations. Rations destined for the officers table. Suffice to say said officers weren’t too pleased and as the nominated ringleader they decided to make an example of me.
By Yule I was cooped up in a tin box and sent with the rest of the fodder to Praxis Prime. Back then Prime was the furthest and most lonely outpost in the union and most dangerous as well judging by the number of repos the brass was sending in. It must have put a real smile on the officers fat faces when I got my “assignment” I could see them smirking all the way to the desert trolley.
Anyways I digress. We were about a day out from Prime when the call came in. A real life distress signal as there was a lot of distress going on. The Smorathi all of a sudden, after years of a tentative peace suddenly decided to drop everything and go hell for leather at the base on Prime. The boys there had just enough time to get a call for help out before they were beyond help.
The transport chief came back and gave us the bad news. Being so far out we didn’t have the range to reach anywhere else it was Praxis Prime or death and from the sound of things we’d be dropping into a hot LZ crawling with Smorathi. Actually that was the good news, the bad news was that in addition to two hundred repos (that’s replacement soldiers) all we were carrying was a few mechanical spares, no weapons! Who thought that would be a good idea?
On distant transports so far from home the rule of law lies with the ship’s commander. Turns out our commander wasn’t the brightest bulb in the circuit and was planning to land at night, drop the troops in the middle of the base. Jump back into orbit and direct what would be left of a two hundred strong surprise attack in an attempt to retake the base by force.
Surprise, we didn’t have any weapons dumbass and all we could hurl would be our guts and plenty of bad language. Oh well, at least it would most likely be a quick death.
Fortunately for us there’s a caveat built into the rule of law, if a quorum of the senior officer’s command squad think his order is beyond stupid then they can elect to throw his sorry ass out of the airlock and override it with something more sensible. At least that was how it was explained to me after the fact.
So the command squad quickly came up with a new plan. One slightly less risky but still almost certainly guaranteed to get us all killed, but just maybe after a little time exacting a little R&R (that’s revenge and retaliation) on our new guests.
The new plan as explained would be to set the tin box down about 20 clicks outside the base perimeter and creep forward looking for a way to acquire some ordinance en-route. We’d then make a surprise attack on on the command zone. A much better plan apart from one minor issue. The landing zone chosen was in one of the worst jungle infested areas on the planet, just making it out of the jungle alive would be an achievement.
We set down at oh three eighty local time. The pilot was apparently good at his job (unlike his previous commander) and we landed safely in a large clearing of trees that should provide suitable cover from Smorathi scanners. We had a ground position setup by oh five fifty and used the tarps from the tin box cargo hold to provide some extra cover.
The quorum decided that if the prospect of dying brutally at the hands (or tentacles) of the Smorathi wasn’t incentive enough then they would provide more. All the food and supplies we needed were piled up in the middle of the base, all we had to do if we wanted to eat was take it back. At least this quorum were in the same boat as us and so it made the trip a little more palatable to know they were enduring it just as much as we were.
There was also rumour going round that everyone fool hardy enough to join in the fun would be given a full pardon, but what good was a posthumous pardon anyway? I decided to just try and keep my head down and not ask any stupid questions.
So? What do you think? Remember this is just a first draft of something that may one day develop into a full blown story idea. I try and capture these story ideas / snippets as and when they come to me, you never know when they might be useful.
However if you’ve read this far I’d really appreciate your feeback in the comments section below. Don’t pull any punches, let me know exactly what you think (good and bad). Did it entertain? Would you like to read more? Is it derivative crap? Should I give this up as a bad job? My future could well be in your hands.