*not exact translations; I am unable to transliterate the foreign alphabets.
It was Halloween when the war started. I was sitting in my room, its grey walls, bed posts and small desk all adding to the military feeling of the station, when the news came over the intercom.
I had just taken a bite of synthesized steak, when the intercom speaker beeped. The Commandant’s voice echoed through my little room, All Military personnel; please report to your posts. All civilians, please return to your quarters. A 9:00 curfew is being instated until further notice. Thank you. The voice cut out with a burst of static, and my ears readjusted to the sudden quiet in my room.
The Commandant was the person on the station who relayed the orders from the General Council, to the public. The General Council decided all aspects of the military and civilian organization on the station.
I knew right away that something had happened. I wasn’t military personnel, so I had to stay in my quarters. I had a job to go to, however, so I sat down at my desk and turned on the small view screen. I typed in my boss’s number, and the screen went blank for a moment, before the picture came back. The image was grainy and I had a hard time seeing what the image was I was looking at. My boss squinted through the haze, “Is that you, Curt?”
“Yes, sir, did you hear the news? Do we still have work?”
“No, we don’t. I’d stay where you are, if I were you.”
I nodded, “Yes, I think it’s a good idea. I sure would like o know what’s going on around here, though.”
He frowned, his image obscured by static, “No, I don’t want to lose my best employee. Stay where you are. I’ll open the restaurant back up in a few hours.”
I sighed, defeated, and nodded.
He waved, then signed out. I watched the station symbol twirl around the screen, absently. It flickered, then went out. The lights flickered on and off several times, then came back up to a gloomy lightness. I looked at my watch and sat down on my bed, resting my feet against one of the support posts. Quite a long while later, the intercom beeped again. All civilians, it is safe to come out. The curfew still stands. Please do not leave your sector of the space station. The flickering of the lights and the power outages are no cause for alarm. Thank you.
I frowned. Why wasn’t it safe to go out before? I slipped my shoes on and opened the door of my quarters. Down the hall there were two soldiers patrolling the corridors. A few other people were walking around the hallways, but most had stayed in their quarters.
I walked up to the soldiers, “Excuse me, but why did we all have to go back to our quarters?”
One of the soldiers turned to me, “That’s classified.”
“Are we at war?”
“That is also classified.” The soldiers turned and walked down the corridor, leaving me standing in the hallway, staring after them.
I finally arrived at one of the large turbo lifts and rode it down two floors. I still marveled at how clean everything was in the station. Even though the station was several years old, the metal was still shiny and smooth, and the turbo lifts ran like new.
The doors opened with a whisper on the “commercial” floor. It was filled with bars, stores, restaurants, and offices. I walked a few blocks farther, and came to a small restaurant. There wasn’t a name on it, (very few commercial establishments had names) but I knew it to be the place that I was looking for. My boss was opening the doors, and I walked around the back of it, where the employee’s entrance was. The kitchens were small, cramped with all of the appliances and the brushed steel counters, and like the turbo lift, they were all impeccably clean. I walked into the main restaurant area, where all of the tables and chairs were stacked. My boss was opening up the outside walls, pushing them out and sliding them back into the roof system. It made the restaurant brighter and more open. It also allowed some of the chairs and tables to be set out in the street, making an open air café. The restaurant was one of the few cafes around, so it attracted a lot of attention.
I walked up to my boss and tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped slightly and turned, “Ahh… Curt. I’m surprised that you came out.”
“Why?” I asked, feigning hurt feelings.
He must have caught my joking tone, because he laughed once, and pointed to a table, “Can you help me move these out?”
I nodded, and we lifted the heavy tables and carried them out to the edge of the thoroughfare.
Within a few minutes, the concourse started to fill up and the shop owners opened their stores. The acoustics of the station must have been designed by a genius, because the ceiling soared over our heads, but the noise from so many people was extremely quiet. A few people stopped in our restaurant. One man went to the synthetic mahogany bar at the back of the main room, and sat down on one of the barstools. A family went to a table near the inside edge of one of the rows and sat down.
As our waitress was sick, I filled her place, taking the orders, and giving them to my boss, Marshall Leon, who was the only cook in the restaurant. The tables began filling up and emptying in a rhythm as the day wore on. I also had to tend to bar, which was my usual job, so I was kept quite busy for most of the day. About three hours after we opened the store, four soldiers walked in and sat down at one of the many tables. They weren’t British, so I was wondering why they were in the British sector of the base, as I walked over to their table.
I smiled congenially as I handed them menus, and I asked them what they wanted to drink. They paused, then one man began talking in French.
I had taken French in school and had failed it, so it was very hard for me to follow along with what they were saying.
The man addressed me, “Lui et moi prendrons deux cafés au laits. Il prendra une eau-de-vie fine et il prendra le vin rouge. (He and I will have coffees with cream. He’ll take a brandy, and he’ll take a red wine.)”
I wrote down their order phonetically and walked back to the bar, trying to figure out what they’d ordered. I finally determined that they wanted, two coffees, a brandy, and a red wine. I got the orders and brought them back to the table as another group of soldiers came in. They weren’t French, and the French soldiers stiffened as they saw them. The new soldiers sat down across the room and waved for me to come over. I set down the drinks and walked to their table.
There was a code of ethics at the station that every nationality was required to follow. Soldiers were not to fight, under any circumstances, while they were in a civilian sector. All of the nations at the station followed the order, so they usually went to a military sector to fight. I didn’t mind, as long as they didn’t do it around me.
I arrived at the table while the soldiers were in the middle of a conversation. I over heard them talking in low voices.
“这场战争是快.这些法国士兵似乎并不十分关心.(This is a fast war. These French don’t seem so concerned.)” One of the soldiers said in his companion’s ear.
I could tell that they were speaking Chinese, but I had no clue what they were saying.
“May I get you anything, sirs?” I asked, trying to ignore the assortment of guns they had strapped to them.
One man looked up at me,” What kind of tea do you have?”
His English was poor and I could barely follow along with the gist of his oration.
“I’m sure that the cook could make you a capital Chinese tea,” I said, trying to hide my obvious British accent.
He grinned, “You do that, I pay you extra. I can’t find good tea around here.”
I nodded and walked back into the kitchen, where Marshall was standing over the stoves.
“Hey, Marsh, can you make Chinese tea?”
He laughed, “I can try. Don’t know how good it’ll be though.”
I shrugged and went back to the Frenchmen’s table. “Are you ready to order?”
The man who seemed to be in charge listened attentively to me as I spoke, and thought for several moments. Finally, he nodded.
“Nous prendrons le bifteck, tous les nous. Au lieu des pois, nous voulons la purée de pommes de terre. (We will take the steak, all of us. Instead of peas, we want mashed potatoes.)”
I looked at him, “Parlez-vous anglais? (Do you speak English?)”
He grinned, “Non, Je ne parle pas anglais. Je parle Italien et francais. (No, I don’t speak English. I speak Italian and French.)”
“Je parle Italien. Ripetere prego il vostro ordine? (I speak Italian. Please repeat your order.)”
“Desideriamo la bistecca, tutti noi. Anziché i piselli, desideriamo le purè di patate. (We will take the steak, all of us. Instead of peas, we want mashed potatoes.)”
I nodded, smiled, and walked back to the kitchen, handing Marshall the paper with the order, in English. He handed me the pot of tea for the Chinamen.
Out I walked again, setting the pot down on the table. The leader smelled it and nodded, satisfied. “Good tea.”
I sighed with relief, “May I take your order?”
The man thought for a moment and finally said, “I take the artichoke chicken. He wants beef soup. He wants some sort of noodle soup. You have it?” I nodded, and he continued, “And he wants fried chicken.”
I nodded, thanked them and gave Marshall the order.
The day drug on, and the soldiers didn’t leave for some time. Finally, the leader of the Chinese motioned me over. “We have check now.”
I handed it to him. He took it, looked at the amount, and slapped an international bill down on the table. I picked it up, “谢谢. (thank you),” I said. Thank you was the only word that I knew in Chinese. The leader, however grinned like a child on Christmas morning.
“You speak good Chinese,” He said, slapping me on the back.
I turned back to the counter to get his change. He shouted to me, “You keep change for good tea.”
I nodded and put the bill in the register.
Finally, twenty minutes before the curfew began, our patrons left and me and Marshall closed down the restaurant. It was late as I walked quickly back to my quarters.
That night, the Chinese took most of the French sector. I never saw the four French soldiers again.
<><><><><>
The war progressed rapidly and more and more, soldiers would stop in our restaurant. Marshall was getting quite good at making foreign foods, and our restaurant became the “international cuisine hub” of the space station. If a soldier wanted a foreign food, or he wanted to get out of his sector, he came to our restaurant. On several occasions, foreign soldiers would sit down with each other and play cards or talk. Whatever peace remained elusive to the soldiers, they could find it at our restaurant.
There were so many customers, that after a while, Marshall had to buy several buildings on either side of us and renovate them to suit the style of the original restaurant.
About two months after Marshall expanded the restaurant, news came over the loudspeaker that, again, the civilians would have to return to their quarters. The nine o’clock curfew would remain in place until further notice. After the loud speaker cut out, I looked around the restaurant. Our four waitresses were constantly moving from table to table, but the now familiar uniforms of the soldiers were missing. In fact, there were no soldiers at all in the restaurant. It was unheard of. There were always soldiers in the restaurant.
Within five minutes, all of our patrons had left, and the waitresses were getting ready to leave. I walked into the kitchens and saw that the three cooks who helped Marshall were gone and Marshal was finishing turning off the stoves.
“Curt, what are you still doing here?” He asked, turning towards me.
“I was just finishing,” I said, putting down the towel I was holding.
“Go to your quarters. You heard the commandant.”
Marshall lived above the main restaurant, so he usually stayed later than everybody else.
I nodded, patted his shoulder and left out the back door. The streets were jammed with people, returning to their quarters, so it took quite a while to reach the turbo lifts, let alone my quarters. Finally, after several minutes, I made it to my unmarked door and hit the wall panel. The door slid open smoothly, after scanning my palm print, its motor whispering softly. I sat down on my bed and picked up the telescreen remote control. There was a movie on, and I relaxed back on my bed, kicking off my shoes as the clamber outside died down.
Several hours later, I heard sporadic gun fire and heavy booted steps moving up and down the corridor outside. That too died down and there was a heavy stifling stillness. I turned off the telescreen and went to the door. There were no sounds coming from outside. I reached out and hit the wall stud. The door slid open, loud in the oppressive silence, and I walked out into the corridor. There were several bodies lying sprawled in the corridor. Some had British military uniforms on, but most had the crisp camouflage and red sash of the Russian army.
I moved softly down the hall, my eyes flicking back and forth. I’d made it to the end of the corridor and was just about to turn the corner, when I heard the click of a gun behind me.
“Halt!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and slowly turned around. A young man in light brown British military fatigues was standing behind me, his machine gun trained on my chest.
“What are you doing outside of your quarters?” he asked sharply.
“Uh…” I couldn’t tell him I was roaming the halls. It’d be an excuse for
him to shoot me. Civilians weren’t allowed to leave their quarters when the commandant said to stay there, “I’m going to volunteer.”
I immediately regretted saying that. The soldier looked at my slyly for a moment, then lowered his gun, “alright, I’ll go with you.”
I smiled weakly, “Oh, there is no need for that. I can manage.”
“It would be my pleasure,” he said, sneering.
He could see right through my lie. I was no soldier. There was no way that I’d be volunteering.
Resting his hand on my shoulder, the soldier directed me down the corridor, then into one of the turbo lifts. We stopped on a floor I’d never seen before. It was filled with soldiers. The man I was with led me to the left, along the front wall of the floor. We came to a large office, where he led me in. There was a short fat man sitting behind a desk and he looked up at me with tired boredom.
“Can I help you?”
“He wants to volunteer,” the soldier, who had my shoulder said, grinning.
“Capital,” The man pulled a paper out from under his desk, “Sign here, please?”
I grimaced, but picked up the pen and signed my name. That was it, the last time that I was truly free, till the end of the war. I was sent to the recruit training floor the next morning. There were only a few other volunteers. The British Army it seems hadn’t begun conscripting people yet.
The first day of our recruitment, I and several other men and women were forced into a ragged line. The drill sergeant began yelling at someone down the line, and the person beside me leaned over.
“Hey, how’d you get here?”
“I was wandering around the halls. I needed an excuse. Pretty stupid, huh?”
The man laughed, “Well then, that makes two of us. The same thing happened to me.”
All of a sudden, the eyes of the drill sergeant appeared before me. His face was inches from mine, and he was screaming at the top of his lungs.
“Maggot, what makes you think you can talk during initiation?”
“Sorry, sir,” I said for lack of anything more eloquent to say.
“If I ever catch you talking while I am again, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born!” As he finished this tirade, he hit me very hard, in the stomach.
I gasped, and doubled over. The pain was excruciating.
“Get up, maggot!”
I slowly and painfully stiffened and my eyes met his.
“You run the bar at that restaurant?”
“Yes, sir,” I whispered through my teeth.
“Thought that I recognized you. Do not interrupt me again, maggot!”
His voice hadn’t lowered in volume at all, and my ears were beginning to ache. Finally, he moved to the guy beside. The man received much of the same treatment as I did.
An hour later, wincing and holding my stomach, I followed the other recruits to our quarters. So began my military career.
<><><><><>
Finally, after a month of brutal military training, I graduated with the other members of my class. The war had by now escalated, and the fine young men of the British army had held off several Russian attacks. Now, the international stage stood a little differently. The French sector had been completely wiped off the map and the United States was fighting China for that sector. Several African nations had formed an alliance and were in the process of seiging the Indian sector. Britain and Russia were in the process of battering each other into dust on one side, while Russia had half of her forces fighting with Australia. If the Russians had directed the full force of their military against the British sector, it would have surely fallen.
I was assigned, along with the other men in my squad, to go down to the planet’s surface where a permanent city had been built. Much of the past several months’ violence had now moved to that permanent city. All of the civilians had moved up into the space station and the General Council had ordered that no fighting was permitted anywhere on the space station. It was a rule that was strictly obeyed by all of the nationalities.
It was getting on towards evening when our transport shuttle drifted down through the atmosphere. The city, New Earth, was in disorder. Several of the large habitation modules had been destroyed and the un-inhabitable surface looked like a bomb site, which it was. The “hab” modules were little more than entrances into the winding tunnels of the city.
I and the other soldiers on the shuttle were herded off by a sergeant and ordered down into one of the dark tunnels. My direct commanding officer, the man who had talked to me during initiation, nudged me as were entered one of the hab modules.
“I was hoping that this war would be over by the time we got here.”
I laughed softly, “Well, we’re in it now. Hopefully, it’ll end before we see combat.”
The tunnels widened and became brighter as we went deeper into the city. After several miles, we stopped in a large cavern. There were tents and permanent buildings, filling most of the open space. There were several dozen soldiers milling around the tents, many looking haggard and tired. A grenade blast far down one of the corridors sent a light haze of dust drifting down the corridor. A stone tumbled down one of the steep hills that formed the walls, making a small landslide. The sergeant waved us forward and we made our way down into the main part of the cavern. Several other soldiers and I were assigned a tent and we went inside. The tent was small and we crammed ourselves inside, finding places and setting down all of our gear.
I laid down my equipment and walked out of the tent, curious as to the surrounding in which I now found myself. All of the tents were living quarters for the remaining soldiers. The permanent buildings, however, were quarters for the commissioned officers and all of the technical equipment.
After wandering around the cavern for a while, my friend from boot camp tapped me on the soldier.
“Hey, Curt, we’re going to fight. The Russians are making another offensive. We’re up.”
I nodded and we turned and ran back to our tent, gathering up all of our weapons and equipment. A large force of soldiers was forming at the head of the cavern and we joined them. Like everything else the British did, the commissioned officers organized all of the men into squads. I found myself in squad four. We were told to head out first, and then squad eight would follow.
Gripping my gun tightly, I and the rest of the men in my squad left the cavern at a light jog. The cavern became somewhat lighter as we went along and there were much more rocks and stones lying along the passageway, where grenades had blown out parts of the walls.
We slowed and began creeping along, our eyes peering into the shadows of corners, searching for the enemy soldiers.
A sharp bend in the corner made us stop. I crept up to the corner and peered slowly around. Six Russian soldiers were leaning against the walls chatting amongst themselves. They seemed angry. I called up the only person in our squad who could speak Russian, and he peered around the corner with me.
“Мы не можем начать нападение, пока мы не получаем больше мужчин.”
The man beside me whispered in my ear, “We can’t start an attack until more men come.”
One of the Russians sighed, “Я возвращаюсь, чтобы получить больше мужчин. До свидания.”
“I’m going back to get more men. Good bye,” my “translator” whispered in my ear.
I turned to my friend, Winston, my NCO, “They’re getting more men. We should get them now, while they’re under supported.”
He nodded, and then turned to the other men, “Let’s go.”
We burst around the corner, our guns up, many of us already firing. The five Russian soldiers fell, their guns lying beside them. We rushed over the bodies and followed the other man down the corridor. I could still see him running in panic. We slowly ran him down and shot him. It struck me as odd that we were just shooting another man, when he wasn’t even able to defend himself.
“Hold!” Winston yelled.
We came up short and looked down the corridor.
“We’re right at the entrance to their stronghold. Are we going in or what?”
I shrugged, “Where is the Lieutenant?”
“Beats me? I don’t think he left the command center.”
I could hear the voices of Russian soldiers on the other side of the large steel door.
“Hey, let’s go.”
He nodded, “Ok. Let’s go in.”
I gently turned the latch. The door was unlocked. I nodded and raised
my gun.
The door was kicked open, revealing about one hundred Russian soldiers. We raised our guns and began firing at them, while they blazed away at us with their AK-92’s. I had moved over to a wall and was firing at every red object I saw. The distinctive sashes on their waists were so obvious that I was in no danger of hitting one of my own men.
The fighting was intense and there were laser bolts flying everywhere.
Suddenly, off to my left, I heard a low laugh. I turned and looked into the eyes of a Russian soldier. He was laughing, his gun trained on my chest.
“См. ya, англичанина. (See ya, Englishman)”
He was about to pull the trigger, when he grunted and collapsed. Winston was standing behind him, his gun still smoking.
I exhaled slowly. He ran over and pounded me on the back.
“He almost got you,” He said jovially, “Good thing that I was there.”
I nodded, in shock, and turned around, wandering through the battle. The fighting was dying down and very few Russian soldiers remained alive. The remaining British soldiers pulled the Russian flag from its post and threw it to the ground, replacing it with a large British flag.
We capture over twenty enemies that day. We bound their hands and marched them into a clear spot in the cavern and posted guards over them. Most of the surviving British soldiers involved were given promotions.
We stayed out of most of the rest of fighting for the remainder of the
war. It seems that we wiped out the Russians so quickly, that no other country would dare attack us.
Later that year, news came through the British camp that the remaining nations had signed a peace treaty, declaring that the war was officially over and that all active duty soldiers would be returned to their former lives and jobs. That was how I ended up back at Marshall’s restaurant, tending to the bar. Our clientele hadn’t lessened since the war ended, and I was kept quite busy. Former soldiers from dozens of different nationalities continued to come to our restaurant, and we got quite a few “regulars”.
Several months after I was returned to my job, I over heard a group of German ex-soldiers chatting in one corner of the restaurant.
“Der war ein schneller Krieg. Ich bin Art trauriges, daß ich in der Lage war, keine Tätigkeit zu sehen. (That was a fast war. I’m sort of sad that I didn’t see any action)”
I had been practicing my German over the last few months, so I walked over.
“Froh sein du sah nicht Tätigkeit. Du würdest sie ewig bedauern. (Be glad that you didn’t see action. You would eternally regret it.)”
He looked at me sidelong. I was obviously an ex-soldier. He nodded, commented on my German and began a game of cards.
I don’t think that anyone could understand the effects of war if they’d never been in it. The German man accepted my comment, but he probably didn’t understand why I said what I said. He was young, naïve, and he believed that it would be glorious to have fought in the war. I know that he would regret it, because I did, after it was all over.
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