A young idealistic soldier enters into a bloody conflict for the first time in his life, and gets more than he bargained for.

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It was during the war, like everything else in this crazy galaxy, everything always happens during the war. Which war, you ask? The War, the Empire War, which turned the entire galaxy into a battlefield, and many a planet into dust. I had joined the Star Corps as a young, idealistic nineteen-year-old. I think, then, that I truly believed that the war was right. Now, having survived it, I know how sad that sounds. I was so proud the day I got that uniform, bottle green with a red helmet. My parent’s turned up to see my graduation from the military academy. They were proud of me, going off to do battle with the evil Dresk Empire. We paraded on the launch pad at Fort Mankow, then marched onto the giant space transport, ten thousand of us, all fired up by the promise of a quick war and a glorious victory.
There were twenty transports in our convoy, plus escorts. Two hundred thousand troops, every one unaware of what far away rock they would be sent to, to fight an enemy few had even heard of before this wretched war began. But they were Dresk, they were evil, and we were right to fight them. So we were told day in, day out, for the seven months we crawled through space.

As long as I live, I shall never forget my first month aboard that tub. Transport LX-358970R she was called, but the boys and I named her “Lucy”. Amazing how I can still recall her name after all these years, while the faces and names of those who fought alongside me have faded. Memory is truly a funny thing; but I digress. As I was saying, my first month onboard Lucy was to change me forever, and it is to certain events that happened at that time that I believe I survived what followed. On the second day, then, I was engaged in what my commanding officer called a brawl. Another young squaddie had made a comment about Queen Dahlia that was less than flattering, and I, being a hot-headed imperial, had decided that it was my moral duty to fight him. This naturally led to me being disciplined, and to cut a long story short the result was that I was transferred to another squadron. They called themselves the Black Devils, and from the start I hated being there.
For one thing, they were mostly Canids out of Aleptrus 4, and Pantheroids have never gotten along with Canids. There was also an Ursine, a hulking brute with shaggy brown fur and several lewd tattoos. This, I learnt, was Sergeant Draper, my direct superior, and I was to obey his commands.

Draper believed in physical fitness above all else, and pushed us hard from when we woke up till the artificial lights dimmed to suggest that it was night. At least he didn’t dislike me for being Pantheroid. He was not a speciest, Draper, but instead treated everyone with the same level of disgust. Only once did I see him show respect to another creature. This was shortly after I had been on Lucy two weeks. We had just completed an agonizing gym session, with “Sarge” yelling at us keenly, when we where ordered to form up into three ranks. When we were deemed presentable, Draper informed us that we were about to be visited by our commanding officer, Lieutenant Gray. Draper told us all to show respect to Gray, as he was a celebrated officer. When Gray appeared though, I don’t think any of us could believe what we were seeing. There was the small man in his officer’s uniform, covered in scars, an obscure species (I later learnt he was a Feliform). From the waist down he was all cybertronic, and he had a steel plate in his skull. He looked nothing like the war hero Draper had told us about. Gray had come to our squadron to inspect us, but to give us some news. Apparently, one of our number had scored high on their leadership aptitude test we had been required to do in the academy, and now would be considered for officer training. Imagine my surprise when my own name was called.

I will not bore you with the details of my new life as an officer-in-training; save for two details that will become important as my story progresses. Firstly, although having completed the training successfully, I was not given a commission straight away. Instead, I was given the rank of Lance corporal, and sent back to the Devils as Draper’s second in command. And secondly, and more importantly, the lessons were given by Lieutenant Gray himself. From the first class my respect for him grew, and he and I became friends, after a fashion. Of him, I can say, he taught me all I knew.

The call to leave the Lucy caught us all by surprise. By this time, I had been with the Devils six months, and had gotten to know them quite well. I was playing poker with privates Harris and Stephens when the klaxon went. We were to be ready for departure within two hours, it said, and to expect battle conditions upon landing. We all formed up, with the other ten thousand troops into our squadrons, fifteen soldiers each, and each squadron was divided into three sections of five. Draper was to lead “A” Section of the Black Devils, and as Lance Corporal I was in charge of “B” Section.

We stood in our ranks as we had been ordered, and I can still vividly remember the feelings that came over me as I waited. Feelings of excitement that we were finally on the move, feelings of nervousness. Then there was that other feeling, the one no one talked about except in hushed tones, the one that was always there at the back of your mind, and you fought desperately to avoid it coming to the front. The feeling of fear. You could smell it in the air, even though we all tried to hide it, with so many of us it was hardly surprising. There were noises coming from the ship’s hull, I remember that. We didn’t know wether the ship was being shot at or wether we were just passing through the atmosphere. We weren’t told anything; in fact we didn’t even know that we’d landed until the doors opened.

Everyone rushed forward at the same time. The doorway was big enough for three squadrons to fit through side by side, and that’s how we went out. We weren’t the first out, but we were near the front. I remember the noise most of all. The sound of gunfire and screams, then we were on the ramp. I remember leaping over bodies as I rushed forward with my squadron. All of a sudden there was this huge explosion right in front of me, and I saw Draper’s section blown to pieces before my eyes. Next thing I know, I’m ordering my men to get down, and we start to return fire. We couldn’t see the enemy clearly, so I just pointed my gun ahead of me and fired at anything that moved. It’s strange, but I remember the scene clearly. It was some sort of city, with exotic architecture. Parts of it were on fire, and I presumed our fighters had been at work. The shadows that were firing at us were concentrated on fortifications either side of a highway littered with debris. Gradually, that defence began to thin, and we were able to move forward, slowly, firing constantly at dark shadows. My section had only lost one man, Graham Spencer, a young man whose daughter had just turned one.

We got our first glimpse of a Dresk soldier when we reached the highway. Their bodies were strewn across the street where our ray guns had found their marks. The Dresk trooper’s hides were scaly, and they resembled Saurians in many ways. But Saurians are only myths, or so we were told. There were about eight thousand of us still breathing, and one of the officers, I will never know who, ordered his company up the highway. They were decimated, cut down like wheat before the harvester. The enemy had entrenched themselves at the far end of the street, and were bombarding our troops with a long-range mortar of some description. Thankfully, our company was out of range, and Lieutenant Gray ordered us to scatter into the backstreets and find a way to sneak up on the enemy entrenchment.

Our group found ourselves in some sort of back alley. We were creeping along when Billy Stephens, who was in the rear of the group, knocked over a bin lid with his tail. Well, all hell broke lose. I remember turning at the noise, and meeting Billy’s eyes, then his face being transformed into a twisted mask of death by the sniper bolt that ripped through his face mask. Then Harris knocks me to the ground, and he and private Strohm are returning fire, while I’m on the floor. I crawl over to Billy, but there’s nothing I can do, the poor kid’s dead. He was only seventeen. I don’t remember Strohm being killed. I had my back to him, firing away at the soldiers who were coming at us from my end of the alley. Harris was facing the other way, firing wildly at the far end of the alley, where he had the enemy pinned down behind some walls. Strohm was between us, firing away at the windows of the high building either side of us, where the sniper that killed Billy had fired from. Now, those building were crawling with enemy troops. I guess there were more of them then command expected, because the call to retreat came in over the radio. I risked a quick look over my shoulder to the others to make a comment, and saw only Harris was left. I remember yelling something like “That’s the retreat, we’ve got to get out of here.” He said something, but I never heard it, cause one of the soldiers at my end rushed me. I finished him off easily, but then it was frantic shooting in both directions, back to back with Harris, fighting for our lives.
Then I heard the scream. I will never forget that sound. It was Harris’ death cry, and I heard it even over the roar that ended his life. The explosion threw me forward, and the fur on my back was burnt off. A fragment of metal was lodged in my left leg, but there was no pain at first. All I could think of was the burning sensation on my back and that awful scream. Then I became aware of the presence of others surrounding me. They took my rifle, and poured cooling liquid on my burnt back. At first I thought they were the rescue team, but when my groggy eyes adjusted, I saw they were Dresk. Surely, I thought, they were going to kill me now? Then one of them broke a capsule under my nose, and I passed into unconsciousness.

Obviously they didn’t kill me. I spent the next few years in a prisoner of war camp, where I received medical attention for my wounds. I learnt a lot about Dresk society and have come to respect these people who were once my enemy. I left the camp as part of a prisoner exchange, and was pressed into military service once more. How I came to leave it and start the life I now lead is a different story, one that will have to wait for a different time.