“Only if you come back in a bodybag. Besides, you can only die once, so what difference does it make how many copies you sign?”
UDF soldiers on the front line had a tradition. The day before an operation, they’d sneak into the PX and make off with some liquor. Drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. The shot they gave you before battle broke down any acetaldehyde left in the bloodstream. But if you were caught, they’d bring you up before a disciplinary committee-maybe a court martial if you screwed the pooch real bad-after taking stock of inventory once the fighting was over and everyone was back on base. Of course, it was hard to court-martial a corpse. Which is why we’d all leave notes before the battle explaining how the robbery had been our idea. Sure enough, when the investigation started, it was always some poor sap who’d got himself killed who had masterminded the whole thing. It was a good system. The people running the PX were wise to the racket, so they made sure to leave out some bottles that wouldn’t be missed too much. You’d think they’d just go ahead and give everyone a few drinks the night before a battle-for morale’s sake, if nothing else-but no, it was the same old song and dance every time. Good ideas don’t stand a chance against good bureaucracy.
I took the paper from Yonabaru. “Funny, I thought I’d be more nervous.”
“So soon? Save it for the day, man.”
“What do you mean? We suit up this afternoon.”
“You nuts? How long you plan on wearing that thing?”
“If I don’t wear it today, when will I?”
“How about tomorrow, when we roll out?”
I nearly fell out of bed. For an instant, my eyes settled on the soldier lying on the bunk next to mine. He was flipping through a porn magazine. Then I stared up into Yonabaru’s face.
“What do you mean, tomorrow? They postpone the attack?”
“No, man. It’s always been tomorrow. But our secret mission to get hammered starts tonight at nineteen hundred hours. We drink ourselves blind and wake up with a helluva hangover in the morning. A plan not even HQ could fuck up.”
Wait. We’d broken into the PX last night. I remembered the whole thing. I was nervous about it being my first battle, so I’d decided to duck out a bit early. I had come back to my bunk and started reading that mystery novel. I even remembered helping Yonabaru up to his bed when he came staggering in from partying with the ladies.
Unless-unless I had dreamed that too?
Yonabaru smirked. “You don’t look so good, Keiji.”
I picked the novel up off my bed. I’d brought it along to read in my spare time, but I’d been so busy drilling formation that it had stayed stuffed in the bottom of my bag. I remember thinking how appropriately ironic it was that I hadn’t had any time to start reading it until the day before I was probably going to die. I opened the book to the last page I’d read. The American detective who was supposed to be an expert on the Orient was discussing the finer points of green tea, just like I remembered. If today was the day before the battle, when had I read the book? Nothing was making any sense.
“Listen. There’s nothin’ to tomorrow’s operation.”
I blinked. “Nothin’ to it, huh?”
“Just get yourself home without shooting anyone in the back, and you’ll be fine.”
I grunted in reply.
Yonabaru curled his hand into a gun and pointed his index finger at his head. “I’m serious. Sweat it too much, you’ll turn into a feedhead-end up losing your mind before they even get a chance to blow your brains out.”
The guy I’d replaced had gone a little haywire, so they pulled him from the front lines. They say he started picking up comm feeds about how humanity was doomed. Not the kind of shit you want heavily armed UDF Jacket jockeys listening to. We might not lose as many to that as we do to the enemy, but it’s not pretty either way. In battle, unless you’re sound of body and mind, you’re a liability. I’d only just arrived on the front lines-hadn’t even seen any action-and already I was having hallucinations. Who knows what warning lights were going off in my head.
“You ask me, anyone come out of battle not actin’ a little funny has a screw or three loose.” Yonabaru grinned.
“Hey, no scarin’ the fresh meat,” I protested. I wasn’t actually scared, but I was growing increasingly confused.
“Just look at Ferrell! Only way to make it is to lose whatever it is that makes you human. A sensitive, caring indiv’dual like myself ain’t cut out for fightin’, and that’s the truth.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with the sergeant.”
“Ain’t a question of right or wrong. It’s about having a heart made of tungsten and muscles so big they cut off the blood to your brain.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Next you’ll be tellin’ us that Mad Wargarita is just another grunt like the rest of us.”
“Yeah, well, the thing with her is-” and so the conversation went on, back and forth like we always did. Our badmouthing of Rita was just hitting its stride when the sergeant showed up.
Sergeant Ferrell Bartolome had been around longer than anyone else in our platoon. He’d lived through so many battles, he was more than soldier, he was the glue that kept our company together. They said if you stuck him in a centrifuge, he’d come out 70 percent big brother, 20 percent ball-busting drill sergeant, and 10 percent steel-reinforced carbon. He scowled at me, then looked at Yonabaru, who was hastily bundling up our liquor confessions. His scowl deepened. “You the soldier who broke into the PX?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” my friend confessed without a trace of guilt.
The men on the surrounding beds ducked under their sheets with all the speed of cockroaches scattering in the light, porn magazines and playing cards forgotten. They’d seen the look on the sergeant’s face.
I cleared my throat. “Did security, uh… run into some kind of trouble?”
Ferrell’s forehead knotted as though he were balancing a stack of armored plating on his head. I had a strong feeling of deja vu. All this happened in my dream! Something had gone down, unrelated, at the exact time Yonabaru and his buddies were breaking into the PX. Security had gone on alert, and the robbery had come to light ahead of schedule. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Just, uh, a lucky guess.”
Yonabaru leaned out over the edge of his bunk. “What kind of trouble?”
“Someone stepped in a knee-deep pile of pig shit. Now that may not have anything to do with you, but nevertheless, at oh-ninehundred, you’re going to assemble at the No. 1 Training Field in your fourth-tier equipment for Physical Training. Pass the word to the rest of those knuckleheads you call a platoon.”
“You gotta be kidding! We’re goin’ into battle tomorrow, and you’re sending us off for PT?”
“That’s an order, Corporal.”
“Sir, reporting to the No. 1 Training Field at oh-nine-hundred in full fourth-tier equipment, sir! But, uh, one thing, Sarge. We been doin’ that liquor raid for years. Why give us a hard time about it now?”
“You really want to know?” Ferrell rolled his eyes. I swallowed hard.
“Nah, I already know the answer.” Yonabaru grinned. He always seemed to be grinning. “It’s because the chain of command around here is fucked to hell.”
“You’ll find out for yourself.”
“Wait, Sarge!”
Ferrell took three regulation-length paces and stopped.
“C’mon, not even a hint?” Yonabaru called from where he was taking cover behind the metal bed frame and bundled confessions.
“The general’s the one with his panties in a bunch about the rotten excuse for security we have on this base, so don’t look at me, and don’t look at the captain, either. In fact, you might as well just shut up and do what you’re told for a change.”
I sighed. “He’s not gonna have us out there weaving baskets, is he?”
Yonabaru shook his head. “Maybe we can all do a group hug. Fucking asshole.”
I knew where this ended. I’d dreamed all this, too.
