War on Mars
How weird it was, to step onto the surface of the planet, to realize that I was standing on another world. To look up later in the evening, and see no moon. Familiar stars, sure, but our moon apparently gone. Very disconcerting, to realize that you can't seen something you've always known, but didn't realize it until now.
But the surface is just like home. Same vegetation. Clear air, no different than home. Just no cities. Everything a pristine wonderland of just flora. No fauna yet, still too much terra-forming to complete. I thought of it as an explorer to the New World might have, except there weren't any Indians to encounter. Thinking a bit more, like thinking on the moon, it was strange to walk an utterly silent forest, to see the grass swaying in the breeze, but see or hear no birds. Not even bugs. Beautiful, without a doubt, with such a clear promise for the future, but also very strange and out of the realm of the normal.
But I was here to fight the war. The unseen enemy was inside the planet, deep, and we were going after him.
I was at the rear door of the massive Chinook as it spun up for liftoff. The drop door was open, and the pilot was going to keep it that way as we flew. I was waiting for a few more to hop on, then I'd step on and we'd be off. I was a little more senior than the others, apparently. I wasn't in charge, but I also had a lot of freedom based on what I assumed to be a slightly higher rank. We were all in full battle gear.
As the helo lifted off, I could feel a clearly unusual shaking and vibration. Instinctively I rolled down the drop door and out of the helo, falling the ten feet or so to the dirt as the huge green thing struggled above me. Glancing up as I fell, I could see the problem; the idiot pilot hadn't even started the rear rotor. He was trying to fly the thing only on the front rotor, and it was failing. The helo was still climbing, but only barely, highly unstable. It was at about forty feet now, and things were going badly. Why didn't the pilot just set it back down? Nope, too easy, too cowardly for a jock-pilot. No glory in that, an admission of failure and weakness. No, he was going to fight through it.
As he did, it rolled over onto its side and began to fall. I hopped a wall as the spinning rotor hit the ground, splintering into supersonice shrapnel that ripped through the tree leaves above me like a weedeater. Limbs and leaves and branches were coming down, a sound of fluttering and splintering and cracking, and the scream of the Chinook's turbine as it came down.
I heard the thump, and was up in time to see the fireball erupt slowly from the crumpled airframe. It was on its side, the fuselage caved in from the impact. Only a few troops staggered out of the open back, then the flames filled the dark interior, and no one else came out.
Bam--I was up on a bluff, the burning wreck now below me to the right, a good 2000 yards away. I was looking down a beautiful vista of a sweeping green-grass meadown, right down to a wide and shallow river, a shimmering silver-blue, then another rise on the other side, up to a ridge higher than our own, a good 7000 yards away.
I guess I was on an aircraft now, as I began to fly low and fast down the slope, toward the river. A helo appeared to my left, flying across our path. I was worried, but saw it was above us. We crossed simultaneously, the helo no more than forty feet above us as we accelerated over the river. I felt I could reach down and touch the water with my hand, we were that close.
In a blink we were atop the opposite ridge, and I saw the massive gash in the planet--I had to remember that we were on Mars--below me. It was a huge abyss, a dark hole stretching down into the interior of the planet. Not a Grand Canyon, or even a volcanic caldera, but a massive hole, an entry wound down into the planet.
We descended in a circular flight, and I saw the regular rectangles indicative of the enemy in teh walls of the cavern. We let fly with our missiles, which hammered into the honeycomb in the walls. Explosions and flame filled the whole space, orange and flashing yellow, fascinating and beautiful in the darkness of the bottomless cavern. We were hammering the bad guys, but the extent of the honeycomb around us was more than we could handle with our limited ammunition. We'd have to pull out and come back. I wondered why they weren't fighting back, and if and when we came back, how well prepared they'd be.
I began to wonder about the nature of "the enemy." I couldn't even see them, and they weren't fighting. Who were they, and what was the nature of our fight? I was fighting because I was told to, because I was told they were a threat. I wasn't see that threat, or any indication that there was a threat. I began to doubt the mission and the war.
But the surface is just like home. Same vegetation. Clear air, no different than home. Just no cities. Everything a pristine wonderland of just flora. No fauna yet, still too much terra-forming to complete. I thought of it as an explorer to the New World might have, except there weren't any Indians to encounter. Thinking a bit more, like thinking on the moon, it was strange to walk an utterly silent forest, to see the grass swaying in the breeze, but see or hear no birds. Not even bugs. Beautiful, without a doubt, with such a clear promise for the future, but also very strange and out of the realm of the normal.
But I was here to fight the war. The unseen enemy was inside the planet, deep, and we were going after him.
I was at the rear door of the massive Chinook as it spun up for liftoff. The drop door was open, and the pilot was going to keep it that way as we flew. I was waiting for a few more to hop on, then I'd step on and we'd be off. I was a little more senior than the others, apparently. I wasn't in charge, but I also had a lot of freedom based on what I assumed to be a slightly higher rank. We were all in full battle gear.
As the helo lifted off, I could feel a clearly unusual shaking and vibration. Instinctively I rolled down the drop door and out of the helo, falling the ten feet or so to the dirt as the huge green thing struggled above me. Glancing up as I fell, I could see the problem; the idiot pilot hadn't even started the rear rotor. He was trying to fly the thing only on the front rotor, and it was failing. The helo was still climbing, but only barely, highly unstable. It was at about forty feet now, and things were going badly. Why didn't the pilot just set it back down? Nope, too easy, too cowardly for a jock-pilot. No glory in that, an admission of failure and weakness. No, he was going to fight through it.
As he did, it rolled over onto its side and began to fall. I hopped a wall as the spinning rotor hit the ground, splintering into supersonice shrapnel that ripped through the tree leaves above me like a weedeater. Limbs and leaves and branches were coming down, a sound of fluttering and splintering and cracking, and the scream of the Chinook's turbine as it came down.
I heard the thump, and was up in time to see the fireball erupt slowly from the crumpled airframe. It was on its side, the fuselage caved in from the impact. Only a few troops staggered out of the open back, then the flames filled the dark interior, and no one else came out.
Bam--I was up on a bluff, the burning wreck now below me to the right, a good 2000 yards away. I was looking down a beautiful vista of a sweeping green-grass meadown, right down to a wide and shallow river, a shimmering silver-blue, then another rise on the other side, up to a ridge higher than our own, a good 7000 yards away.
I guess I was on an aircraft now, as I began to fly low and fast down the slope, toward the river. A helo appeared to my left, flying across our path. I was worried, but saw it was above us. We crossed simultaneously, the helo no more than forty feet above us as we accelerated over the river. I felt I could reach down and touch the water with my hand, we were that close.
In a blink we were atop the opposite ridge, and I saw the massive gash in the planet--I had to remember that we were on Mars--below me. It was a huge abyss, a dark hole stretching down into the interior of the planet. Not a Grand Canyon, or even a volcanic caldera, but a massive hole, an entry wound down into the planet.
We descended in a circular flight, and I saw the regular rectangles indicative of the enemy in teh walls of the cavern. We let fly with our missiles, which hammered into the honeycomb in the walls. Explosions and flame filled the whole space, orange and flashing yellow, fascinating and beautiful in the darkness of the bottomless cavern. We were hammering the bad guys, but the extent of the honeycomb around us was more than we could handle with our limited ammunition. We'd have to pull out and come back. I wondered why they weren't fighting back, and if and when we came back, how well prepared they'd be.
I began to wonder about the nature of "the enemy." I couldn't even see them, and they weren't fighting. Who were they, and what was the nature of our fight? I was fighting because I was told to, because I was told they were a threat. I wasn't see that threat, or any indication that there was a threat. I began to doubt the mission and the war.
posted by Scrumpox at 9:11 AM
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