Tears No More
The old warrior cried. Tears, accelerated across leathery skin by grooves etched in prior battles, cascaded from eyeballs to chin, and then dripped to the ground. According to the Veng4 culture a fifth degree disgrace. Only proven battlefield cowardice more disgraceful and death deserving by lethal injection.
The barren nitrogen landscape isolation that surrounded the old warrior brought him no consolation. His battalion’s decimation at the hands of Asur7, the mortal enemy from Planet Nobhulk, should have gored his vital organs as well, but didn’t. His Earth ancestors had breathed oxygen. When Earth warmed, genetics through decades modified ancestors until his body functioned on nitrogen, not oxygen. Humans, he read, had laughed funny when exposed to nitrogen compounds. He and his warrior buddies didn’t.
He pressed his interstellar transport button. Nothing. The defense ray flashed red. Twentieth Century bullets and missiles rendered harmless with force field rays that rose naturally from the caves of Planet Nearton, his home. That had been his commander’s first priority: the transport of ray canisters containing home force field defenses sucked from immense Nearton caves.
His third motorized eye, sensitive to the slightest movement within a circular one hundred and eighty degree vision field, rested, an odd occurrence after the battle fury. He would’ve expected an eye or muscle twitch from friend or foe alerting his visual channel.
He shifted his seated body against the granstone rock. His position an unacceptable military strategy to have an attack avenue blocked from view. His hearing wouldn’t protect him. His brain had short-circuited hearing nerves to have them reprocessed into available eyesight channels. An acceptable tradeoff when he’d had a partner to watch his backside.
The old warrior assumed all anti-gravitational vehicles had either been destroyed or disabled. His eye, one hundred leagues to his right, surveyed the abandoned Asur7 vehicle. Its painted markings had been a ruse. If abandoned, it surely had been locked from his use.
With a deep breath, he decided he wouldn’t waste his limited energy.
He felt his left thigh. The synthetic mesh that had supported a prior wound’s healing still in place, although frayed at the edges. A glancing laser blow. He guessed, but he hadn’t noticed during the four-hour battle.
His troops, two hundred humanoids and mechanical androids, had been stationed to the rear. He hadn’t expected they’d be exposed to battle. In the past the Ansur7 forces had landed south of the mountain range and brazenly tried to overpower any frontal resistance. Four times they’d been defeated, carting their warriors away. The old warrior’s superiors chuckled after each victory.
He tried to alert them that the Ansur7 forces really hadn’t suffered any casualties. The injured Ansur7 warriors, if indeed injured, regenerated after the retreat. His eye had glimpsed a downed Ansur7 warrior being injected with a probe from a strange field pack. His commanders didn’t want to hear what he had to say. The commanders responded that the Ansur7s were the lowest race in the universe and had no forward thinking capability.
When his commanders challenged him with the question: what did the Ansur7 forces have to gain by attacking a known barren planet ES421, used exclusively by Veng4 for military training? He had no ready answer.
For many a week he’d tossed and turned to try to fathom what attracted Ansur7 to their training range fortifications on ES421.
The old warrior knew that each time Ansur7 had attacked they’d met a scaled down resident Veng4 force only sufficient to protect transportable training equipment. That had allowed the Ansur7 forces an opportunity to withdraw and depart to their home planet. After four attacks, the old warrior expected something different. His superiors filed the old warrior’s first three observation reports under the topic of no further action needed.
His commanders didn’t recognize that Planet ES421 had been cosmically sliding toward the sun named Ray32, and its planet Ero14 a stepping stone to Ansur7’s greatest enemy, Whif2.
The attack, planned by Ansur7 on Whif2, would require light years of travel, unless the backdoor hop from ES421 could be successful. The old warrior late one night playing “what if?” with a computer simulator had noticed the realignment. His immediate supervisor scoffed, “computer games, that’s nothing.”
On the battlefield, the old warrior stood, his body braced upright by his useless laser probe. He stumbled forward. He planted his booted feet with care so as not to step on friend or foe. What could he do? Ansur7 hadn’t left their soldiers before. There mustn’t be time before the follow-up critical assault.
The old warrior assessed the relevant facts. Whif2 had been Veng4’s ally. Whif2 had supplied neu45 that powered Veng4’s cities.
The old warrior’s tears had dried. If he’d committed a disgraceful offense, only he’d know. His eye detected a slight movement. The uniform indicated a Veng4 two-star.
“Stand,” the old warrior commanded.
“I can’t.”
“You can.” The old warrior jabbed a needle into the Veng4 two-star. The needle connected directly to the Ansur7 regeneration module salvaged by the old warrior.
The Veng4 soldier stood.
The old warrior sighed. He’d had no indication such an enemy procedure would work. Now with proof he multiplied his efforts with the two-star’s help to inject and stand up the Veng4 forces.
The old warrior, shamed that he’d previously broken down in tears, defiantly stared at the sky. ES421 would be no stepping-stone for Ansur7 dominance.
