{"id":1329,"date":"2019-09-02T09:01:24","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T13:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/?p=1329"},"modified":"2019-09-02T09:01:24","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T13:01:24","slug":"a-short-burst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/?p=1329","title":{"rendered":"A Short Burst"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“A short burst, gentlemen.”\u00a0 Hollered the sergeant in his sharpest parade ground voice.\u00a0 “Earth-Force Command wants a clean kill…center body mass and head-shots only!”\u00a0 ‘Yeah,’ I thought, ‘same as last time…same as always.’\u00a0 “Stay SHARP!” the sergeant yelled, as if he knew I was daydreaming.\u00a0 I marched forward in the firing line as we approached the village.<\/p>\n

“Lock and load!” sergeant yelled.\u00a0 We all knew THAT was coming next.\u00a0 Sgt. Matador was a big fan of historic Viet-Nam war films and this planet’s name, Ping-Dang-Fee, inspired him.\u00a0 In reality, our plasma rifles fired pure energy beams, no clumsy clips or shells, but he figured his bravado might inspire us to fight… he was wrong.\u00a0 Conscripts of a corporatocracy have no patriotism.<\/p>\n

This whole invasion had me deeply conflicted.\u00a0 Our enemy, the Plast, were an intelligent people, far more civilized than us.\u00a0 They had renounced technology and war and embraced peace after a long history of violence and greed – not unlike ours.\u00a0 Earth Force Command told us they were horrible, violent terrorists like the American Indians, determined to stop our God-given right to progress.\u00a0 We knew better…we knew the Company just wanted the minerals in the soil of Ping-Dang-Fee and had decided it would be cheaper to exterminate these intelligent ‘pests’ than negotiate and actually ‘pay’ for their resources.<\/p>\n

“Hold your fire ’till we reach the outer piquet!” shouted the sergeant. We could see the enemy now.\u00a0 They stood together, unarmed, shoulder to shoulder… men, women and children.\u00a0 They were tall and elegant and looked like a cross between a tarantula and those adorable orangutans the aristocrats kept for pets…..and they were unarmed.<\/p>\n

Sergeant ordered us to the ready.\u00a0 “Steady…!” he bellowed.\u00a0 We stood silent and still.\u00a0 I felt sick.\u00a0 I could see the shame on the faces of my fellows’ as they realized what we were about to do…again.<\/p>\n

“AIMMMMMM…!”<\/p>\n

Without thinking, I stepped forward – out of the ranks – and in full view of the regiment, I threw down my weapon…which rattled noisily when it hit the dirt.<\/p>\n

The sergeant was up in my face in seconds, bellowing, screeching, ordering me back into line with veins popping and spittle flying…I wasn’t listening.<\/p>\n

He went on furiously about duty and service, cowardice and treason….until another weapon rattled as it hit the dirt…and another, and another and he pulled his sidearm and put it to my head and threatened the entire regiment…..but it was too late.\u00a0 There were thousands of plasma rifles in the dirt and more dropping by the minute…and there would be no massacre today.\u00a0 And I wondered, while the sergeant yammered on, with his gun to my head, if he still believed all that bullshit he was selling… until he put his weapon to his own head and pulled the trigger…..answering my question.<\/p>\n

There were some heavy clashes in the capital city at the outset of the mutiny; nasty house-to-house fighting…but it was mostly among the officer corps.\u00a0 The common soldiers held back. \u00a0The Plast had our sixes; for a peaceful people they were pretty formidable when it counted.\u00a0 Eventually, our little mutiny spread to every Earth-Force unit.\u00a0 The second wave never fired a shot.\u00a0 We heard later that the third wave refused to deploy entirely.<\/p>\n

The Corporation was desperate to suppress this mutiny, they were losing battalion after battalion without a fight.\u00a0 It was getting too expensive.\u00a0 We expected them to pull back and nuke us from space…..but the bombs never fell.<\/p>\n

***Our new book, “A Short Burst” is finally out…and this is the cover story.\u00a0 The book is 100 pages with 73 short, flash-fiction sci-fi stories and 64 illustrations, most of the art originally published in Analog and Asimov’s Sci-Fi Magazines.\u00a0 It is our 4th book and the best one yet.\u00a0 It is available for sale at www.sallemander.com, Amazon, and etsy .com (search; EEWbooks).\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 -Marsha<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“A short burst, gentlemen.”\u00a0 Hollered the sergeant in his sharpest parade ground voice.\u00a0 “Earth-Force Command wants a clean kill…center body mass and head-shots only!”\u00a0 ‘Yeah,’ I thought, ‘same as last time…same as always.’\u00a0 “Stay SHARP!” the sergeant yelled, as if he knew I was daydreaming.\u00a0 I marched forward in the firing line as we approached … Continue reading A Short Burst<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[242,150,124],"tags":[79,250,248,38,176,99,10,19,96,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1329"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1344,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions\/1344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sallemander.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}