Fri Oct 21, 2016 7:11 pm
Bazlord101 wrote:The Descent of Flatley (apologies - 900 words, but I'm out of time to edit further
"Flatley! Get over here - NOW!!". Sergeant Major Hill's voice boomed over the parade ground, assaulting the ears of all the assembled recruits as they stood at attention, waiting on Flatley - again - to fall in and complete formation. Inspection came just once a day, now that the Athena was nearing her target.
Eden Prime. Legendary for its tough resistance, not just from the accursed Scourge threat, but from covert cells of post-human scum looking to further their own inscrutable aims, and random Shaltari just looking to fight for the hell of it. Private Damian Flatley couldn't get his head around the presence of these powerful aliens on one of their - Humanity's - most prized worlds, but he hoped he never had to see them face to face. Or, face to ... well, whatever. But what troubled him the most were the stories coming back from the first units to establish beachheads on Eden. Stories of wild, murderous packs of human resistance - those left behind after the great Scourge invasions, who descended into anarchy and murder. The idea of them made him sick to the stomach, and he knew - he just knew - that he would end up facing these savage traitors at some point.
Rounded up as a petty thief in the slums of Golan IV by the UCM press-gangs, Damian had no choice but to follow the flow try to keep his head above water. He formed up in line, and expected the routine bollocking from the Sergeant Major. Like NCO's throughout history, Hill was chosen more for his abilities to diminish, crush and abuse new recruits until they were raw and ready to be moulded into whatever the army wanted them to be. But the psychological training hadn't taken with him - and now he was afraid, dreading atmospheric drop onto Eden Prime that he knew was coming closer with every humiliation at the hands of Sergeant Major Hill.
"Today is SPECIAL, you MAGGOTS!", Hill barked again. "This is your FINAL Inspection! That's right, ladies! Tonight, we drop on EDEN!!". A hush rang out following the statement, until Hill's demanding stare bored holes into their eyes and they realised that they were supposed to be happy about it, and erupted into shouts of glee.
"Those freakin' idiots", thought Flatley. "They don't know what they're in for. None of us do. Now I'm done - out of time. Got to try to make the best of it, and find one of those civilised resistance groups and defect, before any of the crazies down there get me".
.....
Sergeant Major Hill had been the first to die. A jet of green plasma had melted his head to nothing in about 0.1 seconds flat, while he was in mid-shout. Something about "Duty", and "Honour", and "Dying well". Flatley had briefly enjoyed the irony of that, but then the simple horror of what he'd just witnessed filled him with an overwhelming fear. Damian dropped his rifle and ran. Away from the fight, left, right - wherever offered him the most cover and got him furthest away from the fighting. He vaulted down a torn-up embankment littered with broken masonry and mud, and found a broken service pipe at the bottom that was just big enough for him to crawl through. Stumbling blindly around a sharp corner in the pipe, he fell to his knees and passed out from a sickening mixture of exhaustion and fear.
Hours later, when Flatley awoke, it was dark. He was bitterly cold, and knew he had to find proper shelter soon or die. Food, too. Hunger drove him out of his hiding place and out over the broken landscape. It wasn't long, poking through the skeletons of former industrial buildings that he saw a flicker of light down in a wide crater. Approaching as stealthily as his well-honed skills allowed him, Damian crept to the edge and saw horror - three feral-looking men in rough armour and shredded clothing were cooking around a small fire. One of them was immensely muscled, bald, his pale skin covered in painted sigils and camouflage patterns. His two accomplices were busy tending the fire while he instructed them on the best way to cook. Flesh - human flesh, as Damian could now see the torn leg of a man rotating slowly over the fire.
Flatley's pride bristled at what he saw, and he felt an all-consuming fury for the first time in his young life. It wasn't the fact that these monsters were eating human meat - Damian had seen as bad in the slums of his hometown, when times were at their worst. It was the uniform on the maimed body he now saw lying next to the three cannibals in their pit. The clothes on what remained of its body bore the insignia of a UCM Sergeant Major. And the body had no head. Hill.
Damian knew in an instant that Hill was his to defile, not theirs. The hours of humiliation and abuse flooding back to him in an angry instant and compelling his muscles to draw his combat knife and move toward the grim scene. He wasn't scared of these locals, as he thought that he would be. He wasn't scared, because he knew that he was one of them.
The first thing Private Damian Flatley threw at the three ghouls in the pit was a standard issue flash grenade. The second thing he threw on them, was himself.
I've read both of your writings and their pretty good. How do we come to deciding who wins?
But it's not important - I'd be more interested in constructive criticism, myself