Tag: war

Two Knights

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Two knights lay in a pile of wrecked armor, shattered lances, and bent swords.
“Yield?” wheezed Sir Humphreys.
“Never,” coughed Sir Boltac.
Boltac looked around for a weapon to use, but they were all damaged.
“We could use fists,” suggested Humphreys.
“Fists are for knaves,” said Boltac. “We are men of honor.”
Humprheys agreed, and winced as he tried to get up.
“We must settle this somehow,” moaned Humphreys.
“Thumbwrestling honorable enough?” asked Boltac.
“Sure,” said Humphreys. “En garde!”
Dusk came, and two knights lay in a pile of wrecked armor, shattered lances, and bent swords, nursing their broken thumbs.

Pay Your Respects

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Why don’t we allow the press to photograph the coffins returning home?
It’s because we don’t want them being counted.
The truth is, very few of our boys are dying over there. Sure, a few of our boys get dinged up pretty bad, but we’ve recovered most of them and they insist on going back and fighting.
Still, we’ve got a contract for so many coffins, flags, and burial plots per quarter. And you know how the Pentagon is with negotiating contracts.
No room to store them all and the paperwork’s a bitch, so we might as well use ’em.

The Infrared Baron

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“Can we improve upon the glorious The Red Baron?” growled Hitler to Göring,
Two weeks later, Göring’s scientists invented infra-red paint. Planes painted with it were totally invisible.
The next day, Hitler wanted a demonstration.
“A glorious day for the Reich,” he said. “I wish to see this invisible plane.”
A scientist whispered in Göring’s ear.
“What do you mean you can’t find it?” Göring hissed.
“Problem?” asked Hitler.
“The plane… just took off, fuhrer!” exclaimed Göring.
“Took off?” asked Hitler. “But I heard nothing.”
“Well…”
“Invisible and silent?” said Hitler. “Brilliant! The English will never know what hit them!”

Half Twist

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The commander wanted to give the enemy a chance to surrender before the bombing raid.
“We’re good people,” he said. “Can’t just kill them all.”
PsyOps argued over what the message should be.
The age-old “Surrender Now!” didn’t quite work with this kind of enemy.
The mathematics geek suggested putting an adhesive at one end and then giving instructions to half-twist the paper, then stick the ends together.
“It’s a Moebius Loop,” said the mathematician. “It only has one side.”
The commander pondered all of the options.
“Forget the warnings,” said the commander. “Just bomb the crap out of them.”

Do You Have Wars?

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Communication between the dimensions via hyperradio has been severely limited despite centuries of development. Brief messages, rotated ninety degrees from reality like passing notes in school.
Which is what it was used for in the end – grade school penpal projects.
After years of “Do you have a dog?” and “I like flowers.” the notes stopped. The last message to arrive was:
“Do you have wars?”
And that was it. Nothing else. Just hyperstatic.
As dull as they were, we will sure miss the daily chatter with those Earthers.
I think I’ll get the class a pet to raise tomorrow.

Orbital

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The problem with self-navigating colonies is they’ll burn through their thruster fuel for a better view, greater solar panel efficiency, or just out of sheer spite towards whomever they put in their shadow.
Orbital Control does its best to prevent collisions between rivals, but every now and then you hear of an atmospheric breach or hull scorching due to this ruthless game.
The worst incident was when Glass Palace Five got sideswiped by Harmony Farms three years ago. Both atmospheres failed, nobody survived.
So, what was that about leaving your helmet and tank at home, soldier?
Go get it, stupid.

The Torturer’s Apprentice

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So people are whining about prisoners getting tortured?
Big freaking deal.
The problem I have with it is that we’re getting bad intelligence out of these scumbags when we torture them.
The best interrogator can get information out of a prisoner without leaving a scratch or the prisoner even knowing that he’s played his whole hand.
But where’s the fun in that? For what they’ve done, some of these bastards deserve to suffer.
Now pass me the cordless drill and the handmirror. This goddamned son of a bitch blew up a convent and I want him to see his spleen.

Language barrier

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Gregory preferred “Father” but they called him “Lieutenant.”
“How’s your Arabic, Lieutenant?” asked the captain.
“Um… not good,” said Gregory. “Just two weeks during Basic.”
“More than I got,” said the captain. “HQ wants Mass for indigenous personnel at oh six hundred.”
“But, that’s in thirty min-”
“You have your orders,” said the captain. “Dismissed.”
Gregory genuflected, saluted, and left.
That afternoon, a Major-Bishop watched as Gregory stuttered and stumbled through the ceremony.
“Forgive us,” he muttered.
Later research by Papal Authorities determined that the wine and host had transformed into the body and blood of Roberto Clemente, not Jesus.

Weapon of Mass Hysteria

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“Ladies and gentlemen – observe!”
Doctor Odd wheeled the patient into the gigantic auditorium and began his presentation on the Applied Healing Power Of Laughter.
As the lecture progressed into carefully-orchestrated absurdity, thousands of doctors in the audience began to laugh.
And laugh. And laugh. And laugh.
Soon, the entire audience roared with laughter… into the Sonic Focusing Array!
Doctor Odd turned a few knobs, threw switches, and yelled “Now watch this!”
The patient’s wheelchair shook, glowed blue…
And exploded.
Despite the setback, Doctor Odd still managed to get funding from the Pentagon.
Weapon of mass hysteria, they called it.

Downgrade

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The closer to the front, the quicker you handle support calls.
Even though it’s important to get grunts’ systems back up and running so they can fight, the real issue is purely self-preservation.
Sure, you can remote or tell the grunt to reboot. Or they’ll pull out a spare and send the damaged unit back, but some situations demand hands-on solutions.
This was one of them. And as I was racing to the front, my jeep hit a landmine. Blew everything to bits around me.
And into me. Doctors are still picking bits and pieces out of my bloody gut.