Man of War

In the last few seconds of his life, Emmett didn’t recall the wars he’d fought in, the countless planets he’d touched down on, or even the woman he’d given the best part of his life to. None of that. Only a little boy clutching the hand of his dying mother, like he was leading her to something beyond this world.

Wing Commander Emmett Engel dipped the fighter low across the dunes, banking a hard right while keeping under detection level. Thruster bursts boomed over the dunes as his squadron broke formation, choosing separate vectors back to the mothership. “Desert Eagle” was the handle they’d given him, but to the enemy on Tyneeria, he was Shaitan, “The Sand Devil.”

Ninety-eight percent accuracy rate, who could argue with that? His three-hundredth successful drop. Every confirmed kill was a step closer to the endgame, to securing the safety of the settlements on this dustbowl of a planet.

He looked at the picture of his wife, Amelia, pinned to the cockpit for good luck. In the picture, she stood with her parents on their farm, her father dressed in his military uniform. He could hear his father-in-law’s voice as clearly as if he were in the cockpit next to him. “Freedom comes from men like us, willing to fight so others can sleep soundly. War, boy, it’s not just necessary—it’s inevitable.”

Like an apparition from a mirage, Emmett saw it: a blur against the horizon, a solitary figure standing atop a dune directly in his line of sight. Within a second, he’d marked the danger, but perhaps a second too late. The insurgent fired, a missile snaking its way through the air in an erratic trajectory. It was a one-in-a-million shot—impossible, according to command—yet the impact was unmistakable.

A sudden jolt erupted through the cockpit, punched deep into his gut, and before he could react, the fighter was spinning uncontrollably. Thirty years in the service and countless crash sims, but nothing could have prepared him. His body lurched with violent tremors, fingers twitching, the ejector override out of reach.

The world came at him, fast and final.

How he survived, he’d no idea, losing consciousness somewhere in between hitting the ground and the fireball of the cockpit. Taking a deep breath that his ribs fought against, he hauled himself out of the shattered canopy and onto the sand.

First, he checked himself for injuries—blood was pouring from somewhere, from his nose, from beneath his glove, and from a cut just below his knee, but he was alive—no broken bones. That seemed like a miracle.

Get some distance between yourself and the crash site. He’d emphasised that lesson enough in his mission briefs. In a few minutes, this place would be crawling with the enemy. Emmett led a trail in the opposite direction, watching his blood drip onto the dry sand. Then, doubling back, he wrapped his wounds with his shirt and headed west against the setting sun.

It didn’t take long for the air to cool once the sun had dipped below the horizon of sandstone mountains. A shiver ran across his shoulders. Keep pace, he told himself, even as the pain in his leg throbbed with every step. Close behind, he could hear erratic shouts and the incessant rumble of machines.

Reaching the top of a dune, he paused. A few clicks ahead, there was a small town: a mining outpost controlled by the enemy. He recognised it from a bombing run a few months back. It was cover, at least.

Once in the refuge of the town, he stuck to the walls and crept through the shadows. A few people, dressed in linen robes, wandered back and forth—Just civilians going about their business—although he needed to treat everyone like the enemy.

How long would a rescue team take to deploy? Not a chance they’d find him before morning.

A loud crack split the still night air. A gunshot.

He took a prone position behind some fuel drums and counted the men arriving, studying each face as they passed between the buildings—the faces of inevitable death. Even his breath seemed too loud, and his heartbeat pounded with such fury he feared it might give him away. High on the dunes, from the path the men had taken, a reaper tank stood ready, watching, its missiles set to strike.

Lie low. Find shelter. Even pack wolves will tire eventually.

He waited for the last of the soldiers to pass, then moved quietly along the side of a corrugated fence, where dry earth stretched, dotted with a few struggling crops. Before him, on top of a wooden table, lay the remnants of an insect, its beetle-like shape stripped of its hard shell, revealing dissected innards and spiky legs. A local delicacy, no doubt. Next to it was a small carving knife. Not much, he thought, but maybe enough to take one of these sand snakes down with him.

Voices called out behind a building, two men who talked with the urgency of the hunt—men who knew nothing but violence and murder. With only one choice, he crawled along to the window and to his relief, the metal shutters creaked open.

Inside, the house was pitch black. He took the chance and leapt over.

A light came on. Blindingly bright. Emmett shielded his eyes and blinked the flash away. As the room came into focus, he could see a silhouette standing by the doorway—a woman dressed in a soft white linen gown, skin brown and tanned from years in the desert. With a duck of her knees, she ran to the door.

“Don’t,” Emmett growled, voice low. “Don’t move.” He could hear the sound of boots outside, closer now. Too close. Heavy footsteps of men armed with automatic rifles, all around him.

He was on top of the woman before he knew it, forcing her to the ground. She screamed in a muffled yelp, but he held her there, his hand over her mouth, his knee pressed into her belly. She fought—stronger than he assessed—a strength that no doubt came from a life working the soil. Clamping her teeth down on his fingers, she bit sharp as a rabid dog, then, as he let the pressure off just a little, she forced his arm away.

“Please. Help!” Her voice was shrill and shaking. “Hel—”

Emmett plunged the knife deep into her abdomen—it felt almost reactionary. It was enough to shut her up, turning her shriek into a guttural moan. His fingers clenched around her throat stopping even the noise of her breath.

He waited for the sound of the door bursting open, certain it would come at any second.

It didn’t. After a minute or so passed he relaxed, assessing the situation. The woman took a deep, long breath, and strained against his body weight.

Slit her throat, let her bleed out—put her out of her misery. The infantry soldiers wouldn’t think twice.

“Put her out her misery,” he repeated. He remembered his father-in-law saying those words when one of the farm horses had broken its leg. None of the meat had gone to waste.

“Please, no,” a quiet voice called, simultaneously a whisper and a shout—a plea for sure. Emmett turned to where the voice was coming from, a small boy crouched under the desk as still and quiet as a mouse. He was seven or eight, Emmett guessed, around the age his son would’ve been if it hadn’t been for the miscarriage. They’d tried, Amelia and he, to have another, but even with the treatments, nothing.

Slowly Emmett stood back, only just noticing the heavy pool of blood under the woman’s body and his reflection in it. Just another casualty of war, he told himself, like all the others—the two percent error margin.

The boy rushed out from his hiding place and fell to his mother’s side.

Don’t you dare run, don’t cry out! He’d silence the boy just the same.

But the boy didn’t flee, didn’t scream, just quietly tended to his mother’s wounds with the patience of a practised medic. After tearing a hole in his mother’s dress, he tried to put pressure on the wound and pack it with the torn linen. Blood kept flowing like a floodgate.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” Emmett surprised himself by asking. What the heck do I care? Probably patching up insurgents.

The boy didn’t answer, just kept dabbing his mother’s forehead with the now blood-soaked rag. Her eyes were still shut but she was trying to say something.

“Shhh...” the boy whispered, keeping his eyes fixed on his mother.

“Didn’t you hear me, kid?”

Emmett noticed how tightly his hand still gripped the knife. He unclenched his fist and drew a breath. For the first time, he closely studied the woman’s features, she looked like her—his wife, Amelia—only with darker hair and more drawn-in. But the same green eyes. A green that reminded him of the farmland back home, of sunlight filtering through the trees.

Amelia…

The woman gasped, her lungs wheezing, desperate for air. Her brown skin was ghostly pale, almost blue underneath. Emmett had seen this before, in gunshot casualties—hypovolemic blood loss—an artery had been severed, and she was going into shock. There was barely a pint of blood in her, to begin with.

“Help her,” was all the boy could manage to say.

It’s too late, kid—was Emmett’s initial reaction, but before he said it, something about the way the boy looked at him made him stop—his jet-black hair curled and overgrown, the sheen of sweat that wept over his skin—he seemed more like a man at that moment than a boy, like a depth of understanding hid behind his eyes.

“Does your family keep an emergency kit? A box with a cross like the ones you people steal from our relief ships.”

“Maybe—in the back cupboard.”

 “Right kid, hold her legs.” Emmett scooped an arm under the woman’s calves. “Keep them raised, like this.” The boy did as he’d instructed.

It didn’t take him long to hotwire the cupboard lock, and once he’d thrown half the junk out, he found a med kit. Clicking it open, he discovered it had what he needed. Back beside the woman, he powered up the plasma compressor and then ran his hand over her chest, feeling for the beat of the heart. She groaned in pain, yet her eyes stayed closed, unconscious.

In that moment, he thought of Amelia again, of the words she’d said to him when he left on this latest tour of duty. “Darling, I couldn’t be prouder of the man you are, we all are. You show ’em what you’re made of. Don’t you worry about me none—I’ll be fine. I’ll have a fresh cake baking when you come back.”

Three goddamn years. I’ll make it home if it’s the last thing I do.

“What’s her name, son?”

“Faiza,” the boy said, the worry on his face evident.

“Fa-ee-zah,” Emmett repeated. “Okay Faiza, be strong. This is gonna feel like a swarm of desert ants crawling through your veins.” He wasn’t sure if she heard, but she rolled her head as if in response.

The heartbeat was so faint that the compressor barely registered it. Still, the laser focused, and he pressed the device onto her chest. The machine’s mechanical arms curled up, spider-like, gripping her flesh as the needle on its underside burrowed toward her heart. He watched as it adjusted for blood type, pulsed once, and fired up the transfusion.

If Emmett had been a religious man, he would’ve prayed, maybe whispered something hopeful or pulled one of the Bible passages Amelia would read. She’d have known the right words. She always did.

As he was emptying the bag of powdered Quickclot over the dressing, a sharp whir buzzed overhead. He looked up. Somewhere out there, against the star-choked sky, drones moved, scanning the desert with the vigilance of a predatory owl. Insurgent tech. Sonar drones, searching for the slightest echo.

The boy knelt beside his mother, hands curled under his knees, his face quiet and unreadable. Emmett glanced at him and their eyes met. No fear, no rage. Just silence. An understanding settled between them, and Emmett was aware that the boy could shout, could blow everything apart with one scream.

But he didn’t. Emmett wasn’t sure why.

A red light on the compressor flashed. He wasn’t exactly a field medic, but Emmett knew what it meant. The woman’s face was even paler now, her lips blue, skin cold under his fingertips—the transfusion wasn’t working fast enough. He adjusted the compressor again, ignoring the warning signals flashing on the small screen. The needle twitched, but her body didn’t respond. He could feel the last of her warmth fading, slipping away, like the desert sand at night.

The boy inched closer, his small hands reaching for her. “Mom...” he pleaded. Her chest rose in a shallow gasp, mouth barely open, like she was stuck mid-sentence.

The compressor flashed again, flatlined.

Shit—no, no, no!

Then, it shut off with a click, arms retracting like it had done all it could. He stared at her face, the stillness of it, as a feeling he couldn’t name stirred inside him.

“She... she’s not moving,” the boy said, kneeling there next to the only family he had left. His voice was small, barely still in this world. “H–help her.”

Emmett wanted to say something, but there was nothing to say that could make it better, nothing that could make this right. He’d killed her. Now, and with everything that came before. He looked at the boy, who just kept crying, small, broken sounds.

“I’m sorry,” Emmett whispered. The words came out thick, almost choked. “I’m so damn sorry.” The boy’s body shuddered with a sob. For the first time in Emmett’s life, he was completely at a loss for what to do next. Are you still proud of me, darling?

There was one option left. “Okay, screw it.”

Emmett grabbed the IV tubing, his bloodied fingers shaking as he twisted the needles on. He found a vein in his arm easily enough, but it took a few attempts to finally pierce one of the faint blue lines on Faiza’s. The clear plastic tubing remained empty.

“Kid, I need you to push, short and sharp, on your mother’s chest. Right where the heart is.” Emmett hoped the transfuser had dumped enough nanobots in her system for this to work. With a few heavy thumps on her chest from the boy, the blood started flowing out Emmett’s arm and down the tube into Faiza. He sat his back against the wall. All they could do was wait.

“Your mom’s gonna be okay,” he said, not looking up. The sound of the drone was distant now. “Just gotta keep quiet. You understand? Trust me, son, I’m gonna make sure you’re alright.”

Emmett leaned back against the cold metal, feeling the ache in his muscles. For the first time, he checked his own injuries, splashing the bottle of disinfectant over his cuts. Not long now till morning.

When the boy spoke, his voice was small, and Emmett wasn’t sure the words were meant for him. “Momma said we will all be together in Jannat Al-Ma’wa.”

“That’s some kind of heaven, you folks believe in, right?”

“There are many places in the afterlife, and many gods.” The boy cupped his hands. “Yes, I trust, Father will be there, and my cousin, Yusuf and—”

“You truly think that’s a real place, kid?” Emmett shook his head and snorted, low, like a bull in the ring. “Amelia reckons there’s only one God. I reckon both of you can’t be right.”

“My mother said, it doesn’t matter who’s right—all that matters is we believe. That we have hope.”

Emmett thought about that for a moment. He went to ask something but stopped himself. What do these people know?

Outside the drone buzzed again, louder this time. It had circled back. Emmett blinked, stirring himself back to life and pulled the tubing from his arm. Hopefully, the hour or so was enough to stabilise Faiza.

Emmett glanced at the window. “They’re coming.” He’d have to leave them here, like this. “Give her sips of water, salt, and make sure the wound doesn’t open up.”

Under his breath, the boy was muttering some kind of prayer. He held his hands again like a cup towards Emmett. “We thank you.”

Emmett shook his head.

By their side, Faiza stirred but with her eyes still closed tight. “He chose you, Shaitan,” she said in a strained breath. “The sun god has brought you here for a reason.”

Shaitan, she knows that name.

It seemed unreal to Emmett, but despite how drained he felt, the knowledge of her being alive stirred something bright in his heart. “Don’t speak, save your strength.”

Faiza coughed, clearing her lungs. “Sometimes he puts us through suffering, so when the moment comes, we know the path back to him.”

Emmett placed a hand over Faiza’s as she fell back into silence. He didn’t have the time to wait. He looked at the boy. “Take care, kid.”

Outside, the first rays of dawn were stretching their fingers above the horizon’s sandstone ridges. The village, though, was empty. Too empty. Like a pasture before a storm. Emmett looked for the drones, but the sky was clear, only an ocean of stars. Then he spotted where the noise was coming from. Low, across the sandbanks, the V-formation of starfighters on a direct heading.

A rescue mission?

The thought had only just left Emmett’s head when he saw the tell-tale trails of air-to-ground rockets.

Not a rescue—a bombing run.

In a way, he welcomed it. He took a glance back at the house where he’d left that woman and child. The fear he felt was not for himself, but for the helpless boy and his mother.

What right do we have?

Something else had left him as his blood had fused with Faiza’s. Had he always felt this way? For how long? Three years at least. Maybe longer. Maybe since he first pulled a trigger. Right then, he wanted nothing more than to crawl back and shelter beside them.

The missiles hit with the fury of God. Thunder and scorching hellfire. He saw only blackness, the burning sand against his back, and his hand reaching out for something, someone to embrace.

#

He holds the badge pinned to his chest—Admiral Emmett Engel.

It had to have been ten or so long years since that day. Something like that. Emmett couldn’t quite remember. The years had gone quickly, wished away as he spat into the ashes. A reconnaissance drone surveying the kill zone had spotted him. Barely a part of his original self left.

“Ninety-eight percent burns,” the docs at the recovery ward said. He’d scoffed—two percent error margin. They replaced both his legs with mech parts, clunky things that shook jolts of pain through his spine with every step, and his right hand was some clumsy piece of metal now too. The synthetic skin suffocated him like a body bag.

The worst of it was the way Amelia looked at him, half pity, half disgust. Everything I did was for you! My heart cracked, screaming out with another man’s beliefs. She tried to get him to accept the payout, but he couldn’t bear the thought of being stuck at home. Despite the pain, the way it hurt to move—the thoughts that incapacitated him even more—he kept his mouth shut and smiled through the rehab. There was no courage in it. He lived through it because there was no other way. Eventually, the military threw some commendations at him and offered a post in command.

The war had gone on too long, according to the politician, too costly for the folks back home. As if these things can be measured in credits. The United Planets and the Outer Colonies Alliance collated the defence budget into a final push, a missile bombardment that would strike straight at the heart of the enemy. “Cut them off at the root,” as the Chief Commander had put it.

Emmett glances around the command deck of the SS Sandstorm—a starship with enough punch to break through Tyneeria’s planetary defence systems.

So here I am, at the belly of the beast.

As he enters the “self-destruct” command, there is no hesitation, only a quiet prayer in his mind. As unlikely as it is, he hopes they are alive down there. They were in his dreams—haunting them sometimes—Faiza tending her garden and the boy growing into a man. Despite the nights he’d wake, shivering in a fever, those dreams were all that had kept him going. He prayed they were still alive.

It only matters that we believe.

Explosions shudder through the ship, steel splitting and bulkheads sheering apart, a rapturous bellow from below. He fixes his uniform and salutes.

If only you could see me now—a soldier ready for war.