GWOT 1..7 The Gun NI
May. 2nd, 2019 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkitty[This story is a bit of an experiment. There should not be spoilers, but it does cross the entire series.]
GWOT 1
The first I drew a handgun and pointed it at a human being, I was forcing him out of his own home.
It was necessary. When he saw and smelled the smoke of the things that should not burn, he even agreed.
The next day was the first time I killed someone with a handgun. But not the last.
GWOT 2
The handgun was a natural extension of my hand, my arm and my brain. Muscle memory, hand eye coordination and hundreds of hours of practice plus many close quarters gun battles (both simulated in the Kill House and quite, quite real) had made it as much a part of my daily life as my shoes.
But I was never, ever telling anyone about this, I vowed to myself, as I carefully cleaned the barrel of the firearm in the tiny data center bathroom sink.
I hadn't dropped it in the toilet. That would be just awkward, although it would require a complete cleaning.
I'd actually started to wipe with it.
GWOT 3
I had about a second to decide.
The grinning corpse of the Homeland interrogator slumped in his chair. The handgun he had been threatening me with was now in my hand.
The heavy booted feet of the cell extraction team made the dust on the concrete floor shake as they rushed to respond, coming down the corridor.
I looked into the camera, put the barrel in my mouth and smiled.
My finger locked up on the trigger.
Not my left hand, not the one that had lost its fingernails.
My right hand. The one they hadn't gotten to yet, but certainly would.
Just an instant left. What did I want to have be the last thing that ran through my mind?
Well, the next to last thing.
I wanted to remember the beautiful glow of a California sunset.
I remembered instead the false glow from the north as the sun went down and San Francisco kept going up.
Click.
Empty chamber.
Empty chamber!
I dropped it and picked up the chair as the extraction team in full riot armor bum-rushed the room, filling it with bodies and clubs and shields.
As they beat me down, I saved my hate for the dead man in the other chair.
An empty gun, this whole time!
GWOT 4
Another slumping corpse, tied to the post. No crowd for this execution.
He hadn't been Homeland. He'd been one of ours. Resistance. And he'd massacred Homeland prisoners, a gross violation of the laws of war.
If we were going to execute Homeland paramilitaries and adherents for such crimes, we had to punish our own as well.
At my command, a squad of three had just shot him carefully in the chest with .223 rifles.
He was still alive. Fucking anemic rounds.
That meant it was my duty to finish the job.
I drew my handgun in anger for the first time since my arrest by Homeland so long ago.
But I wasn't angry. This was duty.
I aimed carefully. This wasn't murder. This was ending suffering.
As the pistol barked twice, I felt nothing.
I dimly remembered that one time, I had felt something.
Not anymore.
GWOT 5
I pointed my pistol at the Mexican officer.
If I opened fire, I would surely die in the next instant, ripped apart by one of the heavy machine guns of the tanks confronting us in the narrow defile.
But he would certainly die as well. Personally.
A bullet is very personal.
"You are one hundred and twenty five meters north of the Border, senor. You are unlawfully bearing arms in the California Republic without the permission of my government ... or your own. This may not be the Alamo, but this can be your last day on earth.
"Order your troops to withdraw or my unit will act in direct self defense from an imminent threat."
He shook his head.
"You will not survive."
"I'm already dead. Come join me," I invited.
He looked in my eyes, as he sat in the cupola of his command track, and he flinched from what he saw.
I did not need to hear the words to know the orders he had given. His tanks and tracks carefully reversed, one by one, and continued back along the line they had made.
Only when his gunner had stopped muzzling me with his machine gun, did I holster.
GWOT 6
It was just him and me, in the back of the truck.
And the refugees, but they didn't matter one way or another.
"Get out of the truck or I will shoot you dead. Right here, right now."
I did not thumb the hammer back or rack the slide, or any of the theatrical Hollywood tricks that you hopefully only see in the movies.
These refugees were under my protection, and the truck was going out of this man made Hell with us. He was not. He would leave the truck on his own feet or because I dragged his corpse out.
Of course, his men might have an opinion about that.
"He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword," the priest said.
I quoted back.
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. RIGHT FUCKING NOW."
He ran out of the truck.
I followed.
GWOT 7
The diplomat made a little face, showing her distaste. I followed her glance, to the holstered handgun at my belt. It clashed horribly with my dress uniform. That was in fact the point.
This reception was in the Republic of California consulate. That made it legally our territory, under the Vienna Convention of 1815 and long settled international law.
I was still in her eyes an American, carrying a gun, in China.
We had to somehow carve peace out of this nightmare of conspiracies, atrocities and suffering.
But all she saw was the gun itself.
As if the gun was the criminal rather than the man who carried it.
"Madam."
"Why must you carry that?"
She didn't know how to read my rank, and I didn't really care. As a career diplomat, she knew the Vienna Convention backwards and forwards, but it applied to menials such as guards and couriers. Not to august personages such as her.
"It is a symbol. The California Republic exists because the United States of America deliberately murdered millions of us as part of a plot ... against China.
"I don't carry a gun to kill people. Any idiot can do that. I carry a gun to signal people, to give fair warning, that I am a man under authority who is willing to die at any time for my nation. I am in command of our security detachment, and I will face down any number of invaders whether they are Chinese, Mexican, American ... or even British. Madam."
I also carried the gun for another reason.
There were secrets in this consulate that made the deliberate, callous destruction of San Francisco by the prior American regime look positively civilized.
And a weapon, that if the Chinese knew we had it here, they would immediately nuke the city ... their own ... just to be sure it was contained.
There weren't that many situations in which one man with a handgun could make a difference. But it was my duty to be ready anyway.
She harrumphed and walked away.
The Charge de Affaires noticed the byplay and walked over to me.
"She had a issue with the gun?"
I nodded.
"Just wait until she hears about our answer to Trident."
For the stakes we were playing for, both handguns and city killing nukes were mere ... distractions. Pawns in a game where thrones meant nothing and the survival of humanity meant everything.
We were here to make peace with China. But if they, or anyone else, insisted that it had to be the peace of the grave, we would simply have to make it a group event. Discount Armageddon, bring all your friends.
GWOT 1
The first I drew a handgun and pointed it at a human being, I was forcing him out of his own home.
It was necessary. When he saw and smelled the smoke of the things that should not burn, he even agreed.
The next day was the first time I killed someone with a handgun. But not the last.
GWOT 2
The handgun was a natural extension of my hand, my arm and my brain. Muscle memory, hand eye coordination and hundreds of hours of practice plus many close quarters gun battles (both simulated in the Kill House and quite, quite real) had made it as much a part of my daily life as my shoes.
But I was never, ever telling anyone about this, I vowed to myself, as I carefully cleaned the barrel of the firearm in the tiny data center bathroom sink.
I hadn't dropped it in the toilet. That would be just awkward, although it would require a complete cleaning.
I'd actually started to wipe with it.
GWOT 3
I had about a second to decide.
The grinning corpse of the Homeland interrogator slumped in his chair. The handgun he had been threatening me with was now in my hand.
The heavy booted feet of the cell extraction team made the dust on the concrete floor shake as they rushed to respond, coming down the corridor.
I looked into the camera, put the barrel in my mouth and smiled.
My finger locked up on the trigger.
Not my left hand, not the one that had lost its fingernails.
My right hand. The one they hadn't gotten to yet, but certainly would.
Just an instant left. What did I want to have be the last thing that ran through my mind?
Well, the next to last thing.
I wanted to remember the beautiful glow of a California sunset.
I remembered instead the false glow from the north as the sun went down and San Francisco kept going up.
Click.
Empty chamber.
Empty chamber!
I dropped it and picked up the chair as the extraction team in full riot armor bum-rushed the room, filling it with bodies and clubs and shields.
As they beat me down, I saved my hate for the dead man in the other chair.
An empty gun, this whole time!
GWOT 4
Another slumping corpse, tied to the post. No crowd for this execution.
He hadn't been Homeland. He'd been one of ours. Resistance. And he'd massacred Homeland prisoners, a gross violation of the laws of war.
If we were going to execute Homeland paramilitaries and adherents for such crimes, we had to punish our own as well.
At my command, a squad of three had just shot him carefully in the chest with .223 rifles.
He was still alive. Fucking anemic rounds.
That meant it was my duty to finish the job.
I drew my handgun in anger for the first time since my arrest by Homeland so long ago.
But I wasn't angry. This was duty.
I aimed carefully. This wasn't murder. This was ending suffering.
As the pistol barked twice, I felt nothing.
I dimly remembered that one time, I had felt something.
Not anymore.
GWOT 5
I pointed my pistol at the Mexican officer.
If I opened fire, I would surely die in the next instant, ripped apart by one of the heavy machine guns of the tanks confronting us in the narrow defile.
But he would certainly die as well. Personally.
A bullet is very personal.
"You are one hundred and twenty five meters north of the Border, senor. You are unlawfully bearing arms in the California Republic without the permission of my government ... or your own. This may not be the Alamo, but this can be your last day on earth.
"Order your troops to withdraw or my unit will act in direct self defense from an imminent threat."
He shook his head.
"You will not survive."
"I'm already dead. Come join me," I invited.
He looked in my eyes, as he sat in the cupola of his command track, and he flinched from what he saw.
I did not need to hear the words to know the orders he had given. His tanks and tracks carefully reversed, one by one, and continued back along the line they had made.
Only when his gunner had stopped muzzling me with his machine gun, did I holster.
GWOT 6
It was just him and me, in the back of the truck.
And the refugees, but they didn't matter one way or another.
"Get out of the truck or I will shoot you dead. Right here, right now."
I did not thumb the hammer back or rack the slide, or any of the theatrical Hollywood tricks that you hopefully only see in the movies.
These refugees were under my protection, and the truck was going out of this man made Hell with us. He was not. He would leave the truck on his own feet or because I dragged his corpse out.
Of course, his men might have an opinion about that.
"He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword," the priest said.
I quoted back.
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. RIGHT FUCKING NOW."
He ran out of the truck.
I followed.
GWOT 7
The diplomat made a little face, showing her distaste. I followed her glance, to the holstered handgun at my belt. It clashed horribly with my dress uniform. That was in fact the point.
This reception was in the Republic of California consulate. That made it legally our territory, under the Vienna Convention of 1815 and long settled international law.
I was still in her eyes an American, carrying a gun, in China.
We had to somehow carve peace out of this nightmare of conspiracies, atrocities and suffering.
But all she saw was the gun itself.
As if the gun was the criminal rather than the man who carried it.
"Madam."
"Why must you carry that?"
She didn't know how to read my rank, and I didn't really care. As a career diplomat, she knew the Vienna Convention backwards and forwards, but it applied to menials such as guards and couriers. Not to august personages such as her.
"It is a symbol. The California Republic exists because the United States of America deliberately murdered millions of us as part of a plot ... against China.
"I don't carry a gun to kill people. Any idiot can do that. I carry a gun to signal people, to give fair warning, that I am a man under authority who is willing to die at any time for my nation. I am in command of our security detachment, and I will face down any number of invaders whether they are Chinese, Mexican, American ... or even British. Madam."
I also carried the gun for another reason.
There were secrets in this consulate that made the deliberate, callous destruction of San Francisco by the prior American regime look positively civilized.
And a weapon, that if the Chinese knew we had it here, they would immediately nuke the city ... their own ... just to be sure it was contained.
There weren't that many situations in which one man with a handgun could make a difference. But it was my duty to be ready anyway.
She harrumphed and walked away.
The Charge de Affaires noticed the byplay and walked over to me.
"She had a issue with the gun?"
I nodded.
"Just wait until she hears about our answer to Trident."
For the stakes we were playing for, both handguns and city killing nukes were mere ... distractions. Pawns in a game where thrones meant nothing and the survival of humanity meant everything.
We were here to make peace with China. But if they, or anyone else, insisted that it had to be the peace of the grave, we would simply have to make it a group event. Discount Armageddon, bring all your friends.
