GWOT VI: Causes Little Ones To Sin
Apr. 3rd, 2022 02:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT VI: Causes Little Ones To Sin
Matthew 18:6
"... whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
###
A damned expensive situation.
Damned expensive.
That one convoy had wreaked havoc behind our lines. Shot up three refugee control points and a feeding point. Not that I was counting, but well over a thousand dead.
The remnants were in front of me now. The school bus had finally quit, from the smoke from the back I suspected overheating. The armored car had run out of shells, each killing at least one and often more than one California soldier. It had finally blown a tire thanks to repeated suicidal exposures of same to Molotov cocktails. They'd lost the technicals and trucks along the way; their crews had been casually shot en passant.
A child carrying a white flag was sent out to us.
Mo shook his head.
"Kill her," he pleaded.
Instead we sent a G to grab her by the arms.
I slowly approached.
When I showed that I would come no closer, they would blow the charge she was rigged with.
People do crazy shit for $100,000. Even when their odds of living to spend a dime were exactly zero.
"Daddy says let us go in the bus or he will kill the stinky kids."
So not just their own kids, armed and trained in unlawful war. Refugee kids taken as hostages.
In the movies, I would have a SWAT team. Or snipers. Or a box of magic tricks.
What I had was a company of G infantry, a gun truck and my utterly irreplaceable reaction force. One platoon of assault troops.
I could lose this whole war right here.
Losing a gun truck would do it. I needed to have three for the final act. I only had three left.
The assault troops were a brittle sword. Swung correctly they could destroy opposition. Handled poorly, or left on their own, they would shatter. Heavy troops with thick muscles and thicker brains. And unaccustomed to making war on children.
The Gs would witness whatever I did even if not a single enemy survived. This was a war of propaganda and of rumor, even if I turned off our cameras.
I mulled my options.
###
A pistol spoke, her corpse blew up, our fire lanced the boil. We took no casualties.
But people stopped believing in us. They died, we died, everybody died.
###
A Taser dropped her. Mo tried for a disarm.
The assault troops rushed the bus. Kids with gun. Kids without gun. Inextricably mixed unless separated with hands against machine pistols, likely knives, possibly grenades and poisons.
Mo could disarm only one charge at a time. To save her I'd have to doom them, or vice versa. And _maybe both_.
No.
###
Let them go. I would keep Mo. I would keep the assault troops. I would lose our aura of invincibility.
People would stop believing in us. Dies, dies, dies.
###
When faced with moral dilemma, do whatever is hardest to consider.
###
"Go back to your Daddy. Tell him kids live but adults die. I'll go back with you."
"NO!" Mo bellowed, horrified.
For answer I ripped open my own personal first aid kit and tied pieces of white bandages around my forearms. Dropped my pistol on the ground.
"Youshallnot!"
"Inshallah," I answered coolly. And walked to her. The G let go.
"Daddy said you were a coward," she sniffed.
I took her hand and we walked towards the school bus.
They couldn't blow the charge now.
Mo and the assault troops waited with the loose patience of seasoned veterans.
They needed no commander and no commands.
If they wanted to keep me they would have to come and get me.
The G walked two paces behind. He needed no orders either. He had already been told to ignore everything, keep the girl from self detonating, at last resort try to strip the charge off her.
I didn't have a holdout. They could make me spin and show. I would have nothing to show.
But the child soldiers had California machine pistols, which to them were new toys and to me was an old and trusted friend.
Cowards hesitate to commit suicide. That would be the only way to rob me of victory. Set off the small charge on the girl or the larger charges on the bus.
I would meanwhile be showing them that child soldiers are cruel but brittle. I had plenty of medical support, breaking their limbs would not kill them. At seventh and last, their own parents might hesitate to shoot through them to kill me. I would not hesitate. Any price I paid in future nightmares assumed I lived to sleep again.
If I died, I died trying to save children. Our meme warriors would use that.
If I lived, the myth of California invincibility was preserved.
I hoped I would get to keep Mo. I hoped not to lose too many assault troops, now or to years and decades of nightmares.
This would not risk the gun truck. That cracked a door open through which we might yet sneak victory.
I grinned hugely.
"Why are you smiling?" the girl soldier asked as we started to board the bus, me one step ahead.
"Because I'm going to fuck your Daddy," I said as I shot out a reverse kick into her gut, stripped a machine pistol from the nearest boy soldier's hand and started snap shooting at point blank on the crowded bus.
###
Major Mohammed Khan, Army of the Republic of California
To all who hear these words, greetings.
For the saving of human life, both friendly and enemy, innocent and guilty, in close combat, in a manner exemplifying what it is to be a California commissioned officer. "He who saves the life of one, it shall be as if he has saved the world entire." Not less than fifty persons were protected from the detonation of a 50KG VBIED suicide charge aboard a Xtian separatist vehicle, through Major Khan's sole actions as a trained bomb disposal technician, and later as the trainer of technicians who finished neutralizing, disarming, disassembling, documenting and destroying the device.
The Legislative Cross of the Republic of California. This award is reserved for only the most heroic acts at extraordinary personal peril, well exceeding the standards by which those what have sworn oath to California are judged.
Posthumous.
###
"It's no damn good, sir, leave off."
I kept compressing, mush rather than ribs. The breaths I tried to give bubbled out as fast as I gave them.
We were covered in blood. Mine, his, theirs.
Oh, my friend. What am I going to say to your son?
My eyes met the frightened little girl. She was alive. The G had stripped the charge from her body and thrown himself on it. Freeing up Mo to disarm the bus charge while bleeding out.
"Who are you?" she mouthed.
Her father was alive too. Gutshot. But she did not run to him and he looked anywhere but at her.
I couldn't hear either.
I stopped CPR and accepted what it was.
I stood.
Someone was already coming forward with a rope and noose.
I looked at her. I looked at him. He saw me. I saw him.
"For the unlawful kidnapping of non combatants, and exposing them to great danger, refusing to surrender while holding child hostages, under the authority delegated to me by the Commander, California Expeditionary Forces, I order that this man be shot at once."
Someone raised a pistol. Someone else tried to turn the girl's head away.
She shook them off.
The pistol spoke.
"Thank you, sir," she said woodenly, as if in an adult manner.
"Surviving enemy children will be repatriated through Army of God at once," I added, as an afterthought.
"The trainers?" someone asked.
The adults who had taught and commanded children in the ways of war.
"I delegate their fate to the local government of Refuge, where their crimes were committed."
A Refuge officer stepped forward.
"Tire them. Now and swiftly."
They didn't understand until the first had his hands wired behind his back, a tire put over his head, the same soaked with kerosene, and lighted for him to run to and fro, screaming.
The girl watched.
And slowly smiled.
It was as terrible as seeing a dam fail.
I am so sorry, Mo.
Matthew 18:6
"... whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
###
A damned expensive situation.
Damned expensive.
That one convoy had wreaked havoc behind our lines. Shot up three refugee control points and a feeding point. Not that I was counting, but well over a thousand dead.
The remnants were in front of me now. The school bus had finally quit, from the smoke from the back I suspected overheating. The armored car had run out of shells, each killing at least one and often more than one California soldier. It had finally blown a tire thanks to repeated suicidal exposures of same to Molotov cocktails. They'd lost the technicals and trucks along the way; their crews had been casually shot en passant.
A child carrying a white flag was sent out to us.
Mo shook his head.
"Kill her," he pleaded.
Instead we sent a G to grab her by the arms.
I slowly approached.
When I showed that I would come no closer, they would blow the charge she was rigged with.
People do crazy shit for $100,000. Even when their odds of living to spend a dime were exactly zero.
"Daddy says let us go in the bus or he will kill the stinky kids."
So not just their own kids, armed and trained in unlawful war. Refugee kids taken as hostages.
In the movies, I would have a SWAT team. Or snipers. Or a box of magic tricks.
What I had was a company of G infantry, a gun truck and my utterly irreplaceable reaction force. One platoon of assault troops.
I could lose this whole war right here.
Losing a gun truck would do it. I needed to have three for the final act. I only had three left.
The assault troops were a brittle sword. Swung correctly they could destroy opposition. Handled poorly, or left on their own, they would shatter. Heavy troops with thick muscles and thicker brains. And unaccustomed to making war on children.
The Gs would witness whatever I did even if not a single enemy survived. This was a war of propaganda and of rumor, even if I turned off our cameras.
I mulled my options.
###
A pistol spoke, her corpse blew up, our fire lanced the boil. We took no casualties.
But people stopped believing in us. They died, we died, everybody died.
###
A Taser dropped her. Mo tried for a disarm.
The assault troops rushed the bus. Kids with gun. Kids without gun. Inextricably mixed unless separated with hands against machine pistols, likely knives, possibly grenades and poisons.
Mo could disarm only one charge at a time. To save her I'd have to doom them, or vice versa. And _maybe both_.
No.
###
Let them go. I would keep Mo. I would keep the assault troops. I would lose our aura of invincibility.
People would stop believing in us. Dies, dies, dies.
###
When faced with moral dilemma, do whatever is hardest to consider.
###
"Go back to your Daddy. Tell him kids live but adults die. I'll go back with you."
"NO!" Mo bellowed, horrified.
For answer I ripped open my own personal first aid kit and tied pieces of white bandages around my forearms. Dropped my pistol on the ground.
"Youshallnot!"
"Inshallah," I answered coolly. And walked to her. The G let go.
"Daddy said you were a coward," she sniffed.
I took her hand and we walked towards the school bus.
They couldn't blow the charge now.
Mo and the assault troops waited with the loose patience of seasoned veterans.
They needed no commander and no commands.
If they wanted to keep me they would have to come and get me.
The G walked two paces behind. He needed no orders either. He had already been told to ignore everything, keep the girl from self detonating, at last resort try to strip the charge off her.
I didn't have a holdout. They could make me spin and show. I would have nothing to show.
But the child soldiers had California machine pistols, which to them were new toys and to me was an old and trusted friend.
Cowards hesitate to commit suicide. That would be the only way to rob me of victory. Set off the small charge on the girl or the larger charges on the bus.
I would meanwhile be showing them that child soldiers are cruel but brittle. I had plenty of medical support, breaking their limbs would not kill them. At seventh and last, their own parents might hesitate to shoot through them to kill me. I would not hesitate. Any price I paid in future nightmares assumed I lived to sleep again.
If I died, I died trying to save children. Our meme warriors would use that.
If I lived, the myth of California invincibility was preserved.
I hoped I would get to keep Mo. I hoped not to lose too many assault troops, now or to years and decades of nightmares.
This would not risk the gun truck. That cracked a door open through which we might yet sneak victory.
I grinned hugely.
"Why are you smiling?" the girl soldier asked as we started to board the bus, me one step ahead.
"Because I'm going to fuck your Daddy," I said as I shot out a reverse kick into her gut, stripped a machine pistol from the nearest boy soldier's hand and started snap shooting at point blank on the crowded bus.
###
Major Mohammed Khan, Army of the Republic of California
To all who hear these words, greetings.
For the saving of human life, both friendly and enemy, innocent and guilty, in close combat, in a manner exemplifying what it is to be a California commissioned officer. "He who saves the life of one, it shall be as if he has saved the world entire." Not less than fifty persons were protected from the detonation of a 50KG VBIED suicide charge aboard a Xtian separatist vehicle, through Major Khan's sole actions as a trained bomb disposal technician, and later as the trainer of technicians who finished neutralizing, disarming, disassembling, documenting and destroying the device.
The Legislative Cross of the Republic of California. This award is reserved for only the most heroic acts at extraordinary personal peril, well exceeding the standards by which those what have sworn oath to California are judged.
Posthumous.
###
"It's no damn good, sir, leave off."
I kept compressing, mush rather than ribs. The breaths I tried to give bubbled out as fast as I gave them.
We were covered in blood. Mine, his, theirs.
Oh, my friend. What am I going to say to your son?
My eyes met the frightened little girl. She was alive. The G had stripped the charge from her body and thrown himself on it. Freeing up Mo to disarm the bus charge while bleeding out.
"Who are you?" she mouthed.
Her father was alive too. Gutshot. But she did not run to him and he looked anywhere but at her.
I couldn't hear either.
I stopped CPR and accepted what it was.
I stood.
Someone was already coming forward with a rope and noose.
I looked at her. I looked at him. He saw me. I saw him.
"For the unlawful kidnapping of non combatants, and exposing them to great danger, refusing to surrender while holding child hostages, under the authority delegated to me by the Commander, California Expeditionary Forces, I order that this man be shot at once."
Someone raised a pistol. Someone else tried to turn the girl's head away.
She shook them off.
The pistol spoke.
"Thank you, sir," she said woodenly, as if in an adult manner.
"Surviving enemy children will be repatriated through Army of God at once," I added, as an afterthought.
"The trainers?" someone asked.
The adults who had taught and commanded children in the ways of war.
"I delegate their fate to the local government of Refuge, where their crimes were committed."
A Refuge officer stepped forward.
"Tire them. Now and swiftly."
They didn't understand until the first had his hands wired behind his back, a tire put over his head, the same soaked with kerosene, and lighted for him to run to and fro, screaming.
The girl watched.
And slowly smiled.
It was as terrible as seeing a dam fail.
I am so sorry, Mo.
