Freddie's War: Chapter One
Posted By: Jason Nash<rjnash@optusnet.com.au>
Date: 14 May 2005, 6:17 AM
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Freddie Redgum took a swig from the glass of wine that was in his hand, looking out of the tent's open door.
He smacked his lips at the taste of the wine, screwing up his face at the sour taste. The wine that was distributed to the troops in battle came only in small quantities, and it tasted really bad. Freddie only drank it for the feeling of happiness and the fact that he could drown his sorrows after drinking a lot of the wine. But the only trouble was that Freddie always woke up with a hangover in the morning.
It was the sixth day of battle on the desert world. The planet had no proper name, only the code number of 'PT-569'. Freddie's troops were beginning to call it 'Scorcher'. They were right about the name: PT-569 was a darn hot planet.
Freddie and his division were camped in a small valley surrounded by slopes and ridges. THey were camped next to a small structure where lookout's had been placed. A large mounted machine gun was on top of the structure.
Freddie stared out of the tent, knowing that out there somewhere waited a whole pack of Elites and Jackals accompanied with a few Hunters.
Battle had been fierce in the first three to four days after Freddie and his division had landed on the planet. Their objective had been to regain control of a Human colony which had been invaded by the Covenant. But the operation had gone wrong from the start.
Freddie and his troops had been dropped into the Insertion Point outside of the valley. They had been tracked down by the Jackals as soon as they touched the ground, resulting in the deaths of three troops and two other troops in Freddie's division had been badly injured.
They had retreated into the valley on the second day, resulting in the deaths of two other troops. Freddie had ordered camp to be set up in the valley, and so, after a few days of hardly any fighting, Freddie sat in his tent now, trying to get drunk.
Freddie was considered as a bit of a weirdo amongst his division, as he would always wear the same red striped white shirt and the same blue striped white pants, even in battle. He slept with teddy bears and talked to them as if they were real animals.
Freddie knew what his troops thought of him, but didn't care. He was happy about the kind of person he was, which was a happy-go-lucky division commander. Freddie had been in many battles and done tough decisions, and rumor has it that he is the way he is because he made the decision to leave his brother to die in battle fifteen years ago. But that's only a rumor, so presumably it's not true.
Freddie stood up in his tent, half-drunk and belching loudly. He stepped outside his tent and walked up the stairs and on top of the small, stone structure. It was round with pointy bits of stone sticking up along the edges.
A lone troop, Private John Flecker, was standing by the mounted machine gun, dressed in full battle gear. He saluted Freddie as he walked over to him.
"Report, Private!" Freddie said to the Private.
"No sight of the enemy yet, sir!"
"Well, if you see any of them, remember to yell out first, and then shoot. Don't shoot and then yell out, you'll just get seen and killed."
"Yes, sir!"
John turned back to looking out at the valley. Freddie sat on a stool which a troop had placed on the structure, and Freddie then started gulping down more wine.
John watched Freddie drown his sorrows. John shook his head. John at first didn't believe the story of Freddie leaving his brother to die in battle, but after a while of watching his Commander, he began to believe it. The signs were all there: talking to teddy bears, wearing stupid-looking clothes. He knew Freddie had gone totally crazy from leaving his brother to die, but didn't want to say anything.
Freddie looked at John, and John stared into those brown eyes, those eyes which had seen so many horrors of battle, so many terrible things. John turned back to watching for the enemy.
Freddie took another swig from his now nearly empty glass of wine.
Freddie, now quite drunk, wasn't drunk enough to notice how quiet it had suddenly gone.
He looked around. A high-pitched droning sound made him drop his glass of wine. It shattered on the stone surface, wine spilling all around Freddie's feet.
Freddie looked up. In the darkness of the night-sky, he spotted a small speck of green which was moving towards them. A Banshee was coming towards him, and it had fired its Fuel Rod Cannon. Freddie watched the green blast zoom towards him. He was too drunk to move, but he knew what it was.
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