The Patrol

A sci-fi short story

I had actually wanted to be a military man. Once. When I had been younger. When I’d been single. When our enclave had still been part of the empire and joining the military meant joining an invincible killing machine. It didn’t work out then, though. 

Now I was finally getting my chance. Now that I was older, slower, and fatter. Now that my knees hurt in the morning and my back hurt in the evening. Now that we’d decided we’d rather be dead than dominated, I was finally, unfortunately, going to be a military man. 

The imperial military was still an invincible killing machine, but that wasn’t the military I was joining. I was joining the enclave militia to stand in front of that invincible killing machine. 

The likelihood was that we wouldn’t even manage to make contact with the men I’d wanted to be. The enemy was staggeringly well-equipped with rockets, drones, satellites, and spyware. They were AI-powered wizards. They’d spent a century honing their craft of casting techno-death spells on to any spot on the globe that dared emit dissident radiation. They knew who talked. They knew when you talked. They knew where you talked. What you talked about was irrelevant; they knew you weren’t allowed a radio. We were going to walk into the woods and get turned into a “Killstreak” animation on a computer screen in an air conditioned Holiday Inn conference room that had been rented for the occasion. 

We figured that was still better than simply letting the empire abduct our children as thralls. The sterile acolytes at the center of the polity needed the bodies. Inside of their impressive mechanical shell, they were wasting away. The superorganism had mastered electricity, but had forgotten how to eat or love. When we lost, the kids would still be taken, but hopefully the brainwashing wouldn’t remove the memory that we’d tried to prevent it.  

So when the enclave put out a call for able-bodied men, I signed up. Over a beer, I would have joked about having a body “able” to get up twice a night to take a leak or “able” to turn steak into a fight with my wife about farts. But I knew what they meant and I knew I qualified. 

The others knew they qualified too. It seemed like every man from the enclave showed up. Somehow, they actually manged to keep the damn thing a secret, which was incredible. We didn’t get droned and the council actually ran out of rifles and radios to hand out. There were too many men ready to fight. 

Too many guys ready to fight seems like a good problem to have, until you’re one of the Too Many. Being old and slow, I got issued a parka that wouldn’t even mask a thermal signature and a pair of leather boots. I spent our “basic training” learning first aid and trying to figure out which team member I could steal a rifle from when the instructor decided they were dead. It was like Cowboys and Indians, except it sucked. 

“Bang, you’re dead!” 

“Uh, okay.” 

Despite being a drag, training was over too fast. Before we knew it, we were graduating. We had a hurried ceremony and, boom, we were infantry. Time flies when you’re facing death, I guess. 

I got attached to a unit that had been out a few times. We were supposed to be on the same team, but there weren’t any warm fuzzies when I met them. I reported for duty with my parka and my first aid kit, like the world’s most developmentally-delayed Boy Scout. Sergeant Arnold asked if I wanted his rifle. I was still trying to come up with a disarming answer when he walked away laughing, “Don’t worry. You won’t live that long, Gramps.”

I resented the salt immediately. I wasn’t used to younger men talking to me this way. I wasn’t King of the World, or anything, but I’d run a pretty big operation in the old days. I’d been a CIO, for Christ’s sake. And worse, it wasn’t like these guys were grizzled vets. They’d been on a few uneventful patrols, not stormed a contested beachhead. Who they hell did they think they were? 

We got orders for our first operation the next morning. I swallowed my pride and showed up for the briefing. It sounded simple enough. Hike a few clicks out, make sure there weren’t any bad guys out there and hike home. We went to get ready and came back for an inspection before we stepped off. 

Not being a regular army, most of our equipment was self-supplied. I wore the stuff I’d bought many years ago to go on a single hunting trip. It was made of wool and leather, not very modern and certainly not “tactical.” It was embarrassingly unworn. Arnold and his clique made sure I was disabused of the notion that they approved. 

“Jesus, if you’re this set on dying, just make sure I’m not in the shrapnel zone.” 

“You want to strap a space heater on to see if you can make your thermal signature any bigger?”

“Do you have any room for a magazine on there? I mean, that’s not for model railroading?”

I tried to shrug it off, but it cut deep. We were getting ready to put our lives on the line - together - for a common project and these guys couldn’t even pretend to be decent? What the fuck was I doing this for? I tried to focus on the real answer. 

The good news was that the ribbing stopped when we stepped off. Then we got serious. And silent. A cool front had just blown through. The woods were cool and damp. Fog rose out of the ground, shrouding the underbrush. A cocktail of drizzle and drips hung in the air. I zipped my parka up. 

I wish I could have said I’d grown up in the woods and that this felt like home. But nothing could have been further from the truth. I’d grown up playing video games and this felt like a completely alien landscape. I was overwhelmed by the smell of dirt and musk. Every fern seemed to hide an imperial drone. I couldn’t watch where I was going. I tripped. And stumbled. And tripped again. I had been assigned the last place in line, so Arnold didn’t see me stumble. At least I wouldn’t have to hear about that later. 

Slowly, the patrol moved further and further ahead of me. I struggled to breathe. My legs burned. My chest hurt. I regretted every soda and bag of chips I’d ever consumed. Soon, I couldn’t see my so-called squadmates at all. 

I tried to just keep to going, but there was no path. Turns out, even open world video games are poor preparation for IRL tracking and land navigation. I was lost. 

I sat down and took a drink of water. I could feel my heartrate rising. “Breathe, breathe,” I reminded myself. I took another sip and tried to think through possible outcomes. I put my parka hood up. 

Oddly, as the real, immediate fear of being lost in a strange place set in, the distant fear of the enemy vanished entirely. Maybe I’d just starve to death out here. Maybe I’d get wet and get hypothermia. Maybe I’d get rescued. Maybe Sergeant Arnold would at least report me missing. He’d do that at least, right? Good Lord, I’d never live that down. I’d have to explain to my kids they were going to the camps because I was too embarrassed to do anything about it. I smiled bitterly. “At least I’ve still got a sense of humor,” I thought. 

I had moved on to reminding myself how I’d gotten into this predicament when a sharp hiss nearby startled me. Sergeant Arnold was leaning out from behind a tree. He waved me over emphatically. Almost simultaneously, I was elated to see him and angry at myself for being so happy to see this prick. I ran over. He was breathing hard. 

“Where did you go? Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Look, we hit an enemy unit just over that ridgeline. Just an automated patrol, I think. We’ve already called it in, but they must have picked up the signal. We have to go!” 

“Go? We aren’t fighting?” 

“Fuck no! Any one of those bots can call in artillery in 30 seconds.” 

A boom filtered through the forest. 

“Or suicide on you instantly. We split up so they don’t have a bunched up target. We were going up-slope. Follow the slope down and you’ll get to the river. Turn left and you’ll get home. Good luck.” 

He started to move through the underbrush again. I started to call after him, but another boom nearby cut my call short. 

Booms continued to echo through the forest. I froze. I tried to talk myself into moving, but I just couldn’t do it. I was rooted to the spot, pressed against the tree Arnold had beckoned me too. A whiff of gunpowder blew through the woods. Someone screamed somewhere. Off to my left, there was a sudden crack and bright light - an explosion. They were getting closer.

I took a deep breath and peeled myself from the tree. I followed Arnold’s advice and ran down-hill. The slope was so mild I hadn’t even noticed it before, but now, running down it felt like flying. My lungs burned, my knees screamed. The leaves on the forest floor around me whooshed and tumbled like the wind of a thunderstorm. 

I tripped again. I rolled. I bounced. I lost my pack. I slid to a stop, aching, in a mud puddle.

I stood up slowly and saw a squadmate lying on the bank of a creek just a bit further downhill. He was missing some pieces and the creek ran red. A rifle lay on the bank. I did not hold out hope he was alive. 

I started to walk toward him. I had to see if he was alive, but more than that, I had to get that rifle. I stopped. A movement at the edge of my vision caught my attention. I turned toward it. A quadrupedal drone stepped through the underbrush, toward my downed squadmate. It stopped and turned its sensor array toward me. 

“Well, this will be the end then,” I thought. I was totally exposed, standing without cover or concealment in the middle of the creek-cloven dell. I had no weapon and no way to call for help. I choked down a sob. I tried to buck myself up. It seemed the least I could do was die like a man and deny the enemy the video of a cowardly rebel crying himself to death. Damn the luck; in just a few seconds, I could have picked up that rifle and died shooting. I swallowed hard and raised my chin toward the quadruped. And waited. 

And waited. 

I exhaled slowly. The quadruped stood motionless. Wasn’t it going to kill me? Then I heard a buzz, it came in faintly and rapidly grew louder. Ah, it was just holding me for targeting. The suicide munition was the blow. 

I looked around for good cover. There was none. 

I was still rooted in place when the drone flew over the top of the treeline. I raised a middle finger to it. A rush of adrenaline and anger flooded my bloodstream. If these plastic pieces of shit were going to kill me, they might as well tell their buddies how I felt about them. 

But then, the quadrotor just flew off. Just went off. Just turned around. It hadn’t even stopped to hover and assess anything. It just… left. The quadruped turned its sensor array away and headed back into the underbrush. 

What just happened? 

I couldn’t get my head around it. I should have been just as dead as my squadmate in the creek. How did I get out of it? Why should the drones have treated me differently? Numbly, I resumed my plan. I walked toward the rifle to pick it up. 

As I knelt to grasp the strap, I pulled my hand back and laughed. That was what was different: I had no rifle. I had no tactical gear and no radio. I was putting off no electromagnetic radiation. I wasn’t even moving. 

I sat down and laughed. Big, hearty laughs mixed with racking sighs of relief. Without equipment, the drones had just seen an animal. A civilian. A non-target. Over-trained AI models had decided I wasn’t worth wasting a bomb on. They were left to their own devices; there was no Holiday Inn FOB second-guessing them.

I laughed until my sides hurt. Maybe they’d thought I was an animal: a disfigured deer or a Bigfoot. Maybe they’d thought I was just lost: an NPC with a broken down car or a shitty camping trip. I kept laughing. I laughed at the idea of being a wendigo angrily walking home for the cooler his wife forgot. I laughed at being alive. 

Slowly, I got my head together. I stopped laughing. It was getting dark. I was wet and cold. I wasn’t out of the woods yet, literally or figuratively.

I got up and headed down the slope. I left the rifle. I had an idea and I had to get it home. We were going to win this war after all.