The Soldier and the Condor

Content note: War trauma, grief, and injury.

The artillery fire hitting the distant hills sounded like thunder in the pouring rain, each boom accompanied by bright flashes. When he had been assigned guard duty a month ago, bombardment hour had rattled his bones. Now the sound pounded his skull and got on his nerves.

         You’d think we’d have hit something by now.

         “Aix, anything new?” a soldier said as he pulled himself up the ladder.

         “Yeah. The rain stopped for a few minutes.”

         “Really?”        

“No.”

         “Ha ha,” the soldier said dryly, and sat under the small shelter of the guard tower. “Now get out of here.”

         “Gladly.” Aix did a mock salute and maneuvered around the trooper to the ladder. He gripped the rungs tightly as the rain threatened to loosen his hold. His rifle hung from the sling around his shoulder. On the last rung, his boot slipped and he fell the last five feet into a muddy pool.  

         “You okay?” the trooper called from above, leaning over the edge of the tower.

Aix stuck a thumbs-up in the air, then stumbled to his feet. He wiped mud off his helmet’s visor to clear up his HUD.

         Wait, where’s my…

         His rifle was half buried in mud. Aix pulled it out dripping wet.

         And there goes my Sunday.

         He shoved it back into the magnetic lock on his back and began the slog towards the barracks as his body glove stuck to his skin. A quarter of the way through, he found salvation: two troopers sitting in a Humdee parked along the fence line. The windows were rolled down with a canvas sheet strung up.

         “I asked for a poncho weeks ago. Of course, procurement says there’s a backorder. Why aren’t more than two ponchos part of the standard kit anyway?”

         “I told you not to gamble the one poncho you had.”

         “Man, shut up.”         Aix chuckled. The two troopers turned their helmets towards him.

         “What do you want?” the “gambler” asked.

         “Could I get a ride to Barracks 16?”

         “Buddy, do we look like couriers? We got orders to sit here and do nothing, not run a carpool.” He jerked his thumb towards the  barracks. “Go walk in the rain like everyone else.”

         With no ride, he jogged around the airfield. Five minutes later he was leaning against a metal wall out of breath. Aix took his helmet off with a  click. Immediately the hard rain lashed against his cheek.

         I haven’t run this fast since... it happened.

Aix heard the sounds of drills and clanging from inside the wall. The “wall” was actually the main door to the hangar.

         The barracks are on the other side.

         A trooper wandering through shouldn’t be an issue. Even one as mud-scuffed as himself. The main door was closed, but a  smaller side door was propped open with a crate. He put his helmet back on and double-checked to make sure no one noticed him before slipping inside.

         The hangar was brightly illuminated by massive overhanging lights. Both sides were lined with HC-48 Condors, hovercraft with large wings and massive rotating engines on either side. Mechanics, technicians, and engineers scanned every inch of the ships. One had a cracked windshield being removed, another had several mechs scrubbing plasma scoring off the hull, and the one next to it had bullet-ridden panels being replaced with fresh ones.

         As he looked up at one of the looming Condor guns, he wasn’t paying attention and tripped over trolley. The trolley fell, spilling tools on the ground. Several mechanics stared at him splayed out on the floor.

         Son of a gun.

         Aix clambered from the ground and saw the mess. His hands trembled as he quickly picked up the trolley and collect the scattered tools.

“Well, what the skrell is a mud trooper doing here?”

An officer in a crisp captain’s uniform stared down at him.

“I, uh, just got off my shift, sir. I was on my way back and decided to save time and get out of the rain by cutting through. Then I knocked over this trolley accidentally.”

“You couldn’t handle a few extra minutes of walking, so you come into MY hangar and knock over MY trolley?”

“Sir-”

“I’m not done. Here’s the thing. This is my hangar. You want to cut through and make a mess of my equipment? You want to come through here, fine. But you earn the right to be in here. You’re now on ground support until a lieutenant clears you. Am I clear?”

“Uh, yes sir.”

“Am I clear?”

  “Sir yessir!”

“Good. Now get to that Condor before I put you on sludge duty.” He pointed to the only Condor in the hangar that was missing an engine, then went to yell at someone else.

“There goes my night,” he mumbled.

At the Condor, the missing engine sat on the floor of the hangar as techs and mechs swarmed around it with tools. One tech was scrolling through a tac-pad plugged into the engine. Another was sitting right on top, cutting off bent panels with a plasma torch. The engine was blackened and burned and smelled of charred metal.

Oh. Geez.

One of the mechanics propping open a panel looked over their shoulder at him.

“What’s he doing here?”

The tech who had their tac-pad plugged into the engine faced him. They were wearing a face shield, but a ginger ponytail stuck out behind their head.

“Well, let me check,” she said as she handed the tac-pad off to another tech and came up to him.

         Oh.

“Heya soldier. Watcha doin’ here? This is the maintenance hangar, not the mess hall.” She set her hands on her hips.

“I was… voluntold by the hangar captain to help work on this Condor until the lieutenant clears me.”

The woman laughed and threw her hands up. “That’s puttin’ it lightly. I understand. I’m the lieutenant for this cohort. Theresa Monrona, but I just go by Monrona. In any case, we have plenty of work for you to do. Before anything, though, I have to ask… do you have any sort of mechanical or technical expertise besides shooting a gun?”

“What?”

Monrona lifted the face shield to reveal a freckled face. Her green eyes narrowed at him.

“Do you know how any of this works?”

“No, I don’t. I’m a soldier, not a mechy. My job is to stand on the front lines.”

“Really? Is that so? So you didn’t just get off guard duty?”

Aix’s face reddened beneath his helmet. “How did you know that?”

“Oh, don’t let the loud machinery fool you. My hearing is sharp. Heard you exchangin’ words with the captain from over here. In any case… again… have you ever even changed a light bulb?”

“Yes. I’ve obviously changed a light bulb. I’ve also worked on ground car engines.”

“Of course, because ground car engines and H380-DR-66 Class VI engines are sooo similar,” she droned.

Even over the clamor of tools, Aix heard the snickers from nearby techs.

“Alright, so what do you want me to do then to get cleared?”

“Hmmmm, can you get me a pan wrench from the rack?”

“Yeah.”

She raised an eyebrow.

Oh! His eyes scanned the wall of tools. He recognized most of them, but others were alien. He settled on a tool that looked pan-shaped and brought it back. Monrona just shook her head.

“This is a hex wrench. Here, let me show you.” She brought him over to the tool wall. “If you don’t know what a tool is, just ask. The racks are divided into sections. Ask one of the toolers. They know where everything is. Believe me, stuff still gets misplaced all the time.”

Aix nodded. “It’s like that at the armory too.”

“Yeah, some things never change, mud trooper.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“What? You’re a trooper covered in mud.” She looked over his shoulder at his rifle. “Isn’t that thing supposed to stay clean?”

“Supposed to is a relative term in muddy terrain.”

“Lemme see.”

Aix tilted his helmet at her.

“Oh c’mon. Don’t let the grease stains fool you. I know how to handle a rifle.”

With a sigh, Aix detached the rifle from his back, removed the mag, and racked it. A round fell to the floor along with a few chunks of mud. Monrona examined the rifle.

“That looks bad.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I can’t, but someone else can.” She whistled across the hangar, and a short man with a bushy beard came over from a workbench. She handed him the rifle.

“Can you clean this?”

The mech held the rifle and stroked his beard. “Not the worst thing I’ve ever seen.” He waddled back to his workbench with the rifle.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Consider it a deposit. You’ll get it back once I clear you. Got that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Splendid. Now, roll that cart over.” She then pulled down her face shield and went back to the engine.

This is just getting better and better. Aix pushed a cart with spare power cells over to the engine.

At the engine, Aix set the cart aside while Monrona checked the readings on her tac-pad. She set it aside and grabbed a flashlight and a cloth. A panel was open and revealed various scorched pipes and tubes.

  “Wait, THIS was the Condor that landed with the engine on fire two weeks ago?”

“Yessir,” she said flatly.

“Is this a new engine?”

“Nope. They couldn’t bring a new one, and, like an idiot, I took one look at this flaming hunk of metal and thought, My crew can fix that in a week. We’ve essentially been rebuilding the old engine from scratch.”

“It’s been two weeks, though.”

“Exactly.”

“You’ve made a lot of progress.”

“Yep. Hopefully, we’ll be done soon. We’re down to the final stretch. Which is where you come in.”

“You called me over here to hold your flashlight?” 

“No. What am I? Your dad?” She thrust the rag into his hands. “Take those pipes out and clean them.”

  “Wha— I don’t—”

She tapped on the side of her face shield. Aix’s HUD chimed as he received a message. After accessing the message, his HUD outlined where each pipe could be detached.

         “Whoa.”

         “Whoa indeed. Now, I need to go talk to someone.”

         “Wait, how do I—”

“Have fun!” Monrona said and abruptly left.

He rubbed his thumb over the handle of a wrench.

Great.

Not sure what to do next, Aix picked up one of the pipes from the tray and followed the line to a similar, albeit scorched, piece. He used the wrench to take off the bad pipe and used the rag to clean it.

One down, several dozen more to go.

Aix spent half an hour cleaning the interior and scorched pieces. He occasionally had to make trips to the workbench for a specific tool to get a part off. All the while he was shoulder to shoulder with the mechys who were too focused on their work to talk with him. Finally, after another hour, he was done. When Aix sat on a stool to examine his grease stains,

Monrona came up to him. “What are you doing sitting down? We got work to do. Chop chop.”

“I just finished cleaning the pipes. The thing is like doing surgery with a fire axe.”

“Yeah, two other mechys are double-checking your work. You did a pretty good job cleaning the pipes. Now they’re just reinstalling them. But we’re not done.”

“Okay, so what else do you want me to do?”         “Well, a few other techs are finishing up the calibrations, the electronics are good, and there’s only a few tasks left.”

“Which are?”

“Reinstalling the pipes, then some minor adjustments and we should be good.”

“Good for what?”

Aix couldn’t see what was going on under her face shield, but he understood enough about trooper body language to know she was rolling her eyes.

“Reattaching the access panels and installing this baby into the Condor nacelle.”

“Nacelle?”

“Jeez, don’t you ever read hovercraft schematics?” She sighed. “It’s the part that houses the engine.”        

“Okay, then why didn’t you say that?”        

“Because it’s the proper terminology!” she snapped.

Aix put his hands up. “Sorry. You know, it’s not my first time in a Condor. I’ll make sure to spend an hour looking up obscure jargon next time I have a question for you.”

“You better,” she said. Was it just him, or did she sound amused?

“So, you want me to fetch tools again?”

“No, roll that generator over here. I need to do some simulations.”

Aix helped Monrona and the other techs do the final tests and make minor adjustments. A section was flagged and Aix got worried.

“That wasn’t my section, was it?” He knelt next to another tech who was aiming a flashlight at an exposed panel. To him, it looked like a jumble of wires and pipes. But Monrona was looking at it intently.         “No. It was mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yes, muddy. Mine. We all make mistakes, cohort lieutenants included. Only I don’t ignore mine. That’s why we run a million tests, and we’ll run a million more.”

“You aren’t being literal, are you?”

“Oh, I am. Come here, look.” She handed him her tac-pad. At first, he just noticed the percentages next to the word Trial. but he understood what they meant.

“You’re running a million simulations?”

“Yep. Well, it’s more like a thousand, but you get the idea.”

“I get it, but I don’t see the issue. All these have a success rate above ninety-five percent.” He continued to scroll until he saw that a single component of the engine had a sixteen percent chance of failure. “Is this the reason we’re rechecking the entire engine?”

“You bet it is.” She took the tac-pad from him. “I wouldn’t fly aboard this Condor with that result, and neither should any trooper.”         “But it’s only one part…”

“That is a chance I can’t take.” Monrona went to talk with another of the techs.

“Don’t worry about her. We’ll fix that sixteen percent,” a mechy beside Aix said. “She gets like this sometimes. Reminds her of the past.”

“The past? What past?”

“Hey! You have a free hand. Can you help me with this?” a techy called out.

Aix turned to the mechy, but he was already engrossed in his work.

The techy only needed Aix to hand him tools. Monrona was finishing up with her side as Aix helped the techy close an access panel. She consulted her tac-pad again and grinned.

“Yes! We did it. All systems are showing success rates above ninety-five percent.”

The mechs and techs began to cheer, but Monrona held her hand up. “Hold the cheering, guys. We still need to install this sucker.”

After doing one final check and closing all the access panels, a large metal hook on a chain was lowered from the ceiling and lifted the engine. The winch above seemed to groan and grind as the engine swayed ever so slightly. Several mechys and techys watched as the team used simple hand gestures to direct the engine back onto the Condor’s nacelle. The sound of the engine latching on was more satisfying than Aix ever thought it could be. Monrona began barking orders to secure it as Aix contributed by carrying tools up and down the ladder. It was only after the engine was truly secure and the hook was lifted away that the cohort began cheering.

Aix sat down on the wing of the Condor and watched below him as everyone hugged and high-fived each other.

“Nice, huh?” Monrona said as she sat beside him.

“Yeah. A lot better than guard duty.”

“How so?”        

“I’m not just standing in the rain waiting to get shot.”

As she took off her face shield, she gave him an odd look.

“Why haven’t you taken your bucket off?”

“Bucket?”

“Your helmet. You’ve been wearing it for the past four hours.”

“Wait, I’ve been here four hours!?”

“Just about.”

He checked his wrist screen: four hours had indeed passed.

“Well,”

“Well, what?”

“That went by faster than I thought.”

“Hmph. You still haven’t answered why you haven’t taken your helmet off.”

Aix shrugged.

“C’mon.”

He hesitated.             

“Alright. How about this. I’m sorry I’ve been calling you mud trooper. Let’s just start over.” She thrust out her hand. “I’m Theresa Monrona, the cohort’s lieutenant. And you are…?”

Aix gently shook her hand. “Aix.”

“Well, Aix, you don’t have to show me your face if you don’t want to, but...”

He took one look at the celebrating mechys below.

“They aren’t paying attention, Aix, and they don’t care,” Monrona said.

Aix pulled off his helmet. To his dismay, Monrona’s eyes widened.

A long scar ran across his face and crossed over a milky eye.

“Well, um…” She coughed. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting that…”

“What, that I would actually have a scar?”

“No, it’s... well, that.”

“I’ve been deployed in combat once.”

“What happened? If you don’t mind me asking,” she blurted.

         “I saw a lot of people die. Close friends. People I hated. A person in the mess hall I liked but never had the guts to approach.” Aix went quiet, then found his voice. “I killed a lot of people that day.”

         Monrona remained silent.

         “It was a grenade that split my face. I was in the hospital for weeks. Eventually, they assigned me to guard duty temporarily. That was a month ago.” He kicked at the air. “Sometimes I wonder if I actually want to fight again.”

         Monrona fidgeted with her fingers. “I get it. There’s things we carry with us,” she trailed off. He thought she had zoned out, but then she began speaking again.

“My brother’s Condor crashed because someone didn’t do their job. That was all I could think about while watching the Guard carry his casket. After his funeral, I switched to the mechanics program.” Her green eyes filled with tears, and she quickly wiped them.

         “Monrona… I’m sorry.”

         “Don’t be. No. That came out wrong. It’s just…”

         “You think about what you could have done differently?”

         “Yeah, that.” Monrona clasped her hands, and Aix gripped the wing tighter.

         “It doesn’t make it easier, though.” She got up and walked to the central fuselage of the Condor. Aix got up to follow her.

         “Well, Monrona, it was nice to meet you,” he called to her.

         She gave him a sad smile.

“Well, mud trooper, the hangar is always open if you want to stop by. You’re free to go now. Make sure to pick up your rifle.” She climbed down to join the throng of mechys and techys as Aix pulled on his helmet and climbed down the other side. It took a bit of searching, but he found the short mechanic at a table tinkering with a circuit board.

         “I’m here for my rifle.”

         The short mechy grunted and pointed to a rack that had several tools and devices, including his rifle, now free of mud. As he loaded and racked the rifle, he realized it felt much smoother than before.

It wasn’t until he stepped outside in the rain that he felt the full weight of fatigue hit him.

         Man, I’m tired.

         After stowing his gear, taking a nice hot shower, and slipping between the sheets of his bunk, Aix reflected on the day. If he could do it again, would he have taken the long way around?

         No, I don’t regret it.

         At least until I wake up in three hours.

Aix let his head sink into the pillow and quickly fell asleep.