Topic: Climate Change
Everyone in our time joined the Climate Corps, o' course. There weren't anything better to do between the floods and the fires and the stream incessant screens runnin' through the street glued to hands and eyes and wrists and buildings. Pah. Look at y'all now with 'em strapped to your heads. Are ya even here right now?!
Anyway, if you wanted to get shit done, you'd roll up your sleeves and sign up. Ya just did, okay!? I ain't gonna be some dole bludger, or serving fancy turtle-wearin' moneygrubbers. I was gonna serve my world in the great battle of our time - the nets were rife with the propaganda - spit - and in my stupidity I signed up. I was gonna get my hands on the latest tech and break my back for some damn trees.
[...]
Yeah yeah, okay, "nationalism". But that's only when the whole world is one nation like it is now. Back then nationalism was next to Nazism. Hah! Like cleanliness is next to godliness!
Idioms, man, they'll take ya for a trip.
Although, I guess Nazism led to some pretty messed up stuff. Ya ever hear about the Ho-
[...!]
Yeah alright, alright! What's the gorram rush?
So anyway, I got shoved into basic training, piece o' shit Drill Sergeant Hoskins - SIRYESSIR! - I'll remember his face as long as I gorram live - spit. 6 months with a shovel, a wheelbarrow, and the ungodliest amount of dirt a man ever could see. I swear that man's voice is embedded in my skull, probably etched into the bloody pink matter - MOVE SOLDIER, THE TREES NEED YOU - hours on end without the hint of a damn smile on his face. This man was crazy, and we loved him for it.
Anyway, the tree's didn't need nobody - the land was littered with fertiliser a'plenty.
[...?]
Yeah, shut up - it's pink matter, not gray matter ya bastard. I seent enough dead to work out what a brain looks like after it's been shot. Deston's was pretty bloody though, won't lie. HAHAHA!
Yeah okay so we got sent out to New Sudan on the relief effort for reforestation. Lotta sand, not a lotta trees. Training didn't really help when you had these little bits of sand gettin' in every single nook and cranny. Seriously, for Earth's sake, why? We thought the terraformers had fucked up and needed a bit of elbow grease - hah, that's where we Greasers got our name - and we were gonna be out there doin' the heavy lifting.
Looks like the Euros brought their bunch as well, but with a bunch of pansy's. Where was their trainin'? Couldn't hold a shovel to save a life, and they didn't, on either count. Had to become babysitters and look after these white-coated idiots run their tests while we toiled and dug and sweated and chunked sand all round.
[...]
Yeah, that's right, the Euro 2nd's joined us a bit later. Enya, Steven, Deston and Bull - very different to the rest of 'em. Good bunch for the most part - had their heads screwed on right, had their hands in the right places.
Yeah, with the trees, duh. Didn't have to babysit 'em as much, they were a chill team. We made sure we got on the same shifts so we could fuck around together.
[...?]
Impressions? Weeerllll...Bill was a right'un - led the little crew like his own little family. Had a beard that rivaled our own Marshall's, and swore like the devil. Cared way too much about the rocks - honestly you'd think they were lookin' at diamonds the way they toiled over these yellowed, dry rocks. Same with Enya, eyes fierce as anythin', almost like a lioness ready to pounce - didn't have much to do with her. She had her rocks, we had our dirt.
I mean, sand. Ugh.
Steve could be an annoying crapstick - he kept noodling into our business, and we had to tell 'im to stop poking his sandy hair in our trenches lest he get whacked with some sand. But he could whip up some mad chow so made life a little easier.
Deston though, that devious son of a bitch didn't show his claws 'til the day we killed 'im.
Reminded me of a mouse, the way he scurried around the camp. Never knew what he was up to, and also, we didn't give a shit. He was a 'nigma. He was a good talker but kept to himself. We didn't rag on 'im - those boys are antsy on the front, and most of 'em blow up. Get a few drinks in 'em and they'll be fine. Never got one into Deston though.
[...??]
What? No, not a ninja. E-nigma? Nah he wasn't really online, just had his tools and machines. What? What?
[...!?]
Whatever, shuddup. SHADDUP I said.
Look, alright, he was short, mousey, and quiet. Didn't notice he was a Fresian terrorist, y'know? Who would? White coat, coke-bottle glasses, who cares?
Yeah okay so that day, right? Yeah so that day we got up a bit earlier cos one of the trenches had been sticking a bit. We prepped up in the dawn, spun into the trenches and grabbed our equipment to look forward to an oh-so-lovely day of shoveling sand once again.
Only this day, someone was already in the trenches before us.
Deston.
And he looked...ragged. More like a rat than a mouse. Spit.
He looked up at us, panicked, and stumbled backwards through the trenches.
"What the- get away!" he screamed. "GET AWAYY!"
Well of course, we followed, didn't we? Rat's runnin' down one of one-way trenches and thinks he's gonna escape? Please.
We armed up with the shitty AK's you idiots give us on the frontlines, as if the Fresians aren't gonna shell the shit out of us if they really did want to hit us, and trudged down the trenches cutting him off at multiple exits.
The Greaser's know their shit.
I remember it as clear as day because of how stupid it was; he'd hollowed out another set of tunnels next to our trenches, and the entrance was a badly disguised tin roof. No wonder our trenches weren't sitting right. Must have taken him days and yet it looked so gorram stupid.
Imagine a mine entrance, right, but no bracing. The wood, you dolts. It's just a weird worm shape that's gonna collapse at any moment.
And it did, when the bombs went off back at camp.
Unfortunately, he hadn't made it to his makeshift shelter in time, so he got knocked out just like us when the shockwave hit. But Drill Leader Hoskins' wouldn't have let us take that lyin' down - MOVE SOLDIER, THE TREES NEED YOU - those damn words shocked me back up in a jiffy, and I was on 'im like hot tar.
I jumped on him as he tried to scrabble his li'l tail away, and the rest of the boys joined me as soon as they were able. The map of the attack fell outta his pocket as he struggled, which, as we learned later, detailed out the experiments he was gonna be testing on the population.
Like I said, nationalism is next to Nazism.
He kept what we thought the detonator was close to 'is chest, and we had to wrench his white-knuckled claws off of it, but not before he scratched the surface and that...smell hit us in the face.
Wasn't a detonator in the end, as we all are here understandin'. Well, it kinda was.
Last livin' tree seeds and he made 'em in to a spray? What new-fangled bullshit is that? Can't we just get some real-ass trees out here? Obviously not, but I thought the 2nds were dealin' with rocks, not trees.
And, well, gettin' sprayed with that, I damn well shot 'im. Straight in his vermin eyes while reeling from this shitspray - what? That smell is blasted chemical warfare is what it is. How the fuck was I s'posed to know that it was the damn tree seeds? You payin' me to dig trenches not understand tree research with these whitecoats. Or rocks. Or sand.
Anyway, y'all know the rest of it - the camp was wrecked, no survivors; the Fresian's co-ordinated the attacks well all along the frontline. Wish I could have seen the Fresian's faces when they came to collect 'im - gutted and crucified like the rat he was.
[...]
[...]
[...]
Yeah? Yeah that's it. I ain't guilty, fuck 'im. He's dead and I'm here, growing a tree outta my legs. Where's the gorram justice?
COURT FOUND FOR THE PLAINTIFF IN THE CASE OF EUROS V CAPTAIN JOSHUA SAVORI - THE LOSS OF DECADES OF RESEARCH AND THE LAST RESERVE OF TREE SEEDS AVAILABLE TO THE WORLD WAS A MONUMENTAL LOSS CAUSED BY THE RASH ACTIONS OF CAPTAIN SAVORI. DESTON KAZURI'S TERRORIST ACTIONS PALE IN COMPARISON TO THE BIO-LOSS REPRESENTED HERE.
HOWEVER, DUE TO THE EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES REGARDING MUTATIONS IN THE GREASER'S DNA, SENTENCE WILL BE SUSPENDED AS LONG AS CAPTAIN JOSHUA SAVORI AND HIS TEAM SUBMIT TO RESEARCH SESSIONS WITH THE RELEVANT EUROS TEAM ON TRANSPLANTING TREE MATTER TO A NEW SEED CULTURE.
MAY EARTH GUIDE YOUR WAY.
COURT ADJOURNED.
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