The Fields of Fire

Chapter 13: Michael Branton

Michael opened his eyes in a place that to him at least seemed to him to be hell. He turned to his right, No windows, black walls and a black ceiling, a red light on the ceiling bright enough as to be painful to look at. He immediately recognized his surroundings, the wall of 1000 Guns.

    "I lived."

    "Not quite." Michael's glance shot to his left, and he saw Abernnich, Medical Foreman of Fort F, "You were dead, for about 15 minutes. I resuscitated you using shock tongs. I electrified your heart to get it beating again. It's a miracle you didn't bleed out while you were up there. I wasn't sure you'd pull through the coma though. It took you a few days but you did manage to bounce back from that. You're lucky to be alive."

    "If I was lucky I'd still be dead. If I was really lucky I'd still be on an aircraft carrier in the Eastern Ocean. And If I had half the luck most people have, I'd be home with my family."

    "And if you had all the luck in the world you'd be here right now. You ought to be grateful, statistically speaking the odds of somebody coming back after being dead so long are basically zero. From my time as a civilian doctor I've never seen anything like it. So if you're gonna mope around that's a damn shame, I hate to see all that luck go to somebody who doesn't want it."

    "I wanted to die. To go to the afterlife. To be with the girl I loved."

    "What did you see when you died?"

    Michael closed his eyes and tried to remember. Eventually it came to him, "Just darkness and a star on the horizon."

    "Looks like your Girlfriend wasn't there. So you're welcome."

    He had a point. Tau wasn't there, and he really didn't look back on his own death with much fondness. "Thank you for not letting me die." Michael decided there was very little point in being bitter, "So what happened with the attack? did we win?"

"For now, yes. Your warning was enough to get everyone ready. No one had made it up the wall before they blew the gate down with TNT. We managed to fight them off but only barely. They killed Captain Walton and First Liutenent Shirpan, along with Sargent wheezer and briggs. We're about half the garrison we were before they hit us, a third if you count wounded. It was a coordinated attack up and down every mile of the wall. We managed to hold but, the other forts further west weren't so lucky. Forts Z Y X V and T All fell, along with a few to the east of those. On our end of the wall, it seems like the attack was meant as a distraction, hundreds of tribesmen were reported to have climbed the wall and crossed over onto the other side during the fighting." Michael couldn't believe it, an attack from the North in the middle of a war? It was just the most inopportune timing.

"So it's an invasion."

"Not quite." He replied,  "By the sounds of it, the tribesmen offered very little resistance when they made it across the wall. Only the ones the furthest west were actually willing to fight back and attempt to hold onto territory. The rest just dropped their guns when they made it to the other side and made a run for it south. It seems like they know they can't win a fight, so they're trying to just fade into the countryside instead." He sighed, "Doesn't mean a damn bit of difference for us though. The gate is down and the tribe that attacked is gearing up for a second go around. I'm not sure if we can hold them back this time."

He put his hand on his stomach, he could feel the bullet wound under his clothes and blanket, still though he asked, "Any reason I have to be stuck in here."

"Yep, you were just in a coma and you got shot in the stomach, you're going nowhere pal."

Michael paused in thought, then continued speaking, "If I tried to get up would you stop me."