Kill Confirmed

[Wadmaasi]

KILL CONFIRMED

“It is the finding of the officers of this board of courts martial that the accused, Sergeant Ralph Zuckerman, is guilty as charged.”

Kill one man, and you are a murderer.

“That he did, in a premeditated fashion, publicly assassinate Lieutenant Hamish Garfield upon the occasion of the deceased’s receipt of the Medal of Valor.”

Kill thirty-four men, and you are a hero.

“In light of the guilty’s heretofore exemplary record, as well as the clinical diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder compounded with the shortage of trained personnel, some degree of leniency is warranted. As such, the board recommends that Sergeant Zuckerman be stripped of rank, dishonorably discharged, and compelled to serve in the Martian Foreign Legion for a term of no less than one hundred.”

Kill one hundred men, and you are free.
_____________________________________

The sharp crack of the gavel was as final, as shockingly surprising, as you’d expect from countless courtroom scenes and docudrama reenactments. Except that you’re not expecting it, even when you know damn well that you killed that worthless sack of rotten protein. Can you murder a swine, after all? Has a monstrous coward not already died a thousand deaths?

It hadn't been an assassination, but an execution of justice.

Zuckerman moved only to blink occasionally. He remained standing, straight as a maintenance-locked frame, even when the bailiffs stepped to his sides. Their military police arm brassards hungrily lapped the harsh glare of the overhead fluorescents as they reached out to him, turned him without resistance, and marched him back down the aisle. There were no autonocameras, no reporters, no public audience, not even a courtroom as such; a hastily-emptied frame hangar served that purpose. No one offered succor, for there was none to give. His court-ordered defender had only bothered to stand during the reading of the verdict due to the rigid strictures of official formality and the code of honor inherent in his own uniform. Zuckerman was alone such as he'd never been, even when the rest of his platoon had withered and melted around him.

[Wadmaasi]

Needs clean-up, and probably a bit more "cliche" than "archetype" going on there, but I had to hammer this out after drying off. I'd be weirded out by how many ideas seem to be generated while in the shower, but really, it's one of the few times per day where there's not much else to do but think. Too bad it always sounds better in my head than it reads on liquid-crystal.

[Dukayn]

Nice start, I assume there's more coming?

[Wadmaasi]

Nice start, I assume there's more coming?

Knowing me...probably not. =/ I plan to write more (I mean, what's fanfic in a universe that contains giant explodey robots with no giant explodey robots in it?!) but I haven't written much of anything in years and I need to figure out how to bridge the distance between here and there in the absence of literary stargates residing inside my brain.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Man. I really like how much of this story is implicit. Bravo!

[Ced23Ric]

Nice start, I assume there's more coming?

Knowing me...probably not. =/ I plan to write more (I mean, what's fanfic in a universe that contains giant explodey robots with no giant explodey robots in it?!) but I haven't written much of anything in years and I need to figure out how to bridge the distance between here and there in the absence of literary stargates residing inside my brain.

My suggestion: Go backwards in time.

Next Up, I#d be delighted and curious to read how they brought him in. And then maybe, what he did. And then, why. Just work your way to there from here, no need to stargates.

[Wadmaasi]

Man. I really like how much of this story is implicit. Bravo!

Thanks! No matter how many writing professors (all those years ago) constantly said, "Show, don't tell!" I have a bad habit of bludgeoning the reader with excessive specifics to the detriment of a piece's tone.

My suggestion: Go backwards in time.

I think I'm actually going to avoid doing that, for a variety of reasons. I'm already treading too close to minutae (formal tribunals, government/military structure, etc.) that we don't know about and Joshua may not ever write. I'm also eager to get to the explodey bits.

[Ced23Ric]

My suggestion: Go backwards in time.

I think I'm actually going to avoid doing that, for a variety of reasons. I'm already treading too close to minutae (formal tribunals, government/military structure, etc.) that we don't know about and Joshua may not ever write. I'm also eager to get to the explodey bits.

In that case, teleport us. As long as you continue writing. I have a very boring day at the office.

[Wadmaasi]

In that case, teleport us. As long as you continue writing. I have a very boring day at the office.

I have work that I'm avoiding doing in order to reply to you! =P There'll be more, but it needs to bake for a day or two.

[Mantisking]

and compelled to serve in the Martian Foreign Legion for a term of no less than one hundred.”

One hundred what?

[Ced23Ric]

Time units.

[Wadmaasi]

Time units.

Not quite! Let's just say that surviving your sentence in a frame-eat-frame paradigm is a foregone conclusion.

[shrimplor]

and compelled to serve in the Martian Foreign Legion for a term of no less than one hundred.”

One hundred what?

Kills?

[Dukayn]

One hundred what?

Based on the line that followed, I took that to mean he earns his freedom by killing 100 enemies.

[The Trilobite]

Good stuff!

One hundred what?

Based on the line that followed, I took that to mean he earns his freedom by killing 100 enemies.

Exactly. I ordinarily would have suggested removing the lines about the situation behind the trial and medal ceremony, as I think they're clear from the lines of the trial itself. However, the line 'kill 100 and you are free' adds a symmetry which I think is really nice. So I'd keep those lines, and it doesn't feel to me like you're telling rather than showing.

If you were to go back in time (which would be awesomesauce), you might then want to eliminate the bit about 'when the rest of his platoon melted around him). If you don't, however, I think this is a very nice bit of implication.

[Wadmaasi]

Transit.

He had never experienced it before. Much like motion-sickness some weren't susceptible to it and couldn't even tell when a transit had occurred, while others were completely debillitated by it and could take days to fully recover; there was no correlation between the two phenomena, however. He'd read various descriptions, spoken with some few who'd been through it multiple times, and no two accounts were the same. Even relatively frequent star travellers often didn't experience it the same way twice.

For Zuckerman it felt as though he'd sneezed with enough force to explode, after which someone had poured the resultant organic slurry back into a mould that was only roughly the right shape and size his body had been.

He could see, though, and move. Fight if he had to. Probably even kill. He'd done that before, after all, and would again.

No one had bothered to tell him what system he was being incarcerated to. It didn't matter, even to him. War never changes, and his sentence was one of death, whether his was first or not. He'd been preloaded into a prison-pod, which in turn had likely been crammed into an already-stuffed cargo hold on a prescheduled freight run. Odds were high that the 'pod's self-contained lifesupport and power supply would last long enough for him to be transshipped at the Transittown Station and shuttled to the surface. Odds were higher that no one would care if it didn't.