Golden Fields

A gentle breeze blew from the west, faint conversations were heard in the distance, and I reclined against a large boulder, my eyes shut. The sun shone high in the sky, but its light did not disturb me. Another event did, however.
Tap!
A very small object, perhaps a pebble, rapped against an area on my helmet just above my right brow. I thought it a curious little event, but heeded it no more. Then, it happened again.
Tap!
On the second tap, I knew immediately the source of these pebbles. I did my best to thoroughly ignore the next occurrence.
Tap!
No more.
“Mik,” I said.
“Yeah?” he replied.
“You keep doing that and I will shoot you.”
“Please do! You’ll relieve the boredom.”
I tilted down my head and opened my eyes, to keep the sun from burning them, as my face was turned upwards to the clear blue sky in my nap. My gaze immediately turned to Mik. He stood a short distance away from me. Over his shoulder, I noticed one of our lance’s Minors, Kreth ‘Avaree, a lad whose mind often wanders to other matters, moving about the fields of wheat, his arms gliding just above the shoots of grain. Another Minor of ours was in the distance, one Shotak ‘Ynzeree, herding the Unggoy of our lance, under the protests of Basab. Tes, our Kig-Yar sharpshooter, looked upon the spectacle, entertained.
“You’re bored, Mik?” I asked.
“Ab-so-lutely,” he answered indignantly.
“Relax, my friend. Enjoy this brief respite.”
“Respite? Oh come on, we’re just sitting around here doing nothing. I don’t even know what we’re supposed to be doing, but I certainly don’t think it’s this!”
I nodded silently. “Look at our commander,” I said, gesturing to our leader’s position with my jaw. Mik looked, and no doubt he saw our commander at the time – I forget his name – standing atop a large rock. He was crouched down, looking out upon the unharvested grain fields, populated only by our battalion, which idled amongst the shoots of wheat, barley, and rye.
“Yeah, he’s-“ Mik started, but quickly moved towards me so that he could whisper. “He’s doing fuck all!” he said in a very low voice, inaudible to all but me.
I let out a short sigh and closed my eyes, my head leaning back against the stone. “He is resting. As am I. And as you should be?”
“Rest? No, can’t do that.”
“Whatever do you mean, Mik?”
“You know exactly what I mean by that.”
The wind picked up a bit.
“I’m afraid you continue to lose me, Mik.”
“Oh, come on, you know me well enough to know.”
I opened my eyes and looked at Mik.
“Mik, what is it?”
“I’d rather do something else than just sit around and do nothing… but think.”
My quizzical, and somewhat proud smile, faded away, replaced by a solemn gaze and largely blank expression. “Try thinking about something else,” I said.
“That never works, it always goes back to where I don’t want to go.”
“Well, then, maybe we can talk?”
“About what?”
“Anything.”
Mik glared at me for a few moments, then shrugged his shoulders, lifting his hands up a small amount before slamming them back down by his sides. “Alright, fine. Since you wanna have a chat, let’s chat.” He approached me, then sat down beside me. “Go.”
“Alright. Uhh… lovely weather now, yes?”
“Hah!” uttered Mik. The chuckle he made was partly mocking and partly genuinely amused. “Okay, you wanna go there, okay.” He nodded. “It’s pretty windy.”
“Yes, from the west. It cools things down somewhat, otherwise today would be quite hot.”
“Yeah, I uh… I don’t care much for heat. Or cold. You know, I like things average, normal, things like that.”
“Yes, I remember. The campaign on New Zealandia, when we were stuck in that rainforest for a week.”
“Oh gods, I fucking hated that shit.”
“I liked it.”
“You liked one hundred percent humidity? What planet did you come from?”
“It felt nice, a bit warm, yes, but I could tolerate it.”
“It felt like a sauna! Every time I bathed in a river then dried myself off I was wet and sweating right back again!”
“I did not have to worry about freezing to death.”
“Well, you got that right, but still! Sauna levels. Won’t go back to that again.”
“What about this one, though? Golden fields of grain, flowing in the breeze, the sun shining down, no Humans shooting at us for three days straight.”
“Careful, I want it to be four days.”
“Oh, I apologize. Blade on stone.”
“Hmm, yeah.”
There was a short period of silence between us. Then, Mik spoke.
“Huh.”
“Hmm?”
“This ain’t too bad.”
“You see? You need some rest and relaxation, my friend.”
“Yeah, so long as I have something to do, I’m perfectly fine.”
A shorter period of silence passed. At this moment, something in the sky appeared.
“Look, look!” said Kreth, who pointed towards the objects.
Our whole host looked up, and saw a Human craft, a large one, disintegrate as it fell from orbit and into the atmosphere.
“It is definitely one of theirs!” Shotak yelled.
“What is it exactly?” questioned another Minor.
“Perhaps one of their cruisers?” another answered.
“That’s one for the flyboys,” said Mik.
Our commander guffawed heartily, thoroughly entertained by the destruction of the Human warship.
“Say…” started Mik, “when do you think we’ll finally be able to go home?”
“If we perform like this on every world, perhaps soon, very soon.”
“That’s saying a lot.”
“I know. But we can hope, and hope is quite a nice little thing, no?”
Category:The Weekly