Soldier of the Dominate (another Draka story)

[Junghalli]

A fanfic taking place in SDN's more plausible version of the Draka universe (where Sith-God Janeway wasn't around to help them in WWII ). This is a fanfic I started a while ago and then abandoned, but since my Final Society Draka vs. Borg fanfic is a success I've decided to restart it.
The format is basically inspired by Death Star: the Letters Home. I'm giving a somewhat different take on the Draka here: putting a little bit of a human face on the evil racist donkey-fucking Nazi-Mongol bastards we all love to hate.

[Junghalli]

Name: Timothy Evans
Rank:
Class: My Diary
Period:


MAY 28 1940

Well, I’m finally graduating! I always thought I’d be really happy today. I fucking hate school. It’s six hours of running in circles and doing push-ups and gunnery drills in the broiling hot sun (yeah, they always schedule it for afternoon, bloody sadists) until you get so sunburned when you try to take a shower you find pieces of your skin coming away with your shirt. Then when you’re done with that they send you off to some bullshit poly sci class for the next five hours, by which time you’re already so tired your basically falling asleep in your seat anyway and the only thing keeping you awake is the fact that you’re so thirsty that when you see a puddle of muddy water drying on the ground you’re actually tempted to go down on your hands and knees and start gulping it up. Then in the miserably few hours of free time they begrudge you they expect you to finish writing a three page summary of what you learned, usually as the ten people you share a room with are busy joking around and watching some incredibly cheesy movie about Great White Hunters and the breaking of the tribes (you know what I’m talking about), naturally with the volume turned to full blast so my ears hurt almost as bad as they do at gunnery practice (I hear that having guns blasting in your ears is supposed to make you go deaf anyway, you’d think the cheapskates at admin would have some basic fucking consideration for our health and give us earplugs, but no... I swear they treat us like serfs).

Yeah, I know, I’m being a whiny bitch. They always tell us that it’s all supposed to make us strong, and we have to be strong if we want to rule the world someday like we’re supposed to. I guess that makes sense, but really, is poly sci actually necessary? I mean, sure you want to learn to shoot and fight and all that, because you have to serve out your term in the army, but you don’t learn anything in poly sci. They just go over and over how The Race are supposed to be destined to rule the world because we’re the only ones who see the world the way it really is, as a contest for power, and how power and domination are means in themselves and old ideas of morality are just shields the weak create to cower behind blah blah blah. Really, it’s nothing you can’t learn in fifteen minutes, why do they have to stretch it out to a five hour class? And I always have to take it before I go to my elective class (Elementary Business, when I leave the army I’m going to go work in Mom’s shop and maybe take it over someday), so I’m always really beat by the time I get there so I get bad marks.

Anyway, enough moaning, the graduation ceremony’s in a couple of hours and I haven’t even ironed my dress uniform! If I don’t hurry up I’m going to be late! God I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of Mom, she came all the way up from Durban to see this! I haven’t seen her in more than six months and I’m probably not going to again until my term of service with the army is up. I hope she forgot the camera: I still have that black eye from that fight with that prick Cunningham. Yeah, yeah, I know, I get in too many fights, but it’s not my fault people pick on me! I’ve always been really sickly and scrawny looking, so assholes like Cunningham think they can beat me up easily. Plus, I don’t look racially pure. I know I am, or at least the Purity Board doctor decided I was, but the bones of my face are too small and fragile looking and my eyes are too big, so I look like I might have some Oriental in me. And Mom never married, so people will think things like that… It probably wouldn’t be too noticeable if I didn’t also have a weak immune system or something like that, and got sick a ton of times as a kid, and always feel a little queasy so I don’t eat much and look like a pile of sticks. The school nurse says she thinks I might have a hormone imbalance or something…

To be perfectly honest I’m kind of scared, that’s why I’m going on like this today I think. A couple of days ago the Archon came on the TV and gave a big speech saying we were at war with Russia. They handed out our military papers first thing this morning and I’m being sent straight over there-place called Georgia (funny, back when they put me through geography class the teacher listed all the US states and I could have sworn Georgia was one of them, probably just my memory fooling me). Well, the joke is that when you go to fill out your term of service you get to travel to exotic places, meet strange new people and blow them sky-high. That’s OK by me but I have a little thing about the part where they try to return the favor. Oh well, I hear half the houses in Russia don’t have indoor plumbing, so their army can’t be all that great, can it? I know that helping expand the empire is every Citizens duty and all but my stomach has been tying itself in knots for the past couple of days. I’m terribly afraid I’m going to throw up while I’m in the graduation line-up.

Oh my goodness it’s already two in the afternoon! I better find that dress uniform…

[Ford Prefect]

Whiny little bitch . . . human face you did attach to the Draka. That face, I wish to smash.

Other than that, well written.

[Junghalli]

MAY 30 1940

Well, I’m a newly minted Junior Monitor now. They shipped me up here the day after graduation. I have to say I feel a little… isolated here, I’ve never been anywhere near this far from home. We’re right next to the border with Russia (or at least it used to be the border with Russia until the war started). It’s really, really cold up here! I’m freezing and it’s almost July. Well, I’ve never handled cold very well, I don’t have any meat on me to keep my body heat in, but I think just about everybody is pretty uncomfortable. That’s what you get for spending your life in the world’s hottest continent, I guess. I hope the war doesn’t last too long cause I really don’t want to be here when that horrible Russian winter we all hear so much about sets in. You know, the season where it’s supposed to get so cold if you spit it freezes before it hits the ground. Well, this is southern Russia so it shouldn’t be that bad, I hope…

They’re still getting all the new recruits organized so it should be another day or so before we actually start to march. Right now it’s not that different from school, only with no classes and twice as much running around and doing push-ups and being inspected and reviewed. It’s not so bad, you need to move to keep warm and you don’t want to be in sloppy shape when you have to go into action anyway. As usual I’m getting a lot of attention from the latest round of assholes, but I can handle it, it doesn’t bother me. Only thing is that Decurion Arminius freaks me out man. He’s not a big guy but you can tell he could probably kill people with his hands tied behind his back and he knows it too. He shaves his hair real short and he’s got tattoos all over his arms and the most creepy look you’ll ever see on a guy. It’s the kind of look you’d expect in a serial killer; those dim little blue eyes of his just run you over like a crocodile staring at a pack of zebras and daring one of them to come down and get a drink so he can rip its leg off. He loves to shout these monologues at us and he sounds a lot like my poly sci teacher (the one who was always talking about how The Race will conquer the world eventually), except he’s louder and uses more cursing. I remember one time when he was inspecting out weapons he asked me why we were going to war with Russia. So of course I said the first thing that came to my mind, which was “to expand the empire.” So then he asks me why we need to expand the empire and I say because every society naturally competes with other societies and is always trying to take them over, so we have to be more aggressive than the Russians and the Americans and the Fascists so we can take them over because otherwise eventually they’d take us over instead. It seemed like a good answer to me but this Arminius guy went ballistic. He started raving about how self-defense had nothing to do with it (funny, it seems like a pretty good reason to me) and it was all because we can do it and no other reason, and if I ever wanted to be a presentable Citizen I’d have to learn that. I guess that’s not bad, but thinking about having him looking over my shoulder for the next couple of years scares me.

The only other thing of significance I can remember is some idiot in my lochos named Gatesby is trying to hit on one of the girls. Freya what a moron, that sort of thing completely blows unit cohesion, even I know that. Especially since she can’t stand to be around him at all. I feel sorry for her, having somebody annoying constantly trying to get into your pants would be so aggravating (of course, I have the opposite problem, which is probably just as well since hitting on other Citizen recruits gets you in pretty deep trouble). Well, I guess I can’t blame the guy for not wanting to die a virgin (I feel the exact same way), but still… She should just kick his ass (I know she could, she’s really tall and she has more muscles than he has). Really, I can see why the Russians and Fascists and Americans don’t conscript women. But they we can’t do that of course, they have all those people and we don’t.

I just hope the war’s over quickly, so lots of people don’t get killed, and especially so I don’t get killed. I’m ashamed to say I’m really scared right now, but I’m doing my best not to show it. Wish me luck!

[Junghalli]

Whiny little bitch . . . human face you did attach to the Draka. That face, I wish to smash.

Fuck! That is so totally not the effect I was going for!

The bashing heads are for my own literary failure, not your comment. I was trying to create something like Death Star, The Letters Home. I've always liked the opportunity-and challenge, of showing "the other side of the fence", especially when the other side in question is a society as seemingly repugnant as the Draka. My intent was to show them as human beings who have been raised in a very fucked up society, rather than the pure evil bastards who deserve extermination down to the last man that we usually tend to think of them as.
You're right, he does sound like a whiny bitch. Maybe I shouldn't have used a diary as the format, first person characters very easily turn into whiny bitches I find. Probably because of the "I" there before you hear everything that happens. I'll try to improve from here on, I'll have to be extra careful since the whiny bitch-ness quotient of diary entries tends to soar very easily. The second part is maybe a little better though, no?

[NecronLord]

If it's any consolation, I for one wanted to bash the heads of the writers of Death Star Letters in too.

[Imperial Overlord]

Don't feel to bad. It's hard to make this kind of thing not seem whiny and manipulative.

[Instant Sunrise]

Whoa, what did I do?

[consequences]

What? The bitching sounded reasonable enough to me.

[Junghalli]

Whoa, what did I do?

You have me very confused.

What? The bitching sounded reasonable enough to me.

He does sound very whiny, probably due to the fact that the way the story is presented makes the bitch-factor go up pretty easily (something about the first-person tense does that, especially as being the guy's diary there's no proper dialog).
I think I may just concentrate on my other fanfic for now and leave this for when I can devote my full attention to it.

[Instant Sunrise]

If it's any consolation, I for one wanted to bash the heads of the writers of Death Star Letters in too.

Are you referring to the characters writing the letters, or me, the author of that peice. (who needs to get off his ass and do some updating)

[consequences]

He does sound very whiny, probably due to the fact that the way the story is presented makes the bitch-factor go up pretty easily (something about the first-person tense does that, especially as being the guy's diary there's no proper dialog).
I think I may just concentrate on my other fanfic for now and leave this for when I can devote my full attention to it.

That's why I said its reasonable. If you can't bitch in your diary, where can you bitch? He's not even over the top for the level of gripe that a sane military school would engender.

Of course, I identify with the poor schmuck from less extreme personal experience.

[Junghalli]

That's why I said its reasonable. If you can't bitch in your diary, where can you bitch?

That's true. Still, the whiny agnsty character is always one that I find so annoying, I don't want to make him one.

He's not even over the top for the level of gripe that a sane military school would engender.

Good point there, conditions in a Draka training camp are supposed to be something close to hell, enough to possibly make a SEAL trainee cringe. And on top of it he's kind of like the kid who'se always getting beaten up for his lunch money... I imagine that compared to what one of us would have to say about it he's positively stoic!
Plus he's being sent off to the Great Patriotic War (or whatever the Draka would call it). That's gotta be an angsty time: even for somebody raised in a culture that takes worship of strength to almost Khorne-cult levels being sent into a war would be scary.

Of course, I identify with the poor schmuck from less extreme personal experience.

Well, it's nice to see you sort of liked it. When I read the first comment by FP I was just like "oh shit, I have so totally fucked this up."

[Ford Prefect]

Second one appealed to me much more. Unnamed Draka soldier, he no longer bothers me in the slightest. This time he seemed a heck of a lot more normal and believable.

Just as an aside, the way you presented the first entry had nothing to do with it. It was just I didn't like the guy. Now I do. Good writing, by the way.

[NecronLord]

Are you referring to the characters writing the letters, or me, the author of that peice. (who needs to get off his ass and do some updating)

The characters. I want to smash their faces.

[Junghalli]

I've changed the writing style a bit, sort of tightened it and made it a little more matter-of-fact, which hopefully will make the narrator sound less whiny. Is this any better or does he still sound like a little bitch?

JUNE 1 1940

We had our first contact with the enemy today, not more than three hours ago. We’re moving, so I don’t have much time to write this. Right now Hensridge is trying to do some quick repair work on the APC’s engines, so I have a little time to write it down but not much. I probably should just rest but I figure something like this has to be told, commemorated if you would. A little like your first kiss in a way: it’s a significant event and I think I should write it down.

We were moving along one of the main roads, headed toward Telize or Tabliz or whatever the hell that city’s called, I can’t remember the name. I’m sitting in the back listening to the engines and, to be perfectly honest, rather pathetically trying to keep warm by bunching my arms up around myself, and I hear a crack of gunfire. I guess that’s something you get used to after a while but it was surprisingly loud, and I was startled and looked up. I hear the sound of an APC trying to break then I see the one three cars in front of mine slam into the tank that’s guarding our front and get its hood shortened by a good half meter or so. Then I hear it again and I see the APC behind it blow up-well not quite blow up but whatever hit it cooked off the engines and set it on fire pretty good. The one right in front of ours slams into it and I see I’m headed straight into a pile-up of a burning dead tank and three APCs. It occurs to me that the second Hond is one APC behind me and if the pile-up keeps growing I’ll be squashed between two colliding tanks. There was a bad moment where I was sure I was about to get killed, and I heard Decurion Arminius yell at Hensridge to get the fuck off the road. So she swerves around just in time for me to see two big bullet holes getting punched in the window glass. Nobody got hit but I think one of the big super-high caliber bullets came too close for comfort to me, way too close. So I think I’m done for but-well, let’s just say Hensridge is insane, but in a way that can be kind of useful. She swerves off the road, which wouldn’t be such a big deal if this wasn’t a wooded area. I heard more bullets bouncing off the side armor and then the APC bumped and jerked as it moved over the uneven ground of the road sidelines and must have scraped the bark off about twenty trees and ripped off the rear view mirror and banged in the sides pretty thoroughly in the process.

To be perfectly honest I can’t really give a decent account of the battle and it all happened too fast. But when it was all over we were OK and they were clearing a couple of tanks of the road. I don’t know much about tank classes but I saw the blood-red hammer-and-sickle symbol of the Communists painted on a couple of them, so presumably the enemy had some suffered casualties in the exchange. Of course, we lost three APC and two tanks… I couldn’t tell whether it represented an even or favorable trade.

I remember all the days before this I was really scared, but now I’m not so much. Sure I almost pissed myself in the first few seconds, but after that it wasn’t so bad. I felt scared but I felt excited at the same time. I’d faced the possibility of dying and when you actually met it you weren’t as scared of it anymore. Kind of like the horror movies where you’re really scared of the monster when you only see it from the shadows but when they actually put it on the screen you see it’s just some guy running around in a bad rubber suit. It actually felt kind of good to live to give the two finger salute to the dead Russian tanks when I saw them. We beat them and I couldn’t help feeling proud of it, even if I didn’t really do anything myself. I was doing my part for the State.

Well, that’s it pretty much. Some of the bullets went into the APC’s engine block. Hensridge is trying her best to fix it, otherwise we may have ditch the APC and redistribute the lochos. Not much to tell really.


Authors Note: I'm assuming that the gesture for "fuck you" is the same in the Dominate as it is in Britain. Also the city which's name Evans can't remember would be Tbilisi. Now I must go read The Great Patriotic War again to brush up on how the battles went.

[NecronLord]

Bah. Drakan battles need resemble reality in no way whatsoever.

[Junghalli]

Bah. Drakan battles need resemble reality in no way whatsoever.

Well, this is Drakafic universe, not Sterling's wankfest, so in-universe consistancy strikes me as a good idea. Besides, somehow I don't think Sheppard, O'Leary, Norseman etc. would take very kindly to me fucking up their uni.
Anyway, The Great Patriotic War is helluv cool, so it's not like I'll really be inconveniencing myself.
How do you like the new writing style? Does it read better now?

[Setzer]

It's realistic that he doesn't have an omniscient perspective of the battle. After all, nobody in the frontline is in position to see everything.

[Junghalli]

It's realistic that he doesn't have an omniscient perspective of the battle.

That's true, I was going to point out the same thing myself. He'd be lucky to have any clue what's going about squad level.

After all, nobody in the frontline is in position to see everything.

Citizen units are IIRC mostly used for assaulting heavily defended positions and mopping up. Going into the frontline is mostly reserved for their ablative armor-I mean Janissaries.

[Ford Prefect]

Even better. Now he seems human, believable and easy to sym - symp - bah, you know what I mean.

[Junghalli]

Even better. Now he seems human, believable and easy to sym - symp - bah, you know what I mean.

Sympathize? With a Snake? You just couldn't bring yourself to utter the blasphemy, could you?

[Junghalli]

JUNE 3 1940

I was involved in my first major action yesterday. Well, major action is probably too grandiose, but my first actual battle. I was part of a Century tasked with taking one of the small villages the Russians maintain by the side of their military highways to give their convoys a place to refuel and be serviced.

The Centurion wanted the place as intact as possible, because we could use the refueling and refitting station. The workers would be too unreliable to use of course-not being broken in and all-but we could always move up some serf auxiliaries to do their jobs. Serfs are the one thing our country has too damn many of already. That made our job harder, because we couldn’t pound it down with artillery.

The Russians had set up a good defensive perimeter, no tanks but a couple of big guns that could give us some trouble. It was really no big challenge though. A Century was really overkill to take a place like this-we probably outnumbered the defenders and the women and children put together. The Russians had let the forest grow right up to the edge of the village, which meant we couldn’t use tanks but we had good cover for our advance. Stupid of them, they should have cleared a small space to make a kill zone for infantry. We advanced to their perimeter and used light artillery and covering fire to keep their gunners too busy keeping their heads down to stop us, and stormed the place. We had some casualties but none from my lochos and it was easy. Most of the men were armed and we had to kill them all taking the place. It’s a pity to kill people, I think, even if they are from an inferior race, but ultimately it’s probably just as well. The Dominate doesn’t need more rebels and insurgents to fight and serfs to keep in line-it needs land and oil and timber. Besides, they were trying to return the favor if you know what I mean. The Russians don’t arm or train their women-something that they can afford to do since they have so many people but something I bet they wished they’d done today; it would have made our jobs a lot harder. We took them without a struggle. Like I said, the Dominate has too many damn serfs already, but while we’re conquerors we’re not evil. We couldn’t just kill them when they couldn’t defend themselves, even if it would be the most efficient thing to do. So we moved them into one of the houses and posted guards. Knowing Decurion Arminius I thought he’d bitch about the waste of manpower but he didn’t say a word. He actually seemed downright happy to be taking so many of them alive, which is very weird knowing him. Mercy isn’t like him at all.

Arminius said the Centurion was giving us a little while to rest before moving, and had decided to reward us for our good work. That was the first time I tasted alcohol, and it was pretty embarrassing. I tried to swallow it and gagged and almost spat it up. That stuff burns.

Mostly I’m just waiting to get under way now. It’s good to have some time to get out of that damn APC; I’m just sitting around and trying to get the diesel fumes out my lungs. Still, there’s not all that much you can do. It’s not like they’d let us take a book or anything with us to the front. I tried to sleep a bit but the Centurion and a couple of his officers are interrogating somebody for information, and I can’t sleep listening to somebody scream their lungs out. At least I think they’re interrogating somebody, either that or one of our prisoners took a couple of high caliber slugs to the gut while we were storming the place, one of the two. I know these things are necessary in war but I really feel sorry for the poor girl. She sounds like she’s being flayed alive; I don’t think I’ve heard somebody scream that persistently. If she’s maimed somebody really should put her out of her misery. If she’s being questioned (and that seems more likely ‘cause the Centurion and a couple of his officers went in there just before it started and haven’t come out) I’d really hate to imagine what the bastards are doing to her. I hope whatever they finally manage to get out of her is worth it.

[Junghalli]

JUNE 4 1940

We took a casualty today. Something else I think I should write down. I was right there.

Our convoy had stopped for a five minute break. Enough time for the engineers to check the engines (that’s SOP) and everybody else to stretch and take a leak if they need to. A couple of guys are always assigned to watch for attacks, because the convoy is very vulnerable at these times. Decurion Arminius has it out for me (there’s something about me that makes a certain type of guy want to pound me into pulp, and Arminius is definitely that kind of guy) so I usually get assigned this, but even Arm-in-ass recognizes that I have to go to the bathroom sometime so this time JM Enferadi pulled the short straw.

So, I’m coming back from taking a leak and I hear a gunshot. Everybody jumps up at the sound, and then there are a couple of more gunshots. They’re too far apart to be a machine gun. A sniper probably. I was relieved: at least we weren’t under attack, but of course I slammed myself against a tree for cover. I see Enferadi go down. I was the closest man to her and I saw a red spot start to spread across the khaki camouflage background of her jacket. I saw her mouth gulp air like a fish’s, and after a few moments I realize what I’m saying. She’s trying to scream but she can’t. The same thing happened to me when I was in school, back when I was eight or nine. I got in a fight and got knocked off a roof, onto hard concrete. I was OK in the end, only cracked one of my shoulder blades, but the pain had been so bad I couldn’t make a sound. I just couldn’t open my lungs. It’s a very terrifying state. You want so desperately to scream, because a scream draws attention, a scream tells other people you’re there and you need help. But you can’t, it’s too much effort to draw in the breath, and you think that maybe nobody’s going to know what happened and you’ll just lie there until somebody happens to walk by… or until you’re dead, whichever comes first. And while you’re lying there your wondering just what horrible damage has been done to your body to make it hurt this much, and if it’ll kill you or if you’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. I was scared to run out into the open, but I couldn’t leave anybody like that. So I ran out to her. When she saw me her mouth moved faster, she was trying to say something, but she couldn’t. There was a burbling sound and a little spurt of blood came out of the corner of her mouth, and I knew that wasn’t a good sign. I tried to decide whether to drag her toward the trees or behind an APC, and after I moment I decided it would be stupid to drag her toward the trees because it would make it harder for a medic to reach her. I grabbed her underarms and pulled her across the ground. I felt something wet on my hands, and when I had her in the shadow of a Hoplite and let go my hands were covered in blood.

She was choking on her own blood. I could see her cheeks starting to turn blue. I tried to remember what I could about resuscitation and dealing with wounds. I pulled the zipper of her jacket down and pushed it off her. I opened her shirt with my utility knife. The wound didn’t look so bad from the front. It was a neat circular hole just under the small fleshy mounds of her breasts. A smear of blood covered her torso. I’d never seen a girl without her shirt before, and I felt a small twinge of excitement, even though I knew it was hideously inappropriate. I called for help and then bent down and tried to give her mouth to mouth. There was something hard and wet on her back. She tied her blonde hair behind her to get it out of her face, and now it was sticky with drying blood. I guessed the bullet had gone through her, and turned her over to get a look at the exit wound. I almost threw up when I saw it.

The bullet had gone through her alright, and smashed out like a cannon ball, right through her spine. I still feel sick just remembering it. The hole was so big I could have put my hand into it, and pieces of her broken spine stuck out of it like red candy canes. She must have seen the look on my face. Now that I think about it that must have been very scary, getting an obvious confirmation of her worst fear. Then the medic came over and told me to get the hell out of here. He did what he could but she never had a chance. The bullet had grazed her heart and shattered her spinal column. It was probably only years of training that kept her from dying from shock the instant she was hit.

I’ve watched other people die in front of me, but they were always the enemy or people from other parts of the Century. I’ve never watched somebody I knew take it. Well, I didn’t really know Enferadi, but I could recognize her face and knew her name. I don’t… really know how I feel, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. I’ve always been told that this is the price of war, and that I should be glad for her, that she gave her life for the Dominate, but I don’t feel that way. Another part of me says that I should feel sad that she’s gone and… I don’t really feel that way either. I don’t know her, and I don’t think I’ll miss her, and I think she shouldn’t have died and… none of that feels right at all. Maybe I’ll feel something else or eventually, or maybe I won’t. I’m sure I’ll see lots of other people take it, maybe even I’ll get it. I just don’t know.

[Norseman]

Not bad but I have a few minor quibbles, nothing awful but...

1. The lack of servants, do understand that even the poorest Draka would be used to having a couple of serfs to do his donkey work (like ironing) when they're not in the field. Think 19th Century gentleman if you would.

2. Sex, Draka have lots of serf women who CAN'T say no, the average Drakan male would have lost his cherry by the tender age of 15, if not earlier.

I think your main problem is that you're trying to write a soldier from Nazi Germany or the US of A, but Drakan culture is something else entirely, something which is hard to understand and present.

Otherwise it is very good.