The Drums of War

I hear the echoes of bombs dropping again. It’s hard to sleep sometimes, but I have gotten used to it. I thought I’d never hear sounds like that again after leaving old Earth. There was so much war and violence there throughout human history that we began to think of it as a disease. Wars, weapons of mass destruction, violence on a scale we couldn’t imagine, leading to the Great War.

One country attacked by a larger nuclear country over a misunderstanding that could have been easily cleared up had it not been for pride and outside interference. Loaded with weapons and ready for a war it didn’t want, it was cast into the fire and death and destruction rained down on the hospitals, schools, city streets and residential areas. The other nations couldn’t stand it. They started an economic war against their enemies and no fly zones. That is when the nuclear warheads started to fly.

It had finally happened–the final war. The atmosphere was destroyed. Water was polluted and irradiated. Many species became extinct and billions of people died while those who were still alive wished they had died, and the warmongers still wanted to continue their fight in absentia, sitting in back rooms supplying weapons and getting other people to carry out their aggression against the other for them. That is when we decided to go.

The silent majority led by Calvin, a billionaire himself, what they would have called an oligarch, assembled a team of scientists and entrepreneurs to take us to space, the final frontier. It was a way to take us away from the violence and craziness of an oligarchy gone mad. He was mocked and people laughed at him, until what he was doing began to work. All of the hidden pattons for different types of propulsion and energy systems that had been kept secret for years were brought out into the open. The exploration of mars was expanded by private enterprises and countries from the southern hemisphere.

As they explored mars they found the underground caverns fit for life. As the planet was cooling there were hollow sections of mars like bubbles in any cooling liquid. Overtime as the planet cooled and reached a point where it could sustain life, those caverns also began to become life sustaining with their own atmosphere before something happened. Some type of catastrophe that sent the planet reeling happened. It caused a shift of the magnetic poles that just about stripped the whole surface of the planet. Fortunately the scientists on mars had predicted it, so there must have been a comet or a large object that struck the planet.

They had moved most of the population, the ones that didn’t flee, to nearby planets, but many stayed in the caverns below until resources got so low that they too left. Now we were coming back. There had been rumors that they went to Earth, believe it or not. I found that hard to believe, but some people actually believed that. In any event, after much work, exploration, the creation of inventions that would allow us to live in those caverns, and the creation of spaceships to get us there, we began to leave the Earth. We could supply enough atmosphere within the caverns to live without artificial breathing equipment.

Hearing this, most of the peace loving people gave up on Earth and left it altogether while those who liked fighting, striving, and creating scarcity on that plentiful world continued to fight. War was in their blood. It seemed all they knew. Little did we know that someday, after we had settled in and created a peaceful world and they had destroyed the Earth to the point where it was unlivable, that they would come after us in their madness and hatred. But they did.

We only wanted peace. A few generations had it, but here they were again. The same type of people who had destroyed the Earth and had made life unbearable on it for the last ten thousand years were back like a disease. We hear the bombs striking the surface as we stay below in the deep caverns hoping they don’t break through. Our defense systems are strong. We know they can’t get through to us and defeat us here on the ground, so they are raining down munitions from above. How long can we last? We don’t know. We only know that we have to last for the sake of our children and our way of life.

How insane is it to have to fight for peace? Marion is stirring now. She is my daughter…only 14 years old. She can take a rail gun apart and put it back together blind folded. She has already learned how to survive out in the wilderness and kill in order to protect us. Sam, my son, is working to create anti aircraft equipment from some of the tools that we brought with us to tunnel and to beam energy from one colony to the next. Everyone is working to remain free knowing that giving up is not an option.

When one surrenders to a heartless enemy one is as good as dead anyway, and sometimes worse off. She just smiles though. I don’t understand it. It is as if all of this is normal for her. I hope someday they will find peace again, but when one has tasted the demon of violence it is almost impossible to do away with it.

“You ready, Pop,” she asks. “Going on rounds today?” I give her a sad smile and put down my journal.

“Just let me get my suit.”

“I don’t know why you wear that old thing. It’s too bulky. You just need a light suit and helmet.”

I shake my head.

“You young people don’t know the value of life. What if you get shot? This suit is impervious to most weapons,” I say, stepping into this thing like a suit of armor.

“Yeah. That’s why they are using the weapons it isn’t impervious to,” she says with a grin. She steps forward. “Let me help you.” She goes for my heavy gloves and slips them onto my hand one by one as if she is dressing a child. I look at her and remember when she was young and we used to dress her up. She sees it in my face and grins.

“Not getting sentimental again are you, Pop?” She can’t help but grin, leans in, and gives me a quick kiss before I put on my helmet. “I love you,” she mouths right before she puts on her helmet. I smile and say it back. I didn’t know that was the last time I would ever see her again.

The End