Blood, Sweat, and Diesel: Introduction
#1 of Blood, Sweat, and Diesel
The beginning of my first story. It's told from a human point of view, and I guess you could call it a war story. I have the plot outlined, but I'm open to suggestions. If people like this, I'll upload more of it, so Feedback is valued!
Altama was a beautiful land. It consisted of tall grass prairies, rocky canyons, and scattered forests of evergreen trees.
The ground was rocky, and was cut through by fast flowing, cold rivers that are famed for fishing. In the summer, it was hot and sunny, with the faraway horizons blurred by mirage, and endless fields of wildflowers, and The nights alive with the sounds of crickets and frogs. The winters were bitterly cold, and snow fell in merciless blizzrds that could cover a town in minutes. For the most part, it was an untamed wilderness. Naturally, this made it the perfect hideout for a band of lunatics with guns. Officially, the land was an unincorporated territory of the Canid Balfor Confederacy, forming the confederacy's eastern border. On the other side of the Altama was the Karlov Republic, my home, and a human nation. Yes, I'm human. I thought I should just put that out there. Altama would be a nice place to live, if there wasn't rockets flying out of the trees at you every other day. If the war ever settles down, I think I might stay, find some out of the way place, leave it all behind...
I've seen a lot in my time here, and I think I have the soldier's disease. I think what really set me off was the loss of our tank's old loader. His name was Stokes, and he was a big, robust, dog, a Rottweiler I think. His job was rather straightforward; lift shells up and shove them into the Breech. Sounds easy right? Wrong, he lost two fingers doing it. He was a good guy too, we joked and talked a lot. I think we got along pretty well because we both had the (physically) hardest jobs in our crew.
Anyways, it happened one evening when our company stopped to rest. I was performing an engine test on our tank, and the gearbox wouldn't cooperate. My arm was already tired from wrangling with it all day, so Stokes offered to give it a try. After a few minutes in the driver's hatch, he had it figured out, and I began to tell him what I would do if I ever met the tank's designers in a dark alley. He laughed, I remember, and began to tell me his plans for that, when a light rocket streaked out of the woods and exploded in the driver's hatch, splashing his soul to the four winds, and his body to various places around the clearing.
I don't remember exactly what happened after that, but Sgt. Kent, our Fox commander, later said I was hysterical for days, and had to be dragged away from where Stokes had died kicking and screaming. Such was my first brush with death in the Altama. I don't think I've been the same after that, partly because a piece of flying, burning debris from the explosion struck me on the forehead, leaving a burn wound which the unit doctors told me will probably never fully heal.
In case you haven't guessed already, I'm a soldier, a tank driver to be more specific. I'm a Human in an army of dogs, foxes, and wolves. My unit is the 3rd Heavy tank Battalion, 21st Armored Division, attached to the 2nd Balfor Army, tasked with clearing the Altama territory of rebel insurgents. How did I get to be in such a situation? Well, that's a long story that I'll save for another time. Why do I stay here? Because I've become addicted, to the drug of war.