They That Bite and Devour
Part One of the sci-fi military serial
Welcome to Part One of They That Bite and Devour, a violent and vulgar sci-fi war story. I know this isn’t everyone’s thing, but I’m breaking up the story by discussing writing and rewriting as well. So if you aren’t into sci-fi or military short fiction, perhaps I can interest you in some writerly stuff.
I see all kinds of writers dish tips and techniques, but it’s rare to see actual rewriting happening. But I’m pretty shameless. The below story is only lightly edited so that I can demonstrate some changes, additions, and offer some thoughts toward polish. So after part two of the story, I’ll apologize for my prose and fix it.
To further incentivize an invested reading: I’ve decided to give away Book One of the Yangala War: Ye Shall Know Them (for the next five days). I’m planning a special on the sequel We Did Not Reason Why in August, So Kindle readers, save your pennies.
Here’s the schedule for the Enormous Room:
August 2nd: Part two of “They That Bite and Devour”
August 23rd: Rewrite discussion
September 6th: Conclusion to “They That Bite and Devour”
September 20th: Rewrite discussion and closure.
October 4th & 18th: Oddtober entries
November - March: Ghost story parts 1-6 and writerly discussions.
Today’s post is 1,777 words and will take 6 minutes and 28 seconds to read.
They That Bite and Devour
by H. W. Taylor
I.
Rangers, bring the mighty from their tower.
Elites, make the enemies howl and cower.
Feed them defeat, metal and sour.
We were the tree and the shadow of the tree. We were the water pooling at its root. We were darkness. We were smoke. We were there and not there. We were silent. We were nothing, all nada, until we were the high howling wind raining down such goddamn fuckery that all the world would heave and huddle. We were the Swamp Ranger Elites. Eight men, unsupported, off-map, freelancing stone-faced death-dealers.
From Dismarr, a thousand miles of piss, mud, and hateful jungle to Fort Q we roamed. We hunted. We owned. Mowing down what came our way. Out of the pathless mire we came. Into basecamp, three weeks cut off from the civilized world, we came carrying our dead.
Two died. It'd been some time since we suffered loss. The death of Smidgeon and Wraith was a harbinger of more. New soldiers die sooner than the old. Upside down as it always is in war; the young die first and fast in a bright blaze of sabre fire while the old soldiers carry on.
It was in a field of silver shadows. As calm and cold as a three days dead corpse. The placid scene is a thing of nightmares. The bright moon is a baleful siren calling us to hunker down or face hell.
Wraith was as silent in dying as he was in living. He was a hint of a man who walked the jungle like a rumor. In his last firefight, gun smoke slashed by warm sun and cold steel, he fell grasping his throat. He didn't gurgle or choke. He even caught the blood flow in his other hand so it didn't pitter patter onto the ground.
Smidgeon was cut up by enemy fire, perched in a blind thirty feet in the air. It was like electricity surged through him, scattering his flesh and bones like radiation. When he fell, he was as stiff as steel, and we thought he'd stick in the earth like a knife.
We entered the camp like living trees, sodden, thatched with moss, fletched with every weed, reed, and leafy edge. The guard seized up despite the all-clear when we walked up jangling from deep jungle.
We set the bodies of our dead just inside the wall. By the time we reentered the shit, their bodies would be back in the dome, two new men in their stead. We had twenty four hours to clean off, eat, drink, and be mournful before heading back into war.
We scraped the weeks of filth off in the showers. The water ran brown, then black, then pooled as the drains were clogged. Thick Cakes, one of our Ziggie operators, shaved his bushy mane and wild straggling beard. He stood like a giant among little hillocks of hair.
Earlybird, our grizzled vet, lost himself in his thoughts, leaning against the wall of the outdoor showers. In his head he was lining up stories to tell us of bravery and the foolhardiness that looked just like it. In our heads we lined up the drinks we'd drink and the drinks to come, and the drinks to follow, and the drinks in between.
On our way to the mess, our Stratos, Buckler Gage the grim motherfucker himself, told us the Elites had been assigned two new recruits, pink as panties from Camp Levarii. 'Greet em in the name of the Lord,' said Str. Gage. 'And wet their ears before we leave. Twenty one hundred, tomorrow.'
Barnyard nodded. He was our tough guy with a blonde mustache uglier than his tattered ear, gnawed like a dog toy. He was dirty and unwholesome in a fight, but as fierce as a bone-roach in a buttcrack. 'I shall train them up in the way they should go.'
We drank as hard as we fought and we fought like hell and a half. The new recruits came in, top of their class and smooth as river stones, but unknowing in the ways of the Yangala wild and therefore likely to get killed.
They were soon-to-bes. Soon to be dead or soon to be wounded or soon to be a quivering pile of flesh and trauma. If they were lucky, theyd someday be a force of reckoning. The new recruits watched us get rowdy from the edges of the room. They left us alone, as did the other soldiers stationed at Fort Qubrik. The Ranger Elites were not to be welcomed or reconciled, comforted or redeemed.
At the darkest point of pre-dawn, back in the barracks, Barnyard stood before them, swaying as if in a soft wind. The Rangers were still dancing to the sound of a bottle opening, the spew of carbonation, the languid pouring out, and the hasty gulletting of its contents. The new soldiers stood at attention with the rest of the Elites arranged around in half-attention.
'Listen meat, my job isnt to make sure you become true Ranger Elites.' He shook his head, a big wide no, and nearly fell over. 'Thats impossible. Youll probably die soon. What my job is—' He paused for drama or for his lagging brain to stumble forward. 'My job is to make sure that when you die, that you die alone, so the rest of us aren't taken with you.' His finger stabbed the air in front of three of the two men before him.
Unkle, as short as he was wide, snorted. Unkle was our other Ziggie operator, half-deaf and all crazy. He swept his tongue across the gap where his front teeth should be, cleaning his incisors.
Barnyard continued. 'Before we commence to sleeping and the gentle wetting ourselves while we dream of your mothers, allow me to introduce you to our poet and provider of nicknames, Zed Alton Wikkens Jr. aka Slickwick or when the fire drops, just Wicks.'
Thick Cakes and Earlybird quietly clapped as Wicks stood up. Wicks was a wisp of a man, deemed smarter than he was because of the spectacles he wore. 'Fucks sake, Barny, we're tired. Lets go to bed.' He pointed to the two recruits. 'Youre Premie, youre Freshie. If you stay alive and do something stupid you might get real names, but that aint likely. Goodnight.'
* * *
Premie and Freshie lay next to each other as the distillation of piss and snores filtered the night air. 'Freshie, you sleeping?'
'Dont call me that.'
'If you buck your baby-name we'll never accept you.'
'We? You already a we with them guys?' Freshie blew air through his lips. Premie was an accurate name for him. Always early to fall in, buy in, jump in, shape up, and take up. Freshie was old hat toward everything. He yearned for the groove, the grind, the rut, and the gutter. 'Least I aint Premie.'
Freshie tucked an arm under his head as the dawn's first needles broke beneath the barrack's shade. 'You ready? No more neat and tidy war effort for us, with lines and walls, sentries and medcamps. Every step we take tomorrow is a step into uncivilized fighting. Blood, tooth, and nail.'
Premie wrote something in a little book and slipped it into his pocket. 'The Dome seems a million miles away.'
The jungle was a promise of danger. In the dome, it was not so. Humanity lived for centuries in the safe haven of technology in the belly of the earth, while the scarred world beyond was ravaged by the destruction we'd left behind. It was a fight we won, but only because we were bold enough to use our desperation. We healed while the world healed, but our enemies remained and suffered the change. They were darker, wilder, unkempt, and savage.
We called them the bugs. They'd taken our land and even though it had been transformed into green death, animal hell and vegetable horror, we wanted it back. We had the tech and had adapted to the dangers of this warped land, and now we were taking control.
The failure of the Siege of Seven Hills had been a shock. The tragedy of Maypole struck fear into the heart of the domers. We were still clumped up near our hole in the earth, fearful to push too far into the territory we hardly understood, much less controlled.
The next surge had begun. Defeats had borne new strategy, old prayers packed away and invectives and imprecatories brought to bear. The key was the swamp. Avoid the high places of their capital, sweep around back, creep through the muck with the rumors of war.
We snatched sleep left and right, in broad daylight, shadow, or deep burrowed night. Dawn had cracked and spread wide its sizzling yellow eye. Thick Cakes sputtered up and kicked free of his cot. He went to the door of the barrack and pushed it open.
Freshie propped himself on his elbow to watch. A drunken Thick Cakes dropped his pants and his bare ass broke wind. Taking the hold of the bar braced over the door, Cakes began doing pull-ups and midway began pissing. His thick stream undulated as he continued to lift his body by the power of his arms, his legs kicked back as he dipped low.
The stream continued unabated for over a minute with the soldier levering and lowering himself mechanically until his bladder was emptied. Then Thick Cakes restored his pants to his waist and returned to his cot. His snores soon cracked the air again.
Freshie nudged his partner. 'What kind of men are these?'
We were Ranger Elites, created for a new challenge, for the war was new once more. The old war had passed away. Even as we discovered and rediscovered the technology of death and destruction, so too did the Yangalese.
Our aeropters mastered the skies, but were brought low by bug missiles. Hexblades, launched by small mobile squads, carried death and terror in their wake. Our short lived aerial dominance was thunderously dismantled by these quiet, fleet, missiles. Until we could counter them, our only hope was to disrupt their production.
It was in the throat of the jungle where the Hexblades and more were made. The base and the brain was in the swamp of the jungle where they lived, trained, and developed special man-chewing weaponry. Into the teeth of the jungle we went, the Ranger Elites. There in the worst of it was our home, our horror, our hoard of war.
In her we would hear no words of comfort, no words of peace or surrender, for the jungle was a tongue of lures and lies. To the Ranger Elites, the Yangala jungle promised danger and betrayal. And the jungle always kept her promise.
The second part will be sent out August 2nd. Feel free to send me your impressions of the story. Don’t forget to grab Ye Shall Know Them for free.
Thanks for reading.