Relic's eUK post

And yet another part of Relic's Journal Series. Hope you enjoy it. Comments below please, both bad and good ones, just to try to get the quality of future articles up.

Some previous articles:

Relic's War Journal: Part 1
Relic's War Journal: Part 2
Beware the Sniper ! !
War in Argentina ?
Para's Plight
Relic's War Journal: Nostalgia for the Past

<strong>This is the seventh part in a series documenting Relic's time as a Paratrooper,
by Relic</strong>



Warm, nice and cozy waves were flowing over my body. I haven't been to any sea for far too long. The water began to get cooler and cooler, all until I understood it wasn't the warm sea that I was enjoying, it was cold water that someone spilled all over me.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” - I shouted
“I said nicely, rise and shine and you continued sleeping, what else was I supposed to do?” - There she was, meaner than ever, Anaxima, now Paratrooper CO. I kind of felt that this is going to be a long period of time ahead of me.
“GOSH! Can't you hit me with your hand, foot, or something? Did you REALLY have to spill cold water all over me?“
“Hit you with what? Like with this shoe? And don't be a pussy, c'mon, get ready and report downstairs for your orders.”
“ARGH! You haven't changed a bit, have you?”
“No, of course not, but only one thing is different. Now I am your boss,” She replied as she was leaving my room.

I noticed a blank bed on the other side of the room. Haven't noticed that before, seems like no one was staying here, yet. EUK attracted many PHOENIX folks that wanted to fight in this war and I guessed that I wasn't quite stationed in the part of this building where the other paratroopers were.

As I was getting up, I almost slipped on the pool of water Anaxima made in my room. As I was opening my bags and deciding which shirt to put on, I realized that I should probably mop the pool of water Anna made, but as always I found some better things to do, like you know... fight a war or something like that? I dressed up and as I was leaving my room and locking my door, I comforted
myself that the pool will probably just dry out by the time I get home, since it wouldn't be the first time I stayed out of my residence for long periods of time. I kind of missed my old Q5 residence that I had way back in eUK, but things change, poor people remain poor, while people like Kumnaa remain filthy rich, hell, they get even richer. I spent the rest of my time going to the office thinking about Capitalism. How pointless it is, only makes people suffer more or makes rich folks use poor people. Never saw much point in it, too much greed running the world for my taste. No matter what was the problem with the world, my current problem was finding Anaxima and new MoD, so I can receive my orders.

After couple of directions I received from random people in the building, I managed to end my lurking. There they were; doors saying: SF Headquarters. By the looks of it through the window on the door, everyone was already in there, so I went for “Get in as quickly and silent as possible” approach. Didn't do much good for me, since the minute I opened the doors, the old doors gave me away.

“ Not even a day here and yet you run late to our briefings, eh Relic?“- asked the familiar voice
“ No, I wasn't running late, I ... “
“Spare me your excuses, we all know how lame they can be “ - said that same voice again, being a bit bad sighted I couldn't figure who it was at the beginning, but I noticed his typical way of standing, I was pretty sure it was the old Lotfire. I was a bit pissed at him doing that to me, specially this early in morning, but what can you do about it?
“ Carry on guys, don't mind me really... “ I said while I was trying to find a free seat to sit on. There it was, all the way forward, way to long for an old paratrooper, like myself, to walk, so I decided to stand right here where I was.

The briefing took about 15-20 minutes and during that time I've learned who from the old Guard remained in the Paratroopers, or is it Special Forces nowadays? Well I wasn't one of those who cared. The whole time my eyes were scouting for familiar faces and I've found quite a few. I've learned about new MoD, who took the place instead of Hassan, His name was Po... Polio! That's it! From what I gathered he was all right, but I had yet to meet him. I learned that we were expecting yet another attack from Spaniards and that after we help out defending eUK, we were parachuting somewhere in Poland, to help the Germans with a Resistance war. I was really surprised to see we had about 70-80 member of Paratroopers, I assumed eUK grew stronger everyday. Maybe not in terms of money, but in terms of experience and the will to fight. I had about 1-2 hours to spend before coming back here and quite frankly I didn't have anyone with or anywhere to spend it. As the briefing finished, everyone started talking and moving out towards the door, I sat down to wait to see who's still around from the guys I actually knew. I saw Vettige, Funky, bbq, Gladdos and many more. Lotfire was the last in the column that was exiting, but he sat down right next to me.

“Long time no see, eh Lotfire?” - I broke the ice
“ Yeah, long time indeed. “ - he was always like that, cool as an ice, not letting anything get to him, ready to joke and die for a friend, just the kind of person you rarely get to meet. A person you want to have next to you when you get shot.
“ I see you haven't been retired for too long, missed the company, huh?“
“ Yeah, well, you, from all, know the best how hard it is to resist eUK's call.”
“ Right, I was never able to quit on eUK, whenever I left, something would just pull me back. Anyway, fancy grabbing a beer or two, just so we remember the good old days, when we were called Paratroopers, before this stupid new names...”
“ Always alcohol on your mind Relic, has nothing changed? But, don't mind if I do accept your invitation, I know this good bar just down the road, cheap wine and beer, just as you like it”
“ You lead the way “ I replied while slowly rising from my chair.

We went to the bar, there I finally got a hang of why Lotfire insisted on this bar. It seems like the waitress is really something and you can't fail to notice how confused he was while ordering drinks. Seems like Lotfire has a bit of a crush. Well, no matter what we did, the time just flew by way too fast. Some people say that time runs fast when you have fun, I am more in favour of the other opinion. That the times flies by faster when we await something we don't look forward to, like attack from our enemies...

As we were ready to pay the drinks, we both heard the familiar sound, the whistling of a bomb falling down only couple of feet away from the bar we were in. The hysteria in the bar, from the time they heard the whistling, was quickly exchanged by that sound of death. A simple sound, not hard to imitate, so simple you'd never figure it can kill someone. Afterwards came the unavoidable silence. The silence in which a second lasts like hour. I've had experience that silence, it's so hard to bare with it, in same time it's hard to end it. Just too peaceful for any human being. I whispered to Lotfire: “Are you okay?” He answered affirmatively and quite soon most people shouted around: “Anyone hurt? “ We got up, raised up our chairs and sat down.
“Since we are late for the beginning of attack, we might as well have another glass of drink, to calm our nerves.”
“ Yes, Lotfire, we might as well grab another drink”
We both quickly drank it all and rushed out towards our HQ.
On the way there I asked him: “Why didn't the shelling last for longer time ? “
“ Well, their only purpose is not to let us counter-attack them, so there is no need for them to spend too much artillery on us, is there? “
“ I see your point” - I replied as we were just entering a tall building in which our HQ was.
As we entered our HQ room, I noticed so few people, I guessed everyone got there before us and went to defend their positions. I saw Polio, Hassan and Anaxima, all three looked at me as if they weren't scared. Sometimes I wondered why was I only one to think about so much stuff during the wartime... I guess it's really not the time to do that deep mind thinking. All three of them told us that we are going to share our position today, since we were the last ones to actually come here. We said our goodbyes. Not really the one like you'd say if it was the last time you see them, but the one you say to your friends when you are going to see him tomorrow over a glass of beer.

Lotfire and me hurried towards our new... well we weren't quite sure what it was, but we certainly weren't going to wait to find out. As we approached the spot, I saw a small old farm house, not touched by the war at all. I was really unhappy we would probably ruin the perfect little old house someone built for himself, but I assumed that we are justified. We went in and quickly found the best spot to fire at Spaniards. It was unusually hot for this part of year. It was January and we weren't dressed really warm, but there was no need. I heard on the TV, back in the bar, that it's one of the record hot years.

Back on the main topic. Well, we made a pretty simple plan. We shouldn't be attacked hard, so we both took the first shift, first eight hours. Then, I'll take the next eight alone, and he'll do the rest by himself. Indeed, it was really straight forward, I can't remember when I heard so few bomb shells in war and so far away from us, too. My 16 hours shift flew by and I was tired as hell. Lotfire found a pretty comfortable sofa in the living room, so I went there to grab some sleep. I didn't expect to be awaken at all for next eight hours and pretty much as soon as I closed my eyes I decided not to think too much, so I get a good night sleep... Day one went by without many traumas, only hope future days will look alike, but I knew they wouldn't ...