Local Traffic
“Time to get up, Love,” Illoia heard and rolled over to see… the sky and the trees and rankers all over pulling on their outersuits and packing up their packs.
“Is it morning?”
“Well past morning, my love. I let my poor tired little one’s sleep. But it is time to get back on the road, now.”
“On the road? More marching?”
“Yup, back to barracks. More sim, some eating, then back on the road.”
“Again?”
“Every day…”
Illoia sighed and pulled on her own outer suit, “Aides, come here,” Tomirosh said. “You have something to learn on the way back.”
Three rankers hurried up to him. “I know you have learned how to use your wrist comp’s to monitor battles, it is part of the basic sims. But I need you all to lean how to monitor ‘local traffic’ and to teach the others to do so.”
Illoia struggled to follow their conversation as they packed up, slid down the lines, and began their march ‘home’. Apparently the wrist comps could ‘pick up’ on what was going on in the region of combat… the ‘front lines’… nearest to them. Or, rather, it could pick up on any region, but there was a special setting for ‘local’ that would pick it up automatically. Illoia turned it on and then, after about a minute, almost killed herself tripping over a tree root.
“My Love? What are you doing?” Tomirosh asked, hurrying over to pick her up.
“I’m sorry, I’m so clumsy. I was trying to follow what you were doing with the comp.”
“Oh. Well try it first in sims. It is an aquired skill, as any ranker will tell you. Not picking it up, but walking at the same time.”
He walked off, and Illoia stared after him. He was so rude! Not a word of concern about her fall, not a hint of being willing to instruct her. Just the obligatory address ‘My Love’ and some advice to get herself into a sim before she tried it again. How aggravating. He definitely needed a social secretary, indeed more than a social secretary, if he was going to reach general.
She started after him and the lads, and tried again, but this time with the heads up display turned off. Even with just the audio there was still a bewildering array of things to pay attention to. Dozens of voices, hundreds of background sounds…
“Still trying?” she heard and jerked her head up to see Tomirosh had, again, come back to her.
“I turned off the visual,” she explained.
“A wise choice. Here, I have a filter for the audio, one I made myself. It will help you concentrate on the important issues.”
Bewildered, she watched him fiddle with her comp and, sure enough, most of the audio dropped out. She could now hear only the voices of the soldiers, muted sounds of firing, and… and a large amount of background chipping and humming and snapping. “Is that better?”
“Well, yes. There is still a lot of background noise,” she complained.
“The background noise I left is important,” he assured her. It will make more sense when you combine it with the video. Some extraneous noise is inevitable, but you’ll do well to listen to every one of those noises.”
He went back to his lads as Illoia stared at him. Again rude.
But brilliant in battle so he must have some right ideas. Illoia kept the audio on the rest of the trip, turning it off only as they descended the stairs.
“Fresh up quick, Love, and we’re off to bed. You have sim scheduled at 1400,” she heard from behind her.
“Aye, My Lord,” she said, and hurried off to the woman’s fresher which was, if anything, even fuller than yesterday. She was surprised that such old lads chose to fresh here, or she was until she thought of what the men’s fresher must look like.
“I’ve never been so tired,” the Top Ranker's wife complained, standing next to her in the fresher. “It was bad enough, all that walking, without having to get my little ones down on that platform. And ever scared they would fall off, tho I knew that was silly, with the attachments they had on. And so they would NOT sleep.”
“They’ll get used to it, I suppose,” Illoia said.
“I hope they won’t have to,” she said, looking up from where she was scrubbing one of the smaller children, from whom she had taken off even his undersuit. Seeing Illoia’s look she said, “We aren’t doing that regular?”
“I’m afraid so,” Illoia said, finding herself the center of attention. “My husband says that these will be regular drills.”
“Every week?”
“It sounded like he meant every day,” Illoia admitted, and several lasses groaned, and several young lads cheered.
“Why??” the top ranker’s wife asked her when the cheering had died down, and mothers had chivvied their children back under the freshers.”
“Some training regime of his own,” Illoia said. “He was explaining it to me but I didn’t understand all of it.”
“Well, tis good for the lads, anyway. They go crazy cooped up here in the barracks all the time. And they’ll sleep tonight, I reckon.”
“I have to go,” Illoia said, turning off her fresher. “I have sim at 1400 and am commanded to nap beforehand.”
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Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books are published by Wise Path Books and include the children’s/YA books:
The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid
and
As well as GK Chesterton’s wonderful book, “What’s Wrong with the World”, for which ‘Arthur’ wrote most of the annotations.
Arthur also has a substack, and a website.
Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von