Insanity

Set in the future, an army officer and his soldiers face death as they find themselves outgunned and out classed on the battlefield.

    Courage and blood mix as I watch my soldiers retreat from battle. I had labeled it a tactical debriefing of our next set of moves but it was indeed a retreat. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, the enemy's iron clutches soon fell upon everything their was to destroy. No honor, no dignity, no mercy, our opponents were ruthless and wouldn't hesitate to kill a man before he even had a chance to ready his gun. And I suppose I was a fool for thinking otherwise. For thinking that other races would be as respectful in war as the Human Intergalactic Federation. These aliens saw us as intruders and unwanted guests on another planets moon. We were perceived as a strange form of darkness that crept out of the corner of reality in order to make itself prominent as it slowly withered away.
   Indeed, humanity was in fact taking its last breath. Natural resources were almost completely depleted. After finally succeeding to make contact with another sentient species, years of loaning, lending and being tested on began to erode the foundations of Earth. I even recall their being a group of aliens that actually managed to reduce the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere and slightly boost the percentage of carbon dioxide. Labeled as a mistake, everyone continued to live on as little incidents like these began to amass and finally bring us to where we are today.
  We find ourselves tired, scared, and fighting for our lives (the usual affair) over much needed supply ports. These ports are to provide enough energy for the first armada of human ships to fly to some disclosed galaxy, where the final battles will take place. The thought that associated itself with this plan was that Humans will have conquered enough alien beings to the point where the other races would barter for the land back. They'd give us resources and receive conquered planets whom they would either free and give back power to the government, or colonize and form a brutal dictatorship.
   Personally the future did not matter, for the crisis at hand was to great of a truth to hope against.
The situation was dire and I had played every trick there was to play in the "Your A Commander Now" booklet. Death hung over us like a heavy cloud and I believe we all anticipated it's rain. I looked at them up and down. Fine men to serve with they all were. Fearless men that had faced the perils of Hell many times and came out unscathed.
  If I were to not take the port and retreat, they'd just send in another team and the fighting would continue. More aliens would die and more humans would die. If the objective was to be taken now then casualties would minimize. That was the process of which I walked my mind through, of which I convinced my self. Still, my conscience weighed heavy, waterlogged in tiredness. Disregarding opinions I just wanted everything to be over. I wished that everyone just helped each other and considered one another apart of their own family. Many a days I asked my self why must we fight, and instead of answers all I get are hollow choices to make. These choices however lackluster they may be, must still be decided upon.
  With no plan and a pistol in my hand I stood up and rallied the men. I told them what a great pleasure it was to serve with them all and how us taking this port would be the greatest thing in the archives of this war.
  I was the first to run on the battlefield and the first to take cover. I shot twice, rolled to the left, signaled Alpha to come up the right side and began shooting again. In one of the few milliseconds in which no one shot at me, I began to remember a memory from long ago. It was my grandfather in a hovering wheel-chair with a blanket covering his waist to his feet. He had just been released from the hospital after having his two legs blown off and restitched. He was a war vet of old that ran out on the field to save a document that had flown out of his captains briefcase in the midst of battle. The document was not heavy enough to detonate the two land mines it rested on however my grandfathers body was.
   The document was preserved at the cost of my grandfathers legs and when looked over, the soldiers found the piece of paper to be well worth saving. It was a conversation between the captain and the commanding officer of the enemy army. In exchange for immunity and safety in the face of a new government, the captain was giving coordinates of major supply routes. Coordinates to a bunker that the captain was supposed to stay on were found, which is why he most likely kept the dialogue. 
   Logically thinking, I didn't understand why my grandfather would have put his life at risk over a piece of paper. What if the documents turned out to be journal entries back to the main camp? The question burned inside my underdeveloped mind and before I knew it, I had already asked him why. The old man shifted in his seat for a bit, cocked his head to the side and smiled : "Insanity is golden my boy."