A Battle Unseen

[Doc]

Kalistani Detention Camp, east of North Bend, Likatonia

January 20, 5613

Sergeant William Robert Michaelson sat under his tarp in the makeshift leanto the Kalistanis had provided.  Like several hundred other Likatonian Prisoners in this camp, he had fought against the invaders in the battle of North Bend.  Like several hundred others in this camp, he had been spared death in the battle, only to realize that he was going to die a slower, more miserable death here in the hills along the Likatonian side of the border.

Where was the counter attack that his troops were promised?  This was something that he had practiced with the Kundrati advisors time and time again.  The Kalistanis hit the front troop, and then the Kundratis rush to their assistance.  But that counter attack never came.  Instead, the town was overrun in two and a half days, and the Kalistanis said surrender or die.  When they got there, the Kalistanis disarmed his platoon, who were defending a weapons' supply point.  They thought they could have held out, but their platoon was facing at least a company of Kalistani Infantry flying a black flag.  The sight of the firepower was enough to make several members of the platoon throw their weapons at their feet.  One twitchy Kalistani saw the movement, and open fired, and at least three members of the platoon were killed instantly, and three others were wounded before some Kalistani Lieutenant got the Kali Soldiers back under control and got them to cease fire.

Now Sgt Michaelson sat in this shabby leanto, which barely kept the cold rain off him.  It kept none of the cold air out.  The Kalistanis gave him some paper and a small pencil that looks like the kind people use to keep score on the golf course, and was told to write a letter to his "loved ones."  This likely meant that he would be killed later in the day.  Maybe, he could use the pencil as a shiv of some sort.  Maybe to take one of them down before they got him.  He wrote a letter, a defiant letter, to his mother.  Telling her that she was wrong when she begged him not to enlist.  He was a Warrior, and would be a warrior to his dying moment.  If the Kalistanis didn't kill him, he'd find a way to make his way back to his division and would take up the fight again.

As he finished this last sentence, a Kalistani soldier appeared in front of him.  He had his gun trained on the demobilized prisoner.

"You misspelled 'warrior'," said the Kalistani in a strange accent.  Sgt Michaelson looked down at the paper.  Huh... he thought.  What is this guy talking about.  "Get up., leave the paper.  We'll get it to your mom."  Sgt Michaelson stood, pencil still in his hand.  "Drop the pencil." said the Kalistani.  Michaelson thought about it for a moment, and then, almost involuntarily, complied.  "We're moving out soon." the soldier said, and motioned for the soldier to start walking.  The Kalistanis had taken his right boot when he was captured, and he was forced to walk across the cold ground covered in sharp tree debris in this largely pine forest.  Luckily, much of the ground had been cleared, but every once in a while, a sharp point of a twig caught the bottom of his bare foot, and at the pace he was walking, he couldn't exactly walk carefully.

When they had walked about 200 feet through the woods, the soldier stopped Sergeant Michaelson.  He kept his rifle trained on the Likatonian, as two individuals stepped up, grabbed the Sergeant's hands and tied them roughly behind his back.  The bonds cut into his wrists and hurt.  The individuals then stepped away, and the Kalistani ordered Michaelson into a pit.  Michaelson looked over and saw the pit.  It looked like it was cut out of the soil with a post hole digger, and was about 3 feet around.  Michaelson then looked around and saw several other individuals screaming out as people were shoveling dirt into several similar holes.  Some people had their head just barely sticking out above the surface.  Some others, the shorter victims, didn't even have that luxury.

Michaelson, in a final act of defiance realized what this was, and refused.  The Kalistanis were burying them alive in the forest.  The soldier ordered him into the hole once more.  Michaelson said "No." once again.  The Soldier, without another word or moment's pause, shot Michaelson through the foot.  The two other individuals then stepped up, lifted Michaelson up and lowered him into the pit.  Before Michaelson could do anything, they then turned around and began shovelling dirt into the pit with him.  Soon his legs were covered by heavy dirt and he was immobilized as the hole in his foot burned and bled profusely.  As the dirt got deeper and deeper, there were similar shots heard from behind him, and lots of cussing from the Likatonians against the inhumane treatment the Kalistanis were showing them.

Within minutes, the pit was filled.  Michaelson was tall enough that his chin sat just above the ground level of the dirt.  He was already beginning to feel light heated, and then he realized the insidiousness of this particular method of killing.  It was getting very difficult for him to get full breaths:  the pressure of the soil on his chest cavity prevented him from expanding his lungs.  This death is death by suffocation.  With luck, he would bleed out before that happened.  But this would certainly be his grave.

As the Kalistani walked on, and the two grim gravediggers moved on to dig the next pit, Michaelson noticed one thing:  They both only had one boot on.