Interpreter #7

"Use all your well-learned politesse, or I'll lay your soul to waste"


Later I took a small group to observe the scene and establish body count. Specialist Gildge accompanied, as did the Interpreter, two more medical officers, and sgt. Mason. We'd been on the ground for approximately 45 minutes before private Gildge became physically ill.

This occurred just after we scoped the wreckage for the body-count. It was high. We found 19 people - 15 adults and four kids - burned and butchered near the top of the high rise. We found whole families of people crammed into shitty, 1940's elevators burned alive and fused with the metal and wiring of the melted cars. We'd counted almost 50 enemy dead inside the primary target.

Out in the streets we had cooked six cars plus the old Laidlaw schoolbus. It was to these impact zones that I sent Specialist Gildge to scan for body count and assess the security component. I found him there 35 minutes later, no body count, no report. Gildge was hardly conscious, shaking, covered in his own filth. He tried to speak but could produce only convulsive grunts and dry heaves.

I sent him to the rear that night. By then word was getting around about Ris. Our orders mere to maintain position and assume a security posture while division tried to untwist the collective nutsack. With no spare parts and a soldier who's presence had become a danger to anybody around him, my choices had dwindled. The interpreter rode out with Gildge at 11:00.