Alien Landscapes 2 by Kevin J. Anderson

Sounds, smells, colors bombarded him like weapons fire. His armor and helmet had been stripped away, leaving him vulnerable; without it, he felt helpless, soft-skinned, like a worm.
    The bed beneath him was warm and soft, disorienting. A gentle and cozy light surrounded him instead of the familiar garish white to which he was accustomed back in his own barracks. Each breath of the humid air was perfumed with a sweet, flowery scent that nauseated him.
    Was this an infirmary? Barto turned his head gently, and a raging pain clamored inside his skull. The place reminded him oddly of the time he had been helpless and healing from his previous injury . . . but he saw no hairless chimpanzees, no robotic medical attendants. The sheets were soft and slick, vastly different from the other rough, sterile coverings.
    Grogginess smothered his mind and body. Barto tried to return to full awareness . . . but something was wrong. His body remained sluggish and unresponsive, as if the accustomed chemical stimulants were not being released according to program. He needed adrenalin; he needed endorphins.
    Arviq lay on another bed beside him, similarly prone, similarly stripped of his armor. When Barto turned his head and directed his gaze in the opposite direction, he was astonished to find another person by his shoulder. Not one of the enhanced animals bred to attend the regiment . . . but a woman, a lovely creature with short, honey-brown hair and a shimmering purple garment so brilliant and dazzling that it made his eyes ache.
    Responding with combat readiness, he sat up with a lurch—but the woman rushed over and shushed him with a gentle touch. “Quiet now. Everything’s all right. You are safe here.” Her voice sounded like sweet syrup. Alien.
    Arviq stirred beside him, groaning in confusion and growing rage.
    Then Barto remembered a legend, a story told on the field during the quiet times between battles when some soldiers were more frightened than others. It was a hopeful myth of what happened to brave and dedicated fighters after a death in battle. Was this . . . Valhalla?
    He glanced over at Arviq, his face contorted with confusion. His eyes glimmered with dark fires. “Are we dead?”
    The woman laughed like tinkling crystal. “No, soldier. We are people like yourselves, human beings.”
    She didn’t look like him, though, or any other person he had ever seen. Barto shook his head, refusing to acknowledge the pain left over inside. He’d had enough experience with pain. “You’re not . . . soldiers.”
    The woman smiled and leaned closer to him. A warmth radiated from her scrubbed and lotioned skin. He had never noticed a person’s physical features before, never paid attention . . . and he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life.
    “Everyone is a soldier,” he said, “either for our side, or the Enemy.”
    The woman continued to give him a slightly superior smile. “You are soldiers, my friends . . . but we are not. Not here.” She gave a gesture to indicate her entire underground world. “After all, it’s a war. You’re fighting and dying.” Her thin, dark eyebrows rose up in graceful arches on her forehead. “Did it never occur to you to ask exactly what you’re fighting . . . for?”
    With a sudden burst of energy and an outcry of rage, Arviq lunged up from his bed, reaching out with clawlike hands, his face full of fury. Even without armor or weapons, any soldier knew how to kill with his bare hands. Somehow he found the energy to lash out, to propel himself into a combat frame of mind.
    The woman staggered back from the infirmary beds, startled. Barto saw shadows, more people moving behind observation windows, automatic devices activating. There was another flash of white light, and again he lost consciousness.
    #
    When Barto awoke once more, he was alone in a room, clad in soft pajamas with more slick sheets wrapped around him. He found his bed too pliant, too yielding, as if it meant to be