Gary ducked, the sword missing his head by inches. He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be in the army. Hell, he didn't even know why they were even fighting.
There Gary was, hiding behind a fallen corpse and hoping that nobody would discover he wasn't dead. And, just his luck, somebody had noticed and was about to bring down their sword when the bells tolled four. The soldier instead opted to put his sword away and pull out his blanket.
"Excuse me sir," the soldier said as he slowly patted down his pockets, "I seem to have lost my tea bags."
"Um." Was about all Gary could reply until the initial shock wore off. "Yeah, just a second." Gary fumbled about for a tea bag; then handed it to the soldier. "Here."
"Thank you," the man replied as he took the bag from Gary's trembling hand. "Say, why don't you give me another bag and I'll whip up a batch for both of us."
Reluctantly Gary handed over the bag. The shock was wearing off, or at least his senses were coming back. Or maybe it just had to do with the fact that nobody was trying to kill him anymore. Either way, 'tea time' was the best thing that Lord Chit's expeditionary travels had brought back. Though, he could have cared less about the whole swords aspect. He would have much preferred to use laser guns. They at least were easier to carry and didn't take so much skill either. More pressing though was just how ugly the pants were, and Gary also thought they made him look fat. But Lord Chit had assured the people that swords and pants that made you look fat were the most efficient method of fighting. And thus, after millenniums of peace, the entire planet was engulfed in constant warfare.
"Here you go," the soldier said, handing a cup of hot tea to Gary, who was caught by complete surprise at the soldier's tea making skills. Never had Gary thought it possible to make that quickly. Making the assumption that this soldier was a mercenary he was more than overjoyed that the tea bells had rung.
And so Gary sat down to enjoy his cup of scalding hot tea. But as luck would have it, the soldier wanted to be friendly.
"The name's Tim, son of Timothy, son of Tim the Somewhat Brave on Thursdays."
"Um, Gary," he said, extending his hand out in the hope that Tim would shake it and shut up.
"So what brings you out here," Tim said as he gave Gary a good firm handshake.
"Well, to be honest, one fat dude and my dad." Gary took a sip of his tea hoping that his explanation would be enough.
"How so?"
"Well, Tim, my dad is a senator. I just happened to be the only child in the entire senate old enough to join military service. And as you can guess they declared war. Then some fat guy decided to make some bias film about how not a single child of the senators was serving. So I got forced into it."
Tim turned around a bit, giving him a more direct view of Gary's face. "Well that sucks. Me, I find it rather fun. And it doesn't hurt that I get well paid."
"Paid?" Gary asked suddenly struck with some interest. He'd never heard of soldiers getting paid decent wages, no matter what army they were in.
"Yes, paid, I'm a mercenary. Lord Chit's Military Compendium has been very good to me." In fact, Tim was lying. It had been more than good to him. He had become a celebrity. Little kids pretended to be Tim, the valiant heroic mercenary. They dreamed they were fighting in the Planetary Alliance of Widget Makers Coliseum, fighting for whichever country paid the most.
The only people who had any real direct loss from the Compendium were the homeless people in Box City who had to be removed in order to build the Coliseum. After much protest, the World Government had tried to find another suitable location, but Box City was the only stretch of a hundred square acres of undeveloped land on the entire planet. So, they promised each homeless person a new refrigerator box, a free trip to another planet, and promptly loaded them on a space ship. Then they blew up the ship. Some people were apt to protest, but when presented with the option, blowing up the shipped seemed better than trying to figure out what to do with ten million refrigerators.
Thus, the coliseum was built and now featured a six year waiting list for battle dates. This, of course, made fighting a full-scale war very hard to do, making most wars consist solely of a single battle. But this also made standing armies very unprofitable things; only a few larger nations kept an army at all. Most nations, instead, hired on large amounts of mercenaries a few weeks before a battle.
To offset the high costs of paying soldiers countries entered into a league with the coliseum owners, distributing part of the revenue among the warring nations. Which, in more recent years had become quite a lot of money. Attendance had skyrocketed, and war was becoming a very profitable business. Some poorer nations entered into war alliances just for the purpose of raising money. Even those opposed to war still found time to make it out to the coliseum; after all, war was the official sport of drinking.
"So which one is Gary?" Mrs. Verd asked her husband as she scanned the field with her binoculars looking for her son.
"He's the one who was cowering behind all those dead bodies. He's right next to Tim," Senator Verd said as he pointed out Gary's location.
"Oh, I do hope he gets Tim's autograph," Mrs. Verd said as she was nearly interrupted by a passing vendor.
"Co-old beer, pea-nuts. Get your beer and peanuts."
"Two beers please," Senator Verd hollered out, already ready to pass his money down.
"What are those for?" His wife asked. After all, she didn't drink.
"Well, I have to have something to drink during the tea time show."
"Why two?"
"One for my left hand, one for my right hand," he replied in a somewhat mocking tone.
"Enjoy the show honey, I'm going to go use the ladies room."
The show was indeed quite entertaining. The coliseum owners had long discovered that having lots of scantily clad women prance around seductively made for a great way to entertain a drunken crowd for nearly an hour. So far, it had worked very successfully. At least they hadn't had a riot like the first time when they tried to entertain the crowd with country music.
Gary finished his last sip of tea and set down his cup upon a nearby corpse that they had fashioned into a table, using the hands as saucers. "So Tim, any advice on staying alive?"
Tim looked at him, failing to repress his laughter. "Well, you could always tell your commanding officer that you're gay."
"Oh gee." Gary said, giving Tim a condescending stare, ".thanks."
"Well personally I just put on a jumpsuit, grab a broom, and pretend I'm sweeping the grass."
"And this actually works?" Gary asked a bit unbelieving.
"Well, usually I hit them over the head with the broom. But yes, on occasion it works. Though in your case, I'd claim gay."
"Anything else?"
"Well since you seem to be a coward, I doubt this would be below you," Tim said as he pointed to the pile of bodies. "You could always hide in there and pretend to be dead."
Tim watched as Gary disguised himself in the dead bodies. Then the bell to signal the end of tea time rang. Casually Tim grabbed his sword and in a swift motioned impaled Gary. "Told'em he should have said he was gay."
An hour later the ending bell rang and the crowds began to file out. The intercom came on. "Thank you everybody for attending today's battle. And remember, your tickets are valid for admissions for tonight's double feature, sponsored by United Brewers Inc., under the newly installed lights, made possible by Cheap, your world leader in sweatshop production."
