Categories
Category: Allies
Hospitals are frightening places. US Army photo.
My bosses here at FMG have told me I can indulge in a spot of fiction on occasion, so long as I don’t make a habit of it. This week, I’ll strain that tolerance ….
The sick man awoke gradually. It took a moment to attain clarity. The hospital room was as he had previously left it — bright, cluttered, foreign and terrifying. Something, however, was not quite as it should be.
Like headlights dissecting a foggy road, his mind gradually made sense of the scene. The sick man understood little if any of the machines or their diabolical purposes. At that moment, however, he realized what seemed so alien about the place. Nothing was moving … like, at all.
The displays were bright and clear but unchanging. The very air no longer seemed mobile. That was strange in the extreme. It was then he noticed the young man seated comfortably next to his bed. The man’s eyes were fixed upon him, neutral and implacable. The sick man had always read people easily, but this man was unreadable.
The sick man pulled himself up in the bed. He was surprised at how good he felt. Gone was the ache in his back and hips. He no longer sensed the presence of the sundry tubes violating his spent body. Perhaps this would be a good day.
The silence between the two men soon became uncomfortable.
“Who are you?”
The young man answered flatly, “You know who I am.”
The younger man looked to be in his late twenties. He was handsome and fit, dressed in an unadorned blue t-shirt. His pants were so bland as to be unnoticeable. His eyes had a penetrating quality, like something that could cleave meat from bone. He exuded a palpable calm.
The revelation came suddenly, like an electric shock.
“But I’m not ready,” the sick man said, fear now obvious in his voice.
“Nobody is ever ready,” The young man responded. There resulted yet another uncomfortable silence.
“You’re not what I expected.”
“Literally everybody says that.”
There was no sense of impatience or cynicism. These were simply facts.
“So, it’s really time?”
“Indeed, it is.”
“I still have things I need to do.”
“Like what? You need to pull together another payroll or get that last shipment ready? Have you paid your taxes and signed the forms? Is there something you need to say to someone? You’ve had all of those opportunities and more. That’s all gone now.”
Modern medicine is long on machines. Everybody hates them for a reason. US Army photo.
The sick man struggled to push his natural disquiet back someplace else and focused on the moment. He had always been a problem solver, a man ever cursed with a hyperdeveloped sense of responsibility. This was simply a strange new problem to be solved.
“So, what’s the real deal here? How does this work?” His voice was steadier than his nerves.
The younger man gave the tiniest sigh. It wasn’t exasperation in any real sense, more resignation brought upon by endless repetition.
“Allow me to streamline this for you,” he said. “Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It’s as predictable as the tides. We can talk here for as long as you wish. You’re on the clock, not me. You’ll find that time means something different now than it did for you previously. However, trust me, letting yourself get too deep into the weeds just makes this harder. Debating the finer points of philosophy will render you muddled. You’ll want your faculties intact for what is to come.”
That took a moment to process. “What is coming?” he asked.
“You already know that,” the younger man said.
“Will I go to heaven?”
“Should you? You tell me.”
The man’s mind raced. He searched for a Bible verse or something similarly profound, but nothing came. Before things got out of hand, the younger man continued, “You’ve answered your own question.”
The fear welled up again. Now teetering, the sick man said, “This is hard.”
Without emotion, the younger man said, “Try my job for a week.”
As predicted, the sick man skipped to acceptance straightaway. On a certain level, he appreciated that trying to negotiate would be fruitless.
“Will this hurt?”
“God is not cruel,” the younger man said. “Regardless of the mechanism or circumstances, it seldom takes long. From the outside looking in, sometimes it seems sudden. Others, it appears, are protracted. The actual event, however, is reliably quick.”
The sick man felt himself begin to rise inexplicably. The pressure of the sheets gave way as he, disconcertingly, began to pass through them. He sensed that he was above himself somehow. None of this felt real.
“I’m afraid,” he said. There was a childlike quality to his voice that had not been there previously.
“I know you are,” he heard the younger man say. The voice now felt distant. “Everyone is. That’s why I’m here. As I said, God is not cruel. Just, certainly, but never cruel.”
In moments, the young man was far away. With his absence, the sick man began to feel cold. The suffocating sense of isolation immediately exceeded his level of comfort. The fear boiled up yet again, stronger this time. He struggled to maintain control. Then the thing was done.
The CZ have announced that the Bundeswehr has selected the CZ P-10C OR FDE as the P13. The P13 will replace the P8A1, the Heckler & Koch USP, which entered service in 1994. CZ have described the selection as “one of the most significant milestones in its history.”
The P-10C is a striker-fired, short recoil, tilting barrel actioned service pistol, chambered in 9×19 with a standard magazine capacity of 15 rounds.
Introduced by CZ in 2017, the pistol has a 102mm (4in) barrel and an overall length of 187mm (7.4in). Unloaded, the pistol weighs in at 740g (26 ounces). The P-10C is already in service with the armed forces of the Czech Republic, having been adopted in 2020.
Jan Zajic, CZ CEO, told TFB that the new pistols “will be delivered in a configuration tailored to the Bundeswehr’s specific requirements and manufactured and tested in accordance with military specifications.” The P13 will have a flat dark earth finish and its slide will be cut ready for an optic.
The Bundeswehr has not yet announced if the pistols will be generally issued with a red dot sight as standard and if so which model of red dot will be issued. The P-10C OR reportedly beat out competition from Glock and Slovenia’s Arex.
“All the pistols for the German Bundeswehr will be produced in CZ’s production facility located in Uherský Brod, Czech Republic, which meets stringent quality and compliance standards.
We maintain sufficient manufacturing processes and capacity to serve military and law enforcement as well as commercial customers worldwide”, explained Zajic.
While local production of the pistols wasn’t a criterion in the Bundeswehr’s tender CZ noted that they will work closely with their partner in Germany, POL-TEC GmbH & Co., to fulfil the contract and provide comprehensive support to the Bundeswehr.
The quantity of pistols to be procured has not yet been announced by the German government but the order is expected to be significant, with CZ’s CEO Jan Zajic telling TFB that:
“We are honored that the German Bundeswehr has chosen CZ as its partner. Our success in this rearmament tender is one of the most significant achievements in CZ’s modern history.
It clearly confirms the outstanding reputation our firearms have earned through active deployment in real combat conditions. We look forward to a long-term cooperation with the Bundeswehr and to fulfilling all its requirements in line with the contract.”
