There’s nothing inspiring about war. It doesn’t feel good to lose your house, your family, or your life. It doesn’t make you a better person. All it does is leave you cold and bitter and powerless. But, that’s not stopping me from trying to fragg every-single-one of these alien bastards that created this hell.
I wasn’t married, I didn’t have any kids. Hell, I didn’t even have a girlfriend; but I had a place I called home and I still had family. It might seem so insignificant to so many people that think they lost so much more in the invasion, but it was everything to me. I lost my identity that day, I’ve become a different person and my ideals and expectations from life have completely changed. I don’t think there’s a person who survived that hasn’t gone through some kind of crisis of conscience, and I’ll guarantee that nobody’s the same.
Some tax attorney runs my squad. We all call him Buckshot Bill as he has a penchant for shotguns. I don’t expect much from him, and he’s living up to that. Our last unit leader lasted a whole five days before one of those hell hounds blew his ear drums and pounced on him. It only took one shot to put that mutated thing out of its misery but that one shot came too late.
We all have pools going. We each take a token with another member of the squad name and keep credits on when that person’s going to croak. Our life expectancy isn’t long and we aren’t about to pretend it is. If the person keeping our name dies before us, we get the credits instead. I’m up a couple hundred at this point and earned the nickname “Death Token” to account for it.
Apparently my survivability is being investigated now. They think I’m some kind of logos receptive and want to ship me off to some head case camp. I haven’t told the rest of the crew. They’re so young; they like having me around. Someone as old as me still fighting makes them feel immortal. I don’t want to tell them the bitter truth that it’s all a load of hogwash and that bullet to my brain could come any day now. But, I can’t break it to them, I won’t. We need hope these days like most people needed cash back then. It’s the only currency in this world that’s worth a damn.
All this introspection is making my head itch, that or this damn helmet is coming apart again. The equipment only has to last as long as we do, and given that they only expect us to make it out of boot camp, that’s not long at all. Hell, they probably refurbish this stuff anyway. I’m pretty sure that “insubstantial manufacturing defect” in mine is a blood stain from the last cranium it failed to protect. Doesn’t matter, seems to be protect well enough.
It was the gunfire that brought me back to the mission at hand. The hedgehog was dropping us off a little too slow and a stalker knocked it out of the sky before we were all out. I pulled buckshot bill to the ground and felt the concussive force of the blast skip me across the ground. My armor held and I managed to get up without noticing anything broken. Buckshot seemed okay as well so I began gathering the rest of the men.
Only Juan and Seth managed to survive as well. Tim-boy was caught under the craft as it landed and though he screamed for help, the only thing I could do was offer him a quick respite. The other guys were still shaking it off as I holstered my side arm. With the Ka-thunk, whirr, ka-thunk approaching I grabbed Seth and pulled him into the forest. Several blasts of plasma burned through the vegetation and crippled a couple of trees. Juan didn’t make it. I bolted back towards Buckshot.
The stalker was close now, and my sidearm wasn’t about to cut it. I didn’t have enough rounds in my machine gun to cut through its shields either so I grabbed Juan’s Cred Card and Buckshot’s arm as I dragged him into the light cover the forest would offer. It wasn’t that I liked the man that stood there gapping at the enemy so much as I needed his gun to cover my back as well. Seth was at least intelligent enough to follow.
We zigged when it expected us to zag and ducked when it expected us to run. I don’t know how I knew what needed to be done but we managed to find a cave that would give us enough time to call in airsupport. Breathing was nice, I enjoyed it, even when I was panting, and I wanted to keep doing it, so I dragged them around a couple of bands. The stalker fired off a couple of shots at the entrance anyway. Soon, this place would be swarming with bane.
We weren’t alone in the cave. It wasn’t the harsh and guttural tone of the bane but it was still distinctively alien. Buckshot and Seth were working out our coordinates and calling for assistance but that faded out as the voice continued to beckon. I followed the light, it was dim at first but its pale blue tones were in steep contrast to the fire like orange the bane used to light their camps. I couldn’t hear either of them, I knew they were calling me but the Eloh artifact in front of me was talking. I don’t know how a shimmering blue light could talk but then, everything seemed new to me these days. I listened closely as it talked about the past. The story wasn’t over, but it was done talking to me. The light faded and I could hear Seth calling for me. Air support had arrived and we still needed to finish our mission.
Author: J. Seaton