Chapter 1- Hoth
Hoth.
A gigantic glacier. The whole planet covered in ice and snow. A desolate wasteland, the only animals are blood-thirsty beasts. Winds so bad that you can be buried in snow and ice eight feet above your head before you can say yeti. The fighting's worse. Rushing out in the open, nothing but a blanket of white as far as you can see. And they're camouflaged. Men beside you falling over, staining the ground red, and no sniper in sight.
Horrible.
The few times you get any rest, you're in a bunker seventy feet underground. No heat. No food. Unless you go outside and try to shoot something. If you find anything. Supplies rarely get dropped. The thick layer of wind and ice in the atmosphere makes it close to impossible to pinpoint a target.
And maybe. . .if you're lucky, the clouds will let up. The sun. . .it gives ya hope, ya know. For one instant. . .there's a light. And when you stand there, staring into its beam, absorbing its warmth. . .if ya look around, all the other guys are standing right next to you watchin' it too. When the clouds form up again, and your chest grows cold, no longer bein' hit with the sun's revitalizing heat, you still stand there. It takes another minute for it to sink in that it's gone. Or maybe they're all remembering a better place. . .better times. And for the next few days, you carry the memory of that one second of light, and it keeps ya warm.
"Yo, Mike, get over here, we just got some food." Michael Drexx looked up from his journal at Eddie Marinez, called Tank, and called back, "I'll be there in a sec." He turned back to his small journal, torn up and frigid with snow, and put his pen to the paper, finishing off:
Some of us are lucky. Some of us make it out alive. But I guess we're all unlucky to begin with, being assigned to this hell-hole. Maybe it's better to die. Maybe it's better not to have to live with these memories. But I hope I'm unlucky, 'cause I never liked funerals.