Mullen wished for peace.
In the grey choking smog, Mullen lay in the trench and wished for it again. He wheezed scratchily as he took in another breath of the foul air. He leaned against the jagged sides of the trench and rested his rifle on the lip of it, careful to keep his finger out of the trigger guard.
There used to be a tree, albeit a dead and leafless one, standing over Mullen's nest. It sheltered him from the sweltering midday heat the planet M.923.
Until an artillery shell blew it to pieces.
Mullen counted himself lucky for leaving that incident behind him with nothing more than a few scars.
The field in front was a vast expanse of emptiness. Empty of life. Along it littered hundreds of burnt, bled and ripped open carcasses of the alien scum. An alien limb, with a sickle like claw protruded into the sky, a grim testimony to the hard fighting. Here and there, a charred green flak jacket showed through the blood, indicating a dead human soldier, lying unceremoniously on the field, left to rot.
The cramped space of the trench had been Mullen home for more than three months. Three months before, it was the massive troop carrier gliding through space. Before that, the training planet of M.138.
And before that, Cadia.
He looked up and down the long trench. In them, stood, lay and leaned the men of the Cadian XIVth Regiment. All grim and stoic men who wore the same dog-faced determination since the day they arrived. Despite all the fighting in the past months, despite all the random deaths, despite the burning and stinging sensation as the chemically polluted air drifted around them.
All in a day's work to them.
Mullen could not understand what made his fellow men endure, what made them immune. On more than one occasion, he had ducked beneath the lip of the trench, never to get up until the battle had ended. In the chaos and confusion, the Cadians simply assumed that he was ducking to reload, or was injured and trying to stem a bleeding wound.
Mullen knew they were all wrong. In his fetal position, he would tremble in terror, eyes wide and eyes closed. He would flinch at every explosion, every wail of pain, every roar of fury. He would do this at the bottom of the trench as the others fought and died around him.
He was a freak occurrence in Cadia's long history of producing legions of brave, staunch soldiers.
Mullen dared not tell any of his friends of his barely controllable terror. They would be disgusted at his deserter like attitude. For all he knew, they might even report him to a Commissar to have him disciplined.
Or executed on the spot.
Klaxons started wailing somewhere down the trench.
They were back.
The dull, lax atmosphere of the trench burst into a flurry of activity. Cadians woke one another up, reloaded rifles, fixed bayonets, swore, encouraged, scrambled into positions and scanned the fields.
Above, thunder roared as the artillery flung their shells at the still unseen aliens. The massive projectiles shrieked over the Cadians' heads, joining in the high-pitched cacophony of the klaxons.
Explosions rocked the ground as the shells made their mark on the field. The mass of aliens were still not seen, but their many stomping limbs and screeches had traveled to the trench already.
Mullen was an island of inactivity amongst this rolling sea of action. He cringed in silent terror as he tried to lift up his rifle. His weak, trembling arms could not support the weight, and the rifle clattered to the floor of the trench. Mullen got down on all fours desperately to retrieve it. He grabbed it, and after some difficulty, managed to coax enough strength out of his legs to lift him back up onto the lip of the trench.
He did not budge when saw the massive mass of claws, fangs and fleshy armor. He could see their beastly eyes filled with carnivorous fury, and he froze as he stared further into them. A swirling storm of alien emotions boiled in them. But one stood out.
The bestial look when going in for the kill.
He did not move as the Cadians released a hail of incandescent projectiles. Immediately, the smell of burnt air, of charred flesh and of spilled blood smashed into Mullen's nostrils.
Neither did he move as the men around him scrambled to avoid the incoming projectile of bio-plasma.
Mullen was flung out of the trench and landed back inside. He blinked his eyes in silent acknowledgement of the fact that he was hit. The world around was silent and muffled. To him, the high pitched snap of the Cadians' lasrifles traveled no further than from the muzzles.
An nearby explosion ripped open the soil, flinging debris into the air.
He could not feel the dust as they showered down onto his mutilated and exposed face.
Mullen looked further up and saw the two local suns of the planet M.923. Through his blurred and bleeding eyes, they resembled one huge, gentle beam of light radiating over him.
He raised his hand to touch it. A bloody stump appeared before him, and he realized that his hand was blown off.
Mullen laughed in silent mirth at the bizarre macrebare oddness of it.
His arm collapsed and Mullen finally found his peace.