"Well, looks like we're here now," I said to him as we left the transport vehicle behind us.
"Right," he replied somewhat sombrely. The war was getting to him like it was the others.
"Hey, we'll be home soon," I reminded.
He sighed. "We've been gone almost six weeks now. You really think we're gonna make it back? We're expendable. I'm starting to think they're trying to get us killed off by now."
I punched him in the arm. "Lighten up." He punched me back. I hit him again. We both started laughing. We barely managed to pull ourselves together before the bombs dropped.
We dived for cover. I heard screaming somewhere. Thank god we weren't in a civilian-populated area. The buildings, once beautiful structures in all their glory, had long since collapsed under the constant bombardment of war. I assessed the new damage. Three of our soldiers dead. A few others still down that we're moving a bit. I assumed help had already been summoned and attempted to drag my cowering compatriot out from under his cover.
"Hey, it's over now. You can come out."
"It's not over. It'll never end."
"Yes it will. It's almost over. You know how I can tell?"
"How?"
"There was only one bomber this time. We're gonna make it. Just come out."
He crawled out from behind his rock. Not for the first time, I began to wonder if what I was telling him had even an element of truth to it. War had been raging for some three years at least. But... Yeah. It had to be ending. The one bomber thing wasn't a lie. I hugged him. No one was watching. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do. He was still shaking. He's not good with loud noises anymore. He took a minute to calm down, then detached himself from my grip and ran off to asses damage elsewhere. He's still good at that. When my device went off with our next lot of instructions, he took a few minutes to find. I eventually stumbled upon him trying to pick up a mangy looking tooka kitten in some rubble. It didn't look happy. He did catch it though. He's good with animals. After he had calmed it down, I had to prise him off it to get him to listen.
"Commanding officer issued orders. Sector B-12, sweep. We're gonna check for refugees and mines."
"Both? You'd think if there's refugees, they would've set off the mines already."
I rolled my eyes. Morbid humor was one way to cope. "Come on, we move out in five."
He watched his kitten run off into the rubble again and stood up. He took a few steps and leaned on the remains of what must've been a support structure.
"You still walk funny," I teased. I wasn't joking. He hadn't been quite the same since the plantation incident.
"Do not," he retorted.
"Do too."
"Doesn't mean I can't still beat you."
"You're on."
We took off running. In the moment, I almost forgot that we were at war. For a minute, all seemed peaceful.
I had no idea what was about to go down.