Darkness…
The black that ever haunted him in the deep recesses of his mind. The gnawing fear. The loss of the light. It didn't spark fear into him... No. It created a started something else. The rush for battle.
Hollowed sounds Plasma rifles whines. Detonations of dozens of grenades. The sputter of hundreds of rifles.
Of horrid screams of the fallen asking for their god or someone to save them from the agony of death.
That was not his fear, and would never be.
Filtered air containing the smell of blood, sweat and tears. He had felt all but the latter. Blood and sweat, he did had felt too many times. Tears... had never come.
Hands against the rubble filled ground.
It had done its worse... but like all foes before him. It had failed.
"Chief? You reading me?"
A voice, a male voice. A friend. A brother.
Yet he did not reply. The hooved foot of an all too familiar enemy loomed over him.
Death he did not fear.
The beeping. The suit coming to life, becoming part of him once again, becoming his greatest strength... And his greatest weakness. His hope. His only chance for victory, reducing his fear. His only fear. The one fear which would only escape through the blessing called death.
The fear to lose.
A fear that he would not let come true.
The sphere, the cold gray metallic sphere gripping in his hands.
The first and the last. But I will not fail .
The loud whine. And the hand, like a bolt of lightning applying the sphere to the hoof. A surprised growl. The leap upward. Reflexes that moved him away from the detonation behind the wall. The light. Then nothing. Silence.
A minor victory in a war full of losses. His fear coming true.
He wouldn't let it come true.
He would fight.
He would win.