V. Reveille
The sound of thunder awakens me. The cannons rumble, like stones skipping across a pond--or heads being blown to oblivion. Oblivion is a place, I, thankfully, have avoided thus far. I can only hope I can avoid it now. "Come on, damn it!" I kick the kid, waking him, no doubt from dreams of his long-lost sweetie. I pity him for that...mine gave up on me after three years in the service. He groans, but he grasps his weapon and stands, though shakily. Roars and screeches and cries of death fill the air, and our tent is ripped from the ground, throwing us from side to side as we hurdle through the air. A high-pitched scream comes from the boy's mouth, and I shake my head. I had placed the demo charge last night, with the timer attached to my wrist, intending to launch us to the front lines during the night. Unfortunately, the plan didn't work out, so I activated it once the boy was fully awake, so his panic would be…sensible.
We land.
The boy falls on me, still wailing like a horny girl, while I load my gun and unzip the tent flap. Smoke is the first thing I see. It is the only thing I see, save the blood flowing across the ashen ground. I step out, and my foot treads upon a red, severed ear. It squishes under my boot. I sigh, because now my artificial leg is stained with blood not my own. "Another day of oiling for that," I say to myself. Such is the bread of an every day life in the corps.
A loud screech comes from overhead, and the giant flying corpse of a Mutalisk crushes our tent, merely seconds after the kid steps out. He's pale now. I gesture to him to follow me, raise my gun, and charge to the front lines. It is worse than I feared.
Siege tanks open fire, spraying 'ling blood and guts across the floor. Echoes of their cries circle throughout the battlefield, and Firebats move to crush the remaining forces, setting them alight with their massive flamethrowers. Doomsday is come. Hordes of surging, pulsing, drooling, bloody Hydralisks round the bend around the mountains and over the hills of glory. I open fire, pouring lead into the body of one. Its blood spills onto the ground in a continuous flow from the cadaver, and I use its shell as a minor defense against the onslaught. It smells absolutely rancid. The kid won't even approach, and I shoot a 'ling sneaking up behind him to grab his attention. He cries in frustration, his suit covered in scarlet, and wades through the animal's intestines to get to me. A marine in front of us charges ahead, and gets his genitals blown off by a passing Wraith. He falls to his knees, sobbing, as blood pours from his bleeding crotch, his penis in four pieces at his feet. He picks up the remnant of one of his testicles, but the bloody semen runs through his fingers and drips to the ground, mingling with the glob of flesh that once protected it. I look away out of decency.
"Killed by friendly fire" is a contradiction in terms.
The boy vomits uncontrollably onto his lap, and I push it away as it slides to me. I pull a tooth from the Hydralisk we desecrated and hand it to him. "Your first Medal of Honor." I say. "Wear it well." He takes it. His hand is trembling. He takes a sliver of the gum membrane and ties it around his neck, a testament to this day. Then we both stand.
He holds his gun like a vet. Behind my sun-visor, I smile, and begin to run forward. I hear his footsteps crunching behind mine on the wasteland, and I look through the sights to target the nearest Zerg. It explodes in a meaty ball of flesh and bone. I clean my visor off and turn to the next. A hail of lead is bored into its skull, and it falls down, bleeding profusely from gaping holes in its cerebrum. I kick it aside and advance. The kid is still trailing behind, but he has the guts to pull the trigger now. He butchers one 'ling so bad he vomits afterwards, but like a true soldier, continues the war. All around us, the bunkers burn. Missile turrets unleash volley after volley into the black skies. I can hardly believe it is morning. A Muta swoops low, avoiding several rounds of fire until finally it catches a missile right in the forehead. A group of Firebats to my left brutalize a Lurker, burrowed near the entrance to one of the Barracks. Several Valkyries screech overhead, raining missile after missile upon countless Overlords, most of which are transporting numerous Zerg over mountains. "They must be bringing forces from all the way across the globe," the kid muses. I turn and push him to the side, firing my Gauss the whole way, and when he turns, he sees a dead Hydra. "Déjà vu?" I ask. He simply stares. I chuckle heartily and aim my rifle to the skies, pulling the trigger on a passing Overlord. The 'lings that wanted to drop down on us meet a grisly fate, and I feel corpses strike my armor as they fall. "Keep moving," I say. "We need to reinforce the outer zones." He nods, and as he does so one of his arms slides off. He screams, loudly, but like a man this time, and kneels on the ground, exposing the Hydra that had stealthily came up behind him. I casually rip it to pieces with my rifle, but not before it gets another shot off. A needle spine catches me in the shoulder, and before it can poison me I tear it out. It is only a graze; the armor took the majority of the blow. I turn to the kid.
He lies on the ground, sobbing, clutching the bloody stump that was his left arm. Blood flows from the wound, and the bone sticks raggedly out from severed flesh. "Man," I say, biting my lip, "They got you hella good." I put a finger to my ear. "Medic to Barracks 13T2. Bring escort. Repeat, bring escort." I sign off before I hear the "Copy that!" of the control room. Looking up, I discover that the Zerg have been pressing their advantage: strength in numbers. After bringing up my battle report map on my headset, I learn that the entire east flank has been decimated, and the northern borders have been breached. To the west, as of yet, only air assaults are reported. And the south—well, that's where I am.
Three marines and a medic trot up to my position. "Holy fuck…" One mutters. The medic bends over the kid, who has faded to a dull simper. I turn to my comrades-in-arms. "What news from the battlefield?"
The one who spoke up speaks again. "It's all fucked up. They caught east completely off guard. Heavy casualties, but the fleet is sending more troops down in the next ten or fifteen minutes."
A second pokes a corpse on the ground. It oozes red blood, and the man steps back. "Shit. You're the only ones we could find over here."
"Really?" I ask. "There's no one left?"
"Hell no! They all died in the first wave." The first says.
"Fuck…" I whisper to myself. "How long can we hold 'em off?"
"Here?" The third marine says, skeptically. "Looks like you already lost."
"Not while I'm still alive," I say. I rest my gun on my shoulder and pull up my visor to light a cigarette. The first one steps back. He realizes for the first time that I'm not his age—or relatively close. I didn't even get a chance to shave this morning, so my whiskers must make me look sixty. Before he can make some snide remark, however, the medic stands. She looks grim. "If we don't get him to the command center in about five minutes, he's fucked."
I shrug. "You got here faster."
She points. "That was before that happened." I look.
Four crashed dropships, alit with flames and burning humans, lie in our way. Screams echo from the wreckage. One of the engines topples in on itself, and there is a large explosion. "Can't we just go around?" I ask.
"It's pure canyon to the right and the Zerg control the left." She says. "We won't make it."
I sigh, and without hesitation, point my gun at the kid's face. "Nice knowing you, kid—" I realize I don't know his name. He smiles. "Poul." He says, and then coughs up a huge ball of phlegm and blood.
I cock my gun. "Poul."