"Well this was a good idea," Sergeant Vanderburg muttered to himself. Three hours since the rest of the platoon had headed back to base and he had found himself a concealed fissure in the rock slope than ran down to the petrusite mining facility. It had begun to snow and there hadn't been any movement within the complex during his watch. He sat, still and crouched, amongst the sharp edges of rock and gathered himself a thin white layer. His plan had been to wait until visibility became bad enough that he could no longer see the decaying structures anymore, or more importantly that no enemy in the facility could see him. The snow was a good start and he hoped it would bring with it the lower-lying cloud that would condense further and spread out into fog. He checked his watch - the cold air seized the opportunity of new exposed skin - if he hoped to get back to the FOB before darkness fell he would have to make his move within two hours or so. He performed mental exercises to stay alert. Counting mostly. Windows, Helghast bodies, snowflakes that landed on his nose. Anything to take away the monotony of staring through a monocular for the enemy movement he had convinced himself was never going to materialise.
After some time, the fog rolled in from the surrounding hillsides and crept amongst rocks toward the demolished buildings. It first gave them a hazy backdrop before it appeared to slowly swallow and obscure them from view. Only once the fog had fully settled itself into the glacial valley did Vanderburg haul himself out of his hiding place with cold, stiff muscles and let out a short groan of exertion. He searched his combat vest for the remains of the ration he had taken with him that day and ripped open the packaging on a high-energy, military-grade poundcake. It had the taste and texture of bread left out in stale air for a day but after three months of nothing else, you can pretend anything is a banquet. He held the cake and wrapper in his teeth whilst he tried to get the blood flowing again; swung his arms above his head and gently shifted his weight back and forth between his boots. Once his feet had gotten used to the idea of walking again and there was nothing left to eat but crumbs in his beard he prepared for the long slog 'home'. He pulled his scarf up over his facial hair and nose and his hood as far down as it would allow. Sleeves were tucked into gloves and trouser legs into boots - no opening could be left open for the cold air to make its entrance. A weapon and equipment check, safety on and a round in the chamber of his M82. But yet, he didn't start walking.
Instead he looked out into the fog toward the mining complex, its rubble and half-standing walls like dark, damp patches in the air and knew this was a chance to gather intelligence. His natural desire for self-preservation was outweighed by his curiosity. "What the hell," he said quietly to himself, "I've got time to spare." The snow and dust crunched underfoot as he made his way slowly down to an area he had retreated from only a few hours earlier. The flakes had increased in size, without the wind they fell steadily downward and gave the lumps of concrete a fresh dusting. The artillery had shaken up the rubble and fresh collapses were occasionally reaching the sergeant's ears. They would cause him to stop dead in his tracks and scan the surrounding area. The other difference between this and his last visit to the area were the Helghast corpses. Their bodies broken and slumped into uncomfortable positions, crimson light shone no more from their eyes. The sergeant heightened his guard as he found the bodies more frequently and with fresher blood, frozen solid in the fresh snow. As he walked, he swung his view back and forth through one hundred and eighty degrees and his rifle trailed loosely behind his line of sight. His weapon was hot; round in the chamber and safety off. Every so often he would do a full, circular sweep of his surroundings and walked backwards as he made sure he was not being followed.
He found a corpse with a different insignia to others on its helmet which he recognised as designating an officer. From a distance and partially outlined by snow, he would have been forgiven for thinking the officer had been taking a quick breather, the body lay on its right side with the head rested gently on a small rock, but the closer he got stepped toward it, the more of the truth revealed itself. Safety back on and his rifle slung, Vanderburg knelt next to the dead Helghast. The right side of the helmet was smashed at the point of contact with the rock and the arms weren't in a natural position. The left was stretched out behind the body and rested on the limits of the elbow joint. The other was half trapped beneath the body and twisted just a little too far, broken from the fall. Vanderburg turned the corpse onto its back with a shove to the left shoulder and there came the sound of cracks as ice formed between plates of armour was cracked and separated. The amour itself was a mess, the corpse's chest torn up and riddled with fleshettes from one of the beehive rounds. There was crusty, frozen blood where the vest was punctured deeply by the steel darts.
The body was stiff right through thanks to a mix of the biting cold and rigor mortis and the sergeant struggled to check the pockets and pouches of the uniform. Maps, a personal letter, an amount of useless ammunition (a different calibre to that of his M82) and a sealed envelope. Unable to read the Helghan alphabet, Vanderburg pocketed this along with the maps and returned the personal letter to where he found it.
A sound? An echo. The sergeant stopped dead on one knee and slowly reached for his weapon whilst staring at the dead officer. When he had hold of the rifle's grip without a bullet in his head, he carefully clicked off the safety. The sound played out again but he was ready for it this time and heard it as a footstep, laboured on loose rubble and it was followed by the sound of a person collapsing echoed indoors. He scanned around him for surviving structures, peering through the thick fog and two buildings loomed at his ten and eleven o'clock some twenty metres apart and fifty metres out from his position. He didn't move at first, worried of eyes watching from the fog and tried to make out windows and any other vantage points. Their came the hollow thud of echoed footsteps, they sounded forced and staggered. Couldn't make out which building they came from.
"Now or never eh?" he whispered to himself, to the dead Helghast at his feet. He sprinted to the closer building, careful not to kick any rubble or make any more noise than the crunching of snow and dust underfoot. There was no fear, he had accepted long ago the idea of being shot at any second and if anything he was always safer when moving. He reached the nearest corner of the building and backed against it, catching his breath. The cold air stung his throat and he stifled the urge to cough violently. He peered around the corner and half-expected a bullet to take out a chunk of concrete in front of his nose. A sigh of relief and he moved toward a ground floor entrance, careful to duck under windows and other holes from varied ordnance. He stopped at the near side of the entrance and a took number of deep breaths.
One foot inside the doorway. Eyes on the far right corner, far left and no movement in his peripheral vision. Building was clear. The stairs up to the first floor were laid flat on the ground like a jagged, metallic set of teeth that had separated from the roof. Vanderburg silently tread across the floor to a window on the right hand wall, weapon poised and jerking between two extremes of his narrow arc of vision. Edge of the window, with his weapon pointed to the floor the sergeant looked out toward the other building. Through the fog he could make out displaced snow that lead into a hole punctured in wall by a grenade. "Gotcha," Vanderburg smiled to himself and checked the windows of the upper floor before he quietly retraced his steps outside. He stopped at the corner before the space between the structures, peered, checked and then followed the recent trail of footprints that had been dragged through the snow. A bloody hand-print added to the scorch marks around the entrance and he took a deep breath once more as he stepped inside.
Not so simple this time. Two rows of five pillars ran the length of the floor, each more than wide enough to conceal a man and pockmarked with bullet-holes and shrapnel - the scars on some were deep enough to reveal the steel reinforcements. The sergeant hugged the wall to his right, sidestepped his way to the near corner and silently prowled down the length of the room. He looked out across the floor at a forty-five degree angle to his movement and his eyes darted left as he passed each pillar. First, clear. Second, clear. He paused briefly as his ear picked up heavy, mask-assisted breathing and continued. Third, clear. Fourth set, far pillar, not clear.
Ten metres away, the Helghast was slumped, back against the pillar and looked over his right shoulder at Sergeant Vanderburg. The breathing was erratic, laboured and the mask couldn't have been helping. His right boot slid as he tried to get some footing and steady himself to get up but the other leg, lame and useless, held him down. The left arm was stretched over his body and held a pistol at the ISA marine. It rose and fell with the breathing but jerked quickly from side to side from the strain of the uncomfortable position. The right hand held tightly onto his chest and blood seeped through the fingers.
Vanderburg had his rifle's stock tight in his shoulder and the Helghast helmet in the sight, "Drop the gun, eh?"
"Or else what?" the metallic, English accent was barked back and the pistol shook with each syllable.
"Look at you shaking all over the place," Vanderburg quipped, taking a chance with mockery, "You're bosbefok man; shell-shocked. You'll shoot, miss and then I will kill you." He slowly moved toward the injured Helghast, whose helmet and visor grew larger in his sights.
"Stay back!" the voice cracked with panic and the sergeant stopped his movement. He kept the rifle in his shoulder with his right hand on the grip and with his left lowered his scarf and pulled back his hood. The blonde hair was a matted mess on his head and the beard was a wire-brush tangle. "I mean it! I'll pull the trigger!" The marine edged ever closer once more until he could have reached out and touched the pistol, all the while the Helghast threatened and blustered.
"Here is what is going to happen," Vanderburg's blue eyes didn't break contact with the Helghast, "I am going to take hold of the gun by the barrel. First, you'll take your finger off the trigger then let go completely." And despite constant, verbal protests to the opposite that is exactly what the Helghast grunt did. Once he had the pistol the sergeant slung his rifle, removed the cylindrical magazine from below the barrel and ejected the round from the chamber. He pocketed the magazine, picked up the round and held it in one hand. The now useless side-arm was handed back to grunt, who threw it off to a dark corner in disgust.
"You dare mock me?" the Helghast winced at the pain the throw caused in his chest.
"I dare," Vanderburg lowered to his haunches, "Level with me; you're scared shitless. How old are you kid?" The helmet twitched in his direction at the last utterance and grunt's free hand clenched into a fist. There was too long a pause before the Helghast's reply that gave the sergeant his answer.
"Old enough to kill you!"
"And yet," the marine held his arms out to his sides, palms upward, "Here I am."
The young grunt's head slumped and he took his hand from his chest to look at the blood that webbed between his fingers, "I'm a goner. You might as well kill me, mate."
"I'm not your mate," Vanderburg grinned and let out a short snort of laughter, "And you are going to die but I'm not going to kill you." There was a long pause between the two soldiers as the sergeant let this brief vision of the future sink in. The Helghast put his right hand back on his chest, a finger filling the hole in a dam, and started beating his left fist on the concrete floor. The dull thuds echoed softly against the walls but the cry on anguish he let out bounced numerous times.
"Nineteen," he muttered after he regained some composure, his anger had dissipated with something that resembled pride in its place.
"I could probably have guessed."
"My name-" the grunt had a short coughing fit and wheezed within the mask, "My name is-"
"Your name doesn't matter," the grin had gone and the blue eyes seem to stare straight through the Helghast into the concrete pillar, "Who your father was? Doesn't matter. Visari's words? Don't matter. All the things you thought mattered? Right now, here, none of it matters because in a few hours, when the sun goes down, you will freeze to death." The eyes focused back onto the red lenses for those last five words and the young soldier knew that he meant it.
"So shoot me," it was nothing more than a whisper, almost a plea.
"No," Vanderburg was incredulous, amazed that a 'Hig' would resort so quickly to this.
"Kill me so that I die with honour at the hands of my sworn enemy," the young man tried to straighten himself up, make this sound as regal as was possible.
"A letter will be sent home to your mother saying just that, don't you worry," Vanderburg knew he'd already gone too far. Why not just go all the way? Right over the edge. Perhaps he'd never get another opportunity like this, a chance to tell a Helghast what he really saw the score between them as being. This... boy would now bear the brunt of Sergeant Vanderburg's evangelic apathy toward an entire race of people. He knelt there, staring at an artificial face - teenager hidden behind the façade of a soldier.
"I will have died doing what I was chosen to do!" words were blurted now, the original fervour had returned but it no longer rang as true, "I don't fear it."
"Exactly!" the sergeant was excited, exuberant at the chance to discuss their differences, "You were chosen and told you were a soldier."
"I was chosen," their came a singly, dry laugh from the mask, "You are just Vektan Army scum!"
"Army?" Vanderburg smirked, "Shit. I'm a marine but I can forgive you not knowing the difference. And no, I wasn't chosen. But you really have to wonder what sort of man chooses to put himself in a situation like this."
"Why are you here then if you had the choice?"
"Because here I get paid to do the same things that would land me in prison back on Vekta," he scratched his beard.
The grunt almost laughed, "I don't think you're getting paid just now."
The sergeant was speechless for a moment, "Gotta admit, you got me there."
A realisation from the young Helghast, "You enjoy this. You get a kick out of it."
"Ha!" Vanderburg's mind turned to Walker, "A kid in my squad accused me of the same thing only yesterday. You remind me of him eh?"
"And?"
"And I nearly floored the poor bugger," he laughed as he remembered, "Told him I didn't enjoy all this, lied to his face."
"Why lie to him?"
"He looks up to me, stupid kid. But you? Dead men deserve the truth." Another pause as the wind outside began to pick up, a resumption of Helghan's usual weather conditions. Snowflakes blew in through the windows and floated between them for a moment. "And as much I would enjoy putting a bullet in your skull, I know that leaving you here would be worse."
"Please," the Helghast pleaded with him.
"Forget it . You are going to die and you are going to be alone when it happens," the marine ran a hand through his hair and then searched his pockets for a smoke - perhaps the rarest resource on Helghan, "No cause and no comrades by your side. They already left you." He smiled as he put the cigarette to his lips and patted around his vest for a light.
"They're coming back!"
"Would you?" he let out a long sigh as he realised he had no lighter and the cigarette was carefully stowed away once more.
The Helghast was resorting to type now and shook with rage inside his uniform, "You'll die here! You'll never make it off Helghan! No ISA will survive!"
Vanderburg nodded, "No doubt about that. But we'll all outlive you, I promise you that much, eh." He checked his watch, got up to his feet and swung his rifle back into his hands.
"No! No! Wait! Please!" the Helghast reached with both hands to his neck and feverishly removed his helmet and mask. He looked younger than his supposed nineteen years and was fortunate to have retained a full head of short, black hair. His eyes were red with tears and he had only the beginnings of facial hair. Vanderburg was unaffected by his youthful appearance and turned to leave him to his fate. The Helghast dove at the marine, his right hand smeared blood on the ankle of the ISA uniform, "Don't leave me here! I beg of you! Show mercy!"
"Mercy?" Vanderburg shook off the boy from his legs and strode past the rows of concrete pillars toward the grenade-formed hole in the wall, "You just don't get it." He stopped just before exposure to the elements and pulled up his scarf and down his hood. He considered taking one last look at the Helghast who sobbed and bled out on the floor behind him, but didn't and wandered out into the newly hostile elements. Soon the fog and wind and snow had swallowed the building once more behind him and the grunt he left to die faded with it. Out of the mining facility he trudged and over the long-hardened lava flow back toward base.
Quick thanks to Voccio who suggested this chapter follow Sergeant Vanderburg instead of sticking with Walker as it had been in the other chapters. But I think this worked out well and we all get to know something about the sergeant that others don't - namely that he is something of a psychopath. I don't think I have ever re-written something as many times as the dialogue in this chapter. The first time around he killed the Helghast to put him out of his misery. Of course it could still be better, but there came a point where I had to actually post it instead of rewriting it for eternity.