Three
A Military Science-Fiction One Shot
Doran glanced at the ammo counter on the top of his rifle.
3/50.
Three charges for three enemies. He could do it. He could. Doran's breath was hot and heavy inside his helmet, the filters working overtime to prevent his visor from steaming up. He stayed low to the rock he had found shortly after his last remaining squad mate had been shot in the back running for the same cover. Doran had dove into the sand and scrambled for it, the sand rising in great plumes as energy bolts scorched the soft sand into glass. He could hear the three enemies creeping closer, two where on his left and one on his right. He had to try. He had to.
Doran scurried to the right side and rose his rifle in hastily, he pulled the trigger twice. Two enemies were splattered with energy bolts, their suits overloading and paralysing them on the spot. He felt a sudden surge in his own suit and collapsed into the sound. A klaxon sounded and his sergeant announced, 'Blue side, victorious!'
Doran felt his suit relinquish him, though the soreness in his muscles would last the day and a bit longer. He stood, covered in sand, and was slapped across the back. 'Shame, you almost had us too,' Keane laughed, his helmet painted blue.
'You shot me in the back? My best friend shot me in the back,' Doran had hoped Keane was one of the ones he'd managed to down at the end.
'Course,' Keane shrugged. 'Gotta do what you gotta do, easy when I imagine you as one of our grey scaled foes.' He removed his helmet, 'Besides, I have a streak to maintain here, almost breaking the record of fourteen wins in a row.'
'Thanks for thinking of an unthinking alien monster. What was this one?' Doran asked. He wanted Keane to break the record, but he'd prefer to be on his team so he could at least get a win. Doran was on a ten game lose streak, not the worst but enough to make him question why he had signed up to begin with.
'Twelfth win in a row. But we're gonna have to wait, word is upstairs have a job for us to do somewhere far, far away,' Keane glanced up at the cerulean sky spotted with wispy clouds. His cheeks were pock marked from some obscure disease he had had as a child.
'Oh?' Doran let out the sound involuntarily, it was the first he was hearing about a mission. The Helspont Regiment hadn't seen real action in months on account of their distance from the front lines. Something must have changed, something big. Helspont was a hub for garolium production and refinement, fuel for starcruisers that if made properly could last for decades, if made poorly ran the risk of implosion. A delicate business, one you didn't want to do with the threat of invasion looming overhead.
'Yeah, sergeant said the colonel and some top brass are coming by to brief us today or tomorrow. Said to be a big deal. Hope it isn't too big, I got my record to consider,' Keane laughed, slapped Doran on the back again. The two Doran had downed had composed themselves and Keane sprinted up to them, waving his practice rifle in the air, 'We won! Good job catching Doran's rounds, let me take him out.'
Doran let the trio's laughter wash over him as he watched the blues celebrate. The red paint on his helm faded, the game over, returning the metal to its usual matte grey finish. Cara strode up next to him, 'Better luck next time.' She smiled, her big brown eyes swallowing Doran whole. He smiled back wondering how he'd managed to land the prettiest girl in the regiment. Fraternisation rules had been suspended for reasons a peon like Doran was not privy, not that anyone cared if it meant the barracks could mix. 'Come on, let's grab dinner and then go out to the Lookout. We haven't been alone in weeks,' Cara stretched onto her toes to kiss Doran's cheek.
'Keane says there is some big briefing tonight or tomorrow.'
'Oh it won't be anything serious, besides would you rather be in a stuffy room with that lot,' she nodded to Keane and the other victorious blues. 'Or alone with me in the dark?' she paused long enough for Doran to drink her in. 'See you there,' Cara set off jogging back to base.
Doran watched her cross the sand in her exo-suit, close fitting enough to show her figure but bulky enough to keep it mysterious, he wondered if the engineers had done it on purpose with the latest builds after the regiments became partially mixed sex.
'Doran! Let's get back, I don't want to miss out on any grub this time,' Keane yelled across the sand.
Doran ate dinner without tasting it, his eyes were scanning the mess hall for new faces. Briefings, important ones, always meant new faces at dinner. Didn't matter which hall for which unit, new faces always appeared before big news. He had clocked two unfamiliar faces, both men, both too old to be enlisted soldiers, but neither wore uniforms or anything denoting a rank. Neither looked civilian but either way new faces meant Keane was right, something big was coming.
Keane sat down opposite with two bowls of prawns, 'Got here in time before they all went. You know how rare these things are out here,' he held a prawn up by its pink tail. He didn't wait for Doran to give him an answer. 'Ship 'em in from Unda apparently,' the chewed up prawn flashed behind his teeth between words.
'That's thirteen light years away, surely there's prawn farms closer,' Doran shoved another tasteless spoon of sustenance into his mouth.
'I only tell you what I hear, who knows what's true anymore.'
'I'll drink to that,' Rel raised his cup of water. 'Sarge doesn't tell us anything, Colonel's no better, news is a waste of time with all those blowhards. Who knows what's going on out in the great beyond. Least we got it good down here, eating well, fighting with practice rifles. Not like those poor saps on the frontline getting vaporised, eaten, torn limb from limb, and whatever else the enemy does to a man.'
Doran smiled and nodded at Rel, not that he would have noticed. He'd learned in his first week Rel was a talker not a listener and not really one to use his eyes all that much.
'To not knowing a damn thing,' Keane laughed, raising his already empty steel cup.
The tannoy crackled, 'This is Sergeant Acsius. All personnel are to report to Briefing Room 1 at 1900 hours. Attendance is mandatory. That is all.'
'Told ya,' Keane jabbed his fork, prawn skewered on three of its four prongs, at Doran. He munched his way through a kilo of crustacean.
Doran searched the vast hall for sign of Cara. Soldiers and administrators, even the cooks and cleaners, had reported to Briefing Room 1. The fold down chairs were full and people had started to fill the stairs of the auditorium. A horde occupied the galleries at the back where the light and sound techs where. Doran, dragged by Keane, was on the front row staring right at Seargent Acsius's boots. Beside him was the Colonel, dressed in ceremonial attire. Keane was right, something big was about to happen. 'Do you see Cara?'
'She'll be here. Probably struggling to see from behind some regular sized trooper,' Keane said, his eyes firmly on the stage three feet from his nose.
'Har har, Cara's short. Got a better joke?'
'Her height is enough of a joke.'
Doran flopped into his too small, poorly stuffed, fold down chair and examined the faces of the top brass on stage. Neither of the two old men he'd seen at dinner where there but there were plenty of star studded collars he didn't recognise, that meant star cruisers in orbit, the big capital ones that dictated space battles and coordinated planetary assaults. Doran began to aggressively tap his foot.
He checked the massive clock hanging over the stage, he was meant to be meeting Cara out on the Lookout now. Had she gone anyway, even with a mandatory briefing? She wasn't reckless, at least Doran didn't think so but maybe she knew something like Keane did. Gossip spread through the barracks like a flu, uncontrollable and unquenchable in its search for new victims. Doran had missed something, Cara should have told him what she knew then at least he could have made a decision about it. No, he was a soldier, he wasn't the one to make decisions, not until he was promoted at least.
Colonel Fresia rose to his feet and approached the lone podium, the crest of the Helspont Regiment polished to a fine sheen. 'Good evening,' he growled. 'As I'm sure some of you are aware there have been developments in the war against the Zok'To'khan, developments that have cost us dearly. A dozen worlds overrun in the last month alone. A new weapon we are told but no one is certain. That is where you come in, the fine men and women of the Helspont Regiment. Arch-General Vanius will explain further,' the middle-aged man with cigarette lines like canyons in his top lip stepped back.
'Thank you, Colonel Fresia,' Arch-General Vanius took to the podium, his eyes darkened by a stern brow as he scanned the auditorium. 'I will not sugar coat what I say, we are in deep trouble. The worst since the war started, the casualties in the last month have dwarfed those of the last three years combined. When planets fall to the Zok'To'Khan nothing survives, not the birds of the sky nor the fish of the sea and certainly not the humans who make it their home. Until last month the front lines were static, the war conducted in space between gargantuan starships that rarely received enough damage to be destroyed. Plenty had been sent back to the dockyards to be repaired but few had been destroyed, crew killed, over the course of the war. This has changed, the Zok'To'Khan ravage planets. Consume all organic matter and then strip mine the rest for anything useful. Once done they move onto the next one. Intel suggests the enemy engage in warfare continuously, we cannot confirm this as humans have never been through or to the other side of Zok'To'Khan space, but we have reason to believe they are at war at all times with all of their neighbours and have an active and passive state. We are now witnessing the active state for the first time since the start of the war, though even then the enemy did not devour planets and leave husks behind.' The colonel paused and pointed to a man in the front row with his hand up.
'Arch-General Vanius, sir, does this weapon, or whatever it is, of theirs effect ships too?'
'In a way, yes, though it is more difficult for them due to the nature of space warfare. Ships are infinitely smaller than planets, even our largest cruisers, and the weapon is not precise. You are going to suggest a thick defensive line and we have done that but we are losing that war of attrition. For every ship that is destroyed four are damaged and two of those beyond repair. We're running out of ships,' Arch-General Vanius's admission pained him, his expression suggesting he hadn't wanted to admit the facts.
'Then what are we meant to do?' a woman shouted from somewhere in the middle of the auditorium.
Doran peered round quick as he could but it wasn't Cara.
'There is an opportunity on the galactic east front, a break in the defensive line due to an anomalous star system. We believe it possible to slip a task force through this gap and penetrate deep into Zok'To'Khan space. We have identified a target planet where the weapon in question was likely developed. The Helspont Regiment will infiltrate and recover any and all intel regarding the weapon and anything else found at this military base of a planet. The fighting will be tough, there will be no reinforcements, once you've acquired the data you will evacuate by any means necessary. Questions?'
The arch-general's words suckered Doran worse than one of Keane's punches in close quarters combat training. Infiltrating Zok'To'Khan space without support, surely he didn't expect success. Others were clearly thinking the same. 'Sir, most of us have never seen active combat, are there not more elite units capable of this mission?' someone seated on the steps said. Doran couldn't find the speaker amidst the press of soldiers.
Arch-General Vanius raised his eyebrows and scratched his left one, 'That is why you have been selected for this mission. Veterancy across the military has plummeted, the bulk of our forces are exceptionally well trained recruits like yourselves, the elite units we do have are reserved for the most pressing missions.'
'Is this not pressing, sir?' Keane said.
'It's a matter of risk, or more honestly a matter of success.'
The room quietened as the arch-general's words froze the atmosphere. Doran chewed the inside of his mouth, 'We aren't expected to succeed,' he muttered. Those around him turned to glare at the one who had said out loud what they were all thinking. 'You were all thinking it,' he said, a bit louder.
'Then we will succeed,' Keane said. 'Show those paper pushes at Central Command how good the Helspont Regiment are!' he jumped to his feet and pumped the air.
Doran shimmied down in his chair, fearful of catching stray glances. The whole auditorium were watching Keane.
'Come on! We'll succeed! We have to if we want to survive and we all want to survive don't we?'
Murmurs of agreement rippled through the room thawing the arch-general's candour. Colonel Fresia looked quizzical from his seat, half standing, half sitting, as if contemplating whether to discipline his troops or let them continue.
'Nothing we say will change the arch-general's mind on who to send, if it is even his call to make, so all we can do is fight to survive,' Keane said. Some expressions lightened while others slid further into darkness.
Colonel Fresia rose, 'Thank you, lance-corporal.' Halting Keane's off the cuff speech before it caused damage to morale greater than the arch-general's admission. 'Specifics will be filed for you all in the usual places. Dismissed.'
Doran slunk out of the auditorium, Keane rabbiting about the upcoming battles but Doran had no energy for it, his friend's words turning to white noise in his ears, instead all he could think was Cara and how they'd likely die far away from home without ever having had the chance to make a life together.
'Do you think we'll make it?' Keane asked. He'd never asked before, his innate optimism had, seemingly, kept him going and that of a great deal of the Helspont Regiment. The man was famous and the officers had made their trepidation known, worried that the troops would listen to Keane, their source of strength, over them.
No, we won't, Doran thought. 'Yes,' Doran said.
Keane nodded and returned to his meal, 'Good good. If the enemy won't go near this system why do you think that is?'
Doran shrugged, 'I don't care. I figure if I know about it then it just gives me something else to fear and out here, far away from home, far away from Cara, I have enough to worry about.'
Keane nodded while he chewed.
Cara had been suspended from active duty for skipping the mandatory briefing. She had waited for Doran at the Lookout till the early hours of the morning and his surprise she wasn't angry with him just sad he was being sent on a suicide mission. He wished he'd skipped the briefing too, until he realised suspension could lead to dishonourable discharge and a ruined career, besides he liked being a soldier and now he was on route to certain death he felt at peace. If peace was a voice constantly screaming inside his head to turn back, go home, hide hide hide.
Peace is merely the absence of war, Doran remembered. Peace was stationary. War kinetic. War was energy. Peace inertia.
Though war involved an awful lot of nothing. Doran ate the same meal he had done for the prior three months aboard the OSS Caladbolg, then after he would go watch someone make a fool of themselves at the pool tables with a few beers, crash into his cot before getting up six hours later to do drills, a ten mile run round the ship, followed by more drills, and then weapon and armour maintenance, followed by more drills, with the same meal interspersed, potatoes, some simile of beef, and vegetables.
Keane scraped the last remnants of beef and potato from his plate as the ship wide broadcast system sounded a klaxon. 'None vital system shut down in progress, do not be alarmed this is a planned procedure,' a robotic woman's voice announced. 'All none essential tasks are to be postponed until told otherwise.'
'Here we go,' Doran said. The lights shut off and the faint emergency lighting came on. The hum of the kitchens vanished, as did the blow of the air conditioning, and they were plunged into stillness.
'This is Captain Targamas, we are approaching the crossing. See you on the other side.'
'What you gonna do with the down time?' Keane asked, setting his empty plate beneath Doran's.
'Sleep,' Doran said. He stood, left the plates for Keane to tidy up, and headed for his cot.
The corridors were sombre. Chatter to a minimum. Doran reached his cot, in a room of nine others, feeling he was headed to a funeral. Only no body had died, not yet anyway. He climbed to his bunk and drew the curtains and fished out the photo of Cara from under his pillow. Sleep was impossible with the chance of death. He didn't want to die in his sleep he realised, he wanted to face it awake and fighting. He smiled at the photo of Cara as she stared out from the Lookout near the barracks back on Helpsont. He wondered what she was doing, suspended from duty. Was she allowed to stay on the barracks or forced to return to her parents? He didn't know, there hadn't been time beyond sharing goodbyes and last minute kiss. Their final kiss. Would Command even know to send her a letter informing her of his death? It wouldn't matter, news would spread eventually. Doran kissed the photo and held it too his chest and found himself slipping into slumber.
Doran awoke to the captain's voice blaring over the ship wide broadcast, 'We have arrived in orbit above the target.' Doran sat bolt upright, hitting his head on the roof of his cot. He'd slept. He'd risked dying in his sleep. He threw his legs over the side and dropped down to the deck, three others were in the room with him. The photo of Cara dropped to the floor, he grabbed it and slid it into his pocket.
'All personnel report to your stations. I repeat all personnel report to your stations,' Captain Targamas ordered.
Doran sprinted out of his room and raced down to hangar bay nine.
Keane was already there, suited and booted, awaiting his rifle and ammunition. 'What kept you?'
'Sleep.'
'Surprised you could. Was an intense six hours, didn't realise it would be so quick,' the line shuffled forward.
'Did we get spotted?'
'We're here aren't we?'
'Guess not then.'
'Or it's a trap.'
'Don't say that.'
Keane shrugged, 'You were thinking it.'
'I was thinking of Cara.'
'You're always thinking of Cara.'
'Better than thinking of you,' Doran went and joined the line for his armoured suit.
*
Doran was strapped into the lander alongside Keane and twenty three others, not counting their commander and the pilots. He held his rifle in his hand, the first time he had held a fully primed weapon in years. He told himself it was the same as the practice ones but it wasn't. A bolt from his rifle would vaporise a man not in an armoured suit and burn a nasty hole in most metal, plastic, wood, and polymers. The practice one, on the other hand, merely gave an all body electric shock and the suits responded by seizing up to simulate death. On his right hip was a pistol. On his left a combat knife, a serrated blade the length of his forearm. Across his chest were spare ammo charges and a pair of grenades. Looking across the lander he saw everyone else with more or less the same set up, little was personalised, suits nor anything else. The ship stank of rookie. Exactly what Arch-General Vanius had wanted.
'Preparing to launch,' the pilot announced. The lander rumbled, the noise becoming deafening, the lights shut off, and Doran felt himself begin to float as the lander lifted off. At the same time hundreds of landers were doing the same thing, a fleet of speckles emerging from the underside of the OSS Caladbolg. The craft quaked as it shot through space and rushed into the atmosphere of the target planet. Doran felt his teeth shake in their sockets, he clenched his jaw but that only caused the shaking to spread to his eyes.
The lander had no windows, no sounds penetrated the thick, insulated walls, and the pilots were silent. Doran kept his eyes closed, thinking of Cara, allowing the rumbling of the ship to pervade his body.
The lander pulled up all of a sudden sending Doran's stomach up into his throat. Then they landed, the ramp began to lower, and the commander barked, 'Out! Out! Out!' he sprinted for the ramp to be the first on hostile soil.
Doran unclipped his suit from the seat and barrelled out the ramp and into the hostile alien world. The man in front of him was split in two by a bolt of blue energy. The man beside him lost his head to a green thread of light. The sky was aflame. A lander was embedded in the ground not thirty feet from him, the hull in flames. The OSS Caladbolg hung in orbit like a small moon. Energy weapons beamed through the air, rockets followed. Landers exploded before even having a chance to land, the flash of anti-air lasers appearing a millisecond later.
A fellow soldier slapped Doran on the back, 'THIS WAY!' he pointed with his rifle to a rocky outcropping where several others gathered round the commander.
Doran sprinted after the man, peering over his shoulder to check for Keane. He caught a glimpse of horizon, a jagged spectacle with a sickly yellow sky overhead. The ground was sand and pebbles, like the soil had been sucked of all its nutrients, there were no plants or wildlife, at least not living. The ground trembled as Doran reached the soldiers clustered about the outcropping. A mass of Zok'To'Khan were charging their position from the east.
'Commander I don't see a bunker, a city, buildings. I don't see anything,' Keane was nearest to the commander, how he'd gotten there so quick Doran didn't know but he was thankful he hadn't been killed immediately.
The commander, a man Doran only vaguely knew back on Helspont, stared at his digimap, 'It's meant to be here. A base, below the ground, but where's the entrance...' Sure enough the satellite imagery he was searching featured greenery, towns, cities, roads, it was a completely different planet.
'Well there isn't, those images are useless. Are we sure they are even of this planet?' Keane as shouting through the comms as the battle raged around them. A lander burst into a million shards of steel and flesh overhead, dousing the men in burning garolium. The worst of the blue fire burnt itself out in seconds but patches continued to burn fiercely around them, their suits shielding them from the heat. Doran slapped at a nest of flames on his wrist, sending the liquid to the ground but also spreading it to the back of his hand. It would burn itself out, he was sure of it.
'We have to get underground,' the commander looked to the few men he had around him. 'Find who you can and tell them to search for tunnels, holes, canyons, anything that goes down!'
'Yes, sir!' the chorus roared. The soldiers set off.
Doran pointed east, 'But sir!'
The commander's face went ashen as he looked up at the Zok'To'Khan descending on them. A sternness captured his expression, 'Find a hole, gunner.'
'Yes, sir,' Doran saluted and ran west.
'Doran!' Keane chased after him. 'Where you going?'
'Away from that,' he pointed to the aliens lopping towards them. Some had started firing, their weapons cumbersome and as long as a man was tall. Bolts of blue ripped through the air leaving streaks of steam and the smell of burnt hair. 'The commander is clearly shell shocked.'
A crater opened up beside them. Doran saw the blast in slow motion as the ground around him was pulverised and a wall of sand and grit shot up. He was thrown through the air, flipping head over heels, and slammed into the side of the lander. Keane was beside him. His visor flashed a small figure of himself flashing red around his thighs, his armour was compromised. He scuffled to his feet, retrieving his rifle from a few feet away and limped over to Keane, prone near the flat nosed cockpit of the lander.
Keane rolled over and groaned, shards of glass jabbing his shoulder. 'What did I hit?'
'The cockpit,' Doran offered his hand.
Keane took it and was lifted onto his feet, 'We need to go.'
Doran looked up to the cockpit to see the pilot spraying something over the cracked glass while the engines rumbled to life. 'They're leaving... they're leaving. Get in!' he ran to the back but the ramp was already up, the lander wobbling up into the air. 'Those bastards!' The flood of Zok'To'Khan overran a lander less than one hundred feet from Doran, the six limbed grey scaled beasts tearing it apart in a rage. Crimson lines highlighted each of their diamond scales, their eyes burned white. 'Never seen the enemy look like that before.'
'Me neither,' Keane said. 'We've only seen videos though,' he raised his rifle and opened fire. He scored a few lucky shots, taking down one and injuring another.
'Keane! We have to go!' Doran yanked at his friend's arm. He could see more landers descending to the west, clustering a quarter mile away. The regiment would form up there and then they could see about finding the base and hunting aliens. 'Come on!' a firm pull snapped Keane out of his bloodlust and the pair ran west.
*
Sergeant Acsius stood beside Colonel Fresia his knuckles needing a map of the local terrain laid atop a fold out table. 'This ain't right,' he muttered. 'Colonel, someone messed up.'
'No one messed up,' Colonel Fresia said. 'This is the Zok'To'Khan's doing, they ravaged their own world and led us into a trap... Organise a defensive perimeter, artillery on the corners. I need tanks down here, now!' he yelled the last into his comm.
Doran and Keane were in rank and file with their unit, the ones who had survived the descent at least. They awaited orders while the world burned around them. A med tent had been constructed close by and already men and women lay in the dirt outside, nursing wounds and waiting for beds that would never come. Landers formed a wall to the east with thousands of soldiers stationed atop them firing constantly into the sea of Zok'To'Khan that threatened. Heavy carriers were beginning to descend with tanks and motorised but Doran felt as if it was all a little late in the day, he'd watched two tanks get disintegrated in the sky for everyone one that landed for the last fifteen minutes. Where the anti-air was stationed he hadn't a clue but the Zok'To'Khan were good shots. He resisted the urge to think too hard about it all but one thing that was peculiar was the OSS Caladbolg had yet to be attacked, as if the enemy didn't have a ship in orbit. That didn't make sense.
Sergeant Acsius and Colonel Fresia tussled with what to do next. Doran couldn't make what either was saying over a tank that had fired up its engines preparing to head east. The sergeant marched over, 'We need to search for this underground facility but it'll just be you lot.'
Doran and Keane shared a look of shock as they, along with ninety-eight others, had been chosen as the ones to find the enemies closely guarded secrets.
'If we are overrun we are done for so until more armour descends from the sky it's just you. Find it quick, find it early, and we can get off this cursed rock. Split into groups of ten and spread out everywhere but east.'
The one-hundred chosen saluted and did as they were ordered, the highest ranking man in each decade taking charge. That meant Keane. 'Alright, you heard the sergeant, we'll go south-west, follow me,' he started off at a jog. Doran and the other eight followed.
*
The planet was a whole lot of nothing. Doran figured they'd search a mile square south-west from the camp and found no sign of any opening into the ground, nor had any of the other teams. 'Keane, how far should we go?'
'As far as we have to.'
'It's a big world, we can't search it alone.'
'Gonna have to.'
Doran scoffed at that. 'We're doomed,' he muttered.
'Don't speak if you're going to harm morale.'
'What morale?!' Doran snapped. 'We're deep in enemy territory on a dead world with no way home. We've been led into a trap and given the wrong info by Command, if that's not doomed then I don't know what is.'
Keane stormed up to, 'Shut it, gunner.'
Doran straightened, 'Yes, sir, lance-corporal.'
The others looked on, eyes drained of any care. The realisation of certain death had taken them all, except, maybe, Keane who clung to his optimism like a drowning man with a trunk of driftwood. 'We'll find it, we have to.'
The ground trembled and a pillar of dust exploded ahead of Keane sending him stumbling backwards. Zok'To'Khan emerged from the hole, grey scales framed in read. They wasted no time in opening fire. The first volley killed three of them before anyone could return fire.
'Fire! Fire! Fire!' Keane yelled on his arse, he hoisted his rifle in his left and pistol in his right and fired blind into the fog of sand as it settled. Flashes of red and blue lit up the dust storm caused by the ambush, confusing Doran more.
Doran raised his rifle and aimed into the cloud, knowing none of his own were inside it, least none on their feet. Keane shunted backwards, firing wild, until he was out of the settling dust and on his feet. 'There's a boulder, get to cover!' he ordered and sprinted for the rock. Doran raced him to it, wondering if the others had heard. Doran reached it first to see the others getting cut down by energy bolts. Keane was the last one, a few paces away, he turned to fire another volley. Doran raised his rifle to give cover as a blue bolt pierced Keane's chest. A spurt of steaming blood dashed against the rock and Keane fell limp to the ground, dead.
Doran froze as he scanned three Zok'To'Khan coming for him. He ducked behind the boulder and checked the ammo counter on his rifle.
3/50
He thought of Cara back home on Helspont of all the things he'd never told her, of the things he had hoped would come and now would lay dormant forever. Keane was dead, his friend since he could remember, they'd signed up together, swore to fight beside each other till they died old and retired. Now Keane was dead in the dirt of some no-name alien planet, his body likely to be left to the dust, his bones never recovered. Doran's heart sank.
The ground trembled and Doran thought the worst. He peeked out of cover to see two approaching on the right and one on the left. He ducked back as a bolt of energy seared the air overhead. He counted to three then burst out, shooting twice. Two Zok'To'Khan fell dead. He spun left and squeezed the trigger. His energy charge split the head of his last enemy. Blood welled in his mouth. He looked down to see a hole in his stomach. 'Shit,' he keeled over. In the distance he could see a motorised unit heading his way, a few minutes out at most, and he wished he could hold on that long.
*
Doran awoke in the Helspont Regiment medical bay, Cara asleep in a chair at his bedside. He midriff was bandaged thick and all he could feel of his limps was a faint tingle when he moved his fingers and toes. He was alive, that was enough, and so was Cara. But Keane, Keane was dead. Doran wept.
Thanks for reading! Like, comment, share and if you enjoy my work you can buy me a coffee as thank you.