“Norton. Norton- you alright man?” Norton almost jumps as his spotter, a man in his mid twenties going by Simmons taps him on the shoulder. “Yeah, yeah I’m good.” He glances at the endless expanses of desert and rock formations , all radiating with a greenish hue under the clouded sky. The rock and the dust was all green due to the high copper content in the ground. Most of it oxidized on contact with the air creating an endless dim green desert.“You’ve been nodding off man. Want a neversleep?” “Nah man I’ll manage.” Not sure how he would do that. He’s been getting less sleep ever since the Green Peaks raid. Small settlement in a nearby elevation, rough terrain. Intel suggested the locals had all been displaced. Turns out someone missed a page from the recon report. A few dozens of those poor fuckers were still kept there as human shields. And as you’d expect G-20Bs don’t care much 'bout who they’re turning into paste. After initial strikes the armor rolled in and the remaining insurgents either turned into a statistic or made a run for it in the rocks. The only reason they even knew there were civies here at all, cause someone found the upper torso of some kid with a colony work shirt amongst the pile of bits and pieces. And it wasn’t a small pile. The smell still lingered in his nostrils, making his skin crawl. UAAC being UAAC, they swept it under the rug, something about the insurgents executing the missing colonists and that was it. None of the surviving families got to see the bodies of their loved ones. Not that it’d make them feel any better if they did. Norton peers through his scope at the Checkpoint station Charlie a few hundred feet ahead, the one they are supposed to be overlooking. Simmons taps him again on the shoulder. “Vehicle, two o’clock.” He turns his scope towards the desert. A large dust trail is rising in the midst of it, a black doc at the front. He adjusts his electronic scope, zeroing in on the dot. “Checkpoint Charlie this is Overwatch. You’ve got an incoming vehicle over.” Norton’s earpiece crackles as he waits for a response. “Uuh Roger Overwatch, we see it. Got an ID? Over.” “Looks like an ore hauler Charlie, stand by for ID. Over.” He looks at the clickboard laid under his marksman rifle. “Truck’s marked G-27, single man on the wheel, should be from that ore refinery near Braxton Cove over.” Simmons turns to him. “Didn’t they get attacked couple days back?” “Yes, they did…” Checkpoint Charlie goes again. “Uuuh, Overwatch weren’t they attacked couple days back over?” “Affirmative Charlie, be careful. We’ll keep an eye on em from here over.” Simmons continues. “Something smells here man. I thought they were placed under curfew.” “They were.” Norton pauses and thinks. “Charlie you should notify central over. Something’s definitely wrong here.” “Roger that Norton, we know the drill over.” The truck slowly pulls up to the checkpoint. Three Marines exit the shed besides the barrier blocking the road, M41As at hand. Norton spots a familiar figure amongst the three, the realization making his eyes widen. “Is that the fucking rookie?” Simmons turns to him. “Who?” " That rookie man, private Jensen was it? The new kid!" Simmons turns his scope on him. “Oh, yeah. Yeah I know who you mean. Yeah that’s him.” “What the fuck is he doing all the way out here! This place is as close to the heat as it gets! Hell, this kid’s barely been here for a week!” “Bet your ass he volunteered like an idiot.” Norton watches nervously as the marines approach the hauler. The driver is a middle aged roughneck, mustache and company hat attached. Something’s wrong though. He looks far too nervous. “Be advised Charlie I can see the driver sweating from here. Be careful over.” He trains his aiming reticle on the driver. One of the three Marines walks towards the truck and climbs on the door. They seem to talk for a few seconds. Suddenly the marine frantically jumps back down signaling the other two to get back. Before Norton can blink the truck explodes into a massive fireball. The concussive wave hits the two men almost instantly. Norton feels something wet in his ear. It’s blood. Simmons is screaming at him at the top of his lungs. “Are you ok?!” He barely heard that though, nodding affirmatively. All he cares about now is what happened to checkpoint Charlie . A field of utter destruction unfolds before him when the green dust settles. There is nothing there anymore. Where checkpoint Charlie once stood now was a huge smoking crater, several feet deep with a diameter far greater than the dirt road it blocked. In the middle, the mangled, burning remains of the mineral hauler that was probably loaded to the brim with explosives. Both men just stood there for a moment, utterly stunned and helpless at the sight of total obliteration. Norton snaps out of it first, frantically reaching for his radio transmitter. “Command! This Overwatch at checkpoint Charlie! Checkpoint Charlie is gone, over!” He waits for a few seconds before the radio crackles in response. “Overwatch this command. What do you mean checkpoint Charlie is gone? Over.” “It’s dust! IED blew up right in front of it! The truck must have had the colony’s entire supply of demo charges in it, over!” Another few seconds pass. “Roger Overwatch we read you. A mechanized element is coming your way. They’ll hit the ground in 6 mikes. Do you need medevac? Over.” “Negative command, ain’t nothing left… Over and out.”
4 days later…
Norton is sitting in front of a desk, a man in uniform across him bearing the stripes of a 2nd Lieutenant. The lieutenant brings a profile photo on his tablet and shoves it in front of him. “Is this the man you saw?” The man in the photo is a roughneck with a hard face, a dense mustache and a company hat. It was the one driving the hauler 4 days back. Norton stares at it blankly as the picture of his terrified face comes back to him. He nods affirmatively. “I need you to say it, Lance Corporal, for the record.” “Yes, sir, that’s the man I saw.” The lieutenant snatches back the tablet. “Right. That will be all Lance Corporal. Dismissed.” Norton turns to leave. He stops at the door and turns. “What made him do it sir?” “Sorry?” “The driver, sir. What made him do it. Blow himself up.” The lieutenant scratches his head. “I believe the insurgent forces kidnapped his wife and kids during the attack on Braxton Cove last week. Probably used em to force him into doing it. Or so I’m told.” he say, his tone disinterested and dismissive. Norton stands there emotionless for a moment, then salutes and leaves. He walks through the command center and to the airlock. The airlock shuts closed behind him and a breeze of dry, warm air hits him in the face. He secures the personal respirator over his mouth and nose and begins making his way to the barracks. Camp Bravo was situated inside old miner habitation blocks. The good news was they didn’t need much work to get the air filtered. Besides toxic residues, LV-408’s atmosphere had funky percentages of all the needed breathable gasses. Taking it in unfiltered could lead to headaches, light headedness and prolonged exposure irritations in the lungs and throat, dizziness, fainting, cerebral hypoxia and eventually death. The bad news was the place was old as hell. The walls and doors were rusty, the pipes dripped down through the ceiling. Some rooms had smells of indeterminable origin that would persist regardless of the number of deodorant cans sprayed within. He walks into the barracks airlock, it hissing as the air is filtered. He passes by all in his way without saying a word and sits into his bunk with a small thud. His hands instinctively reach into his pocket and pull the cigarette pack out. A cigarette makes its way into his mouth and a cheap plastic lighter douses its edge in fire. He takes a puff and lets it sit in his lungs for a bit before exhaling deeply. “You alright?” Simmons appears through the door, taking a seat across him. “Yeah, yeah. I’m good.” “You didn’t sound so good last night man.” Norton doesn’t speak. He avoids the question with another puff of his cigarette. “Listen, the doc at field station Alpha. I know the guy. I could get you some sleeptabs, off the books.” “Nah, I’m good.” “Someone’s gonna notice man. If they flag you you’ll end up rotting in some backline requisitions bay, retire and then spend the rest of your days in some shithole urban colony where the sun don’t shine.” At this image Norton’s face stiffens, the recollections flowing through his mind like the current in a sewer. He thinks for a bit. "Let’s see what that guy of yours got.”