[1]A short story based off the lore of this story
This is a second person story, based on the Aliens universe, with some liberties taken regarding lore in the universe. I try and maintain realism, as far as I can have realism in a universe such as this. I hope you enjoy, as always, my discord is tokyo.spliff please send me ideas, critiques, or comment your approval.
YOU ARE NECESSARY. YOU WERE CHOSEN. YOU END THE CYCLE.
PUBLIC PLANETARY PROFILE
UNITED AMERICAS COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION
PLANETARY PROFILE – PROVISIONAL DESIGNATION: LV-1057 “Ophis”
- Theater Classification: Contested Colonial Territory
- Primary Governance: Joint Colonial Administration
- Active Insurgent Presence: Confirmed CLF Activity (CLF-aligned elements)
- USCM Operational Status: Active Counter-Insurgency
Astronomical & Environmental Data
Astronomical Overview
- Primary Star: G-type main-sequence star (White-Yellow Star)
- Secondary Star: White Dwarf Companion
- System Type: Wide Binary
- Orbital Period (Planetary): 427 Standard Days
- Rotational Period: 41.8 Standard Hours
- Axial Tilt: 3.2°
- Surface Gravity: 1.12g
LV-1057 orbits a standard G-type main-sequence star (White-Yellow Star) responsible for conventional stellar heating and equatorial jungle temperatures exceeding 38°C during peak daylight.
Increased stellar output produces elevated equatorial temperatures and intensified atmospheric convection, contributing to persistent rainstorm development across jungle regions.
The system’s secondary body is a white dwarf in distant barycentric orbit. Though contributing negligible thermal energy at planetary range, its high surface temperature renders it visible in the planetary sky.
During the present planetary rotation, the white dwarf becomes visible shortly after primary sunset and remains present through the majority of nighttime rotation.
Due to atmospheric moisture density and particulate scattering, the white dwarf’s blue-white emission diffuses into a muted violet-gray luminance beneath cloud cover and jungle canopy. Surface temperatures drop rapidly following primary occlusion despite continued illumination.
Civilian populations refer to this phenomenon as “Ghost Light.”
True darkness is rare and occurs only during specific solar alignments.
Binary Alignment & Illumination Variability
The white dwarf companion completes a barycentric orbit approximately every 19.6 planetary years. Due to orbital inclination relative to Ophion’s plane, the apparent position of the dwarf shifts gradually across the sky over successive decades.
Major alignment phases occur when the secondary star’s orbital position results in extended lightless nights, moving below the horizon during primary sunset intervals. These events, occurring on average every 9–10 planetary years, produce sustained periods of reduced illumination, if any at all. Peak alignment windows typically last 2–3 weeks, during which true darkness may persist for up to 3–4 hours per rotational cycle.
Civilian populations refer to these intervals as “true night” events.
In addition to primary orbital alignments, intermittent illumination reduction is observed during debris transit periods. Spectrographic analysis confirms the presence of sparse particulate and asteroid bands within the inner system, likely remnants of earlier stellar mass-loss phases preceding the white dwarf’s formation. When these particulate fields intersect the white dwarf’s apparent path, short-duration light attenuation events occur. These transits range from several hours to multiple days and are difficult to predict with precision.
Atmospheric & Storm Amplification Effects
Ophion’s F-type primary produces elevated daytime heating, driving aggressive convection across equatorial oceanic and jungle regions. High humidity, minimal axial tilt, and slow planetary rotation contribute to the formation of long-lived convective systems.
During true night alignment phases and crossing debris fields, rapid nocturnal cooling increases atmospheric instability.
Observed consequences include:
- Intensified electrical storm frequency, frequently causing power outages.
- Elevated lightning strike density.
- Bursts of violent downdrafts within jungle canopy corridors.
- Flash-flood conditions in lowland basins.
- Reduced aerial visibility due to super-saturated clouds, limiting effective air support.
Field reports indicate that storm-driven canopy blackout conditions can reduce ground-level illumination to near-zero even in the presence of partial ‘ghost light’ illumination. These meteorological events may occur independently of astronomical alignment and represent a primary operational hazard within equatorial theaters.
CHAPTER ONE 'Under Lethe's Talisman'
You lie in mud.
Your respirator hisses with each breath. The filter tastes faintly of charcoal and rubber.
Rain strikes the glass of your mask and clings there. Droplets gather and merge, warping the world beyond into shifting shapes of green and white.
You do not wipe it clear. You were told not to break position. You were told to wait.
You wait.
The jungle hums through the dampeners in your helmet. Engines grind in the distance. Heavy. Layered.
You count them by sound.
One. Two. Three. Four.
You check your rifle.
A small golden crescent hangs beneath the front sight, chain wound tight to keep it from tapping the barrel.
You unwind it once.
It glints.
Your squad leader whispers over the radio. You hear the countdown.
The convoy pushes through the logging road cut. Through rain. Through mist. Through a world blurred by curved glass.
You let them enter. Your hand rests on the detonator.
You count with your squad lead.
You check the initiator. You squeeze your hand hard.
The first charge detonates.
Your visor flashes white. You realize the second failed to go off despite this.
For a moment the world is only light fractured through water on glass.
You rise.
You pull the trigger
The M39 bucks. Muzzle flashes smear across your vision, stretched by rain across the mask’s surface. You aim at brightness. At silhouettes bending around warped edges.
Your barrel waves over them. You watch three bending silhouettes fall.
The golden crescent moon hangs from your rifles barrel by chain, whirling around as you lower the barrel slightly.
A flatbed truck carrying a burnt out Light Scout Tank crashes into a large ditch. Sparks and holes plaster the side. No one gets out. A Marine runs through smoke, distracting you.
His outline doubles in your visor.
You choose one. You squeeze.
He falls.
Your respirator fogs for half a second with your own heat. You force air through it. You see again.
A grenade arcs overhead. Flame blossoms, distorted and magnified through droplets. Fire looks larger than it is.
Someone screams. The sound is flattened by your mask.
You grip your weapon, crouching down in the shoulder high grass.
A large tree protects your left. You begin to move behind it.
Fragmentation detonates to your left. Your visor goes opaque with mud and bark. You blink instinctively though it changes nothing.
You wipe the glass with a gloved hand.
The smear makes it worse.
The APC’s turret rotates in your peripheral.
You see it as a dark crescent through rain-streaked glass. You see your batch-mate standing with a M76 “Pike”. The Pike is stowed short, tube collapsed in on itself.
He pulls it long. It locks with a clack. The illuminated sight pops up, glowing faintly against his visor.
You realize you remembered the weapon’s name, rather than his.
It fires. A bright orb bending light on the running water of your visor’s glass. He throws the disposable tube in front of him.
You watch the orb disappear into foliage.
Trees dissolve.
The APC barks in return. A tree splits in half, holes break through meter thick trees effortlessly.
One of yours stands to throw a smoke grenade. His mask reflects flame. Then he is gone. His torso spins through the air and disappears into brush.
You do not remember his name. Smoke proliferates your position.
You turn, grabbing the spare disposable pike to your right.
One of the rounds from the APC slams through the tree to your right, viscera pours onto the ground from your batch-mate.
You turn your head, peering through shoulder high grass. You see it chained to the second flatbed.
A tank scout platform. Fresh paint.
You were told it would patrol this sector next week.
You raise the launcher, extending it as it clicks into place. Lifting it up as the popup sight glows brightly.
You steady your breathing through the respirator.
You squeeze your hands.
The backblast slams through the trees behind you. The rocket leaves in a white streak, distorted through curved glass.
For half a second, the world narrows to that line of light.
The rocket strikes the middle, beneath the turret ring.
The flash is blinding. You throw the tube forward like you were trained.
Light explodes across your visor, refracted through droplets. White fractures into a hundred shifting shards.
You see fire multiplied and bent around rain and mud.
The blast wave hits. More mud and leaves splashes across your mask. Its turret lifts up a few meters before collapsing into the ground.
Something hard strikes the glass. A rock, maybe. It spiderwebs at the edge but does not break.
You steady your feet, moving to walk forward as you slip onto your backside.
Your eyes snap forward. You see a marine appear ten meters ahead of you.
Both of you hesitate.
You see your own shape reflected in his visor.
Black-visor gasmask. No face.
You fire first.
His rounds crack past your head. Mud covers your visor from the bullets.
He drops. You can’t see.
You hold the trigger of your gun down as it barks hate towards the marine.
You only realize he is down after the magazine is empty.
You smear more mud clearing your visor. It only thins the blur.
Rain continues to fall.
It streaks the glass. It shifts the flashes.
Your flank goes silent.
That is wrong. You see dark silhouettes run through the jungle.
You turn your head, coming to the stark realization there is far fewer of you.
You recognize a few of your own, running, autocannon rounds and tracers rip through the forest leaves, three fall, an arm soars through the air.
You turn your head and the world lags half a second behind the motion, water dragging light across your vision.
The APC barrel points toward you.
You run.
Rain and breath and filtered air fill your world. The mask makes every inhale loud.
You trip. It saves your life.
Bullet tracers flash where your head had been.
Mud coats the lower half of your visor.. again.
Your rifles barrel points at your eye on the ground. The golden crescent moon lays against it.
You grab it by the chain, dragging it with you.
You crawl.
Gunfire tears foliage and branches above you. Through blurred glass it looks like lightning in green fog.
You crawl until the engines fade.
You crawl until your respirator is the loudest thing you hear.
CHAPTER TWO 'Eremia's Solitude'
You lie in mud.
Your mask hisses.
You wait.
You are alone.
You do not stop running until your legs shake.
You slow to a walk.
You do not remove the mask.
You walk through the jungle for hours.
Rain softens to mist. Then returns. Then fades again.
You change direction intermittently. Just as you were taught. Never in straight lines. Never toward obvious ground.
You check behind you without turning your head fully.
You listen for engines.
There are none.
You listen for gunfire.
There is none. Only insects. Only water.
You head toward the secondary rally point.
You count steps, just like you were taught.
You expect to hear coded bursts over the radio.
You hear static. You have only heard static.
You reach the marker tree.
It has been cut clean through the trunk.
No tape.
No markings.
No sign.
You wait.
You give it ten minutes.
You give it twenty.
An hour passes by.
You spend your time tucked inside a hollow tree.
You think they are delayed. You tell yourself someone survived.
You tell yourself you are not alone.
The jungle does not give any answers.
It is empty.
No disturbed earth. No footprints. No careless ration wrappers.
No sign.
You begin to calculate.
You count engines. You count bodies.
You subtract.
The number does not favor you.
You begin to think you are the last.
You do not know what that means.
You were never told what to do if you were the last.
There is no order for that.
Your mind wanders because there is no one shooting at you.
You remember the failed ambush, the crack of bullets above your head.
You think of the man with the disposable rocket.
You remember the weapon’s name.
You do not remember his.
You try to remember.
You fail.
You keep walking.
The light does not fade the way it should.
It thins.
The sky above the canopy turns a pale violet instead of orange. The clouds glow faintly, as if lit from beneath.
You were told this world rotates slowly.
You were told nights here are long and daylight is wrong.
The air grows colder.
You think of how strange this world is. Your memory drifts to the CLF smugglers who had dropped your platoon off world. You remember the blistering cold.
The jungle is wet. The ground steams in places. Your boots sink into warm mud.
But the air grows colder.
Rain settles into your uniform. Into your sleeves. Down your spine.
You feel it now.
Your hands begin to tremble.
You tell yourself it is adrenaline leaving your body.
You tell yourself it is nothing.
You hike for another hour.
The mist thickens.
Your breath fogs inside the mask.
The temperature drops again.
You check your wrist display.
Four degrees.
You blink.
You were sweating a mere four hours ago.
The light remains.
Dim. Diffuse. Refusing to die.
You begin to shiver.
You do not remember this badly shivering before.
You were trained for heat. For mud. For fire.
You were not trained for waiting in cold rain in a world that does not turn dark.
Your teeth knock softly against the respirator mouthpiece.
You remove the mask.
The air tastes metallic. Bitter.
It is colder than you expected. Your face feels exposed.
You do not like it.
You keep walking.
The jungle shifts loses saturation, changes slightly in color.
Green becomes gray with a mix of pale violet. Sound becomes distant, insects become silent as the cold grows.
You begin to understand that if you stop moving, you will not get warm again.
Your mind wanders as you travel vaguely in the direction of your forward operating base.
Tunnels. Bunkers. Traps. Warm barrack beds.. You realize you might never make it back.
You remember the Castigator.
He wore a different mask.
He walked the line before deployment.
He said cowardice spreads faster than infection.
A man broke from a firefight, abandoning his machine gun, causing his squad to die.
The Castigator raised his sidearm.
The report followed.
Weeks later you found yourself wearing reinforced flak vest, ceramic inserts untouched.
The man beside you was the only one left from a failed raid.
He ran when he could have completed the mission.
Five more died correcting his mistake.
The Castigator told him survival meant nothing without discipline.
He spoke for several minutes.
You do not remember the words from the argument.
You remember the shot.
You saw the body being dragged away.
You do not remember the survivor’s name.
You remember the Castigator.
He came with your team on this mission, to your left during the ambush.
You did not see him run.
You did not hear his commanding voice on the radio.
For a moment, something inside you feels lighter, weight lifts off your shoulders.
You silence it.
You turn toward the direction of the base.
You decide you will return.
You will atone for your failure.
Your eyes focus on a rusted-out structure, half swallowed by moss, vines, and low jungle brush.
You almost miss it.
The walls lean slightly. One corner has collapsed inward.
Corrugated metal peels away from the frame like dead skin.
You stop moving.
You listen.
Rain taps softly against sheet metal.
No voices.
No movement inside.
You watch the doorway for a full minute.
You count to sixty twice.
You check the windows.
There is no glass left in them. Only darkness.
You shift your weight slowly, testing your footing in the mud.
You remember traps.
You remember tripwires strung low across entrances. You remember pressure plates made from ration tins and detonators wrapped in tape. His knee pads and shin plates.
You approach from the side instead of the front.
You circle once.
The rear wall partially collapsed.
The roof sags but holds.
No fresh footprints in the mud.
No displaced vines. No heat shimmer.
You step closer. Your boots sink softly.
You pause at the wall.
You place your hand against the metal.
It is cold.
You wait.
You hear only rain.
You move to the doorway.
The door hangs crooked on one hinge.
You push it gently.
It groans.
You freeze.
The rain masks the sound.
You slip inside. You must warm yourself up, soon.
The interior smells of wet metal and old rot.
Water drips steadily through a seam in the roof.
The floor is uneven, half wood, half packed dirt.
You wait for your eyes to adjust.
Nothing moves.
You step deeper into the prefab and lower your pack from your shoulders.
It hits the floor with a soft, heavy thud.
You listen again.
Only rain.
CHAPTER THREE 'The Lethe River' '
You crouch and pull the straps loose.
The fabric is patterned in layered tans and greens, overlapping shapes meant to break up a body at distance.
Real camouflage. You were lucky to wear a full set of it, helmet and all.
Not the flat gray or dark green fatigues most of your batch wore.
Not the mismatched surplus some of them scavenged from dead mercenaries.
You had traded for this. Bled for this.
Favors. Guard rotations covered. Extra fireguard shifts. Volunteer missions.
A blind eye turned when rations went missing.
You remember being told uniformity builds cohesion.
You remember deciding cohesion did not stop bullets.
You run your hand over the fabric, patting it in satisfaction.
Mud cakes the lower seams.
One strap is frayed.
Still better than standard issue.
You set the pack against the interior wall, beneath a section of roof that does not drip.
You remove your rifle and rest it against the sheet metal wall.
The crescent taps softly when you set the rifle aside.
You still it with your thumb.
You wait.
You let the quiet settle. You realize this is the first time since the ambush that you are not moving.
Your legs tremble.
You tell yourself it is the cold.
It is not.
You move first to the leaks.
Rain slips through a seam in the roof and runs down the inner wall.
You drag a warped sheet of corrugated scrap from the far corner and prop it beneath the sagging panel.
Water redirects. Drips into a dented metal basin left behind by someone long gone.
You shift a crate beneath another leak.
You do not fix the roof.
You manage it. You won’t be here forever.
That is enough.
You return to your pack.
You open it carefully, keeping the zipper noise low.
You inventory.
Two ration bricks.
One vacuum pouch of rice. One sealed packet of preserved protein strips.
Water purification tabs.
Two M40 HSDP smoke grenades.
Compact burner. Small fuel canister, half weight.
Metal pot blackened from repeated use.
You add the rest.
A cloth roll tied with waxed cord. Firing pin. Extractor spring. Oil bottle. Cleaning rod.
Two spare respirator filters. Heavy for their size.
A ferro rod. Scraped nearly flat.
A folded topographic map fragment. Edges soft. Pencil marks at three creek bends.
A coil of line wrapped around the ration bricks.
A quilted thin linen blanket. Cheap stitching. It belonged to someone once.
A coin from another colony.
You do not remember taking that.
You set them out in neat rows.
You count magazines.
One in the rifle.
Five full.
One partial.
You remove the partial and count by touch.
Nine.
You tap the baseplate against your palm and reinsert it.
You check the sidearm.
One chambered.
Two spare mags.
You calculate again.
You subtract the ambush losses.
You subtract the losses from the withdrawal too.
You do not like the resulting number.
You stack everything back in place except the burner and pot.
You decide you will eat.
You assemble the small stove with practiced hands.
Fuel hisses softly as you open the valve.
You strike the igniter.
A small blue flame trembles in the damp air.
You shield it with your body.
You pour a measured amount of water into the pot.
You wait for it to tremble.
You add rice.
You watch it swell slowly.
You tear open the protein packet and cut the strips into smaller pieces with your field knife.
You add them last.
The smell is faint. Salty. Processed.
You remember being told that food is fuel.
You remember being told hunger sharpens aggression.
You decided starvation only dulled it more.
You remember being told comfort dulls readiness.
You stir the pot slowly.
The orientation halls were the worst.
White walls.
Bright lights.
Voices echoing through speakers.
You remember being shown footage of enemies burning.
You remember being told you were not born.
You were produced. You were optimized.
You were necessary.
You remember being told individuality was wasteful, pointless.
You remember being told fear was a malfunction.
You remember being told death in service is purpose.
You remember being told you end the cycle.
You do not remember being told what to do if you survive.
The rice thickens. The smell drifts into your nostrils.
Your stomach growls as you prepare to eat.
Steam curls upward and condenses on the cold air inside the prefab.
You remove the pot from the flame.
You extinguish the burner immediately.
No light.
No possible signal.
You eat slowly. You do not taste much. Salt, hints of meat.
You count each bite unconsciously.
When the bowl is empty, you scrape it clean.
You consider saving half of the ration brick.
You do not.
You sit back against the wall. You feel yourself fighting sleep.
You throw the linen blanket over you.
It helps little.
The cold presses in now that you are still.
The rain continues.
You look at your ammunition again.
You imagine the Castigator watching you count.
You imagine him asking whether you believe you deserve those rounds.
You swallow.
You tell yourself survival means redeployment.
Redeployment means another insertion.
Another insertion means the mission continues. Means you are one step closer to the end.
You are not certain whether that is hope or punishment.
You sit with your back against the rusted wall.
Rain ticks softly above you.
You feel the warmth of the meal fading from your stomach.
You steady your breathing.
Your thoughts drift.
You remember waking in fluid.
You remember light through glass.
You remember the tank draining.
You remember hands that were not hands lifting you.
Smooth polymer fingers. Serial numbers etched into white casings.
You remember rows of them repeating the same process.
Identical. Efficient.
You remember the ceiling of the chamber low, industrial, pipes running condensation into floor grates.
You remember the air smelling sterile and metallic.
You remember being told you volunteered.
You remember wanting to believe it.
You remember assembly lines of gestation cylinders stretching farther than you could see through weak, blurry eyes.
Biopolymer gel circulating in steady pulses.
You remember technicians in white coveralls arguing about shipping manifests.
Shell companies printed on crates stacked along the wall.
Agricultural supplements. Atmospheric processors.
You remember one crate split open.
Inside were rifle components sealed in grease.
You remember neural scaffolds lowered over your head.
You remember flashes of instruction forced into you in structured intervals.
Left.
Right.
Rifle.
Advance.
Suppress.
Obey.
You were told you were necessary.
Produced because others were unwilling.
The synthetics never hesitated.
They never shivered. Never questioned. Never yelled. Never cried.
You do not resent them.
They performed their function perfectly.
You perform yours. You try to.
The rain grows heavier for a moment.
You adjust your rifle in your lap. You are not the last. You are sure of it.
If you are alive, the mission persists.
If the mission persists, you will persist with it.
Somewhere beneath another jungle.
Another desert.
Another colony.
Tanks are filling.
Synthetics are lifting new bodies from gel.
Serial numbers are being logged.
You are not singular.
You are Legion.
That is what you were told.
You remember never having seen more than a hundred of you together at any given place.
You steady your breathing again.
You will return to the base.
You will report.
You will continue.
You rest your head back against the rusted wall.
Rain taps overhead.
CHAPTER FOUR 'Hypnos Embrace'
Your eyes close.
Sleep overtakes you, despite your efforts. You feel weak for allowing it to happen.
The training grounds.
Red clay churned to mud by boots.
You were marched past a separate enclosure.
You were not assigned there.
You were told not to look.
You looked anyway.
They stood in formation behind reinforced glass barriers.
Armor plates over chest and shoulders.
Segmented metal collars protecting their throats.
Long coats cut to hang over heavier kit. Some with golden rank pins, others silver.
Their masks were different.
Angular.
Reinforced.
Breathing units larger.
Lenses darker.
Some tinted red.
You remember the way their posture differed.
Intentional. Fearless.
You remember instructors speaking to them directly, not through overhead broadcasts.
You remember seeing one remove his mask during instruction.
You were not allowed to remove yours.
You remember the scar tissue along his scalp where neural ports had been seated.
You remember the metal bracing along his jaw.
You remember the silence around them.
No shouting.
No correction strikes.
No repetition drills.
They were not being shaped. They were being refined.
You remember asking your batch-mate what they were.
He told you they were Officers.
He said they were granted expanded clarity and perfect batch productions. Rare, with the aged vats.
He said they were burdened with the perspective and planning of the long war. That fighting a titan such as Yutani required the best of the best, to inflict damage where it counted.
You remember believing that.
You remember feeling relief that you were not burdened.
A whistle blew.
You were marched away.
You remember one of them watching your column as you passed.
His visor tracked you.
You do not know if he saw you.
You remember standing straighter anyway.
You do not remember falling asleep.
You wake to silence.
The rain has softened again.
Gray light seeps through the broken windows.
Your neck aches.
Your rifle is still across your lap.
You sit up immediately.
You listen.
Nothing.
You check your wrist display.
You calculate how long you were still.
Too long.
You stand.
Your joints protest.
You ignore it.
You pack efficiently.
Pot wiped clean.
Burner cooled and stowed.
Fuel canister sealed.
Rations compressed tight.
Magazines counted again.
One in the rifle.
Five full.
One partial.
Sidearm secure.
You sling the pack over your shoulders.
You replace the mask.
The world narrows to filtered breath and muted sound.
You move toward the doorway.
You pause.
You listen.
Rain on leaves.
Water dripping from metal.
Insects.
Then a branch snaps.
Not rain. Not rot.
Pressure.
Weight.
Your body moves before thought forms.
You do not turn toward the sound.
You run.
Into brush.
Low and fast, on your hands and knees like a dog.
You do not look back. You stand.
Branches claw at your sleeves.
Mud splashes your lenses as you slip.
You vault a fallen trunk.
You change direction.
Left. Thirty steps.
Right. Forty.
You lower your profile and sprint again.
You hear nothing behind you, that means nothing.
You run until your lungs burn.
You run until your legs threaten to fold.
You run like prey.
You do not stop running until your breath turns ragged inside the mask.
You slow only when your legs threaten to collapse.
You listen. Nothing follows.
The branch never repeats.
You do not decide what made it.
You do not need to.
You move at a slower pace now.
Disciplined. Measured.
You angle toward a ridge line for visibility.
You crest it low.
CHAPTER FIVE 'Nemesis'
You scan through the mist.
Movement.
Left.
Thirty meters.
A shape behind a fallen trunk.
Camouflage patterned in layered tan and green, just like you.
Rifle already raised.
Barrel steady.
It has been watching you.
You are slow. Too slow.
You bring your rifle up
The figure does not fire.
You freeze.
The lenses of its mask reflect pale violet light.
A hand lifts slowly.
Two fingers.
Then a closed fist.
Recognition signal. You respond.
Delayed.
Still correct.
The rifle lowers.
You step forward cautiously.
Another shape rises behind the brush.
Then another gray clothed one stands.
Six total.
You count automatically.
You recognize armor damage.
Scored plating.
Mud-caked respirators.
One limps.
One carries a field dressing dark with old blood.
You search for red lenses.
You search for a long coat.
You search for metal collar plates.
You do not find them.
“Status,” one of them says over short-range burst.
His voice is thin through static.
You report concisely. They report in turn.
Fragmented retreat. Broken contact.
No confirmation on enemy pursuit.
You count again.
Six.
Out of thirty-two.
You calculate silently.
The number is acceptable.
The mission is not void.
“Castigator?” someone asks.
Silence.
No one answers.
You understand.
You do not ask again.
You feel something in your chest.
It is not grief.
There is no ideological anchor.
No enforcement.
No expanded clarity.
Only you.
Only the six.
One of them nods toward the east.
“FOB,” he says.
You nod. You fall into formation automatically.
Spacing five meters.
You take the rear of the staggered formation.
You raise your weapon and scan the forest.
You move.
You do not speak further.
You do not ask what broke the branch.
The jungle keeps its secrets.
You move as a unit again.
You think of how you struggled to spot him due to his camouflage, the same pattern you wore.
You felt slightly safer.
The trees thin without warning.
A clearing opens ahead.
Fifty meters across.
Low grass.
Scattered stumps.
On the far side, partially concealed by brush and camo netting, the reinforced mouth of a tunnel.
FOB outer access. You see sandbags. You see collapsed wire.
No visible movement.
You do not like that.
Lead raises a fist.
Pause. Scan.
Nothing.
You cross.
Spacing maintained.
Five meters apart now.
You step into the open.
The air feels larger.
Exposed.
Halfway across the clearing, you see the tunnel more clearly now.
One of the sandbags is split.
There is no posted guard.
You begin to process that it-
The first shot takes the point man.
It is so clean he simply drops. No warning crack. No echo. Only the thud of a body and wet gasp.
No warning crack.
No echo.
Just collapse.
The second and third shots follow within a heartbeat.
Precise.
Your squad reacts.
Too late.
Muzzle flashes erupt from three sides of the clearing.
Low in the grass. Elevated near the tree line.
One from behind a stump you passed without noticing.
Disciplined arcs.
Intersecting fields of fire.
This was measured.
You pivot toward the left flash.
You see the flash again.
Your vision goes red.
Impact.
Upper chest.
The plate catches some of it.
Not all.
You fall backward.
Ice runs down your spine.
You try to breathe.
Your diaphragm spasms.
Nothing fills your lungs.
Through the red haze you see them now.
Not clones.
Different armor silhouette.
Streamlined. Lightened. Impressive.
Advanced optics mounted forward on helmets.
One moves in a controlled crouch, rifle tracking targets with mechanical steadiness.
He fires into your batch-mate who drew a pistol on his approach.
You watch your batch-mates visor explode red with viscera.
Another signals with two fingers, shifting fire lanes.
No shouting.
No panic.
Your batch-mate to your right tries to sprint toward the tunnel.
He takes three steps.
A round enters beneath his arm seam.
He spins and collapses.
You feel another impact.
Lower.
Hot. Deep.
Final.
Your rifle slips from your hand.
You try to roll.
Your arm does not respond.
You turn your head instead.
You see one of them rise from concealment.
Shoulder patch; United States Colonial Marine Corps.
Recon insignia beneath it.
You understand.
They waited.
They let you regroup.
They let you believe the FOB was yours.
Your mask fills with warmth.
Your hearing narrows.
You try to inhale again.
Nothing.
The tunnel entrance remains open.
Unreachable.
The sky above is pale violet.
The world does not darken properly.
Your rifle lies at an angle against your chest.
The golden crescent hangs loose.
It moves once in the wind.
You see the flash of another muzzle.
Closer now.
Your vision pulses.
Red.
Then gray.
You feel weak.
Distant.
Then
Nothing.
Footnotes ↩︎