No Love Lost

No Love Lost.

It was hard to hear anything over the constant background noise of animal calls and the creaking of wood that echoed from the surrounding rain forest. The apes bellowed out in disjointed song. A low roll of rustling foliage was constant and unbroken. But the high pitched warble of the brightly colour birds was by far the most annoying.

  Private Venoan sat on the floor of the courtyard of Monolith station 1A, he was amongst about a hundred other guardsmen, all dressed in the same olive drab fatigues and armoured flak jackets; though the majority had shed the heavy vests due to the sweltering tropical heat that made the forest look as if it were underwater.

  Venoan was slumped against one of the many sand barricades that his unit had set up in the prelim to this defensive operation. The coarse fibre of the sack itched the back of his head, but it was too hot to care. He glanced around at his comrades. Some played cards in the shade of the mighty power manufactorum that loomed overhead, others gambled, some lucky few were even able to catch some sleep in what nooks they could find. Venoan whiled away the time in the same manner as every other operation he had been a part off. He liked to take his war knife and use it as a razor. He found something therapeutic in the feel of the blade against his stubble-ridden cheek. He found it more relaxing than any number of ember sticks or boisterous games.
Cool sweat trickled down his neck and into the opening in the jacket he still wore. He was always cautious. The simple case of leaving his helmet and jacket on and choosing to rest by a fortified barricade had saved him from a snipers bullet or initial firing volley more than once. Others had not been so lucky.

  Just as Venoan felt his eyes closing, a fellow trooper stood looming over him.
“Fancy one?” said Novargus holding out a lit ember stick, the sweet smell of the fumes caught in Venoan’s nose.
“Nah man, It’s too bleedin’ hot” replied Venoan, groaning as he stood to chat.
Novargus and Venoan had been initiates in the army together back at the scholarum of planetary defence. Since graduating senior officers had seen the bond between the two and had therefore kept them in the same unit and rotation. They were never apart.
Novargus stood a towering man, Venoan looked at his massive frame and then at the 200 metre tall tower and chuckled at the comparison. It was probably the only thing bigger in this forest than Novargus.
“Suit yerself, pussy.” Novargus raised his gargantuan mitt of a hand and placed the ember stick in his mouth, taking a deep drag that saw about a quarter of the stick turn to ash.
“Why do we keep getting this shitty detail?” Novargus exhaled rich smoke over the top of Venoan’s head.
Novargus and Venoan began strolling through the melee of troopers, as usual Varg set the pace.
“Come on man, every other PM has been bombed or assaulted by these Enviro Terrorists, this is the only one left and it’s be biggest one.”
Varg waved one of his massive paws out to the surrounding area.
“Shit man, even if they could attack this place, there’s too much forestry to get any vehicles through and its so hot a march through the forest would take days and most would die of the heat.”.

  It was true, we had to be air dropped in, the forest rolled out for miles in every direction and was so tightly compacted getting lost would be a cinch, then it was only a matter of time.
“To be honest, even if the tree huggers attacked us, we’re so dug in the fight would only last for a few minutes before their side resembled a well tossed salad.” Varg chuckled at his little joke.
Venoan, realised his buddy was right. PM 1A was the primary sight for nutrient extraction from the planet’s crust. It produced the greatest amount of energy and the largest profit of any station like it. No wonder the council had placed an entire battalion here at all times.

*   *   *   *

  The day drifted on slowly, the Sun beat down on the mob of weary men. Venoan, after engaging in a few hands of poker, in which he lost 75 credits to Griff, had moved to a shady spot where he whiled away the rest of the time. He had planned to recalibrate the dot on his scope but the heat and lack of entertainment had made him lazy.
Novargus seemed to be feeling the heat as well as Venoan watched him slowly trudge towards him, accompanied by Sciondar.
“That punk take you for a ride then?” Sciondar was a lean man, with a bald head, which was adorned with various tattoos that ran down his left temple. Few knew that Sciondar used to run with a viscous gang in the outer domes of Saint’s Square, in fact aside from Varg, Veonaon didn’t think his unsavoury past was known by anyone.
“Yeah, 75 credits.” Venoan said coolly.
“Man you know Griff cheats, we should get your money back” Vargus turned his thick neck towards Griff, who had lured in some other chump from the 2nd Grenadiers.
Sciondar flicked out his jack knife, which wasn’t the standard issue combat knife. When asked why he carried the arguably inferior blade. Sciondar always said it reminded him of his past and how he had to carry that as well.
“Come on Varg sit yer big ass down, the heat is makin’ us all jittery.”
“Sci’s right, not worth it, besides it killed some time, which in this hell was worth it.”
  Venoan ran a hand through his dark hair. As he drew his hand back, his hand was soaked with sweat. He flicked the moisture onto the floor and watched it dry on the searing concrete.
“So Ven, what’s with the ring?” Sci pointed his knife at the silver band that adorned Ven’s finger.
“Oh shit man, did you propose to her?” Varg looked more awake now than he had all day.
“Yeah, last leave, I took her to the Great Minos river. Moonlight, candle-lit dinner, band, you know the works. Then I got down and popped the question.” Venoan caressed the precious ring and grinned as he remembered the look of happiness on her face.
“Christ, well I guess I owe you 50 credits, I never thought you’d have the balls.” Varg playfully shoved Ven, but not knowing his own strength he nearly rolled Ven right over.
Sci was oddly quiet.
“What’s up with you.” Ven said as he righted himself.
“Isn’t your woman the sympathiser.”
“Sci, Firstly my woman’s name is Juno, and second she’s not in league with those tree huggers, she just sees their point.”
Varg looked at Sci with a degree of distain, he had known Juno the same amount of time as Ven.
“She seems pretty legit to me Sci, You don’t know her like we do.”
“Man, she only goes on protests and thing like that, sure some of her mates, are a little off the deep end, but not her.”
“Fine Ven, I was only saying my gut tells me otherwise, jus’ hope you know what you’re doing, she could still pass on info to those prats.”

  The trio sat in silence for a little while as the time passed. The conversation and the heat had made the men edgy.
“I’m gonna do the rounds.” Ven rose wearily to his feet, his equipment seemed to weigh twice the amount it had when he started the day.
“Yeah we should get back to our positions, I’ve seen the CO checking.”
The three men, went their separate ways.
As Ven meandered his way back to his shady spot by the barricade. Sci’s words played on him.
Ven had always been careful with sensitive information. Ven never even told Juno where he was being deployed to, right? He remembered over the vid-phone that morning, before he deployed. It was the first conversation they had had since the engagement, but Ven thought it was pretty usual. All the lovey dovey stuff they usually said to each other. The discussed his getting back home to tell Juno’s parents and…Christ! He had said he wasn’t looking forward to goin to PM 1A because it was so hot.
It was only mentioned in passing , Juno didn’t even seem interested when he spoke about his job, it had cause a lot of arguments in the past. Due to Ven and Juno’s political alignment being totally different.
 
  Ven ran back through conversations over the previous days, in amongst all the day to day stuff they spoke about he had mentioned PM 1A, the day and duration of deployment and through talking about Varg and Sci he had mentioned the relative strength of the deployment.
Ven wasn’t worried about what Juno would do with this information, She barely listened and loved him too much to ever endanger him. Ven was concerned with what his CO might do to him if he found out he had unwittingly leaked information.
“Fucking Sci.”. Ven muttered as he got back to his spot.
Ven found the place grew silent, the fatigue of the day had quietened the men, and the forest around seemed eerily silent. There were no more animal cries, no whooping, howling not even bird song could be heard. The place seemed suspended in time.
Chink! Something impacted the barricade behind him.
“What the fuck?” Ven peeked over the top of the bags and saw a small metallic dart with a pulsing red beacon sticking out of the sand bag.
“Fuck. Tracer!” Ven leapt from his position, as he did so a rocket roared out of the forest, guided by the tracer dart. Shit! Ven ran as fast as his tired legs could carry him. The rocket slammed into the barricade, obliterating it in an explosion of smoke and fire. Ven was thrown into the air.

*   *   *   *

  The ringing in his ears began to fade. Smoke stung his watering eyes. As Ven regained consciousness his face was covered in particles of debris. The heat from the smouldering blockade stung his face. Ven rose slowly looking around.  The entire scene had become one of chaos .Men scrambled to pick up their weapon and don their armour. Most were cut down by the heavy automatic fire that erupted from the surrounding area. CO’s screamed, trying to get the melee of men into some sort of formation. Small groups of men had managed to organise themselves and were launching a counter attack, but they couldn’t see through the abundant plant life. Ven rose looking sluggishly around as ash from multiple rocket fires burned all around.
“Ven! Get you’re head down!” Sci bundled Ven behind supply crates.
“Shit what’s everyone doing! Here take this.” Sci handed Ven a stubber shotgun.
Men around him fired what weapons they had managed to recover, most of the men were half dressed, their upper body naked. Many paid for that as a focused barrage raked their position. Ven saw three men go down. Two of their chest’s exploded from heavy rounds. The other lost an arm below the elbow and rolled around screaming for a medic.
Ven and Sci began to spray the tree line with round after round. Not knowing if the had actually hit anything.
“Fuck! We’re too exposed, Sci we need to find a way to flush them out.”
“How’s this?” Varg strode up as rounds whizzed past his meaty frame. In his hands her held a napalm thrower.
“That’s it! Sci, Varg needs to get close to burn the bastards, tell everyone to lay a base of fire we need to protect him.”
Sci relayed the order through his radio. There was a temporary hush, as everyone re-aimed. Then all hell broke loose. The fire focused on the area of forest that Varg made his way towards was shredded, wood splintered and trees exploded under the unrelenting fire. Varg was caught by a glancing round to the ribs. He faltered slightly but again moved into position. He stopped.

  Varg released the safety and the muzzle of his thrower sparked into life. The pressure gauge needle darted up. Varg pulled the trigger and jetted forth a tide of flaming napalm. The tree line erupted in huge flames. The screams of men could be heard from within as the environment they used to attack became their graves. Ash and ember swirled around as Varg emptied his tanks on the enemy. People began to run out of the forest of liquid fire, and we were ready for them. Those who had survived the initial volley, had our spirits lifted by the sight of this titanic man single handedly turning the tide of the battle. Every person that escaped the forest was met with a hail of bullets from our own guns. Be burned alive or be shot, that was their only choice.

  Suddenly Varg yelled. A round had hit him square in the knee, shattering his patella, his leg was useless. He fell to one knee still trying to keep his weapon raised. Another round tore through Varg’s neck jetting blood. He refused to go down. Holding one hand on his weapon the other clamped around his neck he defiantly survived. He was too far ahead of the men to be retrieved. Everyone watched him, willing him to stand and retreat to safety. Ven knew he couldn’t. Ven watched as a final volley spattered against Vargs armoured chest, breaching the armour. His hand fell away from his neck and blood spilled out over his left side. His finger spasmodically released the trigger. The flames of Novargus ceased. He collapsed back and Ven watched as the life began to leave the giant’s eyes.
“Varg! Shit! Sci! We have to get Varg he’s hurt!”.
Sci held Ven back with one hand.
“Don’t do it Ven! You go out there they’ll put holes in you. Avenge Varg by killing these bastards!”.
Ven choked back his tears, him and Varg had been through it all together. He couldn’t imagine life without that giant casting his shadow over him.

*   *   *   *

  Their assailants began to rush out of the forest and take up positions about a hundred metres away. They had regrouped and recovered. 
“Fuck. They’ve turned this battle into a meat grinder.”.
Ven saw that Sci was right, with both teams so close the fire fight would intensify and the casualties were going to shoot up. Ven saw that the attackers were wearing some kind of full body suit.
“Sci! Are those Hydro suits?”.
Sci peeked over his parapet.
“I think you’re right they look like ’em.” Sci said dropping his head back into cover as a hail of rounds peppered the place his exposed head used to be.
Christ! It made sense now. They had been in the forest for days, using the hydro suit each person would be able to stay cool and recycle excreted water, they would have been able to sit there and watch as Ven’s battalion became ever tired and fatigued. This was how they could beat the numbers. But all of this required a lot of specific timing and knowing exactly how many people were to be deployed.

  “Cover!” Sci ducked his head low as a rocket shot past missing the barricade by mere inches.
Sci and Ven looked at each other laughing.
“That was fucking close V…” The second rocket punished the cover they were behind, launching them all into the air. Ven landed with a severe slam. The wind was knocked out of him. He tried to get up but his head was swimming. He saw Sci had landed next to him and was face down in the debris.  Various mangled bodies littered the area. The barricade reduced to a smouldering stump.
“Sci…Sci, get up” Ven’s voice was nothing more than a choking whisper.
He reached a bloody hand out to Sci and pulled his body turning it towards his face.
“Sci..” Sci had lost half of his face to the rocket and the seared gore of the remaining cavity turned Ven’s stomach.
“Shit..” Ven rolled Sci’s lifeless body away. Ven looked around for survivors, there seemed to be none. Ven realised his vision was blurred and dim. He had lost his right eye in the explosion. Ven now knew all was lost he could hear the footsteps of the enemy marching towards his. Odd shots echoed throughout the sizzling battlefield, they were executing survivors.
Ven thought of his beloved Juno, her smiling face, her good nature and her eyes. Ven couldn’t tell if he was crying or not. He thought of the proposal, the love and life they were supposed to share. He thought of her full red lips, her steel blue eyes and her shocking blonde hair. He despaired at the fact he would never see her again.
The footsteps stopped next to him. He turned his head up to see his murderer.
“Ju…” A lone shot rang out and Ven was dead.
The trooper holstered her pistol and turned to see the destruction of the tower. She strode forward, with full red lips and steel blue eyes.


Written by Daniel Elmer