Against the Tide - A New Elysium Story [Complete]

32. Hunters

Private Meyer bent above the sink and splashed cold water on his face until he couldn't feel it anymore, in a faint hope that he might be able to create an illusion of impassiveness if his facial features were simply frozen in place. But as he looked up at the mirror, that look of exasperation and worry that had carved itself into his features over the past days was still there. He still looked like absolute shit.

There was a constant furrow between his eye brows that he just couldn't get rid of these days. His lips were cracked and pale, and he could feel the familiar tingling of a budding cold sore at the corner of his mouth. The deep shadows under his blue eyes met the bluish traces of the healing bruise in the middle of his face, where the pirate Amy Larsson had broken his nose. The bone had been re-set, and if he hadn't been pale as death, perhaps the bruise wouldn't even be visible any longer.

Ever since he had been informed that his 'hearing' would take place during the weekly assembly in front of the entire division, he had spent every waking hour dreading that moment. And there had been many waking hours. So many that his eyes were now blood-shot and constantly itchy.

He looked like a walking corpse. And soon, he would probably be an actual corpse. Because today was the day. The day his fate would be decided – but he already knew the likeliest outcome of that decision. Today was the day he'd most probably die for desertion.

Oddly enough, he didn't really regret his decision to make a deal with Larsson. He got to live a couple of days longer than he would have if he hadn't, at least. His only regret was that he hadn't found a better way to make use of that time. He had spent it mostly lying on his cot in his room, staring up at the ceiling and pondering the insignificance of his life.

All his life he had tried to bring honor to his family, just like his father had demanded. He had always tried his best, but it had never been enough to please. Perhaps his decision to join the military and become a member of Orion's Reach had, in part, been influenced by his desire to be as far away as possible from that man and his expectations. Still, his father's archaic idea of 'honor' had ingrained itself into his mind over the years, so somewhat ironically, joining Orion's Reach didn't end up helping him escape his father's reach.

He had spent the past four years on Astraphos, had dedicated his life to becoming a hunter, and hadn't ever hesitated following his orders for a second. It had taken the skirmish on Six to open his eyes. Ever since his return, he had come to realize that this whole operation was insane. Orion's Reach was insane. The gruesome stories of their hunts, which people casually shared over breakfast in this place, caused him to shudder now. All of the doubt he should have felt in those four years had come to him at once, in those sleepless nights over the past couple of days.

What kind of honor was there to be gained from hunting down defenseless civilians? From torturing children to scare their parents into submission?From mutilating people who had committed no crimes whatsoever, other than using technology to survive, like each and every one of them did every day on this planet with its barely breathable atmosphere?

If he was to die without that kind of dubious honor being bestowed upon him, he was content with that. If he was to die today, at least he'd die without innocent blood on his hands. The thought of dying did not worry him at all. The fact that he felt like he had wasted the past twenty-two years of his existence - that was what bothered him.

He wiped the remaining water from his face with his hands, turned his back on the miserable man in the mirror, and made his way to the assembly hall.

~ ~ ~

Astraphos was a desolate planet, a grey landscape of ragged rock formations, dotted with craters from meteorite impacts. Why anybody would chose to build anything here, where constant thunderstorms ignited the upper layers of the barely breathable atmosphere, mystified many. Why one of the best-funded branches of the military had their headquarters here baffled even more.