The Red Frontier: Wrath of the Vanquished

Chapter 25: Life, Faith and Loss

A voice behind him scoffed. "Looks like the Republic can't even be bothered to armour 'em properly." Every word in that sentence was infested with a contempt that only one man was capable of. Looking over his shoulder, Marcus saw Ferro looming up behind him, gun clutched in-hand, mouth covered by his rebreather, and an apathetic glint in his piggy eyes.

Marcus' hand tapped the side of his helmet, his HUD turning off and drowning his field of view in darkness for a brief moment before the metal plates of his visor parted to reveal the room. As it opened, he felt cool air sweep across his forehead and down his face, the beads of sweat on his brow turning ice-cold while they slid down his face then dripped onto his breathing apparatus.
"A fourteen-year old, Ferro. Conscripted and dragged off to war just this year..." Marcus looked the little Lieutenant straight in the eyes. "Could you at least feel something for one of them? For any of them?"

The Tartarusan returned his gaze, and with the clunk of shifting pistons, shrugged his shoulders. "Better him than me. War and life... both of 'em ain't fair."

Inside his rebreather, Marcus frowned. But before he could say something, Ferro glanced at something a distance away from the two of them and spoke in a half-whispered voice. "Might want to check that out, Captain..." he said, nodding his head at whatever he was looking at.

Marcus followed Ferro's gaze, and all the anger in his body suddenly dissipated.

Lieutenant-Doctor Elizabeth Nilsen, the platoon's medic, stood gazing up at the hole through which they'd entered earlier. Unmoving as a tombstone and silent as a grave, the blood-scarlet beams of light from Sirtha Prime's sun streamed down onto what could be seen of her face, illuminating her small fringe of blonde hair, her ghostly grey eyes, and the crystal tear running down her cheek.

Ferro wandered off as Marcus approached Elizabeth, striding towards her in a slow, yet purposeful manner. The blonde maiden didn't move at all as Marcus approached, seemingly oblivious to the loud clunking sound of his feet against the reinforced concrete floor. She just kept staring into the skyline, a pleading glint in her eyes...

... and Marcus knew exactly why.

"Elizabeth" he said as he approached.

Immediately, the Lieutenant-Doctor snapped out of her trance and turned to him. "Oh, um... Captain." Her eyes were tinged red, their surface glistening with saline tears that dripped down and slid within the lines of sorrow that had been etched into her face.

As she frantically wiped her eyes, Marcus placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry about Rob. He was a great soldier... and a great friend."

"It's alright, sir." Elizabeth said, lowering her gaze. "Rob and I... we knew the risks..." As she said that, she raised her left hand, touched her body, then her forehead, then each of her shoulders. "He's with the Lord now."

Marcus watched her solemnly, then looked at the sky. "I hope he is, Elizabeth."

Pulling away from Marcus' touch, Elizabeth shut her visor and trudged off, either to follow her Captain's orders or to go and come to terms with Robert's death. Whatever she did, Marcus wouldn't stop her. If lost what she just had, he'd need a moment too.

As he watched her leave, Marcus lowered his gaze to the floor, breath huffing from his throat and out his mouth in a deep sigh. He then looked up to the sky himself, eyeing the crimson beams of light that sliced through the thick cover of clouds above. In the gaps between the buoyant masses of smoky vapour, he glimpsed the shape of Sirtha Prime's sun, gazing down upon them like a great gleaming eye.

But did it view them with kindness, or contempt?

He wasn't a religious man. Never had been before. But right now, he needed all the luck he could get. Divine or otherwise. So he gazed up at the sky in silence for a moment before re-closing his visor and returning to the matter at hand.