All Quiet on the Front

    "I would be if you were not shoving my eye into the lens." He rubbed his injured eye in annoyance "Why are you not at your post?" She scoffed at him, her shock of silver hair bouncing with her shoulders

        "Only cos you're not doing so hot with yours."

    "I am only doing so poorly because you are interrupting me..." Merek crossed her arms and huffed extravagantly, this had become a gag of theirs—she antagonizes and he pretends it doesn't stave off the slow death of waiting.

        "Soooo... Did ya, you know..." Her coy grin undercut the shy affectation in her tone.

  "No!" This was absurd, at least for him. Gossip while on the most boring of assignments was one thing but gossip during the most important of boring assignments was another, he decided to have none of it. By evening she'd move on to other pursuits, other distractions from the mind-numbing tedium inflicted upon them by the foul xenos. With the twin suns low on their opposing horizon the sky was alight with shades of remembered blood and innards, fading into the violent purples and plump pinks of the mind-boggling cosmic storm that caused all this madness.

  Automated lights flickered on across the vast perimeter with the dusk, a necessary evil to ensure everyone would wake the following morning. Caffeine was passed around the squads forced to work through the night—another necessary evil—and the jittery sentries swept their wild eyes across their lines fearing the worst. The gun crews—much luckier than the likes of First Lieutenant Koros—slouched at their posts in the approximation of a catnap. The champion and progenitor of such behavior—Corporal Merek—was, as usual, feigning sleep at her post on the seat of Gun Twelve.

  All of them needed rest. Even though their rotation had only begun two days ago this was by far the worst shift on the front lines yet. As the only constant defenders of the city the Arkadian First and Last decided it would be best to run in shifts—ideally have three days on the front then two days inside the walls getting actual rest before being cycled back into some other part of the front. Those on Earthshaker duty were the safest normally—the trenches they protected usually staffed with the majority of the regiment and began nearly a kilometer away—but with this odd interruption of routine the commanders had taken the opportunity to shift the units in the trenches into the city the day before, everyone now on the dreaded condition of "standby."

  By the morning First Lieutenant Koros was asleep, slumped in his chair with a tarp wrapped around his slumbering body. She knew it wasn't fair, not to any of them. Most of her comrades were civilians, not soldiers, and the rest were ill-suited to protracted sieges. Sister Merek had been trained to fight over a lifetime, cultivated to be an unflinching fist for her God-Emperor and her species—the trial she now endured was trivial if she talked to herself softly enough so no one else would hear. Even without her precious power armor she was a force to be reckoned with on and off the battlefield. Her sole working eye canvassed the field ahead of her, pot-marked until it resembled pictures of an ancient Luna, bereft of any life. Nothing stirred at all—a dead landscape on a rapidly dying world.

  First Lieutenant Koros jumped awake, snorting and puffing in manic desperation at the realization that he had fallen asleep for longer than a moment. "Mornin' LT, world ain't gone to shit yet, you're fine." The poor man was scrabbling, flailing as his mind reeled. Her soothing voice seemed to lack the intended outcome, she grabbed his collar.

    "Oi! You're fine Koros. Nothin's happened, we're all fine, everything's fine. Calm your tits." He slumped to the floor after such a hard stop

        "Wh-wha?"

    "Ya took a nap. I took up your job while you's were dozin, all's quiet LT." She shrugged

        He shivered, fear and dawn cold rumbling through his spine "Th-thank you Corporal but you could have woken me! It's my duty to-" She shushed him with a finger

    "Bullshit and you know it."

  Their day was as strenuous as the last two, the prospect of leave driving the crawl of time to slow even further and the rain to beat ever harder down upon their sopping clothes. It let up a little towards the afternoon—enough so that the suns could peek through the clouds and dry at least a single hair on everyone's heads. Like the days before it no xenos approached, no target made itself known to be struck down by the might of the Imperium's guns. The loudest sound was a brief tune carried by former members of the Imperial Navy, an ancient shanty sung by hoarse, tuneless throats and Alexia's heart soared as he joined in. Everything stopped with the roaring of a gun.

  "Dear Emperor no..." Eyes wild across the horizon, desperately searching for the confirmation of their fears. Glittering chitin or grotesque, flesh-colored carapaces with their scythe hands and gaping, tendril maws. Their mandibles ripping, tearing through the weak flesh of his fellow humans—none would ever be safe. Bullets rend flesh but they still keep coming, they always keep coming, all Alexia wanted to do was curl up in the smallest ball possible in the vain hope of being missed by the invading xenos. They couldn't win, no one could win against such impossible odds, all you could do was pray and hope an orbital bombardment could wipe this planet off the map before it spread—likely with you still on it.

  Someone had fired off a volley—everyone hoping beyond hope it was a misfire or something, anything but the inevitable. Alexia heard the turning of one of his guns and his hand flew up faster than lightning to halt it, the shot hadn't landed yet. He saw it, the explosion of a round hitting the ground as the dull, sickening thud reverberated through his feet but he saw nothing there. No sign of mandibles—nothing but the red-brown dirt that had been the shallow grave of so many of his fellows. "No Contact!" His screech gave his position pause, how could any of them be sure they weren't there just behind an overlooked mound, but his crews knew Koros well enough to follow his orders first and question later.

  They waited with breath kept in their aching lungs and eyes watering from the strain. For over an hour nothing stirred, not even a sniffle or cough broke the heart pounding pitter-patter. Alexia was not the last to relax but he was markedly not the first. He shook—adrenaline, fear, anxiety and the trauma of the past weeks took its toll on his nervous system. Hands reached around his frame and clasped him tight. Flesh pressed against flesh through the soaked clothing of their unarmored uniforms and he almost thinks its too late—he's missed it and now the xenos have him and everyone else on this Emperor-forsaken planet—but its not. The soft cooing and shushing worm into his soul like the comfort of a friendly star through a viewport. A female voice tells him everything is still ok, that he's safe and secure and nothing will harm him, everything is ok.

  Trembling arms relax slightly, the tension still there but gone for the moment—only for the moment—to the undercurrents of the storm raging inside his entire body and soul. He won't die—not today, not today not today. Not today. He isn't the only one, they can't take much more of this and none of the defenders will ever be the same should they make it off this planet. This, he feels, is why Corporal Merek is here—to guide and hold them, protect them under the bulwark of her faith and love for humanity. She may be his junior officer but like everyone else he needed her, needed her cool head and the light of certainty she carried within her emerald eye and her collected air under even the most dire of situations. She is the soul of their ad-hoc regiment, their savior—their Saint.

  The sky would clear, the rains would cease, storms would end and help would come, but not yet...

        Not yet.