SPACE TROOPERS FROM OUTER SPACE: GRIMDARK GOMMORAH

We watched in awe as a frigate slowly pushed its way into the ground, twisting and flaking in a gust of fire.   Empty fighters drop to the ground and crumple like dead pigeons.  Bodies, oh god the bodies.  The dead fell to the ground in heaps, and the living screamed through their helmets as they hurtled through the musty air.

“What a helluva way to go, that.”  Says a faceless trooper.  The slight accent to his voice and manner of speaking tells me it’s Jed, or as we’re supposed to call him, C1-B.

“You know better than any of us, Jed.”  I reply.

  Jed was a normal trooper like us before, but when a carrier went down to artillery fire he fell to his death.  His first death, at least.  They picked him up, poured what was left of him back in his boots, and carried the bits back to base.  He was an exceptional trooper, they said.  Too good to go to waste.  For a few weeks they bathed him in this clear, stringy liquid.  Jed says this brought him back, even with half of his brain missing.  He said he remembered them dumping in some silver dust, and that gave him back his skull cap, legs, and arm.  They look normal now, but all segmented and chromed.

All we know is Jed is dead, and C1-B took his place.

A loud buzz fills the air and a stern, stoic female voice enters my ears.

"That's C1-B, not Jed, trooper six.  Refer to him as such, or there will be penalties.”

I try not to think too loudly, or else they can hear. That was "conscience". They put her- it, into your head when you get conscripted.  But, if you think about a whole lot of things at once she can’t tell which thought is which.  I slipped up this time.  I miss Jed.

I quickly send a menagerie of thoughts through my head.  Baseball, my T-61 rifle, and those nice French cheeses my girl used to get me.  Underneath all of that, I’m thinking about back when I had a name.  Back when I had a face, instead of this helmet.  Before the war, before the draft, before everything.  Back when mom and I used to do things.  We’d go antiquing and I’d always be interested in the military surplus.  So rare, the surplus was.  If only I knew how much military shit I’d be seeing on a day-to-day basis I’d have focused more on the fine glassware-

*ZAP*

Motherfuck-

“You're straying from the objective, six.”  She says, in an empathetic tone.  "You know what we do to sentimental soldiers."

She's right, I do.  They turn us into monsters.

C1-B’s voice, Jed’s voice, chimes in on my radio.

“Alright, we’ve got thirty-some hostiles over...." Jed points at a ridge about 100 yards into the distance  "That ridge, If Intel is right this time.” He says.

Part of me hopes they're wrong.  Last time, we were told to go to what was supposed to be a hostile town filled with miscreants and aliens.  It ended up being a salt flat.  We got to leave early that day, and that made me happy for the first time in months.

C1-B gives the signal and we head down the slope towards the ridge.

;oaushfouae