As he stares down the worn barrel of his rifle, a lone marine
considers the fact that no matter what, whether he lives
or dies his gun will point to death. The death of his enemy,
or his impending future death, it makes no difference. The thought
can’t flash through his mind, because it is too dull, it
simply is there, a truism of war. He is as old and grizzled as
his rifle, which he holds as a natural extension of his arm.
His age, and experience would afford him a high position in a
conventional army, but he didn’t enlist for this service,
he was given it. He lived in poverty in a fringe colony, and
took to thievery at an early age to make do. He fell into the
prison system, and as the terran army was feeling the stress of
a losing war, they had quickly forced lesser criminals into service.
He started his life without the opportunity to think about his
existence, and as such made a perfect terran soldier. He was
unaware of the background of his call to doom, one day they appeared,
fitted him harshly with an environment suit, and crammed into
a drop ship. A rough IV pierced his skin and woke him, and he
looked up to see the same IV entering the next soldiers skin.
For a time he conversed with his fellow soldiers, but after years
of duty, he knew that having friends invited pain in wartime.
He had already lost far too many.

The order had come yesterday. The young soldier who spoke to
him over the built in radio system, said the words with no emotion,
completely dead pan. His brain slowly collects the information,
but cant register it with emotion. This type of lone scouting
mission meant only one thing. He had heard the reports of such
scouts before, a short frantic attempt at a troop count, and perhaps
one or two bursts of rifle fire. His job finished, the scouting
marine usually followed shortly after with a scream, muted only
by the destruction of the communications system in the helmet.
The scouts job was simple, stand in an obvious path for enemy
troop movements, and gather as much information as possible before
the shadowy forms of death made themselves apparent, and overwhelm
the onlooker with ferocious death, furious and fast.

The old marine viewed his order with only slight disturbance.
He had no illusions about his value, and he knew that the wartime
engine was powered by questions of expediency, rather than some
moral law. Like a slow moving river under yards of ice, the Marines
face shifted imperceptibly before returning to its normal unrevealing
position. His thoughts attempted to rise through the haze of
his battle scarred mind, that his death was imminent, that his
death would be as meaningless as his life, but he only thought
whilst carrying out the order, not in spite of it. He looks down
to see his legs moving, and is almost surprised. His automation
he feels a testament to the terran training system, which went
beyond leaving him depersonalized, or dehumanized. It actually
disconnected his thoughts and desires from his body, in such a
way that he looked on like a disinterested observer. His stim
pack suddenly fires, which startles him, in that it usually served
as an indicator of imminent danger, but his destination coordinates
remain the same on his display. He realizes that the commanders
just wish him to get to his destination that much faster, as he
slightly lags behind a normal marines pace, a result of shrapnel
from an enemy mine. The injury had been fixed temporarily on
the scene by a medic, but the permanent surgery never came, and
he never expected it to. The warm juices flowed throughout his
blood vessels, making his path to his death place, at least in
his mind a less definite one.

The effects of the stim wore off at about the same time as he
arrived at his destination, and the usual throbbing in his temples
begins. He takes a preliminary glance at his surroundings, an
ancient stone pathway provides his footing as he turns his head
awkwardly in its helmet. He remembers the first time he put on
his environmental suit, and the immense feeling of power that
it gave him, how invincible he felt. The irrefutable numbers
and experiences changed that feeling however, into the harsh reality
that is a terran marines life. Usually the reports were shady,
and fantastic, and as such the command chain would dismiss the
claims as mere rumors. The old marine’s experiences, unfortunately
served to verify the reports. Once, a group of twelve marines
were readying themselves to go into a day old zerg infestation,
with the hopes of stopping zerg expansion before reinforcements
could arrive. Just as the marines began their attack, horrific
spikes tore the ground asunder around them. Spikes, undulated
toward them, propelled by a terrific unknown force. The three
foot tall spikes gored all but one of the group in seconds, the
lone survivor managed totter back to the barracks, only to be
branded a deserting liar. The old marine himself had seen a throng
of troops fall dead, their brains completely exploded by some
sort of electrical force, from an unknown source. The marine
knew that separating the truth of the marines odds from the recruits
was part of the training process, the realities of their positions
would only sink in through experience. One could tell the new
recruits from the old in the new troops false bravado, kill counts,
tattoos, harshly illustrated environment suits.

The marine had faced many different attacks in his time, but only
in groups. The idea of a lone marine was self defeating. The
wait for death had begun. The old marine stood still for what
seemed like hours, with no new orders given. More than once he
had skittishly emptied rounds into what appeared like the enemy,
only to find it a harmless bengelaas. Each time, he was relieved
in that it wasn’t his enemy, but also angry that he had possibly
given away his position again. The marine began to hope for death
to come quickly. He had no illusions about the existence of a
god. A benevolent god would never permit this sort of war. He
simply wanted to have relief from his immediate situation, and
death was the only way this was to be achieved. Opponents never
inspired fear anymore, as the results were almost mathematical.
The mathematics involved in unit to unit combat with a single
marine were not very complicated, and under such pressure a heroic
end was impossible. There can be no heroism in this system of
war, and no heroism in such a pointless task, the marine was basically
insignificant beyond the data it could provide, and as such it
made no difference as to whether he survived or not.

Just as the marine began to settle up from his original tension,
a loud sound pierced through the ether. He jumps and surveys
the landscape before realizing it is his communicator. He hears
of the terran success with complete disgust. The terran army
has taken his life away, and now as their wraith and battlecruisers
have eliminated the main base of the enemy, they have taken his
death away as well. His scouting is no longer needed, and as
such he is asked to return to base camp.

The oversized boots of his environmental suit trudge back through
the alien soil, slightly dejected with the prospect of his survival.
He can see the high bluffs that approach his base camp, and he
knows the ramp lies just beyond. He places one foot up on the
ramp when he hears a feint sound. A disturbance in space seems
as a smudge, or the imprecision of an overtired eye, but in three
dimensions. This smudge is the last thing the marine says as
his body is cut in two with one efficient blow, by an unknown
assailant. The marine thinks only one thing about this occurrence,
but I merge with he, disinterested onlooker and manifested. Liberation.
Useless liberation.

-PeonSanders