A red light flickers on, it struggles for a minute before fully illuminating. It shines onto my face and I release a cold breath, a moment passes and I jerk awake with the realisation that I’m alive.

“SITREP!” I call out in a hoarse voice, I still feel frozen from the stasis. My machine doesn’t respond. I can see my breath in-front of me in the red light and I wiggle my fingers around to try and remove the numb cold.

“I said SITREP!” I shout at the screen before headbutting it in frustration. My red light flickers out. “Fuck you.” I whisper to it. I release the hand controls and pull my arms close to my chest, I didn’t need light anyway. Every good Operator can do this eyes closed and one handed for this exact reason. 

I feel around the cramped Operator control panel searching for the mechanical release to get myself out. I’m feeling pretty lucky I was sent on a ground mission rather than a space mission. If it was space then I guess I’d just die then. Unlocking the manual release I give it a strong push to open the clam shell armour around me.

It doesn’t budge.

“Shit.” I complain and try again, only for a thin line of dirt to pour in and land on my head, powdery dry dirt. Have I just been buried alive? Or did they think I was dead and just chucked me into a mass grave. I gave a long sigh.

Claustrophobia doesn’t last long in the Heavy Armoured Infantry corps, working in powered exo-skeleton suits has always been cramped. I reseal the manual release and feel around for the emergency kit. I need to have power to get out of this mess. 

“Warning this kit is only designed to be used in Emergencies, unauthorised use will mean disciplinary action.” The automated voice warned.

“Authorise service number November-Alpha-Four-Two-India-Three-Nine-Nine.” I call out bored.

“Authorised.” Then a short bleep unlocked the small kevlar bag. In the bag is a small pen that when broken mixes two chemicals together that creates oxygen. Glove-Camera tactile flashlight, a graphene battery, and a small prayer book. I pull the glove over my right hand and it automatically links into my cyberware. Over my sight I can see a quick diagnostic check flash by before I start giving mental commands to the flashlight to turn on, change colour, reduce brightness. 

No white light in the battlefield. 

Even entombed underground I still follow my SOPs, they’re familiar and prevent me from panicking. I lean into the back of my Suit as much as possible to create space and I quickly find the input slot for the battery, slotting it in I then ease myself back into both arms of the Suit. I’m lucky and the system starts to boot up on emergency power again. Questions race through my mind but the first thing I have to do is get myself to a safe area, which is hopefully not that far above me. In this state of emergency power the amount of force that can be exerted by the machine is significantly less, I’ll have no access to energy weapons, electronic warfare, communications, my dumb artificial intelligence, weapon guidance, or really anything that makes the Heavy Infantry Exosuit infantry. 

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It just becomes a really expensive cargo suit, but it could still at least pick up two tonnes while in this low power mode. I’m not too worried about being stuck underground. I confirmed the status readout, and it looks like my armour is on its last legs, so I get to clawing my way out of the dirt.

Now I would usually state that I’m quite hard to disturb, a picture of calm in the middle of the storm, an eye of a hurricane, desensitised and all that. I clawed my way through the first metre of dirt, I wasn’t too worried. Then I crawled through a second, then a third, a fourth, then eventually a fifth and I still did not get out of the ground. 

So I took a five minute break, the water bladder in the pilot canopy finally melted from when I was in stasis. The stasis gives an annoying freezer burn when used but it might have saved my life, I won’t be able to know unless I check my logs once I’m out of this hole.

So I dig, and I keep digging for another thirty minutes before I detect light through the hole in the ground I just made. In a mad scramble I force the suit out of the hole and order it to open up and let me out. 

A wave of fresh cool air brushes my face, I start to calm my breathing that I didn’t even realise I became ragged. I take a moment to observe my surroundings before deciding if I should get back into my shell.

The grass is long, stringy, and purple. While the trees surrounding me have blue leaves. This is remarkably different from what I remember. There’s meant to be more green, I kneel down to the ground and pluck a strand of grass to get a good look at it. It looks a lot similar to the normal grass I know but fuck if I know the difference.

I’m not a botanist.

No point worrying about something that may or may not kill me, I’ll either die or not. So I move to check the Armour. Dents, bumps, scratches, burns, slightly melted, some sharp shrapnel still embedded in it. It’s going to need more than first level maintenance to get it fully operational again. It’ll need second line fixing which I don’t think I have access to anymore. 

Scuttle it? What’s the point, it looks like the enemy won and already began terraforming Earth. Judging by how deep I was buried and the extreme change in fauna I doubt I’m going to live long once I’m spotted by the new ‘natives’. 

There are a few things I can still salvage from the suit though, the AI, basic survival gear, supplies, and a weapon. I start prepping the suit for long storage in case I need it again. I check over the logs to see how long I’ve been in stasis. 

Five thousand years.

If humanity had been given that amount of time to develop then I guess we wouldn’t have lost, now that the Aliens had an extra five thousand years it really starts to hammer home that I won’t be long for this planet. Well hopefully I’ll be a blast from the past for them, you never know they might have developed so much that primitive warfare might be effective against them now.

I go to put on my clothes but when I pull them out the bag they’re threadbare and smell of old mould. Of course, anything not stored inside the Armour is going to be pretty useless, I’m lucky I didn’t lose the seal before warming me back up. So my pistol still is in good working order and the SERE kit in the suit as well. 

“Unit Golf-five-Bravo, prepare to move.” I give a voice order while outside it. The canopy closes and the exo-suit stands to its full height of two and a half metres tall. 

“Standing by.” It reports back to me in a dull voice.

“Get in the hole.” I point to where we crawled out of earlier, it doesn’t question or hesitate before stepping into the little Abyss we made. “Long term storage mode.” I give the final order before digging some more dirt to cover it. Happy with the concealment I note the position in my cyberware and begin waiting for nightfall. 

Moving in the day makes you too easy to spot.