MY PAST – PART 1

Atmosphere of the dwarf-planet Zebi 2

06/3056 Teran, during the Fourth Corporate Rush

“Attention! Impact in less than 2 minutes. Please, remain seated, secured and alert until impact!” The Virtual Intelligence – or VI as it was usually called – coordinating the battle, blared through the onboard speakers. Sorry for the volume, it is hard to filter raw memories.

Though I guessed I was the only one to hear it at the moment. Sitting right next to the speakers apparently did have some advantages, because the screeching and tearing of the pods metal alloy drowned it out for everyone else. Well, those that were still left at least. I just hoped that the rookie to my right didn't have any family, ‘cause they would not get another look at little Johnny’s face. When the shelling started the stupid idiot had leaned forward and stared at the ground. The first bullet that penetrated the floor went straight through his visor and right out the back again. Tough luck for him, I guess. ‘Sorry rookie, your cooking will be missed.’

The second recruit went out in an even more questionable fashion. Seeing how our recruit number one got his head blown up, the dumb little girl thought it clever to un-strap herself from her seat! Even my angry motions for her to sit back down did nothing. Apparently, she also hadn't listened to the security briefing before the mission. Because if she would have or if she had ever taken a single closer look at the pods, she would have seen that there were only a few heavily armoured spots in the drop-pods. The five seats, the stabilisers and directly beneath the parachute were the only places that provided any kind of decent protection.

You might have figured it out by now, but the corporation I used to work for didn't give much of a shit about its employees. In fact, you could say that they invested as little money in us as possible. During each rotation, there were thousands if not millions of people signing on for the corporate rush. Each and every one of them came from one of the dozens of pacified worlds in our galaxy. And as always, all of them had bought the corporate shit about the massive riches and fame one could earn as a corpo privateer, and so the influx of rookies didn't stop. Then again it was mostly men that joined, so I had gotten excited about another woman on the team.

Let’s just say that my luck didn’t last long. Once she had unstrapped herself the girl climbed her way over towards our obviously dead comrade. Not even paying any mind to the increasing structural damage, she shook him as if thinking that he would respond. She even motioned over to me, trying to get my attention. As much as it pained me I knew better than to react. Even if she didn’t know it at the time, she too was already as good as dead.

What I hadn’t expected was for her to float over to me and try to unbuckle my straps. She seemed dead set on getting me to help. Well, a second later she wasn’t dead set anymore but just dead. When a big breach in one of the pod’s sides opened, she – being the only one not strapped in – got sucked right towards it. A nasty crack later her body was stuck in the opening and I had the distinct pleasure of seeing her choke due to a broken spine. ‘Well, fuck that’s gonna haunt my dreams the next few days…’

“Attention! 30 seconds towards parachute release! Please brace!”

Once more it seemed that only I had heard the VI, as my buddy Serin – yes the Serin, that woman is like a cockroach – stared at the other rookie instead. I wasn’t sure if he was making sure that the guy was okay or if he had just bet with himself how this one was going to die. One could never be sure with Serin, that guy was as reliable as they come, and prettier than most women but also had a sadistic streak a mile long. Seriously though that guy counted and marked down every kill! I had taken a good long peek at his body once to make sure that he indeed wasn't female, and had seen the scars on his body. They weren't bullet wounds but razor cuts… After that, I hadn't been able to look him straight in the eyes for at least a week.

Like any sane person, I normally just used scrubber meds to erase the faces of the peoples I had downed. Can't be haunted by your victims if they all have no faces! Makes them look just silly, or at least so I told myself. Of course, I knew that the corpos just gave them out for free so we privateers would stay sane and compliant, but in this case, I didn't mind being manipulated. Better to be blissfully stupid and continue on than to crack and break like the once that refused the meds. Once you broke the company dropped you, and no one in their right mind would employ a corpo soldier – or corpse as the people tended to call us – after they broke down.

“20 seconds to parachute release! Please brace!”

Realizing the situation I was in and what it might mean for my friend, I started motioning to get his attention. It wasn't an easy task as the g-forces working on my body were far above anything comfortable. Still, after a second or two he finally glanced over. I pointed upwards and showed him the number twenty with my fingers. In return, I go a nod and him pointing at the third recruit and acting as if he was being chocked. Reminding me once more that Serin was also another thing – a total idiot!

“Release in: 10!”

“9”

“8” I started to slow my breathing and slowly but surely pushed the air out of my lungs.

“7”

“6”

“5”

“4” With the state the pod was in this one was going to be rough.

“3”

“2” I pressed myself into my seat and gripped onto my bracers with all my strength.

“1” From the window in the door I saw one of our stabilizers fly off.

“Release!” In an instead, the pod was thrown around like a leaf on the wind. With several of the stabilizers damaged we could be happy if we landed at all. Far more likely was it for that damn flak gun down there to shoot us to bits. In this very moment I had made my decision, I would never again set even a single foot into another drop-pod!

“Pod malfunction! Emergency stabilizers not able to deploy, please use manual release!”

“Fuck.”

I looked over to Serin to see if he had heard it, but one glance at the mangled speaker above him told me all I needed to know. Seeing as the noise was still too loud to allow the use of communicators, I could only rely on myself for this one. As quick as I could I released the straps and stood up. I made sure to remain inside of my seat space, as the pod was still being pounded by heavy flak fire. 'Just why do those fucks have to focus on my godforsaken pod like this!' With unsteady footing, I carefully turned around to the hatch above my seat. I could already hear Serin unbuckle behind me, seemingly he had understood our predicament without any VI yelling in his ear.

I pulled the lever to open the manual release hatch… nothing. The hatch wasn’t even budging! I pulled again but received the same answer. Behind me, I heard the swoosh sound of one stabilizer firing. At least Serin had it easy. The only bad thing was that almost immediately the pod lurched to the side throwing me flat against my compartment! I shook my head and went back to work. This time I wouldn’t even try and open that shitty thing. After all, there was a reason why I had gone through advanced close quarters combat training, and that was the exo-suit a close-quarter specialist received! ‘Yeah, I had suffered through that hellish training only to get a bit of cool tech and damn the Ancients it was worth it!’

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Powering up my suit, I started punching the hatch with as much force as I could possibly muster. With each punch, the metal gave in a bit more, until it resembled more a piece of a modern art installation than a hatch. Just before I could land my next punch another swoosh told me that Serin had released the second stabilizer. Before the parachute could even fully leave the pod I already had a stupidly clever idea. In an instant, I grabbed the edge of the destroyed hatch and jammed my feet against the pod wall. Even considering my exo-suit I hadn’t expected that the hatch would give in so easily.

Instead of just ripping off the hatch, the pod's sudden deceleration also catapulted me together with the hatch away from the wall. Still not believing just what had happened, I watched the distance between me and the wall increase. It felt almost like slow motion as I realized that I was both too far away to fire the mechanism and that I was floating in the bullet filled “danger zone”.

“5-5-5 seconds to impa-!” ‘Ah, shit…’

In a last attempt to revolt against the clutches of death, I flailed around for anything to hold onto. My hand hit something squishy and kinda hard at the same time? I looked up and could have screamed out in joy. Apparently, the gods watching over this universe still weren't done with me! I barely mumbled an apology before clinging as tightly as I could to the still strapped-in body of the last of the recruits. I didn't care how this would look to outsiders, but I was going to survive this stupid day!

“Impac- Immedia-!” All I noticed was a strong shock, two bones breaking between my thighs and a man screaming before something hit the side of my head and I blacked out.

. . .

“Hey! Hey, Crys, damn it! I know you're not dead. Wake up, you big idiot!” Grumpily I had to realize that two strong hands were trying to shake me awake. Now, that was rude, waking me so early on my day off. I was gonna punch the person that dared to wake their lance corporal while she was sleeping straight into their stupid face once I got up!

“Go away! I'm tired!” My words came out slurred and somewhat hard to understand.

“Yeah, that's probably your adrenaline crashing. You need to get up now! Unless you feel the desire to be shelled that is… ” I recognized the voice now, it was Serin, of course. He never had given much of a shit about the fact that I was higher in rank than him. My guess was that he was still pissed about me being promoted before him.

“Ugh, fine.” I finally opened my eyes and suddenly was very confused by my odd double vision. To my left side, it looked mostly normal, if a bit blurry, but my right was a messed up collection of various shades of reds. Only than noticed how numb the right side of my face felt. Something must have happened while I was out of it!

“Wha- what happened? Why is everything so blurry and red? And why is my face numb!”

“It is okay, Crys. For now, I simply need you to move. I already have my hands full with the rookie."

“He- He survived?” As careful as I could I tried getting up but was quickly assaulted by vertigo and pulsing pain.

“Yeah, you may have crushed his legs with those insane thighs of yours but at least he didn’t get shot...”

While he talked I managed to get into a somewhat upright position and looked him over. From my entire fireteam, he seemed to have once more come out the luckiest. While his helmet’s visor was cracked the rest of his nerve-suit was intact and he even still had all of his equipment attached. Behind him, I could see the shattered remains of our drop pod. I was pretty sure that salvage would be able to reconstruct that one, not. And by the looks of it, we had apparently crashed on a cliff overseeing a dense forest. A good way of in the distance I could see the city. Noises of battle echoed through the morning air.

“Fuck, I feel like shit. What about the rest of the platoon?” The numbness of my face slowly faded, only to be replaced by a strong stinging pain.

“Not sure, the resistance’s flak took out a large swath of our pods. Seem as if our squad was hit by the brunt of the attack, one of the pods didn’t even have time to fire its landing-‘chutes before the flak turned it into cheese. The other crashed a short while from here.”

“What about the equipment pods?”

“Eh, no clue, to be honest, they either landed or got shot down before our pod."

I frowned, taking out an entire squad with mere border-world weaponry should have been impossible. The fact that they had been able to punch through our pods alone gave me cause for worry.

“Say, Serin, Any idea how the fuck those degenerate settlers even managed to take us down?”

“Yep, I have, take a look for yourself.”

He reached in one of his packs and threw me a pinkie sized piece of metal. I tried catching it but with my one eye still out of commission it just uselessly bounced off my chest armour. Doing my best to ignore the little voice yelling at me to find a medic, I picked up the piece. It was surprisingly heavy for its size. Armour piercing ammunition usually was but this was suspiciously heavy. Even more curious was the fact that the projectile wasn’t even deformed. I looked up from the bullet and back to Serin.

“Fucking Uranium Bullets? How?!”

In return, he only shrugged his shoulders. "Guess Intel fucked up again?"

“No matter, did you check if the pod’s radio still works?”

“I did... and you’re not gonna like it.”

I paused for a second unsure if should scream or spare myself the misery and just shoot myself in the head.

“Okay, that is fine, other question... Where the fuck is my helmet?”

By his look alone I could already see that he would have liked to avoid that question. “Yeah about that, you remember blacking out? Or how I said you saved the recruit from being shot?”

“How bad is it?”

I lifted my arm and felt for the injured side of my head. I didn’t feel hair or even skin but smooth plastic; a medi-patch covered the entire right side of my skull. Now it kinda made sense as to why I couldn’t see through my right eye. It together with much of my bone just wasn’t as it used to be anymore. Logically I realised that it was the truth but emotionally it just didn’t really settle in. I had lost a part of my fucking head and was still talking. At least I knew that my ocular-nerve was still functioning otherwise I wouldn’t even “see” red.

“How am I even still alive?”

“You’ll have to ask the doctors about that, my guess is that you are just incredibly lucky. The ricochet must have already lost a lot of power and your helmet protected you from the worst. You saw what a direct hit did to recruit Baser. In the end, it is just pure chance that we're still talking."

“Well, nothing I can do about it now. I wouldn’t have won beauty pageants before, now I have just one more incentive not to enter them. Come on, help me up will you?”

With Serin's help, I finally managed to get back on my feet. While the pain persisted it wasn't hard to ignore, for now, we had to organize what we could from the wreckage. The first thing I did was taking one of the dog tags from both of my fallen. It was unclear if they would ever be retrieved but like this, their families would at least know of their fate. Even if it was not the most ethical thing to do, I still took the intact helmet of the girl's corpse. When I saw her pained blue face she looked a lot younger than when she was still alive. Once more the corporation’s greed cost the lives of kids just barely past their teenage years. She had been just twenty years old, only two years older than my little sister.

It pained me to think about my family; as soon as I felt the thoughts clawing on my consciousness I put them back into the dark hole they had come from. There was no time for feeling bad. I could sit down and be dumbish, once I had gotten out of this shit. Instead, I focused on gathering any intact supplies from the pod while Serin rigged up a way to carry the still living recruit.

About a quarter-hour later both of us were ready. Even if I would have normally carried the injured due to wearing a proper exo-suit, my current injuries made that next to impossible. In turn, Serin was dragging the stretcher and I was on overview. Sadly my destroyed eye made that task just as unfitting as anything else. And to make matters worse here hadn't even been a lot of salvageable equipment in the pod.

All in all, we had two carbine rifles, a machinegun – that miraculously had survived the fall – a couple of grenades, several magazines of ammunition, and a few field rations. I had also relived the two fallen of their sidearms and now had three pistols strapped to myself, making me look utterly ridiculous to any that could see me. At the moment I could only hope that any enemy would die from laughter before firing on us.

“Okay, here is the plan Serin. Seeing as one of the pods crashed close to here, we will try and find any survivors that are left. The corpos might not care for our lives but I do! Also if we are lucky that pod still has a functioning radio.”

“Sounds good to me, Boss.”

A last time, I looked back over to our crashed pod and the fallen in it. A glance down the cliff showed me a half a dozen pods of our platoon securely landing about half a days march of in the forest. I raised my arm and fired my flare gun. The yellow ball of light was sure to attract attention if it was good or bad one I couldn't be sure. For now, I had done all I could for my fallen comrades. I turned towards Serin and followed him down the hillside.

It was time to move on.