I rolled onto my left side, a rare position for me but I was getting desperate.

No good, back to my right flank I thought except halfway through I realised the good 'ol middleman could work.

Nope, staring at the ceiling only made me more awake.

I let out a deep sigh as I realised it must be too late to get any proper amount of sleep, a quick and painful look at my phone confirmed that.

'Why can't we all wake up at 11, have some lunch and shoot each other dead then?'

A quick image of soldiers and xenos slowly marching into battle as not to puke after our gentleman's agreement about brunch ran off wild in my desperate and half-sleep mind and I chuckled to myself, What can I, I'm a humour genius and a very easily entertained monkey-brain of a man.

Since a good night's rest was no longer a probable option I decided to relax, in my own way. I headed for my favourite vantage point with my trusty canteen that was certainly not filled with whiskey.

Before sitting down I put down a small blanket for cushioning on one of the broken concrete bits of building jutting out of the ruble and let my legs hang as I stared off into the distance.

Few gulps later I of course got bored and toyed around with the best toy in these parts. My sidearm. Checking the receiver I had considered doing a quick checkup though I'd need to get some tools for that and those were about 'I can't be bothered to get up' distance away so I threw the idea away rather quickly.

"Plase captain, whatever the problem is, we can face it together…" His sarcastically pleading voice confused me for a split-second until I realised just how I must've looked to an outside eye.

"Always remember Johny boy…" My words vere slightly slurred from my tipsiness. "If I- When I die it' ll be two things, quite a spectacle and a sure kill."

"I'll be sure to tell the engineers to hide anythin' with even a remote chance of explodin' then."

I outstretched and patted a bit of blanket from beneath me as we continued to retort. "If need be I'll go out there and find something that goes boom."

"You do have an uncanny talent at getting mixed up in explosions, sir."

I slapped the younger man and continued to stare out into the no man's land.

"I'm guessing that one was for being too formal?"

"No. This one is." I offered him my canteen which he reluctantly took, gulped down some of its contents and then almost dropped it as he coughed.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"That… where did you even source that?!"

"I have a few friends in the scouts, they drop by old distilleries from time to time." I took back my second favourite canteen, first being the one that carries actual water, and took a swig myself.

"Well then, I will see you in the morning, unlike you I can't operate on less than eight hours of sleep."

"You got it Johny boy…" I was fine with six myself but lately I couldn't even rack up four. Thinking about it, I remembered the few times I fell asleep in the past week, grimacing at the hard decision whether it was worse that I fell asleep during deployment like that or that the constant fighting became so normal, even compared to the great war, that I even could fall asleep.

Looking out I finally felt some sleepiness creep into my mind or perhaps it was just the tipsiness. Either way I headed back into the barracks for my not so peaceful sleep.

—---

The glaring beeping of my alarm woke me up and I quickly smacked it, took it up and threw it against the wall and only after hitting the ground thereafter did it finally leave my eardrums alone. While I tried to force my eyes open I slightly grimaced at the feeling of my skin being greasier than an american fast food.

"I really want a shower…" I mumbled to myself.

Getting up I slipped from my sleepwear, which was just my backup uniform but I made sure to use one for sleeping and one for combat, a habit I picked up somewhere and kept going for some reason, and then moved on to morning briefing.

"Second Lieutenant, good to see you as early as always." The commanding officer, Lieam, wore his sad smile as usual during recounting of the nightly events, some of which I witnessed from a distance during my… meditational time shall we say.

"...and there is one final matter, however, that concerns only you, Second Lieutenant."

"Me?" I had to shake my head when I realised how groggy and annoyed I sounded. "Sorry, what is it sir?"

"It seems I have another of your favourites…" I'm certain that at this point I could not have made it more obvious that while I was unnaturally gifted at suicidal, next to zero odds, limited supplies and only a small ammount of men missions I most definetly did not enjoy the to such an extent that they could be descriped as 'my favourites'.

"Perfect, I'll go tell the guys and you send me the details ove-" I stopped and gave him an inquisitive look as he raised his hand calmly in a gesture suggesting I shut my trap.

"I believe you should hear this in person." After retracting said hand it came out of his breast pocket with a small, phone sized and sturdy box.

"That's a War-Cache." Though I stated as if it was a daily object it was one of the most valuable objects in the military. A War-Cache contains intel on the enemy, lists of equipment, commands and so much more data that can no longer be transferred over long distances due to no functioning global info-net.

"Indeed it is. A copy of the last one with some slight additions after yesterday's events that is."

"I don't think I follow."

"A carrier signal has been confirmed shot down just two days ago."

"They get shot down all the time, give them a few days and the hardy buggers' will be back at paddling in no time."

"They were shot in imperial space."

I froze. Imperial space? That means back in Europe… or did we establish a new territory? Surely not back home…

"Was it the Conglos running black ops? Maybe a splinter cell, or hell, even Feds engaging?"

"A different team received a confirmation of plasma damage before they left shore range."

"Fuck."

His sad smile grew a little as he nodded. "Indeed. We'll need you to run the carrier task. You're leaving in two hours so get your men ready, oh and carrier squad six, what remains of it, will join you."

"Sir!" I saluted and left with the War-Cache in my hands. It was heavier than it looked but my admiration of the small technological marvel of data encryption and transfer was stopped dead by Johny boy already waiting for me.

"Second Lieu-"

I simply gave him my death stare.

"I just received orders to get my fireteam ready. What's going on?"

A small grin crept to my face. "We, my dear Johny boy, are officially becoming the most suicidal carriers in IMP."

"Sorry, I don't qui-"

Okay, it may have been more than a small grin. "Shush, thine destiny shall reveal itself in exactly two hours at the airfield. Thee shall arrive in two hours, not three, not four, exactly two hours."

"Ugh… Okay?" He never got my old time references but damn, were they good.