((Far from my best, but I had to get something written to get the muse working again...))



“Hey, Boss. We have a problem in Grid Alpha-7. Want me to go check it out?”



Captain Arden Raddic snapped out of his half-asleep state when his second spoke up. Sighing and wiping his face with a hand, he muttered a curse. Falling asleep while on duty was an action he would have torn any soldier in squad apart for, and had done so on a number of occasions. And now he had gone and committed his own cardinal sin.



“Damn it…Why didn’t you wake me, Gabe?” he asked his second. Lieutenant Gabriel Paladis had served at his side from his first commission onwards. While other faces of the squad came and went, having someone he could constantly depend on to get the job done was a relief in more ways than one. Gabriel was the one that had given Arden the nickname of “Boss,” much to the man’s chagrin. But it had caught on and stuck. Arden’s only small piece of solace was the fact that it could have been worse.



“Even you need to sleep, Boss. I figured I could handle watching over things for a while.” the lieutenant said simply, holding out a data pad. Arden only sighed and nodded. He wouldn’t admit it, but he needed the rest. Their assault on the small military outpost they were in had been much harder than their intelligence had led them to believe. The Pilgrims had more than a token force stationed there, on top of automated defenses the outpost shouldn’t have had. It was only by the grace of the stars that he hadn’t lost a man. Taking the data pad and skimming reports from the night watch and not seeing anything important, he looked back up at Gabriel.



“What’s the problem?” he asked.



“The patrol in that grid stopped moving. I’ve pinged them a few times, but aside from getting affirmative pings back that they’re green, I’m not getting a response.” Gabriel said. Arden stood up from the chair he had fallen asleep in, walking to the table in the center of the room. He had commandeered the outpost’s command hub as his own, and organized his squad’s occupation from there. With all of the Pilgrims having died protecting the outpost, it was just a matter of waiting for their relieving force to arrive. Although what the hell command wanted with this temple on some back-water planet was beyond him.



Looking over the map, he frowned. Alpha-7 was part of the residential hub. What were they doing there, and not walking the perimeter?



“Who’s on the patrol? Beckham and Rodriguez?” he asked, picking out the two soldiers in the squad that were known to have relations with each other. Somehow they always ended up working together, no matter how he arranged the schedules.



“No, sir. It’s Valens and Carpan. Like I said, want me to check it out?”



“Huh…No, you keep watch here. I’ll go. Maybe some fresh air will wake me up a little.” Arden said, grabbing his helmet and rifle. Giving the rifle a check over to make sure it was still in good order, he left the command station.

It would be a short walk from the command hub to the residential hub. Situated in the middle of the outpost, the command hub was the nexus that connected to everywhere else, although the outpost was a small one—aside from the command and residential hubs, there was a medical station and the communications array. And, of course, the temple, but as far as they could tell it had been sealed up. His men weren’t getting inside there, not without some heavy duty explosives.



Most of his fifteen-man special operations squad was spread out to cover each area. They were split into three fire teams of four, and this late at night, they were on rotation for patrols. Two men from each team were up at once for patrols, alternating every two hours. The only exceptions were himself and Gabriel. They were in the command hub, while the squad corpsman was in the medical station taking care of the Pilgrim dead from the battle.



Taking the outpost had been his squad’s tenth straight mission and fatigue was starting to show. When the plan had gone south, as every plan did, they hadn’t reacted as quickly as they should have. No one had died, but two of his soldiers had gotten hurt. After battle reports showed sloppy aim and shooting, sloppy maneuvering…Sloppy everything. It was unacceptable, and he had given them all hell for it. Right after that, he had forwarded a request for the squad to be put in reserves when the fleet arrived. The last time any of them had a full, restful night of sleep was a quickly fading memory. Combat stims were keeping them going, but those had already been pushed beyond their recommended limits.



His men and women were exhausted. Humans could only be pushed so far before they broke. And while he would be the first to say his Marines were the best of the best, even they had their limits. And a prime example was right now. Valens and Carpan were good men, good soldiers. They weren’t the type to ignore pings from Gabriel.



As he neared the residential hub, though, he heard shouting. Opening the communicator in his helmet he ping them for an update.



“This is Captain Raddic. Alpha Team, what’s your situation? I’m en route to your position.” he said. His call was met with silence, but the shouting silenced. After a few more minutes, likely as the two men realized blowing off the captain was a bad idea, his comms flickered to life again.



“This is Sergenat Valens. The situation is under control. Corporal Carpanhas just forgotten his place in the pecking order.” a voice spoke into his ear. But that was all that was said before the comm silenced, and he heard another shout in the distance. Something was going on. Carpan was young, the youngest grunt in the squad, but he had an excellent record. He had to have one, to get on his squad.



As the HUD on his helmet display showed he was approaching their position, he heard a shot. Cursing, he alerted Gabriel to ping the rest of the squad and get everyone on alert as he broke into a run. Turning the corner, he saw his two soldiers pointing their weapons at each other. Carpan was standing in a doorway, keeping Valens from entering.

“What hell is going on here? Who discharged their weapon, and what the hell are you two doing?” Arden yelled as her stomped towards the two. Stepping between them he pushed their rifles down before turning on Carpan. “Boy, you better have a good reason for pointing your weapons at your sergeant!”



“He’s trying to rape the prisoners!” Carpan yelled back, glaring past him at the sergeant. Arden just blinked, and shook his head.



“What are you talking about? We took no prisoners, corporal.” Arden said, before gesturing for the corporal to move aside. He did so, and stepping into the room, he cursed. A Pilgrim woman was standing in the far corner of the room, shielding another, younger girl from him. Turning back on his two men, he pointed at the girls. “Where the hell did they come from!?”



“We found them on patrol,” Valens said, still glaring at Carpan, “They were hiding in this room, I don’t know how we missed them before.”



“And you didn’t think to call it in, sergeant?” Arden asked. He couldn’t believe this. Valens was better than this.



“Why bother? ROE was kill any Pilgrim on sight, no prisoners taken. And with as heavy as our workload has been lately, I wanted a little—” Arden cut the sergeant off, stepping up to him and grabbing him by the collar of his carapace armor. Dragging him into the room and shoving him up against the wall, he pointed at the two girl.



“Combatants, Valens, combatants! The rules of engagement were shoot enemy combatants on sight! Civilians were off limits. Do they look like combatants to you?” he yelled into the man’s face. Tired, blood-shot eyes just glared back at him.



“They’re damned Pilgrims, sir!” Valens protested, pushing Arden off of him, “Traitors to the empire! We can do whatever we want to them!”



This wasn’t the Valens he knew. It was the stims talking now, increasing aggression and killing and sense of conscious. Blaming the exhaustion for the man’s lack of control he shoved him back up against the wall.



“You don’t make that call, sergeant! I gave orders for the patrols to report anything out of the ordinary, and you know damn well what the ROE were! And since when do we murder civilians? Carpan!” he looked over at the Corporal, who snapped to attention when he was addressed, “Sergeant Valens is relieved of duty. Escort him to the medical station, tell Doc that she needs to look him over. I think he’s had a few too many stims.”



“They’re all combatants!” Valens yelled as Carpan took his weapon and started to drag him away, “Every one of them! Screw them and shoot them, that’s all the women are good for!”



“Silence him, corporal!” Arden ordered, and soon enough the hub fell silent. The girls were still in the corner, glaring at him, though they were obviously terrified. The oldest one looked like she was in her mid-twenties, certainly old enough to be a soldier, while the one she was protecting couldn’t be more than sixteen. Sighing, he shook his head. He wasn’t supposed to take any prisoners. But at the same time, there wasn’t supposed to be any civilians in the outpost anyway. But these two weren’t fighters…And, hell, this mission didn’t make any sense anyway. Why send an elite special operations force after a temple? They could have been put to better use continuing their operations in the cities on the planet.



But hell, he knew what would happen when the temple was occupied by the normal ground forces.



“What are you going to do to us?” the girl finally said. Arden didn’t answer right away, looking around the room. Two beds, a closet, a window…It was pretty spartan in design and set-up. They had likely hidden in the closet, and whoever cleared the room was too sloppy to check it out. This was one FUBAR mission…



“I’m sorry. I can’t take prisoners.” he said, removing his helmet and setting it on the floor, facing away. Then he changed the magazines in his rifle before raising it and aiming at them. The girl froze, glaring at him with pure hatred in her eyes.



“”You Imperial pig!” she spat at him. Two bursts fired from his rifle soon after. Still looking down the sights, he sighed. Lowering the rifle and shaking his head.



“Boss, I heard the shots through the comm. The civvies taken care of?” Gabriel asked.



“They’re gone.” Arden spoke into the helmet, “I used the anti-matter rounds. No proof to show intelligence they were wrong. You know they hate it when we do that, and I don’t feel like dealing with the red tape.”



“…Yes sir. I agree, good call. What about Valens?”



“Tell Doc to give him a mental look over. I think the stims were getting too much for him. A comination of them, exhaustion, and stress…I think he was hallucinating.”



“I agree, sir. I’m diverting Bravo Team from perimeter patrol. They’ll take over Alpha’s route until things are sorted out.” the lieutenant reported before killing comms.



Arden lowered her rifle, and looked in the corner. The two girls were standing there, a bewildered look on their face. He just nodded to the window, and turned to walk out of the room, picking up his helmet as he went. Audio logs would seem perfectly normal, and there was no video from this helmet camera to show that he missed. No bodies would be found, and the civilian presence wouldn’t be reported. Carpan would be told to simply keep his mouth shut, and Valens would have to be shipping out for a mental evaluation after breaking under the stresses of war.



In the end, he knew he was failing his men. They were too exhausted to keep doing these missions, even routine ones like this. They were his responsibility, and they were starting to break. It was his duty to protect them, their humanity as well as their lives. To send them back to their families in one piece and without guilt. Valens was the first, and he had narrowly stopped the man from doing something heinous. But the sergeant was just the first. How long before more of them started to crack?



Ignoring the sound of a window opening behind him, or the chill of eyes on his back, he started to head back to the command hub. The relieving force would be here in the morning, and then he was getting his squad back to the fleet.



((Sorry for the multiple posts...Still trying to get the hang of where the post cut-offs are.))

Alright Captain Raddic! Good to see an Imperial with a conscience.

Fantastic writing, I enjoyed it, its like Vietnam in space. I

Skyranger wrote:
Fantastic writing, I enjoyed it, its like Vietnam in space. I

Hmm, Vietnam? Just curious, what made you think of that comparison?