Only the droning screams of the Force Commanders were left to hear on the Drop Ship. The clacking of makeshift armor on the grated planks of the floor, and the ghastly moaning sound of doors sliding open and fastening shut were constantly ringing in the air throughout the ship. Constantly, he was being slammed against the wall in a bustling parade of scurrying fellow Soldiers. Uhrik Phineus felt a vibrating high sounding through his head as his head banged against the cold metal wall, dropping backwards, and he scrambled on all fours through the thicket of his fellows. The Force Commanders were equivalent to shepherds, carelessly and violently shoving the Soldiers into the Drop Pod halls. When it came Uhrik’s turn, he felt the icy fingers of his higher authority, and he was stuffed into one of the enclaves, as the Pod doors slid open with a long, drawn out haunting howling noise which resounded through the tight space.

Uhrik’s makeshift, messily melded together plates of iron that made up a feral breastplate and dented, rusted greaves clacked in plodding clops on the grated floor, and he lay back in the Pod, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. He arched his neck forward, trying desperately to see what was going on outside from a single minute crack that quickly covered up when the door fastened to a lock. A loud, annoying clicking tapped at his ears, and the entire Pod quivered. Metal corset aligned fastening straps nearly broke his wind as they coiled around his middle body, feeling like a constriction of unyielding squeezes that kept hugging tighter and tighter. He gasped, and his breath unsteadied. This was his first orbital drop into enemy territory, and as far as he was concerned, most air drops ended in a catastrophe of hails of enemy fire mutilating over half of the Soldiers dropping. It was suicide; pure and utter suicide. So many disturbing images floated through his mind, and he gagged. There was a sharp jerk in the Pod, before he heard a faint series of small clicks, and all of his insides felt like they were being tossed freely, almost like he had no ribcage or inner skeleton to keep them all in place.

In his head, he went over his prayers to the Lord Veloth, again and again and again, until he didn’t even notice he was thinking them, they became so familiar. He prayed continuously for an untroubled landing, and that he would not fall right into the course of enemy sights. He knew it was inevitable, though. He went over his death wish, his last solitude, but this was quickly gobbled up by a terrible free fall feeling, and an excruciating heat of hitting gravity in the atmosphere once again. Was his only destiny to be that unnamed Soldier at the very bottom of the speared pile, who would be forgotten just as easily as he was slaughtered?

Sweat burned his brow and stung his half closed eyes, and he worked his last potential miracles. He would have slammed at a very fast speed against the top of the small Pod and severed his entire neck if it wasn’t for those straps that held him tight upon the landing. Maddening sounds tickled his ears from outside, and at that moment, he was afraid. Afraid that if the door opened, he would come face to face with the barrel of a rifle, afraid that his life would end before he was even untangled from the straps. The lock un-clicked and the door slid open with a frightening noise that caused his stomach to jolt, and the straps that held him firm like a straightjacket unlocked and drew back behind him. He felt a numbness overcome him, as the iron shield that had been drawn down over the door withdrew back on the top of the Pod. At this moment, he came face to face with death. The sky was a strewn with a blanket of pus yellow, and the clouds were a gruesome brownish orange. Uhrik felt his lungs splashed with smoke and the terrifying warmth of plasma, neon blue beam splatter the ground in a well rounded crater of men, blood and bodies disintegrating in an evaporation of parts. Men were being gunned down like poorly behaved beasts, their bodies being sniped through by hails of thin blue streaks, which burnt their skin, muscle and bone in a gritty charred hole through their armor. His comrade’s faces were gridded in visible lines of grayish black sweat, because of the smoke and ash in the air that clogged their pores. Their eyes were dripping with tears of pushing their bodies to the limit, and steam wafted into their faces from the release on their rifles. Armor creaked over the deafening field of fear, and Uhrik just wanted to turn back time. He wasn’t ready for this. He scrambled over a plain of maggots swamping decaying bodies, they squelched under his feet. Spears were gouged through the body’s chests and faces, and blood was smeared upon the bosom of the field he ran. He felt like an ant, trying his best to escape from a stomping foot, but his fate… was inevitable.

Diving chest first into the gooey filth of the ground, he crawled on his elbows and legs, dropping down into one of the barb filled trenches, where his right gauntlet was cracked through by blades hidden in the thick, sloppy mud, and he felt a warm blood build up against his flesh within the gauntlet. Hastening to rattle the wrist shield off, he held his hand in his other, letting scarlet stain his metal fingers. Luckily, he had worn the correct kind of boot, for the sole was clad in iron, which bounced off the barbs as he attempted to get to his feet.

He felt a hand push him back down into the trench, so that his face was smothered in mud.

“You askin’ fer a death wish, newblood!? Stand and your blood will boil, your skin will be burnt right through, and your bones will crumble. Move! Move! Move!” The growling voice threatened, and this only resulted in Uhrik ducking lower. He hated this feeling. In some ways, he just wanted to die right now, because he had been tossed right in the center of a nightmare, like a mouse that could not escape the maze.

Told by the white paint hastily scratched on the other man’s breastplate and right shoulder pad, this man was a Force Commander, his opaque visor (which protected his face against bullet guns), clacked over his face, so that he was only staring back out at Uhrik with a camera. Making a quick, snappy, silent hand command, Uhrik obeyed without question, staying low in the spine trapped trench, before pushing his back up against the side, and he waited in an utter silence as the foreign voices of Vegan soldiers rang in his head, passing right on the rim, and all fell to a piercing quiet in his ears, as a thin blue ray streaked right into the ground at his feet, splashing mud all over him. Satisfied, and unaware of Uhrik’s presence, the Vegans kept an always aware pace back onto the central battlefield, where a constant hail of returning fire from both sides ensued, so that the mud and men were constantly being changed. The hysterical laughs of the enemy disappeared from his mind, and he clawed at the side of the trench.

He wanted to be back at home. Back in his Forge. Away from here. Away from death. He constantly reminded himself that the good Lord Veloth was always watching, and pitied him in such a manner, that he would be embraced, but at the same time, he did not feel the presence of his lord on the battlefield. He felt empty and afraid. The heat of the plasma from the Vegan’s weapons made sweat trickle down his brow, and he tore a scrap of rag from his under-sleeve and wrapped it tightly around his wound.

His body was quivering. He wanted to curl up and whine, but he couldn’t show weakness in the face of the enemy. He heard a terrible, scratching scream and spun around, only to face the horrid splatter of man that was once the Force Commander. A knife dangled from a disfigured, severed hand, one of the fingers skin burnt lying in the mud. The visor had been blasted straight through, revealing a gory hole through where his right eye had once lain. It was a black glop dripping from his socket, where the eye had once been, and blood was smeared fresh against the trench wall. It was crisp and dry from the extreme heat that had been applied, and was brick red on his mangled, melted facial features. Uhrik had seen enough! That was a Force Commander, three ranks above him! He was he same Force Commander who had saved him from that same fate. Uhrik knelt in the trench, ignoring the excruciating whelp of pain that surged through him as his greave was dented in by another thorny barb. He placed his hands on that single part of the Commander’s visible face, and closed his eyes to bless with Veloth’s touch.

“Oh, Gracious, Loving Lord, bring this man to your loving embrace and only in death will he find release.” Uhrik was far too kind and oblivious, given the current situation he had been placed in. Bringing his hands away from the cold face, he once again heard the alien voices crowding his mind. From his studies in the enemy tongue, he translated, in his head, what his ears beheld.

“These hesthruti are sinners… following the fanatical feet of a false God! They are gesthruat to stand with tearing banners against we, the Children of Feli. Are they not… ridiculous?” One of the Vegans chuckled and the other grunted. “Harthru, never underestimate your enemies, or you shall become the gesthruat.” He defended the sanity of his fellow soldier, so that he would not run blindly into the Purian ranks.

Uhrik gulped, feeling a sickly feeling in his gut. “I’m going to be captured, hung, and my organs are going to be stripped and sold… aren’t they!? Aren’t they!?” He whined silently to no one, but the amplifiers in the Vegan helms picked up the faint voice, and instantly, Uhrik felt the warm barrels of rifles against the back of his neck. In his head, he still murmured prayers. Veloth loved all, and wouldn’t let him die like this, right? It seemed he had misplaced his undying faith with his God, as he heard the dull, muffled speech through the plain white veils over the Vegan’s faces.

“He’s only a kid. Those sinners… sending children for a man’s war. Hrat’kuut hesthruti… they’re all cowards!” One of the Vegans shouted, clutching Uhrik up against his chest, and the other gave a leering smirk beneath his veil. “Use him as a shield. He’s only a sinner… no one will miss him.” The Vegan wrapped his sharp, white metal fingers around Uhrik’s wrist, and Uhrik howled in agony. He didn’t ever expect such a low death! His Force Commander always told him that if he were to die on the battlefield, do it only with honor. Being forced to protect his enemies was not honorable. All sorts of dreadful things scampered through his mind, and he wept. Finally, he had taken enough!

A shot bloodied Uhrik’s head, and he felt the blood sting his eyes. One of the Vegans slumped down against their Purian captive, before dropping into the clutches of the dead. The other backed from Uhrik, and but was gunned down in a sudden break of fray from a Purian regiment, bullets lodging deep in the soldier’s body, and breaking holes directly out the other end. The Vegan Technologist Syndicate (VTS) had obviously butted into the war, creating mixtures of both panic and determination within the hearts of both sides. The blood stained mud and loose limbed bodies scattered and sprayed everywhere as swan white machines groped at the dirt from the deep tunnels deep underneath the battleground, white bladed fingers scathed into the tainted soil. Even fellow Vegans to the Technologists despised the technologically freaked things. They were unfair, dishonorable, and went against the Goddess Feli in terms of “down to earth” war. These machines were Slaughterers, and nothing less.

Uhrik felt a choke in his throat, and felt the heat surge and crackle in the battle torn, smoke stuffy air, as right before him, the dirt browned his already dirty face, and a machine tore at his ankle, and it’s fingers bloodied his greave clad skin. The white Athrilyte was ended in scarlet, and it scratched all the way across his lower leg, and he felt his balance lost.

Being new to this, he screamed. “Someone help me! Please, someone!” He whimpered across the empty battlefield. It was useless. The Purian forces had been pushed back by the Vegans, and Uhrik was far too foolish and caught up in himself and his own inner workings to even notice. He was dragged to the ground by the machine, and the impending clanks of the metallic, hooked feet echoed in his deafening ears, as the brainless, starving empty marionettes formed a circle around him and the one that was holding him down.

Before he knew it, the last thing he saw were the bright stars in the sky and the smiling moon which appeared through the fading smoke on the field, and the Soldier closed his eyes and found peace in an eternal sleep.