30 Days a Soldier

Chapter One

Thirty Days a Soldier

Chapter One

The crowd around the airstrip seemed to grow as the minutes until the final transports out of Earth arrived. The sun was just setting, golden hues playing out over a blue sky turned pink when they were first sighted. Sunbeams flared off the steel and titanium hulls of the vast and numerous ships as they descended from the heavens. To those on the ground it was like being stood on the shores of Britain during the Dunkirk evacuation, and, in many ways that was incredibly accurate.

A hush played over the crowd as the first ships started to land, today wasn't the day for celebration despite what had been achieved. Instead today was the day for mourning, for these transports carried the last survivors off of Earth. So much had been lost these past thirty days, but to lose your homeworld...it was a cruel fate.

It wasn't long before the transports started to open their airlocks, steam venting from their hulls, steel groaning as it cooled. All too soon a silhouette stood out from an airlock and the crowd it seemed, were suddenly charged to the point where each started to applaud the unnamed man.

Stepping forward and onto the ramp, the man was shown to be a soldier, his khaki combat uniform burnt, torn and covered in mud and blood. It was his expression that set him apart from the crowd though; an expression of loss, astonishment, guilt and pain. His was the expression of a soldier whom hadn't expected to survive. Yet still the crowd applauded as he stepped down the ramp and to the waiting assistance of the medics.

Behind him, more followed to be met with the same adulation, the same aid, and some to be met by their loved ones. It was clear though, that each and every man and woman who stepped off the transports was emotionally scarred, how couldn't they be; they had survived thirty days and nights in the hell that Earth had become. They had fought to keep the thousands of evacuation points clear and to protect the civilians that would be utilising those points. It was these brave men and women that had stayed behind on Earth as billions before them were evacuated. In the end, when there was nobody else to evacuate, they had been forced to engage in the largest battle of the war when the enemy closed in on their evacuation points.

It seemed to last forever, this procession of soldier after soldier, each one as emotionally wounded as the next. All the while Sam was watching from the crowd, praying her brother made it, praying harder as each second ticked by. There were many just like her pressing in close, many gang handling soldiers as they passed, asking if they had seen their son, their husband, daughter or friend. The news, if there was any, wasn't usually good.

It was ten minutes before the last soldier emerged from the transports, and Sam could only look on in horror, tears threatening to fall down her cheeks when she saw it wasn't her brother. Around her the tightly pressed crowd fractured, these desperate people whom had clung to whatever hope they could, now finally broken by the absence of their loved ones.

Yet still, some of the soldiers who had stood guard remained as did the medics.

It took a while before Sam realised why, and then, like a wing of birds, a line of dots sliding through the darkening air grew closer and larger.

Pressing closer through the thinned herd of civilians and to the barricades surrounding the vast airstrip, Sam could only watch with the thinnest morsel of hope as these dots were revealed to be the multipurpose tactical transports the military used in lieu of helicopters. As their VTOL thrusters repositioned and brought them to a softer landing, Sam fought her way as best she could along the barrier. Even from this distance it was clear that these were in some of the fighting; armoured hull plating was dented, scorch marks were evident on some of their hulls and even more worryingly was the absence of parts on some.

Hatches were pushed open on hydraulics and the first of many soldiers started to step out and onto the hard packed dirt of the airstrip. The injuries on these men and women was much more evident; these were the ones who held out the longest and were the very last off the ground as they provided cover for the other units. Minutes went by with wounded soldiers crying out in pain as medics and fellow soldiers helped them onto stretchers, blood spilling onto the ground like spilt treacle. One by one they were led away, none of them her brother.

It had happened, she was finally as broken as those who had come before her. Turning away she was caught short. Something cruel almost seemed to happen as she caught sight of a muddy and bloody grey and white malamute, a vest wrapped tight around its chest. So dirty was it that she barely recognised it. The dog was stood on the hard packed airstrip, its head pointed towards the open hatch of a tactical transport and there, against all reason, she saw the shade of a man she once knew. He was just as wounded and scarred as the rest, unable even to move from his spot on the transport as if he was scared to set foot on this world.

Forcing her way to the entrance to the airstrip, she almost had to beg the soldiers on guard there to let her through. But through they let her after their superior gave a nod.

Sprinting as hard as she could towards the man as he was finally stepping off of the transport, it was mere moments before she was close enough that her body stopped moving even as her mind cried to let her go on. Snapping its head around and with teeth bared, the malamute glared at her as if daring her to come closer, and then as if a light had been turned on, it recognised her but instead of coming closer, turned back towards the man whom was staring off into the distance.

Walking the last few steps to his side, Sam finally spoke, "John?"

For such a long time it was as if he didn't notice, time in which Sam was horrified by the visible scars on his face and neck, the rest being wrapped in bloody, dirty gauze and rags. Realising there was somebody there, John turned and spent so long studying her face, struggling to work out who she was and then it clicked as he croaked out, "Sam?" With that he started to collapse, his fall barely arrested by Sam as she struggled with his weight, her knees slamming into a pool of thick blood, blood which was running down John's leg.

Kneeling over him, Sam cried out for medics.