Tevun-Krus #50

Company D - @bloodsword

"Company D" originally appeared in Tevun-Krus #22: Best of 2015

Author's note from bloodsword: 'Company D' is a story I submitted on request to @Ooorah's Military Science Fiction edition of their Tevun-Krus Sci-Fi e-zine. My story is inspired by such classic military stories like 'The Dirty Dozen', 'Fury', 'A Band of Brothers', and 'Saving Private Ryan'. I wanted to showcase the grit and courage those called to duty often show, while honoring the fact that they fight for not only their countries, but for their families and loved ones as well. I hope you enjoy.

Note from angerbda, who selected it: Hope... Simply, Hope...

A hero fights to bring hope in our lives. Sure, he will fight the enemy for his country, his federation, or whatever great notion of World unity... But, in his heart, fighting for his loved ones is what matters the most. In Company D, what makes the soldier's job worth it is to know people at home still have hope for a better future...

Company D

by bloodsword

I

He let a long sigh ease out as he stared at the readout in his hand. The words were a blur, the diagrams meaningless. But there was no mistaking the word at the bottom.

Terminal.

"We think it was extended exposure to the power cores in the mobile armor you piloted that corrupted your DNA, captain," the doctor in combat fatigues said. He knew the guy was a doctor because of the caduceus on his collar, not because of some elaborate introduction. The guy had just walked in and, after handing him the report, began speaking.

"The cores were supposed to be shielded, but combat wear and tear must've breached that shielding and let the rad from the core leak into your cockpit," he went on to say, trying to explain in words what the report in his hand already said.

"So, there's nothing ..." he began to ask. The doctor quickly shook his head.

"We could've tried gene reconstruction, captain, if we were back in the Fed's core systems. But out here, on the battlefield ..."

The doctor didn't finish. He didn't have to. The captain already knew what he would've said.

You're expendable.

He had heard it hundreds of times since leaving Boot and flying 10,000 light years to fight against an enemy that not only threatened billions of Fed lives but had overrun the colony his family had taken refuge on as well, a world supposedly so far from the front, it would never be in danger. That attack took his wife, his son, and his eldest daughter. Took them after the government told him they'd be safe.

Casualties of war.

They were collateral damage in a war that saw thousands die everyday. Expendable, just like he was supposed to be. Yet, in his heart, and deep in his soul, they had never been collateral, never expendable, an afterthought in government records. He had fought to keep them safe, nobody else.

Now only his youngest was left, an eleven year old daughter living with a cousin somewhere in the core systems. Eleven, with ten of those years spent without a father as he fought on distant battlefields to keep her safe. To her he wasn't expendable. He was all she had left.