Heart of Steel

Trench Foot

 As the droid sat in the trench, the odor, not the sensation of the rain alerted him to the change of weather. As if snapped out of trance, he looked up to the ashen skies, droplets of a sickly blackened green running down his metallic face. He pondered how long the rain would last for, not that it mattered, perhaps even the sound of the rain hammering his body with light tinny taps would distract him from the melancholy of traversing the line. He stood up slowly, his slender frame extending just out of the top of the trench, had this been 7 days prior he would have been exposed to enemy fire but now it mattered little. He looked back down to the floor again, the muddy runway that extended a mile in either direction was barren, save for scattered munitions and shrapnel. Turning around on the spot and kneeling down to the metal sheet he was resting against, the droid moved it aside to reveal a large dugout blanketed in taunting darkness. Switching off his olfactory sensors and activating his rudimentary night vision, he crawled inside the dugout to fetch his rucksack, carefully stepping around the mess of blood stained clothing and surgical tools. The filthy burgundy rucksack clinked against his back as he swung it over one arm, the mass of identification tags colliding against his plasteel casing. Before he left, the droid turned around to look at his temporary home one more time, if he were human enough to shed tears, he was sure he would have done but the mental fatigue of the last few weeks had bled him dry of emotion. He crawled back through the entrance of the dugout, the trench outside had now become one giant puddle, water seeping into darkness he had emerged from. If he had lungs, he would have sighed.

With slow and heavy movement the droid placed back the door and pushed it deep into the mud door frame, ceiling it shut.

"I'm.. sorry comrades. Rest. Please."

The droid turned west, re-enabling his olfactory sensors and marched down the line, the sky lit above with occasional and ominous cracks of green lightning.

As he trudged through the mud of the no mans land between his previous post and the fall back point in front of him, the droid thought of back to when he was first stationed to the front. It was so lively, thousands of soldiers, scurrying around like ants in a nest, moving artillery and armaments back and forth during the day and at night huddling in their dugouts beside hushed lamp light and warm meals. How many had come to him for treatment in the months before? bullet wounds, sprains, fractures, cuts, burns the list was endless, the implanted training circuits and standardization programs he was put through could never prepare for him the anarchy of the front line. He was never prepared for the forward movement actions either, the trench raids, material recovery and wounded extraction ops he was told to take part in despite never having any combat training. "Lack of human medics" they said, the medical corps had been in dire straits since the start of the war, why have people run into gunfire to retrieve a man who was already dead, when you could get a droid to do it instead?

But none of that mattered anymore.

Max approached the trench line that was designated as the fall back point, should the front fall to enemy forces. It looked almost identical to his station with the exception of several erected tents that served as makeshift hospitals for the severely wounded pulled off of the front and behind them were posts for larger artillery guns, some 203mm and 105mm guns scattered in a cleared area, shells, some spent and a large amount still primed to fire, strung about the grounds in an unorganized mess, a graveyard of rotting iron and gunpowder. He rummaged through the supply store built into the side of the trench in hopes of finding a HART battery container,  letting out a vocal sigh as his search came up empty. Peering over a toppled table by a wall he found a soldier in his combat gear, his eyes rolled upwards revealing the bloodshot veins peering over his bottom eyelid, his mouth a slack jawed maw pertaining endless horror.  Dried blood stained a line down over his brow from a gunshot wound to his forehead, dropping down to his lifeless arms, clutching a bag of MREs to his chest. Max thought of the scenario that lead to his, a fight over food? Maybe more than that, personal conflicts had occurred in the past and his murderer was looking for opportunity? The idea made his non existent stomach turn, he abhorred violence, especially over such petty things. Emerging from the supply store, he climbed over the trench wall and began heading west again, walking through the artillery post the rain began to get heavier and the acidic sensation filling his olfactory sensors reminded him that why he may not be affected by this new worlds harsh sense of humour, any hopes of meeting people again would dwindle day by day.  He made it 750 meters before a large gush of wind forced him forward and a thunder crack echoed throughout the skies. Reeling from the energy behind him, Max turned his head to see that was once an artillery post was now naught but dust, smoke and ruined steel. Clutching his hand to his chest, as if to calm a pounding heart, he looked beyond the smoke of the explosion, then turned west again.

4 more trench lines a kilometre apart from each other, then 3 kilometres until the city of Lodvyodisk.

The droid hoped that they had moved all the of munitions out of the rain before this all began.