Forward again, and again, and again.

by Zaravan

The Eighteenth entry, or: Clean your rifle, sharpen your bayonet, bandage your wounds, repeat.

The Infantryman hadn't really known exactly what to expect on this deployment. It was his first. He'd had spent a bit of time before having to cross the portal on the firing range, enough to qualify for a Venice rifle before he'd had to join a hundred others as part of the third wave of reinforcements. It was rather easy at first, all he'd had to do in that dark forest was stand watch and occasionally shoot at the hostile wildlife to scare them off.

Now he was here, under this harsh, unforgiving light and heat. With little respite save the covered trenches and the nearby town, which he forgot the name of. Apple-something-or-other. Then came that night skirmish with the Bugs. Thankfully the other infantrymen who had been ambushed were able to either fight back, or otherwise make a lot of noise, which completely killed the enemy's element of surprise.

He had impaled one of those Changelings on his bayonet as it literally jumped into his trench. He remembered how the cold steel had, with a combination of the Bug's own momentum, and the quality of the bayonet's steel, had led to it smashing through the changelings' hard carapace with frighteningly little resistance.

By the time he'd managed to remove the corpse from the end of his rifle, the initial shock of the ambush had worn off. And the bugs, black as night. Had slipped into the dark as soon as they'd realized the tide had shifted against them. All the infantryman could do was let off a few parting shots.

Now he sat in his company's trench, cleaning his rifle of the wretched sand that plagued everyone at the outpost. With a wayward glance, the Rifleman could see the IAF medics, with the assistance of the Pony town's doctor, attending to one of the Griffons that had been wounded in the nighttime ambush. They'd lost three men to the skirmish, and seven had been wounded. The Bugs lost around five or six, at last count of the corpses.

The Rifleman wondered whether there would be any other ambushes, or if the Changelings would have to learn their lesson time and time again. He didn't look forward to any more nighttime ambushes. He kept cleaning his rifle.

Author's Note:

Don't forget to say something. Your opinion matters, despite what others say.

Comments

[Crescent Glaive]

Sand and dust is the enemy of weapons for it can make your gun jam at the most inopportune moment.

Good work comrades.

Good work...