Mon, June 20th 1966

If you're looking for the good guys in this war, then you're not going to find any.

Hidden safely away within universities, you'll find philosophy majors discussing war while seated in front of a crackling fire, sipping whisky. They'll look dapper in their suede jackets as they trade glib quotes and clever-sounding sound bites, such as "War is full of shades of grey."

Such people might be clever and well educated, but they're entirely wrong. The poor saps caught in a war zone might begin with a different palette of morality, but as time goes on, the colors mix. Inevitably each person's palette gets darker as the survivors excuse the actions they take to stay alive.

Eventually, we're all just bastards with a hard edge and an itchy trigger finger. The guys who don't acquire these traits get to leave the war early, usually via a body bag.

My boot camp Sergeant Major had said it best, "It's very simple, Peters. You kill the damned enemy before the asshole kills you. It's not rocket science, is it, son?"

The NCO wasn't wrong. At its essence, war is simply about survival.

Still, I preferred the way the unit chaplain had put things. 'Do unto others before they do unto you.'

--

“Are you both done with your chicken scratching?” The insectoid ‘Buzz’ asked in his scratchy clacking speech. The nanobots infused within my body fed me the translated speech as a series of subtitles that had a unique flavor all of their own. God knows what the creature's original phrasing had been in his own language.

The scuttler’s thought processes and mannerisms were very different to those of humans, and I was still learning it’s ways. The alien was very straight forward and pragmatic, for example, he ate fallen enemies. Unlike primitive human societies however, Buzz didn’t do it because he thought that would grant it strength or because the act had any mystical, or religious significance. He simply ate his enemies to ensure that the meat didn’t go to waste. It creeped me out, but Buzz was a valuable member of the squad and everyone has their idiosyncrasies. I just wouldn’t recommend attending any of his barbecues.

I forced myself to snap out of my thoughts, and stopped writing then nodded a reply. I closed my journal and tucked it safely away. The book was the only surviving item from earth that I possessed. For three months I've tried to find a way to escape this planet. Yet part of me was concerned that I was too far gone to return. If I made it back to earth, would it still feel like home?

Kuwta ignored my preparations and continued to scribble in her notebook. If the world suddenly ended, the Orc warrior would likely make death himself wait until she finished writing. While my journal contained random, jumbled, thoughts, hers chronicled the squad's history and held an almost religious significance to the warrior. She came from a warrior race and such records were the only written history of her people.

While we waited, the click of Buzz’s mandibles counted away the minutes. I’d come to understand that was a sign of impatience or irritation, but as usual we both had no choice but to wait while Kuwta finished her work.

Eventually Kutwa grunted in satisfaction and tucked her papers away.

Buzz then kept watch as Kuwta and I quickly disassembled the oxygen tent that we slept in each night. When the task was completed, I reluctantly pulled on my gas mask. The damned thing was uncomfortable, smelled disgusting and made my glasses fog up. The alternative, however, was to risk being driven insane by the chemical smog which polluted much of this world. Unlike kuwta and myself, Buzz didn’t wear a gas mask. Whether that was because he was immune to the gas or already insane was entirely debatable.

The insectoid holstered his weapon and stretched out as we prepared to leave. Standing on his hind feet the bug was fully eight feet in height, but he was more comfortable scuttling around like a cockroach than walking upright.

“Time to move out, I’ve a good feeling about today.” I stated.

“You really think we’ll find the scavengers today then?” Kuwta asked, glaring at me. She knew that my words had been a lie. None of us had felt good about things in a long-time. In the three months since we’d deserted the Numeri, we’d seen the naked arse end of this war and like most backsides it wasn’t a pretty sight.

“Hopefully.” I shrugged, as we started marching, “Anyway, we only have to be right once to get off this shit-hole of a planet.”

That at least was honest. Since we’d left the Imperial forces we’d been searching for a way off the planet. Unfortunately the spaceports had long since been turned into slag heaps and the only consistent rumor of visitors involved battlefield scavengers.

These individuals were the scum that circled the toilet bowl of war. The worst of the worst, grave robbers with no moral qualms about picking over the corpses left on a battlefield for profit. Our exit plan was to find these elusive profiteers and persuade them to give us a berth off-world, at gun-point if we needed to.

A younger me would have been troubled by the morality of this, however I’d long ago accepted that I wasn’t one of the good guys. I was just a desperate individual, trying to survive. If that survival required threatening some scumbags, then I was at peace with that.

The terrain we were moving through was open and windswept. The charred remains of a gate and burnt hedgerows told me that once this had all been farmland. Small blackened stubs lined neatly in rows was the only evidence that this was once a crop-field.

The heavy boots Kuwta and I wore crunched a steady drum beat as we marched towards our objective. Out there, somewhere ahead of us, Buzz stalked. Hunkered down like a huge cockroach, the insectoid kept low to the ground and moved silently and unseen. I was glad he was on our side.

Kuwta and I didn’t talk while we marched. Any observer would have considered us a strange looking pair. The blood thirsty Orc towered over me and we had little in common.

No one of our squad would have counted another as a friend and as a unit, we lacked the rigid efficiency of my old Marine squad. We had, however, replaced that with the symbiotic relationship that squad-mates acquire after surviving numerous firefights. My companions might be wholly alien in race, but I had bonded with Kuwta and Buzz like they were my siblings. In turn they trusted me and when the dice were rolled, each of us put our lives in the hands of the others without hesitation.

We knew one day death would come for us and had made our peace with that, accepting that it was likely we would live and die together. When my time came I hoped the squad would survive and keep my memory alive, as I now remembered those who had died before me.

It was nearing mid-day when we reached the brow of a hill. A cold wind whistled over it, ruffling the unruly mop of my hair and my brow wrinkled in concentration as I tried to recall the route to our destination.

Not willing to risk losing time, I pulled out a battered map and spread it out on the ground. The strong breeze rippled through the paper making reading it difficult, but Kuwta helped me keep it in place, long enough to get our bearings. The road that wound down into the valley told me that we were nearing our objective. Another few miles and we’d crest another rise and finally reach the remains of the battlefield.

Whether any scavengers would be there was another matter entirely.