Corporal Tanis' Journal, Day 2 of the Siberian Wars, "The First of Billions"
Author's note - After having to re-make my part 2 of "Our Stand," I decided to go ahead and take the chance to post another journal of the futuristic war that, for the third time, changed the lives of trillions in the galaxy. It was the second or third story I ever wrote, around four years ago, so there are errors and sentences out of place. Still hope you enjoy though, and hope it satisfies until I can re-finish and post my other story. Enjoy!
I was one of the new guys, "The Green Ghost" or "GG" for short was my code name. It was SIO's second day of war against the Siberian Rebels, but it was my first day on the frontlines. Being just another eager, naive fur, I looked in awe on the massive army that had been mounted to siege a planet.
Hundreds of warships, nearly twice the mass of any other fleet recorded in history, had blockaded Alpha-9, the nineth moon of Earth. The rebels had made an aggressive move against the humans dwelling on the moon. Capturing any who surrendered and torturing them, or slowly murdering them if they fought. There was no mercy for our kind, and so we gave no mercy to them. Their own fleet had been slowly burned and glassed away into nothing, and any who dared to surrender got nothing but pain.
As soon as the orbit was secured and no reinforcements for the enemy had arrived, transports had launched millions of soldiers to the moon. There was no hope for our vile trespassers. We outgunned, outmanned and outsmarted everything they did. Our only loss was of civilians, but that was the greatest loss to any army. Only 1/3 of the population that lived there originally was saved. It had been our own stupidity that caused this, a mistake that we wouldn't repeat.
I was aboard the second transport that launched to the large moon. After several hours of waiting in the cargo hold, I would finally be apart of a major battle. Little did I know, the battle would turn to be a massacre, for both collectors... and for our own kind.
After several torturous minutes of going from orbit to ground, the transport finally opened its doors and we were green to go. I was third in line, following this very nervous private in front of me out the door and into a field of gray. The dead plants around us had been killed by toxins in the air that the rebels used to paralyze the inhabitants.
That's all that surrounded us, dead grass, leaves and hills with our only cover being ships and vehicles that were destroyed. Luckily for us, we were equipped with a breath mask, consisting of two tubes that circulated out anything deadly in our mask. We all wore the same armor, 60 pounds of thin metal that deflected small arm fire and flying shrapnel. Our helmets had been applied with three sheets of thin metal, adding enough protection to stop a rifle bullet. Although it was very thin and fitting, it was bulky and got in the way, making shots inaccurate and battles longer and more costly. My choice of weapon was a B-6 Automatic Rifle, which could be adjusted to be a long range sniper rifle. After slamming into a nearby destroyed vehicle, which appeared to be a civilian truck, I had attached a 2x by 4x scope on it and peered carefully over the top to see the enemy. I almost laughed when I saw the opposition. From what I saw and what I heard on my radio, we faced a force barely worthy to be called scouts. Several hundred blue-gray figures had taken up ground 200 meters across the field, none of them trying to find cover. I didn't question why they just stood in the open, I only did what I was trained to do. After emptying a clip of 30 rounds with nearly 30 enemies down, I ducked down to reload, several shots zooming over my head. One female otter several cars over went down, blood splattering over her head and torso. I gulped and stood back up to exact revenge by taking thirty more.
After wasting about three more clips, the battle was finally over. Shots from the other side ceased, and only a few rebels were seen retreating over the hills. One by one, we emerged from our holes, a pride of victory crossing our dirty and fatigued faces. We knew what we had done. We had taken our revenge on those bastards, and we did it in one swoop. A twinge of disappointment tugged at my heart as we received orders to hold position and wait for EVAC, wanting to chase down and eliminate any survivors. Our generals had decided to "switch shifts," bringing in another batch of soldiers, ones who were well-rested veterans and ready to get to work, something the fellows around me lacked. I looked around at the soldiers around me, and my heart sunk. Only about half of the thousand soldiers in the area were alive, and half of those alive were severely wounded. We may have won a swift victory, but it was far from decisive. The fact that none of them that were wasted were above the rank of corporal helped to explain the losses, but it didn't fill the void. Soon after being picked up and dropped off on our stations, we all had a hot meal, and a good sleep for the night. That's all I knew of what happened here. For Alpha-9 had been retaken the day after by our replacements. I never returned to that moon. Because soon after it was retaken, the Fifth Avengers received new orders. Orders that would take us half-across the galaxy to a planet that no one would ever see again after the war...