[h3][color=DarkGray]The Anuriite Basin[/color][/h3] 
[h3][color=DimGray]New Venusian Outpost[/color][/h3]
[center][h3][color=LightGray]-Pvt. Areffon Warder-[/color][/h3]

[img]http://i1298.photobucket.com/albums/ag58/Silux45/2ec13860-ddc2-4b61-8558-1d0fbe28f499_zpsoexumunk.jpg[/img][/center]

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Private Warder had never been into orbit before. Hell, he had never been offworld. As a kid he had always heard stories about the war on Anuria through media outlets, through brave journalists telling their stories to crowds of awestruck onlookers; but he never necessarily believed them to be true. To him, the conflict was always a superstition, inflamed with the purpose of scaring residents of Alpha-Venus-Six into line. So he lived a relatively contented life amongst the temperate forests of his homeworld, uncaring of the battle many lightyears from where he had spent his entire life. 
His delusion, however, was shattered when the Nation States had begun to conscript into the armed forces. He had never wanted to join the army, never once wanted to do battle; he never felt the need. The world had it's fair share of patriots, he only now assumed that all of the patriots now had been changed into martyrs. And so he was forced to walk away from a job, a family, loving children, a small fortune that he had spent many years to build up, thrust onto a spaceship the likes of which he never even knew existed, and jettisoned into something far greater than he could have imagined. 

It was then that the conflict had become real for him, where he and a thousand others were crammed into a military interstellar transport ship and blasted into warpspace. He had never seen Alpha-Venus-Six from orbit, and it had struck him as somewhat beautiful: like a hanging marble of green amidst the vastness of black space, dotted with the occasional twinkle of distant stars. it was a final moment of serenity as his tranquility was shattered by the deafening thunder of the ship's engines. And then he was gone, as fast as that, never to see his world again. Within days he had gone from there... to now. 

"Wake up, rookie!" shouted a voice from the other side of the entrenched outpost - which was nothing more than a dig-in trench with some plastisteel reinforcements, with a small flat-packed control centre jutting from the centre - which roused Aref from his thoughts. He opened his eyes, and pushed up the helmet which had fallen just low enough to cover his brow. The voice, somewhat more agitated, called again. "Damn it, rookie! Get your ass up!" 
He shot his head up just in time to catch a glimpse of a rifle being tossed over to him, which he just managed to catch awkwardly. He moaned as he began to move tired muscles and creaky joints to try to stand. The trench was disgusting and sloppy, filled with water in some places, as the basin rainfall beat down heavily, breaching the canopy. He was soaked to the core, which made moving even harder despite the humidity, and he pushed himself to his feet, staining his already dirty uniform with streaks of Anuriite mud. He hated this - and not just the conflict - but this moment where the sergeant would call his squad to arms, because it meant that they were going out to the jungle again. Somebody always died. Always. Last time they lost Tomas, and the time before that they lost Jax. They were good guys, too. Tomas was an Engineering Contractor back at home: he commissioned building projects for solar panels because he hated what pollution did to his home planet. Jax was a volunteer aid worker because he hated seeing people suffer and die. It was more than simple irony how he died, but the way he screamed as both of his legs were blown off by some fucking Jalaryiasan rocket launcher was testament to the tragic irony of it. Aref could not stop vomiting the whole night. Didn't stop crying for a week. They didn't even try to help him, they didn't even go back. They just left him. They ran. 

Aref was there when the sergeant had to radio in the kill. He couldn't imagine what his family did when they heard. He didn't want to think. But he could not forget, no matter how hard he tried. 

Aref was at his feet now, assembled in a rudimentary circle with the nine other men around the weapon rack. It was stood next to a basic table with a crackling comms device resting on top. The sergeant had just been listening in to some incomprehensible mumbling from the other end before he assembled the men. 

"Listen, we've got orders from up top," he started. "We're goin' over. There's a broken down anti-personnel a few clicks south of here, and we've gotta get down there and secure the position so command can fly in a couple o' engineers." There was a deep sadness in his voice, regardless of how stern he normally was. "It's swimmin' with hostiles. I don't like it, but it's what we've gotta do." 

Silence. Save for maybe a cough or two from the assorted men who had since come down with trench-lung. In the distance, some way into the jungle depths, a launcher could be heard, detonating with a faint rumble. Then aircraft, spiralling through the sky, screeching softly some ways away. 

"What's our support?" One man asked. 

The sergeant shook his head. 

"We got nothin'" he replied. A collective silent lamentation erupted in the minds of the men. The sergeant could see it in their eyes. "Command can't afford it. Forces are stretched thin. We're goin' it alone. Fords, you're on point." 

And just like that, they were roused from almost sleepy inaction to another terrifying trek through the jungle. It was eerily quiet at times, especially when he knew that such carnage was taking place. There had once even been the sounds of wildlife in this sector of the jungle, but now... nothing. Even the animals had the common sense to make haste from the battlefield. Aref had no idea why they did not do the same. The nine of them tiptoed through the brush, being careful not to snap any branches despite the heavy gear they carried, and being even more careful not to step on any planted mines. That was the worst way to die. 
They maintained a relative distance from each other, at least ten to twenty feet, each man weaving his way through the strange trees, between beams of dusty mid-morning light, rifles pointed ever forwards, hairtriggers ready to fire at a moment's disturbance. Aref was convinced that such military manoeuvres and tactics existed simply to make the men feel more safe when they forayed through the battlefield. If something was to come at them from the trees, there would be little they could really do. They would be caught off guard and likely all shot to death. Except the sergeant, they were poorly trained and poorly motivated. 

It had been an hour of tension, and still nothing had emerged to combat them. Something must have been watching. Surely it would not be a free-ride to the objective. That had never happened. Not once in the history of the conflict. But then, they would not really know until it was too late: their scanners only had an effective range of a hundred or so metres, and then it would only detect movement. 

[i]Cheap Venusian technology[/i] Aref scolded in his head. [i]Cheap ass fucking Venusian technology.[/i]

The turret emplacement grew in the distance, its shadow being cast across the trees like a massive iron boulder. Its machine gun nozzles were all faced to the ground, as if they were sleeping. All four of them. They smoked ever so lightly, and sparks would occasionally jump from exposed wiring beneath the pocked, scarred plating that was once polished and new. This mighty piece of equipment was once an imposing, deadly weapon that would eviscerate intruding forces with incredible force. It was once safe for Venusians to be there, but now it simply felt... desolate. Exposed. Nonetheless, as they approached, the squadron split and assumed a defensive perimeter around the broken equipment, each man scanning his surroundings intently and praying to some long-forgotten gods that this was all that it would be. For a time, it seemed that way as the sergeant called in to command to log the area as secure... 

[i]Before Aref's motion scanner beeped. [/i]