Chapter Text
A cold wind blows across the icefield, great mechanical tracks scarring the surface causing wisps of frozen air to blow in all manner of fractal swirls. The wind pierces every microscopic hole in the thermal suits of everyone in the 205th Europan Convey company. They shiver one by one, but they are no longer bothered by the cold. The shivering is a vestigial remnant of their fading memories of warmth.
"Anything?" asks Lieutenant Gaston, his mustache sticking out of his balaclava. It is his only distinguishing feature, his platoon wrapped in numb second skins of kevlar and crinkling thermal cloth, each of them a replica of him without a mustache.
"No," replies field scout Albert, lowering his binoculars. A frustrated sigh makes a dewy cloud of condensation emerge from his mouth. "There's too much ice blowing around."
Though in perpetual winter, there is now snow on Europa. The cold does not manifest as peaceful blankets but as harsh and stiff ice alone, the particulate matter in the air is harsh shards, claws attempting to tear anything they touch.
"Temp?" demands Gaston. A mittened hand strokes his beard which twitches stiffly, frozen solid.
"Sixty," chirps Private Elmer from behind, fussing with a thermometer. Implied in his terse reply is both the word "centigrade," the standard unit of measure on Europa, and the word "below zero." It would be redundant to mention the below-freezing nature of the numeral.
"What do you think?" asks field scout Albert. His job in the company is to advise the Lieutenant, to give him information about the field in order to more accurately respond to the landscape, but the landscape in question is flat and fogged by Europan ice.
"Over the top," mutters Gaston. His company shifts nervously.
Presently, the 205th is entombed in a trench, gouged into the ice four feet into the impenetrable ground by some long-gone industrial machine. What treads left the improvised trench is now impossible to identify, the treads long since eroded by the merciless Europan winds.
The trench, on the west side of the icefield, is approximately one half-kilometer away from the company's goal: An old relay station in use by the enemy. Which enemy is unknown. It could be private military contractors from any number of water companies, representatives of foreign Terran nations, or Europan emancipation fighters. The nature of their foe and their ideology does not matter, as the culture on Europa is that of firing on-sight at anyone wearing the wrong color parka.
"Lieutenant," says Albert hesitantly. "Are you sure that's wise?"
"No," says Gaston gruffly. "There are no wise decisions left to us. It's either die starving in this hole or go over the top and die trying to take the relay station. Best case, some of us make it and we can radio for supplies. Worst case..." Gaston trails off.
"We die," says Elmer. He's young, not yet 25, and his balaclava and parka are brand-new, unmarred by wear. Even so, he has already adopted what all Europans call the "couer de glace." Elmer's eyes show signs of de glace, blank and unmoving, indifferent to the idea of being gunned down by an enemy that hasn't been identified.
"Gentlemen," Lieutenant Gaston booms, voice cutting the wind around the assembled company. "When we left HQ we were two dozen strong. Now there are six of us. I'd love to tell you we're the hardest or most battle-ready by virtue of our survival, but that would be a disservice to the men who've died on the way here."
The men shiver again as the wind picks up. Gaston's mustache twitches.
"I'd love to tell you that this is all for a good cause, that the warmies back home are praying for us, but those ingrates couldn't give less of a fuck about you. Your husbands and wives have probably left you for dead the moment you went off-world." Gaston's voice is harsh but fair, like the wind whipping around him, and his company does not blink.
"I'd love to tell you we've got a shot taking that relay station, but what's more likely is we all become red stains on this shithole's surface until our bones are blown away by this dismal wind." Gaston pauses and takes a deep breath.
"But if we don't try, we'll surely die in this trench, feasting on ice like Satan in Dante's inferno! So men, don't think about your sweethearts back home or the warmies, or your own battle prowess, think about the taste of a bar of rations cracking your teeth. The warmies don't love us, but I love you, men, and if we die, before our blood freezes, we'll be hot one last time!"
And with that and a mighty roar, the 205th Europan Convey company clambers over the top of the trench and into the bare ice field.
In a relay station five hundred meters east of the company, a man watches them from a tower. The man is wearing a full parka indoors, peering out a window down at the ant-sized 205th slowly scuttling toward the tower.
"What's that?" asks his partner through a mouthful of coffee. The icy beverage crunches between his teeth.
"Dunno," remarks the man in the tower. "They've got red parkas."
"What's that make 'em? Red cross? French? Or do they work for United Holdings?" The coffee-eater swallows his stimulant.
"Beats me," the man in the tower says. He sighs, flipping two switches on a console. From the tower emerge two telescoping automatic machine turrets, grinding with wear as they use ancient algorithms to target each of the six men in the 205th in turn.
With a precise and clipped crack, six bullets are deployed and with deadly precision, they explode the skulls of each red-parka in an instant.
"Look," remarks coffee-chewer, his coeur de glace eyes scanning the ice field. On it, private Elmer crawls, making a bloodstain on the sheer face of the ice as he moves.
"Damn, one of the turrets missed," says the tower man, frowning. "Poor bastard. We ought to tell management."
"As if they'd fix it on his behalf. He's going to be dead in about thirty seconds," says coffee-chewer.
Tower man sighs. There is no sadistic pleasure in him, but there is no sorrow, either. He looks away silently.
In the middle of an ice field, Private Elmer crawls, the bullet meant for his brain passing through his throat instead. Coughing and whining, he feels the warm blood freeze in his mouth. It feels like someone is inflating a balloon in his esophagus and his final thought is if he will die from exposure, suffocation, or blood loss.
Elmer goes still, freezing in place. His blood joins the ice around him, the only evidence that he was ever warm the midnight-red stain surrounding him. In two Europan days, his body is gone.