He turned his head slightly to look up at me. “Darius…” His voice was throaty, labored. His lungs were filling with his own blood.
“Yes, sir? I’m here.” My heart was pounding and I was in shock, but I was determined to be strong for him, as I knew we would be for me. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“Tell the men and women.” He was rasping, coughing up blood, trying to get the words out. “Tell them I am proud…” He coughed again, trying to continue speaking through the gurgling sounds. “…proud of them. Tell them I was honored to lead them, and…” More coughing. “…and, tell them I know they will always make me proud.”
“Yes, sir.” I was fighting back a sea of tears, but there was nothing more important to me than to be there for this man in that place.
“Darius?” He turned his head. “Darius?” He was slipping away, not sure where he was.
“I’m here, sir. It’s Darius.”
His voice was weak, almost inaudible. My AI automatically cranked up the volume so I could hear. “Tell them I’m proud to die here with so many of our brothers and sisters.” He went into another coughing spasm and he started speaking incomprehensibly, hallucinating about something, though what I couldn’t tell. I had lots of chatter on my com, from others in the platoon, from the medic I could see trotting over…but I shut it all down except for the lieutenant’s line.
Finally, he stopped the random talking and his coughing subsided. He turned his head slightly, further in my direction, and he said, “The Corps forever.” He was silent after that, and I knew he was gone. The medic knelt down, but I told him it was too late. A great Marine was dead.
His last thoughts, dying painfully on a hellish world far from home, were for us, for the platoon he’d loved and protected and led with such dedication. People speak of duty and devotion, but the lieutenant had lived it to his last breath. He was a good man sent to an impossible place, and I can’t even count how many of his soldiers he pulled through that nightmarish campaign. We lived, many of us, to leave Tombstone, but we left him behind, having given his last full measure to the Corps.
Chapter 10
I'd like to say I left Tombstone triumphantly, amid victory parades and celebrations, but that's not how it happened. I didn't march out at all; I left as a casualty, unconscious and kept alive by machines. I'd come through the battle of McCraw's Ridge, fighting non-stop for three days without a scratch, but it was a tiny skirmish three weeks later that took me down. My squad was on a routine sweep of the perimeter when my luck ran out. We encountered an enemy patrol and exchanged a few shots before both sides broke off. Nobody had a stomach for a serious fight, not so soon after the Cauldron.
But those few shots were enough. One of the rounds caught me in the shoulder, and as far as I know, I was the only one hit. It wasn't a bad wound, but it impacted at a strange angle, tearing a large chunk off my armor. On a more hospitable world it would have been minor, but we were on Tombstone. The repair system in my suit tried to restore atmospheric integrity, but the hole was just too big. The corporal managed to get a manual patch over it, but not before I'd breathed a half a lungful of Tombstone's noxious atmosphere. It was as if I'd inhaled fire; the pain was unbearable. It was like suffocating and burning to death both. I could feel the blood pouring out of my nose and welling up in my throat. It was only a second or two before the suit's trauma control kicked in and flooded my system with painkillers and tranqs, but that instant stretched out like an eternity, and it was nothing but relief when the darkness finally took me.
As I faded away I was sure I was done, but they got me out of there and into a med unit back at base. My lungs were a total loss; the unit would be doing my breathing until I was evac'd to a facility with regeneration capability. My suit’s trauma control had put me out on the field, and the medical AI kept me in an induced coma, so my last view of Tombstone was the one I had just after I was shot. When I finally came to it was weeks later and in a much more hospitable environment - the Marine hospital on Armstrong, surrounded by doctors and med techs. I woke up and took a painless deep breath, and it was a minute before I'd regained enough presence of mind to be surprised by that fact.
My chest was a little sore from the transplantation surgery, but my brand new lungs, exact copies of the ones I had before, worked perfectly, and my shoulder and other injuries had long since healed. I had a few weeks of observation and physical therapy ahead of me, but then I was on my way to a month's leave and a new posting.
The Corps tried to return wounded soldiers to their original units, but with the time and distances involved it just wasn't always feasible. Although I wouldn't miss Tombstone, I was sorry I wasn't going back to my old platoon. They were my brothers and sisters; I'd shared the danger and death of the front lines with them, and they had carried me back when I got hit, when even I had given myself up as lost. They'd saved my life; they were there for me when I needed them. Just like Captain Jackson had told me more than six years before.
I hated leaving for another reason. A unit is like a living organism; it can wither and die without the support it needs. When I left, the platoon was still reeling from the loss of the lieutenant. The wound was still raw, the grief palpable. They'd get a new CO - they probably had one already - but it would be a long time before anyone filled the void left behind.
The platoon is a dynamic entity. It's pride, its battle history, its traditions - they remain. But the men and women come and go. Soldiers die, they get wounded, they get promoted or transferred. Slowly but steadily, the living memory of the lieutenant would fade. He would become less the source of raw pain and loss and more the honored entry in the unit's history.
For me, though, the memory would always be there, and it would never fade. Up to that point, no one had impacted my life as strongly as the lieutenant had, and I can't begin to list the things he taught me. I only knew him for the six months I'd served under him, but he was the first person who truly won my unreserved respect. I can't think of anything more meaningful to say than this - Lieutenant Brett Reynolds was a truly good man in a universe that had very few of those. I resolved that my career would be a tribute to him. I would live up to his expectations; I would become the type of Marine he had been, the kind he wanted me to be.
I wish I could say that the years long struggle on Tombstone ended in glorious victory, but I can't. When the war became official, the Caliphate hit the planet with thousands of new troops, backed up with a naval task force. Cut off from resupply or reinforcement, our units on the ground held out the best they could. One by one the enemy captured our firebases and mining settlements, pushing our people into an ever-shrinking perimeter. As far as I know, none of the troops posted on Tombstone when war was declared ever made it out. My old unit had rotated off-planet long before then, so I didn't know any of the men and women who were sacrificed there. But they all hurt. They were all my brothers and sisters…all Marines.
The soldiers that had been lost there over a decade were expended wastefully, sent by a government that was too greedy to share the wealth of the planet and too cowardly to fight hard enough to win. The politicians had viewed the monthly loss rates on Tombstone as a cost of doing business. That sort of calculus repulsed me, and for the first time I thought – really thought – about how the Alliance was governed. The ultimate futility of if all only made the suffering and waste that much more bitter.