Spots: Turn the Tide

A Web Serial by M.C.A. Hogarth

144. A Chance.	146. Desperate Measures.

145. Turn the Tide

Front Hall. The last time the company assembled here was to remember Dusty's Dog, before Alpha Company arrived. There was a casket. A memorial service. A body to be wheeled to cold-storage in expectation of a trip home on the next ship.

There are no bodies today. Only a handful of tables pushed together and draped in dark blue cloth, and on them, a semi-circle of rifles. What remains of the shattered base complement has gathered to honor the dead.

Into their quiet comes the chaplain, who walks to the front of the room, around the table. He begins to speak about sacrifice, about duty. About dying so that one's brothers and sisters might live. The men and women in the room listen, solemn and unmoving.

At last the chaplain closes his book and bows his head. The company follows suit.

Silence.

Broken.

Boots against the floor. The clatter of the rifes on the table and the thump of something heavy landing among them.

Peaches has dropped a backpack nuclear bomb there.

"We've mourned the dead. Now we're going to kill their mother-****ing murderers so hard there won't be an atom left for God to rub together."

Electric pause.

Peaches, fist up, eyes hard. "For the slain. For the living. FOR VENGEANCE!"

"FOR VENGEANCE!"

144. A Chance.	146. Desperate Measures.