Flames consumed the soldier entirely; his armor and his flesh vanished as if they had never existed, leaving not a trace. Only his dog tag remained clutched in his hand.
Riflemann Dietrich, that was the soldier's name. He was British, serving with the UNSA Military Technology Institute.
Fisher picked up the soldier's empty NV4 rifle, then forcefully plunged it into the ice, hanging the dog tag on its stock.
The biting wind, laden with ice shards, howled, whipping the dog tag skyward, but the chain remained tightly fastened to the rifle's stock.
This was not the first soldier to die in this war, nor would he be the last. He died in obscurity; perhaps years from now, no one but his family would remember him. War, war never changes.
The soldier's death didn't affect Fisher's emotions, but it did deepen his animosity towards the SDF (Settlement Defense Front) Mars.
If before Fisher had merely intended to fish in troubled waters for personal gain, now he was ready to deliver another kick as the SDF was about to plunge into the abyss.
Fisher had considered shooting Salen Kotch in the head, but killing him at this point was largely useless. Mars' war machine would inevitably be activated. Moreover, since boarding the ship, Salen Kotch had remained on the bridge, surrounded by robots, leaving no opportunity for an attack.
Speaking of robots, Fisher looked at the one flying behind him and felt a surge of irritation. Martians were useless at everything else, but they were number one at building killing machines. The comms channel was currently filled with short, intense gunfire—the Martian Colonial Army executing prisoners of war.
Systematic, large-scale genocide was part of the Martian Colonial Army's operational plan, implemented since the first rebellion war: firing squads, live burials, poison gas, even siphoning off oxygen to suffocate victims. Their brutality rivaled that of the SS and the Japanese army.
As Fisher prepared to return to the hangar and board his aircraft, several other pilots from the flight squadron also swaggered up from the elevator.
"Lieutenant Colonel Fisher, find anything good?" the lead pilot asked cheerfully over the channel.
"Just wreckage, why?" Fisher pointed to the robot, which had a piece of aircraft wreckage he'd picked up in its waist storage compartment. He planned to keep it as a souvenir.
"Come on, I'll give you one!" Seeing Fisher's meager souvenir, the pilots chuckled. One of them unslung a large object from his back.
"A prototype of a secret weapon developed by UNSA. The warehouses below are full of them. It's a real shame you didn't go down!"
"Oh!" Fisher hadn't expected these guys to bring something like that up. But then he reconsidered: Mars already had more advanced laser cannons, so this UNSA weapon would be nothing more than icing on the cake for the Martian Colonial Army. The pilots were likely just trying to curry favor with Fisher, recognizing his status in the Home Fleet, as the Eighth Fleet monopolized all Martian research departments, leaving the Home Fleet to make do with older equipment.
Fisher didn't decline. After all, this cluster laser cannon seemed to have been widely adopted by both Martian and Earth forces in the later stages of the campaign, so it wasn't surprising for a pilot to have one. "Sir, we've detected a UNSA light gunship approaching!"
"Let them in. I want to give them hope!" Salen Kotch watched the flashing red dot on the radar, sneering. He continued, "Then I'll crush that hope!"
The Olympus Mons deliberately hid itself on the other side of the satellite. Only after the gunship, belonging to UNSA's SCAR special forces, had deployed all its special operators to the surface did it emerge from the gas cloud.
The gunship pilot didn't even realize what was happening before intense electromagnetic radiation crippled the entire vessel. Stripped of its power system, the gunship could only plunge headlong into the embrace of the earth, pulled by gravity, without a backward glance.
Meanwhile, the SCAR Team 7 special forces members who had entered the experimental base were also engaged in a brutal killing spree, thanks to Salen Kotch's deliberate oversight. In the end, their commander, codenamed Wolf, successfully led his subordinates in destroying the weapon prototype.
However, the explosion not only destroyed the laboratory but also blasted the special soldiers out to the surface. Finally, the few survivors crashed heavily onto the ice.
"Boss, we succeeded?"
"Yes! We succeeded!"
The three special forces soldiers were happy for only a few seconds before discovering a terrifying truth: their gunship was gone, and their oxygen was running low. Without external aid, they wouldn't survive for more than five minutes.
At this critical moment, Salen Kotch made a grand entrance with his subordinates, imperiously offering these men oxygen with the air of an unstoppable victor.
"We destroyed the weapon prototype! You won't get anything!" Wolf declared with impassioned indignation, while his two subordinates winked and openly mocked the Martian soldiers.
"Heh heh, the weapon prototype? We don't need it anymore!" Salen Kotch casually snapped his fingers. The next second, the Olympus Mons, high in the sky, opened fire. A dazzling laser beam poured forth, pulverizing a massive asteroid floating outside the satellite.
"This..." Wolf's face was filled with grief and indignation. Why had they traveled all the way from Earth to this place? Wasn't it to destroy the weapon prototype and prevent it from falling into Martian hands? But now they discovered that Mars not only had stronger weapons than them but also weapons that were already combat-ready.
Salen Kotch was very pleased with the expressions on their faces. He savored the feeling of controlling everything, especially the moment when his opponents fell into his meticulously designed trap.
"We will not surrender!" Wolf gritted his teeth. He knew that he and his brothers were in dire straits. Getting a complete corpse after falling into Martian hands would be a blessing; he didn't expect anything else!
"Of course, Commander, I didn't expect you to surrender!" Salen Kotch waved his hand dismissively, signaling the robots to pin the prisoners to the ground.
"We are here to eliminate you! Kill them. Don't use guns; save your bullets!" With that, Salen Kotch turned and walked towards the transport ship without looking back.
Upon hearing the order, the burly robots immediately raised their fists. With several resounding thuds, the captured special forces soldiers could only watch as the cracks on their helmets grew larger and larger, then with a crunch, they completely shattered. Shards of glass and frozen blood splattered everywhere, leaving only three blurred corpses isolated on the ice plain.
"Order the fleet to assemble. Target: Earth. All units, deploy!"
Kidney stones. My roommate took me to the hospital at 1 AM last night. Why is graduation season so difficult? I'm sorry, it looks like I won't be able to achieve that 3,000-character goal this month. My apologies to everyone.