307 AC

“For the love of the Spacer’s Ghost, move your asses!” Clete Hargraves stood in the middle of the snow-covered field in front of the barracks shouting at his Marines as they loaded up the platoon’s four transports. Lieutenant Plunkett had been clear as a bell. They were to take everything they could cram onto one of the all-terrain trucks, and then destroy the rest. They still had no idea who was coming, but there was no longer the slightest doubt. They were under attack. And the last thing they were going to do was let an invader use their own weapons and equipment against them.

They’d listened to the battle on the station, the fighters attacking, destroying the platform’s weapons. Then the landings, and the ten Marines stationed there putting up a desperate battle against boarders. Sergeant Jones and his Marines had armed and organized the station’s technicians, but the attackers still outnumbered them five to one. They’d put up a good defense, but when the com line was finally broken they were on the run, half their number dead, the rest trying to organize a last-ditch attempt to hold.

An attempt Hargraves knew was hopeless. He was sure the fight was over by now. He knew the Marines would have fought hard, that few, if any, of Jones’s people would have surrendered.

If this enemy would even accept a surrender. We still got no idea who we’re fighting…

He turned away from the area where the transports were lined up, and he zipped the heavy parka all the way up to his neck. It was cold. No, beyond cold. It was damned freezing. But the last thing Platoon Sergeant Clete Hargraves was going to do was give any of his Marines the satisfaction of seeing that he was cold.

He was hard on his Marines, but he was proud of them too. They were a good platoon, and for all their grumblings, he had no doubt they would fight hard. But he was the oldest by far, and the most experienced. He knew what lay ahead. Running, hiding in the wilderness. Huddling together in the frigid night, enduring every painful moment while longing for the meager relief of morning sunlight. There would be no fires, no heaters. That would be as good as sending up a flare marking their location. And as bad as it would be in the beginning…it would get worse after a few fights.

He’d seen wounded men and women before, on the front lines, far from aid stations and doctors. He’d watched comrades bleed to death, die of injuries that could have been easily treated in any hospital. But here it would be worse, he knew, and the Marines would likely watch their wounded brethren freeze to death, shivering uncontrollably until they finally succumbed.