We were under heavy fire, the bullets wizzed mere centimetres above our heads, our trenches filled with spent casings, casualties and the raw smell of iron filled the muddy air.
I've been a soldier for over fifty years, I've led my men into battle countless times on countless planets and moons, I've survived the the impossible, but this time, this time I knew I wouldn't be making it back.
We deployed here almost a month ago in hope to evacuate civilians from the planet then the solar system, it was a routine operation. The operation was smooth for the first few days, called dropships to evacuate civilians, set up our forward operating base, secured the perimeter, it was almost like training. Almost.
Moral was high, there was little to do, some of us started to question why we were even evacuating people out, for a war torn system it was peaceful. It was like a storm, they came out of nowhere, we didn't have time to react.
The last dropship was shot down shortly after takeoff, it landed on three of my men killing them, the hail of gunfire from the sky killed five more, the rest of us dived into our shallow trenches hoping we wouldn't be next. The roar of hostile ships boomed overhead with every pass, the air attack ceased after five passes with each on bringing hails of gunfire reducing my men's numbers each time. We soon heard enemy vehicles approaching, it was a low but loud rumble as they moved towards us through the light forest. That's when the wall of bullets started flying past.
We called in air support from our support ship but they were halfway around the planet at that time and would take ten minutes to reach us, time we didn't have. In the short gaps between the enemies fire we returned what little power we had, the support we called seemed so far but just as we lost hope the boom of cannons shook the ground beneath us. The casings around me rattled with each shell fired from the ships cannons.
One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one shell after another making the planet tremble. The shells decimated the small forest along with all of the hostiles within it, we thought we won that battle, I thought I'd live to see another day. The ships cannons fired but there was no impact, it fired again, still no impact. I looked to the skies to see a storm of missiles heading towards the ship.
The missile swarm impacted in a single location cutting through the ship disabling one system after another. In mere seconds the ship began to drift down picking up speed with each passing second. The ship soon slammed into the planet detonating its reactor, the last thing I saw on that planet was the blinding flash of impossibly bright light.