We were losing the war.That much was obvious. We could see our fate in the battered equipment that fell apart beneath our fingertips. We were so desperate for parts, we'd taken to scavenging our own craft just to keep a few ships in the air. The army could barely feed us. We were down to one lukewarm, watery meal a day and our uniforms were ripped and worn beyond recognition. We stole the boots off our fallen comrades rather than freeze to death in what had to be the most desolate hell hole in the galaxy.
Gamma 6 was cold, so cold it defied definition. Even the air you thought was safe to breathe froze in your throat before the heating systems in the ships kicked in. The most sophisticated equipment was rendered useless by the penetrating ice. We were so thoroughly chilled I swore I would never be warm again. The only thing that helped us forget the demoralizing frost was alcohol. We drank with hopeless abandon, booze being the only supply we had an abundance of.
So there we were, the most bedraggled, filthy lot to ever call themselves an army, drinking with determined grimness, the night before the battle that would decide our fate.
I was drunk, and I didn't care if the troops saw it. Salvation was impossible at this point, fighting a mere formality.
In a prophetic drunken haze, I wondered what the Malvarians would do
with us: line us up and shoot us, or simply raze the planet and forget about us until the radiation died down enough to re-colonize.
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