Bruce's eyes shot wide open and his scream came out as muffled bubbles around the edges of a breather device strapped to his face. A cool liquid surrounded his eyes and body, and his limbs barely moved when he attempted to take the mask off. He realized he wasn’t in the shuttle freezing his ass off on Gorish IV. Instead, he was suspended in a restoration tube back aboard the Super Destroyers med bay in space.

  “About time you woke up,” Candice’s voice drifted to him from somewhere in the room. “Sleep well?”

  Bruce’s heart raced as the dream faded from his thoughts. Fear and shame washed over him as he remembered the pain of losing both Charlie and Andres. Maybe someday he’d be able to forgive himself.

  “No.” Bruce replied. “No, I didn’t sleep well.” He looked around the tube for a few moments. He’d never been in the medbay aboard the ship before. This bay was mostly black and grey instead of the blinding white typically portrayed on the display screens in movies and shows he’d seen. The circular glass tube was just wide enough to support his shoulders with a few inches on both sides. The room around him was distorted a bit by the tube, but he was able to see a row of tubes on either side of him. A gray operating table laid before each tube followed by a walkway separating the operating area from a row of desk consoles, readouts of what he assumed were his fellow helldivers scrolling across their screens. At the console across from him, Candice sat with her arms crossed and leaning back in a desk chair with a relieved expression on her face. “How long was I out for?” he asked.

  “Sixteen days Helldiver.” A male voice said. Bruce snapped his head to the left to see who had been talking. It sounded like the voice was coming from behind him but he wasn’t able to see from his orientation. It sounded like the Lord Commander.

  Bruce tried to turn his body to look over his shoulder. “I wasn’t talking to you.” Bruce retorted. Did he even say it? He wasn’t sure that his body was responding to his commands. “I was talking to Candice.”

  “Easy Helldiver. I’m not interested in arguing with you.” The voice soothed. “Stop struggling so much. You need to stay relaxed. We’ve got a body blocker around your neck. You won’t be able to move your arms or legs until we power it down.”

  Bruce ignored the voice as he rocked his head forward awkwardly to look down at his body around the breathing mask on his face. Several medical tubes connected to his arms and legs from above. His left leg stretched down towards the bottom of the tank. The nub of his right leg seemed to have grown a bit since he’d cut it off.

  Why the hell did I cut my leg off?

  The behemoth.

  Memories of his last mission shot through his head like a bullet. Bugs swarming after planetfall. Raising the SAM launchers. Fighting the Behemoth. Piloting the mech walker. Destroying the hive. Saving Candice.

  Candice.

  Bruce lifted his head back up to look his most recent squad leader in the eye. “You made it off-planet alive?”

  “Of course. All of us did. You don’t remember?” Candice replied.

  Bruce racked his brain

  “I remember being really, really tired. Something about a… a hive. Doug was really struggling on that dive. Is he figuring things out? How’s he doing?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Candice’s face contorted for a bit. “He made it off our drop but he’s gone. Four days after our drop. He tried going head to head with a Behemoth like,” She looked away from Bruce’s pod and wiped her eyes, “Like you did.” She looked back to Bruce. “He looked up to you you know?”

  If Bruce had full control of his body, he would have sighed. “Why would he look up to me?”

  “You’re a hero Helldiver.” The Lord Commander said, “We’re happy you made it out of there alive. Your actions saved more than just your squad. We were able to push the bugs off of Lastofe and turn the tide of the war in Glassium.”

  “Great. That won’t bring my friends back.”

  “No. No it won’t.” The Lord Commander sighed. “But they died for the glory of humanity! Their deaths were not in vain.”

  Bruce wanted to break out of the recovery tube and punch the Lord Commander in the face until he didn’t have a face. This was all a giant scam. None of this mattered. Even if they’d won the war for Glassium, then what? On to the next system where more of his friends would die?

  He wanted to say it. Wanted to scream it. But he couldn’t. Helldivers weren’t to question their orders. Super Earth leadership quickly punished anyone who questioned their wishes. In their eyes, dissent leads to treason. Treason leads to insurrections.

  SEAF didn’t have time for insurrections.

  He struggled to regulate his breathing and keep his heart rate under control. Instead he asked “Where are we now?”

  The Lord Commander walked around the front of the tank to stand next to Candice, “Let us worry about that Helldiver. You focus on healing. We need you healthy so you can get back out into the fight.”

  “How do I do that sir?” Bruce asked.

  “Now that you’re awake, you should only have a day or so left in the tank. Once you get decanted, the medical staff will give you your treatments to regrow your leg. It will be a few weeks before you’re cleared for drop again. You’ll be on convalescence until then.” The Lord Commander explained.

  “Just sitting around doing nothing?”

  “Recovery is part of the mission son. Dropping you without a leg would be a waste. You’ve shown great resilience in your career so far, and leadership has taken notice. It would be ridiculous of us to throw that away.”

  Leadership has noticed? What the hell did that mean?

  He started to ask the question when the red lights of the Hellport launch initiation began to spin and cast eerie shadows across the med bay. Bruce couldn’t hear the announcement, but he’d heard it enough times that his mind filled in the sound for him. Candice checked her squad comm, made a face, and stood. She walked up to stand before Bruce.

  “I gotta go bud.” she said, putting her hand to the outside of the tube. “You get better. I’ll see you when I get back.”

  Panic gripped Bruce. “No. No no. You can’t go. Stay here.” He looked to the Lord Commander. “Send someone else.”

  The Lord Commander shook his head as Candice walked past him and out of the medbay. “She will be fine without you. She’s capable, and all Helldivers have the best training we can provide.”

  That was a lie. Bruce went through a two week training on weapons handling, physical fitness, and how to call in a strategem before the Super Earth Assault Force put him in a hellpod and blasted him toward a planet. All the training they received was on the job.

  Bruce’s blood boiled. An indicator flashed on what he assumed was his read out. A support team member in blue fatigues ran over to examine the screen.

  “His heart rate is spiking. Cortisol and adrenaline levels are reaching dangerous levels.” The support member said.

  “He’s just mad his girlfriend is-” the Lord Commander said before pushing a button to mute the feed.

  The edges of Bruce’s vision blurred as rage filled his entire being. Now it was personal. As much as he wanted to dive and cover his team mates, it wasn’t about them going without him.

  It was about having to watch helplessly from orbit.

  It was about being sidelined.

  Bruce looked down at his left hand, trying everything he could to make a fist. All the rage in the world wouldn’t make his hand move.

  A milky liquid oozed down from above in one of the tubes connecting his arm to something above him. A cold sort of numbness crawled up his arm, across his chest and up behind his eyes. They became heavy as the anesthesia took effect. The world and his anger melted away from him like blood in the shower after a mission.