Chapter 1
"Patience is the greatest art a hunter must master." ~ Oi Dah School of Martial Arts.
"Patience, n. A minor form of dispair, disguised as a virtue." ~ Ambrose Bierce.
Summer in most places people make homes of would bring warm temperatures and lush growth; Buran IV was different. Here, Summer meant temperatures soared from minus 120 to merely minus 60. If one were so inclined, one could almost go without an enviro-suit altogether.
Almost.
Like most summer days on Buran IV (dubbed Abyddon long before present humans tramped its frosty hide) deep clouds and shafts of pale light created
a bizarre scene; where the shafts of light touched down, the light was blinding, where the clouds held sway, it looked as if it were already night.
In the summer months, the enemy frantically moved his equipment from one
frozen piece of worthless ground to the next, trying to pin down an opponent
who would simply vanish into the hills and devour them piecemeal.
Snow drifted in cool white flurries nearby, piling up in thick drifts where the thin cold air would leave it, before the air itself would freeze out. She shrugged, adjusting her heavy rifle on her back, and scanning the narrow, blade like ridge-line. She didn't like being exposed for long, and moved quickly the east side of the ridge, and into the lee of the stone wall.
For some reason, she had woken this morning with an old song in her head.
'God, if you will not give me friends, or peace, or love, give me at least ammo'; it was an old quote from her days in basic training, and she could still see her sergeant laughing as she sang it on the twenty mile arctic run.
Most of those troops had long since left, either going home after doing their time or falling in some nameless crevasse here in the Freeze. But it could be worse, she thought to herself as she trudged up the steep ridgeline north northwest of Mount Pinoa, the largest volcano in this area.
If she were not here, who would she kill?
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