The Mud

Private First-Class Lauren Stuart hated the rain. She hated how it turned everything into either a mud filled quagmire, a humid sweatbox, or a mildew stained hell, she hated how it turned a comfy BDU into a soggy mess, but most importantly she hated how all she could hear when the heavens opened was the sound of droplets tapping on the top of her helmet. Why they had decided to regroup in the one part of this jungle that had no cover from this squall she couldn’t explain but she had the feeling the blame lay with someone whose rank code was greater than their brain cells.
“Alright troopers, the OP is a thirty-mile hike through this swamp.” The Lieutenant gestured from next to the map that had been stretched out across a table flat rock. Normally the sight out a paper map usually meant that something really bad had happened, but as a veteran trooper had told her on her first day in the 11th Marine Force Reconnaissance Battalion ‘it's just Tuesday’ which was strange since it was currently Thursday. “Corporal Mallory, I want your fireteam up front, Sergeant Starrett, I want you to command the rearguard, everyone else with me. Now gear up, the sooner we’re there, the sooner we can get out of this storm.”
Getting out of this storm? That was a nice thought. Lauren wasn’t a massive fan of water in any form. She wasn’t scared of the water, she couldn’t have joined up if she was, and who could live without a hot shower once in a while. In fact, she could swim better than most of her fellow troopers. Mostly because her parents had insisted that she learn to swim ever since she’d gone through the ice back on Camber and had spent a week in hospital recovering from Hypothermia after her comatose body had been hauled out by her brother… Shit, she’d started reminiscing about Joseph again. Even after he’d been dead for nearly twenty years, she still missed her older brother, the way he always looked after her and her twin like he was ten years older than them rather than three.
“Yo, Pinky, you awake or what?” Mallory asked using the nickname that they'd given her after her hair dye had gone wrong that one time. She secretly hated the nickname, but as the most junior member of the squad she couldn’t do anything about it, yet. Still, it hadn’t stopped her dyeing it that colour ever since she’d found it suited her better than the mess of straw-coloured locks that she’d been born with.
“I’m awake, just thinking Boss” Lauren replied as she fell in with the rest of her fireteam. She expected a mouthful on ‘the dangers of thinking’ but Mallory simply grunted before leading them into the undergrowth.
Lauren wasn’t looking forward to this march. Not because of the distance, thirty miles was a good day out to an ODST, but thirty miles in this mess, through mud that would come up to their wastes, in humidity that would fog up everyone's helmets despite what the designer of the filters had claimed. This would be thirty miles of hell. Not even broken up with the relief of a good firefight. The Covies might be crazy enough to send infantry into this green hell, but the 11th was here for the local Innies, and as they were local, none of them were stupid enough to venture into the jungle. Which was exactly why command had dropped them right in the middle of it. Both literally and metaphorically. The benefits of being in the 11th Force Recon, always going to a variety of ‘interesting’ locations and watching things that they wanted to shoot at.
“You’d think someone would’ve sent us some machetes to chop through this lot,” someone said aloud over Squadcomm.
“Yeah, and these are the same people who should’ve sent us MRE’s that don’t taste like a Brute’s armpit,” someone else joined in prompting a chorus of laughter. It was always a good idea to alleviate the tension on any operation, better to be relaxed and watchful, than jumpy and trigger happy.
“Or a hair dye that works… mind you it gave us Pinky.” This voice belonged to Private Merlo, a Trooper who was a decade Lauren’s senior and the squad’s troublemaker. In Lauren’s opinion, Merlo should’ve been a Private, and if she wasn’t the company's ablest member, she would probably have been right. “Isn’t that right Pinky?”
Lauren didn’t like Merlo. It had been him who had invented her nickname, and she’d wanted to remove some of his teeth as payment, but there was a rule about fighting in the ranks and she’d already fallen foul of it enough times back in the 34th Shock Division. But at least there she’d been allowed to pull the trigger without a conference to discuss it. But as she had only been in the 11th for less than a year, she bit her tongue and kept quiet.
“Hey Pinky, you got your ears on, or are you too busy thinking?” Merlo heckled. At that particular moment Lauren tripped on something and landed face first in the mud, prompting a new chorus of laughter at her expense.
Slowly, mud streaking off her visor, the front of her black BDU now a shade of vile brown, Lauren struggled to her feet, and with the little voice in Lauren’s head feeding her the words, said her view on a couple of matters.
"Shut the hell up Merlo before I drown you in this shit!... And another thing, if anyone calls me Pinky again, I'll break their fucking arms!!" she snarled, stunning the entire Squadcomm into a silence that lingered for the rest of the march. Silent but for the rain tapping on her helmet.