Day by Day/Poisoned Minds

“Marine Unit Bravo-Two-Zero to Fleet, do you read?” Shouted Corporal Travers into his com. The wind over this planet’s icy surface was getting worse, and his squad wasn’t doing well. After a group of Seraphs had strafed their position, he had been forced to pull back into the wilderness. Of the original twelve men, seven remained. Now the survivors were being slowly killed by the cold, and he couldn’t reach Fleet for extraction. They were going to die if they didn’t find cover fast.
“DeLaney! Take point!” Travers shouted over the wind. She moved up to the front of the line, her assault rifle readied. She hadn’t gone ten feet before an explosion threw snow and blood into the air. Travers shielded himself as the powder fell to the ground, then looked for any sign of the marine. He and Ives, the medic, ran forward. DeLaney was laying on her back in the snow writhing in pain.
“DeLaney, are you –” Then Travers saw that below the knee, her legs were gone. Ives was already working on bandaging them.
“Plasma mine!” Ives shouted. “She’s alive, but she won’t make it if we’re out here much longer.”
Travers cursed and looked back to the other four marines, Ward, Harper, Powell, and Meyer.
“Meyer! Can you find a place to hole up for a while?” he yelled to the communications officer.
The marine quickly pointed. “Whiskey Outpost was abandoned before the fighting started. With any luck, there won’t be any Covenant and we can sit out the storm.”
“Let’s get moving!” Travers shouted. “Powell, help Ives!”
The squad lapsed back into silence as they trudged on.
----
The marines burst into Whiskey Outpost, hardly checking for enemies as they rushed DeLaney to the infirmary. She was screaming, no longer conscious of her surroundings. Travers found the infirmary locked up, and without time he called for everyone to stand back. A grenade opened it up, and Ives hurried to work.
Travers slumped against a wall, panting. There was no way they were going to survive. The very planet wanted to kill them. DeLaney’s screams had died away, and he only hoped it wasn’t because the marine had. He got up slowly and walked back through the corridors of the base, finding the rest of his squad barricading the doors. They were as tired as he was, and in the still-warm base they had thrown away their packs and gear.
“Everything secure?” he asked, taking a chance to look around the base.
Meyer and Ward sat down and leaned back against an overturned cot. “Nothing’s for sure, but if there was anything in here, I figure it would have attacked us by now.”
Powell pitched down on top of Meyer, her weight knocking the wind out of him and causing his eyes to open wide with surprise. She grinned wickedly and looked at Travers. “Now that there’s no sergeant yelling at us for push-ups constantly, a big base isn’t half so bad.”
“Not bad, huh?” Harper said, hands tight on the shotgun he used. “We’re in a shack on a planet the rest of the military is running away from, and the goddamn aliens are going to burn us out of existence. What the hell’s not bad about that?”
“Shut it, marine.” Travers yelled. Harper was always complaining, which was typical of a conscript. He fought as hard as any of them did, it was just a pain to deal with him. Travers found himself incredibly thirsty, and picked up Ward’s canteen, swigging the cool liquid greedily.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Ward protested, snatching the empty container from him. “Now I gotta fill it up. Anybody seen a sink or sumthin?”
“Same place as every other pre-fab firebase.” Harper said, sulking. As Ward walked away, Travers decided to put the troops to work to get their minds off their position.
“Okay, Meyer, get the control center running, try raising the Fleet from there. Powell, with him.” Meyer rolled his eyes, and Powell just grinned as they turned down anther corridor. He turned to Harper. “Come on, let’s make sure Ward doesn’t get lost.”
In the mess hall, Travers and Harper caught sight of Ward behind the serving counter, filling his canteen. The room was still lit by built in panels, with no windows. Identical to the place where Travers had been trained. It brought back a few memories.
Ward took a long draught from the jug as the other two approached.
“How’s the water, Ward?” Travers asked.
“Just fine, sir. Little warm. What are we doing now?”
“Waiting for pick-up. Meyer’s talking to Fleet, we’ll have a Pelican down soon if we’re lucky.”
Ward suddenly became solemn. “And DeLaney?”
The question hung in the air for a while before Travers spoke. “No word yet. Ives’ll do the best he can.”
“Well, nothing to worry about then. Do you know if–” Ward suddenly broke off as a cough racked his entire body. Two more followed, and Ward dropped his canteen. Travers and Harper became alarmed as he continued. Travers jumped the counter as Harper backed off.
“Hey, he could be contagious!”
“Fuck off, Harper!” Travers yelled, catching Ward as he fell over. He was still coughing, and now blood was coming from his mouth. Ward looked like he was trying to speak, and then sighed and went limp.
Travers stared at the still warm body in his arms for a moment, then up at Harper, staring at him open-mouthed from the far side of the counter. It had happened so quickly and violently that Travers wasn’t able to speak for a moment.
“The water . . .” Harper mouthed silently.
Travers stood up, his mind reeling. “Alright, make sure no one else fills their canteens from here. Don’t tell them, though, I don’t want them to worry about it if we can get off this rock.”
“Do you think it’s the Covenant?” Harper asked him.
“We would have seen any in the base by now. Maybe they did it a long time ago.”
“Or . . . one of us did it.”
Travers froze and turned to him. After staring at him for a moment, “What makes you say that?”
“The Covenant weren’t out here . . . its just us.”
“You’re crazy.” Travers said, now a little unsure. “It must have been the UNSC when it pulled out, denied enemy access to supplies.”
“Bullshit, man! The Covies burn everything to hell, they don’t need the water. I’ll bet it was Ives, he would really know how to fuck someone up!”
“Shut it!” Travers yelled at him. Despite it, he was starting to suspect the others himself. Ives would have had time to, if he let DeLaney die. “Okay, just let’s get everyone together. See if Meyers got someone on radio.”
Harper nodded, and called into his radio to Powell and Meyer.
----
With the four of them waiting, Ives walked out of the base hospital.
“What’s the word?” Travers asked.
He sighed. “She’s comatose, but if we get her to a Navy doc she might live. She’ll be using prosthetics if not a wheelchair, though.”
There was a collective moment of silence, as it meant their squadmate was leaving either through death or a discharge. Travers snapped his fingers twice, trying to think of what to say. “Meyers, get contact?”
“Yes sir. Fleet rescue Pelican is inbound to pick us up.”
“Okay . . . there’s no easy way to say this, but Ward is dead.”
The three that hadn’t already known gasped. “How?” Powell asked.
Harper spoke up. “Poisoned, and it was one of us.”
“No, that doesn’t make sense . . .” Meyers mumbled, but Harper started talking again, louder. “Me’n Travers were together when we saw it. He took one sip, and—”
“Shut up, Harper!” Travers yelled, for something like the tenth time that day. “Look, Harper and I were together, we’d know if either of us did it. But you’re all under suspicion. Powell and Meyer were together . . . and that leaves Ives.”
The medic looked alarmed. “Whoa, whoa, I wouldn’t . . .”
“Actually,” Powell said quietly, “Meyer and I split up for a while.”
For a moment, all was silent, and then Harper raised his shotgun, yelling, “This pig woulda known just how to do it!”
	
“Harper, leave him alone!” Powell started, and Meyer started talking at her. Travers watched uneasily as the situation began to escalate. These were tired, anxious marines, and they were just liable to start killing each other. He clicked the safety off his sidearm when a blast broke the air.
Ives’ body was thrown back by the force of the buckshot.
“NO!” Travers yelled, raising his pistol and firing twice. He caught Harper in the leg and side, when a second pistol was fired and a round hit his head. His body fell as Powell ducked behind cover.
Powell made sure to check her flanks, right clear, left . . .
Meyer caught her with a blind burst of rifle fire, when the loud blast of a shotgun cracked the air, and Meyer fell to the ground. Harper pulled himself up from the floor, the shotgun gripped tightly. He limped down the hall, the pain and blood staining his skin and uniform contributing to the insane little grin he'd sprouted.
It was DeLaney who had meant to kill them, he was sure of it. She stepped on the mine, made herself look innocent. The doors to the medbay slid open, and he sighted the marine laying on a table. Her eyes were open, watching him. He'd known she'd be awake, watching as his squad killed each other.
He laughed, and brought himself closer with the weapon raised. Too late, he saw the pinless grenade clasped in her hand, which then exploded and enveloped him in a momentary wave of heat.
The complex went silent as the explosion’s echoes died away. Only the dead marines remained, pooling blood and corpses growing cool. Then a bit of the air shimmered, and an Elite emerged from cloaking.
Ossoona Veral T’ramee stood in shock of what he had just seen. The human soldiers had been closely linked, a fighting unit, and had within an hour been reduced to killing each other.
All he had done was stab into the one’s neck, and the others had thought him poisoned, not seeing the thin cut in the back of its throat. T’ramee shook his head, and left the scene of blood behind. The humans ship would arrive soon, and he would sneak aboard to begin his work as an assassin in the next base they came to. And the next, and the next, and the next.
He grinned at the weakness of the humans, sure that such a break of trust would never fraction the races of the Covenant.