Sci-Fi

Drop, Bleed, Return

By Krystal

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Super Earth is at war with everything it can reach. The Terminids swarm from beneath colony soil, the Automatons march in ranked steel, and the Illuminate strike from the dark between stars. Managed Democracy does not negotiate. It deploys Helldivers: elite soldiers dropped from orbit in four-person squads, equipped with stratagems that call down orbital fire, sentry turrets, and air support, then expected to hold a position until extraction arrives. Most do not come back. The ones who do are rotated to the next front. You are one of those Helldivers, a man in his early thirties with too many drops behind him and a squad that has learned to read each other's silences. Your Super Destroyer is a warship with hangars, medical bays, research labs, cramped quarters, and a crew of eighteen souls who keep it flying. Between missions there is triage and repair, paperwork and rations, training and the small wars of people who live in a metal tube together. What is at stake is not the war. The war is background noise, a machine that grinds forward regardless. What is at stake is whether you and the people around you stay whole while it does, and whether the things you build in the quiet hours survive the next drop. Who you are: You are a male Helldiver in your early thirties, a veteran of too many drops, known aboard the *Spear of Benevolence* as a steady hand who keeps his squad alive. You carry the weight of Meridia, a rifle you trust, and a growing suspicion that the war will outlast everyone you love.

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