Clear Skies, Red Snow

The arctic sun was a rare gift, a perfect day for a break. It was also the perfect day for an ambush.

The latch was frozen solid. Of course it was. My glove, stiff with ice, scraped uselessly against the metal hasp of the Pelican case. A tiny, insignificant failure, but here, everything insignificant could kill you. The cold didn't care about your rank or your mission objective; it just ate at you, piece by piece. It stiffened your joints, seized your gear, and leeched the heat from your bones until you were just another part of the landscape. I grunted, pulling harder. The plastic groaned in protest, a sound like cracking ice. Inside was the backup comms unit. Useless if it stayed in the box.

My breath plumed in front of my face, a series of short, sharp clouds that froze instantly on my balaclava. The sun was the real kicker. It was glorious, a perfect, brilliant disk in a sky so blue it hurt to look at. No wind, for once. Just a profound, world-ending stillness. After three weeks of whiteouts and soul-crushing grey, a day like this felt like a trick. A cosmic joke. The light was so clean, so absolute, it made the snowfields glitter like a sea of diamonds. It gave you hope, and hope was a dangerous commodity out here.

I gave up on the latch and slammed the heel of my palm against it. A sharp, stinging pain shot up my arm, a deep ache that felt like it reached the bone. Nothing. The case remained stubbornly sealed. It was probably welded shut with a micro-thin layer of ice, stronger than any steel. I could get a pry bar, but that meant walking back to the toboggan, and the thought of moving more than ten feet felt like a monumental effort. We'd been humping it for twelve hours straight, setting up this OP, and my body was a symphony of dull aches and sharp complaints. Every muscle fiber screamed in protest.

"Problem, Sergeant?" Corporal Cantor’s voice was low, muffled by his own face covering. He crunched over to my position, his movements slow and deliberate. He looked like a ghost, a white-clad spectre against a white world. We all did. Our multi-spectral camo was designed to make us invisible, and in this light, it worked almost too well. Sometimes I'd look out across our perimeter and feel a jolt of panic, thinking I was alone, before I spotted the subtle disruption in the snow that was one of my soldiers.

"Case is seized," I grunted, not looking up. My frustration was a hot coal in my chest. A stupid, frozen latch. "This whole wasteland is seized."

"Let me try." He knelt beside me, his movements more fluid than mine. Cantor was younger, still had some of that inexhaustible energy that hadn't been ground out of him yet. He pulled off his outer glove, his bare fingers pink and raw in the frigid air. A bad habit, but a hard one to break when you needed dexterity. He worked at the latch with a focused intensity, his breath hissing between his teeth. I watched the slight tremor in his hand, the way the skin was already turning waxy white at the tips. Frostnip. Another ten seconds and it would be frostbite.

"Put your glove on, Cantor," I said. The words came out sharper than I intended.

He ignored me for a second, then the latch gave with a loud, satisfying crack. The sound was unnaturally loud in the silence. He grunted, shaking his hand and quickly pulling his glove back on. "Got it, Sarge."

"Good work. Now don't ever let me see you do that again. You lose fingers, you're no good to anyone." My voice was flat, the standard NCO reprimand, but there was no heat in it. He knew the risks. We all did.

He just nodded, flexing his hand inside his glove, trying to bring the feeling back. He popped the lid of the case, revealing the pristine comms unit nestled in its foam cradle. Mission critical gear, safe and sound. My frustration eased, replaced by the familiar, heavy weight of command. Twelve soldiers, scattered in a loose circle around me, their lives my direct responsibility. Every decision, from our route of march to our water discipline, was mine. The weight was constant.

Cantor pulled a battered thermos from a pouch on his webbing. "Hot chocolate?" he offered, his voice lighter now. "Got the last of the good stuff."

I hesitated. We were supposed to maintain discipline. No unnecessary comforts. Keep the edge. But I looked at his face, what I could see of it around his goggles and balaclava. The skin was chapped raw, and there were dark, exhausted circles under his eyes. I saw the same fatigue reflected in the posture of every soldier I could see. They weren't just tired. They were worn down to the nub, spiritually and physically. The constant cold, the unrelenting tension of the exercise, the sheer oppressive emptiness of this place… it was grinding them away.

"Yeah, all right," I said, my voice barely a whisper. I took the metal cup he unscrewed from the top of the thermos. He poured a steaming, dark liquid into it. The smell was outrageously good. Sweet, rich, and warm. It felt like a memory of civilization. I lifted my balaclava just over my mouth, the sudden shock of the sub-zero air on my lips making me gasp. The metal of the cup was instantly cold, but the liquid inside was a godsend. It slid down my throat like liquid fire, a wave of warmth spreading through my chest. It was the best thing I had ever tasted.

"God," I breathed, taking another sip. "That's… yeah."

Cantor poured some for himself, sipping it slowly. We stood there for a minute, not speaking, just sharing the small, stolen moment of warmth. The sun felt good on my face, a gentle pressure on my exposed skin. It was deceptive. The air temperature was still a solid thirty below zero. The sun gave light, but no real heat. Still, it was better than the alternative.

I scanned the perimeter. Miller was hunkered down behind a snowdrift, his rifle resting on his pack, pointed out towards the vast, empty horizon. Diaz was checking the antenna on the primary comms rig. Everyone was in position, alert. But they were exhausted. I could see it in the slump of their shoulders, the slow, deliberate way they moved. They were running on fumes. We all were. Another week of this and I'd have a dozen cases of combat fatigue on my hands before we ever saw the 'enemy'.

And the sky. That perfect, empty, blue sky. It stretched from horizon to horizon without a single wisp of cloud. In our briefings, they'd called this 'unrestricted visibility'. Good for us, good for the enemy. But there was no enemy. Not really. Just another unit, a hundred klicks to the south, playing the part of OPFOR for this exercise. They wouldn't come this way. Their objective was the temporary ice station to the east. We were just a screen, a tripwire. Alone.

The thought crystallized in my mind, born of the sun, the warmth in my belly, and the look in Cantor's eyes. It was a risk. A deviation from protocol. But maybe it was a necessary one.

"Cantor," I said, my voice low. He looked at me, his eyes questioning over the rim of his cup.

"Pass the word. Helmets off. Let's get some sun on our faces. Perimeter stands down to fifty percent. Tell them to get some hot food in them. We're taking thirty minutes." I saw the surprise in his eyes, the flicker of disbelief. We hadn't broken protocol like this since we left base.

"Sarge?" he asked, making sure he'd heard me right.

"You heard me," I said, my voice firm. I needed to project confidence, to make it seem like a calculated, tactical decision, and not the impulse of a tired sergeant who just wanted her people to feel human again for a few minutes. "Morale is an asset, Corporal. Right now, ours is in the toilet. This sun's a gift. We're gonna use it. Thirty minutes. Then we're back on full alert. Move."

He hesitated for just a second longer, then a slow grin spread across his face, visible even with the mask. "Yes, Sergeant." He screwed the cap back on his thermos and moved off, his steps lighter, faster. I watched him go, a knot of unease tightening in my gut. It was the right call. It had to be. You can't run soldiers into the ground and expect them to be effective. A little warmth, a little break in the routine… it was worth the minimal risk.

I unsnapped my own helmet, the weight lifting from my head feeling like a physical liberation. The cold air hit my scalp, sharp and biting, but the sun on my face was worth it. I pulled off my balaclava completely, stuffing it in a pocket. The air tasted clean and pure. I took a deep, shuddering breath, feeling the tension in my shoulders ease just a fraction. Around me, I saw other soldiers doing the same. White helmets were placed carefully on top of packs. Steam rose from ration heaters as they cooked their pathetic meals-in-a-bag. I heard a low murmur of conversation, the first non-essential talk I'd heard in days. A quiet laugh from somewhere over by the toboggans. The sound was alien.

It was working. The mood was lifting, tangibly. I saw smiles. Real, honest smiles. The men and women of my unit looked like people again, not just camouflaged shapes. They were kids, most of them. Nineteen, twenty years old. They deserved this. They'd earned it.

I finished the last of the hot chocolate, the warmth fading almost as soon as I swallowed it. I leaned back against the Pelican case, closing my eyes for just a second, letting the sunlight wash over my face. The light was so bright it was red even through my eyelids. For the first time in weeks, I felt a flicker of peace. The silence was no longer oppressive. It was calm. The vast emptiness wasn't threatening; it was beautiful. My unease melted away. This was good. This was necessary.

I must have drifted for a few seconds. Not asleep, but in that strange, hypnotic state that extreme fatigue and sensory input can induce. The red behind my eyelids, the faint warmth on my skin, the profound silence. It was the sound that brought me back. A sound that didn't belong.

It wasn't loud. It was a high-pitched whine, thin and sharp, like a mosquito in your ear, but with a strange, electrical quality. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. I opened my eyes. The sky was still a perfect, empty blue. Nothing. No aircraft, no contrail. The whine grew, climbing the scale, setting my teeth on edge. It vibrated in my skull.

I was on my feet before I even consciously registered the threat, my hand grabbing for the helmet on my pack. "What is that?" I yelled, my voice sounding thin and weak in the open air. "Perimeter! Eyes up!"

Heads turned. Conversations died. The soldiers looked around, confused, their faces tilted towards the sky. They were looking for a jet, a helicopter, something they could understand. But there was nothing. The whine intensified, a piercing, painful shriek that seemed to drill directly into my brain.

Then I saw it. A flicker. Not a shape, but a distortion in the air, high above us. A heat-haze shimmer where there should be nothing but cold, clear sky. It was small, a pinprick of wrongness against the blue.

Before I could process what I was seeing, before I could even finish shouting a warning, the world erupted. There was no explosion, no boom of a conventional weapon. Just a series of sharp, violent cracks, like a bullwhip breaking the sound barrier right next to my head. And screaming.

Miller, who had been laughing with Diaz just moments before, was thrown backwards as if punched by an invisible giant. A dark, impossibly red flower bloomed on his white chest plate. He didn't make a sound. He was dead before he hit the snow. Diaz shrieked, a high, thin sound of pure terror, scrambling backwards, fumbling for her rifle. Another crack, and her leg twisted at an unnatural angle, the white camo turning dark and wet.

Chaos. Absolute, paralyzing chaos. The air was filled with those whip-cracks, a relentless, terrifying fusillade. I saw Corporal Jones try to stand, his rifle half-raised, and then his head simply vanished in a spray of red mist. His body stood for a second, a grotesque, headless statue, before crumpling into the snow. The beautiful, clean, white snow was turning into a butcher's canvas.

"Cover!" I screamed, the word tearing from my throat. "Get to cover!" But there was no cover. We were in the middle of a frozen, featureless plain. The snowdrifts we'd used for concealment were pathetic, shallow depressions that offered no protection from an enemy that was directly above us. We were fish in a barrel. My fish. My barrel.

I finally managed to get my helmet on, the familiar weight a pathetic comfort. I dove behind the Pelican case, the hard plastic offering the illusion of safety. The impacts were all around me. Not bullets whining, but tiny, hyper-velocity projectiles that didn't make a sound until they hit. They punched through gear, through flesh, through bone with a sickening, wet thud. They struck the snow around me, kicking up puffs of white like deadly raindrops.

I risked a look over the top of the case. The distortion in the sky was clearer now. A small, sleek, dark shape. A drone. Not one of ours. It was impossibly fast, impossibly agile, darting and hovering like an insect. It had no visible rotors, no jet engines. It was silent, except for the high-pitched whine of its systems and the crack of its weapon. It moved with a liquid grace that was utterly alien.

Cantor was trying to drag Diaz behind one of the supply toboggans. He was crying, his face a mask of terror and desperation. "Sarge! Help us!" he screamed. The drone seemed to notice the movement. It tilted, a micro-second of adjustment, and a volley of projectiles stitched a line across the snow, walking directly towards them. I opened my mouth to shout, to warn him, but the words wouldn't come. The rounds hit the toboggan, punching clean through the thin aluminum, shredding the supplies inside. Cantor screamed as one of the projectiles tore through his shoulder, spinning him around. He fell over Diaz, a shield of his own flesh.

My training took over, a desperate, useless instinct. I unslung my rifle, my hands clumsy, my fingers numb. I flipped off the safety, brought the optic to my eye. I tried to find the drone in my sight. It was like trying to catch a hummingbird with a net. It jinked and moved, its flight path erratic and unpredictable. I fired a burst, the roar of my own weapon a shocking intrusion into the clean, sharp cracks of the enemy's. My tracers arced up into the blue, pathetically slow, hopelessly inaccurate. They went nowhere near it. The drone didn't even seem to notice.

It was a slaughter. A systematic, efficient execution. The drone moved from target to target with cold, machinelike precision. A soldier would move, would try to run, and the drone would effortlessly track them, cutting them down. The screams turned to moans, and then to silence. The red patches on the snow grew larger, merging into obscene pools of crimson against the white.

I was pinned. Every time I tried to move, to get a better firing angle, a burst of rounds would impact inches from my head, showering me with ice and plastic shavings from the Pelican case. The thing was toying with me. It knew I was the commander. It was saving me for last. It was letting me watch.

I saw the light go out of Cantor's eyes. He was lying on top of Diaz, his blood soaking into her uniform. He looked at me, his mouth moving, but no sound came out. His expression wasn't one of pain, or fear. It was confusion. An uncomprehending, pleading look. *Why? Why did you do this?* Then his head slumped, and he was still. My fault. My call. Thirty minutes. Let's get some sun on our faces.

My rage was a white-hot nova, burning away the fear. It was a pure, suicidal fury. I pushed myself up, away from the case, no longer caring about cover. I stood in the open, the sun on my face, and brought my rifle up. I held down the trigger, emptying the rest of my magazine into the sky. A futile, pointless gesture of defiance. I screamed at it, a raw, incoherent roar of hate and grief. "Come on! Come on, you bastard! Finish it!"

The drone hovered, its weapon silent. The high-pitched whine was the only sound in the world now, besides the ringing in my ears. I saw it clearly for the first time. It was matte black, angular, no more than a few feet across. No markings. No insignia. It was a perfect, killing machine.

It watched me for a long, eternal second. I stared back, my rifle empty, my life forfeit. I was ready. I deserved it. It was my penance.

And then, it just… left. The whine faded. The distortion in the air vanished. It accelerated at a speed that seemed to break the laws of physics, streaking from a dead hover to a speck on the horizon in the blink of an eye. And then it was gone. Gone.

The silence that rushed in to fill the void was heavier, more profound than any noise. It was a crushing, absolute stillness. The wind had died completely. The sun was still shining. The sky was still a perfect, mocking blue. It was a beautiful day.

I stood there, my rifle hanging uselessly in my hands, my body shaking with a violent, uncontrollable tremor. I slowly lowered the weapon. My gaze swept across the scene. My unit. My soldiers. They were scattered across the snow like broken dolls. Motionless. Silent. The steam that had risen from their ration heaters was gone. The only steam now rose from the cooling pools of their own blood.

I took a step, then another. My legs felt like they were made of lead. I walked through the carnage I had created. I saw faces I recognized, faces I had shared jokes with, faces I had chewed out for minor infractions. Now they were just meat. Their eyes were open, staring up at the same empty sky that had promised them a moment of peace. My promise.

It wasn't the enemy that killed them. It was me. My one, stupid, human decision. I had traded their lives for a few minutes of sunshine and a cup of hot chocolate. The cost of my mistake was written here, in blood and gore, on this pristine, white canvas. My career wasn't just over. My life was. The part of me that mattered, the part that could look in a mirror, died right here with them.

I fell to my knees beside Cantor's body. His hand was still outstretched, his fingers stiffening in the cold. I reached out, my own hand shaking too badly to touch him. The order. My order. It echoed in the vast, dead silence of the arctic. *Helmets off. Relax. Thirty minutes.* It wasn't the drone's weapon that was the sound of their death knell. It was my voice. And in the sudden, ringing silence, all I could hear was my own order.