Bang, bang, bang!
Rapid gunfire raced on as soldiers raised their voices, desperately trying to communicate with their squadmates.
BOOM!
The deafening roar of crystal-core-powered artillery and tank barrels echoed across the field, discharging massive rounds that left a devastating wake of destruction among the advancing devils. The violent aftermath of their strikes sent rolling shockwaves through the earth, knocking Graves flat onto his face.
Navigating through the thick, churning mud, Graves crawled on all fours. A piercing scream echoed from nearby. Crawling roughly a hundred meters through the dirt and debris, he finally reached a soldier whose left leg had been completely bitten off at the thigh.
The soldier was screaming hysterically inside his PCS helmet, his voice muffled by the sealed visor. It was a complete miracle Graves had even managed to hear him over the thunderous cacophony of battle surrounding them. Pulling a heavy tourniquet strap from his medical kit, Graves tightly bound the stump of the soldier's leg, barely managing to stem the spurting bleed.
"You have to stop screaming!" Graves yelled directly toward the helmet, his voice nearly drowned out by the constant roar of gunfire. "We don't want devils flooding our position, or do you not want to survive?!"
The soldier seemed to quiet down slightly, but he continued to sob uncontrollably. "I... I... Arghhh, it hurts! It's so painful! Arghhh, just kill me! Kill me, please, it's unbearable!" the soldier lamented, thrashing wildly and vibrating in pure agony.
Graves had heard this exact desperate plea from wounded soldiers dozens of times—so many times that it had become a grim routine to his eyes. Granted, Graves had been severely wounded himself back during his reckless solo attack against the Spider Devils, but he had been far too close to death then to even register the pain.
"I can't kill you," Graves responded bluntly, tightening the tourniquet another notch. The soldier let out a blood-curdling scream of pure agony. "If I do, I'll be court-martialed and face a firing squad. I don't want to die either—at least not today. If you want to die that badly, hold your breath and kill yourself."
Graves helped unlatch and remove the soldier's helmet, exposing his pale, sweat-slicked face to the elements. Graves couldn't tell if the man was young or old beneath the thick layer of mud caked across his skin. Besides, it was pitch black out, and the only illumination came from the strobing, continuous flashes of muzzle fire.
WHIZZZ!
A stray bullet whizzed past just inches above their heads, prompting Graves to instantly flatten his body against the mud, shaking violently from the adrenaline spike. After catching his breath, he turned back toward the soldier, who had suddenly stopped making noise.
Graves squinted and pressed firmly near the wound, making the soldier let out a fresh gasp of agony and a string of harsh curses.
"Good, you're still alive," Graves muttered.
Unzipping his medical pack, he pulled out an injector device filled with a glowing green fluid. It wasn't a standard painkiller; its specialized chemical formula instantly severed the body's nerve signal pathways. Once injected, a wounded soldier wouldn't just stop feeling pain—they would completely lose motor control over their muscles for a period of time.
Graves jammed the injector into the soldier's shoulder, and within seconds, the man's thrashing ceased, his limp body going quiet.
Reaching for his comms unit, Graves attempted to dispatch a medical transport robot—a specialized, high-speed wheeled drone with a flat surface engineered to haul immobilized soldiers back to the medical tents for immediate surgery. Their deployment had drastically reduced death rates across active hot zones by cutting down evacuation times.
"I'm requesting a medical transport robot for a heavily wounded soldier. He needs immediate medical attention, ASAP," Graves spoke urgently into his comms.
A minute later, a voice crackled through the static. It was a cold, detached female operator. "There are no transport robots available at this time. All units have been deployed. Attempt to stabilize the soldier as best as you can. If you determine the soldier is beyond saving, abandon the position and move to another casualty."
The line went dead. Graves closed his eyes in utter disgust. Sending people out here to fight and then just discarding them...
He drew a long, heavy breath. Realistically, he understood the brutal triage protocol—why waste time lingering beside a critical, unsaveable casualty when those precious minutes could be spent saving someone with a higher chance of survival?
Looking down at the paralyzed soldier whose leg had been torn off, Graves shook his head grimly. He gripped his med kit, preparing to turn around and crawl away toward the next flare signal.
"I have a kid..." the soldier begged, his voice slurred and barely a whisper as tears cut tracks through the mud on his cheeks. "My wife is dead... I'm the only person she has left in this world. I know... I know they just told you to leave me behind because there's no way to get me out of here. But... please. Save me. I don't want to die. I have a child... I mean the absolute world to her. Please..."
Graves froze, closing his eyes tightly.
How the hell am I supposed to haul an 85-kilogram man through this thick mud? he raged internally.
"I'm no hero, you know!" Graves snapped back softly, frustration washing over him. "Even I don't want to die out here! You chose to be a soldier—didn't you know something like this could happen?!"
The paralyzed soldier let out a faint, dry giggle. "Yeah... I knew. I always told myself that if a situation like this came up, I'd be ready to accept death. But now... now that it's here, I've realized how much I love my life. I love my daughter... and I just want to see her again."
Graves shook his head, a heavy knot forming in his chest. Crawling back through the mud toward the immobilized man, he let out a long, defeated sigh.
"This might hurt," Graves said. He paused, letting out a dry chuckle of his own. "Well... actually, no. It's not like you can feel anything right now anyway. So I'll be the one getting hurt..."
Positioning himself flat beside the soldier, Graves carefully rolled the paralyzed man onto his back, securing him over his own frame while keeping his medical kit strapped tightly across his chest. The soldier let out a soft groan at the movement.
"Damn it... I am going to regret this," Graves muttered into the dirt as he began to drag himself forward on all fours, crawling through the cold, bloody mud with the heavy soldier strapped to his back.