Hard and Deep A Football Romance

A Hard Decision

The landing ship quaked and Nithard Rankenwald held his breath once more. Icy storms had gripped the aircraft, shaking it like a furious frost giant. Then the landing ship started to dive into the maelstrom of snowflakes that was raging in the cold darkness above the pole.

"Calm down, Rankenwald! The Dark Legion is much more dangerous than a cold gust", said leutnant von Waldfurth with some kind of fatherly smile. He laid his hand on the shoulder of the young soldier who stood beside him.

Nithard exhaled while a red lamp above his head began to light up. A minute later the transporter had landed somewhere in the ice desert.

Von Waldfurth examined the fifty Bauhaus soldiers who were waiting in full get-up in front of a giant steel hatch. Nithard Rankenwald put on his hussar helmet with the characteristic pickel on its top. The pale young face of the soldier disappeared behind a face mask just like his fair hair.

Nithard held his breath again, he felt the adrenaline painfully rushing through his veins; Rankenwald`s heart began to pound faster, his guts cramped.

"Are you allright?", he heard the dull voice of leutnant von Waldfurth behind his back.

"Yes…yes, Sir! I`m fine!", answered Nithard, trying to supress a panic attack.

In the eyes of the older soldiers he was some kind of hero. They all showed him a lot respect after that bloody skirmish in the Venusian jungle. But in these seconds Nithard didn`t feel all too brave. To the contrary, something deep in his mind tried to warn him of setting foot in the cold darkness outside the landing ship.

The hatch opened with a loud rumble; snowflakes whirled into the hall where the Bauhaus troopers had gathered.

Rankenwald turned his head to the right and spotted a tall man in a white armor. The stranger had positioned himself next to leutnant von Waldfurth. With blank face he stared into the icy darkness beyond the open steel hatch. Then the put his helmet on.

"They don`t know that we are coming! Let`s do this quickly!", shouted the man in the white armor towards the hussars who immediately began to move. Again Nithard felt von Waldfurth`s hand on his pauldron.

"We will soon be back here, boy! Don`t worry! Just follow me!"

Nithard started running and finally jumped out of the landing ship into the snow. A few meters ahead the recognized the tall man in the white armor driving the soldiers forward. Nithard didn`t know who the stranger was and why he accompanied the hussars and rangers although he could imagine that he was a high rank cleric from the Brotherhood.

While Rankenwald struggled through the knee-deep snow he remembered his first and only fight in the ranks of the Bauhaus soldiers. Meanwhile, it was four months ago, that patrol mission which had finally ended in a slaughter. Four long months since Carl had died in his arms.

One year ago, Nithard and his younger brother had both volunteered for the Bauhaus army in hope of a better life under the banners of the corporate forces. "Being a soldier is so much better than spending a life as a worker in one of the factories in the outskirts of Heimburg", they had told him back in school.

His father had been so proud of his sons when they joined the army to fight for the protection of humanity and the glory of Bauhaus. Only his mother had not been pleased to see their two sons become soldiers in a never ending war.

Nonetheless, corporate citizens of lower heritage could rise in the Bauhaus society by making career the army. Or they just died young somewhere in the muddy trenches.

A group of five juggernauts stamped past Rankenwald through the snow; they looked like grey war elephants in their heavy suits. For a moment, the young soldier was absorbed in thought. Once more he saw his brother`s face in his mind`s eye. Carl had been mauled by a creature the Bauhaus officers called "Praetorian Stalker".

In reverse, Nithard had killed the monster after he had fallen into a state of psychotic rage. Not only it, even one more of its kind. And three so called "Undead Legionaries" and not less than eight heretics.

Ever after the older soldiers showed him a lot respect. Nithard had gone into the jungle as cannon fodder to return as a hero with an iron cross on the chest - but all that didn`t bring Carl back.

"There will never be a real chance to defeat the Dark Legion. We can just drive them back again and again. This malicious force will always be a part of the Solar System. Our world has been infected and there is no cure – only procrastination", said the veterans who had already seen lots of battlefields.

So Carl had died in vain in a war that was already lost, Nithard thought sometimes. This was a shattering realization, a bitter truth that had suffocated all the nascent heroism in Rankenwald`s heart.

After the soldiers had covered about one mile they reached a group of snow-clad hills that rose out of the icy desert. Von Waldfurth waved his hand, the hussars, rangers and juggernauts stopped.

"Okay, the research facility is about three hundred meters behind these rocks. We will go in and capture every person we can get. But we must strike fast…", it resounded out of the little earpiece in Nithard`s helmet until the Bauhaus officer was interrupted by the cleric.

"No, I`m the leader of this operation and not you, leutnant von Waldfurth. I have already told you that your order is to eliminate everyone in this facility. The Brotherhood will mind for the rest."

"But you said that we are here to capture…", the officer tried to counter.