Never forget the frozen

Poor girl had gotten so many prosthetics and synthetic replacements it was hard to tell if there was any human left under the synthetic flesh and porcelain and steel. But she never seemed to mind, although it’s hard to tell with those faceplates.

Everyone knew she was a veteran but nobody knew how long she had been there. Not a single thawhead stationed in the tunnels said they remembered a time when she wasn’t there. She’d been there at least since before any of us joined the front.

We asked her about it sometimes, but we never got a real answer out of her. She had this running joke, say she’d been deployed all the way back in the 2750s.

Least i think it was a joke, she never laughed. But even the rich warmies back on Terra only love a few decades past a hundred, and that’s if they are lucky. It’s hard enough to last one year on Europa, let alone two centuries.

Well, here's the thing, according to Bluesky reporting it actually emerged as part of an indie TTRPG zine:

Nothing is really set in stone yet, but The Server Exists Now. I kinda want to field opinions from other people who join to get an idea of how I should set everything up. So if you're interested in joining or even spectating, feel free to check it out!

It's part of what the wars draggin on so bad. Breakthroughs can't be exploited if nobody knows they happened. Equipment and bodies aren't where they need to be. Plans are too rigid and fragile. Intel is always months old.

Must drive the generals insane, but it suits me just fine. Orders arrived to join a big push? No they didn't. Messenger got lost, or killed, which isn't even a lie most of the time, happens every day.

They tried layin cables to the front but it's too damn cold, the cables they had weren't rated for it and were hard as a rock. Couldn't even get em off the reels. They tried a couple different cables, both playin off the idea of moving heat as well as information, since they gotta heat the cables anyways. It worked, sort of, but the energy use was insane and it needed a lot of specialised fittings to keep the cables off the ice. Lost most of the heat on the way as well. Not to mention the thermal signature is like turning on a big "shoot us right here please" sign.

Ended up being "unfeasible" to use across the whole front, but it does get info between HQs. Lets the officers complain in real time to their moron buddies about how the bodies on the front can't do anything right.

Even if it was cheap to lay shielded cables, it'd still slow down the advance to a crawl. And cable is easy to cut. My theory is that bodies on the front kept trying to siphon off the heat and made the cables more trouble than they were worth. Not that I'm privy to that sort of info. Could've just been spite for all I know.

I experienced warmth once on the field. Think it was five years ago? Yeah, must've been. See, I came across a soldier from the Europa Robots League. A humie, like me, if not a fair bit augmented. Ain't often those bot-supremacists are out in the field, but I ain't one to complain, only good ERL is a dead ERL.

Seems the bastard thought the same of us Rogues, but at least the Rogue Conclave's not forcing augments on civs. I tell you, Jove, that ERL shot me with a kinetic pistol, like the ones they used back when we were contained to Earth. Haven't seen one of those outside of a museum before then. Ain't that funny, Jove? Seeing such an old weapon in the timeless ice? Now, I'm not sure if you know this, but our suits are only made for keeping out the terrible cold but not heating more than the bare minimum for the sake of power consumption. Coincidentally, these suits are also built well for taking proton fire. But kinetics? Kinetics are very different. Kinetics apparently go through us like a laz-drill through the ice.

Now, normally, a suit being compromised is a death warrant, but I managed to overcharge my heater. Felt hot... Felt like home...

I rushed the bastard. He tried shooting me, but even with whatever augments he had, his reflexes were shit. Mine would've been, too, but I was thawing. Gave me an edge. Took the butt of my proton rifle and shattered his visor, saw his eyes crystallize. You ever watch when that happens, Jove? The eyes just get covered in ice, almost looks like they rolled back if not for the faint bit of iris you can see.

Where was I?

Oh, right, dead ERL.

So, I could feel the warmth starting to leave, overcharging the heaters drained the batteries, so I had to think fast. Took my laz-cutter to the ERL's suit and cut a long strip from around the waist, then I managed to weld it to the holes that kinetic pistol made in me, somehow worked. Naturally, once my suit wasn't compromised, I had to get the heaters back on, so first I turned them back down to their lowest levels, and then I looted the ERL's battery. When I was done? I just stood there for a second, Jove...

This was the first time in the ten years of my deployment on Europa that I felt warm, and it was when I was closest to death. Ain't that funny, Jove? Mors's and Mars's grasp is supposed to be cold as this hellscape, but the closest I was I felt heat... Everything's wrong on this moon, Jove...

I covered him in my cloak. He deserved it, he's the reason I felt warmth. I grabbed the kinetic pistol and the bullets he had left. I think I still have five. Should I use one, Jove? My batteries got damaged. Proton fire from other mercenaries. Took the bastards down, but I don’t think I can make it back to base to get 'em repaired in time. Should I overcharge the heaters again so I can die warm, Jove? Or should I see if a med vehicle can make it?

Jove? Can you hear me?

Hanging on the side of the torpedo transport, slipping through the water, feeling the rush of it over your dive suit. Ready to launch off and crack open anything you see move.

End of my first tour, my unit picked up a distress signal for a SOLOCS team that had been missing for almost 100 cycles. Found their ET-EVs frozen stiff, some of em even still standing like goddamn mannequins. Surveyor drones figured out they got hit by a Psi-Bomb strike, back before the War Council outlawed em. Fried their nervous system in an instant, but their life support systems kept em from freezing to death. Poor bastards just putrefied in their suits, slowly turning into pools of septic sludge while the power cells kept everything running... Fuckin wouldn't wish that on anyone.

We were asleep when they struck.

I awoke to the sounds of evisceration, screams and ear-piercing bangs. I could only see what the fleeting flashes of gunfire chose to reveal, but each image remains vividly burned into my memory: my buddies ripped apart right in front of me, their insides and bodily fluids freezing and shattering before even hitting the ground, those mandibles sinking into them and sucking them dry like beverage pouches, eight beady black eyes staring into my soul. And those damn howls, they chilled me to the bone far more than the climate of Europa ever could. They still haunt my dreams. That shit never leaves you, man. You take that shit with you to the grave.