Commander of Twenty-Four Haute hummed as he tapped away at his keyboard, dealing with the paperwork which the AI had directed to his terminal. Skilled Soldier Leggero glowered at him. “Comm, I didn’t sign up to spend five stinking years pushing electrons around! I signed on for adventure, for combat, for glory!”

Haute paused in his work and stared at Leggero.

Once, he had been like Leggero.

That was before he had faced Hive warriors, before their blood had sprayed all over his armor as he emptied his guns into them, killing one after another, killing more Hive warriors than he could count, shooting them until he and the other Marines ran out of ammunition, had to fight with their short swords, with improvised clubs, with their bare hands.

That was before the Hive warriors had crawled without hesitation over the hills of their own dead, before each rank of warriors had armed themselves from the corpses of their predecessors, before they had killed two thirds of his unit, before air support had skimmed down close enough to cover him with second and third degree burns while they were incinerating the Hive warriors.

“I like paperwork, Leggero,” he said softly.

Leggero swallowed and returned to his own paperwork.