Tick.

A wise woman once said to me "It doesn't count as winning if everybody dies".

Tock.

We're drinking. We're on full combat alert but we're also drinking. I'm not entirely sure what the point is, since the broad spectrum antitoxin nanites flooding our systems are trapping and annihilating the ethanol molecules as soon as they make it past the stomach wall. But we feel the urge to eat, drink and be merry. And one out of three is ... what? A start, I suppose.

Tick.

My leg hurts. Which is a little bit annoying, given the damn thing was blown off five years ago, on another operation in another life. I'd say it was just a 'phantom limb' thing, where the prosthetic is fine but my brain is sending weird impulses because it doesn't really understand what's going on, except that I got over that about -three- years ago. Oh, and because it looks like that last grenade blew off most of the prosthetic. Damn. Maybe my nervous system's smarter than I give it credit for.

Tock.

This really is a shitty little moon, on the whole. You can fly the equator in a couple hours if you've got a decent skimmer, there are no bars and minimal scenery. Just a shitload of rocks. Grey, boring, shitty rocks. And a grey, boring, intentionally shitty-rock-coloured secret weapons research complex. Which is why we're here, and why we're all about to die. "In the name of science" never looked like such a dumb justification.

Tick.

Sniper four calls in a kill, so scratch another enemy engineer. I should really cut the cheering off, it's hardly official discipline - but this is all the thanks he's going to get. I'd put him in for a commendation but our radio links are long burned out. Actually, why does that matter? I yell "commendation for four" over the wire and the cheering gets even louder. They'll remember this moment and try harder for the rest of their lives.

Tock.

The eyes-only message just finished spooling out of the comms system. Text, of course. Video would be too much bandwidth across this distance and far, far too easy to decrypt. The message is pretty straightforward anyway. It says I'm going to die. Rather sooner than I was planning on it.

Tick.

The building shudders softly as the last of the shuttles lifts. That's all the scientists clear and most of the military personnel. Nobody left but us grunts now, and only a quarter of us. They all volunteered of course, to a man. My men believe in me, and they knew there was no question of whether or not I would stay. My second in command is on that shuttle. I knocked him out with the butt of my sidearm and four men carried him aboard, then came back to resume their duties. They understood why I did it - the unit must have continuity, even if we won't.

Tock.

"Shi-" comes over the comms, then static. Then silence. A light blips out on the console in front of me, and the last of the snipers is dead. They knew, but they went out there anyway. Just a matter of time for all of us, but they exchanged some of theirs for the chance to buy us a little more. And first shot at the enemy. To a man, they drew blood before some bastard managed to spill their own. I stand up from the command chair and snap a salute to their memories, holding it for long seconds as I silently recite their names, heroes every one. Fools, too. But aren't we all?

Tick.

One thing we all noticed when we first deployed here - the sunsets. Strange that a barren rock with next to no atmosphere would have such beautiful sunsets, but it does. Of course we asked the scientists for an explanation. Of course they were happy to oblige. Of course we didn't understand a word of it. But the sunsets are still beautiful.

Tock.

I think we were all disappointed when we drew this guard duty. But it demanded an experienced unit due to the sensitivity of the installation, and we were due to be rotated away from the front anyway since we'd been ground down to about half normal complement in the last bloodbath, and apparently they drew straws for it over at HQ anyway. Sometimes blind chance is the only fair way to decide what to inflict on whom. Especially now we know what they -really- inflicted on us, which of course they didn't at the time ... probably.

Tick.

There's no way we can hold the position with the number of troops they've sent - four full-strength units with heavy support, and we're less than one. I'm faintly amazed the bastards found out where this place was, it's not exactly an obvious location for a research facility. But they did, and now we have to make sure they don't get hold of it. So we're going to blow a crater the size of a small city in this rockball, with us at the centre. The fireworks will probably be gorgeous - if you aren't stood in them.

Tock.

I can feel the blast through my feet, through my spine, like some insane bass-heavy riff played on a planet-sized guitar. The depressurisation alarm flicks on for the segment they just blasted open. I flick to the outside monitors - they didn't even bother taking them out, they know they've got us so why go to the effort? I'm glad they didn't as I smile quietly, watching the tiny figures floating off through the air as the overpressure we pumped into that compartment blows them a klick high, backwards to a neck-breaking landing halfway to the horizon.

Tick.

Gunfire. Gunfire and screaming. I wish I was out on the perimeter with my men, but I know I'm needed here. Grenades crump and the screaming stops. I close my eyes for a moment, and dead men's faces float across the inside of the lids, an endless parade.

Tock.

We troop up to the roof in shifts, taking turns to stand suited up and see five minutes of the sunset. It's as beautiful as ever, but no more so - they say that impending doom makes everything prettier, but it seems like that's not true of this, that it already reached some local maximum of beauty that not even the threat of death can exceed. And the beer they supplied us with is still shit, too.

Tick.

We could have blown the place already. But every hour we hold them off they commit more troops, desperate to take the facility. I'm not sure why they think there's going to be anything to capture, but apparently they do. By my reckoning they've committed five times as many troops as I had to start with - before I shipped three quarters of those out, and before they killed half of the poor bastards who stayed with me. And every time we blow away a squad, they commit more. Keep 'em coming, guys, we love you for it.

Tock.

Maybe it isn't a victory if everybody dies, but we're sure as hell going to be ahead on points.

Tick.

Damn, damn, damn, damn damn. Crawling with one metal stump and one bleeding one where there should be two legs is not my idea of fun. Especially when I'm going backwards with the strap of a rifle between my teeth, praying no bastard comes round the corner too fast for me to grab it and reengineer their skull. But I have to get all the way back to the command centre. I have to. It just won't be funny otherwise.

Tock.

My men are all dead now. The last two just took a grenade as I dragged myself through the last blast door. The corridors and staircases and lifts of this complex are anointed now with the blood of heroes, ours and our enemy's, mingled together, a mute tapestry in vermilion splatter, the only tribute to their bravery, to their willingness to fight and die for commander and cause. And soon even that will be gone, ionised and blown outwards into the void between stars.

Tick.

I prop myself against a handy wall and grab the control, pressing my thumb hard against the button, wrapping my other hand around it so it shouldn't accidentally slip as blood loss starts to weaken my grip. The few monitors that aren't showing static just show bodies now, or enemy troops trying to fortify their positions from counterattacks that there's nobody left to mount. Satisfied, I wait.

Tock.

It occurs to me I don't really understand what this facility was researching. Not that I needed to, or in other circumstances would have wanted to, and not that it would have been safe for me to know, at least in terms of good military security. But there's part of me that thinks it would be nice to know in more specific terms what I'm about to die for. Oh well.

Tick.

They burst into the command centre, see my hands clasped around the remote, depressing the button, and one of them launches himself straight at me, closing his hands around mine while another shoots me in the chest. The pain is incredible, made even worse by the fact that my dying body is convulsing with silent laughter as they struggle to get hold of what they think is a dead man switch. It's a TV remote. The bomb's on a timer. And by my reckoning, there's about five sec-

Tock.

And there was light.