Swamp Hate

They finished clearing the immediate area, stomping through the swamp sludge and poking every twitching Gobber corpse with the kind of professionalism only months of fighting and caffeine abuse could cultivate.

Berta's fireteam emerged from the mist, blood-spattered, soaked to the bone, and grinning like a pack of lunatics.

They met at a clearing, weapons lowered but not slung, because nobody was dumb enough to think this was really over.

Rus looked over at Berta, who was wiping blood off her axe like she was polishing fine china.

"Any casualties?" Rus asked.

She shook her head. "Just bruised egos. Kate got a Gobber jaw stuck on her boot. Amiel's rifle has a Gobber tooth lodged in it somehow."

Amiel, standing behind her, gave a short shrug as if to say Tuesday, whatever.

Dan spat a glob of swamp water onto a dead crocodile. "Gods, Wilson. I think this place hates us personally."

"Oh, it does," Rus said, slinging my rifle. "It absolutely fucking does. In fact—" he turned toward the squads, lifting my voice, arms out like a preacher at the end of his rope. "—I'd like to extend my personal congratulations to whatever cursed gods run this goddamn swamp! Brilliant move, really! Truly genius, training fucking Gobbers to ride mutant crocodiles like they're goddamn Mongol cavalry!"

A few of the squad chuckled under their breath. Berta folded her arms, smirking.

"Not enough that we fight Gobbers, right?" Rus went on, pacing dramatically. "No, now they're aquatic. Now they're amphibious. Next month? Fucking Gobbers piloting swamp mechs, surfing through the bog with missile launchers strapped to their backs!"

Dan muttered, "I'd pay to see that."

"Shut up, Dan."

Rus kept pacing, jabbing a finger toward the dead reptilian mounts littering the swamp floor. "You know what's worse than fighting a Gobber? Fighting a wet Gobber. Slippery little bastards smell like a compost heap fucked a fish market."

Foster, grinning, said, "Maybe you should marry the swamp, boss. You talk about it enough."

"Oh, I would," Rus snapped, spinning around. "I'd marry it, divorce it, set its house on fire, and take the kids out of spite!"

Berta barked a laugh loud enough that even Kate cracked a smile.

Amiel, as usual, said nothing. She just wiped some ichor off her gloves, looking vaguely amused in that I'm silently judging all of you way.

Rus finally sighed, rubbing his face. "You ever get the feeling the world is just personally tailoring bullshit for you at this point?"

Gino raised his hand. "Every day."

"Good," Rus said. "At least I'm not insane alone."

Berta stepped up next to him, still grinning that wolfish grin. "You finished crying, princess?"

"For now," Rus said, sniffing dramatically. "But if we find one more Gobber on a swamp horse, I'm building a raft, sailing into the distance, and nobody's gonna stop me."

She clapped him on the back hard enough to almost pop a lung. "You're adorable when you're about to have a breakdown."

"And you're adorable when you're not making every object around you sexually uncomfortable."

She smirked. "Flatterer."

"Survivor," Rus corrected.

Dan slung his rifle onto his shoulder, looking around. "Orders, boss?"

Rus sighed again, scanning the bog around us. The air still buzzed with the stink of gunpowder and burning rot. More mist creeping in like a guilty conscience.

"We regroup at that ridge," Rus said, pointing at a low rise a few hundred meters ahead. "Secure the high ground. If there are any more Gobber Cavalry Reenactors out there, we'll see them coming."

"And if they bring swamp boats next time?" Gino asked, deadpan.

"Then we die gloriously," Rus said. "Or drown in three inches of sentient mud. Either way, I'm punching the first amphibious Gobber in the face."

Foster gave a mock salute. "Aye, sir. Death before swamp marriage."

Berta chuckled low under her breath. "God, I missed this."

Rus gave her a sideways glance. "You missed the part where the universe actively wants us dead?"

"Yeah," she said, already moving toward the ridge. "It's the only time we're really living out here."

Hard to argue with that.

The two fireteams, ragged, filthy, half-laughing and half-cursing—moved forward together through the muck, weapons up, boots squelching.

***

The ridge wasn't even halfway secured before the Gobbers decided to remind them why swamps are sentient, hateful things.

First came the screeches which was high, wet, and furious echoing through the trees like someone dragging knives across a chalkboard made of frog guts.

Then came the little bastards themselves. Dozens of them. Mud-caked, armor cobbled together from scrap metal and animal bones, riding the swollen, mangy backs of swamp lizards and brandishing spears like they thought they were real soldiers.

Rus didn't even hesitate.

The second the first one popped up from behind a bush, he vaulted over the nearest log, slammed his boot into its face with enough force to send teeth spraying like confetti, and fired two rounds into its buddies trying to flank him.

"Motherfuckers!" Rus roared, stomping through the muck.

The rage that had been simmering all day boiled over. Not just rage—loathing. Deep, swamp-scented loathing. The kind you only develop after days of wading through chest-high mud and fighting creatures that smell like wet socks and failed evolution.

A Gobber lunged at Rus with a rusty spear. He sidestepped, grabbed it mid-thrust, yanked the little bastard off his mount, and drove the butt of his rifle into his gut hard enough to fold him like bad laundry.

Another tried to circle around, shrieking. Rus headbutted him. Headbutted. Felt the crunch through his helmet. Gobber went down like a sack of rotten potatoes.

Dan and Gino opened up with controlled bursts nearby, mowing down the flankers. Foster whooped like a maniac, tossing a frag grenade that bounced once, twice, and exploded in a shower of green ichor and shredded Gobber bits.

Meanwhile, Rus was on a mission from God. A violent, vengeful, mud-soaked God.

Another Gobber scrambled up with a shriek—until Rus grabbed him by the throat, lifted him, and slammed him headfirst into the trunk of a tree. He crumpled like bad origami.

"You swamp-bred walking venereal diseases!" Rus bellowed, turning and emptying half a mag into a cluster trying to rush the ridge. "I've had it up to here with your screeching, your slime, your stupid fucking spears—"

Pop-pop-pop.

Three more Gobbers dropped mid-charge.

Berta, somewhere behind him, was laughing her ass off into the comms. "Gods, Wilson! You sound like you're exorcising them!"

"Exorcism would be gentle," Rus snarled, cracking the skull of a Gobber trying to tackle him. "I'm sending them straight back to the evolutionary reject pile where they belong!"

Another flash of movement, a Gobber, this one slightly bigger, riding an especially ugly lizard.

Rus shot the lizard first, right between the eyes. It squealed, flipped, and launched its rider into the air. Rus didn't even wait for him to land. He just pivoted, took two steps, and kicked him mid-fall like a goddamn soccer ball into a swamp tree.

Thunk.

Silence.

Gino hooted into the radio. "Wilson's gone full berserker mode! Five bucks says he takes down an entire wave by himself!"

"Make it ten!" Foster shouted, picking off another lizard rider.

Rus didn't even respond. Hewas too busy shoving his bayonet into another Gobber's chest, twisting it with a vicious rip, then tossing the body aside like used laundry.

It wasn't clean. It wasn't elegant.

It was hate.

It was hate in boots, hate with a rifle, hate with two hundred years of bad poetry about swamps boiling in his veins.

Amiel, cool as ever over comms, piped in. "Two more clusters incoming."

"Good," Rus growled. "I'm just getting warmed up."

They came howling out of the mist again, and he met them head-on. No hesitation. No retreat. Just pure, mechanical brutality.

Shoot. Slam. Rip. Tear.

Rus barely noticed Berta's fireteam sweeping the right flank, cutting down Gobbers like wheat. Or how Dan and Gino set up a crossfire that turned half the charge into meat paste.

All he knew was the ugly rhythm of battle, the way the world shrank down to the next target, the next threat, the next thing that needed to die.

One Gobber managed to get close enough to nick his armor with a spear. Rus responded by ripping the weapon out of his hands, snapping it over his knee, and stabbing the broken haft into his throat.

Another tried to dogpile him. Big mistake. Rus spun, grabbed him, and threw him into his comrades like a bowling ball made of rage and poor life choices.

When the last Gobber tried to crawl away, he didn't even shoot him.

Rus grabbed the gobber's ankle, yanked him back screaming, and planted his boot squarely on the back of his skull until he stopped twitching.

Silence fell again over the swamp clearing. Heavy. Wet. Reeking of blood and gunpowder and primal fear.

The mist shifted, revealing the heaps of bodies they left behind.

Rus's knuckles ached. His heart was hammering. His armor was splattered with blood and swamp muck and things best left unexamined.

Rus exhaled slowly, lowering his rifle.

"Clear," Rus said into the radio.

Berta's voice crackled back, half-laughing, half-impressed. "Remind me never to truly piss you off, Wilson."

"Smartest thing you've said all month, not that I'd believe you," Rus muttered, kicking a twitching Gobber corpse aside as he moved to regroup.

Foster sidled up next to him, wide-eyed. "Boss... you okay?"

Rus looked at him, deadpan. "I feel fantastic."

Dan clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, remind me never to loan you my portable game again. You're clearly on a killstreak."

"Fuck the game," I said. "I'm installing a swamp-clearing simulator at this point."

Gino whistled low. "You're gonna give the Recovery Units a boner with this kill count."

"Let them try," Rus muttered, finally slinging his rifle across his my back.

The swamp was still. For now.

They regrouped around the small ridge, catching their breath, resetting our gear.

Rus could feel Berta grinning at him without even looking. He ignored it.

Because right now he wasn't in the mood for innuendos.

He was too busy savoring the very rare, very beautiful feeling of absolute cathartic slaughter.

***

After Cyma Unit took a rest for the day above the swamp. They stumbled across another Gobber camp not far from where the last massacre had been. A sad-looking setup of rotting tents, half-cooked fires, and crude weapons lying around like the world's shittiest yard sale.

The Gobbers were scrambling to organize, chittering and hollering in their ugly little language.

Rus didn't wait.

He moved.

Silent. Fast. Lethal.

One Gobber raised a spear, mouth wide to screech a warning—

Rus drove his boot into his sternum before a sound could leave his throat. The crack was satisfying.

Another turned, reaching for a club. Rus shot him twice, low and fast, with a suppressed rifle, cutting his legs out from under him before he even realized he was dying.

Rus slipped between the tents like a shadow stitched from rage, slicing, smashing, snapping necks like they were nothing but dried twigs underfoot.

The indicators in his vision flared brighter, faster, sharper.

Left. Step. Strike. Down.

Automatic. Natural. Ruthless.

The Gobbers didn't even know where the killing started or where it would stop.

A spear came at his face, deflected by instinct. His left elbow shattered the attacker's jaw in three places, and Rus put a bullet in his gut point-blank before he hit the ground.

It wasn't fighting.

It was an execution.

One Gobber tried to hide behind a pile of broken crates.

Rus flipped the crate over and shot him clean through the skull without a blink.

One of them, smaller than the rest, actually dropped his weapon and tried to beg.

Rus didn't even slow down. He crushed the small bastard's throat with the stock of his rifle and moved on.

By the time the rest of Cyma caught up, the camp was quiet.

Very quiet.

The ground was littered with bodies, blood, and shattered bones.

Dan whistled low, staying back a little, like he was a bear that hadn't decided whether to maul everyone in the area yet.

"Uh… Boss?" he said. "You, uh… you got real good."

Gino just stood there with his rifle half-raised, not sure whether to point it at the enemy or start applauding.

Foster muttered, "Gid almighty. Remind me to start running the other way when the Boss gets pissed."

Berta, standing just behind them, hands on her hips, surveyed the slaughtered camp with an expression that was somewhere between impressed and deeply concerned.

"He's not good," she said, voice low. "He's fucking seething."

Amiel, as usual, delivered her wisdom in a single, deadpan sentence. "Bad time to make jokes."

Gino quietly lowered his rifle like he didn't want to offend Rus by aiming it in the wrong direction.

Rus just stood there, breathing steadily, feeling the pulse slow behind my eyes. The little targeting indicators were fading, flickering out like they knew the job was done.

The swamp stank. Of blood. Of burnt powder. Of whatever foul shit Gobbers left behind when they died.

Dan finally dared to approach, hands up like he was walking toward a rabid dog.

 "Boss… you good?"

Rus turned to him, slow and steady, like a turret locking on.

"Peachy," Rus said, voice dry as the desert.

Dan gave a nervous laugh, almost stumbled backward.

"Uh-huh. Yeah. Totally normal."

Foster whispered something about Wilson finally snapping and Berta elbowed him hard enough to make him wheeze.

Amiel simply checked her drone feed, probably calculating the odds of survival if I turned the rage dial up any further.

Rus looked over the carnage again. Then shrugged.

"They were in the way."

Simple as that.

Gino coughed. "Yeah, well. Remind me not to cut in front of you in the chow line, Boss."

Rus gave him a flat look.

He wisely shut up.

They regrouped around the smoldering remains of the Gobber camp. No one was eager to say much. Not while he still had that look in his eyes—the one that said I haven't quite gotten it all out of my system yet.

Berta eventually broke the silence, clapping him on the shoulder like she was proud and scared at the same time.

"Wilson, you crazy fuck," she said. "You're my favorite psycho."

Rus side-eyed her. "You're just happy I cleared out the fan club."

She smirked. "That too."

They moved out after that, Cyma keeping a tighter formation than usual.