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In your experience, and you liked to think that this was somewhat extensive― enemies, on the battlefield, were supposed to shoot at you. And they would move away when you shot back at them, and then attempt to shoot some more when you stopped.
The enemies you faced worked with a military precision, just like you did, with each step coordinated and each action routine. The accuracy, the meticulousness, the tidiness, the organisation, the sheer teamwork – your enemy was the same as you and yet different, least of all in ideology. Maybe that was why, in the end, you decided to join your enemy.
Maybe that was also why you’re pretty certain that, of appropriate behaviour for opposing sides in a war to act with – standing right in your line of sight, within range, and yelling at the top of your lungs a string of rather colourful curses, the majority of which you haven’t even heard of before – well. That’s probably, definitely, not it.
‘Hey, asshole! Yeah, you, asshole!’
He starts again, and you feel quite ready to rip his skull out and beat him to death with it right this moment.
In this world, there are bad soldiers, and then there are loud bad soldiers. There is a difference, and, two weeks after his god-forsaken arrival, your migraine agrees.
Three weeks in, you dig, dig, and dig some more. Perhaps in hindsight you should have hidden those bodies, firstly because even enemy soldiers deserved a burial, no matter how clumsily, and secondly because it was never any good getting anyone suspicious, not even if the suspecting party in question was him. Though to be honest, you’re starting to realise your folly in underestimating him.
He was a loudmouth, and if he was content to sit on a sand dune and scream at you from halfway across a desert all day long, find you a pair of super-strength earplugs and you were fine with that. If he was going to spend his time deliberately messing up your plans, however – that is another matter.
You don’t have much of an idea of his motivations, but you do know where his temporary base is. When yet another small-scale site is sabotaged and he is becoming too much of a problem to ignore, you do the logical and dispatch a kill team. You send some of your best soldiers to guarantee success, because as you know, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Hours later, when only half of them come back – your heart chills.
You never get to meet him face to face, but he taunts you, day in, day out. You’ve forced him into the temple and he has shut the doors on you – ‘in your face, motherfucker’ – and though digging is more of a priority than getting inside, you have at least a squad at all times rotating shifts, and just watching.
‘I’m Tucker, by the way, since you were so kind to ask.’ He calls at them through the thick temple walls, a leer in his voice. ‘You’re only a few weeks late, but that’s okay. Know any good chicks?'
And he cackles, in that immature way you so despise.
It’s always been a waiting game. You just didn’t expect that when he finally came out, he would have friends joining him.
He flies in with that hideous alien excuse for an aircraft and you’ve underestimated him yet again, and maybe that was the problem here, scrabbling about for twigs in the sandbox – you thought you were better than everyone else here, and why?
Because you were a Freelancer? Because you were Connecticut? No, you’re just a pawn trying to survive, and always have been. Jones shoots the metal ball and at first it seems like a good idea all until hell breaks loose, and suddenly the aliens you have been working with for months turn on you.
Your men fall down with purple spikes protruding grotesquely from their bodies, and the sad thing is, you can’t even tell your own soldiers apart as corpses on the ground. But you’re running, running, and your gut twists as you realise you’ve done this before. You’ve left your friends and saved your own hide in the face of danger, before.
The jeep is a godsend. You’re pursued, you’re hunted prey, and even as the adrenalin channels through your veins you are still fucking terrified. Those aliens are on your tail, and you imagine how their weapons, their claws, their teeth, would rip your armour apart and drive into your flesh.
When you ram them it is with the desperation of a cornered man. Your tyres skid over sand, raising dust, the steering wheel burning under your hands, the heat of the desert sun bearing down upon you, the heat of the chase eating at you.
The idiots are behind you, jabbering, the noise stabbing at your head. And then in front of you he appears, swooping in on his alien plane, jumping off and landing in the sand. His sword is out and poised, watching, waiting.
You almost think you’ll make it. Before you know it, your vehicle is exploding around you in a haze of oil and sand and hot metal. You land hard and there’s a resounding crack in your torso.
There goes a rib. You clench your teeth and climb up again – because you always did – and you run. You ignore the pain, and run.
You run, and Tucker follows.
The ruins are huge, looming, ancient – you don’t think you’ve discovered even a fraction of them with all the digging you’ve done. You lead him to the ledge. You’re not going to underestimate him anymore.
(You thought you had left this back in the past.)
‘I should have killed you the second I laid eyes on you.’ The sun burns down from above, and your tongue feels swollen in your mouth. He backs up, and your heart jumps as his foot nudges the edge of the fall.
It occurs to you that this is the first time you’ve ever heard his voice up close.
‘Sorry.’ You say, and you’re almost, almost sincere. But you’re not, not really. You’d forgotten you couldn’t be sincere in the time you’d spent here.
You thought you’d left everything behind, but you hadn’t.
Here was this man before you, and you were going to kill him in cold blood.
Your hands tighten on the trigger and he – Tucker – is in your sights. You’re going to do this. If the bullets didn’t kill him outright, the fall would.
You think this all in the instant before the ball arrives yet again.
It’s the thing that caused all your men – your teammates to be killed. Your fellow aliens turned against you. You’ve been chased and shot at and your chest is still hurting like fuck and you’re terrified. Of course you are.
You’ve remembered what you got away from. You’ve remembered being hunted, the chill of the danger, the paranoia, the sadness, the agony.
You remember terror.
‘What in the hell is that thing?’