Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 2: Heroes and Villains
The forward garrison was quiet, save for the croaking and chirping of the swamp-dwelling natives. Deep under the muddy surface, the red clad soldiers slept fitful sleeps inside one of three underground bunkers, tossing and turning... dreaming the dreams of the near-insane. Most of them were mere husks of the men they once were, driven half-mad by the constant death and rebirth, but they kept fighting. Some for a lost hope of returning home to Earth, others to prove to themselves that they were different from those who went before, those who had lost their minds and were removed from the Matrix.
"Reefer, Wilson, Kerner! On your feet! Form up outside in five!" Three of the soldiers were woken early for a special mission. A rescue mission. These jobs were rare on Auraxis, as most soldiers just offed themselves and refabricated back in friendly territory if they got lost. If they were captured, which was the case for some recent MIA cases, the Republic would dispatch small rescue teams and have the missing person back within a day. They couldn't risk any greenhorns spilling out information under threat of torture.
"I assume you three know what your job is?" Inquired the garrison commander after the three groggy men had tugged on their combat gear and lined up outside.
"Sir yes sir!" came the unanimous reply.
"Good. Wilson, Kerner, get to the dam and meet up with your team leader. Reefer, I need to talk to you before you go."
Wilson and Kerner trotted off towards the nearest lattice warp station, leaving the other two to their talk.
"Reefer, I hear that kid that went missing is your brother, any truth to that?"
"Yes sir, he's my younger brother."
"You are aware your objective is to find and kill him? I trust you won't compromise that last part due to any your personal connections."
"No sir. I know what has to be done."
"Good. See to it that he gets back to safety before its too late. You're dismissed, go catch up to the others."
"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, why is it that we have to kill him? Couldn't we get an air evac? Or escort him back to base?"
"You have your orders soldier. I've nothing to say on the matter."
With that the garrison commander stalked off to his quarters, and the soldier made his way over to the warp terminal to catch up with his squadmates.
"Why's it gotta be Rivin who gets captured... of all eight-hundred-thousand of us, why him?" Grumbled the distressed brother as he selected a warp location and beamed his body to the rally point.
. . .
Rivin swallowed dryly, tense with anticipation as he sat alone in the dimly lit holding cell awaiting his captor's return. Having recovered from his shell-shock and being fully awake for a good two hours now, he was thinking a little too clearly.
The Matrix... it's still running. They didn't destroy it. They didn't destroy it. They didn't destroy it. Oh God please let it still be running! I'm an engineer not a soldier, I shouldn't even be here! What does death feel like? Don't think about that. Think about something else.
Such were the essence his thoughts for the past two hours, as he slowly got more and more fearful of that ultimate end, that all-enveloping darkness called death. It was something he'd never experienced before, a result of only having been combat active for about three months, and now there was threat of it being permanent. His older brother, Jacob Reefer, had died quite a few times, but he refused to talk about what it felt like around his younger brother. This fact worried Rivin all the more, and he began to shake and draw shallow breaths.
He wasn't just afraid of death at this point. He was outright terrified of it.
The engineer pulled his goggles up to wipe his eyes of tears he hated to admit existed, only to find the dust to agitate his eyes even further, drawing warm, salty tears down his cheeks.
As if planned for the worst possible moment, the cell door burst and in stormed the Infiltrator from earlier. She took a seat across form the engineer, who had hastily put his hands behind his back in order to not expose his trump card just yet.
"What do you know about this?" The rebel asked flatly, sliding a data tablet over to Rivin.
"Uh... nothing. I've never seen that before." he said, referring to the odd blueprint on the screen.
"No? I have trouble believing that." she commented, fixing him with a death glare, which quickly turned into an expression of both confusion and painful amusement.
"Wait... have you been crying? And how did you get your goggles off?" she asked, a slight smile crossing her lips.
"It's dusty in here, if you had your goggles off you'd be crying too."
"That doesn't answer my second question." she pointed out, amusement now gone at his logical excuse for crying.
"I uh... um. I just-" he fumbled for a good line of reasoning, but was silenced by the Infiltrator's movement to draw her sidearm.
"Show me your hands. Now." She commanded, pulling the pistol from it's holster at her side.
"No." he replied, raising one hand to his helmet to pull his goggles back down, and gripping his Chainblade under the table with the other.
With speed only years of training or sheer terror can produce, the engineer leapt over the table and swung his blade in a shallow arc, connecting with the Infiltrators head. There was a sharp crack and an electrical fizzle as her shields fell.
Recovering from the prisoner's attack, she spun back and fired two shots in quick succession, one striking Rivin in the chest, the other nicking his arm.
"No you don't!" the engineer shouted as the his captor leveled her weapon at his head and squeezed the trigger.
A click resounded in his ears, a familiar vibration rippled his hand. Time seemed to slow as the terrified engineer ducked and spun towards the Infiltrator, using the momentum to swing his knife upwards with tremendous force as the Infiltrators weapon fired.
The blade made contact with the pistol's mid section, it's mono-molecular edge slicing through the cheap metal with relative ease. The weapon flew from the cloaker's hands, the two halves clacking to the ground some distance away, exposed interworkings still smoking from the recently fired round.
Adrenaline coursed through Rivin's veins, pushing him to do things he'd never have done in his right mind.
With a swift motion, motivated by fear and steadied by fierce hatred, he plunged the spinning Chainblade deep into her neck and twisted, tearing the weapon out sideways with a shower of crimson fluid.
The engineer watched as the slender body fell back, thumping to the ground and lying still. Too still.
Blood pooled in and around the gaping wound that used to be his captor's neck, strangled gurgles and sputtering marking the end of her life. There was a moment of silence as the engineer waited for all life to leave the body, teeth clenched so tight he tasted blood.
As the adrenaline wore off, Rivin looked on what he had done in shock. What did I just do?
Suddenly, feeling irrationally convicted, the engineer stooped down beside his dead captor and pulled off her blood-soaked shemagh and goggles.
He closed his eyes at what he saw. She was young, probably younger than him. But what really made him sick, was not the gruesome crevice of her neck, nor the pained expression frozen on her soft features, but what passively rolled down her cheeks and pittered onto the dusty floor below.
Tears.