"Commander, where should we go?" Static tried its damndest to obscure the message, but I had become accustomed to its nature and parsed the words in the same breath as I formulated my answer.

"Hold your position, unit four," I said, already moving forward and motioning to the soldiers around me to stealthily follow. "No action until I administer the order, copy?"

"Copy, ma'am." The static seemed deafening in the silence surrounding us. I quickly turned the volume of my radio down nearly all the way. It wouldn't do for the damn thing to go off closer to the target.

After several tense minutes, I stopped, motioning for my squad to halt as well. I peeked briefly around the cover of a large, dilapidated stone building. The ruins in this area were teeming with dangerous wildlife, and while I was wary of the foreboding open windows, the danger lurking just ahead outweighed my reluctance for this solid barrier.

The clearing appeared to have been a park at some point. This area of the wastelands outside Bodhum was unrecovered territory, and the vegetation clogging the old metal objects spoke to an age beyond that of comprehension.

I scanned the area for a few more seconds, looking for that telltale glint or the unnatural movement of an enemy in the brush. I couldn't see it, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up, my intuition alerting me to some danger I had yet to grasp with my measly mortal senses, and I quickly slammed my back to the edge of the building, pulling my head in from around the corner, just as the whoosh of a silenced bullet traveled through where my head had been.

That close encounter with death barely even registered in my mind. These moments were so often, one became desensitised to them after the first hundred or so.

I silently gestured for my team to remain hidden. Then, gathering my composure, I looked to my side at the glass-empty window of the great stone ruin. I barely allowed myself time to reason, and I reached up and pulled myself over in one fluid motion.

My boots landed with a stealthy lightness contrary to the weight that bore down on them. I had slowly eased myself over the ledge, holding still at the apex so as not to throw too much momentum into the action and give away my position. Turning slowly, I peered into the sullen darkness with a practiced trepidation.

I readied my knife, her knife, the one Serah gave to me one night so many years ago, and slowly made my way further into the building. I had intended to cross straight to the other side and scan the area once more through this new vantage, but the building seemed to be split in the middle by a long, uninterrupted wall. I edged along it for many moments, slowly frustrating myself when I couldn't find a door or an opening. What kind of building was split in the middle by a solid wall?

I finally reached the end after making my way through many old, broken rooms. The only windows in here were the ones looking out back at my soldiers. There was an opening at the end of the hallway, door long gone, likely wooden given the hinges left behind. I took a deep breath and poked my head out of the doorframe, chancing a look off to my right toward the park.

I saw them this time. It was easier from this angle to see the glint of the muzzle pointed toward the alleyway I had previously occupied. I quickly pulled my head back behind cover, knowing now the risk of sticking my head out in the open for more than a second. Whoever these people were, they obviously had some sense if they had the ability to spot me as quickly as they had before.

I weighed my options promptly. I needed to find better cover and get a better picture of what I was dealing with before I ordered my soldiers to attack. If we were outnumbered on this front, my flank unit would need to reveal themselves to back us up, and I really didn't want to show my hand before absolutely necessary.

This alleyway was covered in afternoon shadow, and a large metal contraption covered what would be most of my journey toward an open window on the opposite side. I was betting a lot on my ability to sneak over to the other side, but the fear of death had long since left me, and so I steeled my resolve and prepared myself.

With a short breath, I crouched as low to the ground as possible while still being able to move quickly, and made a break for it to the broken window across the alley. I chose the one furthest on the right, reasoning that this would surely allow me vantage to the park-side view.

I could feel my heart in my throat as I heaved myself through the opening with all the speed and stealth I could manage. Unless they were looking right at me, they never would have noticed.

I landed in this house as quietly as the first, the dust billowing out around my boots in a tiny cloud. My intuition had been correct, and the windows in this building faced toward the park, with a great stone wall separating it from the opposite side. I was blind to my troops now, but at least I could get a read on the battlefield.

I moved slowly toward a window, stepping around the glass on the floor while still keeping an eye on the outside. I could see them all now, or at least those in this park. It seemed they were positioned with nearly uncanny preemptive forethought. They had full coverage of the entire angle my soldiers were approaching from, and that muzzle that I had spotted before had yet to move its attention from that alleyway.

There were six of them, far fewer than I had anticipated. I let out a sigh of wary relief, but I wouldn't let myself get comfortable.

Three of them had their sights set on that alleyway I had peeked from before and the buildings around it. Two more were looking off in the direction my flank was in. I noticed a second too late that one was looking directly at me.

The shot from this rifle was unsilenced, and it rang out with a deafening finality in the stillness of the park. The shot had been true, and its combustive impact likely would have hit and killed me if not for the rabid animal that had yanked on my leg. My knife found its neck shortly, my other hand going for my comms unit in the same motion.

"Units one and two, head east around the stone building through the alley on the far left side. Find cover behind the metal box." I yanked my knife through the jugular of the gorgonopsid. "Unit three, head west and back up unit four. Unit four, do not move. I don't want to hear a single shot from the south."

In seconds, I heard the frantic motion of several different parties all at once. I knew if I didn't move immediately, a swarm of raiders would be on my head, and have my head off, sooner rather than later. I threw caution to the wind and yanked out my gunblade, shoving the pointy end through the jaw of a second gorgonopsid angling for my legs.

Gunfire sounded from the east as my troops rounded the corner of the building, but my fear of reinforcements had been well-founded, and I heard the roar of a large motor kick in from the southeast.

I vaulted through the window, my hand catching briefly on a fragment of glass still in the sill. It barely registered. The fight was on.

I let a volley of three shots out of my weapon before dashing to cover behind an odd stone pillar. There was a whole perimeter of them as if they had been supports for some long crumbled structure. In the time it took me to hide behind one, I knew the shots had found their mark as a cry came out from the enemy for their fallen comrade.

Gunfire sounded out again from my right-hand side as units one and two found cover in the alleyway with the metal box. I appreciated the distraction as I made my way further to the south, quickly moving from pillar to pillar while trying not to draw attention to myself.

Twenty feet out, the crashing sound of a ton of solid stone drew the attention of every head on the battlefield. A vehicle larger than I had ever seen came barrelling through a stone structure on the southeast side of the park. The driver laid on the horn, and a man as big as the gun mounted on the backside of the truck laughed soundlessly under the blaring volume of the vehicle.

I had anticipated reinforcements, but I had no idea it was going to be this severe. Oh but this battle would be fierce.

The smile that found my lips was one of bloodlust. The truck had stopped over the rubble of its entrance, the gunner finding it in himself to laugh longer than he ought to have.

"Units three and four, move in." And I was off.

A bullet found the gunner's head before a second found the driver's. His corpse hadn't even managed to slump all the way down before I commandeered the massive turret welded messily into the truck bed. I aimed the gun over to my left and kept my head down behind the cabin of the truck as I let loose on the remaining members of this unfortunate raiding gang.

Ultimately, units three and four did little more than help pilfer pockets and guard the perimeter. The turret had done most of the work, while units one and two moved in for cleanup. All-in-all, I had arrived with twelve soldiers, and I was leaving with twelve soldiers and a truck.

"You were amazing, Commander!" a young man said to me as I emptied the chamber of one of the crudely made weapons the enemy had been using.

I shrugged, pocketing the bullets and throwing the trash on the ground. "A target's a target."

I moved over to the bodies of the fallen raiders, who my soldiers had diligently lined up on the ground for observation. The clothes they wore indicated they weren't with any particular established tribe, at least that I was aware of. The colors were uniform, but I didn't recognize them. Their cleanliness was notable, indicating they likely had a base camp with some form of water supply and possibly even electricity. Their weapons were obviously of poor craftsmanship, but the ammunition appeared to be of pre-war quality, so they must have happened upon an un-sacked munitions depot, which was likely the source of their misplaced confidence. Well, that and the truck.

"Did you see her move? She really is fast as lightning." I ignored the hushed comment and turned my attention to the vehicle.

The truck was an anomaly, and shouldn't have existed. It was a daunting brute of a machine, the front fitted with a massive steel guardrail that could obviously knock down an entire stone building. The engine was covered in massive steel plating, obviously an attempt to reinforce the sensitive bits from gunfire. The windshield even had a crude glass implant, now with the addition of a bullet hole.

"Commander!" a voice rang out, and I turned my head toward the young woman who was running toward me. The panic in her face immediately put me on edge.

"Everyone! Find cover! Now!" I yelled. I grabbed for the soldier and hit the ground, the woman losing her footing and knocking a nasty bruise into her jaw.

I had forgotten about the accuracy of the enemy's positioning, the unsettling precision with which they had predicted our movement. I was about to pay for it dearly.

Bullets rained across the park as if the gunmen had no concern for the quantity of their ammunition. Either it was a grandiose bluff meant to frighten us, or not a bluff, but still meant to frighten us. Either way, I could tell it struck fear into the heart of every soldier I had brought with me that day. This was an enemy we had yet to face, one who could match us bullet for bullet and then some.

The gunfire halted for but a brief moment, and I chanced a look up over the body of the soldier I had pulled to the ground with me. I noticed the blood on her fatigues first, the boots of an approaching enemy after.

All I could see was red — red in my vision as dark and murky as the blood under the soldier that had died while holding my hand. A bullet found her attacker before I could even think, my body moving of its own accord in the brief quiet of his reload.

Then there was gunfire all around me, coming from every angle it seemed. I realized as I watched units one and two get gunned down that the original group had only been bait. They had been bait and I had led every person in my command to their death.

The scream of rage that left my lungs was hardly human. I was akin to a beast as I whipped around yet another strange stone pillar. I was running out of bullets and I couldn't waste time on the reload. My people were dying because of my stupidity. I wouldn't be the last person alive on this battlefield, not if it meant my soldiers fell in my place.

I charged the group that had opened fire on my position during another reloading period. They may have been better equipped, but they obviously weren't better trained. And they clearly weren't prepared for a woman with a sword to jump right into their nest with them.

I ran through the first one with a vicious forward thrust, yanking the blade out in a great sweeping arc toward the second. Their bodies hardly hit the ground before I kicked out the legs of the third man, then stabbed him through the forehead with my next breath.

Basic training never prepares you for how sticky the blood is.

I focused my attention on units three and four, still managing their own against a group hidden behind a cluster of buildings beyond my sightline. I counted five. I still had five soldiers. I would leave this battlefield with five soldiers and a truck. I swore it to myself.

The plan formed in my mind even as I was executing it. Units three and four had the attention of that group in the southwest. Another group still lingered behind us toward the northeast, where units one and two had perished. There was a truck with a very big gun in between that group and my remaining soldiers, and there was a wall between my soldiers and the final group of enemies. I trusted the wall and sprinted toward the truck.

Bullets licked at my feet, one catching me in my left arm as I made for the vehicle. I could hear shouting, fear, the realization of my plan. There was a rush of movement, more bullets aiming to stop me as I took a running jump into the truck bed, a shout as gunfire erupted from units one and two, a lone soldier covering my desperate attempt with his dying strength.

The buzz of the weapon rattled me to my core, the entire steel frame of the vehicle vibrating with the force of the mechanism erupting under my hands. It only took a matter of moments to drop those four remaining who had slaughtered units one and two, and in that time units three and four had become emboldened. They pressed the attack against our southwest angle when they realized they were covered from the rear.

Blood was flowing. Blood in my ears, down my arm, my hand, across my back, through the tatters of material clinging to my right leg — but more blood would flow until the last body of my enemy hit the ground, or I did. I promised it.

My movement was slowed. Each labored breath felt like it was a dead giveaway even under cover of so much gunfire. I moved with purpose and precision, finding my way around the rubble the truck had created, flanking the southern building around to the backside of the enemy troops.

As I moved, I loaded bullets into the chamber of my weapon from the reserves strapped to my chest. Then, suddenly, there was quiet. I halted immediately, my stomach falling into my feet, my breathing stricken as if my lungs had ceased to function. Quietly, oh as quietly as I could, I edged around the fallen debris into the alley overlooking the enemy, and I found them prostrate, blood pooling around their limp bodies.

I couldn't allow myself to believe it. The quiet was so domineering, audacious with its intention. I refused to believe it. I had believed it before; I wouldn't believe it ever again.

I stalked down the alleyway, quiet as the death around me, barely breathing. My approach was guarded and prepared.

Then I heard it — the telltale click of a weapon preparing to fire. I whipped about, the blood rushing to my vision as I struck out with my blade in a final, fantastic blow. It caught her through the arm and into the chest, straight to the hilt of my weapon as her gun was trained over my heart. I saw the purpose in those dying eyes, the strength leaving her hand even as she had prepared to fire death into my blood. I watched the light leave her then, as she slumped and the only thing keeping her up was the blade of my weapon and the strength in my arms.

She fell slowly, first her gun, then her legs, and finally the lids of her eyes. She fell backwards, off my weapon with a slick and sickly squelch that would haunt my nightmares in the coming days, weeks, months.

In the stillness of death, I found her again.

Loneliness.

Thank you for reading. I plan on this fic being around 80+k words, updates every two weeks or as available. I have some chapters prepared in advance. Please let me know what you think. :^)

As of 3/15/2020, I am also looking for someone to beta read. Please let me know if you're interested.