"Yes, I know we're still in GDI territory, but unless you send us some diesel and ammo, were going to be here for a very long time." Taggert yelled into the radio receiver attached to the radio on the radioman's back.

"We'll try, no guarantees." The emotionless voice crackled back across the radio.

"Rodger, out." Taggert dropped the mouthpiece from his ear and handed back to the radioman. He got back to the hummer and sat down, taking a drink to sooth his parched throat.

Three hours later they were still there. He played idly with three nine-millimeter rounds from the clip of his MP5K

Then, in the distance, he began to hear a buzzing sound. About fifteen minutes later he watched as a black C-130 Hercules skimmed low over the desert. Taggert watched as the rear door opened and a pallet dropped out the back. The chutes packed around them deployed and the pallet floated to the ground. The Hercules pulled into a tight curve and waggled its wings in salute as it passed over them.

Taggert picked up his MP5 and ran full out into the desert. The pallet had landed hard and split open on impact, spilling the contents. Taggert picked up one can of diesel from between the shards and turned and ran back towards the hummer. A private behind him did the same. They made it back to the hummer. He unscrewed the cap and emptied the fuel into the tank. Then he took the can from his private and did the same to the second. His squad had all gathered around the pallets so Taggert and his PFC jumped in the vehicle and fired the engine with a roar.

They raced across the sand to the pallet. He shut off the engine and got out. His squad had opened the crates a little neater and were laying out the equipment in them. They had two AK-47s and an M-16; there were also five handguns and plenty of ammo for all. There were new BDUs, boots, and (sigh!) toilet paper. There were also fresh, new socks and other personal equipment.

They gave each person as much privacy as possible while they changed into their new equipment, then they buried all their old combats and clothes, its not like anyone would have wanted them anyway…

Taggert felt really good in his new equipment. He had kept his old boots but had changed his socks and pretty much every other piece of equipment. He had also decided to leave the MP5 in the hummer and take the M16 A2 that had come with the shipment.

They topped up the hummers tanks and put the remaining diesel in the back, along with the ammo, food, water, weapons and anything else that had come with the shipment that they weren't carrying on their webbing or wearing.

Then the mighty diesel engine of the hummer roared to life and they were on the move again.

Colonel Eric Thorsen's line of vehicles came to a stop in one of the villages along their journey. He decided to forgo the helmet on his uniform this time. He stepped out of the humvee, slipping on his red beret. The sun was low in the sky and they needed a place to stay in the night. The map said that the village was GDI friendly, so they stopped there.

The village leader came towards Thorsen. He slapped a smile on his face. He walked up to the leader and pumped the man's hand earnestly, an American custom that had been imposed on these people. The man spoke broken English. Thorsen asked the man for shelter during the night and the man agreed immediately. This agreement was not a friendly one that was a way for the village to return a favor done to them by the Americans. The agreement was forced because the leader knew that even if he refused the Americans would forcibly move into the village, eat his food, rape the women and then burn the place down when they were done with it. At least if he agreed to it, the food may be taken, but at least the women would be paid for their services and the soldiers would be non-violent. Despite what the map said, the same offer was probably open to the Nod forces that were passing through this area as well, for the same reasons. The villages in this area were in a very interesting predicament. If they cooperated with the GDI and not to Nod, they would be attacked and burned down by Nod forces, if they went the other way, GDI forces would attack and burn down the village. They were forced into the position that made them offer the same services to both sides and hope that the other didn't know, didn't care, or hide any proof that they were doing it.

The sun slowly dipped below the horizon and the desert was bathed in darkness. Since there was nothing in the desert to hold the heat in during the night, it quickly cools and can be as cold as freezing. Thorsen rolled down the sleeves of his tunic and buttoned it up to his throat.

The leader ushered them into the village square where all the people were in the process of building a bonfire. They were just spreading some sort of solvent all over the logs. Then the leader stepped up onto a small podium that was around the bonfire pit. He proclaimed something to all the people, motioning towards the GDI troops as he spoke. All the villagers looked at the men. Then someone threw a match on the solvent. The fire exploded onto the logs, throwing off light and warmth. The soldiers slung their weapons onto their shoulders and huddled around the warmth that the fire provided.

They relaxed around the fire. Thorsen sat back and enjoyed one of his finer Cubans that he had in his gear. Out of the darkness, a single gunshot rattled the otherwise silent air. Thorsen was on his feet, .45 in his hand in a second. Most of the troops were the same way.

The village leader ran to Thorsen and tried to tell him he had nothing to worry about. Three men walked back to the village square. They were carrying a hog that had been shot through the head and one man was slinging a Kar-98 over his shoulder.

Thorsen holstered his .45 and sat back down. The villagers cooked the boar and everyone joined in on the feast. The villagers broke out the wine and the feasted and drank into the night.

That night the men prepared to sleep. They left one man on guard duty, specialist 4th class Jered. While Thorsen and his other men slept deeply, Jered stood on the outskirts of the town scanning the ridge with night vision goggles.

He hugged his tunic and body armor up closer to his chest. His hands were freezing, the tiny gloves in his gear were no up to protecting from the desert chill. His breath came out in plumes of white steam.

From the other side of town, a sniper watched. The figure didn't have any night vision, but there was enough light from the moon to used the iron sights on the Kar-98 he held in his hands.

The sniper fired one round. It hit Jered high in the chest. The sniper quickly worked the bolt and fired again, hitting Jered lower, this time in his torso.

Thorsen shot out of one of the huts with his pistol up and ready. He had slept in combats, foreseeing a situation like this one.

The sniper took a potshot at him. He rolled and came up in a crouch, firing three rounds at where the muzzle flash of the rifle had come from. He ran full out to Jered's crumpled form. He slid his arms under him and tried to move him, but it was too late. He was dead. Thorsen stood up and looked down at the body of one of the men that he had personally trained.

Thorsen's men had spread out and were now in the process of looking for the sniper. Thorsen caught up to them as two medics took Jered's form from his arms. They had found the Kar-98 on the ground with two shells that were lying next to it. There were little splotches of blood on the rifle and the ground around it.

One lieutenant was tracking the blood trail, his M4 up and ready to fire. He followed the trail into the town square, but then he lost it.

By this time, most of the people in the village had heard the gunfire and were all coming outside. Thorsen had commanded seventy-two men, three platoons of crack soldiers. He had trained them himself during the early stages of the war, back in the day, when the war had been a series of black ops actions on both sides. Jered's loss hurt him and all his men deeply, but it couldn't stop them from operating.

His men locked the entire village down and began searching for anyone that was bleeding. The sniper was at a disadvantage here. He was injured, which distinguished him from the other people, and he couldn't escape the village because he would be found by a GDI patrol only hours after he had left the village.

Thorsen set up his base of operations in an old bunker complex built under the village during world war two that the villagers had been using for housing up to this point. His men would find someone sporting a wound and haul him or her down for questioning.

Their first suspect was the man that had shot the hog at the feast with his Kar-98. He wasn't actually injured, but Thorsen hoped that he would be able to shed some light on where the sniper had gotten his German rifle. The man produced his Kar-98 for inspection, which proved him innocent. He also stated the Kar-98s were common in Africa because of all the battles fought between the Allies and Axis during the desert war in World War Two. Thorsen slipped the man an American fifty-dollar bill for his trouble, and then the man was escorted back up to the surface.

The next few people that were brought down all had Kar-98s and were injured, but they promptly removed the dressing on their wounds, showing Thorsen how they had been stepped on by a hog or cut while dressing an animal. All except for one.

This man had refused to remove the dressing on his bicep so that the soldiers could confirm his story about being hit by a rock while playing with his children. As the soldiers persisted, the man screamed that his rights were being compromised as a civilian in a combat zone. Then he demanded that he be released.

Thorsen's men knocked the man to the ground and cut away the dressing. Thorsen looked at the wound long enough to identify that it was a gunshot from a .45 that had caused it. Then he knelt down in front of the man and said, "In this war, there are no civilians, everyone has an allegiance."

Thorsen stood up and pulled out his .45. He fired three rounds into the man's back. He holstered the handgun and left the body to Lieutenant Newton, their unit's psychological warfare specialist.

Lieutenant Newton used his K-bar knife to remove the man's head from the body, mount it on a stake and leave it in the middle of the village square in front of the entire horrified population.

The village leader stood up in front of the assembled villagers and began a nice, long spiel about how glad that he was that the sniper had been killed. Thorsen shook his head and then waved for his men to leave.

Everyone loaded onto the APC's and hummers. The armored soldiers returned to their tanks and fired them up. The roar of the diesels grew louder as more vehicles fired up and moved out.

Sergeant Scott Powellson ducked down behind the car he was using for cover. Several rounds cut into the frame. He looked up over the car and saw three young Africans firing at him. The men were young, barley twenty, if any.

Reflexively, Powellson fired a stream of lead from his M4 carbine, cutting the group down. Bright red blood splattered on the white walls around them.

More AK-47 fire rained down on him and his group. Powellson ducked back behind the hulk of the vehicle. Did I just do that? He questioned himself. Immediately he felt an edge of revulsion cut through him. He had just burned down children.

Another dozen holes were punched into the frame of the hulk, snapping him back into reality. The AK fire was coming from the buildings around him. He returned half-dozen single rounds from his M4 at them.

Damn Nod troops were everywhere, sniping at them from buildings, vehicles, anything that would provide the least amount of cover. Their group had been pinned down for about fifteen minutes in the town square.

Thorsen had sent a platoon ahead to scout out any possible signs of where Taggert had been. After GDI had monitored the passing C-130 resupply Taggert, the man had simply vanished there was no evidence of them going anywhere, no tracks even. It was like they had simply vanished. The command decision was made. Thorsen stopped, set up camp and sent out a half-dozen patrols to nearby towns and villages to look for any traces of them.

Taggert had his back to the wall however, there were only a few towns left for him to flee to, then he would be stuck, either to fight it out in the town, or chance traveling the particularly desolate stretch across the desert. They had slugged it out through the entire town, enduring heavy casualties, but it would be worth it in the end.

Powellson perked his hearing up, there was something in the distance, the sound of powerful engines and the squealing of armored treads. Finally, a tank squadron of M-1's had made it. They rolled through the city, hosing establishments with machinegun fire and bringing down buildings with shots from its 40mm main gun.

Powellson burned down the clip on his M4 then dropped to reload. He snapped in another thirty rounder, then came up and fired a few more bursts.

He paused as he saw several terrorists dart across the street about forty meters ahead of him. Oh no you don't! He thought.

He came out of cover and ran towards the building. He reached the door and then pulled one of his grenades off of his webbing. The then rolled the bomb in and ducked away from the door.

The grenade went off with ground shaking power. Plumes of dust came from the windows and curses floated out from the room. Powellson sent a dozen rounds blindly into the room.

A shot came out of the smoke and cut through his arm. He yelled out in strained pain and threw himself away from the door. He winced and covered the wound, then looked up and saw a Nod machinegun crew setting up an RPD machine gun. He tried to raise his M4 to gun them down before they could set it up completely, but they were too fast.

They spotted him and sent a stream of fire his way. The rounds exploded around him, showering him with pieces of concrete and building materials. Powellson's hearing fazed out into a loud ringing and his vision blurred. He blinked desperately to clear his vision. When he finally got it cleared he saw the crew re-aiming for a more accurate burst.

He tried to move away, but then they loosed a long burst. The fire traced along the wall and past him. The rounds went clean through his vest and cut into the soft tissue behind it, they exploded out his back, splattering the remnants of his chest cavity onto the wall behind him.

His vision filled with red and he collapsed to the ground. His death was only marked with his deep hatred for Nod and all that was associated with it.

Master Sergeant Taggert looked out at the desert. The lowering sun seemed to burn everything in sight to a deep, all encompassing red. He turned and went back to what he was doing.

He was in the process of discarding his M-16 and other clothes, clad in the common dress of the villagers in these parts. He had a sack with him, into which he had placed extra clothes, food, water and his Colt M1911 with three extra magazines.

He stepped down the stairs that brought him to the ground floor. Most of his men were sleeping, so he slipped out quietly into the street.

He didn't feel especially sad about leaving his troops, he would merely join up with the next Nod unit he saw when he had crossed the barren void of desert, but frankly, with GDI troops the next town over, worrying about his future in Nod was the least of his concern at this time.

He had gone maybe a half a kilometer through the city before it happened. He was crossing the town square when he heard the click of a hammer of a pistol being pulled back.

He stopped walking and held his hands outward, away from his body.

"I've waited for this a very long time." The voice announced from behind him.

Taggert turned and looked at the person behind him. The man held a Colt M1911 pistol in his right hand. He wore desert fatigues and a red beret along with a flak jacket.

"Colonel Thorsen, My conqueror, I presume." Said Taggert almost insolently.

"That is correct, and you are Master Sergeant Flynn Taggert, 3rd Nod Infantry division. You look different from the picture in your file."

"Yes, it was probably taken long ago, before the war changed me. I assume that you will be bringing me in moments from now?"

"No," Thorsen said. "I won't"

The blood drained from Taggert's face, "But surely, I am worth more alive than dead, my knowledge alone would be worth…"

"Absolutely nothing." Finished Thorsen. "In case you haven't noticed, the war is almost over, Nod is loosing more and more ground every day, no matter what your people do now, they are doomed to loose the war, and that makes you, obsolete."

The pistol in Thorsen's hand spoke once. The round made a circular hole in the front of Taggert's forehead, with a silver dollar size exit hole in the back of his skull. Taggert's whole body stiffened up, and then he fell to the cold pavement.

Thorsen let the pistol drop to his side, and then he turned away from the corpse and walked out of the square, back to the war.

Back to where he belonged…