I was still lying on the ground, my head against the ship's hull, when I fired that shot. I was incredibly lucky that Scryer's body lay near mine, he was one of our snipers and I was able to take the sniper attachment from his gun and snap it on to mine. My weapon was one of few that the Military only assigned to their most prized officers. All weapons wielded by the marines could easily be disassembled for travel. But with my weapon, I could take parts from other weapons and integrate them into my own.

The "crack" had obviously attracted the attention of the strange mechanoid that had unknowingly saved my life, and she turned with her weapon pointed at me, another glowing ball of searing energy just barely inside the barrel. She casually walked torwards me, her face hidden by a T-shaped, aquamarine visor, making her look more like an emotionless machine than a sentient being, if she was. She eventually got so close that I could feel the heat of her weapon on my face, frying whatever computer systems that remained in my helmet. My skin remained surprisingly unburnt, although the light was so bright that I could barely see out of my unshielded eye.

I lowered my weapon, and began to breath heavily. The sudden movement of raising my gun for that shot had worsened the injuries around my shoulder and torso, shattered bone and armor that dug into my muscles and tearing my tendons asunder. I couldn't move, couldn't escape from an almost certain doom.

For a few fleeting moments, I think I almost cried.

But I pulled myself together. I was supposed to be the stoic one, I was the marine. So, like all other emotions in my life, I held it back. Covering it up with a mask of indifference, staring into that visor, hoping that there were a pair of eyes under it instead of a pair of optical sensors, unchanging in their view of mercy.

My cannon was almost against his head, my fingers on the trigger, or so to speak. The only "surviving" marines I had seen were those that had tried to kill me, and although their movements were slow and their bodies twisted, unlike this one, I wasn't going to take any chances. I hadn't taken any chances since Zebes.

But then, through a break in his face plate, I saw his eye.

It was deep blue, staring into mine. Kill me, it said, unwavering.I don't care anymore, just pull the damn trigger andget it over with. He was resigned to his fate, accepting and embracing death. But why? To end the pain? Or because he knew he was going to die? I noticed a small trickle of crimson blood, slithering down his face.

It was then that I observed his full body, or what was left of it. A massive network of cracks and tears ran through his left shoulder and chest, a myriad of spiderwebs. Out of these flowed small rivers of blood, some cut off by overlapping pieces of armor, and others opened farther by the position in which he lay. His right leg, as scans indicated, was fractured in three places and his left was outright broken. His face plate had a hole, through which I could see his eye, and below this ran a deep cut, probably caused by a shard of glass.

All in all, the guy was a wreck. Not only that, but as mangled as he was he wasn't taken over by those dark things that had caused the splinters to attack, as the others were. And he had attempted to save my life, though I could've easily shaken off the thing.

I lowered my weapon, letting the charged up Power Beam dissipate back into the cannon.

My ruse had worked, my fake resignation convincing the Mechanoid to spare my life. She offered her hand, letting me grab it for support. I got up on one foot, my other one shattered, and was forced to lean on her to stay up. In this fashion, we began to walk torwards the metallic door she had been advancing torwards earlier.

"So, do you have a name?" I tried to ask her, but she ignored me, plodding on without so much as a glance. "Come on, I just saved your life, all I expected was a little thanks." She remained silent. For a few seconds we marched on, I, the wounded marine captain leaning on a woman whom I didn't even know if she was real or some ancient machine of a past race.

Eventually I changed tactics. "Hey, no problem, I'm used to it. Not the first woman who's given me the cold shoulder."

I knew what he was doing, trying to pry at me with humor. I inwardly smiled at his last comment, sensing that he was being sincere. But I marched on, afraid to release my identity. Just in case.

I know it seems silly now, I can't even count the number of times he's saved my ass on that planet and yet I didn't trust him back there after saving my life. He was the one I was looking for, Capt. R. Exeter of the 654th Marines. The one I had been sent to find, among the others, the one that command had extensivly briefed me on before my departureand yet I still had that nagging suspicion in the back of my head. I suppose that's where it started, our little relationship, and like all things important in my life it started with the near death of someone. Ironic.

But back on topic. Throughout the entiretrek back to the ship he prodded at me, trying to find a weak spot in my silence,a place to put his chisel and hammer away at my armor. He was an experienced griller, and more than once I almost opened my mouth but thought better of it.

As I reached the ship, I couldn't take it anymore. He needed rest, I wanted quiet, all the marines were dead sans one and it had been a shitty day. So as soon as I entered the drop ship I put him in cryo, where he would drop unconcious andhis woulds would heal themselves, and took a long nap in the plush leather seat of the cockpit.