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"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."
~William Tecumseh Sherman
Chapter Seventy-eight: Prey
I've never seen anything like that. Cameron swallowed, riveted in place by the looming horror that had just destroyed Barta. What is it?
"Light it up!" Liang might not have known what the hell faced them through the haze and dust shadow of shattered masonry, but she knew what they could do about it. Her mag-cannon roared, tracers flying into the smoke. Next came Elias, shard cannon roaring hate in blast after blast of flechette-shards of alien alloy, battering away at the strongest material on the planet with its own kind. Anne's autopistol joined the maelstrom next, chittering angrily.
"Die, you bastard!" Cameron worked the bolt on his mag-rifle, sighting in as quickly as he could. Hands as steady as he could keep them with his heart beating out of his Predator-armored chest, he picked out anything that looked like a weak point: joints in the armor, holes for sensory equipment, that enormous glass windshield…
Magnetic rounds skipped and skittered off the machine's armor in waves. Spent casings clattered down at the team's feet, rolling around clanking into metal piping. The alien war machine bore up under the assault, alight in a spray of sparks and hate. The air in the tunnels turned hot with the reddening of Menace's guns, harsh light illuminating even the darkest corners.
And through it all, the machine stood unshaken.
It leveled its gun again, acid spraying out through the incoming fire. Mag-rounds melted in midair, slagging into steam and harsh debris, and pipes and walls buckled under the waving onslaught. Liang and Elias threw themselves flat, Anne covered herself in a psionic shield, and Nui barely had time to roll out of the way before a green tide washed her all the way to Hell.
"Christ alive!" Cameron fell on his back behind a mess of storage boxes. His eyelids crawled for his hairline as the boxes glowed green, melting under the weight of fire the alien brought to bear. "Avenger? Is someone there?"
"Grenades!" Liang fired one midword. Elias hurled his by hand without hesitation. The machine paused. The shadow of its pilot almost seemed to glance down at the little things clattering up at his suit's feet.
With twin titanic roars, the grenades detonated. The ceiling shook, spraying dust over the sudden battlefield, green-tinted smoke pouring out from the base of the transmitter. How the X4 hadn't gone up too was a miracle.
"Is it dead?" Nui popped up, rifle aglow with safeties off. "Captain?"
"Hold." Liang narrowed her eyes, lowering herself into cover. "Nobody do anything stupid."
A heavy silence hung in the air.
The war machine burst through the cloud, weapon upraised. Cameron skittered out of the way as this time, plasma bolts flew from some kind of shotgun-like contrivance, blowing wreckage away and slagging stone from even glancing hits. Yellow and green smoke burst from the machine's back wherever it went. Acrid stench clogged out the sewer-scum from Cameron's nostrils.
"Son of a bitch!" He drew his pistol one-handed, firing cowboy-style with all the plasma energy he could work up. Green beams hit the machine's flank one after another.
They sunk in. These shots punched into its armor, and the machine paused, as if its operator had suddenly seen a damage report pop up.
It pivoted sharply, acid spraying from that launcher.
"Fucking fuck!" Cameron bolted. He ran perpendicular to the field of fire, leaping over railings, pipes, and crates rather than slow down to climb them as the inexorable wave came hard in pursuit. He threw himself flat to slide on his belly underneath a latticework of copper piping higher than two of him stood on each others' shoulders, scrambling to his feet and continuing his flight as the pipes came apart behind him.
"Christ…Christ…" Cameron's breath came in ragged as he threw himself into cover behind a large support column. The acid tapered off, either because the creature had lost track of him or because it needed to reload, and Cameron clutched his pistol with white-knuckles. "Avenger, it's killing us! What do we do, Commander?"
"I copy, Lieutenant." Gallant ground his teeth together. "We're looking into it right now."
"It looks like some sort of mechanized exoskeleton. An environment suit of some kind." Shen cocked her head, examining the holodisplay. "Maybe it's some kind of creature that can't withstand our atmosphere?"
"Fascinating, but I'm more concerned with the amount of ass it's kicking." Gallant turned to Tygan. "Anything, Doctor?"
"I had heard of extremely heavy alien armored units, but never seen them. This must be their ultimate development of MEC technology." Tygan shakes his head. "All I know is they were codenamed andromedon."
"That's something, at least." Gallant turned back to the display. "Menace, target is codenamed andromedon. Target the glass shell and expose the pilot to atmosphere. Forget the suit's armor, it's not coming apart that way with the weapons you have."
"We'll try, sir!" Liang's voice cracked on the stream. "Elias, move!"
"Jesus." Bradford sucked in breath. "They need to blow that damn transmitter. Barta had the detonator, didn't she?"
"I think so." What would Betos say when she learned Gallant had gotten one of her people killed? Hopefully she would understand. "If they can just deal with that thing, someone can snag it off her body and blow the transmitter anyway."
"We can hope." Bradford leaned over his console. "Commander, the good news is they have some time to dick around—"
"Energy shift." Shen's voice silenced almost the entire command deck. "Commander, the transmitter's adjusting frequencies."
"How so, Chief?" Gallant couldn't let his hands shake, not in front of his entire command crew. But oh, was it hard!
"It's…" Shen slowly looked up. "Sir, the transmitter is deactivating."
"What?" Gallant's eyes widen. "It was never connected in the first place."
"We don't have any proof of—"
"Shut up, Shen." Now Gallant's gut sung its full song, painting a picture he couldn't quite put into words. A fake transmitter in a location packed with Lost, leaked information that the Skirmishers latched on to…
"Commander." Julian's face appeared on the display. "The odds of this being an intentional deceptive tactic are only eleven point six—"
"Shut the fuck up. I know a sucker when I see one, and I've got a goddamn mirror." Gallant hit the communications button. "Menace, get the fuck out of there! Do you hear me, one-five? Firebrand, get on station for—"
"On the way, sir!" For once, Lilah didn't have a quip, a crack, or even a note of absurdist humor in her voice. If Gallant didn't know her better…
No, that wasn't it. It was precisely because he knew her that he was so sure what he heard.
"That's okay, Firebrand." He made sure his comm was off before he said it, under his breath for only his ears and God's. "I'm fucking terrified too."
There were many things that could kill a human. There always had been and likely always would be. The first murder had been committed by something as technologically insignificant as a rock, but whatever tool was used on the hopefully far-distant day when the last murder bookended that moment would likely be incomprehensible to Cain.
But for all that, some things were deadlier than others—and some people were more resistant to some things than others.
"You cannot burn one who walks in the light!" Anne Lawrence surged through the andromedon's wall of hurled acid, psionic power turning her into a fortress against any such violation. The liquid washed off of her like the waters of the River Jordan, baptizing her in Hell unleashed without desecrating the temple of her body.
Her psi-blades came out in a flash as she rose through the acid. Likely unable to overpower such a mechanical monstrosity, Anne chose to pivot around its arms, cutting low for the lines connecting its acid cannon to the tanks busily pumping on its back. Her power scythed right through the alloy tubing, splitting it open and spilling gallons of acid onto the floor to wash away from her sanctified boots.
Mag-fire ripped out from behind the andromedon. Infantry descended from the gap in the ceiling now, riding rappel-lines from high overhead while more emerged from the darkness, throwing off thermal-blocking stealth shields. Anne covered her face as their shots battered in around her, taken without fear of damaging their own war machine for its imperturbability.
"Kill it, Anne!" Liang's cannon roared now, focused not on the Andromedon but laying down covering fire to the left flank. "Elias, lock down the right! Nui, Moose!"
"Together!" Anne launched herself at the andromedon, bracing her feet on its cannon and slashing madly at that yellow viewport. Cracks trailed her blades, widening in gentle spiderwebs that leaked yellow ooze instead of blood.
The machine twisted, throwing her off. One hit from that plasma gun would be the end, but Anne had no intention of letting distance open up between her and her foe. Her feet hit the wall while her hands latched onto the andromedon's shoulder, and between the two she shoved herself back aboard, now perched over its back like a monkey.
"Die, puppet!" She diverted all power to her right gauntlet, lightning crackling from wrist to elbow as the blade emerged, glowing purple in the shadows. "Die!"
She drove the blade into the andromedon's cockpit. Whatever the aliens used in place of glass, it shattered just the same, and shards flew on all sides. Anne released her blade, punching through the hole she'd made and catching the leathery-skinned alien pilot by the chin. With a heave, she yanked him out into open air, baring her teeth under her helmet as the thing choked and gasped, steam boiling up from the small eyes set in its triangular head.
"Yes. Die." She threw the suffocating, burning creature to the ground, abandoning its shell to jump directly atop the body. Bones cracked under her feet, the creature letting out a piteous, choking wail of torturous death.
"Great work, Anne!" Liang's fire abated for a moment as she slid a new magazine into her cannon. "Now get out of there!"
"I go." But Anne had to pause first. She knelt by Barta's burned body, letting out a quiet breath as her way of honoring the dead. But she hadn't stopped just to reminisce: she reached for the X4 detonator, sweeping it from the ground before she rose.
"Captain!" Anne tossed the small tool, careless for the din of battle from mag-fire to screams and the whirring of machinery behind her. "Catch!"
"Got it!" Liang did catch the detonator. An instant later, though, her eyes shot as wide as dinner plates. "Oh, fuck. Anne!"
"What?" Anne whirled.
A mechanical fist the size of a watermelon caught her in the abdomen.
"It's back up!" Cameron gasped as Anne went flying head over heels. She slammed into the psi-transmitter horizontal, seven feet off the ground, her helmet flying off long before she landed. The impact drove a dent into the alloy transmitter, one that glimmered scarlet after Anne slid gently down to earth with a crater the size of Texas in her breastplate and a bloody mess erupting through her golden hair.
"We all saw it go down!" Bradford's voice frayed, almost lost in the confusion as Cameron fired on the mechanical suit, operating without an operator and gushing acid with every step it took toward Anne's limp body. "Now what the hell is it doing?"
"Operating autonomously. ADVENT has always had excellent mechanical technology." Thanks, Shen, for absolutely fucking nothing useful.
"Captain Liang!" Gallant's voice cracked now, breaking under the weight of the decisions forced on him. "It's moving further in toward the transmitter. Detonate those charges!"
"Sir!" Cameron swallowed, putting a round into the suit's back and winning nothing but sparks. "Anne's still in there!"
"Still reading a positive on her vitals." Not even Tygan was above the chaos, the terror of the moment. "Weak, but positive."
"Captain?" An edge crept into Gallant's voice. "It's your call, Liang."
"I…" Liang licked her lips, eyes flicking from Anne to the detonator in her hand. Indecision shone in her eyes for a heartbreaking second, so deep and drowning that Cameron wanted nothing more than to sweep her up in his arms.
Then she pressed the button.
The X4 detonated with a titanic report, blasting fire out from the transmitter to immolate the ADVENT position. Soldiers shrieked their death cries in the same breath as sectoids, stone crumbling on all sides while black smoke shot out in gouts to clog the room. Pillars tumbled, shards of alloys flying through the air to cut through metal and stone alike.
One of Anne's arms landed next to Cameron, still connected to a healthy chunk of her torso.
"Christ alive." Was it just him, or had the blast drowned out his voice? "Jesus…"
"I killed her." Liang's eyes filled with horror and glimmering wetness. "I fucking killed Anne—"
A loud shriek echoed through the tunnels. Cameron's heart skipped a beat as another joined it, then another, the cacophony rising to rebound off the walls around them.
"Lost." Elias' face turned sheet-white. "They're coming."
"They're dying." Kang's eyes hung wide open, watching Anne's feed disconnect abruptly in the blast.
"They still have a chance." Janet Ross lowered her head against her own table, silent while she no doubt mourned her fellow Templar and friend.
"I'm sorry, Janet." Aileen put a hand on her shoulder.
"It will be." If that brought the Templar any comfort, she didn't show it.
"They're pulling back now." Meysam pointed to Nui's feed, drinking in shadowed tunnels as she fled along with the rest of the team. "Come on, Nui." She might have been Kang's girlfriend, but she was Meysam's friend too.
She'll make it. They'll all make it. Would Central bust Liang down to Lieutenant for this? It wasn't her fault, but that hadn't stopped him with Mariah. No. The situation's different. Central is different. It's not as personal.
Undoubtedly true. And, just as undoubtedly, Meysam would resent what Bradford had done to his own daughter anyway. If he hadn't ridden her like he had, then…then…
This isn't about Mariah. He took a pull from his drink, toasting Barta and Anne in memoriam. Come on, Nui. Cameron, Liang, Elias—keep going!
"They're going to make it." He would insist that however many times it took to settle Kang's nerves—and his own. "They're going to make it out, damn it."
"By the Elders!"
Dourde kicked at the pile of rocks blocking her path. She snarled obscenities in English and her native tongue alike, scanning for any hole, any crack through which she might be able to crawl.
No such luck. The stun lancers and purifiers under her command stood at rapt attention, their minds not as enlightened or eager as their general's.
"Sir." Dourde activated her comm. "XCOM has sealed the breach. I'm not sure if it was intentional or accidental, but my path forward is blocked."
"How very exciting. It wouldn't be much of a hunt if it were easy, now would it?" The Hunter's voice had once been terrifying, but now to Dourde, it was the tone of the only real friend she had in the world. Wasn't that an even scarier thought? "You need not worry, my dear general. I'm on the other side already. See if you can find a way around, but don't spoil my fun if you can help it."
"Of course not, sir. I'll take it slow." When she'd served the Warlock, that would have been insubordination of the highest order. Now…
"You're too kind. You know how much I love the hunt." The Hunter cut his comm.
Dourde let out a shaky breath. For her first independent operation as a general, this one wasn't going so badly, was it? Two confirmed kills was more than most generals got against Commander Gallant.
This was exciting. This was thrilling, deep down into her bones: pitting her wits against the best humanity had to offer, and actually coming out on top!
This is how the Hunter feels. Somehow, he'd taken a rank-and-file ADVENT soldier and turned her not just into a general, not just into his protégé, but something approaching his own self. Maybe when we've captured Commander Gallant and this world is his, I can convince him to keep me around as his hunting apprentice?
"Let's go!" She waved to her detail, raising her arm console to type out new placement orders for her remote units. "We can at least help clean up when he's done."
"Firebrand, do you copy?" Cameron kicked open the door from the transmitter chamber, bursting out into the open metal walkways spanning the main tunnel. "Are you on standby?"
"I'm right here, Moose, just get a move on!" Lilah's voice frayed. "Come back to me, both of you!"
"Rude." Elias brushed past Cameron with a tense, forced grin. "What am I? What is Nui?"
"Shut up, Svensson." Liang froze as the screeching redoubled. "Shit, they're not far behind us."
"That's not behind us." Cameron swallowed. "Liang…"
The door ahead burst open, spewing dashers in a horde. They surged along the walkways, leaping railings and knocking scattered crates over the edge to splash into the flowing sewage and grunge below.
"Contact!" Cameron's rifle blared as he picked out targets. "Do we have a plan, Captain?"
"Yes!" Liang's cannon erupted with fire. "Kill them all!'
"Hell yeah!" Elias joined in, shard cannon blasting chunks from the stone on all sides. "That's for Barta and Anne, you pricks!"
"Keep going!" Nui was the last one out of the chamber, and she slammed the door behind her with force. Not content, she hauled a box over to jam the knob. "We've got a lot more coming in behind us now!"
"Fuck." Liang waved. "Moose, Svensson, on my six! Tashiro, take rearguard!"
"Coming!" Cameron pushed out of cover, switching for his plasma pistol. He fired, boiling the brains of a dasher bounding across the walkway before it had a chance to get to Liang. It collapsed in a heap, clawing at itself and its fellows as they came on in force, screaming and growling their fury.
"Shut up!" Liang and Elias opened fire, pouring heavy rounds into heads at point-blank range. Lost brains and green gore scattered in great waves, painting the second and third ranks as they closed in, jamming overtop of each other to force their way onto the bridge. Lost tumbled over the railings and into the sewer water, howling as they were carried away. A bulwark of bodies thumped down at the end of the bridge, dripping and soaked with the gore of their own demises. The flashes of magnetic and plasma fire lit up the darkened tunnels, echoing with harrowing shrieks and weapons-fire.
The Lost were mindless. Creatures of pure instinct. But fear was instinctual too, and even something too stupid to understand what was killing its comrades would eventually realize it was next.
"They're breaking!" Cameron picked another target as the wave came apart, scattering while some Lost sought to force their way back and others forward. Confusion milled at the end of the bridge, and that was the momentary window the team needed. "Let's go!"
"Forward!" Liang waded into the mess first, racing past any Lost too disoriented to charge and blasting any that came too close. Elias came on her heels, focusing on the right flank while she took the left, and Cameron hurried to follow, shoving a dasher aside and pumping two shots into its head with quick, efficient movements.
The door behind them burst open. Cameron whirled, firing almost blind as more dashers emerged from the darkness, bounding across the bridge in their wake with howls of hunger and desire.
"Watch out!" Nui snapped her rifle up, firing into the mess as they washed inward like a tidal wave. She shot down two, three, five, eight—
Her power cell's light clicked out. Swearing, Nui ejected it, grabbing for a fresh cell. "Cameron, Liang—"
The first dasher launched itself onto her like a rabid monkey, catching her around the shoulders and toppling her on her back. Nui's drone let out a wild series of beeps and hisses as another dasher swept it from the air, doing its damndest to rip the robot apart.
"Nui!" Cameron fired as fast as his pistol would allow, blasting at the Lost while they swarmed over the Specialist. "Hang on!"
"Help me!" Agonized terror lit up Nui's voice. She screamed a moment later, red spraying as the Lost dug into her with teeth and claws. "Please!"
"Oh God. Oh God." Cameron grabbed for his rifle, starting for the pile. "Hang in there, Nui, I'm—"
"Moose!" Liang caught the back of his collar, fairly hauling him backward. "We have to go, damn it!"
"But!" Cameron winced as heavy, arterial blood sprayed across the bridge. Nui's harrowing shrieks dissolved into gurgling, choking cries, her spastic twitching under the weight of the Lost fading with every minute.
"Come on!" Liang hauled Cameron forward, yanking him into the computer station. As the Lost looked up from Nui's body, Liang slammed the door behind herself and Cameron. Elias shoved a table across the way, Cameron staggering back to avoid being rammed.
"You just left her—"
"She's already dead, Moose." Tears ran down Liang's face, staining her ninja wrappings. "We're almost there, okay?"
"Liang…" What was there to say? Cameron swallowed. "Okay. Okay." How was he going to be able to look Meysam and Kang in the eye after this?
"Come on." Liang hurried to the far door, Elias at her side. Cameron trailed, sucking in rattling breaths cold with ice and horror. The Swede took the exit first, shining his light out in one hand as he emerged into the tunnel, drawing his arc blade. Liang followed, shaking with every footstep. "We've got to keep moving."
"Yeah." Cameron paused in the door frame, shooting one last look behind them. "Nui…Jesus."
"She'll be remembered." Liang glanced over her shoulder. "Cameron, come on!"
"I'm coming." He turned back for the tunnel. "It's just—"
"Watch out!" Liang snapped her cannon upward, already squeezing the trigger. Elias spun, grabbing for his shard gun—
"No!" Cameron shot his hand out as red mag-tracers erupted from the balcony over the door, tearing into both of them with equal viciousness. Blood sprayed left and right.
Elias and Liang collapsed on their backs.
"We just lost Elias, sir." Bradford winced as the fourth vital tracker in as many minutes clicked red. "They're dying. They're all dying. This is worse than the Old War."
Gallant slammed his hands onto the railing of his command station. There were no words: none at all for the morass of hell boiling deep within him.
The bar feed read dead silent, save for the bursting, throaty wails Kang couldn't keep inside.
"Lieutenant Rogers, that was a turret. It must have been deployed since you came through." Thank God for Shen, taking over tactical management while both Gallant and Bradford hung on the edge of collapse.
"Liang?" Gallant could barely manage the one word.
"She's still showing vitals, but it's bad." Bradford's eyes glittered with horror as he watched the holodisplay.
"Get up! Please!" Firebrand's heart poured into every word. Gone was the flippant pilot, careless for anyone's opinion of anything she did. This woman was a terrified girl, facing the oblivion of everything she knew. "Liang, please, if you can hear me…"
Gallant should have told her off. Maybe he should have cut her microphone.
But he couldn't bear to. After all, he was thinking the same damn things.
"Son of a bitch!" Cameron ripped the grenade from his belt, priming the explosive and hurling it overhead. It bounced off two corners, clattering down onto the balcony, and he ducked for cover inside the computer station.
The plasma-based explosive detonated with a roar, hurling wreckage from the balcony left and right. Stones fell and metal scattered, dust coating Elias and Liang's bodies.
No. Cameron shoved his way through the wreckage that had once been a wall, hurling the dismounted door with a cry of pain, fear, and sheer fucking will. She is not dead. She will not be dead.
"Liang!" He didn't have to look to know Elias was gone, but he probably would have gone for Liang regardless. "Baby, can you hear me?"
Blood soaked her face wrappings and her armor both. It bubbled in a pool around her eye, dripping down toward her mouth. Still, her jaw worked under the cloth. "Moose…run."
"Not without you." There was no way Liang could walk like this. Cameron scooped her knees with one arm, then under her shoulders with the other. As he lifted her, that blood flowed out, unveiling an ugly, bloody mess where the Grenadier had once had a left eye. "Oh, Christ."
"It hurts." Liang's fingers dug into Cameron's aching back. "Is it bad?"
"It's…" Jesus, what was there to say? Cameron started down the tunnel, shuffling as fast as he could. "It's going to be okay. Tygan can do a lot."
"Then it's bad." Liang coughed, red flecking on her wrappings. "Drop me, Cameron. You can still make it."
"Not without you, no!" Driven by fury, by will and weight alike, Cameron gripped Liang close. He barreled on, racing for one speck of light: not metaphor, but reality. Firebrand's landing lights, illuminating the hole blasted from above.
"Come on, Moose." Lilah's voice nearly sobbed in his ear, pleading and desperate. "You're almost there. Come home. Come back to me. Both of you!"
"I'm almost there." How was he going to grab the line while holding Liang? He'd work something out. He could send her up and take a second line, if that was what it took. "Just don't fly away, birdie—"
Agony erupted in his knee, mated to the muted crack of a gun.
"Shit!' Cameron tumbled on his face, howling his pain as he skinned his cheek. Liang landed hard beside him, blood seeping from all her wounds to soak the stone ground.
"Moose!" Lilah screamed.
"Rogers!" Gallant's voice sounded so far away, even though the comm was in his ear. "Rogers, you're twenty feet from the EVAC point. Get up!"
"Sir…" Cameron lifted his head. The light shone, so close and yet… "Not…without…Liang…"
Footsteps thumped gently behind him.
"Good evening, Captain." The tall, lanky shape of the Hunter crouched next to Liang, his pistol still smoking with red-tinted hate. "Let's have a little chat, shall we?"
"Go…" Liang managed to get her hand to her face, pulling down her wrappings. She spat blood on the Hunter's boot. "…up the ass. Bitch."
"I like you." The Hunter laid his hand on Liang's forehead. She caught his wrist, but her arm shook as the blood drained from her body. "Shh. It's okay. Go to sleep, okay?"
"Get…away…from her." Cameron twisted, grabbing for his pistol. He pulled it from the holster, leveling it with a shaking hand. "Last…warning!"
The Hunter's pistol roared again. Cameron's gun split in half, the energy cell flying away to clatter harmlessly in the EVAC zone. Cameron's eyes crossed on the smoking, shattered grip and butt in his hand.
"Now, then." The Hunter's hand glowed purple. "Let's take a trip down memory lane."
"Stop!" Cameron pushed himself up to his elbows. Liang let out a cry, twitching as that energy glowed over her body, seeping into her head with tendrils of hate. She thrashed under the Hunter's grip, tears exploding from her remaining eye.
"Moose, come on." Lilah's voice broke into a hoarse gasp. "Come back. Please."
Cameron's heart burned, watching Liang suffer under the Hunter's grip. Everything in him wanted to lunge, to seize the Hunter and protect her. But that would only end one way.
Cameron grabbed at the stone, hauling himself toward the EVAC point.
I'm sorry. Tears ran down his cheeks as he crawled, grinding across the sewer floor toward Lilah's light. I'm so sorry, Liang. You deserved better. I just can't…I don't…
Another crack sounded behind him. Lilah let out a shrill wail, full of grief, horror, and catastrophe. Cameron's vision blurred. She was really gone.
Gone, because I'm a coward. He hauled himself hand-over-hand, grunting with effort as he pulled his dead leg along in his wake, leaving a red trail for anyone to follow. Gone, because I couldn't protect her. She saved my life in Virginia, and I couldn't save hers today.
"Cameron." Lilah's voice was barely more than a whisper now. "You're almost there. Just a few more feet. That's it. I'm lowering the rope now."
She was. It fell from above, dangling barely three yards away. Cameron pushed himself forward, prying his body up and reaching with all his might—
He cried out as a weight landed on his bad knee. His fingers hung only a few feet from freedom, from safety. From life.
Lilah sobbed again.
Cameron's breath came in shallow. Ragged. The Hunter's foot filled his senses for a long moment.
So this is what it feels like. Cameron dropped his hand. It thumped uselessly on the ground, his will to fight bleeding out of him like Liang's life. At the end.
"Lilah." There was so much to say. Where to even start? "I love you. And I want you to know—"
The Hunter's gun fired one last time.
"No!" Firebrand broke down into wordless howls of despair. "Cameron!"
"Julian, put the Skyranger on remote." Gallant's hands shook as he pulled his comm out. Lilah's wails echoed even with the little thing a full foot away from his ear. "Get it out of there before the Hunter climbs that rope and we need another new one."
"Of course, Commander." Julian's icon disappeared from Gallant's screen. A heartbeat later, the Skyranger's holo-icon lifted off, soaring for the horizon with a new, red FFID signature.
Silence filled the bridge, heavy, oppressive, and horrified.
"Confirm, Central." Gallant couldn't keep his voice steady. After all this time, after all these victories… "Team status?"
"Confirming." Bradford took a moment to double-check all six vital trackers.
Silence filled the bridge. Gallant's eyes lingered on the feeds linked to his screen: dead cameras from the field, Firebrand's status…
Most importantly, the bar, where every man and woman under his command watched the aftermath of disaster with white faces. Tears ran down a dozen faces, glinting in the harsh overhead lightning.
Kang let out a howl of grief that chilled Gallant to the bone.
"Confirmed, sir." Bradford slowly looked back up. "Code Black."
Author's Note Seventy-Eight: I've Waited A Long Time For This
Andromedons are freaking , think about it! The armor of a tank, a fucking acid flamethrower, a plasma shotgun, and when you finally kill it, it gets back up! All packaged in the power of a mechanical exoskeleton. Honestly, they scare me more than sectopods sometimes.
So this mission actually happened to me. Oh, slightly different cast, but Cameron and Liang were a bonded pair of soldiers, and getting ganked by a turret from behind and then killed while bleeding out is exactly what happened. I don't remember if the Hunter was involved, but it was one of the few Code Blacks I've ever had. Ended my damn run, if I remember right. Six goddamn years later, I'm still salty as fuck.
So it won't surprise you to learn that Cameron and Liang were always destined for this fate from the moment I included them in this fic.
Of course, one could also say I've wanted a long time for this since it took me three goddamn years to actually write this fucking sequence. But that's a story I've done enough ranting about. Here we are, in the teeth of Season Three. I hope you're happy I came back!
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.