One year ago

Finn readjusted the keffiyeh that was wound snugly around his head. Regardless of how he wore it, the sweat never seemed to stop dripping. When he was assigned to the region, a coworker warned him that being in the Middle East was like sticking your face in a hot oven with sand being thrown at you at fifty miles per hour.

That coworker, Finn quickly realized upon his arrival in the country, was correct, except sometimes the sand overwhelmingly smelled like salt and rotted fish. His ass also was permanently swampy, no matter the time of day. That particular side effect was the one that Finn found to be quite unpleasant and completely untreatable no matter the amount of baby powder he smeared down his ass crack.

The IMV crawled with considerable speed over the bumpy road. Every deep divot and rock its tires barreled over jostled its occupants, sometimes throwing them into each other or slamming them against its metal walls. Finn felt like a loose sardine in a tin can, except this tin can was thick enough to protect them from improvised explosive devices. At least, that's what they promised. He wasn't entirely certain of its efficacy.

Of course, infantry mobile vehicles were not designed with comfort and luxury in mind. The lack of air conditioning or hell, even some ambient air flow, was enough to get all of Finn's other bits swampy. He knew better to complain and stewed and sweated in his body armor in silence.

It was always quiet. Mercenaries were not a chatty bunch. Except Nines. He was red-haired and blue-eyed with fair, freckled skin, with a boyish face and cute, chubby cheeks that seemed to have never melted away after puberty. But that was the extent of Nines's perceived innocence. He was the worst person Finn had ever met, and cruel to boot. And once they had arrived in the Middle East a few months prior, liberated from the rigid restrictions of military life and now, Nines never touched a razor since. A thick, coppery, angry beard covered his jaw and those boyish cheeks that resembled the last of any apparent sweetness.

Nines also liked to hear himself talk. He liked to be heard and liked to be obeyed. It was no wonder once the team had broken off and been recruited into the First Order that he naturally ingratiated himself as the leader. Mercenaries didn't have ranks like the military, so Nines took it upon himself to carry over his title of lieutenant.

The IMV began to slow. Nines stood up as best his tall frame could fit in the low-ceilinged vehicle and addressed the group. He always waited until the last moment to brief them.

"We have solid intel that the insurgents have something that which does not belong to them," Nines's voice boomed dramatically. "They are in possession of ten U.S. military hard drives that they have stolen. They were stolen at the cost of three American soldiers. We are to go in, retrieve the drives, as well as take custody of any other computer we come across. Use force, as necessary. We need those drives. They are more valuable than some sand dwellers' lives."

They came to a stop and someone opened the back doors of the vehicle. Immediately, the mercenaries poured out into the darkness, and their nightvision glasses buzzed to life.

Finn followed the greenish figures that stealthed ahead. They jogged in the darkness for a few minutes, surprisingly quiet with all the guns and gear. Half went one direction and he went with the group that headed south.

They found themselves surrounding a small, ramshackle camp set up outside the entrance of a cave. A dying fire pit cracked and popped its remaining cherries. Finn's display showed two figures sleeping around the fire and probably a half dozen more in the surrounding tents – it was hard to make out shapes but there were definitely heat signatures huddled about – probably sitting or sleeping under the canvas. His nightvision glasses couldn't penetrate the rock around the cave, but he figured there'd be at least a dozen more. Valuable men and valuable things are always protected and the dispensable ones are always the first layer of defense. The target was definitely in that cave.

But something didn't feel right. There weren't other adversarial indicators he would normally expect. The location wasn't right – they hadn't driven for long. Terrorists weren't known to hang close to arterial roads. The camp was rather small and they hadn't encountered any lookouts or guards on the periphery. And terrorists don't usually have –

"Mehhhh!"

- Goats?

"Fuck," Finn whispered under his breath just as his ear piece crackled with the angry voices of his troops and the sleeping figures around the fire stumbled to their feet. A couple of goats that were tethered to stakes in the ground began to panic, bleating and bucking against their restraints.

Finn's guts churned and turned to ice. These were not adversaries. These were not terrorists. They were nomads who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Desperate, he yelled over the cacophony. "Stop! Stop!" But no one listened. Guns fired, goats shrieked, men screamed.

Finn gripped his weapon and scrambled over the rocks he was hiding behind and landed heavily in the sand. Not far from him, a thin man in a threadbare thawb raised his arms in deference and cried out a string of words that Finn could not understand. But one of the mercenaries shot him anyway. The man fell backwards near the campfire and a red bloom stained the fabric of his dress. The fire nibbled at the hem of his clothes, but he didn't do anything – he was dead.

Finn's throat seized and he thought he would throw up. His cries to stop the madness strangled and it was all he could do was to bash the butt of his gun against the head of a comrade who was about the take down another goat herder. The mercenary crumpled like a tower of cards.

"Finn! The fuck are you doing?"

Finn stumbled over the unconscious body and rolled behind a half-fallen tent. A volley of bullets erupted over his head. "This-this-" he fumbled for the right words. "We fucked up! This is wrong! Goat herders, man!"

Another voice came crackling over the comm. "Finn!" growled Nines. "Follow. The. Orders!"

"We got bad intel!" Finn yelled.

"Follow orders, dammit!"

Finn allowed himself two deep breaths, tightened his nightvision goggles, and jumped to his feet. He ripped out his earpiece and crushed it under his boot. Whatever was waiting in that cave apparently was good enough to commit murder and he wasn't going to let Nines get to it.

Dying men howled, fellow mercenaries shouted and bellowed, guns blatted, and goats screamed. Through the chaos, Finn managed to dodge the lot of them, knocking out a herder accidentally and not accidentally shooting the leg of one of the other mercenaries.

He found a body, riddled with bullets, slumped at the mouth of the cave. Someone had made it inside. Finn stepped carefully over the rocky and slippery path, and the sounds of the madness outside slowly began to fade. New sounds, new cries, panicked whimpers, became more evident. The cave was unbearably dark but a soft orange glow down one snaking path beckoned him.

"I-I-I don't know," a voice, wavering in panic, cried out in perfect English. "P-p-p-lease!" There was a sharp cracking noise. "Owww!"

Finn ducked low, hiding himself against a smooth wall of rock. Listening to the voices and footsteps, there were at least three people in there. Maybe more.

"I don't know what you're t-t-talking about!" the same voice whimpered.

"Yuh-yuh-yuh-yuh-yes you do," another voice mocked, this one deeper and authoritative. "What's a fat American doing in a desert cave with a bunch of fucking goat herders? He's up to no good."

"I-I'm a volunteer, I'm just here to teach." The young man's voice was strained and high-pitched, escalating with each word in nervousness.

"Teach, huh? Teach these infidels how to make IEDs?" There was a muffled punching sound and the man squealed in pain.

He whimpered and sputtered. "No, no, just English! Some programming! Did-did-did you know that the Middle East has the second highest growing population of programmers ages 18-25?! They're calling it the Silicon Jordan Valley!"

The mercenary clearly did not care and the young man grunted again in pain as another blow landed.

Finn shimmied closer. Shadows cast on the smooth cave walls and one paced back and forth. Finn could hear the scuffing of the boots on the dirt.

The voice continued, mockingly. "Do you know what the penalty is for federal treason?"

There was a funny, high-pitched noise as the young man cleared his throat. "Ah-ah-ah, well, the only person executed for that was in 1862 when the United States was under martial law and—"

"Do you think this is a fucking game?!" the mercenary bellowed. He was done playing around. "Maybe we'll just have to have a happy little accident while extraditing you, then!" Finn heard the familiar click of a weapon being cocked. "No one's going to mourn the death of an accomplice to terrorists!"

"They're not terrorists!" the man squealed, defiantly and angrily.

"Alright, that's fucking it, Moore, tie him up. We're taking the piggy out to the market."

"No! No!" the man screamed. "You can't kill me! I'm an American citizen! I have rights!"

"Collateral damage!" the mercenary shouted.

Finn took a deep breath. The shadows on the wall danced and struggled. Then, the backside of the mercenary came into Finn's view as he stepped backward to get a better aim. The man's screams echoed off the cave walls.

"No one's going to miss a traitor!" the mercenary taunted and lifted his weapon up, then he immediately crumpled to the ground as Finn knocked him out.

"What the fuck?" Moore yelled as Finn jumped over the unconscious body. "Finn, what the hell are you doing?" Moore held the wrists of a short and rotund young man with a smattering of freckles and shaved blond hair. He was wearing a worn and stained thawb over a pair of jeans and Converse.

"Let him go," Finn ordered. He was surprised how calm and cool his voice sounded. He kept his weapon trained at Moore's head.

Moore's face was screwed up in confusion and anger. He glanced quickly at their comrade on the ground, then back at Finn, then at the struggling man in his grip. "Are you insane, Finn?"

"Let. Him. Go." Finn stared at Moore and cocked his weapon. "Now."

Moore sneered and pushed the fat man aside indifferently, as if he was a kid getting quickly bored with his toy. Or prey, Finn thought. "You're insane, Finn," Moore sneered as he held his empty hands up.

"Maybe," Finn said, not blinking, and maintaining his gaze on Moore. This time, he spoke to the hostage. "Get over here, sir."

The babbling and nervous man stepped away from Moore, but was too wary to get close. "I-I-I—"

"Just keep going," Finn ordered as he slowly stepped backward. "I got you."

The man obeyed, shuffling backwards in step with Finn, staring at Moore who still had his hands lazily raised in the air, and then the fat man was on the ground, having tripped over some jagged rock. And in that split second where Finn glanced down to check on his new charge was all it took for Moore to reach down and grab his gun. Two bullets rang out – one that found its way into Moore's heart and the other hitting the ceiling of the cave when Moore's hand slipped on the trigger when he fell. He was dead before his body hit the ground.

"Get up," Finn said in a deep and scary voice he didn't recognize as his own. Finally silent, the fat man managed to spring to his feet.

"T-t-hank you," he stuttered as he trailed Finn out of the cave.

"Shut up," Finn hissed. "Quiet. We can't be found."

He wasn't sure how they made it out. He wasn't sure how no one saw them as they slipped away in the darkness. They walked single file – perhaps whoever saw the footprints in the sand would think only one goat herder escaped. They walked like that, for hours and hours, until the dark night sky began to fade and a soft orange hue began to glow. There, they found a copse of trees and collapsed on the ground, exhausted.

The fat man spoke his first words in hours. "What is your name?"

Finn rolled onto his back to squint at the brightening sun shining through the fingers of the trees' fronds. "I'm Finn." He glanced over to take in the young man. He was probably only a hair over five feet tall and was wide and rotound. The buzzed hair Finn thought was blond glinted a coppery red in the growing sunlight. His thawb was stained and sand beaten and his glasses had a crack in one of the lenses. But he was alive, exhausted, and grateful. His eyes were rimmed red and teary and for the first time since Finn met him, his voice was clear and strong.

"I'm Bernard Barnes. Thank you for saving my life."