Even with her ear protection, the shotgun blast caused a loud and sharp ringing to echo through Amber’s head for several seconds. She ducked, holding her hands to her ears and shutting her eyes. She slowly looked up, and saw the body of the young man they were speaking to, though he was several feet further than he had been just a moment ago. He lay still in the grass, a large hole torn into his vest. She turned around and saw James pumping his weapon, the smoking shell ejected onto the ground nearby.

Amber started shouting, unable to hear her own voice. She started pointing at James, asking him what the hell he was thinking, why he would shoot the young man, and what he was lacking in his head. James didn’t seem bothered one bit by her tongue lashing, giving her a cold and uncaring glare as she could make out the motion of his lips while he spoke. Even with the ringing in her ears, she understood him.

Rule three.

Clay and James joined in once Amber had stopped shouting at him. By the way Dane was holding his ears, it seemed like he had shot between the two of them to put down the unarmed and injured contestant. Though, thankfully, her sense would soon come back to her. Just in time to catch the tail end of Clay’s ranting.

“–right next to them! Watch your fire next time, soldier!”

“I’m no soldier anymore than he was.” James exclaimed, pointing the business end of his weapon towards the deceased man. “Besides, I waited ‘till we got everything out of him. So why don’t we settle this after that shuttle picks us up?”

Amber wasn’t listening much as the conversation between the three continued. She slowly approached the body of the young man, his face frozen in confusion. The last look he gave as James pulled his weapon on him, and fired. Amber raised her hand to his eyes, and shut them. He deserved his rest. As she stood up, she noticed a glint on his chest, the dog tags that they had all been given. Out of curiosity, she knelt down and read them.

Carson Monroe

CT - 1097

Bronze

Pinger

Curious, she held up her own tags to compare.

Amber Helton

CT - 1178

Iron

N/A

As she was looking at the tags, and trying to understand what the metals meant, or why Carson’s mentioned a pinger, but hers did not, she heard James shout at her.

“Come on, none of you actually believed him, right? He probably would have said anything to try and save his ass! I know I would, and I would bet on the rest of you doing the same thing!”

Amber let go of Carson’s tags, and gave him one last look. As she approached James, she wasn’t angry. She was calm as she had ever been, but driven by one overpowering desire. The feeling of her knuckles against his face was more pleasing than she expected it to be. Unfortunately, she had let her emotions get the better of her. She watched James raise his shotgun towards her, and fumbled to raise her own weapon in time. Just as she anticipated another loud burst and a chest full of pellets, she saw Clay intercept. Grabbing the barrel of the gun and pushing it away, he wrenched the weapon from James’ grasp and slammed the stock into the side of his face at the same time. James fell to the ground, and looked up with a snarl, his glare bounced between Amber, Clay, and Dane.

“So now what?” He asked.

“Consider yourself on probation.” Clay said, lowering his weapon away from James. “Until we can trust you again.”

“Trust me?! She’s the one that punched me!”

“And you’re the one who shot an injured kid!” Amber snapped back.

Clay stepped between the two of them, this time scowling at Amber. “Frankly, I would have you both disarmed if it didn’t mean half of us would be useless in a fight. You’re lucky you at least showed some discipline.”

Everyone took a moment to calm down, Dane helped Clay in fully disarming James. With his pistol and shotgun removed, they let him back up to his feet, but Amber didn’t let her eyes leave him.

Clay had left the group, but came back only moments later with the device that James had brought them.

“Alright, here’s my plan. We have a pretty good reason to believe that this… thing… signals one of those shuttles to come pick us up and take us home. So we just gotta plant it in the ground, and wait.”

“Yeah, that didn’t really work so well for these guys.” Dane said, gesturing vaguely to the scene around them.

“So we hide, and send someone out to signal the shuttle while the rest of us wait.”

All three of them looked at James.

“Figures…” he grumbled, eying the weapons that everyone else was holding.

“I think it sounds pretty solid.” Amber offered. “How long should it really take for one of those shuttles to get here? And if we signal it at the right time, we should be safe. Sorry, you should be safe.” She said, pointing to James. She couldn’t help but give a smug grin as he glared at her, cursing her wordlessly.

“Don’t worry, son.” Clay said, placing a firm hand on James’ shoulder. “We’ll be just out of sight, making sure you’re safe. Just do this, and we can all kick back in Aurum. Or, if you prefer, we never have to see each other again.”

James didn’t look at all pleased with this proposal, but he was in no position to negotiate. Not in an unarmed state.

“Alright, fine. But if shit hits the fan, I’m doing what I can to take you all with me.”

The landing spot appeared to be perfect. Placing the device, what Amber assumed was the pinger referenced on Carson’s tag, at the outpost where they had found it appeared to be a bad idea. The last group that tried that wound up being ambushed, and none of them made it out alive. Hopefully, the one they found an hour or so away would prove much better. The group had followed a series of above ground wires to some sort of power station, a moderately sized structure of pylons, generators, wires, and a central building in the center of it all. The entire thing was fenced in, and while James would be cornered if another team came to ambush him, the rest would be able to hold themselves to their word and help. One way out for James, meant one way in for anyone else.

Amber watched, prone under a bush besides Clay and Dane, as James sprinted towards his destination. He stopped to raise the pinger above his head, and plunge it into the ground. He hesitated for a moment, then jumped back as it made a sharp chirp, and a light started to blink from the thick head of the device. James took that as a good sign, and continued on into the small shack at the center of the station.

And so, the waiting began. None of the three hiding together dared to speak a word. It hadbeen an intense few days, and none of them were willing to throw it all away by having someone hear their whispers and sneak up on them. Telling time was hard, but Amber did her best to count in her head. By her estimation, it had been five minutes until she heard the familiar bellow of a shuttle engine in the distance. They must have been close by, waiting for something like this.

Amber had to force herself to stay lying down, to not jump for joy and scream in celebration. This, this was finally what she had come for. The shuttle would land, she would climb aboard, and Valerie would be in a hospital by the end of the day. Everything was going to be ok.

The shuttle flew over the trees, and barreled towards the power station where James was emerging from his hiding place, waving at the shuttle as it started to slowly descend. Amber felt confident enough to stand, ready to emerge from her hiding place. As she pushed herself up off the ground, something happened.

Gunshots. At first, Amber thought that another squad had found them and was ready to fight over the shuttle, but that was when she noticed that James was running from his rescue, and that it was the source of the fire. Unarmed and cornered, James had no choice but to tail it back inside and take cover. The shuttle landed just outside the gate the station, and Amber saw several occupants emerge. They might have been Peacekeepers, but their armor was different. It was bulkier, and they looked more like machines than men, and their weapons left behind an almost glowing blue dust as they fired.

“What the hell are they doing?!” Dane hissed, as they both looked towards Clay. He had always seemed to have some sort of answer to any question or situation, or at least pretended that he did, but he simply stared on. Dumbfounded, at an utter loss for words.

From their position, they could see everything. Two men from the shuttle carried out a weapon, it looked like a heavy metal pipe that rested atop a tripod. One stood behind it, aiming it towards the building that James cowered in as another loaded some sort of metallic cylinder into a hatch near the back of the weapon. He slammed it shut, and the gunner aimed it towards the building. What followed could only be described as the sound of one continuous explosion. Amber saw no smoke or other signs of the weapon being fired. She only heard that sound, and watched as the power station was blown away. It was as if a strong win had come by and simply destroyed everything in it’s path. No shells were expelled, and everything in front of it simply crumbled. Pylons were torn to shreds, wires snapped and flailed about, and the central shack simply fell apart. Reduced to rubble as dust flew about in a matter of seconds.

And just like that, Amber knew that James was no more.

When the shooting stopped, the group of men began to whoop and holler, giving one another high fives as they marveled at the devastation they had caused. Dane had begun to crawl backwards, stopping when Amber reached out to grab his arm. She looked at him, and shook her head. He crawled back down and laid beside her, and the three waited.

The men took ages to finish their work. Destroying the power station and killing James wasn’t the only job they were sent to do. They took their time photographing the scene, and began to dig through the rubble. Complaining the whole time as they took turns moving debris out of the way, and dragging a mangled body out of it all. They laid James’ remains down, photographed him, and placed his body in a large dark bag. Once they had zipped it up and loaded him back onto the shuttle, they flew off into the sky.

“What the fuck?” Amber let out the words as she breathed for what felt like the first time since she saw the shuttle land. Dane paced back and forth, hands in his hair as he kept muttering to himself.

“This is not happening… this is not happening… this is not happening…”

Clay reached for his pocket, as if he were expecting to find something, and looking even more irritated when it came up empty.

“I thought they were supposed to be pulling us out?!” Amber exclaimed.

“Looks like there’s been a change of plans.” Clay replied, in a low and monotone voice.

“Well what do we do now?”

Clay paused, his mouth stammering wordlessly. “I… I don’t know.”