Close Encounters

So, how about them aliens, huh?

I know—crazy universe we live in. You wake up one day, bust some heads in a third world dustbowl and the morning after you get back, you’re paid a visit by a couple of suits and pressganged into the set of a Men in Black film. Only the gribblies are a whole lot meaner and packing a lot more firepower.

Take this little grey motherfucker taking pot-shots at me from behind a crashed Jeep, for instance. It can’t be, what, a metre tall at most? And it carries a dinky little device on its wrist that looks like it’d break if you coughed at it. But that little ratshit doohickey just took the head off of my squadmate, Oedekerk, with one shot.

I liked Oedekerk.

So now I’m seeing all kinds of red and feeling all kinds of mad and I want the thing to die and die screaming. What’s stopping me is his three little butt-buddies laying down a thick sheet of hurt across what might as well be the fucking Somme for what sparse cover there is: a fire hydrant and a smoking Chevrolet. Also not helping is that green shit the great greys in the sky drop each time they decide to hit the town spewing out that fog. No one knows what it does and no one’s keen to find out what happens if you breathe in too much of the crap so standard procedure when you hit the Op Site is to hit it like your first teenaged lay: fast and messy.

…And like your first teenaged lay, things can get veeery awkward if you don’t get it right.

Which was why I was hunkered down behind an old, blue Mercedes trading shots with the little grey men from Mars with the headless corpse of my friend on the left and a choking, weeping Frog to my right while my Squad Lead barked in guttural Polish to what was left of my team to try and make something of this clusterfuck. The distinctively sharp crack-boom of his sniper rifle told me that he was at least still firing, so that was nice.

I fired a few blind shots over the bonnet of the Merc—damned nice car; broke my heart to see it reduced to a really expensive target—but to my increasing ire, no shrill cries of agony rewarded my admittedly paltry effort. Instead all I got was a few more blisters on my arms to add to the growing collection as a few more sizzling goops of green energy ripped overhead. I hissed and pulled my weapon back, rubbing my arms tenderly before glowering at the crouching mess who was supposed to be helping. The fuck was gibbering in his native Frog tongue clutching his head tightly in both hands, tears and snot running down his face. I wanted to gag.

“Oi,” I growled. I accept that I am probably not the friendliest bloke who ever walked the planet. I don’t have that natural aura of command that the Boss Lady has (or as nice an arse, not that you’ll ever catch me so much as whispering that within any kind of proximity to her). I don’t have the natural charm that oozed from Oedekerk like so much blood and cranial flui—goddamnit *stop it*.

Point is, I have only ever known one way to get someone in gear.

So I reached over to my squadmate—my *friend*. I laid a hand gently upon his shoulder; a warm, fatherly grip to pacify any wild, nasty thoughts that were no doubt running, screaming and setting fires to things in his head. Then I wrenched him forward before slamming him back against the panel of the Merc, silently praying for the old, weary beast to forgive my trespass. He yelped and clutched the back of his head. If Ratajczyk saw, he’d probably give me a rollicking for damaging a battle buddy in the middle of a firefight: concussion, intra-squad tensions, rah-rah-rah. From the look Frog was giving me the first one was out, but in that moment I was seeing some potential for number two.

Well Ratajczyk was yammering from the other end of the street with God only knew was left of my squad and one of my friends was dead, so fuck it.

“Listen to me, you little, babbling French *shitbag*,” I seethed. “I did not watch my buddy die and drag both our arses behind this gorgeous marvel of human engineering,” I motioned to the car we were currently parked behind for cover, “for you to cry and whine like a little fucking baby all day long. If you do not get your shit in order so help me, I will *leave* your arse here to those little grey fucksticks.”

We each shared a heated, intense glare before he sucked in a mouthful of air, muttered something darkly in his native tongue—no doubt his hopes that my health would remain good and my person un-shot for many a year—and nodding. Firmly. Decisively.

He was a Frog, but it’d do, I guess. I gave him a nice, friendly pat on the cheek as a reward for not breaking down even further, and my best, sweetest smile, “Good man.” If looks could kill, I’d probably be painted all across the road. I cackled, half at the look and half at the ridiculousness of it all. A few months ago, I was being run ragged in places most folks back home couldn’t even spell. Now I was in suburban America engaged in a street fight with fucking aliens. Even with a few operations under my belt, that strange surreal feeling never quite went away.

Frog peeked out from cover, ducking back in almost the same instant. Sure enough, another searing globule of baleful green whatever-the-fuck burned its way through the air, right through the space my squadmate’s head had previously occupied. Turning to me, he jabbed his finger to a three-car pileup a little ways down the road. Close enough to sprint but for the grey arsewipes watching out for any little hint of movement.

“Down there. We can use those cars to flank them,” he explained. Good English. I was almost impressed. Maybe I’d even remember the guy’s name by the time this was over.

“Fan-bleeding-tastic,” I said. “Now how do you suppose we get to it without getting our faces shot off?”

He gave me a look, one that pondered exactly how long I had been in this whole ‘war’ business. I fixed him with a look of my own, one my old man got a lot of mileage out of whenever he wanted me or one of my siblings to do something. It was a curious little smile; just the right amount of tooth, cheek crinkle and simmering fucking fury to get the point across: Get on with it or get hurt. Frog rolled his eyes and reached into one of his pouches, retrieving a smoke grenade.

I nodded. It made sense. I retrieved one of my own and motioned for him to toss his out. He primed it and gently rolled it out from our gradually degrading cover, nodding in satisfaction as it popped and began to hiss, bright red, obfuscating smoke leaking from that tiny little casing. We were lucky it wasn’t particularly windy; in moments we had a nice thick cloud for us to carry on through without Gleepgloop from Mars and his pals being any the wiser. I tossed my own a few moments later, and it landed with a metallic clink a few metres up from the first. Frog grimaced.

“We’ll only be exposed for a few bleeding seconds, these things can’t be *that* good a shot,” I groused. Privately, though, I shared his sentiments. Art of not getting your arse shot was not to expose yourself in the first place. Dashing full tilt, we’d be visible for all of a heartbeat, but for a solid enough soldier that’s all the time you need. My companion gave me another look. Yeah. He knew all too well what I was thinking.

“Fine, I’ll go first you bloody coward. Keep an eye out,” I said, loosing off a few shots from my assault rifle over the car one last time just to keep the Greys guessing.

I heard him mutter something darkly under his breath but I couldn’t make it out. He leaned out from the side of the car and rattled off another burst himself before motioning for me to haul arse.

“No need to tell me twice,” I murmured before bolting through the smoke to the relative safety of the pileup. I’ve run a few gauntlets in my time with the Royal Marines; through mud, sand, undergrowth. This one couldn’t have been more than a third the length of any of those. Yet as I pumped my legs and hared off I felt fear, thicker than ever I’ve felt before, course through my body; cold sweat, a faint light-headedness and a helpless sensation that any moment now I’d feel a bolt of that strange, green energy burn through my spine or rip through my skull. The feeling only got worse as I closed on the ever-so-slim gap between Frog’s smoke cloud and my own.

Three steps. Then I’d find out just how good a shot these Greys were after all.

Two. Throat drying, limbs feeling heavier and heavier with each passing microsecond. The quiet little voice in the back of my mind that tells me all the wonderfully horrible things that will happen to me isn’t so little, or so quiet. I really, *really* hope these things don’t see in infrared.

One. I am going to die here. In a street in the middle of some bumfuck Yank city I don’t even remember the name of, far away from home. Far away from my dear old mother, who I used to worry so much as I was growing up. Far away from my older sister, who ignored my suggestions that she and her fiancé bunk up with his side of the family out in the countryside of Derbyshire. Far away from my dumb, brash younger brother who took so much more after me than either of our parents.

Zero.

All right, Greys.

Show me what you’re made of.

I emerged from the first cloud in a heartbeat, and I’m sure that to any onlookers I probably cut quite a sight: eyes wide with adrenaline and panic in equal measure. A strange model of assault rifle clutched in a death grip, swinging wildly out as I use every trick I know to propel me closer to cover and out of danger. Sleek tan body armour sporting an ID not even the saltiest of SF operators would recognise. For one instant there I am. Open. Vulnerable. Dead to rights.

And then I’m gone again. Lost to the second, slightly further billowing red cloud. I carry on for another few steps, and dropped low, baseball sliding behind the first car, a… Vauxhall? Who the fuck hates themselves enough to drive one of *those?* I only realise that I’m safe (relatively speaking) about a half-beat after parking my sorry butt firmly behind the vehicle. I shuffled along, poking my head out over the boot of the vehicle to take a peek at the Jeep my little grey friend was hiding behind.

I saw nothing—at least, nothing that gave me any indication that he was still there. Perk of being that goddamn small. I grunted, thoroughly unsatisfied, and dropped back behind cover as Frog slid in next to me. He looked as bad as I had felt.

“Nothing like a stroll through town, huh?” I snickered, giving him another grin. I could feel my lips tremble and shake—my nerves were just as shot as his, no question. Oh well. Part of the job.

“Fire in the hole!” I heard a voice cry over the squad comms. Moments later there was a shrill *whoosh* followed by an earth-shaking boom. Scarcely ten metres from where Frog and I were currently crouched, two cars were flipped over by the force of the blast while another one flat out exploded, its fuel no doubt cooked off. The staccato rhythm of gunfire punctuated the twin blasts and I heard shouting. Good. That meant that the rest of Strike-Eight was still alive and kicking arse.

“Spares, Gaillard, Lucky! Where are you?” I heard Ratajczyk bellow in my earpiece, referring to the three of us—two now—who had been caught separated from the rest of our squad.

“About a stone’s throw away from the fireworks show you just cooked off, boss,” I responded, hearing the distinctive hiss-whoosh of alien small arms join the much sharper crack-rattle of conventional ballistics. “Froggie and I are hunkered down by a pile-up down the main street. Lucky is… he’s dead, boss.”

I heard a deep, angry rattle of Polish on the other end, probably something flowery and nice regarding our interstellar visitors. He calmed down quickly and sighed a heavy, leaden sigh, “Understood. Able, Dredge and Killswitch are all here with me but we’ve taken some damage. Able is combat ineffective and the rest of us are walking wounded. The little bastards have us locked down. Do either of you have an angle on any of them?”

I was about to respond when I heard the scampering of light little feet. Moments later, a bulbous grey noggin poked its head over our cover; large black eyes widening as if in surprise. Frog and I reacted almost instantaneously, whirling around and riddling the thing with enough lead to drop a charging elephant. It wasn’t pretty or even remotely professional but the thing was dead, sure as sure.

Frog blinked, and shot me a wide, manic grin as he checked the shredded remains from behind the car.

“First kill,” he breathed.

“What are you on about, Frog? That was all me.”

“I have a name, Englishman,” he said, but his voice was distant. I knew what he was feeling all too well. Killing an alien isn’t anything like killing a man. Righteous as any hit you make might have been, there’s always a lingering guilt, a… shit a mark, I guess, on your soul. You ended a human life. A person who came from a mother, grew up, laughed, cried, raged like anyone else.

There’s nothing like that with them. There’s this weird disconnect, it’s… fuck, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to describe it. It’s… at the risk of sounding like a complete fucking sociopath I’d liken it to killing an insect. The numbness that follows a kill just isn’t there. I’m sure a psychologist would chalk it up to the fact that the little ratbags we’re popping are literally not human, and maybe they’d be right. Hell, I definitely wouldn’t know.

The first one you make though? Little Grey Men from Deep Space Whatever took a trip down to earth and shot up your neighbourhood, and then you just put him six feet under. That’s a big thing—a *huge* thing to wrap your head around.

Tragically, though, rarely is there time to take it all in. The war carries on and all that good stuff.

More sizzling fire spanked against the flank of the Vauxhall car we sheltered behind. It was a big car, definitely a people carrier. I wondered what had happened to the driver, the passengers, how many there had been, and then realised it hardly mattered. I tugged at Frog’s shoulder and turned him to face me. He blinked, still dazed, and then his focus was back, sharper than ever. I suppressed a nod of approval. Guy was learning fast. Not as quick as I had, of course, but still.

I shifted around the other vehicles, a Ford and a BMW, and found we had a straight shot to a little side alley by a barber shop that could well allow us to snake around and get the drop on the greys still doing their best to eradicate the rest of our squad. I chanced a look over the crumpled bonnet of the BMW. Nothing that I could see, but that didn’t mean that there wasn’t anything there.

A flash of movement on the roof of the barbers alerted me that we were most definitely not forgotten about out here and I dove aside as something black and reeking like the abyss itself *exploded* in the space I’d previously occupied. It was a thick, inky black cloud of foul-smelling gas, and I was under no illusions that sucking a lungful of that crap in would have dire consequences for my health. I glanced about for Frog. Didn’t see him. Realised with mounting horror that I could see him thrashing about *inside* the cloud.

There wasn’t any time to think, even as the first energy bolts began to wash overhead. I took in a gulp of air, closed my eyes and dived into the cloud. I felt an impact on my ribs and snatched out, wrapping my hands around what felt like an arm. Wrenching it towards me, we tumbled out of the cloud and out into the open air. Frog is—

…God.

His face is almost purple, veins bulging as his body tries vainly to fight whatever alien biochemical he’s just inhaled. His breath comes in short, wheezing croaks and an unhealthy-looking froth seeps from his mouth as he spasms and contorts. I can’t imagine the sheer fucking agony he must be experiencing. Quickly, I rack my brain and the only thing I can think of is…

Shit.

I reach into one of my rearmost pouches and retrieve one of the little handheld medkits the brainiacs at XCOM’s R&D divisions have cooked up. A little nozzle to spray or a little needle to inject and, ideally, you should be good to go. It wasn’t a cure-all, fix-all, and it certainly wouldn’t keep you in one piece if you kept getting your arse shot but it was, fuck, leagues ahead of anything any conventional military had. Right now, it was potentially the only thing that might keep Frog from croaking.

I pulled the little plastic cap off the tiny little needly and jabbed it into Frog’s neck before clamping down on the trigger mechanism, praying that all that lovely, soothing heal-juice would be exactly what he needed and wouldn’t just kill him. Or, if it did, that it would at least make it painless.

His breathing livened up, and some of the colour returned to him. I took that as a good sign and pushed him up against the Ford SUV, giving him a little more concealment from the arsehole raining death on us from the building. I leaned out and almost froze as I saw a distinctly *human* face leering down at me. For but an instant, I wondered if the crackpots had it right—that these things had planned this whole get-go from the start and had planted sleeper agents of some kind. Traitors in our midst.

Then I noticed the long, gangly limbs, and the ever-so-slightly elongated skull. It was… weird. Weirder beyond what was already considerably weird. They looked human at first glance but the profile was all wrong. Even hunched over with a distinctly larger-looking cousin to what the Greys were packing, I could tell that, stood straight, it would have a good head and a half on me. I am not exactly short, so that was a very unusual height to begin with.

Then there was the way it *moved*. Almost serpentine; hellishly fast. I was an excellent boxer—not tooting my own horn here, I regularly took part in Company matches, even cross-service competitions—and I shuddered to think of what that thing might be capable of if it came to a close and personal confrontation. I didn’t like my odds.

No, this thing *couldn’t* be human. It was like… it was like someone had tried to mimic the human form, but the job had been… hell, I honestly couldn’t say if it had been half-assed or too perfect. Whatever. No way the thing would ever have passed for your average Working Joe in a crowded street. It was dressed, ironically enough, like one of the suits from Men In Black, with a pair of round, reflective sunglasses that wholly concealed its eyes. A creeping voice in the back of my head told me that what I’d find behind those glasses wouldn’t resemble anything remotely human.

I saw more flickering movement and caught sight of what looked like *another* one of these weird-looking infiltrators. Exactly the same face, suit, even the same goddamn pair of glasses. I raised my weapon, sighted the wiry bastard and let loose a generous burst. My aim was off; all I did was graze it. The thing goddamn released a shrill screech and snapped back behind the roof. I pulled back behind cover and, as if on cue, another burning barrage hissed through the open space to smack against the road. If I had stayed out for even an instant longer…

I turned back to Frog, who was picking himself up, coughing, but looking a lot better as he slammed a fresh magazine into his assault rifle. He gave me a determined nod before grabbing a flashbang, priming it and hurling it out at the Tallboys who were starting to lay down a not inconsiderable amount of fire down on us. It went off in the air, deafening us and hopefully blinding the Suits. The pair of us took advantage immediately, and as soon as I was up I’d locked onto my first target: the Suit I’d grazed who was staggering about clutching at its face—guess those glasses didn’t protect their eyes whatsoever. Good to know.

I rattled off another burst and this time I caught the fuck square in the chest. It screeched as it died and… burst into a cloud of smog? Now I definitely know I don’t want to get close to any of those things. On my left Frog had less success. I guess he was still clearing the gunk out of his system because his own fire was wide by some margin. The other Tallboy recovered before I could get a bead on him and retreated. Off in the distance there was another explosion, this one a lot more muted, probably a grenade.

“We’re through!” Ratajczyk cheered, “Nice throw, Killswitch! Spares, where are you and Gaillard? We’re sweeping up here but I think this is the last of the Greys in our immediate vicinity.”

“Still stuck on the same street, boss,” I growled, “Encountered a new one: big, tall, thin guys in suits and sunglasses. Looks like a person from a distance but don’t be fooled, these fuckers are fast and they’ve got to be packing some kind of… shit, I don’t know, gas grenades?” I took another cautious peek over the car. “Frog took a big gulp of the stuff and it almost killed him dead. Think I’ve sorted him though, our medkits seem to do the trick just fine. They’ve got a good angle on us on the roof of a Barbershop though, boss. Some help would be really fucking nice.”

“On our way, Spares. Keep your heads down. You have an extra medkit on you?”

“Please!” I scoffed, “Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“Good. Expect us shortly. Try not to breathe in any of that gas.”

No, I’d planned on scooping that shit up and wolfing it all down because it looked like *such* a pleasant trip.

“Will do,” I responded demurely, wincing as the alien resumed its suppressive fire. A panicked cry from Frog commanded my attention and I found him scrambling away from the cars; from *safety*. I wanted to scream at him but then I smelt the familiar, acrid smell of melting metal some burning…

…Shit.

I leapt to my feet and ran, just in time before the petrol tank of the first car—probably the Vauxhall, tinny piece of shit—cooked off and exploded. Then the next car went off, and the last. The blastwave knocked both me and Frog off our feet and onto our faces. My world was tinged in fiery orange and all I could feel was the heat washing over me. I scrabbled forwards and got to my feet. Frog was laid out in front of me. Goddamnit. The kid must have hit his head and knocked himself out. I grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled his limp body forwards with me, running for a little Chinese Takeaway place just ahead. I emptied my weapon, one-handed, into the window, shattering it and allowing us passage as more alien fire rained down all around us along with loose bits of smouldering car.

I threw Frog inside before launching myself in after and dragged us to the counter—

—and then I saw the wound.

It was the size of a football, a gaping, sizzling wound that had burned its way through Frog’s shoulder and almost detached his arm from his shoulder. As it was, the limb hung awfully from a few bloody strands of flesh. Frog’s head lolled uselessly, his eyes vacant and glazed and I knew that he was dead. It must have happened in or after the explosion and I just hadn’t caught it.

Ah… fuck.

I left his body out in the open—nothing else I could do for him now—and vaulted behind the counter. More fire tore up the interior of the store. The cash register took a hit that all but reduced it to slag. I wondered absently if it had been emptied before the pods had dropped. I glanced over my new slice of cover and found the last of the Suits had dropped down and was advancing cautiously on the Takeaway. Holy shit, this thing wanted me dead and wanted it bad.

I thumbed the release catch on my rifle and let the drained magazine fall to the polished tile floor. It made a clatter that rang like a dinner bell, and when I saw the thing pause and cock its head, I felt my blood turn to ice as it *charged*. Terror gripped me as I fumbled for a new magazine and came up dry. I blinked, time seeming to slow to a crawl as I tried to grasp and make sense of my situation. Had I actually run dry on ammo? That couldn’t be right. I always kept a spare in—

…Ah.

Whether because of a glancing shot, or a piece of shrapnel, my equipment pouches were no longer at my waist. I had an empty assault rifle, a little pistol and two good fists with which to see off the creature coming to claim my skin as a trophy.

I dropped the rifle. It was empty and I wasn’t keen on the idea of using it as a club. Instead, I went for my sidearm, ripping it from its holster in the same moment as the Suit came barrelling through the shattered window, landing scant feet away as I drew up, adopting a sloppy stance as I trained the sights on the thing’s forehead. I noticed what looked like *scales* along its neckline, and on its wrists. What the fuck had this thing *been?* Surely it couldn’t have looked so human from the outset, right?

I squeezed the trigger. It actually swerved out of the way of my shot. Just… *swerved* like Agent Smith in The Matrix! I screamed and fired again. This time was closer, I grazed its neck, gouging a line along its neck and drawing sickly, puke-green blood tinged with black. It hissed and raised its own weapon.

And then it shot me in the chest.

I felt myself slam back against a cooking machine. What exactly, I didn’t know, nor did I care. All I could feel was burning agony all along my chest as I slumped to the ground. My entire world in that moment was white hot pain. Never, even in my worst days, had I felt anything that even came close. I wanted to scream. I *did* scream. Louder, and more shrilly than I have ever screamed in my whole life.

Tears welled up, brought on by the pain and the sure knowledge that I was about to die. I didn’t want to look down for fear of what I’d see. Would I find a gaping hole where my guts should be? Would I see my organs boiling and weeping through a great, bloody cavity? I wasn’t sure I could handle that.

So, instead, I raised my head to my executioner, hoping I looked at least somewhat dignified and probably didn’t, and tried vainly to come up with some kind of last word. Something that would make this *freak* remember my goddamned name. I choked, my words garbled and lost to the excruciation that was my existence.

And then it exploded.

Just like that. Crack. Shriek. Hiss. Poof.

Like the one I’d killed earlier, this one too released a thick cloud of poison—that was the only thing I could really call it by this point—as it died. I wondered at that. Did the grenades or launcher system they used self-destruct like the Grey’s own weapons upon the user’s death? One last ‘fuck you’ to the enemy? Recalling Frog’s reaction to being engulfed in the crap earlier, I could well imagine its effectiveness, especially in cramped, confined urban combat. I was lucky it had been standing far back enough that the cloud only just reached the counter I sat behind, bleeding my guts out even now.

“Spares?” I heard a voice, female, call out. “Gaillard? You guys in here?”

I felt a dark humour fall over me. I recognised that voice. Killswitch. A South African belle with a killer throwing arm and a smile that would scare the tits off Freddy Krueger. Just in time to watch a third member of her team die. I heard other footsteps too: no doubt the others bringing up the rear. I wondered how Ratajczyk would take this. He’d prided himself on being one of the squad leaders with the lightest casualty rate so far, but I guess that luck would only take him so far in a gig like this.

“Shit,” I heard someone else mutter. Sounded German. Probably Dredge, and that probably meant they’d seen Frog’s body.

“I heard a shot before I waxed the thing, boss,” Killswitch murmured. “Do you think…?”

Footsteps. Coming closer and closer. Over the counter peered a spectacularly ugly face: craggy, blunt, and with a flat nose that looked as though it had been broken and set incorrectly one too many times. Ratacjzyk, or ‘Cyclops’, or just ‘boss’ to us of Strike-Eight. His beady brown eyes lit up as he laid eyes on me.

“Got Spares here!” he called. “Looks like he’s taken a hit but he’ll be all right!”

What?

Carefully, not sure I was hearing correctly, I looked down, fighting the mounting sense of dread. I found… everything intact. Well, more or less. My chest armour was probably nothing but slag and I’d no doubt have some pretty bad burns—which, incidentally, *still* stung like a bitch—but… it looked like I’d walk away from this.

I laughed. It came out as a spluttering hack. Holy shit.

About an hour and a half later in the Skyranger, laid out on a stretcher alongside Able—a big sodding Texan—on the way back home, wherever that really was, I heard the boss discuss the op with those of my team still able to hold a conversation. Usual self-putdowns we’d come to expect from him. Hard as he was on himself, though, I’m definitely sure none of us could have done any better. And hey, the guy actually gave a shit. Couldn’t fault him for that. Still, I could tell the idea of having to sit down with the Big Boss Lady and talk about the way things had played out was… discomforting. This too, was something I couldn’t fault him for.

“You heard the big news?” I heard the co-pilot ask.

“Probably not, considering where we’ve just been,” Killswitch replied with a wry grin.

“Strike-One’s supposedly picked up a few new bodies.”

“What, we do recruiting runs now?” Dredge wondered darkly.

“No, they actually took these guys on *in the field*.”

There was a pause. Then I heard snorts of dismissal.

“No way,” Killswitch chuckled. “It’s never worked like that. How would it work like that? That can’t be right.”

“I’m serious,” the co-pilot insisted. “Heard Big Sky talking about it on the way over.”

Another pause.

“So what, we’ve got some kind of… super rookies?” Able, this time, his words slurred and drawl even more pronounced, drugged up as he was. The big man had almost lost his arm to incoming fire and stubbornly maintained his grip on consciousness.

“Well I-I guess so,” the co-pilot answered, sounding somewhat unsure himself.

Ratajczyk had remained silent throughout all of this, but as the pilot finished, he made his thoughts on the matter known.

“It doesn’t matter. If they’re that good, great. If they’re not, they’ll either bring themselves up to speed or, well…”

I saw him look off into the distance, eyes focusing on nothing in particular as he lost himself to his own thoughts. And then he said something that was very unlike him and yet was also, I felt, morbidly and acutely true given the nature of this strange new war.

“Always more meat for the grinder.”