Chronicle:Rules of the battlefield

"I'll hold them here! Get everyone to the exfil point! Leave nobody behind!"

In the absence of light above, the cracks of gunfire peppering across this sleepy village was the only illumination offered. Under the cover of a darkness dissipating by every second and minute, a band of Zigalese men sprinted with a singular objective in mind. All, except Trinh.

He wasn't alone when they started. Here he was though, making a stand for a group of civvies he barely knew when all his comrades had already fallen in the attempt. Why was that?

He looked over his shoulder, giving the alley behind him a bare glance. He'd only tail behind when he confirmed everyone had passed. His introspection was interrupted as the barrel of a rifle poked out a wayside door. Both men slammed into one another.

In a split second, they were on the ground. In the next, Trinh attempted to reach for his knife. His opponent was faster. He blocked one swipe with his arm. He caught one in his side. He stopped the next as he managed a grip on the arm wielding the blade. They wrangled with one another over control in the next moment, until Trinh slammed the man's arm against the doorway.

He heard something pop. He was more concerned with the weapon dropped. As the man fell, he surged atop with knife in hand, and plunged down. He pressed his body weight against the pommel of the sinking blade, wrenching it across the new wound for good measure. He found himself staring into the gaping eyes of the fallen opponent, as the life quickly drained out of them, until all that's left was a pair of glassy orbs.

The roar of an engine in the distance woke him from his adrenaline-fueled daze. His step stumbled over the corpse below for a moment, before he worked up a sprint, more a mad dash towards the source of the noise. The pain searing across his entire body only encouraged him to go faster.

These damned Hyperaustreans. This damned country. This damned job. Why in God's name was he risking all he had here, of all places, of all the people he could risk everything for? Money? Camaraderie? Shit, he didn't even know the names of half the people he was covering. With everyone behind him, it felt pointless in hindsight.

"Stand fast. You're all they have left. Just a few more minutes. We won't leave anyone behind."

He grit his teeth at that recollection. It seemed heroic when he made that split second decision to stay, to remain at the rear while everyone with more sense got on ahead. Regret was useless now.

Trinh crossed the alley. He turned a corner, then another, following the panicked footsteps below in kind and the engine at the end of the figurative tunnel in the distance.

One more turn, and he saw the pair of lights pouring from his savior. The gunfire spouting from those aboard was deafening, though the adrenaline already drowned everything to a blur. A hand reached out. He grasped it with all his might left. A dull thud sounded from his side.

A blinding light. Then, nothing. .

..

...

Pain.

Worse than anything he's ever felt.

His forehead hurt. Warm fluid was still flowing.

Trinh raised his arm to wipe it off. Nothing came. He couldn't feel his arms, like they weren't there. Only the pinpricks across his fingertips convinced him otherwise. He struggled to lift his eyelids.

He was lying on the ground, limbs immobile. His weapons, his equipment - they were nowhere to be seen.

His gaze turned up. A group of armed soldiers stood around him in a circle, scrutinizing him. Their masks prevented identification. Their uniforms were the same as the one he'd gutted some... time ago.

Just above where his hands should be, he felt thin strips cutting into his skin.

...

It was all too late.

"Boss. He's awake." A voice called from behind Trinh, before yanking him aloft by the roots of his hair. A kick to the back of his knees brought him onto his knees, and he barely shifted as one of the masked soldiers secured his legs in that position with a few more wraparounds of cable ties. "His people killed six of ours. We can't let him off easy."

A man rose from his seat. He pulled off his mask and lit a cigarette, squatting down before Trinh to meet him at eye level.

"I saw your ID. You're one of MOONBORN's." His voice was coarse, difficult to tell amidst the debilitating pain wracking across his body. His face was ruined, the patchwork of pinkish scars across his face only sparing a scant few gray hairs.

"..." He silently contemplated the person before him.

"Silent one, aren't you? Heh. Not a newbie then." What was supposed to be his lips turned up in a mockery of a smile. "Don't look at me like that. One of yours did this, y'know? Ambushed us while we were out in the country, tore apart my team and my face. Had to hide under a pile of my pal's corpses while they mowed down everyone above - what you're seeing now's what's left. I'm getting déjà vu when I look at you."

"..." He said nothing, allowing the man to lay out his past.

"That's enough about me." He took a draft of the smoke. His fingers picked the cigarette from his mouth, turning it around in an offer. "Since you're in this line of work, what people like us do to people like you are now, you should already know."

He reached towards his belt, pulling out a cable tie and wiggling it around before him before chucking it over to a mercenary to the side.

"Boss, what's this?" A head turned in question. "He's already secured enough. Won't be slipping out. Tell me, where should I start? The eyes or the hands?"

He grinned. "No, no. Nothing like that. Just wrap it around his neck and cinch it. That's how we do it up there. Saves time, saves bullets."

"What!" A clamor rose amongst the spectators. "This bastard killed so many of our brothers! Are you just going to let him off like this?"

"Yes." He picked the cigarette back out of his mouth, and took another draft himself. "Problem?"

Everyone went silent. One moment later, the mercenary stepped forward, snapping the tie into a ring around Trinh's neck. One hand gripped him against his head, the other held the tie steady. He offered no resistance.

"Don't blame me, pal. You know this. Out here, it's all business. Either you or me." A palm rose, and waved down in signal.

With a soft crack, the ring tightened.

In the middle of a rural wasteland, inside a downtrodden warehouse decades since its last use, a group of mercenaries watched, in silence, one of their own struggling, then seizing on the ground.

"I hid under all those people to survive till now. You stayed behind so all those people could survive. A life for a life, these are the rules of the battlefield."

Nobody answered him as he talked to himself. As the room finally quieted down, the light of a cigarette went out, smothered beneath the boot of one mercenary, of many.