Smokey paced around his ravaged command tent, the contents of his life strewn across the floor—maps torn, personal belongings scattered, and most of his valuable equipment either stolen or destroyed. Oddly enough, a crooked smile tugged at his lips. He couldn’t help but admire the efficiency of the wreckage. Whoever had done this had been thorough.
Outside the tent, Rusty stood silently, nearly invisible against the backdrop of the forest. His brown-and-green armor and eerie stillness made him blend into the wilderness like a ghost. Even the birds had not yet learned to fear him.
Smokey pushed aside a torn flap of canvas and peered through a hole in the tent wall. His gaze found Rusty immediately.
Rusty had already noticed the movement. Without a word, he stepped forward, his large sniper rifle catching momentarily on vines and brush as he approached. His eyes flicked over the damage.
“What’s the damage looking like?” he asked. “How much did they take?”
Smokey grimaced and glanced back into the tent before stepping fully into the crisp forest air. “Only the rations are left,” he said. “But I don’t trust they weren’t tampered with.”
He scanned the tree line as he spoke, his helmet shifting slowly side to side. The thought gnawed at him- they were probably still out there. Watching.
Rusty ducked into the tent and surveyed the wreckage for himself. A low growl escaped him as he stepped out again. Without thinking, he drove a fist into a nearby boulder. A spiderweb of cracks spread from the impact. The ground trembled faintly beneath their feet.
Smokey turned, ready to chastise him. But he hesitated. Rusty needed this. The kid was still learning how to keep it together. Without a word, Smokey walked off into the trees, choosing to scout the perimeter and give Rusty space to calm down.
Ten minutes passed. When Smokey returned, the rifle slung over his back, he found Rusty sitting on the fractured remains of the same boulder, lost in thought. As soon as he saw his commander, Rusty stood and snapped into a salute, palm flat against his shoulder in the traditional Imperium gesture.
“At ease, Rusty. No need for the theatrics,” Smokey said, voice edged with disappointment.
Rusty’s arm dropped immediately. His stomach knotted.
“That’s points off for losing your temper,” Smokey continued. Then his voice dropped, distracted, eyes narrowing as he gazed down a dirt path winding into the trees. “You need to get that under control-”
Rusty started to respond, but caught himself. A sharp retort danced on his tongue, but he swallowed it. “Sorry, sir. Won’t happen aga-”
Smokey raised a fist, cutting him off. His hand then extended, pointing into the trees. Rusty followed his gaze. At first, he saw nothing. Then the sunlight caught a glint of metal, a patch of armor.
Smokey’s eyes sharpened. There were more. Shapes, half-hidden by brush. They weren’t alone.
Both men moved in unison, dropping low and rolling behind a nearby ridge. Leaves whispered beneath them. Neither dared breathe too loudly.
“What the hell was that? Is that them?” Rusty hissed, gripping his rifle. His hands trembled, betraying his nerves.
Smokey didn’t answer right away. He unshouldered his sniper and crawled back to the ridge’s edge. The barrel rested on the dirt as he looked through the scope, adjusting his aim by inches.
“Yup,” he murmured. “That’s Joal. Your bunkmate, right? He’s the one with the green triangles on his shoulder plates?”
Rusty swallowed, nodding. “Yeah… that’s him. You see anyone else?”
Smokey didn’t answer immediately. His scope slowly swept across the forest. The silence stretched until he finally spoke again.
“They’re all there. Looks like they were planning to ambush us once we left camp. I don’t think they’ve seen us yet.”
Rusty crawled up beside him, peeking just over the ridge. It took him a moment, but eventually, he spotted them too. Shadows behind shadows. Movement without sound.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked. “You want me to climb a tree and set up an overwatch? You could draw them out.”
Smokey kept his eyes on the targets for a few seconds longer, then lowered his scope. He turned to Rusty with a nod.
“Four minutes,” he said. “Get in position. Then I’ll start shooting.”
Rusty nodded eagerly, the trembling in his hands finally stilling as his adrenaline took over. He pushed himself up from the soft dirt and scurried toward a nearby tree—a tall, wide-trunked tree, perfect for their ambush. Quickly he climbed up the side of the tree, his sniper rifle slung across his back, moving with surprising speed and agility for someone in such heavy armor.
He reached a high perch in the thick branches of the tree. With practiced ease, he unslung his rifle and nestled it into a crook in the tree, the barrel poking out enough to get a clear view where the enemies would approach from. Leaves rustled softly around him, but even the wind seemed to help him disappear. From a distance, it would take a keen eye to even notice he was there.
Below, Smokey watched the climb, still struck by how naturally Rusty blended into the environment. No cloaking tech, no camouflage netting—just Rusty and his eerie stillness. For all his flaws, the kid had talent.
Once Rusty was settled, Smokey returned to his own position and leaned into the scope again. The view clicked into focus. There, in the center of the forest edge, was Joal. His green-triangle-marked armor shimmered slightly as the sunlight pierced the canopy above.
Smokey’s finger rested on the trigger, his breathing slowing. The crosshairs lined up with Joal’s head.
Smokey pulled the trigger.
The sniper thundered, a deafening boom cracking through the forest. The ground trembled beneath the blast, and a brilliant muzzle flash lit up the nearby trees like lightning. In the distance, Joal’s head snapped violently to the side as the .50 caliber round tore through his helmet and into his skull. His body crumpled without resistance, tumbling into the dirt and underbrush in a heap of shattered armor and gore.
For a split second, there was only silence.
Then chaos erupted.
Joal’s seven teammates sprang into action the moment their minds caught up with what had happened. Shouts rang out as they dove for cover and opened fire, a barrage of heavy automatic gunfire tearing into Smokey’s position. Dirt and splinters exploded around him before he could even finish cycling the bolt on his rifle.
Smokey didn’t flinch as the bullets tore through the air around him. Bark splintered, soil erupted, and leaves shredded overhead, but he remained perfectly still, mind calm and focused. He knew the rhythm of chaos—and this wasn’t aimed fire. It was panic. Suppressive fire. They hadn’t seen him.
With mechanical efficiency, he finished cycling the bolt on his sniper, the sound nearly lost beneath the surrounding gunfire. His eye returned to the scope, searching, adjusting, locking in.
One of the enemies had taken a position behind a tree, believing it to be enough.
Smokey exhaled slowly and pulled the trigger.
Another sharp crack shattered through the forest. The shot tore through the trunk with brutal force, splitting wood like paper. The round punched clean through the enemy’s armor and into his neck. The trainee’s head snapped back as blood sprayed from the wound. His body was hurled from cover, crashing to the forest floor in a limp, lifeless heap.
Two down.
The rest would be scrambling now.
From high in the branches, Rusty watched the chaos unfold below, his breath steady but his mind quietly flickering with conflict. The first shot had been thunderous—Joal dropped instantly, a spray of blood and a collapsed body in the underbrush. The second followed fast—Ryn, soft-spoken and always sketching in the corners of datapads, now lifeless against the forest floor.
Rusty didn’t wince. Not anymore.
He had seen this before. Practice battles like these were brutal but temporary. The training planet’s core tech allowed for controlled reincarnation—death here meant being respawned in the med-chambers hours later. Still, watching someone die, even knowing they’d come back, left a mark. The mind learned to cope. Rusty had learned, faster than most.
They weren’t gone. Not really. Joal would be laughing about it later, Ryn would be grumpy but fine. They’d all share stories and maybe even argue about who got shot first.
Still, it didn’t feel good.
The others—his friends—were reacting fast now. No more panic. They were spreading out, taking up smarter positions, advancing with sharp, calculated movement. This wasn’t a class of rookies anymore. This was a functioning squad. Trained, dangerous, and now… angry.
Rusty watched Smokey, expecting another thunderclap from the ridge. But nothing came.
Instead, Smokey was pulling back, disappearing into the undergrowth with that same controlled pace he always moved with. Not hurried. Not afraid.
It wasn’t retreat—it was invitation.
Rusty realized it immediately. Smokey was giving him the kill window.
He had set the trap, struck first, drawn their attention. And now he was stepping aside, letting his apprentice finish the job. A test? Maybe. But also a sign of trust. Smokey wanted Rusty to take the next shots. To be more than just the hidden sniper. To engage.
Rusty’s grip tightened around his rifle.
He had been in training scenarios like this more times than he could count. He’d seen all of them “die” before. Even died himself once or twice. The fear was mostly gone. He could separate it now—what was real, and what was just another lesson in blood and noise.
But still, something in his chest coiled tight as he saw their faces through the scope. They were close now—so close he could make out patches, scratches on their armor, expressions behind their visors.
He exhaled slowly. They’d all come back. That didn’t make what came next easier. But it did make it necessary.
Rusty relaxed his trigger finger, his breathing slowing as the squad advanced beneath him. Leaves shifted. Boots crunched softly against the forest floor. Their formation was tight, controlled. These weren’t rookies anymore. They were trained, alert, and on edge.
His moment would come—but not yet.
He stayed motionless, perfectly blended into the branches above. One wrong shot, one missed opportunity, and the others would scatter or worse—spot him. If he wanted to take them all down clean, he needed patience. The first trigger pull would decide the flow of everything that followed.
Below, one of them passed directly under his perch, unaware.
Another passed beneath him. Then another. And another.
Rusty stayed perfectly still, watching, waiting. The last soldier moved past his position—unaware, exposed.
He struck.
In a flash, he shifted his aim to the front of the group and pulled the trigger. The shot slammed into the lead soldier’s shoulder, spinning him sideways into a tree with a spray of blood. He collapsed, groaning and twitching.
Rusty didn’t stop.
Three more shots came in swift rhythm—one, two, three. Each round tore through the following soldiers with mechanical precision. Their expensive armor cracked open like paper under the force, metal and composite shattering as the bullets ripped through bone and organs. They dropped where they stood, some convulsing, others silent.
Only two enemies remained.
Rusty dropped from the tree like a shadow, landing hard on the confused soldier below. The impact knocked the wind from his target’s lungs, and before the man could react, Rusty unsheathed his machete in a single smooth motion.
The blade plunged downward, piercing through armor and deep into the chest beneath. A sharp scream burst through the soldier’s helmet—surprise and fear, raw and real. It echoed through Rusty’s visor, bouncing around his skull as blood spilled out around the blade.
One left.
Veskx.
The last of them. The largest of them.
Towering over the others even outside his armor, Veskx’s suit had been custom-fitted to handle his sheer size and strength. Reinforced plating, heavier shielding—he looked like a walking fortress. He stood a few meters away, just now realizing he was alone.
His posture shifted. No longer part of a team. Now the hunted.
Rusty rose slowly from the kill, breathing steady, his rifle discarded behind him. It would come down to steel now.
And Veskx knew it.
Rusty stepped forward, adjusting his stance with surgical calm, his bloodied machete held low but ready. Chunks of armor and wet crimson clung to the blade, the forest floor beneath him already marked with the aftermath of his precision.
Across from him, Veskx unsheathed the massive claymore from his back. The metal groaned against its scabbard as the weapon came free, glinting with wear and memory. Carved into the blade, from base to tip, were deep tally marks—one for every kill he’d made in melee combat. There were a lot.
Veskx didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The quiet between them said enough.
Rusty narrowed his eyes. His own weapon looked almost like a toy in comparison.
Then- movement.
But not from Rusty.
Not from Veskx.
From behind him.
Smokey stepped out of the shadows like a phantom, silent and deliberate. While Rusty had carved through the squad, Smokey had circled wide through the treeline, tracking the fight’s progression with cold precision. Now, just steps from Veskx’s unguarded back, he raised a heavy sidearm—black, blocky, brutal.
No words. No warning.
The shot rang out like a hammer blow.
Veskx’s helmet snapped forward as the slug tore through the back of his head, shattering the reinforced plating. The giant dropped without a sound, the greatsword falling from his grip and burying itself in the dirt beside him.
Smoke drifted from the muzzle of Smokey’s pistol.
Rusty didn’t move. He stared down at the body of his final opponent, heart still thudding, breath caught between battle and disbelief.
Smokey holstered the sidearm and glanced at his apprentice. “You were taking too long,” he said flatly, stepping past the corpse.
But Rusty could see the faint curl of a grin under Smokey’s visor.
“What the hell was that? I had him!” Rusty snapped, his voice still buzzing with adrenaline and disbelief.
Smokey didn’t reply right away. He moved with practiced calm, collecting the scattered weapons from the fallen soldiers and placing them neatly beside each body. A quiet efficiency—making the clearer’s job easier later.
Rusty watched, still fuming. Veskx’s massive body lay in the dirt like a felled tree, smoke curling from the hole in his helmet.
Smokey finally turned, the faint grin still tugging beneath his visor as he handed Rusty his rifle. “You were going to lose that fight,” he said bluntly. “You should’ve just shot him with your sidearm.”
Rusty took the rifle but said nothing.
“In a real battle,” Smokey continued, stepping past the bodies without ceremony, “your opponent won’t be so honorable. You won’t get a duel. You’ll get a knife in your back—or a round to the head.”
Rusty exhaled slowly, frustration simmering just beneath the surface. But he knew Smokey was right. This wasn’t about pride. It never had been.
Still, his grip tightened around the rifle.
Next time, he wouldn’t hesitate.
The forest had grown quiet again. The air, once thick with gunfire and blood, now held only the distant calls of birds and the low hum of leaves swaying in the breeze.
A rumble rolled in overhead.
Through the canopy, the sleek black underbelly of a retrieval ship cut across the sky, its descent slowing as it approached the clearing. The Imperium crest glinted on its hull—a sharp contrast to the mess below.
Smokey stood at the edge of the treeline, helmet tucked under one arm as the wind from the ship’s landing thrusters whipped through his short hair. Rusty stood beside him, still silent, his eyes sweeping across the scattered bodies of his bunkmates as they lay motionless around the clearing.
They’d be fine. Reincarnation pods would trigger once the ship retrieved them. In a few hours, they’d all be back in their barracks—alive, annoyed, and maybe a little sore. It was just another simulation.
Smokey gave Rusty a sideways glance. “You coming, or do you want to keep pouting in the dirt?”
Rusty didn’t answer. He just walked forward, stepping up into the lowering ramp of the shuttle, the heat from the engines washing over him. Smokey followed close behind.
As the ship rose and the forest shrank beneath them, neither of them looked back.
They wouldn’t be training much longer.
TWO YEARS LATER
The battlefield was in flames.
The once-bustling city block now lay in ruins—concrete skeletons of buildings, charred vehicles overturned in the streets, and fires spreading unchecked through the hollow remains of what had once been a supply hub. Shell casings littered the ground like gravel. Somewhere in the haze, someone screamed. Then gunfire cut it short.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
The Red Army had been underestimated. Desperate and poorly equipped, yes—but determined. Fanatical. Their numbers seemed endless, and now, amidst the chaos, they’d rolled out something no one expected: three rusted but operational light tanks, likely salvaged from some forgotten colonial war. Against power-armored Imperium soldiers, the Red Army’s bullets normally bounced harmlessly. But tanks changed everything.
And now, people were dying.
Rusty knelt behind a crumbling barricade, visor streaked with soot and blood, rifle clutched in white-knuckled hands. Around him, his squad was holding tight under heavy fire, waiting for orders.
Then came the voice—desperate, panicked, familiar.
“We’re pinned! Repeat—we’re pinned! This is Veskx! They’ve got a tank! We’re holed up under the transit depot in Sector 4—Joal’s down! We need evac, now!”
Rusty’s gut twisted.
His bunkmates.
The ones he’d trained with, bled with—who’d died beside him dozens of times in practice—but this wasn’t a simulation anymore. Reincarnation only worked on the training world. Here, a bullet to the chest meant you didn’t get back up.
He opened the command channel. “This is Lieutenant Rusty. Veskx’s team is pinned in Sector 4. Requesting permission to reroute my unit for extraction.”
Before the reply came, his private channel chimed. Only one person would use that line.
Smokey.
The older soldier’s voice came through low and firm, cutting through the noise like a blade.
“Negative. You are not engaging the tank, Rusty. That’s an order.”
Rusty froze.
“We need you holding the west line,” Smokey continued. “If your position falls, command’s flank is exposed and the whole sector collapses. You leave now, and the losses will double. Maybe triple.”
A pause.
“I’ll try to reroute armor support to Sector 4—but you are not to break formation. You hear me?”
Rusty clenched his jaw so hard it hurt. Behind him, his soldiers looked to him for the next command—trusting him.
But on the other end of the line, Smokey wasn’t asking.
He was commanding.
Rusty slowly lowered his hand from the comms. The underpass echoed with gunfire in the distance.
He nodded grimly to himself.
“…Yes, sir.”
The line went dead.
Rusty muted the private channel, but Smokey’s voice still rang in his skull.
“You leave now, and the losses will double. Maybe triple.”
He knew the risk. Knew the odds.
But they were his squad. His brothers.
He turned to his soldiers, twenty battle-hardened Imperium troops who had followed him through cities, deserts, and jungles without question. He didn’t tell them what Smokey said. He only said:
“Sector 4. We move. Now.”
And they moved.
They sprinted through alleys and burning courtyards, weaving through crossfire and ruin. Rusty led them like a spearhead, pushing every muscle, every instinct. The closer they got, the heavier the resistance became. Red Army troops spilled from cracks in the city like ants from a disturbed hive, using rooftops and wreckage to rain down gunfire.
Rusty lost two in the first block.
Six more before they reached the old market square.
He kept going.
Every corner was an ambush. Every side street another hail of bullets. He barked orders, pulled wounded back into cover, pushed them forward again.
By the time he saw the cracked transit depot in the distance, his squad had been reduced to five.
Then three.
Then one.
Then none.
He didn’t even have time to mourn.
He sprinted the last stretch alone, blood-slick boots thudding across cracked pavement. He slid into the underpass, heart pounding, lungs on fire.
And stopped.
Joal lay crumpled against a shattered support beam, half of his torso burned open by a tank shell. Josh was nearby, slumped over his machine gun, face frozen in an expression of disbelief. Veskx’s body was at the entrance, sword in hand, surrounded by spent shell casings and broken bodies.
Rusty dropped to his knees.
Silence closed in like a tomb.
He knelt among them, bloodied hands trembling as he pressed them against Veskx’s chest—no heartbeat. He tried Joal next. Nothing. Josh. Gone.
His voice cracked, only a whisper through the static of his comms.
“I was too late…”
He sat there in the dark, surrounded by the dead—friends he couldn’t save. Brothers lost not to incompetence, but to a decision that had cost two squads instead of one.
Smokey’s voice came again, over an open channel this time. Cold. Quiet.
“Rusty. Report.”
Rusty didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
–
The battle was a nightmare of shifting lines, broken orders, and screaming signals.
From his vantage point on the western line, Smokey kept his squad tight, pouring suppressive fire into the enemy’s advance and coordinating with armor teams to cut off flanking routes. His HUD was a wall of data—friendly positions, fallen units, open distress calls.
He didn’t need to open a channel to know what Rusty had done.
The blinking blue dot marked Lieutenant Rusty and his unit veering off-course, heading toward Sector 4.
Smokey’s jaw clenched.
“Damn it, Rusty…” he muttered, switching channels.
“Rusty, report. What the hell is your position?”
There was a pause—just long enough for Smokey to feel it in his gut.
Then came Rusty’s voice. Broken. Tired. Hollow.
“They’re gone, sir. All of them.”
Silence.
Smokey felt the words drive into his chest like a knife. He looked again at the display—twenty blue markers under Rusty’s command. All dark now. Extinguished.
His hands trembled on the railing as he shouted into the comms.
“You disobeyed a direct order!” Smokey’s voice cracked with rage. “I told you not to go near that tank! I told you to hold the flank! Because I knew- I knew- that if you left, we’d lose more than just Sector 4!”
Rusty didn’t speak.
Smokey could hear the soft buzz of ambient static. It was worse than if the kid had argued.
“You got everyone killed, Rusty,” he snarled. “Your whole unit. And for what? To show up too late? You think you’re the only one who cared about them?”
Still, no reply.
Smokey closed the channel with a slam of his fist. The moment the line cut, the fury drained out of him like water from a cracked canteen. He slumped against the edge of a broken wall, letting the gun hang heavy across his chest.
He stared blankly at the HUD.
Twenty names. All extinguished.
And the eight others—Rusty’s bunkmates—gone too.
Every one of them had come through his command tent at one point. He’d trained them himself. Watched them flail through their first simulations. Sat with them after training battles. Called them by name. Knew their quirks, their strengths, their stupid jokes.
They were kids when they joined. His kids.
Now they were just… markers. Data. Empty suits cooling in rubble.
Smokey slowly removed his helmet, staring out at the smoke-choked sky.
He told himself he’d had no choice. That Rusty had made the call. That he had to be the one to hold the line, to keep command standing.
But none of it made it feel any less like failure.
“Damn it, kid…” he whispered, voice cracking as he lowered his head. “You weren’t supposed to carry this yet.”
He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe.
Orders would come. Cleanup. Reinforcements. Another fight, another flame.
It would all be ok.
1 Month Later
The strategic command hall of Forward Base Orvak was deathly quiet, lit only by the glow of the central holotable. The image hovering above it showed a grainy transmission: a group of SWARMI operatives trudging through the charred remains of an Imperium outpost.
Among them — unmistakable despite the scuffed armor and different colors — was Rusty.
The AI confirmed the obvious.
“Identity verified: Lieutenant Rusty”
Smokey stood near the edge of the table, arms crossed, helmet under one arm. His expression was locked in stone, but his fingers twitched — barely restrained rage and something deeper, quieter… grief.
Across from him, at the head of the room, stood Michael, Supreme Commander of the Imperium — the highest authority in the galaxy.
He studied the projection with his usual surgical detachment, expression unreadable.
“So,” Michael said at last, “it’s confirmed.”
Smokey nodded once.
“He’s alive,” he muttered. “And working with SWARMI.”
An officer nearby added hesitantly, “Fourth confirmed sighting. Last known location — outskirts of the T’lan ruins. No known engagements. SWARMI hasn’t made a move yet.”
Michael’s eyes narrowed. “He deserted with twenty men. All of them died, didn’t they?”
Smokey’s jaw clenched. “Every one. He was trying to save his bunkmates. Got there too late. Blamed us. Blamed me.”
Silence.
“I trained him,” Smokey added, his voice low. “I knew him better than anyone. And I still didn’t see it coming.”
Michael stepped forward, folding his arms behind his back. “This war doesn’t leave much room for grief. Or guilt.”
Smokey said nothing.
Then Michael asked, voice level, “Do you want the mission? To bring him in?”
The room froze for a moment.
Smokey hesitated — but only for a breath.
“…No,” he said. “Not now.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”
“The Red Army is pushing harder every day. Kharon corridor’s close to falling. We’re losing men fast, and armor faster. You need commanders holding the front, not chasing ghosts in the dark.”
Michael studied him for a long time. Then, with a faint nod:
“Good. Because I’m not sending you after him.”
He turned back to the projection, now zooming in on troop movements near the Kharon front.
“SWARMI may be quiet, but they’re watching. When they move, we’ll be ready — and so will Intelligence. For now, your priority is the Red Army. We break them, or they break us.”
“Yes, Supreme Commander,” Smokey said, his voice steady. But his gaze lingered on the image of Rusty, flickering above the table.
“You’ll see him again someday,” Michael said, almost gently.
Smokey didn’t respond. He turned and left the room, armor plates clicking with each heavy step.
Behind him, the image of Rusty marched on, silent and flickering — a friend lost to another war, waiting just beyond the next battlefield.
