James was up and moving in a matter of minutes. They had set aside a larger portion of water for him so that he might recover quickly, but he still seemed sluggish. They left the isolated building, Amber forcing herself not to look at the aftermath of the encounter, and James was still sluggish. At the very least, he could walk on his own two feet and keep up with everyone else. As far as Amber was concerned, that was all that mattered. The group traveled through the field, taking care to hug hills or other natural forms of cover so that they would have a better chance at fighting back if they got caught by surprise. Still, it wasn’t an easy trek. Amber didn’t think she would miss the cover of the forest so much, but there was no real choice when this appeared to be the only way forward.

“Sorry I wasn’t any more help earlier.” Dane said to Amber, as the two were ducking low, and walking along a hill towards a group of small buildings clustered together.

“Gotta say Dane, you’ve been kind of lazy this entire time. You really need to pick it up.” She teased.

“I can’t help it if your reflexes are too quick for me. Only time I ever had to practice shooting was when I tagged along with you. If anything, you’ve got an unfair advantage.”

“Right. Keep telling yourself that.”

It wouldn’t be too much longer of a walk before the group came to their destination: what looked like a small group of structures appeared to be some sort of town. No, smaller than a town, outpost might be the right word. It was hard to make out the details when it was just a small point in the distance, but Amber could make out more details as they approached. The smell of spent powder and copper filled the air, and Amber felt herself stepping on something. Lifting her boot, she saw a few brass casings in the dirt.

“Think this was the fight we heard earlier?” She asked.

“Hard to tell.” Dane replied. “Definitely wasn’t too long ago, keep your eyes peeled.”

They all had their weapons drawn, creeping into the outpost. It wasn’t as large as Amber had expected, only five or six buildings in close proximity to one another. Thoughts of what purpose the area might have served were cast out of her mind when she saw the first two bodies laying in the street. It looks like they had been hit in an ambush, their weapons laying nearby. Doors were open, windows shot out, with dozens of brass casings all along the ground and the walls peppered with marks of impact.

Amber heard a door creek open behind her, turning her head to see Dane look inside a building and cringe. She assumed that the inside wasn’t a pretty scene.

The team quickly counted up the bodies as they inspected the buildings, all of them about as furnished as the one they had just rested inside of. A few opened crates told a pretty clear story as to what happened earlier.

“Hey, get a load of this.” Clay shouted out, as everyone gathered in one of the emptied buildings. He held out something for the group to see. It looked like a metal spike, roughly a foot long, with a metal head that housed some kind of hardware.

“What is it?” Amber asked.

“No idea, but it looks out of place, doesn’t it? It isn’t some kind of explosive, at least.”

James held up his hand, gently backing away as a look of realization shone on his face. “Wait right here!” He said, rushing outside and returning briefly. In his hand was an item identical to what Clay was holding. The only difference was that the metal spike wasn’t covered in dirt, clearly unused.

“Careful with that thing!” Clay shouted, as he jumped back a foot.

“You dug one out of the ground, I figured that made it safe enough…”

Clay took a step forward, not at all trusting of the device in James’ grip. “There’s a difference between one that was clearly already used, and one that could go off if it was handled wrong.”

James let out a huff and set the device on the ground. “How many people got dropped out here?” He asked, looking out the window.

“I counted seven.” Amber said, doing her best to dissociate the bodies around them from the people they used to be.

“Might as well see if they have anything on them.” Clay offered, everyone besides Amber nodding in agreement.

“You guys go ahead, I’m gonna go… see if they missed anything in one of the houses.” Clay and James shrugged, not even caring enough to turn around and offer any acknowledgment. Dane nodded, understanding her perfectly.

She began to search what little there was to search. The crates had all been emptied, save for a small pack tucked away in the corner of one. She managed to scrape together some rations and bottles of water that weren’t taken up by the earlier combatants, but everything else was likely on their person when the shooting started.

“I don’t get you.”

Amber turned to see James staring at her, leaning in the doorway. He had a new toy in hand, a shotgun that he had picked up from the ground. He was looking at it as if he were proud, like it was some trophy he had worked so hard for, and not something he scavenged from the remnants of a fight he had no part in.

“What are you talking about?” Amber asked, her stomach lurching at James’ posture.

“You just seem too soft for a place like this. You said you were a lancer? How did you even get by without having to kill someone?”

Amber furrowed her brow, weapon in hand and more than ready to use it if things with James got ugly. “Never said I didn’t. It just isn’t something I looked out for. Only had to do it once, after someone came at me and left me no other choice.”

James laughed, still leaning in the doorway.

“Just surprises me, is all. I met plenty of people in my day who liked to act tough, but never had what it took to begin with. They loved talking about how they were gonna kill someone, and all the good shit they were going to get off some poor merchant who got lost and came onto our turf. But when push came to shove… they were too weak to get the job done.”

“Any reason you’re telling me this?”

“Because whenever I had people like you come along and think they could take the kind of life I lived, we came home with less people than we left with. And not just because we had to cut off the weak link.”

“Weak?!” Amber snapped. She felt her face burning as she stepped closer to James.

“I helped save your ass when you were out cold and we were attacked! And you know what else? I wanted to leave you out there when you keeled over. You were the weak link, and I wanted to cut you loose. You’re lucky that the other two carried you out of that shit show! If it were up to me, you’d be passed out in a bush. Covered in your own vomit.”

James seemed surprised by this. Amber wanted to keep that bit of information private, since James would likely have turned hostile if he found out, but that was a moot point now.

“Alright, alright.” He said, stepping out the door. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

Amber spat at the floor and stormed out of the building once James had left. Dane was waiting outside, sporting the same type of automatic weapon that Amber had found that morning, as well as a concerned look on his face.

“He bothering you?”

“No shit.”

“Why don’t we talk to Clay, maybe he can try to calm him down?”

“I doubt it. That guy’s psycho, and now I think he’s looking for a chance to shoot me in the back.”

Dane looked over to James, who was pacing back and forth. “Even he wouldn’t be dumb enough to break one of the rules they gave us.”

“I don’t know, we haven’t seen so much as a sign of the PK’s since we landed. How do we know they’re even watching us?”

Amber felt down to the tags hanging around her neck, wondering if they were using them to track her, but it seemed like a far-fetched idea. It felt like just a thin sheet of metal.

“I wouldn’t put it past them to know somehow.” She pointed to a group of birds perched on a nearby roof. “Those birds are looking kind of sketchy, don’t you think?”

Dane gave her a grin. “Yeah, real sketchy.”

Amber heard footsteps behind her. At first it seemed like it could have simply been one of her teammates, but Dane was beside her. Clay was rummaging through the last building, and James had stormed off ahead of her. Turning around, her eyes went wide. There was a young man, who couldn’t have been older than she was, limping away. He had a bandage wrapped around his leg, with a large red spot staining it.

“Hey!” Amber shouted. The young man turned around, eyes wide with dread as he quickly held his hands up.

She and Dane stepped closer, and she saw just how young and frightened he was. He was either clean shaven, or could hardly grow any facial hair. His hands shook as he held them up in the air, and he spoke in a whimpering voice.

“P-please, I’m unarmed.” He said, starting to kneel but wincing in pain as his bad leg started to crouch.

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Amber said, keeping her finger off of the trigger of her gun, and holding it at rest. The young man looked confused, but grateful for some kind of sympathy. Dane looked back at Amber, then back at the young man, keeping his weapon at his side as well.

“Where’s the rest of your team?” He asked, sounding more assertive than curious.

The young man looked behind them at the carnage, and that sufficed for an answer.

“So, what happened here, how long were you hiding?” Amber asked.

“A few hours? It’s hard to tell. I got shot the other day, but we found something that the Peacekeeper’s told us would signal a shuttle to pick us up. So we came here, laid low, and stuck it in the ground. I fell asleep outside, but shooting started so I hid under one of the buildings. I heard a shuttle overhead, but by the time I crawled out it had left, and everyone was dead.”

“Uh huh, and how was it that everyone managed to get themselves killed but you?” Clay asked, stepping up from behind Amber.

“I-I don’t know! Maybe it came down to the last two, and they shot each other at the same time? I was hiding! I didn’t even see anything, I swear!”

His story did seem suspicious, but his fear seemed genuine. Amber doubted that they had run across a master actor, and was starting to believe his story.

“Hey, wait, this beacon that you used to signal a shuttle, what did it look like?” Amber asked.

“A big metal stake, with some flat head. Like a big nail, almost.”

Amber couldn’t help but smile, that sounded just like the thing that James had found, and what Clay had pulled out of the ground.

“Holy shit, guys.” Amber said. “I think we just found our ticket home!”