This is certainly an unusual situation, the enemy never surrendered and always fought to the last and we had to respond in kind, taking prisoners was a rare occurrence and one I never encountered. Standard procedure is to radio command for them to organise a prisoner transport for them to be taken back to our base to be interrogated or whatever else they do in the backline.

My standard protocol failed at the first level; I have no command, I have no safe place to hold them while I wait for reinforcements, I have no reinforcements. My SOPs do not have a situation for this and I’m stuck running loops in my head on what to do. Any help I receive from them may carry an ulterior motive to strike me while my guard is down and that is even if they give me accurate information, prisoners are known to lie.

So I cannot hold them, I do not have the infrastructure, resources, or the knowledge to do so.

While they are human, they have posed a threat to human life. That immediately makes them the Enemy, they have raised weapons against another human with malicious intent. While they’ve surrendered to me I cannot release them, they will continue to pose a threat to human life.

So I cannot release them either.

“H-heeh fhedtt djoon't--” A man takes a step towards me, I respond immediately and level the pistol towards him and fire two shots. Blood splatters yet again in a brutal show of force and showers those standing closeby to him in his brain matter they scream out in horror and one from the group decides to try and make a break for it to the forest.

I shoot him twice from behind.

Eleven pairs of eyes focus on me, the smell of iron is so strong I can almost taste it on my tongue. I have fired sixteen rounds in total, the pistol is a compact railgun type of small arm, it holds enough charge to fire one hundred rounds and the magazine in it can hold fifty rounds. I do not have a spare magazine and I’m already reaching a halfway point, once I do reach halfway I am combat ineffective and need to replenish my stock, there is no way to replenish my stock.

If I kill each of these people here with one bullet that would take me to twenty-seven fired rounds and I would have twenty-three left. It may be most prudent for me to release them and conserve the ammunition for enemies of a higher threat level.

I baulk at that idea as soon as I conceive it, letting the Enemy go so they can continue fighting is an idea that almost makes me physically sick. Simply stated, it is unacceptable. This only leaves me one option, I have to kill the prisoners.

The Enemy exists to be destroyed is the only thing that I am sure of, all other procedures and tactics exist for this. I am not in the position to exploit the information that can be gained from them so they must be destroyed.

I feel much more comfortable knowing my plan of action and level the pistol with the finality of their lives. Standing this close together I may be able to save some ammunition and I quickly work out the most optimal shots to fire. Their screams echo out in the forest but remain completely unheard all the same, I release a breath I didn’t know that I was holding, it catches and trembles in my throat but I don’t know why.

I hide the pistol away into my clothes again, my hand trembling as it is hidden by the cloth. I close my eyes and clear my mind for a minute, I think about my next plan of action. Opening my eyes I set forth with a purpose, the dead Enemy here should have supplies, clothes, and money. If I’m lucky they’ll have something with words written on it which I can use to aid myself learn the language.

I begin picking through whatever pouches and pockets they have on their bodies first. A very small amount of coins, stamped bronze, that look very poorly made. Found that it's covered in blood, I leave it there, and some better fitting clothes that are also soaked in blood. Looking through their camp I find some more money in bags, a sleeping roll, food, and other quality of life equipment such as knives, flint and steel, cooking, sewing kit, typical stuff you would expect to see. The real fortune I came across was a rudimentary map, no grid squares, scale, contour lines. Drawn by hand and it only uses landmarks, being in a forest with massive trees it is not helpful at all.

I stare at the map soaking in the information, using the cybernetics in my eyes I automatically take a snapshot of it. I go over the camp a final time and leave the bodies where they lie to head back to the road and the opposite direction that Aubsg’s group went. Without a large reference point that I can see I won’t be able to orient the map at all to work out where I am. I could climb a tree but it would be easier to just take out the map and ask through rudimentary sign language.

It’s beside the point anyway that I have to pick a direction on the road, better start walking than wasting time, it is inevitable I’ll find my exact location on the map. I’ll probably attempt to integrate myself with that community while I try and work out what the hell is happening, I don’t expect it to take long. Maybe a year in total to have a full understanding to speak and understand this new language, the usage of money, and the wider world will be significantly more helpful than what I’m currently doing which is stumbling around in the dark while drunk.

I hope it won’t take more than a few days to get to whatever place is at the end of this road.