Back on the mountain outcrop, Raymond's hands moved with practiced efficiency. He worked the bolt, ejecting the spent casing. The brass tumbled through the air, glinting in the harsh sunlight before disappearing into the sand beside him. He chambered the third round, the bolt sliding home with a solid click.
His eye returned to the scope. He waited.
Sayeed lay beside him, binoculars pressed to his face. He'd been tracking Raymond's work—watching each shot find its target with mechanical precision.
"Good Lord!"
The exclamation burst from Sayeed's mouth. He lowered the binoculars and turned his head toward Raymond.
Raymond's eyes flicked sideways, meeting Sayeed's stare.
"What?"
Sayeed shrugged, the motion awkward given his position.
"Nothing, I... just..."
He let out a breath, shaking his head slightly.
"Looking at your young appearance, I would not have believed you to be so... trained!"
Raymond's lips curled upward—just barely, a ghost of a smile.
"Yeaaah!"
He stretched the word out, then returned his attention to the scope.
Sayeed raised the binoculars again, scanning the convoy's remains.
"Three more men left in the convoy. Beside Rakheel, of course."
Then his posture changed. His body went rigid.
Movement. Something emerged from behind the ruined buggy—a humanoid figure clad in armor that caught the sunlight. The figure charged forward, each stride covering distance that shouldn't be possible. The velocity was wrong. Too fast. Unnatural.
Raymond saw it through his scope.
"What is that?"
The question came out equal parts amazement and confusion.
Sayeed's body went limp. The binoculars stayed pressed to his face, but something in his posture collapsed—shoulders sagging, breathing shallow. Dread.
Raymond didn't notice. His full focus had narrowed to the charging figure in his scope. Distance closing. Three kilometers now. Maybe less.
He exhaled. Squeezed.
Tsung!
The round left the barrel, supersonic velocity carrying it across the desert in a fraction of a second. The bullet struck true—shoulder joint, right where armor plating met mechanics.
The figure jerked backward. Momentum arrested. The charge stopped.
But the armor didn't rupture. No blood spray. No collapse. Just impact force throwing the target back a step.
Then the figure resumed charging. Momentum building once more. Accelerating.
Raymond's head lifted slightly from the scope, confusion tightening his features. His eyes caught Sayeed's expression—face drained of color, jaw slack.
"What is it?"
His voice came out grim, sharp enough to cut through Sayeed's paralysis.
Sayeed's head snapped toward him.
"Miniature Power Armor! Damn it! How come these Sand Rats got their hands on that?"
Raymond's hands were already moving. Muscle memory overriding shock. He worked the bolt, ejecting the third casing. Chambered the fourth round. Shoulder settled. Eye dropped to scope.
The figure was closer now. Still charging.
Tsung!
Another shot. Center mass this time.
Same result. The armor absorbed the impact, the figure stumbling but not falling. Not stopping.
Raymond's hands worked the bolt. Fifth round chambered. His shoulder settled against the stock.
"Does it have a weak point?"
Sayeed's voice came strained.
"I don't know! These are high-end tech, not something you can get on... black market!"
The figure pushed forward. Six hundred meters now. Momentum building with each stride.
Raymond exhaled. Squeezed.
Tsung!
This time he aimed high—the unprotected head, exposed above the armor's collar. The round flew true.
Same result.
But Raymond caught something else through the scope. A pale blue film materialized across the figure's head—microseconds before impact. The bullet struck the film and deflected, energy dispersing across its surface.
Raymond's hands dropped to the magazine release. The spent case fell away. His other hand moved—reached into inventory space—and pulled a fresh magazine free. He slammed it home, the mechanism locking with a solid click.
"I saw a forcefield of sorts cover that guy during contact. Do you know anything about that?"
Sayeed's head dropped. His voice came out hollow.
"Forcefield?... Forcefield, MPA..."
Something clicked. His eyes widened.
"God dammit! It's an aethertech power source! Those things have small operation time windows and then they need to recharge."
He raised the binoculars again, scanning the armor's design with urgent focus.
"Yeah! The power source is hooked up to the forcefield. Shoot it! Deplete the motherfucker!"
But before Raymond's finger reached the trigger, the figure moved. It dove sideways, disappearing behind the outpost building. Line of sight broken. Cover.
Raymond's head lifted slightly. He shook it once.
"He got away."
His eye returned to the scope. He swept the view back toward the buggies—the crashed vehicle, the stopped convoy, the bodies scattered across sand.
Sayeed's voice pitched higher, nerves fraying.
"What? Then... we need to get away! We can't fight with an MPA using conventional weapons, you know!"
He noticed Raymond settling back into position, shoulder against stock, eye to scope.
"What are you doing?"
Tsung!
The shot answered before Raymond did. Through the scope, a figure tumbled from the crashed buggy—scrambling, trying to find cover. The round caught him center mass. He dropped.
Sayeed's question hung in the air.
Raymond's lips curved upward. Just a smile. Nothing more.
Bracken pressed his back against the outpost bunker's wall. The armor held his weight, servos compensating for the awkward angle. He cursed under his breath.
The voice returned—flat, mechanical, no emotion.
"Energy depleting... optimal operation time remaining: six minutes."
Six minutes. The number sat in his mind like a countdown timer ticking toward zero.
His eyes swept the area. The outpost stretched before him—familiar territory turned hostile. The garage sat burned out, blackened timbers visible through the collapsed roof. Bodies lay scattered near the entrance. His men. Dead.
He took a deep breath, desert air hot in his lungs.
"That last shot was crazy!"
The words came out quiet, muttered to himself. His hand came up, touching his temple where the round would have struck.
"Without the forcefield, that would've taken my head clean off!"
Thank the makers. Thank whoever designed this armor's defensive systems. The aethertech power source had saved his life.
His gaze returned to the outpost. The garage. The bodies. The way they lay—exposed, unburied, left where they'd fallen.
It's not Rafi.
The thought crystallized immediately. Certainty.
If his vice leader Rafi had truly betrayed him, he wouldn't have left dead bodies behind like this. That man was meticulous—obsessively so. He'd clean up evidence, hide the corpses, make it look like an accident or a raid gone wrong. This wasn't his style.
No. Someone else had hit the outpost. A third party. They'd raided his base and now they waited in ambush, rifle trained on his position.
Six minutes. Tight.
Bracken didn't hesitate. He turned, armor servos whining as he pivoted. Then he charged—boots pounding sand, heading toward the back mountain. He kept the bunker between himself and the outcrop. Stayed in the blindspot. Let the walls block line of sight.
The sniper couldn't hit what they couldn't see.
But he didn't take even three large strides before the ground erupted.
BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions rocked around him. Not one—several in sequence. The blasts cracked sharp and violent. Sand and debris fountained upward. The concussive force hit like a physical wall.
His ears rang. The sound overwhelmed everything—high-pitched whine drowning out the world. The forcefield flared to life, pale blue film wrapping his entire body. The armor's systems absorbed what they could, but physics didn't care. The blast wave caught him, lifted him, threw him backward.
Bracken's body hit the sand hard. The armor took the impact, servos screaming as they compensated. Dust settled around him.
Back on the mountain outcrop, the sound of explosions carried across the distance—sharp cracks echoing off stone.
Sayeed's head snapped toward the outpost. His eyes widened. Shock painted his features. He turned to Raymond, expression incredulous. The question sat plain on his face without needing words.
Raymond lifted his head from the rifle, smirking. He watched Sayeed's reaction, clearly enjoying it.
"Yeap! Did you think I didn't have any contingency?"
His tone carried satisfaction—the kind that came from a plan working exactly as intended.
"What do you think? Should have depleted the power source of the armor by now, wouldn't it?"
His hands moved. The sniper vanished—stored into inventory. Raymond pushed himself up from his prone position, brushing sand from his clothes.
"Come on."
Raymond gestured to Sayeed with a tilt of his head.
"Let's go meet our brave vanguard!"
Sayeed pushed himself up, movements stiff from lying prone for hours. They started their descent—boots finding purchase on loose stone, working their way down the mountain slope toward the outpost below.
Back near the explosion site, minutes later, Bracken spat sand from his mouth. Grit coated his tongue, his teeth. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, body wracked with coughing fits. His lungs fought to expel dust and debris.
One ear had gone deaf. The ringing wouldn't stop—constant, high-pitched whine that drowned out everything else. Proximity to the blast had destroyed something inside. The other ear functioned, barely. The earpiece had offered some protection from the concussive force, but not much.
The disorientation faded by degrees. His vision cleared. Balance returned.
The voice spoke—mechanical, emotionless, delivering its report.
"Energy has depleted to critical level. Entering hibernation mode. Armor integrity forty-seven percent."
"Shit!"
The curse ripped from Bracken's throat.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
Frustration gnawed at him—hot, visceral, the kind that came from losing control of a situation. But underneath it, something else grew. Fear. Cold. Creeping.
The enemy had calculated everything. The ambush. The shots. The explosives placed exactly where he'd run. They'd known. Predicted his movements. Set the trap and waited for him to spring it.
Clapping.
The sound cut through the ringing in Bracken's ear—slow, deliberate, mocking rhythm.
His head lifted. His eyes focused on the figure ahead.
A young man stood there. Common clothes—nothing special, nothing threatening. Dust-covered shirt, worn pants, boots scuffed from desert travel. The clapping continued, hands coming together in exaggerated applause.
Behind him, another figure.
Recognition hit immediately.
The mercenary.
Sayeed. The Desert Eagle contractor he'd ordered captured weeks ago. The one he'd given instructions to torture—break him down, make him join the gang or leave him broken. Standard procedure for skilled fighters who refused the first offer.
Everything clicked.
Bracken's gaze snapped back to the young man. The casual stance. The relaxed posture. Harmless on the surface—just another desert traveler, nothing remarkable.
But underneath, Bracken saw something else. A predator. Something restrained behind that casual demeanor, something waiting to be let out. The way he stood. The way his eyes tracked movement. The confidence that came from knowing exactly how this would end.
The ambush. The sniper. The explosives. Sayeed's presence.
Everything that had happened—orchestrated. Calculated. Executed by this man standing before him.
"Who the fuck... are you?"
The words came out strained. Bracken had no strength left to move. His muscles refused to respond—exhausted from the charge, the impacts, the explosions. The armor sat dead on his frame, servos locked, plating inert.
Without the power source, the weight crushed him. Metal that had moved like a second skin now pressed down like a cage. He couldn't stand. Couldn't run. Could barely sit upright.
No protection. No weapon ready. No escape.
A sitting duck at this young man's mercy.
Would he spare him?
No.
The answer was obvious. If negotiation had been an option, there would've been no need for the ambush. No sniper shots. No explosives. No calculated trap designed to strip away every advantage.
Bracken knew he was going to die. The certainty settled in his gut—cold, final, undeniable.
At this point, all he wanted was answers.
Who was this man? And why had he come for him?
Raymond ignored the question. His eyes weren't on Bracken's bloodied face, but on the inert armor plating encasing him. He circled the defeated man slowly, his gaze analytical, clinical. He took in the segmented joints, the way the composite material was layered over a reinforced frame. The aethertech power source Sayeed mentioned must be housed in the chest piece, judging by the heat still radiating from the core. High-end technology. Far beyond anything a common desert gang should possess.
Sayeed, standing a few paces back, watched the exchange. He heard Bracken's desperate question, saw the way Raymond completely disregarded it. Sayeed's lips pursed into a thin, hard line, but he remained silent. His knuckles whitened as his grip tightened on the Sentinel-5 rifle he held. Vengeance was a patient thing, and Raymond was in charge now.
Finally, Raymond stopped his circling. He crouched, his expression one of genuine curiosity, like a mechanic examining a rare engine.
"This armor," Raymond began, his voice calm, conversational. "Where did you get it?"
Bracken's head snapped up. Disbelief warred with fury on his face. He spat a mouthful of blood and grit onto the sand beside Raymond's boot. The defiance was total, the last act of a man with nothing left to lose.
"Go on," Bracken snarled, the words thick with blood. "Kill me. I'm not answering a damn thing."
Raymond stood, a flicker of disappointment in his eyes. Not at the defiance, but at the lost opportunity for information. He could break the man, of course. With the tools in his inventory and the knowledge in his head, he could make Bracken beg to tell him everything. But it would take time. Time he didn't have, and effort he didn't care to expend on a single piece of intel.
He nodded once, a gesture of finality. A decision made.
The air beside Raymond's hip shimmered. The Vector-7 materialized in his hand, its angular frame solid and cold. He raised the weapon without ceremony.
Bracken's eyes widened, a final flash of shock replacing the anger.
Bang.
The shot was clean, efficient. The bullet punched through Bracken's forehead, snapping his head back. His body went limp, toppling backward a moment later, a dead weight in the powered armor. It was over.
Sayeed watched the armored body slump back, the execution as clean and impersonal as swatting a fly. He clicked his tongue, a soft sound of grudging amazement that was lost in the desert wind. The kid moved with a chilling finality that even seasoned mercenaries lacked. It wasn't about anger or vengeance; it was just a problem being solved.
Raymond didn't spare the corpse a second glance. He turned to Sayeed, the Vector-7 already dematerializing from his hand. "One more bandit left with Rakheel in the buggy," he stated, his voice flat, analytical. "I need you to be the diversion."
He pointed towards the remaining vehicle. "Approach from the front, draw his attention. I'll flank him."
Sayeed's brow furrowed in confusion. He gestured at the wide, empty expanse of sand that separated them from the buggy. "Flank him? In this?" he asked, disbelief coloring his tone. "It's open desert. He'll see you coming a kilometer away."
Raymond looked back at him, the corner of his mouth curling into a faint, mysterious smile. "He won't."