He let his breath out in one go, slowly and evenly. His back was pressed against the titanium-reinforced steel wall, lights flickering about him ominously. He ignored the blood that stained the wall, his combat boots easily finding grip in the muck. Nothing mattered except the threat at hand- whoever it was, whatever it was, that had killed too many people.

To his left was the next corridor; he had chased the murderer down this way, and he knew that it ended in a dead end, farther down, at Engineering. The only thing he could do is maybe beat uselessly at the mechanical equipment meant for repairing various damaged parts from across the station; most of the doors and machines were locked down, so he couldn't do anything.

Tensing, he thrust his head around the edge of the wall and stared down the corridor, taking it all in a quick glance, before immediately retreating. As expected, four quick gunshots fired out. The rounds impacted harmlessly, inaccurately, across the wall opposite of the hallway, having aimed poorly at his peeking head.

One man. Handgun. Based on the sound, it was a PP360, a more civilian weapon design, commonly known as a PDW- Personal Defense Weapon.

He turned to look at the last man standing, besides himself- soundless in his graphene ribbon-reinforced carbon-nanotube jumpsuit (which would stop a standard caliber round, or an energy round), he raised his hand and signaled to him- prepare, throw item, flashbang, wait for detonation, assault rush.

The other man nodded, and they both unclipped one of the small salt-shaker-sized flashbang grenades off their belts. Nodding at each other to confirm their readiness, James Darling and his companion pulled the pin and threw both grenades into the corridor. The grenades smacked into the wall, bounced off, and landed in the middle- hell, Darling could see them. After a moment, they both finished scanning their surroundings, shot up from their groundside positions, and shot towards their target.

Not eight seconds after the grenades had been thrown, there were two thunderous booms, and a great flash of light that very nearly penetrated James Darling's helmet visor, even from around a corner and with a helmet specifically designed against such weapons.

With the grenades detonated, James and his compatriot rushed around, bringing up their automatic energy rifles to bear as they rushed down the hallway, into a cloud of smoke.

Declan had long since gotten used to the feel of blood. His profession kind of demanded it, he often had his hands pressed to wounds, attempting to stem the flow. What he hadn’t gotten used to was the smell.

It was sickly, which he supposed was only fitting. He had taken to wearing a half-mask, just enough to cover the lower half of his face. It blocked out some of the smell, but not enough. There was many situations in which he would have like nothing more than to flee in terror. Now was one of those times.

There were screams, coming from all around. He had been in a squad of five, though they were now down to three. There was Private Card, the soldier whose boyish, aryan face was, at present, marred by an ugly gash on his forehead as he fired blindly into the woods. The other, Corporal Wooding, though Declan had always called her by her first name, Allison, was dying on the dirt floor of the dilapidated cottage the three soldiers were occupying.

“Hey, Ally, come on.” Declan was trying hard to keep the fear out of his voice as he pressed both hands to the gunshot wound in her abdomen. “You gotta stay awake.”

She coughed. It sounded like there was some blood in that cough, but in the darkness of the cottage, Declan couldn’t tell. His only light source was a flashlight he held between his cheek and his shoulder, dimly casting blue light on the wound. She mumbled. Declan only caught the word “tired” and “hurt.” A bullet from one of the insurrectionists rifles flew past Card and landed in the dirt next to Declan.

“Keep ‘em off me, Card!” He cried desperately.

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Do it better!” He turned his attention back on Allison. The commotion seemed to have roused her a bit. Her face was pale and her eyes had a feverish sheen.

“D-deck.” She said weekly. Declan dug furiously through the hard case attached to his pants, searching for a coagulant.

“Tha-.” His voice broke. “That’s me.”

She laughed, but it quickly turned into a coughing fit. “I’m scared.”

His heart broke. Six years he had served with Allison Wooding. They had trained together, and been on more missions than he cared to remember. This outing to some backwater moon was hardly the most dangerous thing they’d attempted. Not once had she ever been scared.

“Hey now,” He tried to keep the tears out of my voice. “I’m scared too, okay? No pint in both of us being scared, just leave the worrying to me.” He found the coagulant, spraying it onto the wound. The bleeding slowed. Too little, too late. The realization came suddenly.

He couldn’t save Allison Card.

No truth had ever been so harsh. His ears were ringing. The insurrectionists outside were whooping and hollering, and Card’s gunshots echoed loudly throughout the stone shack. Everything sounded muted except his own ragged breaths. His stomach churned. The smell of gunpowder blended with the stench of blood and the decay from their body of their squad leader, lying in the corner.

She gripped his hand, he half-noticed he couldn’t feel her skin through the blood.

“Deck, I-” She coughed again, a thick burst of blood coming from her mouth. “I don’t want to die.”

Declan let out the sob he had been choking back. It was Drowned out by an explosion. One of the insurrectionists had loosed a rocket and blew apart the wall of the cottage. A large piece of stone had brained Card, he lay spasming. His ears rang at a deafening volume. He screamed, but he couldn’t hear it. He laid on the ground. He had been blown a few feet away from Allison, who was now buried by rubble. He could only see her hand, which twitched once before falling into stillness. He saw the insurrectionists march into the remnants of the cottage. There were twelve of them. They were garbed in farmer’s clothes, and were holding civilian weapons.

They scattered about, one of them shooting Card in the head, he must’ve still been breathing. That same rebel stood over him, and level a revolver at his head. His breath caught. Declan closed his eyes. The bullet never came. When he forced his eyes open, it was not a rebel who stood over him, but a federation soldier. His hearing was beginning to return, and he heard the soldier shout to unseen comrades. The rebels were all dead, slumped over the rubble. It seemed as though the Federation reinforcements had ambushed them just as they had ambushed Declan's squad.

“This one’s still alive!” As they picked him up and put him on a stretcher, Declan was only mildly surprised by the fact that his left arm was no longer attached to his torso. There was another, more pressing realization.

He couldn’t smell the blood.