Merc

Trowa's POV
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I only had one night with him; the strange feelings I had when I watched him made me rethink taking any more leave time. There were really only a few days until we mobilized anyways, so I spent the time making certain my suit was in top form.

And by the end of that week, I could dive from the open hatch and land easily on two feet with no extra momentum or faltering as I hit the ground.

The job was a big one, a coordinated effort of supporting fire from the hills and about ten ground agents circling behind the main force with trucks filled with heavy artillery.

I was told my aim wasn’t good enough to be in the heavy artillery group. There was also the joke that I wasn’t old enough to drive. My age did not prevent me from knowing how, though. It was all unnecessary explanation; I knew I would be on the hills in my suit. I had the best suit and was one of the best pilots despite my lesser experience. Putting me in the heavy artillery group would have been foolish since my aim was accurate but not expert. With my suit, I could put a bullet through a sparrow at 5000 km, and had witnesses. I made quite a bit of money with that bet.

We accomplished our goal with that mission, but it cost us quite a few men. Every one in the artillery group died, and there were five casualties on my line. Fifteen total gone out of twenty five. Only ten of us remained, several of those ten injured and out of duty for at least few weeks, but it didn’t bother me. I’d watched men come and go in the group for years, but it shook up some of the others. Several of them lost their nerve that day; I saw it clearly, even if no one else did.

Because nerves were frayed, emotions were high. Fights and arguments broke out between several of the remaining members. There were some that targeted me.

Three in particular thought I was withholding information that would make their suits better and demanded I upgrade theirs. They were right of course, but I had no intention of surrendering to them simply because they wanted me to. They blamed me for the death of the five on the line, saying that if I had bettered their suits, they’d still be alive.

I calmly told them that if those that had died, had thought to dodge incoming fire or invest in better armor, they would be alive whether or not I made their system more efficient. That started a fight, but I walked away with only a few minor bruises. I broke Fisch’s leg, dislocated Sam’s arm, and left Auldi unconscious. They didn’t pick any more fights, but they didn’t stop blaming me either.

Because our numbers were so low, we had to look into joining with another merc group to accept any new assignments. The other group was commanded by Cauldwell, and we had worked with them before. Our leader, Cole, hated working with them; he thought they were underhanded and untrustworthy. But he had died with the artillery group.

Our second in command, Waters, was seriously injured in the fight. He was second-guessing himself due to his injuries and was not fit to lead. No one else saw this, so when he gave into his weakness, we joined up with Cauldwell’s men. And Cauldwell became our leader.

During this time, camp became tense. Each merc group refusing to merge into one cohesive unit, both groups thinking theirs was the superior force. But the arguments ceased, so Waters thought all was well from his cot in the medical tent.

I stayed out of sight as much as possible. My instincts didn’t like most of the new additions. I spent most of my time in my suit, examining different aspects of its internal workings.

The main purpose of working on my suit was not to avoid the others, but it was a close second, so when one of Cauldwell’s men decided he wanted to watch me work. I was more than a little irritated.

He introduced himself as “Richard, but Dick fit him better.” It was supposed to be a joke, but it fell flat as I just stared at him, unamused.

I moved from limb to limb of my suit, but he managed to follow quite easily. If I squeezed into a tight space, he just sat outside it. He had no problem following me into the cockpit, either. He asked what I was working on, why I didn’t associate much with the others, why I was so obsessed with my suit; the questions went on and on. All were unanswered, but my silence didn’t deter him. Finally, I broke down and asked him why he was here.

He gave me some bullshit about getting to know me better, and I called him a liar. He laughed and admitted he had heard others complain about me not sharing suit modifications with them, and he was curious what I had done to mine.

I told him what I had told them, but, again, kept most of my secrets to myself. He nodded his head at my mods, but didn’t act surprised. He mentioned how complex some of them sounded, and asked if I had removed the padded material around my instrument panels which made them less sensitive, but more protected from damage in heavy fire.

I just blinked at him. It was one of the simplest solutions you could make, but I had completely overlooked it, and he knew it since he had been in the cockpit. He just smiled and told me I wasn’t the only one with a head for mechanics. I nodded, and went up to the cockpit to sensitize the controllers in my suit. I kept all the insulation to replace if I knew we would be under heavy fire, and he watched.

Afterwards, I wasn’t sure how to feel about him being around. He had helped, but he was still a presence that wasn’t particularly welcomed. So I walked right off the ledge of my open hatch.

I heard him give a startled yell and felt some sadistic pleasure wash through me as I flew through the air.

When I landed easily and unharmed, I turned to look back at him and saw his mouth hanging open. That was much more amusing than his introduction.

He was there again the next day; it seems he didn’t mind the silence because he didn’t ask a single question, just watched. I didn’t mind his presence so much that day or the next few.

But eventually he started talking again. He mentioned how worried he was by some of the comments that were being said within the camp. Though I didn’t show it, this did catch my interest.

I was accustomed to being well aware of the camp gossip from skulking about the shadows, but because of the conflict, I decided I’d rather be elsewhere. He told me there was still a lot of turmoil over the state of my suit over the others, so much so that there were rumors about forcing the answers from me physically, or just taking my suit and examining the differences.

I was well aware that the only way they were taking my suit was by killing me.

I decided I would become a camp shadow again. And he was right.

Cauldwell’s men didn’t seem to care one way or the other; they were just tired of the bitching. They stuck together and, as a whole, didn’t like any of the others. Most of them thought it was hilarious that our group was blaming a child for their problems. Cauldwell’s men didn’t see me as any sort of threat. That was good. They were also getting restless for action.

So when an assignment came up, we took it.

We were recruited to escort Luis Espinoza out of a dangerous situation. His native country had always been a dictatorship, but due to hard times, the people became restless. Espinoza rose from a middle class family to become the people’s savior. His voice was starting riots, and the government wanted him dead. The current dictator had made enemies of the leaders of surrounding countries, and those countries were willing to harbor Espinoza in hopes that he would become the new ruler.

It was an eight hundred mile trek through dense territory. Aircraft would be easily shot down, and the roads would be well patrolled. We had a complex plan of river systems and forest roads to jump in and out of once we acquired the target. But such a complex territory meant the fewer people in one place the better. We had to be inconspicuous.

But that’s not what Cauldwell wanted. He thought the best way was to split up, use numbers to attack the government buildings, get their attention, then use that group as a decoy while the smaller group took Espinoza to the border.

Waters didn’t like it. We had just lost so many men that starting a war with a government agency that, despite its small size, was heavily armed did not sit well with our commanding officer. Cauldwell derided Waters for cowardice but said his group could play decoy.

Waters still wasn’t completely recovered; there was no way he would make the trek through the rain forest. There were several others in the same situation. Our merc group was smaller, so it made more sense for us to try to get through the forest unnoticed, while the larger group took on the government’s defenses.

There were still a lot of disgruntled mercenaries that did not want to have anything to do with me, so I was assigned to Cauldwell’s suit troops to play decoy.

I followed the orders I was given and held my silence, but I knew something wasn’t right.

The plan was for the escort group to pick up the target at the designated point and take a circuit route to a small tributary on the outside of town. The cover fire group would be stationed ten miles east firing at the government sector in the hills north of town. The escort group would be well clear of any fire from either the suit troops or return fire from the building defenses.

The plan was sound, but still…I had an uneasy feeling within me that I’d never felt before.

The groups split up, and I took up my position with the rest of the suit troops. We waited for the signal, and when the time came, we made our presence known. There was heavy fire from the government’s defense system, but as much return fire as we were receiving, there weren’t any casualties. I had assumed it was because the men in this group were better at dodging incoming fire. My mind equated that with better quality pilots than I had previously traveled with. But the return fire was spread out across the line. Instead of inflicting enough damage to kill one suit with repeated hits, they would hit one suit then target another. Maybe the government invested in huge armaments but didn’t know how best to use them?

But with better pilots comes better aim, and that wasn’t the case here. Very few shots were actually taking out the guns firing at us. My shots consistently took out gun turrets, laser cannons, and ground troops. All the while, my line was occasionally hitting the designated targets, but more often than not, the fire was falling short and tearing up civilian housing and markets. There was a pattern there in the rubble, but I didn’t have the time to discern it because the line was taking more damage.

I focused on my goal and took up the slack, there weren’t many guns left.

One suit exploded next to me, then the guns were targeting me. Two quick bursts of bullets and the guns were no longer capable of firing. There were other armaments set up on the hill, but I’d have to shoot through some of the other men to take them out. Poor positioning on their part, it was a rookie mistake I wouldn’t associate with experienced men.

Richard was in the suit next to mine, and he was out of targets as well. His voice rang through my communications device, complimenting my shooting skills, asking me how pinpoint my accuracy was.

I was very confident in my abilities within my suit, so when he called out a target, I had no reservations. He told me to destroy a two story building in the middle of a busy street without damaging the structures around it.

It was a challenge whether or not my accuracy was flawless because you had to take into account the size of the rounds you intended to use, how the building would fall depending on how you hit it, and whether or not the shrapnel from the building would take out any of its surroundings.

As I raised my gun, I recognized the pattern of the group’s fire. It was a funnel, and the apex was the building I was aiming at. I dismissed the thought, focused on the challenge, and drilled a line of bullets at an angle up and over the foundation stone at the corner.

At that very same second, I saw the face of a man I had never seen before, never met. A split second scream that tore through my psyche, and I knew, based on no logic other than a gut feeling, that I had just killed Louis Espinoza along with the rest of my mercenary group. How? How did I know the face of a man I had never seen?

Logic told me that the plan was for the escort group to be in a boat on their way downstream, not in a building in the middle of the firefight. Logic said everything was going according to plan.

I watched, trying to grasp everything, as the wall I had severed crumbled. The roof, no longer supported, cracked and split taking the whole building down. It was a perfect execution of the implosion I had intended, but that no longer mattered.

My heart was pounding, and my ears filled with that fraction of an instant where I heard a stranger scream within the soundproofed cockpit of my suit.

Distantly, I heard Richard whistle appreciatively at the controlled demolition. But I was trying, desperately, to wrap my head around what just happened. The order to fall back was sounded, and I followed mindlessly, functioning on autopilot.

As we regrouped, there was no sense of urgency within the camp. We had just attacked a small kingdom, and we were in no hurry to leave the country. Nothing was adding up right.

I asked Cauldwell if we should be loading up the suits to begin the decoy trail through the neighboring towns and villages. He told me not to worry about it tonight; it would take at least a day for our opponent to regroup after today. We could take our time before moving out; he gave me some bullshit about being more effective bait if we didn’t disappear too quickly.

He was lying to me.

And I still couldn’t shake the idea that I had killed everyone I had previously known. I obviously wasn’t going to get the whole truth here, so I’d have to go into town to find out for myself.

As I was making my way out of camp, Richard came up to me. I was headed towards my suit, so there was nothing suspicious about my behavior, but I decided to postpone my trip into town until nightfall. It would be easier to go unnoticed. There were only a few hours until sunset.

I had hoped he would just walk next to me and maintain the silence we usually kept, but I could tell by the look on his face that he had a purpose in seeking me out.

“I heard you talked to Cauldwell.” He was trying for casual curiosity; he almost pulled it off.

I just nodded, and he continued. He laughed like what he about to say was all meant to be a joke, but I could tell it wasn’t. “I spend days trying to get you to talk to me, and you just walk right up to him. I guess you have a power fetish.” The word fetish hit me like a landmine; a realization stopped me in my tracks.

His interaction with me was all under the pretense of sex, playing nice to get closer to me.

Richard stopped and turned to me, continuing on.

Now that I knew his game, everything about how I saw him changed. He was no longer a comrade with similar interests, and I saw what I should have seen all along. His smile was the same as the hookers I had seen over and over: a baiting smile that’s meant to be charming. “I guess you don’t know how important I am to this team. Do I need to show you my medals?” He leaned closer to me with his last statement as my mind supplied me with images of all our interactions.

I had been completely blind to his interest, to the reason behind his following me. It put a new light to everything; this paired with the chance that he might have encouraged me to fire on the building that housed my mercenary team, meant I had absolutely no trust for him. No desire to be in his vicinity.

I glared at him and tried to walk away, but he followed. “Come on, man. I’m amped up on adrenaline, and despite the fact that you hide yourself in all those baggy clothes, I know that you have a bangin’ body.”

I kept walking. From his comment, I could assume that he wasn’t just watching my suit modifications. I usually just wore old uniforms that no longer fit the other members of the merc group. It didn’t matter that they didn’t fit. What did I care as long as they kept me covered and fairly warm in the cool evenings? But when working in the tight spaces within the suits, I’d often take my shirt off to prevent it from catching on anything and setting my work back. I’d never thought anything of it. I never considered the fact that anyone could be attracted to me; I had confidence in my abilities and nothing else for so long.

But it wasn’t an excuse, I had seen lust before, I should have been able to read him better. He shouldn't have been able to gain my acceptance so easily.

But apparently he was pretty determined because I felt his hand on my shoulder to stop me. Disgust echoed like bile in my throat, whether from his touch, his presence, or my complete ignorance, I wasn’t sure, but my body reacted on instinct.

My hand came up underneath his, pulled his weight forward as I turned towards him. It forced his body down so I could circle his arm up, and in less than a second, his back was to my chest with his arm bent backwards pinned between our bodies, his hand between his shoulder blades. He went up on his tiptoes to alleviate the pain in his shoulder.

He was taller than I was at the time; I just remember my nose being about level with the top of his shoulder. I kept my voice low but strong. “Don’t ever touch me again.”

I released him and thought it was all over. He stood there, emotions flitting around his face before it finally settled on disbelief. “You can’t be serious. I know your compadres in the other group are as straight as a fucking ruler, but you don’t always have access to a woman when you need one.”

That was an odd statement. Weren’t there only two options? You could be queer or not, right? “You’re not gay?” I asked, almost against my will. I wanted to get as far away from his as possible, but I wanted to understand as well. My ignorance of the situation was unacceptable.

He smiled, trying to look innocent but charming. It came off as devilish. “Sometimes, a mouth is a mouth, ya know? I’m an equal opportunity lover.”

“There’s no opportunity here.” I said as I started walking away.

“Hey! You might want to play nice to me. Who knows, with the proper persuasions, we may let you stay with our group. You could be our mascot or something.” He was yelling, trying to make sure I heard him; he needn’t have bothered. I heard him clearly, even what he didn’t mean to say.

Why would I want to stay in his group? Unless I didn’t have a group to rejoin with. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach that demanded I head to the village now, sunset or no.
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