The battle raged on. Every time Candy squad thought they had gained the upper hand, Absolut was there to quell their momentum. It was frustrating as hell. Uzen was quickly losing hope.

Detric, however, was fighting with renewed zeal. He had picked up a second wind, and it was, to the troopers around him, an inspiring sight.

The groups had split up, with the SL and ASL commanding the left and right groups respectively. Detric's group was busy trying to keep Absolut at bay. They would use any pause in Candy's onslaught to retaliate, and it seems like they were having close brushes with death at every moment.

However, it was Uzen's group that caught the imperials trying to flank them. It was a stroke of luck. If he hadn't heard the enemy com channel, they would have hit them silently, and hit them hard. He wasn't as rattled as he was before. Uzen was beginning to get used to the rigors of having a group of trained individuals coming after them like hounds.

Although Detric was only about ten meters away, the constant barrage of blaster fire made it impossible for them to communicate outside their com links. Advertising their plans right in the open was also a mistake that Uzen didn't wish to commit.

"Detric, how is your group holding up?" From his vantage point, Uzen could only see a few from his squad leader's group. He knew there were a few men hiding in the rubble, and taking cover beyond him, but he didn't know the exact number.

"Not terribly, but we've been better. Gaines is still out of commission. That shot to his side singed him something fierce. I'm surprised he's still awake, to tell you the truth. He tells me he wants to keep fighting, but i wouldn't let him endanger himself like that. Not in the condition he's in. How about you guys?" Detric never stopped shooting as he relayed the status report to his underling.

"Rattled. Nor almost caught one to the head. He's gonna need a new helmet if we ever make it out of here."

The two shared an uncomfortable silence, pocked by the irregular staccato of blaster fire, both friendly and non-friendly.

"Detric...i..." Uzen paused for a moment to try and find the right words to say.

"Yes?"

He didn't want to tell his squad leader that he thought they were fighting a losing battle. He figured he would find out soon enough.

"Anyone besides me getting really tired of that pathetic war cry?" Nor tried to rouse a little laughter in his comrades. It worked.

Alexis uttered a war cry and all candy squad could do was laugh aloud. The look on Alexis' face was priceless.

"Who do they think we are boss? Schoolchildren? They act like their idiotic yelling and shouting is breaking our morale." Nor kept the rest of the group in stitches.

Alexis was furious and yelled some more, but Candy squad couldn't make her babbling out. She said something about swearing revenge. Revenge?, Uzen thought to himself. You have some nerve. The death of Jet Pottes still lay heavily on all of their minds.

Even Uzen chuckled a little bit at the pompous nature of this certain imperial trooper. She was the only member of Absolut that he hadn't developed a kind of respect for; the respect you have for a skilled trooper who is giving you the fight of your life.

The shamed Absolut squad member was growing irrational in her rage. She hopped from cover to cover, coming closer and closer to Candy squad's location in hopes of gaining a better shot and exacting her revenge. When her barrage of gunfire became annoying enough to act, Detric gave the signal.

Nor, Uzen, and the newly functional Gaines popped out of cover and riddled her body with blaster bolts. There was no doubt she was a good trooper, beneath all her arrogance. Pity for her, it was that same arrogance that got her in this position.

From Absolut's makeshift stronghold, he could hear a few voices screaming out. One he recognized as a trooper by the name of Elara. The rest he couldn't pinpoint.

It didn't matter. Candy had evened the count, and Uzen had gotten his revenge. He now considered this mission a success.

This was for you, Jet. Rest in peace.

"They're a little distraught, Keep pushing!" Detric barked at his troopers. Even Gaines, who had suffered injuries earlier, had propped himself on a rock and was now fighting with the zeal of several New Republic soldiers. The tide of battle seemed to be turning.

Gaines was glad that the balance was tipping slightly in their favor. He wasn't glad, however, that their new casualty was making Absolut squad fight with twice the fury that they had prior to Uzen taking down Alexis. It was becoming a little difficult for the heavily bandaged and slightly sedated squad medic to pop in and out of cover in time to keep his head from being blown off.

It was interesting to see the two squads "interact" with each other. They were similar in skill, with the same number of troopers. They even seemed to be evenly matched in the competence and battlefield prowess of their squad leaders. There was one main difference, however.

Candy squad was backed up against the wall.

The imperials sought to poison and kill a large number of citizens of the new republic. The vast majority of those people were innocent, and had no involvement in the war. Whether the imperials knew this or not wasn't of any importance to Gaines. He just knew that a failure in this battle would mean that thousands could suffer.

The imperials were heartless and efficient killers to him. This recent attack on the water treatment plant did nothing to change his mind on them either.

He painfully propped himself on his makeshift cover again and brought his rifle up to fire. He squeezed round after round. He couldn't even hear the thunderous sound of the blaster fire, or feel the kick on the shoulder pad of his armor. He could only hear the blood pumping in his ears.

He wasn't fighting for himself anymore. He would rather return home in tatters, limbs missing, body barely functional, than to let thousands of innocent women and children down.

He became a medic because he wanted to help people, but he was also a soldier, and he would kill without hesitation if he needed to.

-----

Uzen ducked down and didn't even bother to fire a shot. He had stuck a metaphorical dagger in the heart of Absolut squad by shooting down Alexis, one of their feistier soldiers. At this moment, he just wanted to get himself out of the line of fire. They were all aiming at him. He was sure of it.

Detric didn't mind. He understood that Uzen was being targeted and excused his inactivity.

But the Candy ASL felt empty. He thought that killing Alexis in retaliation would make him feel better about losing Jet Pottes.

He was wrong.

He felt as bad as ever. He had been sucked up into the vicious cycle that he was trying so hard to end.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind," he whispered to himself as he clutched the pistol Detric had lent him.

OOC:

I've arranged to switch Tarnok's sniper speciality to Harem for the reason that he's Alema's wife and she is a medic.

Tarnok checked his ammo clip, which was almost empty, as he reloaded for another fresh clip. He didn't much remember how many times he had to reload or how many clips he had left, he was only watching his mates fire with him. Charlie was still nervous when he fired real off but he kept his cool, and the others were okay, but Elara seemed in need of extreme help as Kortax relayed to Tarnok on a private channel that he had set up for the squad:

"Tarnok, Kortax here, can you hear me over? I can see that you're the one crying over this, you must have known her or Alema. Then I'm guessing your medical background's pretty good too." He nodded to Kortax, looking over at his focused and determined but somewhat of a sorrow face as Tarnok looked over at the enemy's situation and retold and explained it as best as he could without too much emotion in it:

"Alright, it's like this. Alexis at least didn't die in vain, the bastards are very tired like us, but they're stuck against a wall and morale is getting lower by the second. They're too overconfident, thinking they have tipped the balance slowly in their favor now that Alexis is down, but their teams are suffering. Detric's team looks all wounded, probably serious, able to coordinate tactics, but the fighting in them is decreasing by the moment with their pain in the wound. infection, more injuries, mental health, the wound getting more shot up is probably the main complication worrying the medic right now, though he's not doing so well himself, and well, it'll only get worse right now for them. As for Uzen, by his looks of grim and other deductions, he once thought maybe that having Alexis killed would put Pottes at rest or make himself feel better, but I think now that he's not firing a shot, he's still feeling pretty bad about himself being wrong and, well, maybe getting into this whole revenge thing, who knows. I mean the rest of his team won't feel either."

"Well, thanks for the full examination, Doctor Tarnok, I think I've got the whole picture now." Kortax joked to lighten the mood a bit to give out orders accordingly: "So, we'll give you some covering fire. Charlie and Elara, you cover Detric, and the rest of us deal with Uzen. Oh, I almost forgot about our little sniper who helped us out, Harem, you there, over?"

"Here and ready to snipe, I've got my sniper blaster rifle all ready to go, last job of that medic was a ease, go ahead, squad leader, I'm ready to shoot some holes." Harem said with ease and determination, though Tarnok could hear some held back emotion coming from her voice.

"Well, try to pop whomever has their rifles raised over their cover during the time that our Doctor Tarnok here gets over to Elara's position for support." Kortax ordered swiftly before popping up a moment more to recheck the situation and give it the go signal.

----------------

As soon as the go signal went off, Tarnok rushed to Elara's position, firing off a few shots to cover his switch in position, but never giving himself away. He looked for a moment at Alexis' relique, her expression of still wanting to fight, wanting to revenge her lover Alema, some regrets in her eyes, and the rest knowing she was at peace with Alema finally. Tarnok knew that her last wish was to kill the both of the squad leaders, but with the entire squad and not on her own. The sudden death of Harvey changed it more personally and she became a raging bull trying to destroy everything in her path. She had promised to see through to Alema's funeral, but never could do so was a huge regret for her, but he knew that she had prepared for the situation, a letter stuffed into Alema's pockets, her last words for perhaps the letter left immediately before her death.

Tarnok took a moment to pray her body come to rest and peace may come for them in the afterlife as he tuned to both Alema and Alexis' friend Pampy, who sounded surprised at the call with a bit of preparation for what could only be the shock of Alexis' death as Tarnok simply said with only sorrow,preparing Alexis for transfer onto the Vengeance and letting Uzen hear it loud and clear:

"She's dead, Aola Alexis is dead, never completing her wish to see Alema, the protector's funeral, but probably seeing both their funeral in the afterlife."

"I... I don't know what to say, I wished she could have been here to----"Tarnok heard her key off as he did so too and received the pat, comfort and encouragement from Elara. As he wiped away the sorrow, Kortax helping him by leading the squad to yell the war cry, him joining in and deafened the enemy's skies with blaster fire along with the rest of the squad.

Two lovers' stories end here, but they will never be forgotten for they are the real heroes of this war. Tarnok reflected on the two of them finally as he continued his fire upon the enemy's positions, who finally showed some fear at their unable to return much fire gradually, and some signs of their pains fading and deaths coming, the final step towards their end. For Tarnok, it was the final step in Alexis' revenge for Detric and Uzen that she never got to see, as he worked with the rest of Absolut on finally annihilating them all.

Now Alexis was dead, and Kortax began thinking that this wasn’t going to end. There would be a deadlock for a half hour, then someone will die, there’s a few minutes for the firing to resume, and then another half hour deadlock. The same pattern would continue until everyone was dead. He was wrong the moment he considered making a move, someone else died. Uzen’s head was blown clean from his body and he fell forward into a pool of blood, allowing Absolut to see Charlie leaning against the wall, wielding his repeating rifle. Shortly before Candy squad also saw them, and filled the pair of them with holes. Three people in a matter of seconds.

“Fall back Absolut!” Kortax shouted before the casualties had even hit the ground, and the squad were quick to oblige. They too were succumbing to the inevitability of another death, and the calmness that followed. War didn’t steal a soldier’s emotions, death did.

What was left of Absolut dashed through the hallways as fast as their fatigued legs could carry them, taking a left, followed by another left, then a right. They had no clue what they were going, they were just following Kortax. Candy were hot on their trail, knowing they had a numbers advantage and had them running scared. All that was left was to now finish off the job and report in. Both squads had earned each other’s respect, the sort of respect that could allow them to buy each other drinks in a tavern somewhere. That dream would never become a reality however, as only one squad was going to leave here alive.  Gaines didn’t care anymore though, Uzen was dead, and that in his mind left nothing more but retribution. Once Absolut finally stopped running, no matter how long that took, he’d tear them all limb from limb, no one does to Candy what this Imperial scum have done. They were getting close, Garryl could hear the footsteps and hurried breaths, and smell the sewer muck they hadn’t quite gotten clear of.

He should of took it as a sign to take caution, but he didn’t. Instead, he didn’t, and that meant they ran around the next corner and met Kortax’s squad, crouched along a line at the other end. He was too slow to duck when the red emerged from their rifles, and too quiet to cry out when one of them pierced his throat. The volley of shots all but decimated what was left of Candy, leaving bodies painting the walls with blood. Among those dead , Elara could pinpoint Nor and Travias, their cold sunken eyes staring blankly towards them. The squad stayed in their position for a little longer, waiting for the return fire. They waited a few more seconds before the calmness made them realise the reality. It was over, they’d destroyed Candy in one fell swoop. All the deaths, all the forced deadlocks, and they were taken out by a preschool ambush.

Kortax laughed, and the squad soon followed. It started off a barely audible giggle, but escalated up to full howling laughter that bounces around the complexes walls for as far as they reached. It was over, and they’d survived. The death of Chase they thought was the end, but it wasn’t. Kortax had pulled them through. Mission accomplished. Well, nearly.

“One last thing to do guys” Kortax smiled, using his palms to push himself to his feet.

“What’s that?” Elara called, still laughing.

“Complete the mission” Kortax looked back, giving out a thumbs up before turning the corner.

‘A thumbs up, how cheesy‘ Charlie thought.

The squad made their way slowly through the complex, there was no longer any rush and they needed the calmness. No one speak, everyone just walked and enjoyed the silence, the only noise being their footsteps on the cold metal floor. The sound of blaster bolts had been resonating for so long that their world seemed empty without it. Not that anyone really missed it, the chance it had given them to  recollect. Less than a day had passed, yet it felt like months. They’d met the most skilled advesaries any of them had ever faced, and left with their hands held high. They saw Candy fall into the trap and be cut to pieces. Elara remembered not seeing Detric. They all saw the explosion light up the hallway in front of them, but it wasn’t a recollection.  The explosion had began in one of the rooms four of fives doors down, ripping the door completely free from its hinges and tossing it against the opposite wall. The flames snarled their way down the hallway, faster than any of them could run. So they decided not to, no one moved, everyone simply stood still and waited for their bodies to be engulfed. They’d come close, but they were going to fail.

A hand reached around Kortax’s collar and yanked him to his left. He tripped over the hinge of the door and both him and the hand collapsed to the ground just inside the room. He gathered his bearings and sat up, just in time to see the fire tear through the squad. The scream rose up to a deafening screech, causing Kortax to have to cover his ears. Harem came into view, trying desperately to make it to the doorway. Her whole body burning, skin already peeling from her face. She tripped over Charlie’s leg and writhed about in the flames, calling out what sounded like Kortax’s name. But Kortax couldn’t do anything but cry, to sit there with tears rolling down his cheeks and watch his squad, his friends die. They were calling his name and for a second he wanted to throw himself into the flames and try and help. The hand however still held him back.

“There’s nothing you can do” Elara sobbed, tightening her grip on his shoulder.

Eventually, after five agonising minutes, the writing stopped and everything became calm once again. The charcoal like remains of Charlie and Tarnok were no longer looking at them, they were no longer looking at anything. Kortax turned away, and fired shot after shot from his rifle into the wall. They burned into it, turning the metal a dark black that just reminded him of what happened, and made him fire, and scream in anger, even more.

“Stop it Kortax, please!” Elara shouted, rushing over and pulling the rifle away from him. “You couldn’t do anything, its not our fault”

“Of course its my fucking fault!” Kortax shouted, pushing Elara away “My squad needed me, and I sat here and watched them burn!”

“It wasn’t your fault…” Elara sobbed.

“It was his fault. He killed my squad.”

Elara spun around on her knees, only to take two shots through her forehead and spiral to the ground. Kortax snarled and fired back at Detric, only for him to jump to the side and allow them to harmlessly bounce out into the main hallway. Detric raised his pistol and fired once more.

Kortax gulped and slumped onto his side. Putting his hand down to his stomach, it sank right through where it used to be, into a large gap leaking with blood.

He could remember now, there was something wrong with their ambush on Candy. There appeared to be someone missing, but he couldn’t think who. It was Detric, somehow he had avoided being killed, and was left the only man standing in Candy. And now he had his retribution.

“You were a fine opponent Kortax” Detric said, crouching down and patting him on the shoulder. “I liked you, you were one heck of a soldier and I’m sorry it had to come to this. We had a mission however, the same way you did”

He took a pause for breath, but decided not to finish his speech. He rose to his feet and walked towards the door, reaching for his comlink from his pocket. Kortax saw him leave to the left, to the water treatment clinic. He would empty the cache of the anti-toxin and then leave.They had successfully stopped the water from being treated. Kortax had been wrong, he needed Chase to make sure this mission had been a success. He coughed up nearly a pint of blood as he cursed himself for making such a stupid mistake. His vision was dimming now, the blackness taking over as his body began to stop functioning. He was dying, and it was what he deserved.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cache empty

Detric smiled to himself as the screen flashed the words on and off, before disappearing. He pressed down a few buttons, and a large log off panel appeared on the projected screen. The controlling clinic was a large room, looking extraordinarily like a classroom. There was row upon row of tables behind him, slowly working their way up the walls, all looking down on the main stage like a lecture stage. Each row had five or six computer terminals in them, most of them carrying out an individual task, from checking the levels of waste in the outflow to maintaining the treatment levels of the fresh water. The main computer was the only one that could clear the cache however, the only hard-drive with enough security that it was trusted enough with such an important task.

Detric typed in his username, the username he was told would work on any computer terminal on the planet, and moved down to the password panel. Typing in his password he went to press log off, when the entire room encased itself in darkness. The computer had died, the lights on the hard drive now sleeping. Detric scrambled for his gun, but his fingers could find nothing more table in the darkness.  The lights began to stir again as the emergency power supply began to revive them, covering the room in a dark eerie blue light. His gun was now visible, on the floor underneath the table, seemingly pushed off the table in the panic. Reaching down to take it, he saw Kortax underneath the table. Slumped at the far end of the room, his shirt wrapped around his waist trying to staunch the bleeding. He was lying on the ground, not enough energy to stand up, but with a pistol in his hand. Aiming it between Detric’s eyes, he pulled the trigger.

“Game over Candy”

He threw the gun away from him after the shot, high into the computer terminals in the bays. He then proceeded to pull himself, agonisingly, across the floor over to the computer terminal, leaving a dark red trail of blood behind him. His vision was fading yet again, however he doubted this time he’d be able to get up again. For some reason he had been given another chance, and he was going to make the most of it. There was a low to the right of the main hard drive, which was made to accept a test tube. It would work regardless of whether the computers were functioning, it needed to as a fail safe, so that the water could be treated no matter what the situation. Or, in this case, poisoned.  Kortax pulled himself up the terminal, before pulling the second vial of the toxin out of his belt, and slamming it down into the slot. He saw the lights around the test tube activate, and it began to seep out. It would be in the water within five minutes, and within twenty minutes the city would have poisoned water.

It was over, and Kortax could shut his eyes. Finally he could sleep. He never thought you’d actually feel your heart stop, but you could. Least the mission was accomplished, he was proud of that.

OOC:

End of story, nice work everyone