They set up camp in the ruins after the sweep, surrounded by the fresh stench of charred monster flesh and half-melted bone. The cleanup units hadn't arrived yet, and the Recovery Unit was still hours out. Berta's squad was stretched out on sandbags, catching their breath, while his squad scavenged through the debris for anything remotely useful among the pre-rift ruins.
It wasn't quiet.
The kind of silence they had now was post-battle silence, the kind that hummed in their ears and made their nerves twitch like they were waiting for something to scream again.
Berta sat beside him on the cracked remains of a concrete divider, peeling open an MRE.
"You ever think," she started, tearing into the pseudo-meat slab, "that one day, this'll just be another paragraph in a textbook?"
Rus raised an eyebrow. "You mean the xenocide? Or the casual arson?"
She shrugged. "All of it. The monsters, the war, the reclamation, the kill counts. Probably written by some soft-fingered academic who's never had to jam a baton into an Orc's throat while it screams for its kids."
Rus leaned back, wiping grime from his cheek. "Well, history's written by the guys who win. And we've got napalm and cluster munitions. That's pretty persuasive."
Dan wandered over, holding his helmet under one arm and a can of instant coffee in the other. "Are you two flirting again or just trauma-dumping in stereo?"
Berta grinned. "Why not both?"
Rus didn't dignify it with a response. Just sipped the coffee Dan handed him and watched the sky darken as the sun dipped below the ruined city's skeletal skyline. The firelight from the last sweep flickered in the distance, casting long, twitchy shadows on the ruined streets.
Foster came limping up next, his leg dragging slightly. "Gino says one of the fuckers tried to bite through his plate. Through it. Like, full-on beaver mode."
Rus nodded. "Did he shoot it?"
"No," Foster said, deadpan. "He insulted its mother and made it cry."
"Effective," Rus said. "Classic counter-insurgency technique."
He dropped next to them with a groan, unwrapping a chocolate bar like it was holy communion. "Y'know, I'm not saying I miss the city, but back then, I didn't have to worry about what species' blood was in my socks."
"Or what STD is airborne from Berta's bunk," Rus added.
Berta flicked a peanut at him. "I swear, Wilson, if you ever grow a pair, you'll be the first man I let ride reverse."
"Now that," Rus replied, "is the most terrifying offer I've received all week."
She chuckled, but behind it was something else. That old fatigue. The kind that crept up after enough battles, like a bruise she only felt when it got quiet.
Kate strolled up, rifle slung over her shoulder, half a cigarette stuck to her lip. "Commander Reed says they're triangulating the cave system. Wants us on standby for another sweep."
Berta groaned like a dying animal. "Can't we at least get a night?"
"Nope," Kate said, lighting her smoke. "We're his favorite disaster crew. Yay to us."
Rus shook his head. "You'd think surviving multiple confirmed freak encounters would earn us a vacation."
Kate took a long drag and exhaled. "Nah. It just means they know we can walk out of it. Barely."
Back at the makeshift command post, their data was being uploaded, mapped, and handed off to CP. A dozen more coordinates. A dozen more warbands spotted. They were winning on paper. But for every city they cleared, three more nests and dens of monsters showed up. Every time they crushed one of their habitats, another tribe adapted. Faster, smarter, nastier.
And somewhere in the back of Rus's head, He wondered if there was a limit.
Not to those monsters.
To them.
He glanced at the team again. Dan and Foster arguing over whether Orc teeth made good trophies, Berta teasing Stacy while pretending not to be watching him, Kate passing her cigarette to Gino, who accepted it like he was getting baptized.
They weren't just a unit.
They were what happened when humanity decided "survival" needed to be psychotic, sarcastic, and sleep-deprived.
And they were damn good at it.
But deep down?
They think they all knew.
One day, the gas masks wouldn't work.
One day, the .50 cal wouldn't be enough to put a monster down.
And when that day came?
They hoped to God they'd be too dead to care.
Still, for now, they waited.
In the ruins.
In the silence.
Weapons cleaned.
Nerves twitching.
Waiting for the next order, the next call to move, the next mission they'd complain about and still complete.
* * *
Morning came with a kind of gray, wet fog that clung to their skin like regret. The ruins were still, humid, and smelled like rain mixed with burnt flesh. Above them, the sky hadn't made up its mind and was too pale for a proper storm or too dark to feel safe.
They were all half-awake and wholly miserable.
Dan stood at the Humvee's rear, brushing his teeth with combat paste and a grimace like he was trying to scrub out the war from his molars. Gino was huddled over a portable stove, stirring something that looked like an MRE's second cousin twice mutated. Foster had his boots off, poking at a blister the size of a coin and mumbling curses under his breath.
"Why are we still here?" Foster asked. "Just to suffer?"
"Because CP loves us," Rus said, sipping a lukewarm pouch of caffeine like it was vintage wine. "And because we kill things real good apparently"
"You think we're getting rotated back soon?" Gino asked.
Rus looked at him. Blinked slowly.
"Gino," Rus said, "if we were getting rotated, you'd already be naked on a beach somewhere, weeping into a coconut drink and begging a hotel maid to shoot you just to feel alive again."
"That sounds nice man," he muttered, poking the stove harder. "Can't wait to do that once we are true UH citizens."
Berta approached, her boots crunching softly on the wet debris, a half-eaten protein bar in one hand and a look of very mild, very amused menace on her face. Her hair was tied up messily, streaked with soot, and she wore that same signature smirk that said "I slept fine, how about you, losers?"
"Rise and whine, boys," she said. "CP wants us to move up the eastern ridge. Some tunnels caved in from last week's bombing, and guess who gets to check if anything's still breathing?"
"Oh joy," Rus said, standing and stretching. "More holes. More Orcs. More reasons to hate the sound of wet footsteps."
"You're such a romantic," Berta grinned. "Ever consider poetry?"
"Every day," Rus said. "Just waiting for the right inspiration. Preferably something quiet, distant, and unrelated to your sex life."
"That's not what your eyes say sometimes," she winked.
"My eyes say I've seen too much, and most of it involves you trying to coerce the gene pool into a one-woman orgy."
Dan spat and wiped his mouth. "You two need a divorce already."
"We're not married," Rus said.
Berta slung her arm over Rus's shoulder anyway, grinning. "Yet."
Rus shoved her off with the same energy someone would use to swat a particularly flirty bear. "Go harass Foster."
"He's not cute when he's grumpy."
"And I am?"
She didn't answer. Just smirked and walked off, leaving Rus in the awkward silence of his own dignity dying.
Kate passed him, raising an eyebrow.
"She's still doing the whole 'pretend flirting' thing, huh?"
"Kate," Rus said, "if I ever show any signs of reciprocating, shoot me."
"No promises," she said, lighting a cigarette.
They rolled out twenty minutes later, Humvees rattling through uneven terrain. The eastern ridge was all jagged rock and scorched scrub. The kind of place they could get ambushed by thirty Gobbers or trip over a mine left behind by people who died decades ago. The wind had teeth out here. It didn't cut, it chewed.
Their drone buzzed overhead, feeding them coordinates. Rus synced the data to his heads-up overlay, watching the pings flicker across the terrain.
No major movement.
Yet.
"Anyone else getting the feeling we're walking into another shitshow?" Gino asked over comms.
"Always," Dan replied. "That's the brand."
They dismounted at a narrow pass and moved on foot, boots crunching against loose stone and ash. The cave entrance was tucked behind a collapsed highway overpass, a maw of jagged stone and shadows.
Berta took point, LMG slung tight, eyes narrowed. She wasn't cracking jokes now.
"Signs of movement," she muttered. "Tracks in the mud. Big ones."
They stacked up, covering the entrance. Rus tapped into the drone feed, but couldn't see past the rock. Nothing on thermals. Whatever was inside, it was waiting.
"Are we doing this quietly or loud?" Foster asked.
"Quiet," Rus said. "Until it or us screams."
Inside, the tunnel was tight. Low ceilings, humid, and the kind of dark that made them feel like their flashlight was apologizing. They swept through slow, eyes scanning, rifles steady. The walls were clawed. Marked. Symbols and drawings in what he guessed was blood, or shit, or some combo of both.
Then the stench hit.
Rot. Not fresh. Not even a week-old. This was aged rot. The kind that clung to their throat and made their stomach try to secede.
Kate gagged. "Gods, smells like Gino's socks in here."
"Hey," Gino said. "They're sacred. Battle-tested."
They found the remains near the center.
Piles of bodies. Mixed. Orcs. Gobbers. Something else. Torn apart. Burned. Gnawed. Some looked like they'd been dissected. Others just… melted. The ground was covered in a sticky black smear that clung to their boots like tar.
And something was written on the wall.
Not in some Orc script.
In a language they could read.
RUN.
Rus looked at it.
Then he looked at the rest.
"Nope," Rus said. "Nope nope nope."
Berta nodded slowly. "Time to call CP?"
"Time to call everyone."
They backed out fast. No movement behind them, but the whole tunnel felt like it was breathing. Once they were out, Rus flagged the drone and pinged the coordinates.
"Cyma One-One to HQ. We found another nest. But it's not just Orcs."
"Copy that, Cyma Actual," came the voice. "Sending full burn protocol."
"Burn protocol?" Dan asked.
"Yup," Rus muttered. "They're gonna glass the place."
Gino groaned. "There goes our quiet morning."
They pulled back, watched from the ridge as the gunships arrived.
No warnings. No speeches.
Just fire.
The kind of fire that turns stone to soup and screams into smoke.
Rus watched the cave collapse under the barrage, saw the dirt ripple like water from the blasts. Whatever was inside wasn't getting out.
Hopefully.
Berta stood next to him, watching the firestorm.
"Still think I'm the scariest thing you've ever seen? You looked like you was going to shit yourself there, Rus."
Rus glanced at her.
"Not even close," Rus said. "But definitely in the top five."
She grinned.
"Good."
Berta didn't move from where she was standing, arms crossed, still watching the fireball that used to be a cave system filled with unspeakable filth. Smoke billowed skyward like a vengeful spirit. She exhaled through her nose and cocked her head toward Rus.
"You know, Wilson," she said, lazily, like someone pondering a casual sin. "When all this is over, and we're back in the City, you and I should get a drink. And then maybe... see where that goes."
Rus turned to her, deadpan. "You mean, after we survive endless waves of Orcs, mutilated Gobbers, mutant hellspawn, chemical warfare, and the sheer psychological trauma of all of this?"
She smirked. "Exactly. After all that. Just you, me, and a bottle."
"And your STD collection?" Rus asked, arching a brow. "Let's not forget that. I'd rather stick my dick in a hornet's nest that's been marinating in acid. As you know."
Berta laughed, low and wicked. "Come on, admit it. You've thought about it."
"Yes," Rus said, "in the same way I occasionally think about diving into a wood chipper, just to see how it feels."
She took a step closer, smirking. "You're afraid you wouldn't survive the night with."
"No," Rus said. "I'm afraid I'd survive, and then spend the next three days trying to explain to the medical team why my pelvis looks like it was fed through an industrial juicer."
"That's not fear," she said. "That'd be a work of art!"
"I can't tell if that's a threat, a promise, or the opening lines of a psychiatric evaluation."
She leaned in a bit, eyes glinting. "Don't worry. I'd be gentle."
"Berta," Rus said, "the last time you said that, we had to evacuate a building, and three of the medics requested psychiatric leave."
"Lies," she grinned. "That was only two."
"I rest my case."
She took a long, slow drag of her cigarette. "You know, you're the only man I flirt with who hasn't tried to impress me."
"That's because I already have a personality," Rus said. "And an immune system I'd like to keep intact."
She laughed again, throwing her head back. "Oh, Wilson. You're like a rare, sour fruit. Completely unappealing at first, but eventually, someone will get curious enough to try you."
"If that's your way of describing sexual conquest," Rus muttered, "then you're one Victorian ghost away from writing erotica in an asylum."
Dan, sitting a few feet away, snorted hard enough to spill half his canteen.
Berta turned to him. "You hear that, Dan? Wilson thinks he's too good for me."
"No," Rus corrected. "I know I am. That's why I'm standing here not covered in claw marks and regret."
Gino chimed in over the comms. "Wilson, you gonna keep roasting her, or are we gonna get moving?"
"I'm doing both," Rus replied. "Multitasking is just another symptom of hating everything efficiently."
Berta rolled her eyes, but she was grinning like the devil had just offered her a drink and a good time.
They started moving again, navigating the muddy ridge trail while the smoke from the cave still blackened the horizon.
"I mean it though," she said, tone suddenly more level. "We live through this, you owe me a drink."
Rus gave her a sideways glance.
"If I live through this," he said dryly, "I'm getting chemically sterilized, joining a monastery, and pretending none of this ever happened. That includes you."
She grinned wider.
"Oh, Wilson," she sighed. "You keep talking like that, and one of these nights I will drag you into a bunk by force."
Rus turned away, muttering just loud enough for her to hear.
"And that, my dear, is why I sleep with a claymore mine under my cot."
Foster piped in over the radio.
"You two done dry-humping with words, or should we give you five minutes to argue over safe words?"
Berta responded first. "Mine's 'Harder.'"
"And mine," Rus said, "is 'Court-Martial.'"
They walked on through the ruins, smoke in the distance, laughter in their ears, and that creeping certainty that something worse was always waiting on the next hill.