Latch unto Me

Relocation

The remaining survivors; Kyle, Jack, Julia and Valerie sat huddled around a small campfire. The base was over fifteen kilometers away. The chances of being found were slim.

For once, that was a good thing.

No one said anything as they tried to gather their collective thoughts. It was a sudden occurrence, and certainly an unpleasant one. they had lost friends that that had known and worked with for years. Just a few hours ago they were fit and well. Now, just, gone...

They waited in hope that others would appear. It was a silently agreed hope, mutually create through glances.

"This is -"

"Don't start!" Julia cut Jack off, "If one of us gets mad, we all will. Then we're dead."

"Then we're dead? What are we now?" Valerie asked.

"Rouge." Kyle answered, "But we may as -"

"Kyle!" Julia cut him off. She would do so as many times necessary to whoever dared to say anything against their chances.

With nothing positive to say, the group sat in a stony sullen silence for a frighteningly long time.

We are elite! We are the best. They put us on this planet to put it to rights. But we cant even decide what to do without having command in our ears telling us what to do every step of the way. We were trained to be the best at taking orders and executing them. Nothing else. Only Black Sickle ever had an inkling of an idea of what was happening.

Kyle had the feeling that the others had thought the same thoughts at least once in the passing minutes.

Why do you despair? Came the voice from inside his head. He looked around to see if it really was. It really was. None of his companions had even flinched.

He was sure the voice had been that of the creature that he had seen in his... vision, he decided to label it. It had been a terrifying experience, but he felt completely calm hearing it now. It was immaterial now. More of a figment of his imagination.

Do not trust in the lies of your enemy. Trust in your impulses. Our strength.

Kyle stood up.

"I going to have a look around, do a bit of scouting. Make a perimeter. Uh..."
He looked at the sullen faces of his comrades and just backed away. Their eyes where downcast, looking into the dull embers of the dying fire.

"I'm just going..."

"We heard you the first time Kyle." Jack droned. Julia did not even scold him for his pessimistic attitude. She sat just as silently, looking contemplative.

He left.

Kyle was acutely aware that they had no proper training in survival. They where trained in endurance, combat, stealth, infiltration and interrogation. But they always had sufficient supplies for a deployment. What they had now would barely feed them for tonight, and they would have nothing tomorrow if they didn't act. The landscape was considered a first yes, in that there were trees. But there was no real life. These where grey trees that forced their way up through hard dirt and rock to sprout. There was little water and plenty of heat. The days were hot and the nights where hot. Everything about this planet was hot. It had no natural life forms other than the gnarled, leafless, grey, deathly, hollow trees.

"This planet isn't even worth a single one of the combat bases on it."

There is will in your anger. Purpose in revenge.

"I'm up shit creek without a paddle. What the hell am I supposed to do?"

...

"What am I even doing! Talking to bloody ghosts in my head!"