[headquarters]

General Pain shifted uncomfortably from one knee to the other in his kneeling shooters stance .The old knees were protesting him sitting at the ready like this for more than a few minutes.The knee pads on his armour took care of some of it , but still the joints squeaked and grumbled when treated like this.Tiredly he puty up his custom .308 Ak against the remnants of the brick house wall he was hiding behind.
"Igor - cover my sector -there`s a good boy !" Igor nodded sharply and hissed a "yess master" before taking up a new position to cover the new sector as well. Mindless obedience.If only all men could be like that .What wonders he could have created.But alas,his behavioural research had faltered and come to a virtual standstill now that the everything had collapsed for the second time.Or was it the third ? The wars and catastophes seemed to have had no beginning in his mind .Like they were always there .And always had been.He had seen countries war torn like this one before - why should it be special just because it was the US ?"Because you could go ohome to the world .." a faint voice whispered in the back of his head.Home ? Who wants to go home ? he thought .There was never enough war to go around before .He remember how he had been passed up for promotions because there was no need for his services in peacetime back ine the old US of A. Well, no more.These days he was war incarnate.A loyal army following his commands.And nothing but enemies wHereever he turned .Who could ask for more ? But his knees-damn things- were aching a littlebit more every time he went out into the field now.At 50 it was to be expected .Contrary to any SOP in the world he lit a cigar that he carried in a small aluminium tube in his tactical assault vest .He took care to shield both the lighter flame and the soft glow from the cigar in his cupped hands.

A few hundred meters to his North a series of mortar grenades slammed into the debris and threw a thousand little pieces of dirt and concrete up ,up and then raining them down again like a brief tropical shower.A few seconds later the dull thumping from a paintek MK19 40 mm grenade launcher answered .Soon after distant reports from the impacts were heard. The cacaphony was complemented by staccato bursts from machinegunners on both sides, hosing down suspected enemy positions with multiple short bursts.Tracer-round ricochets whissed overhead in erratic arches in the bleak dawn light. Hissing RPGs with their poisonous -yellow rocket spark flew from both sides .Underneath it all a continous roaring sound ,muted ,like a waterfall far away- riflefire.

Combat.What he was born to do .

General Pain drew in the smells and sounds and exhaled them with cigar smoke -ever so slowly .To his left , the rest of his squad were getting ready .DeCorba was speaking into two radiosets alternately ,without pause.Lady Takashi was busy having her wounds rebandaged.A corporal was hastily reloading magazines from a wooden box filled with loose rounds.
The stage was set for act two - he knew his lines and the audience was waiting .He took a swig from his silver flask and corked it again .Cognac.A fine one too.

But deep inside a flicker of a doubt.A brief thought of mortality .
The very doubt that made his once bulletproof fate start to crack ever so slightly .What he had seen naked and clear in the eyes of a thousand men before at times like this.

Fear.