Rogue saw the person underneath the persona, and he hated him. The shot was as clean as it could be while the ground shook beneath him with the arrival of more drill probes and the debris from the destruction he'd wrought - and he took it.
Through Gunnar's sights, he watched the traitor's expression as the bullet hit. Then the traitor was gone, falling away into the darkness behind him.
Rogue was already running towards him. "Let's go finish this," he said, unable to believe that he might actually be able to, that in a few minutes his long personal quest might actually be over.
Pietr couldn't believe that the battle was over. His own sweat was rank in his nostrils, and his own breathing was so harsh in his ears that he couldn't hear his fellow Southers' cries of triumph.
Pietr looked around at the town which had been a wreck when they arrived and was now a ruin. He knew that the Norts weren't all beaten. They'd retreated inward, towards the centre of the city - towards Rogue. Pietr only hoped that they'd been able to delay them for long enough to buy Rogue the time he needed.
A Souther, a young boy called Quil, clapped Pietr on the back and smiled. "We made it," he said. "My first real battle. Yours?"
Pietr looked round, at the bodies and the blood and the mess that war left behind. "Yeah, it is," he said. The first battle I was fighting for the right side.
He knew that he'd finally become the soldier his brother had said he could never be. And it had been Rogue who had shown him how.
Pietr was still smiling at the irony of that when the bullet from a lone Nort sniper took him through the throat.
As his body lay cooling on the shattered street, a fleet of Souther Hoppas flew low overhead. The pilot of the lead Hoppa shouted into his radio, "We're locked into the GI's radio signals. Launching missiles!"
If Pietr had been alive to see it, he might have wondered, and worried, that Rogue was still in the line of fire, but there was no one left to care as the missiles streaked from inside the Hoppas, enough missiles to bring down the building ahead of them along with everyone in it.
Rogue found the traitor crawling away down a small side corridor like a wounded animal. Rogue's shot had taken him in the chest, but the chem suit had sealed itself over the wound and the general was still alive, clinging to life as tenaciously as any living thing that sees its final hour approaching and realises that it isn't ready to embrace the darkness quite yet.
The traitor turned his head when he saw Rogue approaching, an expression of fear struggling to make itself known over the tight, stretched skin of his burnt face.
Rogue holstered Gunnar and dropped to his knees behind his fallen enemy. "Traitor scum," he said, enjoying the flinch of fear from the traitor as he spoke. For any other man he might have felt a flash of pity, the hunter's pity for his prey - but not for this man. "Killing you won't bring the rest of the GIs back, but at least you won't be able to sell out any more of your own side."
He reached out, slowly enough to make sure that the general knew exactly what he was planning, and grabbed the air tubes feeding oxygen into the mask of the traitor's chem suit. For this man, he wasn't planning a quick or easy death.
His hand was half curled around the tube when Helm's voice screamed in his ear: "Rogue! Incoming air strike!" Even before Rogue had time to react, the missiles struck.
A giant invisible hand seemed to lift both Rogue and the traitor from the floor and fling them in opposite directions. Rogue made a last desperate grab for the traitor's air pipe as he flew, but though he felt his fingers brush it, he couldn't be sure that he had managed to rip it loose. The world was falling in around him, thousands of tonnes of masonry obeying gravity and coming down, and all Rogue could do was run, away from the collapsing building and the certain death within it.
Half an hour later, Rogue found Kovert exactly where he expected - dismounting from a Hoppa on the safe periphery of the destroyed building. Venus was beside him, looking like the battle she'd fought to come to Rogue's aid had been more than was good for her. Her leg trailed behind her like a dead thing, but the main expression Rogue saw on her face was worry, not fear. He tried not to wonder whether the concern was more for him or for Helm.
"Spread out," Kovert said to the Souther infantry who dismounted beside him. "I want the bodies of the GI and the traitor found."
"Don't bother, Kovert," Rogue said with a small dry smile at the other man's start of fear. "I'm right here."
Kovert turned to find Rogue's rifle centred right on his chest. Rogue knew, of course, that killing Kovert would mean death for him, but right now he wasn't sure he cared. Another Souther who'd betrayed him. "Any reason I shouldn't pull this trigger?"
Rogue saw Venus frowning at him, her initial expression of relief transforming back to worry again, but he ignored her. Whatever happened to him, Venus would be all right, and he knew that he could safely leave the future of the GIs in her hands.
Kovert recovered quickly, snapping on his usual impassive mask as if his brief expression of panic had been no more than a trick of the light. "I had to make sure the traitor was located and killed," he said briskly, no hint of apology in his tone. "All other considerations were secondary."
"Meaning us," Gunnar said bitterly. "Typical Milli-Com thinking."
"Your mission's over, Rogue," Kovert continued, as if Gunnar hadn't spoken. "The traitor's dead and you've more than proved your worth at these kinds of operations." His tone softened as he saw that his words were showing no signs of cracking Rogue's granite facade. "I can help get the charges of desertion against you dropped, get new clone bodies grown for your three comrades." After a moment, when Rogue still didn't speak, he continued, perhaps more honestly, "It'll be what you deserve, a second chance for all of you."
Rogue knew what he thought about that, but he also knew that this was one decision it wasn't for him to make. The debacle with Sister Sledge had taught him that, if nothing else.
"Come work for you, you mean?" Gunnar grated. For once, his tone was neutral, and Rogue couldn't tell what the other GI was thinking.
"Sorry, Milli-Com man," Bagman said, and his contempt was clear. Rogue felt himself relax just a little.
"We're soldiers," Helm finished. "Not spies and assassins."
Rogue smiled - the kind of smile that made Kovert take a step back and Venus's expression shift into a combination of admiration and regret. "Looks like that's a 'no' then, colonel."
He turned and walked away, over the bodies of the many brave Souther men who'd died to allow him his chance to kill the traitor - a chance Kovert had snatched from him, denying him his final moment of revenge.
"You think you can fight this war on your own?" Kovert asked angrily.
Rogue glanced down, and realised that he recognised the face behind the chem mask beneath him, the gentle features harder now, hardened by a war he'd made the choice to fight with honour. Gently, Rogue reached down and removed the chem mask and brushed Pietr's eyes shut.
He didn't look back at Kovert as he continued to march on. "Why not?" he said, his words floating away on the toxic air of the only home he'd ever known. "It's the job we were created to do."
EPILOGUE
Of course, it wasn't over. On Nu Earth, it never is. As Rogue's figure retreated into the chem mists, behind him the remnants of the Souther forces were clearing through the rubble that Kovert's air strike had left behind.
One of them found something. "There's a body down here," the Souther said into his radio, still continuing to prod and dig through the rubble. He was glad, for once, for his chem suit; without it, the smell of death might have been overpowering. The place was a charnel house.
His commanding officer wasn't so delicate. He jumped down into the pit they'd unearthed and knelt down to turn the body over. As soon as he saw the chem mask and the insignia on the suit, he turned to face the others above him. "It's a Souther," he said excitedly. "Real messed up. You'd better call the medics!"
His men rushed away to obey.
<
br /> Standing, facing away from the body, the officer didn't see it slowly rise to its feet. He didn't see the gun it drew and pointed at his back. And when the shot rang out, the clamour and ringing of the salvage work masked the sound entirely.
By the time the other Southers realised that something was wrong, the body was long gone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca Levene was born in Essex, raised in Suffolk and now lives in London. She has worked variously as a researcher for a Labour Shadow Cabinet member, an editor of media tie-in fiction, and the story editor of Emmerdale. She is currently a freelance writer, with credits on shows such as Family Affairs and Is Harry on the Boat? Together with her writing partner, Gareth Roberts, she has a sit-com in development with the BBC and another with Tiger Aspect. She has also contributed to Black Flame with Stontium Dog: Bad Timing and Final Destination: End of the Line.
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