Private Before It Goes Wrong Again

[Ana Rix]

Ana looked down at the packet in her hand as if the contents were somehow more surprising than the firefight they had just survived. The data chip was expected, the objective usually was, but the aspirin was a variable she hadn't factored in. Her fingers closed around both, and for a moment she simply stood there, allowing the dull throb in her skull to settle into something manageable as the alley fell into that heavy, ringing silence that only follows a burst of violence.

"You carry flashbangs, extra ammunition, and painkillers," she said softly, her voice regaining its steady rhythm as the adrenaline began to taper off. "It suggests you are either extremely prepared or significantly older than you let on."

There was no accusation in the remark, only the dry, analytical observation that colored most of her world. Without waiting for a response, she tore the packet open with her teeth, shook two pills into her palm, and swallowed them without ceremony. It was problem-solving in its simplest, most clinical form, no complaints, no dramatics, just the necessary maintenance required to keep the system running.

Her gaze lifted to him then, lingering on the visor that obscured his features yet somehow revealed exactly what she needed to see in his posture.

"Thank you," she added after a beat. The words were quieter than her joke had been, carrying a rare thread of sincerity that she usually kept tucked away behind layers of encryption.

Straightening her posture, she rolled one shoulder as if resetting her own alignment before slipping the chip securely into its hidden housing. The transition back to the task was instantaneous.

"I'm ready," she said, though she paused to cast one last glance toward the mouth of the alley. "Though I would prefer the next three blocks contain significantly fewer surprises than the last."

The faintest trace of warmth touched her expression, a brief, nearly imperceptible softening of her features, before she turned and resumed her pace. She didn't look back to see if he was following; she simply trusted the pattern they had established, knowing he would fall back into position behind her.

"And Ironwraith?" she called back, her tone regaining its edge. "Try not to make saving me look so routine."

Ironwraith

 

[Ironwraith]

Ironwraith let out a low laugh behind the helmet as he fell back into step.
"Flashbangs, extra ammo, aspirin," he said. "That's called experience. Or surviving military paperwork. Same disease."
He adjusted the rifle on his shoulder, tone dry but steady.

"When you spend enough time in my line of work, you prepare for everything. Headaches, bad knees, ammo running dry in the middle of a firefight, comms failing exactly when you need them most." A slight shrug. "Prepared beats dead every time."

His visor tilted toward the alley behind them.
"And if you get ambushed, rule's simple. End the threat, or leave one breathing long enough to explain how they found you."
He stepped back briefly toward the thug who had grabbed her, crouching beside him with practiced efficiency. A quick search. Pockets, belt, inner jacket.

"There we go."
A datapad.
He powered it on, scanning through it quickly.

"Let's see… contacts, routes, maybe names. Or maybe just somebody's terrible taste in music."
Files transferred to his HUD with a soft blink of green. He stood again and fell back into place behind her, slipping into the rhythm of the walk like he'd never left it.

Then his voice changed.
Quieter.

Less joking.
"I told you I've dealt with worse."
A pause.

"Raid, years back. Outer Rim settlement. We were told it was a weapons stash. Militia holdout. Fast in, fast out."
His boots hit the pavement in a slow, even cadence.
"Turned out intelligence was fucking garbage. It wasn't a stash. It was families. Locals caught between insurgents and Republic pressure. People trying to survive while everyone else called them collateral."

His hand rested near his sidearm, not from tension. Habit.
"I had a rookie with me. Fresh out of training. Still had that look like the armor meant something. Like regulations and clean briefings could keep the galaxy organized."
A faint breath left him.

"We breached a doorway, and a kid stepped out. Couldn't have been older than fifteen. Blaster in both hands, shaking so hard I thought he might drop it before he fired."
His voice stayed level, which somehow made it heavier.
"He pointed it right at the rookie's helmet."

A few quiet steps passed.
"Not a soldier. Not really. Just scared. Probably watched armed strangers tear through his home and decided if he didn't do something, nobody would."
The city around them felt quieter somehow.
"My rookie froze. I don't blame him. First real operation, and suddenly the line between target and terrified child disappeared."

His helmet angled slightly downward.
"And I had about half a second to decide whether that rookie went home or not."
Silence.
"I took the shot."

No pride. No shame. Just fact.
"Saved my man. Mission moved on. Command called it clean."
A bitter edge slipped into his voice.
"Didn't feel clean."

Another few steps.
"That's the part people get wrong. Pulling the trigger isn't the hard part. Training handles that. The hard part is remembering exactly why you did it… and wondering if there was another way."

He let the silence breathe for a moment before the dryness returned, because apparently feelings are only tolerable in controlled doses.
"So compared to that? You, a crystal, and a few idiots in an alley?" His helmet tilted slightly toward her. "Practically a peaceful evening."
He tapped the datapad against his gauntlet.
"And now I get to read criminal admin work. Truly, the glamour never ends."

Ana Rix

 

[Ana Rix]

Ana didn't answer right away, allowing his words to hang in the damp air between them until the weight of his confession fully settled, unvarnished and heavy. She made no move to soften the edges of what he had said or reshape it into something more palatable; instead, she kept her pace steady and her eyes locked on the road ahead, her attention meticulously divided between the shifting shadows of the street and the gravity of his history.

"I don't do what you do," she finally said, her voice a quiet, even vibration that seemed to ground the tension. "My world is built on systems—predictable architectures where, if a component fails or a line of code breaks, I can trace the fault, isolate the damage, and eventually rebuild it from the ground up." She paused for a moment, the rhythm of her boots against the duracrete marking the silence. "But people don't offer that kind of clarity, and they rarely give you the option to fix what's been broken."

There was no physical distance in her silence, even though she refused to turn her head and meet his visor. Her stance was one of objective acceptance, neither offering the empty warmth of comfort nor the cold sting of judgment as she processed the reality of his past.

"You made the call you had to make in a moment that offered no clean exits," she continued, her fingers twitching slightly at her side in a brief, grounding gesture before falling still once more. "And despite the weight of it, you walked away with your head intact and your own sense of direction found. In my tally, that's the only thing that actually counts."

A beat passed as the air cleared, her tone shifting back into the familiar, measured cadence that defined their partnership.

"You're good at the violence and the survival, and I'm good at the logic and the ghosting, which is the singular reason we're both still moving while the rest of this city stalls," she said, her gaze flicking briefly toward the datapad clutched in his hand. A hint of her characteristic dry edge returned to her voice, sharpening the atmosphere. "So, if that data can finally tell us who has been putting a price on my head, I'd prefer to have those names in my system before they're granted the luxury of another attempt."

Ironwraith