Kane shook his head and looked around, slowly his eyes refocused and he saw the full extent of the destruction.

1 kilometer away from him lay the wreckage of the transporter he had been on. Men were crawling out, trying to escape the flames, however they were still under fire outside.

The other transporters had come to a stop some distance away, the second one had flames coming out of it in several places, and both were full of scrapes and dents. Kane noticed that the fight was still going on in both vehicles. So no help there, he thought.

"Did you reach the sergeant?" he asked the two soldiers as they surveyed the area.

"Negative, I haven't heard from him, I hope he's okay". Kane nodded and thought, if the sergeant was still alive they would have to rescue him, he was the commanding officer after all.

"I'm going to go over there and see what I can do to help, we might even find the sergeant." He braced himself with a groan and, with some discomfort in his chest, ran crouched toward the distant vehicle.

The men there were barely able to defend themselves to any degree, and more were coming crawling out of the wreckage of the vehicle. A few of the soldiers, Kane could tell, were taking the men out of the wreckage and forming some sort of defensive ring at the vehicle wheels.

However, they probably wouldn't be able to hold out for long, as their condition was similar to the people they were rescuing.

The other two had caught up and one had even found Kane's gun.

He shook his head, just running off without making sure he had a weapon, a rookie mistake that could quickly prove fatal. They had almost reached the wreckage when they were noticed by the attackers, a group of them opened fire on them.

Kane and the others threw themselves behind a pile of sand to escape the fire. He picked up his rifle and checked its magazine, after a bit of shaking he put it back in and took the safety off. He then crawled up the pile until he could see over it, his two companions positioned themselves to the right and left of the pile, securing his flanks.

The attackers came running and opened fire, Kane waited until they were optimally in front of his crosshairs, then he pulled the trigger, the weapon emitted an orange beam, which hit one of the attackers in the chest.

The hit one staggered a few more meters, then collapsed in a cloud of sand. T

he attackers now focused their fire on Kane, who retreated a bit further to avoid the projectiles, which hissed into the pile of sand. Now his two colleagues opened fire on the enemy, taking them out completely. One of the soldiers was about to search them when he noticed how much the group at the transporter was under fire.

He waved to Kane and the other, then ran across the plain toward the transporter. The enemy had now noticed them and opened fire, however the three did not stop, but ran towards the transporter returning fire.

Several of the shots whizzed past Kane and his companions, several times they had to throw themselves down to avoid the fire. Kane felt he couldn't run much longer, his two companions looked similar, the way they ran showed exhaustion and their injuries added up aswell.

However, he had no intention of stopping so close to the finish line. He set his rifle to full auto and fired a volley at the attackers, who jumped for cover. At the transporter they had noticed their attempt to break through and tried to support them as best they could.

One of the soldiers must have found grenades and was ready to throw them to clear the last few meters. Kane and the other two, however, were just sitting behind a piece of debris, careful not to get blown to small pieces by the fully automatic weapon in front of them.

In addition, there was a great danger of not being able to see anything because of the sand, or of suffering burns from the enemy fire, although that was the most harmless thing that could happen. His companions occasionally glanced around the corner to make sure they weren't flanked.

"How do we get past that one?" he asked the others. "If we go past right and left they'll catch us" one said. "We could also wait until they have to reload, but it looks like it will take us too long to get to the transporter, by then they will have reloaded and caught us" said the other.

"So we have to surprise them and take them out!" said Kane. He even had an idea: the metal part behind which they had taken cover was not very high, so they could climb over there, and then use the element of surprise to overpower the enemy.

He shared his plan with the others and they agreed, in retroperspect the wondered how they mangaged to surviv this reckless idea. Everyone checked their weapons again, then they jumped up and over the slab, Kane was the first one down and immediately opened fire.

The gunner was so stunned that he forgot to shoot and was cut down by the first shots. Before the others had recovered from the shock, all three were already on their way while firing at the enemies. Kane waved at the soldier with the grenades, who understood what Kane wanted and threw one in his direction.

Kane, who had never been a gifted catcher, ran back and forth to predict where the grenade would go. Then he ran and caught the grenade (more badly than well, as his companions would later claim), activated the fuse and threw it in the direction of the enemies.

Just as they were about to start firing again, the grenade exploded and shredded the enemy position. Kane and his companions slid the last few meters toward the makeshift rampart and were pulled up by a couple of soldiers. On the other side they collapsed, exhausted.