For the first time in decades, the tension between the infamous "Desert Tribes" was never this intense. There was a war, and it was going at full force. Soldiers, tanks, and various heavy weaponry were deployed in this horrifying territory war.
Brandon was part of the war, but he never wanted to be there. Because Brandon wasn't a soldier, but a journalist. He went away on a mission to cover the event, but was forced to participate as he got in trouble with one of the two opposing tribes. Unvoluntarily, he was drafted on the side of the Sahoz tribe, fighting the Maun tribe. And there he was, trying to survive the best he could.
The Sahoz tribe considered him as one of their soldiers, but they were aware of his special situation and lack of combat ability. So, they decided to come up with a new task for him : Reconnaissance. Surely, this was within his abilites, right ? Brandon was really hesitant about it. Every single day after his 'capture', he regretted his decision to cover the war.
Brandon was asked if he could drive a Desert Raider. He responded that he didn't know what a Desert Raider was. The chief asked if he knew how to use a gun. He responded that he never tried to use one. The chief then asked how Brandon could be useful to them. He said he simply knew several languages and how to film and take photos. The Sahoz chief had an idea.
A new mission was proposed, focused around Brandon. The task was simple : infiltrate the enemy Maun base, record and take pictures of their weapons and their plans, then send it back to the Sahoz chief. Brandon was there when the Sahoz chief proposed this plan to the table of officers. He felt so devastated. Sure, he was techically out of the fight, but he didn't want to die either. This was way too risky.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do this mission. You expect me to just infiltrate there by myself and snap some pictures ?"
"You won't go alone. You will go with other members of our tribe."
Brandon looked at the chief with confusion, who then pointed at the other side of the table. In addition to the officers, there were three other people, and just like Brandon, they looked out of place in this reunion.
"I got dragged in this too." said the only woman out of the three, with a perfect English accent.
"Are you… another journalist ?" asked Brandon.
"No, I came here to bring medical support, originally. But these guys always send me on their stupid missions."
"Silence !" interrupted the chief. "We let you live here. You will go home when war is over."
"When war is over ? But it looks like it's never going to end !"
"It will, if you succeed in your mission. We only need to know about their plans and their weapons to win it. Now, go prepare immediately !"
Brandon was feeling both depressed and angry, as he got out of the strategy tent. Outside, he was greeted by his new comrades, and especially the two guys, who were apparently natives from the Sahoz tribe.
"Hey. I am Zion. Driver." the first introduced himself with his best English.
"Babel." simply said the second.
Brandon wanted to ask what his job was, but Zion explained in his stead. "He is sniper. Does not speak English."
"Nice to meet you all. I am Brandon, and I-"
"We know who you are. This mission was made for you, you know." interrupted the woman.
"Oh, yeah, I see. And your name is ?"
The woman didn't reply, and turned her head away. "I won't tell you. Just call me doctor."
Brandon wasn't particularly happy with the answer, but 'doctor' was fine. The fact that a team was there to help him raised his confidence a bit. He still wasn't ready to go die on the battlefield, but he tried to stay strong so he could finally get out of this mess.
"Let's go there. Desert Raider is ready." said Zion, while pointing in the direction of the supplies area.
"What's a Desert Raider anyway ?" asked Brandon.
"It's some sort of vehicle made to drive in the desert. It's fairly silent so pretty useful for recon." replied the doctor.
Arriving at the supplies area, the team scattered. Zion went directly to see the car, Babel went at the weapons stock, and the doctor ran to the medical tent, located nearby. Brandon decided to go see Babel first.
Babel was officially a sniper for the tribe, but he brought with him a lot of weapons, more than he could fit on his person. He took out two assaults rifles, a handgun, a lot of bullets, and a sniper rifle with a strange insign on it. As he noticed Brandon was looking behind him, Babel reached for another handgun and handed it to him.
"I don't use guns, sorry."
Brandon tried to give the gun back to Babel, but he refused. Brandon didn't even need to hear words to understand what Babel thought about this : he just looked in his eyes, and saw the clear refusal of not letting him go unarmed. Brandon himself went silent. Babel also handed him a holster, which he immediately strapped around his leg and tucked the gun in.
As he went to see the doctor in her tent, she just came out with a bag, seemingly full of first aid products.
"What are you doing here ?" she asked.
"Oh, I was just… seeing if I could do something to help."
"Well, you could have prepared. We're going in about five minutes."
"Five minutes ??"
"Yes. They're launching an attack to make diversion, and we have to infiltrate their camp in the meantime."
Brandon felt an immense responsibility in his hands. Why did they trust him to accomplish such a complicated mission ? He wasn't even a member of the tribe he was fighting for. Why would they give such a difficult and important task to a complete foreigner ?
As he got into the car, Zion was already behind the wheel, waiting. Contrary to Brandon, he was extraordinarily calm. To try and relieve his emotional distress, Brandon simply asked Zion "Why am I here ?". Zion didn't hesitate to answer.
"Some soldiers in camp are traitor from Maun. But you are foreigner so you're not traitor to them."
"That's all ? Just because they don't want to send a recon with traitors ?"
Zion just nodded, then shrugged a little. Brandon felt a bit upset. They were not trusting his abilities at all, they were just using the fact that he was completely lost make sure that he wasn't a traitor. Come to think of it, it was probably the same with the doctor… except that she was, well, a doctor, so she had a different purpose there.
Eventually, the other two got in the back of the Desert Raider, and announced they were ready. Zion looked at Brandon again, who nodded in agreement, and off they went. Brandon became more stressed the closer they got to the enemy camp. They tried to travel through different roads and sometimes where it was hard to see, for example where there were sandstorms. Much to Brandon's surprise, Zion was not only a very good driver, but a great navigator as well. Always focused, he always knew exactly where to go, even though to Brandon, everything looked the same in this desert. They easily managed to avoid multiple outposts by taking alternative routes. After a while, they arrived to their destination, located merely 300 meters to the Maun camp, the closer they could get without being noticed.
Everyone stepped out of the car, and checked their loadout. Brandon didn't have much brought with him, except for his camera and his gun, but he still checked both to make sure he was able to accomplish his task. Even while trying to act confident, he was extremely terrified. He turned to look at the doctor. She actually looked quite scared as well, and even though it didn't bring much relief to Brandon, he was a bit happy to relate to her. Just like Brandon, Zion had a handgun ready. He noticed a strange
insign on it, very similar to the one on Babel's sniper rifle. Probably the same, actually.
"You ready ?" asked Zion.
The rest of the team nodded. After noticing one guard protecting this side of the camp from afar, they tried to sneak a bit by crawling in the sand and rocks, but couldn't get too close. Eventually, Babel took him out with the sniper rifle so they could advance. Unfortunately, it made much more noise than they expected, especially at this distance : as a result, the Maun guards were aware of their presence, so the team hurried.
Thankfully for them, the diversion worked and there weren't a lot of people in the camp, mostly a handful of guards, and most of them were trying to locate the source of the gun noise they heard. Hiding behind tents strategically, the team split up in pairs : Brandon was with Zion, and Babel with the doctor. The first group was supposed to head to the command room and try to retrieve any useful info, and the other one was simply supposed to cover them by opening fire if things got too dangerous. Brandon's legs were shaking, but Zion tried to reassure him as best as he could. Even though he didn't know exactly how to use it, he kept his hands on his gun in anticipation, just in case.
Finally, without firing a single shot, the duo made it to the command room. As they got inside, Brandon got hold of his camera and filmed everything he could. He didn't take anything with him, but he got pictures of everything that looked important. However, this judgment was purely based on intuition, since he couldn't read the language the documents were written in.
Suddenly, he heard a scream. It was coming from outside. Shortly after, gunfire was heard, followed by a lot more shots. Zion yelled "Go ! Get out !" and without thinking, Brandon started running. After exiting the tent, he tried to run to get the car, but something hit his leg really hard. He just took a bullet in it. And then, he was hit by a second bullet, this time in his back. He screamed in agony on the ground, and tried to crawl away from the fight to avoid dying there. He didn't want to. He didn't come here for that. But there he was, deeply wounded and unable to walk. Finally, someone raised him up from the ground and transported him by putting his arm over their shoulder. It was Zion, who was also trying to get away from the fight. Brandon passed out from the anxiety, pain and probably blood loss.
He woke up on the back of the Desert Raider, which was going away from the Maun camp as fast as it could. The doctor was on Brandon's side, trying to stop the blood from flowing out of his body. What was initially pain to Brandon turned into coldness, and weakness all over his body. The doctor looked at him, and she was extremely panicked.
"Don't move ! We have to stop the blood or else you'll die !"
Die ? He was dying ? He didn't want to think about it, but… in a way, this was inevitable. Brandon was on the verge of death. He admired the attempt of the doctor to try and reanimate him, but it was in vain. When he became a journalist, Brandon thought he could be a hero, in his own way. By covering the tribe war, he thought he could bring out the truth to the general public. But alas, this was the end of his almost-heroic career.
Brandon could see that Zion was driving the car, but he couldn't see Babel anywhere. However, he did see his sniper rifle, on the ground in the middle of the car.
"Where… is Babel ?"
The doctor closed her eyes for a moment, and inhaled.
"We couldn't do anything. I don't know how, but we were spotted immediately. He was shot dead before he had a chance to fight. His rifle is all that we could get from him."
Brandon looked at the rifle. "He never told me… what does… this mark… mean ?" he said, weakly, while pointing at the insign on the rifle.
The doctor wanted to tell him that it wasn't wise to talk right now, but she complied to answer his question anyway.
"It's the insign of the Maun tribe. One time, the Sahoz managed to steal this rifle from them, I think it was last week."
"The Sahoz… only took… this one gun ?"
She nodded. Brandon finally understood what happened. He wanted to explain, but it was too late. He wasn't ready to say his final words, but he had to. He took the hand of the doctor, and place it on the gun he had on his side.
"This gun… I didn't use it… because I was afraid… Take it… and maybe… you can save… more lives with it… doctor…"
She smiled weakly at him, with tears in her eyes. "Please… call me Angela."
Brandon also smiled, one last time, then eventually drew his last breath. On the way back to camp, Angela didn't cry, but a bit of sniffling could be heard at the back of the car. Zion understood what happened, but he didn't want to strike a conversation at this moment.
The two of them, with a depressed look on their face, arrived at the camp, and went back into the commanding tent of the Sahoz for their report. Angela brought with her the camera, proof of Brandon's heroic work, in order to finally bring the war to an end. The Sahoz chief took the camera, and started to examine its contents.
"There's nothing in there."
Angela was extremely surprised. What happened ? She was certain that Brandon had time to take pictures of the place.
"Are you sure ? That's impossible !"
"I wanted to believe in you. You lost the foreigner and one of my best fighters, and then you come back empty-handed ? Do you want the war to last forever ?"
Angela left the commanding tent, angry and confused. She looked inside the camera. There was nothing. Literally nothing. No data. How could this even be possible ?
She eventually headed back to her medical tent, near the weapons reserve. There, she saw Zion, working on the Desert Raider.
"Doctor, I am sorry."
"Don't worry, Zion. It's not your fault."
She entered in her tent with a sad look on her face. As she got out of sight, Zion removed his hand from his gun, and looked at the insign on it.
"Yeah. Not my fault."
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