The rifle barks gently, silenced to keep anyone from finding my location. Measuring the scope, my target lay dead a few hundred yards to the west of me. A big boar, massive tusks willing to throw me into the air or impale me if I decided to fight one on one. Neither seem a good idea right now with the confusion over my failed mission in my head.

What would become of me...oh, I could only imagine. The failed soldier come home to be treated like a mistake. They'd analyze me, dig into my brain with that machine, and dissect me until there's nothing left, but shell. For what? To save a man who would probably die tomorrow from the bullet of an Alliance gun, much like the one I carried, or similar.

Dusting off the pants that they had issued me, a hole in the knee causing some dirt to slide down my bare leg and into my sock, I shake out my boot. The boar is about half mile between their camp and my blind. It's a shame to waste the meat, the boy looked rather skinny, and I'm sure the last decent meal they had was a while ago.

Shouldering the rifle, my boots strike the hard ground with a rhythmic pat pat...vultures already catching wind of my kill. Still, they'd wait for me, not yet ready to approach that big a monster without confirmation that the thing was dead. Of course, most things were that ceased to have much of a head. Besides, I could smell the loss of its bowels from here.

The landscape is the same as most planet's this side of the Alliance hub, rocky terrain, small lakes that don't amount too much, and life that seems okay with the arid regions. The Alliance stocks them all with boar, deer, sometimes even elk. Cattle came with the settlers as did sheep. Never could get a taste for domesticated animals. If I can't hunt it, I didn't like to eat it.

A rabbit runs in front of me and I growl gently, watching as three little ones follow. If it hadn't been for the boar, I'd have gone after them, not scared them with my boot. My stomach rumbles, we haven't eaten for days except the horrid dry me