Desert Treasure

[t0l]

Tal emerged from his house-box, raising an arm to shield his eyes from the increasingly intense rising suns. Commotion from all around the FOB had woken him up this early in the morning, although it wouldn’t have made much of a difference since intense sun rays always pierced through the window blinds to give him a rude wake-up call around this time anyways.

Nothing seemed to be on the horizon, at least, from what he could make out through a sea of unimproved structures that’d been wasting away here for as long as he’d been out here. Yet, somewhere in the distance, he swore he heard an XV-990 idling, with occasional shouts of men carrying all the way over to his living quarters.

No, something was definitely up. He lowered his arm, face stuck in a tight squint as a burst of sunlight bracketed him, and proceeded to clatter his boots against the two sand-coated steps. The third step had worryingly gone missing under piles and piles of sand that had been blown up and carried around by the wind, but he didn’t care. Sooner the whole camp was under a thick layer of sand, the sooner he could go home.

As he proceeded towards the mess hall, he couldn’t help but notice one of his squadmates perched atop a small radio tower, scanning through a pair of binoculars.

“HEY!” he had shouted, in an attempt to get his attention.

“Eh?” the mercenary had asked, proceeding to look around with a shattered concentration until he found Tal waving at him from down below, “What’s up?”

“The fuck’s going on?”

“The wha-Oh! Yeah, I can’t even tell from up here, they’ve got it covered up real good. Looks like the northern watchtower got burnt up pretty good, though.”

He returned to scanning the side of an idle Rhino with his binoculars while Tal simply stood there in shock, mouth slightly agape. What could’ve possibly sent a watchtower up in flames in what was now one of The Core’s largest FOBs on Nauru?


“Was it a mortar or rocket?” asked Tal, who stirred up a bowl of chicken-flavored synth gel while trying to look as attentive as possible. He had decided to hold off on assumptions until he was able to ask a more reputable source–this one happened to be on post in the northern watchtower at the same time as the incident–for confirmation on what had happened earlier that day.

“Pfft, rocket? Hell naw, that Dan Wheeler kid had his goggle strap on too tight around his head or something and decided that it was a good idea to set his pubes on fire.”

Tal immediately dropped his spoon, bringing a palm up to his forehead and sighing while the man across from him started chuckling.

“Yeah, yeah, and get this: he fainted and dropped his lighter into a box of live flares.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Hell yeah, I am, dude! The flares all burnt out after a bit, but by that time half the damn tower had melted away.”

“Then what happened to Wheeler?”

“Oh, him? His dumb ass got shipped out to Durban for medical treatment. Won’t be seeing any of him for a while.”

Tal sighed again, bringing his second hand up to his face to give it a good ol’ rub. He’d need a replacement for his transport now, and he certainly didn’t doubt the Core’s ability to dick him over by sending someone even dumber.

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