We dug in at the ruins of an old church. The stained glass was gone, replaced by jagged holes where the sky bled orange light.
The squad was resting. Miller was eating a ration bar, staring at me like I was a messiah. The Sergeant was checking ammo.
I sat alone in the corner, calibrating my arm.
[Ouroboros Status: Dormant.] [Warning: Neural Synapses Overheating.]
The gauntlet was hungry. It hadn't fed on a death yet this run, so it was taking small sips of my bio-electricity instead. My fingers twitched uncontrollably.
"Specialist Caelum."
I looked up. A holographic projection of High Marshall Vesper flickered into existence in the center of the room. She wasn't there in person, but her presence dropped the temperature of the room by ten degrees.
Her six Laplace Drones floated around her hologram like a halo.
"Ma'am," I said, not standing up.
"I have been reviewing the combat logs," Vesper said, pushing her glasses up. Light reflected off the lenses, hiding her eyes. "In the last encounter, your reaction time to the sniper fire was 0.02 seconds. The human limit is 0.20 seconds."
"I drank a lot of coffee, Ma'am."
"Do not mock me, Specialist." The hologram stepped closer. "And the tank. You fired at the cliff face exactly three seconds before the tank vented its heat. You utilized a geological weakness that was not on the tactical map."
She leaned down, her digital face inches from mine.
"You knew it was there."
I stayed silent. This was the dangerous part. If I told her the truth—I'm a time traveler and we're all dead—she'd have me institutionalized. Or executed for insanity.
"I have good instincts," I said finally.
"Instincts are just uncalculated variables," Vesper replied cold. "I hate variables."
Suddenly, a sound cut through the silence.
Miller was humming. It was a stupid, catchy tune from a radio commercial back on Earth.
Da-da-da, da-da...
My breath hitched.
For a second, the ruined church wasn't a church. It was a concert hall on Mars. And it wasn't Miller humming; it was Lyra tuning her violin.
("Come on, Caelum. If we win the war, I promise I'll play a song just for you. No sad songs. A happy one.")
The memory hit me harder than a bullet. The smell of her shampoo. The way she held the bow. The way she died in Loop #12 holding my hand.
"Specialist?" Vesper's voice snapped me back.
I looked up. I must have made a face, because Vesper looked... surprised. For the first time, the cold logic on her face cracked.
"Your heart rate just spiked to 180," she said softly. "What happened?"
"Nothing," I stood up, grabbing my rifle. "Just a ghost, Ma'am."
Vesper stared at me for a long moment. Her eyes narrowed.
"Very well. Since your 'instincts' are so sharp, Unit 7, I have a new mission for you. You will take point on the breach of Sector 9."
The squad went silent.
Sector 9 was the death zone. No one came back from Sector 9.
"You want me to walk into the meat grinder," I said flatly.
"I want to see if your luck holds out," Vesper corrected. "Or if you are simply an error in my data that needs to be corrected."
The hologram flickered and vanished.
"Sarge," Miller whispered. "She's trying to kill him."
"Yeah," I muttered, checking my ammo counter. "She usually does."