[h2]The Lone Survivor[/h2]
	The woman lowered her hands, but something in her expression also changed at his last questions, as did her tone. [i]So [b]now[/b] you're suspicious.[/i] It was natural, of course, and even fundamentally necessary, but nevertheless it complicated things. Neither of them had a good reason to trust the other, so he guessed they were at least even now. For the most part, anyway. He was still factionless, and she was still underarmed and -armored. It all depended on whether they were talking long-term or short-term.  
	"And I'm a soldier, one of those guys whose job is to sit on the front line and shoot," he muttered, "but I'm sure you figured that out already."
	The woman glared at him with determination. She would not be likely to win if he actually decided to stop merely aiming at her (which he technically no longer was), but be she damned if she were to back down. Was everyone but him wont to hold their ground in the face of impossible odds except for him?
	[i]"Here,"[/i] insisted a nearby invisible bird. Notrau, "Enn" flinched. [i]Not you again, too... [/i]
	"I asked about air defense. Do I [i]look[/i] like an air force?" Bizarrely, the last sentence was delivered completely seriously, if somewhat nervously, with an edge of impatience. He moved a step sideways again, seemingly trying to put the cart completely behind Kay-Gee, but did not raise his gun again.
	"I never commanded any forces. Common soldiers, those who get fielded, don't do it. Not..." [i]What, on our side? That was technically no longer his side, was it? [/i]"Anderekian soldiers don't, anyway. You're a gun. You go where you're told, you shoot who or what you're told. The less common soldiers know, the less danger they pose when someone gets to them. Yes? But you might still see something, make observations, and you will still be decked out in enough equipment to be able to potentially make some kind of difference. Yes?"
	He was speaking rapidly, ramblingly. The armor masked it to any observers, but he thought his hands were trembling ever so slightly, his heart beating fast, and it felt as though his body was suddenly covered in cold sweat. Hard to tell, with him being still soaked from the rain. It almost felt like being amid battle again, even though Kay-Gee posed little physical threat. 
	"We lost. I expected a fallback order, but one never came. Maybe they did not care. Maybe the arrays had already managed to take out our nearby base's comms. I don't know. I just knew everyone else there was dead, or about to be so. So I left. In any case, I'm now unlisted. Factionless. Do you know why I was worried about battle drones? Because unlisted are to be considered traitors, and will be shot. And Trenians don't like people who look like Anderekians."
	He paused for a moment, breathing heavily. 
	"I am not trackable. There were no trackers on soldiers, since you might as well mark your position with fireworks if you do that. But scourers, scouts, drones, planes, what have you, can still find you. And if the west is now holding ground ... it was supposed to be an easy time, repealing this attack, I think. But that anti-air, that was new. South is not an illogical direction to look in. I've not gotten the impression that there ever were negotiations, and planes are the easiest to get over. 
	Trenians... I don't [i]know[/i]. They were the enemy, the people seeking to destroy us, the reason why I'm here now. ...We were given as much information about the things they fielded as was available, and that was about as much as we ever knew. If you want to know more, you might as well go and ask; chances are they might even listen to what you have to say if you don't go in waving a gun around. Whether they'd allow you to leave afterwards is another matter."