"Do you think he would've hesitated to put you down."  Demanded Marcus, his tone still stone cold and his eyes dark.  His finger didn't move off the trigger as he opened his mouth to continue but Tess cut him off,

"Listen to him Marcus, he won't give us away!  We can, we can take him as hostage or something!"  She said, trying to appeal to his reasoning instead of emotional mindset since that clearly wasn't in the works here.  "We've already killed all of his fellows. we don't need to put him down too."

"Why cause he's crying?"  Snapped Marcus, grabbing the soldier by the collar and dragging him upright.  "Because he's begging?  So he's spineless, so what?  You still think it would be a mercy to leave him alive when we just shot up his whole unit?"  His voice was rising in volume but he didn't seem to care, glaring over the soldier's head now at Tess.

It was vivid, really vivid in his mind's eye.  The heat, the smell, the sounds.  Sickening crunches and gasping breaths.  And always the tramping of heavy suit boots coming closer occasionally pausing over a wheezing body.  And in the end a rough voice telling others to leave him he was no longer a threat.  Leaving him alive and gasping clutching a jammed rifle with shrapnel in his chest surrounded by what was left of his first squad.  Being dead sometimes seemed better then reliving that in his memories.