Prison
He opened his eyes. His head pounded a protest to the light. He didn't know where he was or how he had gotten there, and he couldn't remember where he had been before. Ever. He wondered if he had just been created, lying on his back in this stone room, with a tiny window throwing a dusty ray of sunlight across his face. Below what he could see of the room he saw some sort of computer terminal, where a tiny red bar told him that he was nearly out of something, but he didn't know what. Above that was an empty green console. Maybe he was a cyborg - not even human. Human. There was something. What's human?
With that question the floodgates opened and everything rushed back to him at once. Earth - childhood - the Marines - the Black Razors - Director Santini - Rowena - Rowena - Rowena - Rowen - the Pfhor - Pfhor - Durandal - Marathon - Durandal -- He screamed under the weight of it.
His leg hurt. Why did his leg hurt? Another floodgate. Emp - reconstructive surgery - my knee! He screamed again and stood up. He leaned on the wall for support. The room was spinning. He stared out the tiny window at daytime. He couldn't remember when he'd last seen real daytime. How long had this damn war been going on for? There was no way to tell. Weeks, months, even years, for all he knew. Maybe the war was over. How long had he been unconscious? Maybe he'd been in stasis. Not asleep. The Extended Energy he'd been injected with on Taera didn't permit that - did it? He'd been prepared for eight months of EE. If it had been longer... He would need to eat. He wasn't hungry. Maybe that meant the EE hadn't worn off yet... or maybe he just hadn't been coherent long enough to feel hungry. Somewhere outside there was the twitter of a bird. It sounded a lot like one of the Earth birds. Maybe he was back-
Another glance out the window proved that theory wrong. This planet wasn't Earth. He remembered something - Lh'owon. They had mentioned it as a planet near the Marathon's destination, and possibly a battlefield. Durandal had said it was the homeworld of the S'pht and a Pfhor colony. Was this Lh'owon?
He turned around. There was a door in the stone wall, and another window, criss-crossed with something resembling barbed wire. He could see two Pfhor Fighters standing guard with their shock sticks. They were both blue.
No weapons. They had taken his weapons. If only he could get a fusion pistol, he could hit that switch on the opposite wall and maybe that would open the door.
He could feel his sanity steadily draining from him. He slumped against the wall and took off his helmet. The air in the cell was cool and musty, and a slight breeze came in the window. He could almost feel Rowena - almost hear her-
He squeezed his eyes shut. Don't think about her. He strained to block all thoughts of Earth and Rowena out of his mind for fear of going crazy.
Too late.
He jumped up and ran to the barbed-wire window. "Why the fuck are you standing there?" he shouted to the guards. "Kill me, dammit. Just fuckin' get it over with!"
The Pfhor turned their heads to look at him for a moment, then went back to their vigil.
Ben ran to the other window and screamed into the Lh'owon air. The window was too small for him to climb out of, and there was a thousand-foot drop below him. He screamed again - for Durandal and Tycho, the Marathon, the baersonai. He cursed the Pfhor and the Syndicate and the High Council, and he cursed the AI's - Durandal and Tycho - that were sending him on suicide missions, that had made him destroy Leela, the only sane computer on the Marathon. He cursed himself for obediantly following their every whim, and the war that gave him no choice.
Only after he had stopped screaming did he notice the tears that were coursing down his face.
There was a shout - a burst of the gargling Pfhor speech and machine guns. Without thinking he locked his helmet on.
"Stand your fucking ass back, sir!" somebody yelled in English.
The door exploded inwards, and Ben took cover from the shrapnel.
As the dust cleared he saw Asha standing in the rubble with an SPNKR rocket launcher on her shoulder.
"Seeing you with that doesn't make me feel any better," Ben said, even though he could've hugged her he was so happy.
He was sure she was smiling under her helmet.
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