Rifle gripped tight in hand, Eunji eased her way out from behind the van and headed for the downed craft. She knew that she should be leaving the scene; the crawlers were bound to be there soon to iinvestigate the loss of the craft. But she had to know if her fellow fighters were alive. 

She found Wonshik first, lying in the mouth of the alleyway, the burning craft just beyond him and clogging the entrance. He lay facedown, unmoving, but she had to be sure. A quick check for a pulse and she confirmed it, he was dead, and though she felt callous, she knew she had to move on and leave his body. She didn't even shed tears, she was so used to seeing friends die that she felt as if she couldn't cry anymore. 

She took his rifle and his extra ammunition rounds, then moved on the downed craft, her own AK-47 raised and trained on where the cockpit was. It was a strange shape, she knew from experience; large enough to fit one of the bugs but curved, making them sit inside the craft like a roly poly bug curled halfway in on itself.

The sound of chattering in an unknown language nearly made her jump out of her skin, and she crouched hidden underneath the craft for a moment before she realized that it wasn't a squad of the creatures coming toward her. The sound was coming from inside the craft, and that meant the pilot was still alive. She grit her teeth and steadied herself, then jumped out of the shadows and turned to fire inside of the cockpit. 

Her bullets broke through the remaining pieces of windshield and into the crawler, and only when it was very obviously dead did she cease fire. It must have been calling more of its people to tell the location, and with that , she knew she had to hurry. She began to turn away when movement inside the cockpit caught her eye.

She spun back, rifle raised and finger on the trigger, only to find that it was a strange silvery metal flowing down the dead alien's arm toward the control interface. Curiousity took over, because if she had thought about it, she never would have done it, but she reached out and touched the liquid with her gloved hand. To her surprise it did not coat her fingers, and instead changed its trajectory and flowed into her hand, quickly forming into a cube the size of an apple. She stood staring at the oddity, wondering what in the world she was holding, when she heard the tramp of an incoming crawler squad.

Shoving the cube into her pocket - she would figure out what to do with it later - she squeezed past the wreckage and into the alleyway. She found Bomi's body quickly, nearly unrecognizable, and though she was saddened by the loss of her friend, she relieved her of her rifle and ammunition as well and hurried away.

She was several streets gone when the crawlers arrived, hurrying back toward the ERF base as safely as she could manage. The dead pilot's message must have been for more backup, though, because as she rounded a corner of what used to be a bank, she saw a squad of the aliens headed her way. They saw her, too, and she let out a curse as they swung their