Eye of the Storm [Complete]

[Jim Raynor]

The harsh sunlight assaulted Jim the second he passed through the portal into the Endless Dunes.
 
Raynor clutched his C-14 gauss rifle in warming steel hands and strode out into the savannah. His visor hissed upwards, removing his facial protection from the sun but at least letting the air flow, however slowly, through his suit. There wasn't much to see; clear sky, patches of thin grass occasionally broken up by the odd tree, its canopy thick and splashing shade over the ground. A warm day, but the humidity made it worse. Even with the visor up, Jim felt his entire body perspire, layering swiftly with a sheen of sweat. He considered ditching his armour, but it wasn't exactly portable if he wasn't in it.
 
Perhaps 'the Endless Dunes' wasn't the smartest destination, now that he thought about it.
 
There weren't many places for a malcontent to hide in, but Jim held his weapon just in case. Ambushes were part and parcel of waging war in his sector of the galaxy; the zerg had a nasty tendency to burrow under the ground and lie in wait, bursting out just as a man walks over them, and the protoss love their cloaking and warp technologies, able to reveal or teleport in an army before you even know you're not alone. Jim couldn't know if he'd encounter such familiar hostiles this far from home, but it never hurt to be prepared for it.
 
"Adjutant," Jim said, his curved visor clicking into place again. "The lay of the land, if you please."
 
Raynor expected to see a map of the immediate area, maybe some highlighted points of interest, even some close-up images of landmarks he was approaching. Instead, the adjutant's face burned blue through the orange of his visor. "No satellite communications possible. CMC-400 scanning instruments off-line."
 
"Off-line? What do you mean, damaged?"
 
"Yes, Commander. They appear to have shut down after significant impact trauma. Cause unknown."
 
"Then just pull the info from that datanet you hooked into before. Should be easy enough."
 
"Unable to connect to datanet. Connection refused."
 
Jim chuckled without humour. "Wonder what else I've got to look forward to out here."
 
As he trudged deeper into the realm, he found his metal feet following a path beaten by the dozens of feet that scored it through the grass. A splintered and faded sign a little way down the track informed Jim he was heading to 'Carrefore,' but it wasn't much to look at. A number of armoured men with menacing rifles, though they had nothing on Jim's 'Impaler,' looked his way as his foot stepped through the entrance to the town. Two motioned at Raynor and approached him.
 
"Halt!" one said.
 
Jim took one last step, the pistons and joints of his armoured legs clicking into place. His visor, orange with a white skull painted on its front, was still down. "Can I help you, gentlemen?"

"Just what are you doing here?" the other asked.
 
Raynor lifted the visor. "Just a man figurin' things out. Not too sure where I am, frankly. Maybe you'd be so kind as to-"
 
"You can't be walking around here carrying that," the left guard said, gesturing at Jim's C-14 cradled in his hands. "It's against Empire regulations."
 
"Plus that suit," the other chimed in. "That's gonna need clearance as well."
 
"Forgive my ignorance," Jim said, "but Empire? Regulations?"
 
One of the guards sighed, though with the faces hidden, Jim didn't know which. "I don't have time to be teaching newbies how the Omniverse works. Either hand over your hardware or you'll be forced to move on."
 
Jim looked at his gauss rifle, then at the guards. "Sorry fellas, but if you think I'm givin' this ol' girl up, you got another thing comin.'"
 
"Then leave," the other said. "Or we'll be forced to apprehend you."
 
Jim squinted, sizing up his aggressors. He could probably deal with them without much trouble; after all, the CMC-400 could punch through concrete, and at this range, the C-14 would probably punch a few holes through them too. Still, no point in making enemies when he didn't have to. Maybe there'd be more friendly people somewhere else.
 
"You won't have any trouble with me," Jim said, his smile born of appeasement rather than happiness. "I don't suppose you folks'd be kind enough to point me in another direction? Somewhere with a bar?"
 
The guards glanced at each other, then turned back. "There's a town further into the Endless Dunes. Not a short walk, but you should get there all right."
 
Jim nodded and his visor slipped down, revealing the skull again. "Much obliged."
 
The sparse tufts of grass fled from the landscape not long after leaving Carrefore behind. Heat bled in blurred waves from the sand that took its place, cooking him in his CMC battle armour. His particular suit, the CMC-400 model, didn't feature anything like air-conditioning, though none of the marines enjoyed anything so fancy. Jim had heard that some of the wealthier and favoured siege tank operators employed by the Dominion often had cooled cabins. What he'd do to be driving in one of those right now.
 
Scorching day soon abated as the sun sunk beyond the horizon. Stars revealed themselves through the velvety curtain of night, and Jim found himself staring up at them. It was a sight he'd grown accustomed to on the Hyperion. On countless planets over countless conflicts, every evening he could gaze into the gallery of twinkling lights and remember, even when his strength was down and hope a scarce commodity, that feeling that unequivocally rose to the surface as he stood on the bridge of the battlecruiser. He would look around at his diligent crew, who had sacrificed a chance at a normal life to give others a chance at theirs, and know that Raynor's Raiders had a job to do.
 
And then as now, no matter how he had ended up in his mess, no matter how tough the journey home, he would prevail. He just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
 
He smiled to himself. "Raiders roll."
 
What heat the sand had stockpiled during the day had been given up just as hastily. Jim was thankful for his own body heat insulated in his armour as he battled through the freezing winds that howled over the dunes, though it might not be enough. Raynor had marched through icy tundra before in marine armour and lived, though a few times he caught a cold and even hypothermia. This type of cold - night desert cold - had a bite just as bad as those frozen mudballs. He had to find some sort of shelter for the night.
 
The wind brought new tidings other than numbing chill. Voices, shouting frantically but too far away to be distinct, met Raynor's ears. The unmistakable rattle of gunfire blended with it. Jim increased his speed, ignoring the fatigue weighing him down. If those were his men, he had to come to their aid as soon as humanly possible.
 
Jim crested a sand dune and orange light flashed in time with the deep rumble of gunfire. Through the brief illumination, Raynor made out two worn humvees parked side-by-side and armed men poking above them before rattling off a burst of bullets. Looking beyond the conflict, a small town, nondescript except the fact that it was the solitary settlement this far out in the sandy wasteland, sat in the gunfire's direction.
 
Mercs was the likely situation. Dark had fallen, and using the cover of night and a pair of old cars while they assault the local law enforcement, whatever that might look like in such an isolated place, was a tried and true strategy. Unoriginal perhaps, but it's hard to argue with results.
 
Raising his C-14's sights to his eye, Jim strode forward. It wasn't his style to shoot a man in the back if he could help it. But with no cover and a powerful tiredness taking up residence in his bones, he was less inclined to give out warnings.
 
Jim pulled the trigger and a spray of bullets screamed from his rifle. He caught one bandit in the back and another in the leg before the rest reacted and scrambled around the sides of the humvees. The four spotlights on his chest erupted with white light, damning any counter-fire to hasty shots that got nowhere near their intended mark.
 
"Now I'm just gonna say this once," Jim hollered, rifle still levelled. A few heads peeked over bullet riddled chasses, squinting against his high beams. "Get outta here, and don't come back."
 
The men moved like cockroaches, scooping up discarded weapons and throwing them into their weather beaten vehicles. The two injured bandits crawled into the back seats, and in a few moments, the wheels sprayed sand as the humvees hightailed it out of there. As they zoomed off into the black, they rolled their windows down and hurled insults at Jim, but nothing worse than he'd already heard before by worse men than them.
 
Raynor approached the outskirts of town, stepping over the red patches soaked into the sand and spent bullet cases. A handful of men emerged from crouching behind damaged walls and chipped wooden crates. They gripped revolvers and pistols, levelled at the ground, though their sharp stares and firm jaws indicated they weren't above using them if the need arose. He hoped the reception here would be warmer than Carrefore.
 
"What's your business here?" a portly man said, dressed in a stained singlet. A wrong move and Jim had no doubt the next bullet from the man's gun would be for him.
 
"Lookin' for a spot to rest my head, for starters," Jim said, his visor hissing open. "I've been walkin' all day and this Dunes place ain't too hospitable."
 
"Is that a fact?" another man said through a thick, pampered moustache. "You new to these parts, stranger?"
 
"As new as a man can get to hill after hill of sand, I reckon. And the name's Jim. Jim Raynor." He pointed with a metal thumb behind him. "Hope them folk weren't friends. Didn't look like they were."
 
Another man stepped forward, straightening a  faded tan vest. A belt of cartridges slung over his chest jostled as he approached, revolver in a death grip. He was the closest in dress and appearance to a cowboy out of the whole lot of them, as if he was the only man not sleeping when the attack rolled in. The others brushed dust off what looked like their sleeping ware.
 
"That was a mighty kind thing you did there, Jim," the man said. "You've earned a night here in my books. Come on, I'll take you to a room."
 
"Much appreciated," Jim said, following the cowboy as the rest of the defenders dispersed, returning to what Jim assumed were their houses. Doors shut quickly and locks fell into place even quicker. "Didn't catch your name."
 
"I didn't give it. Roland's the name. I'm the sheriff around these parts. Maybe after you've had your rest, we can talk some more."
 
Jim nodded. "Happy to earn my keep, sheriff. After I knock back a bourbon or two, of course."