The Shot Heard Around the World

"You're looking good. In a sort of 'I have become death, the destroyer of worlds' kind of way."

"Any more smart arsing out of you Commander, and you'll see just how much I can destroy."

"In that suit? Probably not all that much. Least not when compared to a WMD."

"Only need to destroy one person Parker. You can tear up as much as you need to get to him."

He didn't dispute that. He just stood there in silence.

Not that the hanger deck of the Tzadik was silent. If anything, it seemed to be even louder than before, as everything from tanks to fighters was made ready for combat. Was that coincidence? Imagination? Or were his ears correct in telling him that Colonel James's forces were putting their backs into it more than usual? Did they know, as he did, that this was it? The last chance they'd get at Kane before he unleashed the scrin. That they were the only GDI forces left to fight for the people of Earth, even as the public shunned them. People who'd made a deal with the devil. People who'd let Lily die.

Lily…

He shook the thoughts aside. Soon, when this was over, he'd have time to properly mourn his wife. Her, and every other man and woman who'd given their life for the cause. Looking at James, her entire body encased in a zone suit bar her head, he could tell that while her grief was older, it was no less raw.

"Hold it!"

He looked up at the techs on the scaffolding. The suit's helmet was dangling above her, lolled to one side. If it had come down now, at best, James would looking through a single eye. At worst-

"Cho!"

"Working on it Colonel."

James sighed as the techs adjusted the helmet's suspenders. Parker, for his part, walked up to the platform. Without the powersuit, he was a head taller than his superior. Now, those roles had been reversed, and then some.

"Nervous?" he asked.

James looked down at him with a smirk – one of the few times he'd seen anything approaching a smile over the past few weeks. "I don't need a pep talk Commander. This isn't little league."

"Don't think the size of the league correlates to the need for pep talks."

"Well, if I need a pep talk, I'll ask for it," Louise said. She paused, the smirk fading, her eyes hardening. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Parker looked to the side, playing with his wedding ring. A single band of gold – a substance not worth much days in an age of tiberium and platinum, but even as human society had changed drastically over the past eighty years, some traditions had remained.

"I'm fine," he murmured.

Marriage, and the exchange of rings among them.

"Fine?" Louise asked. "Didn't think you were one for bullshit."

Colonels pulling rank being another tradition. He looked up at her, his eyes blazing with the fire that GDI had once possessed. The fire that people like Evelyn Rios and Wesley Riggs had smothered. "Deal with your pain how you want Louise, I'll deal with mine."

She remained silent for a moment. The look in her eyes told Parker that she knew that she'd hit a nerve, and that for now at least, was willing to back off from it.

"Cho!"

"Working on it!"

Course that meant taking it out on Ensign Cho, but the kid would learn. He'd get to grow up in a world where Kane was dead. Where the TCN kept tiberium in check, and everything was sunshine and rainbows. That, or a world where the scrin had returned and destroyed everything good and whole in existence. One or the other.

Parker remained put however. Thirty minutes from now, there'd be little, if any chance for small talk between him and the colonel, so for better or worse, he felt compelled to make the most of the opportunity. That said, there was little to say about James at this point, or the armour she wore – it felt like an anachronism. Even in the Third Tiberium War, infantry had played a key role for both GDI and Nod, but now, thirty years later, that had changed. Tanks, walkers, aircraft…war had become mechanized to the point that infantry had become an exception on the battlefield. Armies had become smaller, but no less deadly. Some called it progress. Some called it dehumanization. Parker had never called it anything. He was given an army to work with, he did the best he could, that was it.

Didn't do good enough to save Lily did you?

He brushed the thoughts aside – grief was fine. Self-pity wasn't. In the process of brushing those thoughts aside, his eyes lingered on the rifle that Louise would be using – a SNC-494 single-shot. It fired 10mm tungsten rounds, capable of tearing through everything from flesh and bone, to titanium battle plating. That was in addition to the zone suit's laser, which had enough power to cut through the hull of the GST they were in. Of course, she'd be taking out Kane from range, so the sniper rifle seemed the way to go.

Some would have called that overkill. But given the circumstances here…

"Think it'll be enough?" Parker asked.

Louise looked down at him. "What?"

He gestured to the weapon. "The rifle. Think you can kill Kane with that?"

"You doubting my aim?"

"Not doubting your aim Colonel. Just doubting fate."

"Fate?"

"Yeah. As in, this is the bastard that survived an ion cannon strike in the First Tiberium War, gunshots and impalement in the second, and an additional forty years of aging after that. Bastard's either got more lives than a cat, or more hide than an elephant."
"One's a house pet, the other's extinct Parker."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but…" He sighed. "Y'know…"

"Know what?"

He could tell Louise knew exactly what he was talking about, but wanted him to say it anyway.

"Just…will it work this time?"

So he said it. Even as he saw Cho give a thumbs up. Even as the helmet was lowered down onto the zone suit. Even as Louise James began moving in the armour, flexing its giant fingers, looking through a pair of blue-glowing eyes that reminded Parker of a golem. Fingers that picked up the rifle as if it wasn't an oversized weapon that no unarmoured human could hope to fire without having their shoulder dislocated.

"Kane's going to die," Louise said. "If not by my hand, than by yours."

He frowned, not sure how to respond. Dread and pride was a strange mixture, and it was one that kept his words in check.

"But preferably by mine," Louise continued. "This suit's got target-finding and stabilization procedures, so the chances of me missing are somewhere between slim and nil."

Not doubting your ability to hit that bastard, Parker thought. Just your ability to make sure he stays down.

He didn't say that though. There was no need to spook Louise this late in the game. The crew was on edge, he was on edge, and they'd be deploying in 25 minutes.

"See you on the ground Colonel," Parker said.

He gave her a salute. Via the suit, she returned it. He couldn't see her face through the HUD, but he could imagine her smiling. Not so much for him, but for herself. For the knowledge that by the day's end, one of them would be the man (or woman) who killed Kane. That she'd have avenged her sons, and every other man, woman, and child whose blood was on the hands of the butcher that led the Brotherhood.

Like Lily.

He began to walk, headed for the bridge. The crew stepped out of his way and/or saluted him as he passed, but he paid them little heed. Instead, his mind was focused on the images his implants were showing. Images of Italy. Before the coming of tiberium, where its land was green, beautiful, and bountiful. After the coming of tiberium, as it (and the rest of the world) slowly turned to desert, its people fleeing north, its wonders both natural and man-made being consumed by the green crystal. Images of Italy as a red zone, a tortured hellscape that was alien to Man. And finally, the Italy of today. A 'sterilized' landscape, removed from the worst of tiberium's ravages, but not yet healed. Not the most hospitable region of the planet, and far removed from the nightmarish terrain that GDI had fought over in the Third Tiberium War, but hardly paradise. One that the Threshold Tower stood over like a silent sentinel. A monolith, unknown to Man, placed by aliens, but not there for their elevation, but rather their destruction. Even as the faithful of Nod gathered to "ascend." Even as GDI stood by as the cowards they'd become. Even as the sheep stood by while wolves gathered at the fence.

I'm coming for you, Parker thought. One way or another…it ends tonight.

Kane wouldn't hear him. Kane wouldn't even see him. If…when…the genocidal maniac met his end, he wouldn't know the name of Lilian Parker. He wouldn't know that if her life hadn't been taken, there was a chance that her husband wouldn't even be here. The name of David Parker would never enter his mind.

Reaching deployment zone in twenty minutes, a klaxon declared. All personnel report to assigned stations.

But it would end. By one shot or many, it would finally end.

Here.

Tonight.

A/N

The idea for this came from reading a comment on YouTube, where a user asked about Colonel James's plan to kill Kane. Basically, the point boiled down to "the guy's survived an ion cannon strike, you think a sniper rifle is going to do the job?"

It's not exactly a plot hole per se, but it did give me the idea to drabble this up.