Hawkeye sighed. He’d taken dozens, hundreds of lives in his time, seen them breathe and cough and bleed their last down the sights of many different weapons. But he could never deny that it was such a waste, to end another’s life like that. The young sharpshooter took a moment to take a deep breath, then pulled out a long red tube out of his coat and ripped the activation cap off before dropping it to the deck.

A thick cloud of red smoke issued immediately from the nightflare, which also started sending jets of bright crimson sparks out from the tip.

“That’s the all-clear signal for the Silver Skies. Matherson, get me a quick and dirty situation report – who’s dead, who’s dying, who’s unfit to fight. We’ll need to shift them out first, then we need to figure out what to do with the cargo so many men have died for.”