There are somethings, that can’t always be said.

Stage 18

There are somethings, that can't always be said.

The scent of sulfur clung to her clothing like a dying man.

As the memories of past events raced through her mind like a fevered dream.

Her memory leapt to a moment several hours prior, as she sorted the jumble thoughts into a coherent recollection.

Within hours of Carmen activating her double agent, they had received the location of Branch Cell's base of operation. There they found an unconscious woman and five undercover members hiding in the tree line. Though the operation had succeeded in crippling their means of escape, some of Branch Cell's members had managed to escape into the forest leading into the wilderness. The mad rush to bust Zechariah's team had come a few minutes too late.

After the operatives had revealed themselves they reported that only three members had been killed. Though the original plan was to wipe out the entire team, it had caused enough damage to scatter the remnants still loyal to Zechariah.

The retrieval team used the confiscated equipment and within half an hour were able to approximate the area of Zechariah and Miranda's next scheduled wave point.

Though defanged and unable to use her Gift, Carmen had proved herself to be a formidable foe.

When the retrieval team returned with the deep cover team and relayed their report to Carmen, she was none too pleased with the news. The failure of the deep cover team came with a promise of further reprisal.

She mobilized her contingency of military personnel and set a trap for Zechariah and Miranda at their designated EXFIL point. Houston and Helena were the last to be transported to that location. Houston was like a kid in a candy shop, babbling about the fact that he was going to see Zechariah face to face once more.

Everything came to a head at the docks.

Aerlina's escape plan had been flawless. She had taken a small team of loyal soldiers with her and made contact with Miranda, at a wave point that Tailor had divulged during their final communication. But Houston had been a step ahead.

Houston had somehow deduced that Aerlina was working in secret against Broken Laurel, and only seconds from their escape vehicle. He materialized out of the ether and unleashed an attack that would have killed her instantly, had Zechariah not leapt in front of her at the last second.

Her miscalculation, paid for with blood, as her team were unceremoniously executed by Helena.

A sudden burst of rifle fire.

Aerlina's conscious mind returned to the present and the pain of being pushed to the limit flooded into focus.

Having to drag Zechariah nearly the length of three ullamaliztli fields, she couldn't move him any longer.

As she lay him on the ground, gently propping him up against a cargo container, she finally gave herself a moment to rest. Her lungs burned and longed for air, but she couldn't stop the rapid panting. She had been under the misguided assumption that her training would have prepared her for every situation. But never in her life had she hurt so much, in so many places.

She had dragged a 95-kilogram, 189-centimeter tall dead weight, dodged for cover, screamed out the locations of enemies to Miranda. Then in the mist of all that smoke, sound and eventual separation from Miranda, she intimately understood the horror of Infractus.

Houston and Helena wouldn't hesitate to destroy anything and everything if it meant the success of a mission.

Her tired mind had started to wander again, panting continued needing the flow of oxygen, she recalled a mantra from her boot-camp days.

"Movement, never stay put! Move, move, move!"

The harsh tones of her drill Sergeant echoed in her mind.

"Move, move, move!" the deep accent, the alpha bark.

"Move, Menoncourt! Get your ass up and MOVE!"

She could almost feel the hot breath on her neck.

"Move, Move, Move! That's the rule of the battlefield! Move, move, move! Stay put and die! Do you want to die, PLRO Menoncourt?!"

"No, sir!"

"Then get that ass up and MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!"

She must have slipped into delirium at some point, because when she felt a hand touch her forearm she drew her weapon so fast she nearly knocked Zechariah out again. He blinked into the business end of a pistol.

"Easy, girl…you're talking a bit loud, just needed you to wake up."

She started to tremble, her gun shaking noticeably. He placed his hand on her weapon and pointed it away. A sudden explosion in the distance made her jump. She felt pathetic as she fought to hold back tears even as she cursed herself for showing weakness.

Once she managed to settle down some, Aerlina turned to look at him. There wasn't any blood on him. She knew that the damage he had received would be internal. If they didn't get him to a doctor soon, he would be dead within a few more hours. To think that their fate had been tied in such a way, and the revelation that Miranda…

"It's okay, Aerlina… I'm scared, too."

His comment shocked her racing thoughts back to the present.

"You look far too cool to be scared, Zechariah."

He swallowed back a cough, holding his stomach.

"Only one of us can have a breakdown right now," he said. "I'm more experienced in this sort of thing anyway."

"Then why the hell are you scared?!" She quieted her voice, aware that it might have attracted unwanted attention.

"Because if I die they'll torture you for information you don't have. Houston may be a sadist, but he's nothing compared to Papillion."

Aerlina paled.

Papillion.

She was the diamond standard when it came to breaking a human being and leeching them of information. She'd seen a training media showing how she broke a male solider and the recollection made her stomach turn.

Closing her eyes as if to ward off evil, she wrapped her arms around herself.

"I'll kill myself before they have a chance."

"Take a moment, my dear. Don't start polishing that side arm just yet. We still have Miranda out there and she's not an easy target. The main players will be concentrating on her."

Another explosion, this time a little closer.

"Hot damn, I never in a million years would I have thought she was that proficient with a Mark III."

Aerlina turned to look at him.

"That's Miranda?" Her eyes went wide. "Wait, you mean she's toting around an AFA Brimly Mark III?"

Zechariah gave her a pained chuckle and nodded.

"That thing weighs twenty three kilograms, Zecc!"

"Indeed, it does. Miranda is no lightweight, she'll give us the time we need to get to the EXFIL point. But we'll need to take care of the little fish that Carmen has sent to find us." He put his hand on Aerlina's shoulder. "When you were muttering a few moments ago, you were mimicking someone. It was Gunnery Sergeant Marlanimus, wasn't it?"

She blinked and nodded. "Yes… how did you know?"

"I recognized the unique sing-song cadence. He also trained me when I was a younger."

Zechariah struggled to his feet, gritting his teeth as he pushed through what must have been excruciating pain. He turned to look at an astonished young Lieutenant Major.

"If he knew that you dragged my sorry ass until you gave out, he'd take me for a fifty kilometer run, the whole time berating me about how a girl made me look like panty waist, daisy sniffing tuck dick." He gave her a confident smile. "And I hate running."

Aerlina watched Zechariah, speechless, for a full minute and half. Then stood up herself. She drew her side arm to a defensive position and glanced over at Zechariah as he drew his pistol.

"Did you know that you're the color purple?"

Zechariah shook his head. "Can't say that I've ever been told that, no."

She nodded, and in one clean motion, leaned in to kiss him fully on the lips.

Zechariah had no way of dancing away from this development, considering that Miranda knew exactly what had just transpired.

Aerlina pulled back and watched him.

"I thought it was Miranda," she said. "I've been chasing her for years. But it was your vinculum that shifted my gaze. You're the one I've been looking for and now I understand why."

She turned her attention to the left.

"I hear them coming, how about we spring a surprise?"

There was a succession of four quick explosions in the distance.

Zechariah winced. "I think we already did." He moved to the other side of the cargo container.

They pressed their backs against the hard metal and glanced at each other. With a single nod from Aerlina, they both rounded the corners and started firing.

~*~

Miranda was highly pissed off as she fired yet another salvo at the hunkered down enemy.

Aerlina kissing Zechariah wasn't the problem, the problem was that if Zechariah died due to his injuries Aerlina would have been the last person to touch him.

Which meant that she wouldn't be able to renew their vinculum, which meant that Houston was to blame, which meant that Carmen had to pay for her crime.

It was a moment of vindictiveness. Miranda knew this, but she needed that emotion to propel her forward.

Her movements were sharp, brutal. The relentless way she put pressure on the enemy, the way she listened to the wounded moan in pain to pinpoint their location.

She popped out of concealment and sprinted for the next cargo container, firing three more rounds at her tormentors. She paused there, took a moment to collect her thoughts, and then dashed off to another vantage point, trying to make use of their confusion to flank them.

Zechariah was in no condition to provide her with the control she needed in order to use her paradoxical Gift. But if worse came to worse, she would make sure none of the bastards currently making their life hell would ever reach home.

Her stop was so sudden, she almost gave herself whiplash as rapid fire ordinance hurtled down the gap she was about to cross, had it not been for her precognition sounding an alarm.

She leaned away from the wall of her cover and aimed her weapon into the air. With her free hand she inputted a quick set of instructions and then fired her smart grenades in an arc. The first exploded seven seconds into the downward arch, the second round five seconds after and the third round three seconds after that.

The effect was devastating, she created a blanket of shrapnel that rained down on the poor fools who had just fired on her. She took that moment to reload her weapon. She only had five rounds left.

"Miiiiiiiiiiranda?! Would you be a dear and come on out so we can talk?"

That bastard Houston.

"Sure thing, sugar! Just poke your head out and I'll be happy to speak with you!"

As an extra measure of sincerity, she popped out long enough to blast a grenade down the open area between container boxes then pivoted back into cover.

She could hear his maniacal laughter as the explosion receded.

"Oh baby, baby, baby! How much do I love this game! I think it best if you get on moving, yeah? Zecc doesn't have much time."

She burst out of cover and start sprinting down the corridor, just as her previous position exploded in flame and molten metal.

She dove hard into the pavement, then rolled and slid across the ground just short of her next cover. She lay on her belly and clipped off three rounds, even as several soldiers started shooting in her direction. The moment her grenades exploded and were met with the panicked cries of the men and women that had just shot at her. She rolled out of plain view and behind the cargo container.

She pulled her back up against the metal of the cargo container, wincing in pain. The displacement of the projectiles had wounded her on the shoulder and hip. Though not a direct hit she was still injured and bleeding. Worse yet, fatigue was starting to set in and that weakened her grip on her paradoxical Gift.

~*~

Zechariah and Aerlina were having their own measure of amusement, but they too were running low on ammunition. With skill and a little bit of luck, they had been able to kill the group that had found them and were now moving to the EXFIL point with moderate haste. Aerlina was able to help Zechariah hobble along, though it was clear she was nearing a breaking point. Zechariah being in considerable pain knew that whatever Houston had unleashed on him had done a number on his internal organs.

Aerlina helped him move to cover. He knew how hard this must be for her, not only physically, but emotionally. The fact that she had cried was actually a relief to Zechariah. Being able to display perfectly acceptable human emotions when thrown into a life or death situation and not crack under that pressure was a promising sign. Granted, if she were more experienced, the question of triage would have come about. A hard lesson learned on the battlefield.

"You don't have to pamper me, you know," he said, catching his breath.

"This has nothing to do with you, Zechariah. I need to be able to listen so I can pinpoint our enemies. Miranda lobbing grenades like they were party favors isn't helping much."

Zechariah nodded his agreement. Miranda had been ditching ordinance at an accelerated rate. He couldn't say what was running through her head, because the vinculum between them had begun to fade more rapidly. What he did know is that each explosion was getting closer and closer, and spaced further apart which meant she was also running low on ammo.

"How far are we from those dead soldiers, Aerlina?"

"I'd say about one hundred and fifty meters, why?"

He pointed the pistol into the air at an angle.

He fired a single shot, and then two more.

"Okay, let's move!"

There was a questioning look as Aerlina helped him forward.

"What the hell did you do that for?"

"It's a signal for Miranda. Something from her training days at the PTC. With any luck, she'll be able to arm herself."

Aerlina frowned. "You do realize that she's walking straight into a line of soldiers looking for us, right?"

The look on Zechariah's face spoke volumes. "Then let's put some distance between Miranda and us, shall we? I don't want to be anywhere near when she gets her second wind."

~*~

Miranda had just breached the AFA Brimly Mark III to top it off with what was left of her grenades when she heard a single gunshot followed closely by two more. This was a signal from Zechariah, or so she hoped. The gamble of her life was about to be played out as she removed the Mark III. Keying in a few quick inputs, she placed the flat barrel end of the weapon on the ground and slowly squeezed the trigger. It beeped, and beeped one more time.

The moment she saw the countdown timer activate, she made a sprinting run in the direction of Zechariah's signal. As she ran, she pulled out her combat knife and held it lightly in her left hand. Her eyes burned with the anticipation that soon she would once again experience the thrill of close quarters combat.