The ghost, the shadow.

Stage 19

The ghost, the shadow.

The radio chatter was horrific and frantic. He couldn't make heads or tails of what was being said. Private Level Rank One Eugene Masala kept adjusting the earpiece and tweaking the volume trying to get it into a more bearable noise level, but no matter what he did, he just couldn't get the damn thing to stop making his headache worse.

PLRO Masala was part of a detachment of enlisted soldiers charged by Broken Laurel to find and capture a pair of fugitives on the run. He had no clue who this Zechariah fellow was, but the picture they showed of him was of a smiling twenty-something year old man. He appeared to be more scientist than soldier. But what had distressed him was when he discovered Lieutenant Major Aerlina's name on that list.

Of all the reconstructed aristocracy, she had been the kindest. Warm and affectionate, always offering a shoulder or elbow touch to stress a point, she never treated the enlisted grunts as maggots. Sometimes she would watch their drills and on special occasions, she would even join them. She was so easy to talk to, she was everyone's favorite.

As a communications specialist, he had the privilege of working directly with her during training simulations. That's also when he learned that she was in fact a Combat Sensorium Touch Specialty Level 3. That had been their secret, or so she had told him. He had heard stories about how twisted the Combat Sensorium branch were, but Aerlina had shown him just what kind of pleasure they could induce as well. He would never forget the night they spent together, and though it had only been one night, she had promised another. She had promised a getaway to her place in the mountains when things died down.

He was roused from his daydream when someone punched him on the shoulder.

His buddy Ricardo had a wild look about him.

"PLRO Masala, do you have important plans for after this detail?"

It was his commanding officer. He came to attention and swallowed the lump in his throat.

"No, Ma'am!"

"Then, pray tell, where was your mind when I called for your quarter of the hour report?"

"I was contemplating an appropriate response to your question, Ma'am! There's a lot of chatter and its increasing difficulty to make sense of what's going on."

"I see, then why don't you issue a break call and make sense of what's going on. Right now isn't the time for a little chat, so we'll excuse your obvious lie for the moment."

"Yes, Ma'am!" He turned his hand to the call button and broke through the chatter.

"Break, break! This is Lima Team calling Base Command. Orders are garbled, I say again, orders are garbled. Please, retransmit, over?"

PLRO Masala looked into the cold dark green eyes of his platoon commander, Lieutenant First Class Michele Ravenburst. She was watching him like a predatory lioness hungry for a kill.

He was shaking slightly, not sure why it was taking so long for Base Camp to respond. LFC Ravenburst wasn't known for her patient nature. The commander opened her mouth to speak, but just then he got through.

"Ma'am, CFC Zigfler wants to speak with you directly."

He switched his earpiece over to the radio attached to his tactical vest and offered it to her.

"You maggots, stand fast. Me and PLRO Masala are heading back a ways."

They walked from earshot of the main group. He looked back at Ricardo. His buddy was mimicking being strung up by a noose. Masala shook his head and fought back the fear and laughter that both wanted to choke out of him in that moment.

"This is LFC Ravenburst, come back."

The predatory lioness went from pissed off, to delighted huntress.

"Copy that, Base command. Over and out."

She thrust the walkie back to PLRO Masala.

"We have a kill order, maggot. No more find and capture, we are to kill them dead." She turned her devilish smile onto PLRO Masala. "Seems like your little bed friend isn't going to be coming home tonight. Now reach out to the scout teams and those on our frequency. I want to regroup at checkpoint Opal."

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am!

He couldn't believe it! Ordered to kill her on sight! His hand trembled as he switched the walkie back to his earpiece and started to fumble for the right channel.

"Scout Lima One and Two, over."

Static.

"Scout Lima One, do you copy, over?"

More static.

"Scout Lima Two, do you copy, over?"

LFC Ravenburst turned to look at him, her momentary giddiness quickly evaporating.

PLRO Masala started scanning channels.

"This is Lima Team, calling Scout Lima One, Two. Reply immediately, over!"

The huntress spoke. "Is there a problem, PLRO Eugene?"

He switched to the broadcast signal used for the operation. "I'm trying all channels now, ma'am."

"This is Lima Team, Scout Lima One, Two. Channel Alpha-Bravo-Whiskey in two, I repeat two count cadence. Comply."

He switched back to his primary frequency and waited for a two count cadence.

"Scout Li—"

Then came a sudden loud burst of static.

"Lima Team! We're—"

More static.

He paled, his breath quickened,

"Come back, caller. Say again, caller. Come back!"

Static.

He looked up to the now smoldering LFC Ravenburst.

"Ma'am, I think I heard Scout Lima Two, but… all I'm hearing is static, now."

LFC Ravenburst grabbed Eugene by the tactical vest, lifting him up off his feet. "You'd better hail them now, PLRO or I'll send you marching in into your beloved Aerlina's crosshairs."

She let go of his tac-vest and he dropped. He almost collapsed but managed to keep his footing. He fumbled for his radio, but dropped it on the ground. He was shaking visibly, and when he turned to look up, he knew it would be a beating this time. But when he looked up at LFC Ravenburst, her eyes were strangely vacant.

A split-second later, blood sprayed from her mouth and painted his face. He was so shocked by what had just happened he didn't notice his fellow soldiers at arms were all lying dead on the ground before him.

As the body of the once living LFC Ravenburst crumpled to the ground, he saw an angel emerging from the smoke that drifted behind her. He had thought Aerlina was beautiful, but this one had a grace about her that stunned him. Without so much as a sound, she had killed seven people including his platoon commander.

"That radio of yours have anything useful to tell me?"

He nodded.

"Are you the advance team?"

He nodded again.

"You do know what they do to a soldier who survives this sort of attack don't you?"

He nodded one last time. If half the stories were true, he would be tortured by Broken Laurel.

"How much time do you think I have before they find you here?"

He finally found his voice. "Fifteen minutes. We were just issued kill orders. That explosive trap you set nearly killed one of the Broken. Helena."

He reached into his tac-vest and pulled out a crumpled letter.

"Could you give this to LM Aerlina Menoncourt, Lieutenant Major Grey?"

She nodded and took the envelope.

"You know me?"

He gave a small smile. "Everyone knows who you are, ma'am. You're a hero."

She tucked away his letter and shook her head,

"I'm no hero."

"To us, you are."

He then saluted her, closing his eyes.

"At least you'll die, a man."

He felt pressure, pain and his muscles betrayed him. He would have fallen hard had it not been for Miranda catching him and lowering him to the ground. He felt her pull the knife out, felt his body convulsing, then nothing.

Miranda watched him take his last breath, his death quick and relatively painless. She patted her tac-vest pocket where the letter now resided. She would keep the dead boy's…no, the dead man's promise.

As silent as she had laid waste to her enemies, Miranda started moving once more. With pistol in one hand and knife in the other. As an unconscious smile touch her lips.

It had been days since the last time her hands had trembled.

~*~

A warning had rattled around in Zechariah's head since the days of his first ghost op mission; a warning given to him by his operational commander as he was addressing the ragtag bunch he had assembled.

"One day, your luck will run out boys and girls. One day, y'all will pay the Piper."

As he watched Miranda and Aerlina exchange weapon fire, as he held his hand over the gunshot wound that he had received courtesy of a ricochet, he wondered if today was that day.

There had been times in the past when he had considered this exact same thought, when all seemed lost. But this time felt different.

Zechariah coughed and tasted the coppery tinge of blood. Whatever damage he had sustained was reaching a critical level. They had reached the EXFIL point, and found it abandoned. He had hoped that Lian and her team had not been captured, just delayed.

But the delay was turning more into a last stand. The extraction point was now nonviable. The only reason they were still alive was because the jetty dock they were on had denied their enemy the ability to surround them immediately. That would change when the marine reinforcements made their debut. Then the dark, cold waters of that massive lake would turn from neutral barrier into one bearing hostile weapon fire.

Miranda had reached them faster than he had anticipated, and that miscalculation had earned the three of them a dead run to the EXFIL point. Miranda had managed to salvage two Hestia's Curse Mark I siege rifles. When she arrived, she reached out to touch Zechariah, but Aerlina stopped her, warning that he was far too weak to maintain their connection. He could see the pain that crossed her features. He never did like to see her sad or frowning; it didn't suit her beautiful face.

He had always known her to be an exceptional woman, but to see her in action spoke louder than any report could reveal. She was deadly, the definition of efficiency, but when she was in control of both of her Gifts there was a touch of invincibility about her that even stunned him.

It was no wonder Broken Laurel originally intended her for capture, and not so surprising that they now wanted her dead. The way she delivered the end to her enemies would make a surgeon green with envy. Even her use of explosives was damn near an art form.

He then turned to look at Aerlina. If Miranda was a rapier, then Aerlina was a two-handed bastard sword. There was nothing about her fighting that held the finesse one would think common of the reconstructed aristocracy. The way that she dealt death was like a flechette aerial bomb detonated at 1,524 meters. Her unique Gift would bring about a deadly payload of shattered minds. Yet, it held within its destructive nature the ability to control pain and reinforce damaged cells. Had it not been for Aerlina, he would have long since died from shock.

Zechariah exhaled and looked up to the sky. He was fighting with every ounce of his being to stay awake. He was flanked by the Valkyries of Old, betraying their true call to take his soul away. And there he was, the dying warrior, the failed warrior. He did not deserve to have these women protect him. His hubris had brought the one thing he had feared for so long.

He laughed, a grotesque smile formed as he considered the irony of it all. A sound loud enough that brought about a strange look from both women.

His escape plan had been implemented so that in the confusion of it all, his team would escaped. Instead one team member and a single stowaway were prolonging the inevitable.

Sitting there, breathing ragged, his waning smile was the culmination of a desire that had never crossed his considerable mind.

I do not wish to die!

I'm scared, I'm scared!

I do not wish to die!

Tears threatened, though he fought tooth and nail to keep them from emerging. Listening to the gunfire, he fought inwardly.

Listening, as both woman flawlessly execute their maneuvers, calling to each other as their ammo supply ran from low to dangerously low, to empty.

The rat-ta-ta-rat-ta-ta of automatic siege rifle fire stopped, and the pap-pap-pap-pap of pistol fire began.

He clenched his teeth, his fists in bitterness.

But in that quiet moment of contemplative self-loathing, his ears picked up the unmistakable low hum of a mechanized aircraft.

His eyes sprung open as he recognized a sound that registered in his memory banks, a sound like that of a thousand winged birds taking flight.

"ON THE DECK, NOW!"

He threw his injured self forward, belly first, onto the dock.

Their compliance was immediate. He felt an inexplicable pressure crushing them from above.

"KEEP YOUR MOUTHS OPEN, AND EXHALE OUT!"

The pressure built up, then vanished, then built up again. When Aerlina turned to see what was going on, her eyes grew wide.

It was a Raven Skiff!

A prototype short-range, anti-material, anti-personnel advanced VTOL. The pressure they were feeling was the force of the gravitonic engines as it kept the ship in level flight.

"Crawl forward! Get out from under it!"

Zechariah yelled as he pushed forward.

Aerlina couldn't believe what she was witnessing. This type of hardware would never be found this far out of the Core Galaxies. Yet, there it was, dealing out a rain of high energy plasma to an unsuspecting group of now under-equipped soldiers. As they crawled closer and closer to the edge of the dock, there came a high pitched siren, then a single blast from above their heads. Aerlina was the first to roll toward Zechariah direction, followed quickly by Miranda.

What they saw was jaw dropping.

Two Zieffers Type E, Dynamized Impedimenta dropped onto the dock. The shockwave of their landing knocked every cargo container close to the edge into the water, and had it not been for dumb luck they too would have been launched into the lake. The grunt of pain that shot out of Zechariah spoke volumes of just how much pain that bounce had caused him. The poor unfortunate souls on the business end of the Dynamized Impedimenta that hadn't been knocked into the water were now wide open to the oncoming hell that was about to erupt. She heard the spooling whine of the G-type Rotary Machine Barrels play a tune of the coming concerto.

The Raven Skiff had broken away from engagement only seconds before, moving to its next target. With exacting precision, the Zieffers started moving forward, destroying what little morale was left in the enemy. Leaving the three frazzled ones behind. Zechariah was panting heavily, his wound had torn open wider and he was bleeding anew.

Miranda pushed herself up and pressed into his wound with her hand. Aerlina was in the process of ripping their last remaining compression bandage when an old school VTOL slowly made its decent.

As the craft turned, the tail end opened and five heavily armed soldiers rappelled down to the dock. Two of the five wore field medical combat insignia and one carried a field medic bag.

"Lieutenant Major Grey, Lieutenant Major Menoncourt! We are taking over operational command and relieving you of Zechariah Fairchild's care!"

Miranda was pushed out of the way. She was about to raise her weapon, when she noticed a familiar insignia on the right arm of one of the medics. She turned to look at Aerlina, and she too had a look of confusion. One of the medics then injected Zecc with some kind of cocktail.

"Identity yourselves!" Aerlina shouted.

One of the soldiers turned to look at Miranda, and then Aerlina,

"Please, Lieutenant Majors. We are part of the Hell's Wind Motley, we need you to get out of the way!"

A stretcher was being slowly lowered down from a winch. The medics quickly fastened Zecc into the stretcher and he started his ascent. Aerlina and Miranda watched in tense silence as their comrade in arms was lifted into the unmarked VTOL.

Once Zechariah was inside the belly of the beast, it slowly rotated away from the fighting and flew southeast. With the beating blades of the VTOL gone, Miranda turned her attention to one of the soldiers present.

"What the hell is going here?!"

The masked soldier stepped back to make way for another who started moving forward.

"I see that your bluntness hasn't lessened since we last met, Miranda."

Miranda froze.

She watched the action of a cowl being removed in slow motion.

A thousand emotions erupted from her, but all she could muster in that blink of a breathless moment was a single utterance.

"Richard…?"