Sharon jogged down the hall, her brand new fatigues making that awkward new pants sound as they brushed together. The halls were as full as always, soldiers and their families getting organized on the base. Most were dressed like her, including the families, everyone matching in this perfect little sphere. She rounded the corner where the hallways entered the courtyard and quickly found the Colonel's office. Stopping at the door, she took a deep breath, and stepped inside.
The first thing she noticed was just how bright it was in there. It was like a little part of the sun had been saved before the eternal night fell on the planet, and everything looked like a good memory of the past. Bookshelves were swept clean of dust and the floor was well kept and was covered by a very vibrant rug that had failed to fade. Even the books looked relatively new in their shelves.
Then there was the Colonel himself. A shocking short man that somehow managed to stay perfectly proportional to Paul, who sat in one of the two chairs opposite of him. His face was clean and there was a sense of rigidness and order around him that just threw her completely out of her mind's loop. Guess that's what it was like to be a Marine.
"Miss Sharon, I presume?" he asked. His voice was very... eloquent, would have to be the word. He seemed to speak with an almost rehearsed ease, continuing to derail her train of thought. She swallowed, hard, and gave a short nod. "Pleasure to meet you. Please have a seat, there is something very important we need to discuss."
She took the chair and sat as straight as she could, her bafflement quickly becoming intimidation as she stood before this tiny man. "Now," he said, curt and very to the point, "I know that two of you came to this base with a third party member, is that not correct?"
There was a second of silence.
"Yes, her name was Rose. She left a short while after we rescued Sharon from the NRA." Sharon was given a chance to breathe as Paul took some of the heat off of her. "She helped us most of the way here and was the one who connected us with your battalion, sir."
"Is that right?" the Colonel asked. "Do you happen to know just where your fiery little friend went after leaving?"
Another choking moment of silence.
"No, she never said," Paul answered.
"Really? Well then," then the Colonel turned to her, his dark brown eyes staring right through hers. "Did she say anything to you, Miss Sharon?"
She blinked and said nothing. She likely looked like a beached carp right then, but somehow managed to get her mouth making words. "Uh, no... nothing at all. She... she just left. Nothing said."
"Right," the Colonel lifted a laptop off the floor and dropped it on the table. He lifted one finger, and staring Sharon straight in the pupils, pressed the enter key.
The first voice was an indistinguishable male, sounding like any other person on a poor radio. "Surveillance to Command, subject has entered the perimeter. Sentinels aren't responding to radio command, cannot get visual on subject."
The second was just a tad higher pitch and a bit clearer, "Command to Surveillance, understood. Final units have reached the Locked Gate, is subject still approaching from the south?"
"Confirmed. Visual has been made... Warning to all units, subject is heavily armed. Female, red hair, long coat, carrying a Vulcan mini gun."
"Affirmative, units on high alert. Team leader, did you get all that?"
"Yes sirs, don't worry, we'll handle it just fine."
The Colonel stopped the radio transmissions. "Sound like your girl?"
Slowly, Sharon nodded, her heart sinking like the Titanic into her stomach.
He turned the laptop around, "This is recovered video feed of the attack. Watch closely."
The room was choked with soldiers, and sandbags made up a line of fortifications that looked well tested. Sharon couldn't count how many were in there, waiting patiently with their machine guns for Rose, but there was no way she was going to make it in there alive.
The camera they were watching from sat at an angle, watching both the wall and the doorway from the back corner of the room. And it was from the wall that Rose entered.
In an explosive instant, the wall was torn to pieces and flung onto the fortified line, a frightening sound of static and echoed of roaring power. Larger pieces crushing the unlucky ones close to the wall, cloaked in a dense layer of pulverized dust and smoke. Then the bullets began to fly, out of the hole made in the wall like a blinding beam of light that traced back and forth over the soldiers. Desperately the men under assault began to fire back, little flashes of light bursting from the muzzles of their weapons.
Between the clatter of gunfire and the grinding buzz saw of Rose's machine gun, the shaky cry of panicked soldiers began to fill the room. Mostly chaotic babble and screams, one voice rose above it all, very deep and without emotion, sounding like someone outside of the room. "All cowards will be executed. Fight back."
In response, the massive machine gun spewing molten light out of the new entry ceased its onslaught, and the soldiers began to rally behind the shattered pieces of cover.
Sharon's heart seemed to slow as she watched now, the ghostly figure of Rose emerging from the dust, her first sword in hand. Around her, the camera seemed to fuzz out, but it was also brighter, like it was having difficulty focusing directly on her. The survivors opened fire, but it did nothing to her. Rose simply marched towards them, ignoring the bullets that rebounded off of her. It was like an impossible superhero stunt out of a movie, but in just a few seconds she covered the room and drew her sword, killing the first victim instantly.
Sharon covered her eyes, there was no way she could watch anymore. The screams of soldiers filled the air again. Somewhere along the line one cried out, with much panic dripping off him, "This is crazy! She's crazy! The whole goddamn world is crazy! Run!"
Sharon didn't know if any of them got out alive, she didn't watch the last of it. The Colonel shut the laptop down and the once scream filled room was now flushed with dreadful silence. She could feel tears begin their long journey down her face, shedding some of their horror and heartbreak on her bare fingers.
The Colonel sighed, "I don't expect either of you to know how she was able to do that. And I don't think either of you would want to know what followed this little piece we managed to recover from that smoldering crater that used to be Fort Harlan. I just need to know what you know."
Sharon kept her face buried in her hands. She couldn't have spoken even if she wanted to, she was so afraid that her heart would have leapt out through her throat and skewered itself out of grief. She didn't even want to know how she could do such a horrific thing.
She never heard Paul speak, and good that he didn't. She probably wouldn't have controlled herself as best as she did if he had. She did feel his hands on her though as he lifted her out of the chair and walked her out of the office. Outside a small crowd of Marines had been gathering, listening as best they could to the heavily one sided battle that had unfolded before them.
Sergeant Houghton was the first to meet her, taking her gingerly from Paul's hands. She removed her hands just in time to watch him close the door. She may have been twenty-two, but she began to bawl about the same way a teen would after a breakup, except a thousand times worse. She wouldn't be the one to remember her sobbing though, it would be the Marines around her, their hearts waning at the loss of one of their own. And it would also be Paul, who felt the lowest of all.
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