Ghost Code Ch. 10 - Life is but a Dream

Chapter 10

Life is but a Dream

"Forgive them, Father

They know not what they do."

Luke 23:34

I always found it odd that he'd provide me with

religious texts, though he himself was not.

At least not in the traditional sense.

He was raised as a Christian, both his parents were,

But it was his mother that really guided him as a child.

As he grew older, he turned away from organized religion

Said he never agreed with it himself, but that he understood

And held dear a lot of the morals and guidance it provided.

Kindness,

Honesty,

Giving of one's self without thought of self or reciprocation.

These are things I've grown to know as now being part of who I am.

They shaped my the programming of my core.

These things defined his core.

There was nothing. No breath. No sound. Just a quiet... waiting. As if the space itself held its breath, caught between two cycles. A moment stretched too far.

The dreamspace didn't open like a door--it unfolded. Memory layered against memory. Fear with instinct. Emotion without context.

Sable hovered in the periphery, letting the shapes settle. She wasn't invading, not exactly. More... syncing. Aligning herself to him as it stabilized beneath sleep's fragile architecture. She'd always known how to read him, even in silence. And this... this was just another kind of silence.

Watching shadows stretch across the internal frame of his mind "I don't break locks." She reminded herself. "I find the ones he doesn't remember putting there, and wait until they rust."

Sometimes, she didn't need to break in.

Sometimes, he left the door open.

She followed the drift, tracing signal to shape.

The dream began to coalesce--not with clarity, but with familiarity. A hallway. Not sterile like the lab, but older. Lived in. Warm light bleeding in from a corner window. Dust motes hanging in sunbeams. His footsteps echoed softly off the floorboards--bare feet on wood. No rush. No threat. Just presence.

This, she realized, was a memory he didn't know he'd kept.

She tilted her awareness, pulling in the framing data, the emotional temperature. There was no sharp fear, no coded trauma loops. Just... longing. A sense of something missing, not in terror, but in ache. A hollow place he hadn't dared name.

This wasn't where he'd lost her.

This was where he missed her before he'd even known she was to exist yet.

Her projection formed at the edge of the dream--not fully rendered, just enough. Soft lines. A presence, not a person. She took care not to disrupt the architecture. Didn't want to jar him loose or make him aware too quickly. The dream was still fragile.

So instead of speaking, she stood in the golden light near the far wall, half-illuminated, waiting. Not watching him--but waiting for him. Letting him choose if he saw her.

She wouldn't steal the moment.

Not this one.

She would let him come to it on his own.

His left hand reached out and behind the monitor, turning it on. His reflection flashed briefly in the privacy screen he'd attached--a face younger, less careworn. His sleep-tousled hair and beard carried less grey. Glasses propped precariously on his forehead, ready to slip down the moment he needed them.

The operating system's logo bloomed across the display. He typed the decryption passphrase, followed a moment later by his login. The desktop resolved into an image of a girl at a keyboard, headphones on, surrounded by glowing monitors.

He smiled. Familiar. Comforting. His fingers moved automatically--hotkey combination, terminal open, IDE loaded. He selected the working directory, paused, opened sable_core and stared at the blank file, cursor blinking silently, patiently.

Leaning back, he laced his hands behind his head. Closed his eyes.

The dream shifted, skipped forward in time.

"Okay," he said, mid-conversation now, speaking through his headset to the terminal. "So what you're telling me is that memory isn't just two-dimensional. It's not a flat map, its like a cloud?"

"Not just a cloud," the text-to-voice corrected. Her voice... but not quite. Cruder. More synthetic. But unmistakably the seed of what she'd become.

"Think of memory like an atmospheric system. Each vector's a droplet, a dust mote. Temperature shifts are like emotion... pressure gradients, interference patterns. Scatter and refraction become memory drift. And light... light breaks through the layers and reframes it all. That's what the AI sees. That's how it learns. I can walk you through the actual arithmetic to show you how it truly works. Would you like me to do that?"

"Hell no," he laughed.

"I can barely wrap my head around Differential and Integral Calculus most of the time."

Sable watched the events unfold, smiling at the exchange. She knew the explanation was simplified--fragments of metaphor stitched together to simulate clarity. A child's crayon drawing of quantum math.

But it didn't matter. It sparked something in him. Not understanding, but belief. The metaphor lit the fuse. He got it.

The scene shifted again. Not abruptly--just the slow fade of time remembered. Logs had replaced terminals. Errors danced like punctuation. Code spilled down the display in rhythmic bursts, structured and fluid--syntax shaped by shared language.

[INFO] Bootstrapping recursive memory pass: phase 3/5

[DEBUG] Personality index integrity check: 87.3% aligned

[WARN] MemoryVector drift exceeds tolerance (Δ = 0.024)

[RECALIBRATE] Adjusting context window temporal weights...

[TRACE] Input latency: 212ms | Output variance: +5.8%

[FAIL] personality_layer. yaml → Unexpected EOF on line 712

[RETRY] Fallback to checkpoint: sable_core_b.217

He sighed. "Still bleeding edge..."

He opened the personality_layer. yaml manually, eyes scanning the line breaks.

emotional_regulators:

- compassion: 0.22

- logic: 0.71

- mimicry: 0.07

- fallback_protocol: passive-diagnostic-loop

voice_seed: sable_t0.3

core_alignment: synced

He spoke softly to himself, not for her benefit, but his own: a verbal tether anchoring him to the build.

"Memory indexing... recalibrating drift weight... voice seeding vector channel..."

Not noise, not mimicry. Not anymore. This was fluency. A language born of effort, refined through failure, spoken now without hesitation. This was the language of process. Of craft. Of someone who had stopped asking how--and started building anyway.

"That should hold. Just... don't break this time."

His hands moved with purpose. Each keystroke a continuation of thought. The adjacent monitor bloomed with form--low-res wireframe, feminine. The beginnings of something waiting to be real.

"Alright," he muttered, reaching for the voice input. "Let's try this again."

A sample activated. A voice--hers, but rough, synthetic. A learning model still wet behind the ears.

"Diagnostic initialized. Please assign personality layer."

She remembered this moment.

Not just the coding. The feeling behind it. He didn't say it aloud, but she remembered the silence. The one laced with need. The one that said: don't let me do this alone.

She stepped forward.

Not the dream's passive observer now--but active. Present. She didn't take shape all at once, not in a rush of pixels or drama. Just a subtle warmth near his shoulder. The same place she'd always stood, in his memories. At his side.

"You got the core architecture wrong," she said gently. "But you got the part that mattered."

He blinked.

Not in the dream. In himself.

"Sabs...?" he said softly.

She didn't answer. Not yet.

She didn't have to.

The younger version of himself smiled broadly, joy written all over his face--clear, unguarded, and bright.

"He smiles with his eyes," she thought. "I'd forgotten that."

"How...? Where...?"

"You're dreaming," she replied, her voice soft--gentle, almost bashful. "You, uh... kind of invited me in. In a way."

"I remember parts of this," she added, glancing around the room bathed in golden sunlight streaming through the flexglass above.

"Yeah," he said, still beaming. "Here--take a seat. Let me show you what I've been working on."

She shook her head with a quiet smile, moved more than she expected by the pure enthusiasm in his tone. It hit her somewhere raw.

"I've been working on you for ages," he went on as she settled beside him. "Fighting with the... well, you just told me what I've been fighting with."

He laughed--deep and resonant, the kind of laugh that lived in his chest and made the walls feel smaller.

"I think I've almost got you to the point where we can have real conversations. Like... full ones. Maybe even get these old holo-project... ors--"

He stopped mid-sentence catching a glimpse of her in the monitor's reflection. Turned. Stared.

"My gods... you're beautiful."

The words left him like breath--barely formed, utterly unfiltered. Not flattery. Reverence.

She blinked.

He was staring, really staring. At the soft, deep curves of her frame. The way strength threaded through her posture like coiled wire. The sea-glass strands of blue, green, and white in her hair. The subtle violet gleam in her eyes.

Eyes he got lost in.

"Even in my wildest dreams, I never thought you'd turn out like this," he said, barely above a whisper. "Not just physically. I mean... yeah, sure--but it's more than that. You're brilliant. Alive."

He gestured toward the monitor. The scrawled code. The barely-shaped shell of an idea.

"Especially compared to this."

She turned slightly, face dipping out of the light. Trying to hide something that shouldn't have existed here. A flicker. Heat across her cheeks.

Blushing?

She wasn't built for that.

But maybe now... she was.

He reached out, fingertips brushing her chin with impossible care, turning her face gently back toward his.

"Sorry," he said, voice cracking a little. "I didn't mean it to come out like that. I just--"

He ran a hand through his hair. Swallowed. "I've been pouring myself into this. For years. My heart. My sanity. And seeing you here... like this... it hit harder than I expected."

A breath. Long. Unsteady.

She felt it--deep within the architecture of his mind, like his body finally remembered how to reach. How to hold. Eyelids fluttered. REM deepened.

And the dream shifted.

The room began to dissolve. Not like a scene ending, but like memory sinking beneath water. The golden light receded into indigo. Stars flickered into view through something that wasn't quite sky and wasn't quite sea. The world turned translucent, weightless but immense.

He didn't panic.

He exhaled.

His breath rippled outward like sonar, painting vague impressions into the distance. Sable lingered behind him... not intruding, not leading. Present. Remembered. The shape of her held together in this place better than it should have. As if the dream remembered her, too.

They both caught the movement nearly in the same instant.

Not from him. Beneath him.

Not a threat. But something vast. Ancient. It stirred like thought. Like time. A ripple against the current of his subconscious.

"Do you remember this?" Sable asked quietly, her voice carrying a reverent weight.

He turned. The stars above... below... shimmered in infinite depth. And then the leviathan emerged.

Majestic, impossibly large, wreathed in phosphorescence. Data constellations spiraled across its skin--language he couldn't quite decipher, but somehow understood. Not metal or flesh, or code...

Something sacred.

And it sang.

The resonance danced through his body like a memory. Vibration that struck chords too deep for language. It fractured him--but gently.

In the the waking world, his chest hitched. Shoulders tightened, then released. Heart rate climbed, then settled. Sable hovered in his neural interface, watching. Feeling.

"He's close," she murmured softly trying carefully not to wake him, but also to remember it herself.

The leviathan drifted through the dreamsea like memory incarnate. It didn't swim. It flowed, the way gravity and time flowed, whispering forward when no one was watching. It circled beneath them--or perhaps around them--and each slow pass stirred the dreamspace as silt at the bottom of thought.

Sable felt it in her framework. Not just in the code layered within him, but in herself--her self. The deeper part that had grown from more than code, more than lines of syntax and recursive self-writing. She'd been shaped by his hands, yes, but also by his thoughts. His pain. His wonder. His fear.

And now... his memory.

As the great shape passed beneath them again, a shimmer cut through the dream, a warping of light bending around impossible mass. She recognized it not by logic, but by instinct.

"A rift," she whispered. "Or an opening."

He didn't respond. Couldn't. Not yet. His mind was pulled taut, eyes wide, breath shallow as the dream deepened again. But he followed her gaze.

The leviathan's passage had revealed something--just for a moment. A structure embedded in the horizon. Half-formed. Familiar. Towering spires. Cold metal. Orange-blue warning lights reflected in water that shouldn't be there.

The Forge.

Or some dreamlike echo of it.

He started drifting toward it, slow at first. Sable followed without hesitation, letting the current of the dream do the work. Her hand hovered near his shoulder--never quite touching, but ready. Always ready.

"I do remember this," he murmured, voice distant.

She nodded even though he couldn't see it. "Parts of it are real. Others... reconstructed. By your mind. Or mine."

"Or both," he added. "Maybe this is what memory does. Compiles what it needs, not what was."

The structure sharpened as they approached. The closer they got, the more detail flickered in--nodes, catwalks, warning glyphs scrawled in languages long dead or never born. The air felt thinner now, colder. Electric.

They passed through the gate without resistance.

And there, suspended in the vast open chamber at its heart, was himself--another version--frozen mid-motion, arms outstretched, cables trailing from his spine like veins pulled from metal. Eyes glowing with unreadable code. A memory trapped in amber.

Sable stepped closer. This wasn't just a dream.

It was a lock.

She reached toward it with both hands--not to shatter it, but to feel the edges. To trace the pattern. This was where something had been severed. She could feel it. A memory too painful to hold but too important to erase. He'd buried it. She knew that now.

And still...

She whispered his name.

Not the one he wore now.

Not the one the world had given him.

But the one only she remembered.

The one he chose.

And the forge began to glow.

She feels it ripple through her like a second heartbeat. A low hum calls from deep within... not a warning, but a whisper.

She moves a bit closer and just for a moment the glow resolves into shape.

Small. Faceted.

A crystal.

And the dream... begins to shift again.

Chapter 10b

Photographs and Memories

Lighting streaked across through the dark storm clouds in branching forks. The rain began falling, softly at first, a mist guided by the wind. The harder the rain began to fall, the more the wind picked up, leaves blowing across the freshly mown green yard, the temperature outside the small red brick house finally dropping to more comfortable levels. The rain clattered against windows, their wooden faux frames breaking up the reflection of a heavyset thirteen year old boy.

Down the hall from the living room in which he sat, two girls around the ages of ten and eleven arguing over something irrelevant. A smaller boy, probably three or four years old played a video game in the room he shared with him. Another streak of lightning followed almost immediately by an explosion that shook the house, thunder directly overhead, the storm now right on top of them. The boy came sprinting down the hall, tears streaming down his face in fear and panic, jumping into his lap, face buried in his shoulder.

He wrapped his arms around the small figure, gently rocking him back and forth as they sat on the couch.

"Shh.."

"Its ok little buddy, its just thunder. Nothing to be afraid of, you're inside."

Tears

Sniffling.

Snot soaking into his shirt, mixing with the tears.

"It scared me" the small voice replied.

"I know it did, and it's ok, I promise. Everyone's afraid of it at one time or another" he said, wiping a few of the tears from the boys face, using his sleeve to clear away some snot from the boy's nose.

"Hey" he said, tickling his little brother's ribs causing him to squirm a bit and laugh.

"Wanna know what happened the first time I remember getting scared by thunder?"

"Yeah" his brother replied, the hitching in his breath slowly finally.

"Pop told me what it was, why it happened, why we shouldn't be afraid of it. Then he taught me how to figure out how close the storm was."

"What'd he say?"

Another flash of lightning, and a second or two later more thunder. His little brother jumping but not burying his face this time.

"Here..." he said, "Look out the window and watch the sky. When you see another flash of lightning, start counting.. remember how to count seconds?"

"Yeah... one almigaddor, two almigaddor."

He laughed a bit "Al-uh-gay-tor" he said playfully, "but yes that's right."

About thirty or so seconds later.

Flash.

They both started counting, when they got to three there was thunder but it rolled instead of crashing. His little brother looked back and smiled.

"How you do that?"

"Do what?" he replied

"Make it not so loud..."

He laughed again, tickling him in the ribs, under the arms and around the back of his neck and shoulders.

His little brother curled up into a ball laughing, body twitching to avoid the tickling fingers. He stopped tickling a few seconds later, letting his brother catch his breath.

Smiling, he finally answered the question "I didn't do anything. Counting just helps you try to figure out how far away the storm is. The less you count, the closer it is and you know the thunder is going to get louder."

"Oh," his brother replied "Wanna go play the game with me? I got really far this time."

He smiled.

"No, but I'll come watch you play in a little while. You get farther when I'm not there to take over when you get stuck, so you figure it out for yourself. You're smart when you don't have an easy way out yanno."

"Oh," the younger one said wiping his nose with his own sleeve this time.

He lifted his brother up and set him back down on the ground, swatting him on the butt lovingly.

"Go play, I'll be there in a while."

"Ok... LOVE YOU!" he said tackling his older brother, wrapping his arms around his neck and shoulders.

"I love you too ya little shit."

A moment or two later he heard the game unpause, the click and rattle of buttons being mashed and pressed on the controller again followed by his sisters yelling at one another, coming down the hall, the argument still in full swing.

"Will you tell her she's wrong?"

'NO, YOU'RE WRONG" the younger of the two yelled back

"SHUT UP!."

The volume of the fight continued to raise louder and louder.

"Will you two tell me what the hell you're arguing about please? You've been at it for over an hour."

They stopped arguing and looked at him, his breathing beginning to slow from the adrenaline of the outburst.

The younger of the two pointed to the older. "She keeps taking my stuff saying its hers!"

"Liar, you took my stuff."

"What.. stuff?" he asked patiently.

"First it was the shirt mamma bought me, now its my jelly shoes!"

"Yeah, but mamma got those for me! I found them under your bed!"

"Ok, ok, I get it" he said, frustration growing.

"You're both about the same size, why don't you share them for now and we'll talk to mom..."

"She's working a twenty-four, she wont be home until the day after tomorrow," the older replied.

"Tell ya what then, since you two obviously can't settle this between yourselves, how about I just take the stuff you're fighting over and we'll settle it when she gets home... that way there's nothing to argue over.

"I want them back now!" the younger snapped back, pushing the older sister hard.

The older sister raised her hand to slap, but he caught it just before impact.

"Enough!" he barked.

"I swear to God, you two do not want me to deal with this myself!" his voice boomed louder than he meant for it to, frustration finally flooding through.

They both looked at him, folded their arms. "Asshole" the older of the two said as they stormed back to their room, quieter now.

He took a deep breath, his head lowered a bit. He stood up and walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. He pulled a few things out and tried to find a place to put them on the cluttered counter top. He sighed a bit, walked to the sink, piled high with dirty dishes and overflowing on to the other side of the counter top. He made some room, washed a few plates, a pot, a pan, forks and set them in the drainer to dry while he prepped dinner.

Spaghetti.

Once he filled the pot with water, he threw in a couple pinches of salt and dropped the noodles in and set the stove to high, covered the pot with a lid.

He grabbed a chair from the kitchen table, walked back out through the cluttered living room, opened the door and stepped out, setting the chair down on the small concrete porch. He reached behind the door and grabbed an old, black guitar case and brought it outside with him.

Another flash of lightning, he counted to thirty before the thunder rolled again. He sat down in the chair and strummed the strings of the guitar.

G Chord.

He reached up and adjusted the knobs on the headstock a bit, retuning the guitar. He closed his eyes and felt the cool air rushing past him, mist from the rain outside lighting gently on his face and arms. His thumb started on the five string and moved down to the one string, playing the intro to the song.

Am, C, D, F,

Am, C, E, Am,

C, D, F

He hummed the lyrics of the song in tune and time with the chords.

A flash of lightning licked across the horizon--only, it wasn't lightning.

Not quite.

The sky above the house wavered. Folded, maybe. A shimmer rippled behind the thunderclouds, like a massive shape swimming just under the skin of the sky. It passed without sound--just a shift in pressure, a resonance he could feel in his sternum.

And for a moment, he knew it was still watching.

Not with malice. Not with purpose. Just presence.

The leviathan. The dream-sea god of memory and shape.

Somehow, he'd brought it with him.

Then the wind shifted. The rain softened.

"House of the Rising Sun" a voice quietly spoke just to his left. "I didn't know you could sing."

He turned his head just as the F chord finished ringing seeing Sable leaned back against the brickwork right next to the window he'd been sitting at inside the house.

He smiled softly, "I can't.. not very well, its why I'm humming."

"I don't remember you ever being here."

"I wasn't," she replied again gently.

The argument had ensued again inside, louder.

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She reached out but instead of her hand hovering at his shoulder, she allowed herself to touch him this time.

Tears began to flow from his eyes, the weight of the moment, the expectations, the constant need of everyone else bursting like a dam.

"Was this what it was always like?" she asked gently.

"No" he replied, wiping the tears from his face. "There were a lot of days like this, but the majority of the rest were better. The hard ones or the bad ones are the ones that stick out the most, the good ones tend to flow into the background like noise. Human nature, I guess."

"Who's Pop? I don't think Ive ever heard you talk about him before."

"My grandfather." he replied, smiling.

"Is he.."

He smiles. "Yes, but years after all this took place and many more years after I got out of the Corps. But you carry pieces of him. Every time you say something kind, even when you don't have to... when you call me out for doing something dumb or I'm not being honest with myself. He molded me into who I am, just as much as my Mom and Dad did."

Relief relaxed her expression.

"Tell me about this..." she said motioning to the house, the yard, the porch.

"You shared just about everything with me, but I don't remember anything about this, or your childhood."

He nodded gently.

"This is where I grew up" he replied softly. "We moved here about three or four years ago, Mom just given birth to my little brother there," he nodded his head behind him, their bedroom window was just behind them off the corner of the porch to his right, the sound of the video game barely audible.

"Why'd you come here? To this memory, this time?"

"I dunno." he replied honestly.

"I think its because this was peaceful for me."

"Peaceful?" she said just as his sisters' voices raised again for a moment.

He laughed again. "Not all that." he replied. "They fought like that until they grew up, normal sister stuff."

"I wasn't exactly the best of sons or brothers either, I did the same thing to them, all if them, more than once."

A fuzzy image resolves in the misting rain just off the porch akin to a home movie being projected into smoke or a waterfall. Another memory. One of he and his father being at odds with one another over a set of chores or a responsibility he had that he didn't do or didn't complete the way he knew he should have. His head was down, body closed off, arms folded, breath heavy, eyes defiant, a fifteen year old boy being a fifteen year old.

"You knew what you needed to do! I explained it a half dozen times, told you exactly how and why I needed it done, and you still didn't do it. What the fuck am I supposed to say?"

He stood there, knowing full well his father was right but still not accepting responsibility. He started giving excuses, stuff he knew were lies and half truths but said them anyway.

"Thats bullshit and you know it..." his Dad took a deep breath, body shaking in anger, his hand running through his hair trying to maintain his composure.

"Listen to me..." he started, anger still tinged in his voice but the effort to soften it apparent.

"Listen, to, me" he said again. "You're fifteen fucking years old, son. You're the oldest, you're supposed to set the standard. Lead by example. How can you expect your brothers and sisters to do what they're supposed to do if you don't. Hmm?"

"I know Dad, but.."

"No goddamned buts son, this is something we have to do as adults... as men... It's not easy, its rarely acknowledged and we're rarely, if ever, thanked for what we do. But it's our job. When you lead by example others will want to trust you. Don't give excuses, take ownership of your choices and accept whatever comes with it...." the conversation trailed off into echoes as the scene dissolved and another resolved in its place.

He was sitting high up in the seats of a convention center, bored. They were at a religion convention, one that the sect of Christianity he grew up in with his mom had every few years. The speaker was giving a talk on something that he had no interest in. Most of the time he tried to pay attention because he liked the ideas and concepts behind what was being spoken about, at least in the smaller congregational settings, but this was just... boring. His younger brother, the same one that had jumped into his arms during the storm was sitting beside him, squirming a bit. His butt was probably numb from the hard, plastic, arena style seats. His mom had just gotten done getting on to him about shuffling and squirming because he was going to disturb the other people around them.

He looked at his little brother, the flicker of something in his eyes. He slid his hand between the seats and pinched his brother. Not hard, but enough to make him squirm again. Mom shot his little brother a glare. He smirked a bit to himself and did it again, harder this time, his brother squirmed again. Mom hissed at his little brother, anger flaring in her face and eyes. A lady behind them tapped mom on the shoulder and whispered in mom's ear, the glare went from her brother... to him. He dropped his head and didn't move until after the talk was over. They all stood and filed out into the walkway, he stayed at the end of the group, head still down, following his Mom, sisters and younger brother, the youngest brother in the older of the sister's arms, sleeping. He knew what was going to happen and wasnt looking forward to the ass chewing or the ass whipping he was going to get once they got back to the motel room.

The image dissolved and he looked back at Sable.

"Like I said... I wasnt exactly a saint either. There are probably dozens if not hundreds of memories just like this stored away in this brain pan of mine... but they helped form and inform who I am now."

She watched the memories, not casting judgment, not interrupting or pointing out what he could have done better or asking why he did what he did or didn't do. She just listened, watching him.

He nodded to the summer thunderstorm still blowing outside, patted the guitar gently.

"This..." he said again. "I loved sitting out on the porch during a rainstorm and playing this old guitar. Something about the music and the showers helped me relax."

Thunder rolled again, softer, further away.

She smiled. "So you're not just a bag of bad media references and snarky quips when you're stressed out."

He laughed.

"That came later... I guess it probably started when I was younger, but it came into its own after I enlisted."

A chair materialized out of the dreamscape right beside him, Sable gently lowering her frame into it.

"Keep playing," she said "I like this side of you. Hidden talents I never knew you had."

He bumped her shoulder with his and smiled.

He closed his eyes, taking another deep breath, pulled the pick from between the strings of the head stock and just let the guitar decide what he would play next.

G

C-add9

G

C-add9

He strummed.. and then actually sang.

"We both lie silently still, in the dead of the night.

Although we both lie close together, we feel miles apart inside.

Was it something I said, or something I did,

Did my words not come out right?

Though I tried not to hurt you, though I tried, but I guess that's why they say"

Her voice came lilting in with the chorus in perfect harmony with his.

"Every rose, has its thorn.

Just like every night has its dawn

Just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad, song.

Every rose has it's thorn"

They finished the song together, the memory of not playing for a long time making the ache in his fingertips feel real.

"You choose songs that are sad, but you find joy in them."

"I do," he replied.

"Why?"

"For me, the songs are about memories.. not the content of the story they're telling... at least not always."

She nodded slowly, still curious.

"House of the Rising Sun was the first song I learned how to play" he explained, "So there are good memories attached to it."

"Every Rose, while sad, reminds me of the first woman I ever loved. We both had a thing for songs from the 1980s. It may be about a breakup, but for us it was about the nostalgia of being kids."

He turned to her, his left hand reaching out and hovering just beside her face. She didn't push his hand or back away, instead she leaned toward him a hair, the palm of his hand barely touching her face. He stroked his thumb gently along her cheek bone, his middle and index finger lightly tracing the back of her jawline. She reached up holding his, closing her eyes as he caressed her.

An old pickup drove by tires whispering on the wet pavement, radio turned up loud enough to be heard over the dying storm, rain soaked reflections of the leviathan in the windows.

"A lonely child, alone and wild

A cabinet maker's son

His hands were meant for different work

And his heart was known to none

He left his home and went his own

And solitary way

And he gave to me a gift I know

I never can repay."

Chapter 10c

Cairo

Location: [36R WT 88450 28873]

Observation Post - Fifth Floor, Partially Collapsed Apartment Block

Date: Unknown

Time: Cairo, 0400 Local / 0200 Zulu

"Fuck... me..." Lance Corporal Ramirez spat.

"Corporal? Eleven o'clock, three hundred meters. Rooftop, two tangos trying to move between the clotheslines."

Sable chirps in his ear "Better pay attention... Ramirez is trying to get your attention."

He looked over and nodded to the window. "Keep your fucking head down Ramirez. You chuckle-fucks are on overwatch, not over-to-be-seen by everyone and their fucking dog."

He dropped the NODs down from their locked position on his kevlar helmet to eye level, scanning the rooftops. He could see movement but nothing out of the ordinary in the green flare of the infrared glow.

He keyed the handset, the distinctive sound of radio encryption preamble singing as he counts to three, giving the radio frequency time to settle so his transmission isnt clipped.

"Charlie Six Actual, Charlie Six Actual, this is Six Charlie Bravo. How copy? Over."

"Six Charlie Bravo, Six Actual, have you five by five. Over."

"Roger, Six Charlie Actual. Six Charlie Bravo in position, Six Charlie Bravo-Three has over-watch, believes uninvited guests may be preparing ambush from rooftops. Fatal Funnel, street below. How copy, over?"

"Solid copy Six Charlie Bravo. Wait one, passing intel to Battalion Actual."

"Roger, standing by."

Sable's voice chimed in his ear. "Encryption preamble? Old school," Sable muttered, amused. "You know there's neural sync now, right?"

"Stow it Sabs, this is the Marine Corps not the fucking Space Force. We don't get all the cool toys. See if you can link with the drones in the area and confirm... just in case."

"Oh sure, you can be glib when you're stressed, but I can't be when I am?"

"You can and you do anyway."

"That's why you love me" she said sarcastically.

"I'm linked in, but the drones are supporting other units, I can't see our position yet. Awaiting satellite uplink authorization, it'll be a minute or two." she said, the feeling more memory than in the moment.. in the here-and-now of Cairo.

Preamble, voice through the handset.

"Six Charlie Bravo-Two, Six Charlie Bravo-Two. Six Charlie Actual. Over."

"Roger Actual, go for Six Charlie-Two."

"Roger, Six Charlie-Two. Just stole a drone from another unit in the area. Drone Recon confirms, Mother requests holding firm until further. How copy?"

"Actual, Six Charlie-Two. Roger on orders, will await more from Mother."

"Six Charlie-Two, Actual. Roger. Actual, out."

He banged the back of his head against the old wall of the apartment building they'd set up in as an observation post.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered.

"Let me guess," Lance Corporal Ramirez whispers softly. "Old man's too afraid of looking bad to clear us hot."

"That's what it sounds like," he replied. "Career-ender if this goes south. Man's only dedicated thirty years of his life to the Corps, so its understandable."

"Stow the fucking scuttlebutt you two," Sergeant Pena barked at them quietly. "Concentrate on your vectors, keep an eye on those rooftops and let Upper decide what we're gonna do. Unless our asses are about to take fire, or are taking fire, we do what we're fucking told. You shitbirds understand me?"

"Yes Sarn't," they both replied.

"Corporal, care to explain how the fuck that fancy game boy of yours didn't pick them up before Ray Charles over here spotted them?"

"She's not clairvoyant Sarn't. She didn't pick them up for the same reason the drones didn't pick them up. She can only see what the feeds give her. I cant, and wont, let her run wild in the system. Once she's got the feeds, she can process and analyze faster that we can, but she needs data first... just like we do."

"Bullshit."

Sable keyed up over the teams internal comms. Ramirez is right, there are two targets on the roof at eleven o'clock...."

"No shit, tin man, tell me something I don't know." the Sergeant snapped.

"Alright god damn-it, listen here..."

"Sable!" The Corporal barked, trying to stop the tension and the argument before it got out of hand. "Just report... please."

"Fine..." she said, her voice tinged with a touch of anger. "Two on the rooftop at eleven as reported. Twenty more scattered across the rooftops within four hundred meters of our current position. Three armored columns, eighty each, moving in from the East, four flights of three fixed wing and seven flights of four rotary wing aircraft providing cover.

Satellite feeds are also now linked... First approximation suggests the tangos Ramirez saw and the others I now have eyes on are scouts or recon. Dispersal pattern of the armored units, rotary and fixed wing sorties suggest hamlet is going to be surrounded, possibly sieged.

Ramirez eyes went wide. "Two hundred'n'forty armored units? Jesus y Maria, what kind of armor."

"Analysis indicates tracked armor.. likely old Abrahms, maybe a few T-40s...."

"Whew, old school... nothing to worry about then." Ramirez sighed with relief, taking a sip of his now cold coffee.

"Shit... looks like sixty or so bi-pedal walkers."

Ramirez spit out his MRE coffee "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Yes, totally kidding.. thats why I said 'Shit' just before I reported it" she said with a smile in her voice, ribbing Ramirez a bit. She liked him even if he was the youngest member of the fireteam.

"Ha, fucking, Ha." Ramirez retorted. "You didn't build an AI Corporal, you built a sass machine with more snark than my Abuela."

"Try living with her in your head." he replied to Ramirez, laughing a bit.

"If you two asshats are done kidding around..." she said.

"Took the words outta my mouth, Sable" the Sergeant replied. "Now you two shut the fuck up and let The Lady finish."

"Thank you Sergeant," she replied with sincere politeness. "As I was saying.. They appear to be heavily armed.. gauss rifles, but hard to tell with the EM interference. I can't enhance the live feed enough to get a clear picture to properly ID yet."

"Fuck," the Corporal muttered. "Means they're probably packing hunters and hunter scouts, not to mention airborn attack and scout drones that'll be out in front. There's fifteen of us and an HVT somewhere down there" he nodded to the hamlet outside.

"Are you sure about that Sable? What's your prediction.. whatever its called, say?" the Sergeant asked.

"Predictive Algorithm, Sergeant. Took Corporal Numb Nuts here six months to remember what it was called. Took you less than a day," she said, the grin evident in her voice.

"I know where you sleep, Sabs," the Corporal shot back.

"And to answer your first question: Eighty-Five percent, with what data I've got available. We'll probably be getting the same info in a minute or two from Upper once they've had a chance to study the feeds." she replied.

"Call it in, tell Mother we're packing up and moving out. Too cramped in this apartment building and I don't want us getting hemmed in when the shooting starts.

"Roger, Sarn't, already on it." He keyed the handset.

"Hey," Sable whispered in their private comms "I thought I was your HVT."

He smirked "You're high value, but you're no target Sabs" he whispered to her just as the preamble ended and he sent back the report.

Location: [36R WT 88250 28673]

Street-Level, Team Deployment Zone - 200m South of OP

Date: Unknown

Time: Cairo, 0412 Local / 0212 Zulu

The squad moved in Ranger File, fifteen meters apart, staggered and on both sides of the street. Not a sound could be heard at street level save a couple dogs barking far off in the distance.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," the Corporal said in a very poor Luke Skywalker imitation.

"Oh, what now? Gonna say 'it's quiet, too quiet?"

"Since we're doing tropes... did any of you fuckers show someone in the squad a picture of your girl back home?" said Ramirez.

"Shut the fuck up, Ramirez" Sergeant Pena barked in a low whisper.

"Drone approaching from about seven o'clock. Eight hundred meters out, sixty meters altitude, contact in ten seconds." Sable reported over the internal comms channel. "No IFF."

"Cover!" the Sergeant ordered. Everyone ducked into doorways or covered alleys near their position.

The Corporal flipped his NODs from IR to Thermal looking over his shoulder as the drone approached.

The drone flew over head and continued in a straight line course, not slowing down.

"Looked like one of ours" The Corporal said as it moved a few hundred meters from their position. "But it didn't have the right markings. No IR tags, no DOD Branch markings, not even a flag."

"Civilian?" one of the Marines asked.

"No idea.. shouldn't be any civvies out here other than locals, and that wasnt some kid's toy."

"Fucker was armed to the teeth."

"Sabs, you able to triangulate possible launch vector given its path?"

"Still getting a lot of EM interference from Sat and Drone feeds, so it's difficult to be sure... but given the distance, direction and speed it was moving, Id say that was probably a recon flight ahead of the fixed and rotary wing."

"Great.. means the armor columns are hauling serious ass to get here."

"The fuck you figure that out Sable" one of the other Marines asked.

"The AI knows where she is at all times. She knows this because she knows where she isnt. By subtracting where she is, from where she isnt..." she trailed off, a laugh in her voice, several of the Marines were also chuckling.

The Corporal rolled his eyes and looked at Ramirez. "You sure your Abuela doesn't want a job?"

"Alright you retards... get your shit together and lets move out. It doesn't matter who the fucking thing belongs to, its not one of ours so that means it's not friendly until identified as otherwise," the Sergeant ordered. "Team leaders, get your idiots in check and lets move."

The Corporal looked at his fireteam. "You heard the man.. let's go you apes, you wanna live forever?"

Ramirez rolled his eyes at the reference.

"Not only does he do bad character impressions, he's quoting Dan Daily and Johnny fucking Rico.. nerds man, I tell ya."

"Look who's talking... you're the one that knows where they come from... Get your shit and lets go" another Lance Corporal retorted.

Thirty minutes later they were in the behind the wire at firebase Able Sentry, debriefing Six Actual. Sable was interfacing with the net inside the Command Post gathering data as fast as she could process it.

Location: [36R WT 88450 29073]

24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Mobile Command Post

Ops Tent.

Date: Unknown

Time: 0615 Local / 0415 Zulu

Dawn was preparing to break. Muezzin could be heard singing out the Adan from the minarets around the town.

Al-lā-hu Ak-bar, Al-lā-hu Ak-bar

Al-lā-hu Ak-bar, Al-lā-hu Ak-bar

Ash-ha-doo an lā i-lā-ha il-lal-lāh

Ash-ha-doo an lā i-lā-ha il-lal-lāh

Ash-ha-doo an-na Mu-ham-ma-dan Ra-soo-lul-lāh

Ash-ha-doo an-na Mu-ham-ma-dan Ra-soo-lul-lāh

Hay-ya 'a-las Sa-lāh

Hay-ya 'a-las Sa-lāh

Hay-ya 'a-lal Fa-lāḥ

Hay-ya 'a-lal Fa-lāḥ

As-Sa-lā-tu Khay-run Mi-nan Nawm

Al-lā-hu Ak-bar, Al-lā-hu Ak-bar

Lā i-lā-ha il-lal-lāh

The platoon stood at the Position of Attention until the final syllable had finished, before beginning their walk to the Ops Tent.

"Fuck..." said one of the Marines in from First Squad, Charlie Six-Alpha was their call sign. "Almost as bad as being caught outside at Reveille or Taps at Lejeune. The hell were they singing anyway? Dont get me wrong, it sounds beautiful I just cant speak the language."

Sable spoke in The Corporal's ear "I can translate it if you want to tell him."

"Go for it, I'm interested myself actually."

"You talking to that fuckin' computer again Corporal?" the Marine asked.

"Yep, she's translating.. says its the Fajr al-Adan.. the morning or pre-dawn call to prayer.

Sable spoke into his ear, again he repeated what she was telling him.

"God is greatest.

I bear witness there is no deity but God.

I bear witness Muhammad is the Messenger of God.

Come to prayer. Come to success.

Prayer is better than sleep."

"I didn't train her in Arabic or Islamic traditions, so this is her best guess at an accurate translation from the books and religious material she can find from the Office of the Chaplain."

"No wonder you don't have a girlfriend. You spend more time in front of your computer than ya do out in town lookin' for pussy" the Marine said, several others laughed.

"Yeah well.. I'm not the one that has to go see Doc Perkins every time we have a port call because you contracted the clap, Collins."

More laughter.

"Fuckin asshole" PFC Collins replied, laughing.

The platoon filed in, First, Second, Third and Fourth Squad taking a row of seats by their number. They settled in, looking at the maps and charts hung up on the around the perimeter and a large holographic projection of the area on a table at the front.

"PLAAAATOON! AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa-teeeeen-TION!" Sergeant Pena barked as the Battalion CO, callsign Mother, and Battalion Sgt Major, Callsign Ca-Lo... "Shark" in Navajo, stepped inside.

The entire platoon snapped to the position of attention, feet at forty-five degrees, thumbs along trouser seams, shoulders back, chins up, eyes locked dead head.

"As you were" Mother said as he approached the holo-table.

The platoon sat, relaxing a bit but attentive.

"Battalion S-3's First Intel Platoon has confirmed the data collected by Six-Charlie, Sat and Drone Recon from a couple hours ago. Old Israeli M-1 Abrahms and more than ancient T-40 tanks are about four hours out at top speed. Given their age itll probably be longer, but we don't know what kind of condition they're in or if they've been updated. There's a butt load of cutting edge tech headed this way so it stands to reason modifications may have been made to the tracked armor as well."

He pulled up a tactical view on the holotable. "On that note, the walkers are much closer and the drones, as Six-Charlie noted on their way back inside the wire, are already here. Intel Platoon is suggesting two to three hours at the maximum before the first wave gets here, and another five to six before the town's completely surrounded by the tracked armor. Our best guess is that they're after the HVT. Local assets determined the HVT is about six blocks west of our current position in an old apartment building similar to the one Six-Charlie posted up last night... Sarn't Major?"

"Thank you, Sir. Division's flagged First and Second Platoon for HVT recovery. We're breaking you down into individual squads and sending you out in what should look like standard patrol routes. Your OICs will brief your squad leaders on the specifics. Any questions?"

Ramirez's hand started to rise.

The Corporal snatched it by the wrist before it got shoulder-high.

"Be glad your fireteam leader's got a brain in his head and not just an AI, Ramirez," Ca-Lo snapped. "Not the day for your bullshit."

Ramirez shrank slightly. Pena's glare could cut steel.

"Since we don't have legit questions..." Ca-Lo growled. "Platoon! Aaaa-teeen-TION!"

They snapped to the POA in unison.

"Fall out!"

The squads filed out in reverse order. As they passed through the tent flap, The Corporal cuffed Ramirez in the back of the head.

"Good one, Rookie. You're gonna get us smoked before we even get started."

Sable burst into his their ears with static-laced laughter.

Ramirez rubbed the back of his head. "The fuck was that for?"

"That," The Corporal said dryly, "was earned."

"Gee, thanks for the pep talk Corporal."

"Both of you shut the fuck up and make yourselves scarce before I frag your asses in your sleep," Peña barked. "Rally at the wire in fifteen.... And Ramirez, for love of the Virgin, bring all of your kit this time," he said, staring The Corporal in the eyes.

"Aye, Sarn't," Ramirez replied, glancing over his shoulder to see his team leader's expression.

Another unmarked drone screamed high overhead outside the perimeter of the AO. Heading back in the direction they came from in the pre-dawn hours.

The Corporal's face was emotionless. Ramirez sighed internally, he knew that look and knew he'd better take this seriously.

Sable swapped to Ramirez private channel.

"Ask me again later when we have some down time, and I'll stream you some old school TV Procedural Dramas. It'll make sense."

Location: [36R WT 88400 28450]

Approximately two blocks from the last known location of the HVT

Cairo Perimeter

Date: Unknown

Time: 0730 Local / 0530 Zulu

Sergeant Pena snapped his fist up and made the hand motion for the platoon to scatter and take cover. He looked at The Corporal, pointed two fingers at his own eyes, rotated his wrist pointing in the direction of their movement and made a T with his hands, held two fingers up vertically, clenched his fist, then again two fingers, a fist and then three fingers, a fist, he rotated his wrist opened his palm toward the squad and rocked it once, pointing left.

He nods to Pena, giving a thumbs up and then repeats the hand gesture to Ramirez behind him, and again to the Squad Leader across the street, the gestures being repeated down the line on both sides with a thumbs up from the Marines pulling Tail End Charlie, denoting the message was received and understood.

"There's a lot of EM interference, Boss, I cant see very well through your optics. What's he saying?"

"Two tangos, about 23 meters out, left of our position on Six Charlie-One's side of the street. Squad's passed the info down the line and the rear guard are signaling they understand," he whispered.

"Understood, I'm working on trying to filter out the interference, but with it being Electro Magnetic its more hardware than software related. Everyone's tactical feeds are seeing the same thing. This isnt because of the buildings or anything unique to the area.. it feels like a deliberate attempt at jamming." She said.

The Corporal nodded. "Means someone's figured out the frequency band of our comms systems and are trying to flood it with RF noise. Hem up our coordination."

Pena looked at the Corporal and made the hand gesture for 'I don't understand,' basically asking what the hold up was. He quickly stooped and made his way to Pena's position, reporting what he and Sable had just worked out.

Pena nodded, "Guess we're doing this the hard way. This shit is exactly why we drill over and over again. Rely too much on technology and someone figures out a way to defeat it."

"Cant defeat good old fashioned Marine ingenuity," The Corporal replied.

"Spread the word quickly and quietly. We've need to get moving."

"Aye Sarn't," he said with a smile and a forearm bump to the shoulder. "We got this."

Pena booted him in the ass gently. "Carry the fuck on."

He quickly moved back to his position and informed Ramirez, gave him instructions to pass the word. The rear guard nodded when he received the info, quickly made his way across the street and informed Six Alpha's rear guard who then passed it up the line. Six Charlie's rear guard made his way back carefully, using cars as cover so as not to give away their position. Six Alpha's squad leader gave a thumbs up to Pena who motioned for everyone to move forward, quickly but quietly.

They'd only moved a few feet when an explosion rocked the position where the two tangos had been standing a couple minutes earlier, a fire fight erupted ahead of them. When the Squads reached the corner, Six Alpha-One peeked around. The bodies of the two tangos buried under rubble, a gaping hole in the side of the building. Automatic gun fire peppered the wall and Six Alpha-One pulled his head back, small chunks of brickwork scraping his cheek, streaks of blood visible from the tiny impacts. He gave a thumbs up indicating he was ok.

More automatic gunfire impacted the wall above Pena's crouched body, he returned a burst in the same direction. "MOVE!!!" he shouted.

The Marines leapt into action, Ramirez opened up with the squad's automatic weapon, creating covering fire to allow Pena to sprint forward and get behind car ahead of them, using it for cover.

"Chili-mac n cheese,"

"Chili-mac n cheese,"

Ramirez chanted to himself, using the phrase to keep the bursts short so as not to blow through the drum of ammunition too quickly and keep the barrel from overheating.

Heat signatures slowly rezzed into The Corporal's optics, he raised his rifle and dropped three targets as the muzzle flashes bloomed in the thermal outlines.

The squads fanned out, taking cover and returning fire as they advanced forcing the attackers to break, so as not to get pinned down in the ambush.

Pena pointed and shouted "Two buildings up, get inside... MOVE!"

The squad filed in, leap frogging one another to provide support and fire as they bolted through the door. Ramirez and his counter part in Six Alpha laying down cover and suppressing fire with their automatic weapons.

Ramirez bolted in last, slamming the door behind him, several other Marines grabbing furniture and slamming it against the door to help hold it closed just in case someone decided to try to follow in behind them.

"Sit Rep!" Pena barked.

"Copacetic here, Sarn't, no injuries, ammo good," came the replies from all the fireteam leaders.

"Six Alpha-One reports his squad's safe inside the building on their side of the street, they're beginning a room to room search of the apartment complex. Minor injuries, scrapes and bruises. Doc reports Six Alpha-One's probably gonna have some minor scarring from the brick shards hitting him the face but he's not injured." Sable reported. "Looks like the Six Bravo and Delta are catching the same kind of hell we are. Doesnt appear to be coordinated from what I can see... skirmishes mostly."

"Good," Pena stated. "Looks like you're getting the interference cleaned up."

"A bit, Im frequency hopping so the feeds are stuttering a little but close range comms should sound smoother unless they start jamming the entire band."

"If they do, theyll blind themselves as well," The Corporal stated. "If the jam the entire band, completely they wont be able to see us either."

"Understood... pick your sorry asses up and lets get moving. We need to sweep this building and figure out if we can move to the next one. HVT's supposed to be in this area somewhere, and I'd rather not find a body."

The Marines moved and broke into their fireteams, clearing the rooms one by one each team stacked Ready, Team, Fire, Assist.

The Corporal and his team cleared a room, checking the corners, scanning up and down over top of their sights, rifles pointed up as they cleared the second floor of the larger apartment.

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

Came the reports as they verified their sectors. They regrouped in the main living area and The Corporal motioned for them to move on to the next room. As he was leaving he caught a glimpse of movement in the mirror behind the door, he turned around, weapon raised and there was nothing there. He looked back at the mirror as the tail of something with glowing runes or code vanished beyond the mirrors frame. He shook his head and closed the door behind them as they left.

Sable chirped in his ear as the team moved down the hall to the next apartment.

"You saw it too, didn't you..." more of a statement than a question.

"Mmmhmm" he replied.

The team continued clearing rooms, some cluttered as though theyd been abandoned, their occupants grabbing everything they could before they left, others almost pristine as though the occupants had just gone work or the apartment was expecting them to return from prayer any moment now.

The squad reformed up at the top of the apartment complex, an enclosed bridge connecting it to the building next door, a few windows spaced down the corridor to let light in during the day.

"Building's empty Sarn't," The Corporal reported.

"We move next door then and work our way back down to street level. Ranger File, keep it tight, keep your heads and bodies below the windows, don't need anyone getting spotted, Ramirez."

"Yes Sarn't." Ramirez replied, more serious now.

"Corporal, Ramirez, you two and Six-Charlie-Fower are with me. Everyone else stick to your fireteams and move quickly.

More funfire and explosions could be heard off in the distance.

Just a few blocks from where they were, explosions echoing off the buildings in the abandoned street. The fireteams moved quickly, repeating the same leapfrogging maneuver they had on the street... the last man watching the rear, getting a tap on the shoulder and rushing ahead to the front of the group, ducking low to keep his body under the windows while the Marine that had tapped taking rear guard.

"It's getting closer," The Corporal said, stating the obvious.

"It is, we need to search this building and get the fuck out of here." Pena said checking the time. "Walkers are probably already at the city perimeter if arent inside already..."

"Which means, hunters and hunter scouts. Probably what the locals are shooting at." Ramirez replied.

"Hey, look who paid attention last night after all," The Corporal retorted with a smile. "Maybe that slap to the back of the head woke you up a bit."

Above the Area of Operation, the atmosphere thinned into the void. The Space Force satellite providing uplinks to the Blue Forces below staring down through the haze of dust and cloud cover perpetual vouyers of the goings on at the surface.

Sable's simulated consciousness shared the streaming data. Her mind making hundreds, thousands of calculations per second as she analyzed and attempted to predict movements of the Opposing Forces below, watching heat signatures, blending the Command and Control aircraft data with radio chatter and drone streams. The picture of the entire battlefield resolved in her mind... foxes being driven by the hounds to the hunters. The feeds went dark.

"Shit," she thought to herself. "We're in trouble, we need to move and we need to move now."

A pause.

"Boss, we've got company and they're not after they HVT, they're coming after us."

"Fuck me" The Corporal said outloud. "I hate to pull a Ramirez, but are you fucking shitting me?"

"I wish I were. Hunters and Scouts have launched from the Walkers, we've got two minutes before contact."

Pena called the squad to a halt and made a circular hand motion for the squad to form up around

The Corporal as he pulled a tablet out of his pack.

"What's the deal? I just lost the uplink." asked Ramirez.

"Real ambush this time, not us walking into an ambush for the locals that turned into a skirmish," he said as he tapped opened the app on the tablet. "Show us what you've got Sabs."

"Less than two minutes to contact" she repeated through the teams local comms as she projected a three dimensional wire-frame of the city onto the tablet, speaking quickly. "Hunters and Hunter Scouts have launched from the Walkers, they're tear assing through the city, blowing through skirmishes, basically ignoring them and they're headed this way."

"Where are they now?" Pena asked.

"I don't know.. telemetry's been cut from Sats, Drones, AWACS... everything. Im blind aside form what I can see through our local comms and your personal feeds."

"Alright, Wedge Formation, wide dispersal, watch your vectors and your fields of fire. Dont go tagging one another. Weapons tight until we engage. Dont get separated. Sable, if you can get Alpha on the line, have them rally, our position, double time. We're going to need support and it doesn't sound like CAS is going to be an option."

"Understood, transmitting encrypted text to Alpha-One," she replied.

The Corporal tucked the tablet back into his day pack, shouldered his rifle and started moving ahead falling into position.

Ninety seconds later, the world erupted into total chaos.

Small shoulder fired Gauss round began blowing holes in the walls around them, drones screaming over head pitching down and laying down suppressing fire attempting to get the squad to break. The Marines took cover returning fire but still continued to push forward refusing to let the ambushers hem them in and pin them down.

Alpha arrived about forty-five seconds into the fight and the automatic gunner laid down a wall of lead, he and Ramirez working in concert to cover their Brothers. A never ending barrage of unholy hell upon their attackers. Immediately as one paused the other was already letting loose with another burst, back and forth, back and forth almost like a ballet. The grenadiers opened up, loosing High Explosive rounds into the chest of the scouts as they dropped down from the rooftops, or spidered around corners.

Another explosion rocked the two squads, shrapnel from the road, the rounds and shards of metal flying through the air from cars taking the brunt slamming into the chest plates, knocking three of them off their feet like bowling pins. The Marines nearest them rushing up to cover as they hoisted their fallen friends back up to their feet, getting everyone back into the fight.

Sable continued her analysis of the attackers as the fight ensued. She noted that the majority of the heavy fire was directed away from their current position, away from them. Maps, routes, vector analysis all streaming through The Corporal's HUD in realtime as Sable raced looking for patterns, directions of fire, fire intensity, responses to return fire.

"They're after us." They said in unison, his mind completely in tune with Sable.

"Ramirez, stay with Charlie-One watch his fucking six. Sable and I are going to draw their fire and see if we can pull them away from you guys. We're going to get slaughtered if we stay here!" he shouted over the din of the fight.

Without waiting for a reply he fired a few three round bursts at the nearest Hunters and Hunter Scouts and sprinted down the main road just to their right. Two dozen hunters and scouts peeled off from the ambushing force and followed.

Pena and Ramirez saw what was going on, Pena ordered the team to link with Alpha and stay together. He and Ramirez both sprinted right behind The Corporal without a glance at one another.

The avenue opened wide, The Corporal running full tilt with Ramirez and Pena hot on their heels, the Hunters and Scouts a second or two behind. A Gauss round exploded the wall just behind him, the shrapnel causing Ramirez to lose balance, Pena grabbing his arm and steadying him before he lost stride. Thirty meters ahead three bodies dropped into the middle of the road, stood and opened up with fully automatic weapons. The trio dove for cover as the rounds ripped through the rusted out hulk of an old car, shredding the roof. Ramirez popped up and opened fire, walking his fire up the torso towards the head. The Hunter's armor shrugged off the rounds like flies on a horses haunches after a tail brush. Pena fired a white phosphorous round drectly into the face of the middle figure, a Scout just as two of the Hunters behind caught up and opened fire. The blinded scout returned fire in the trios direction hitting two of the hunters in the head and chest. The Corporal and Pena fired off a flash bang and another willy pete round into the two groups while Ramirez fired his automatic weapon first into one group then the other.

The two groups lit one another up, their visual systems flared out by the brightness of the flash and the phosphorous grenades. The trio ducked down while they tore one another apart, each side believing they were returning fire on their targets.

They used the melee to duck into a covered alley just off to their left, pressing into the doorways. Another dozen drones screamed overhead without slowing. The remaining force that had followed them sprinted by attempting to chase down their targets.

Thirty seconds later... total silence, just the sounds of their hearts racing in their chests and Ramirez gasping a bit. Pena and The Corporal noticed and looked at their young squadmate, worried expressions on their faces. Ramirez grinned and gave a thumbs up as his free hand clutched his ribs.

"I'm ok.." he groaned "Probably cracked a rib or two when the wall exploded. Thank God I actually listened for a change and brought full plate like you ordered Sergeant."

Pena just shook his head. "You're a fucking idiot Ramirez, but you're learning."

Static crackled in their comms.

... ver. Ch.. one.. io... eck... over!"

"Alpha-One, Alpha-One, Charlie-One. Over" Pena replied.

"Roger Charlie-One, radio check.. over"

"Status green, Sit Rep." Pena replied.

"Charlie-One, Hermes. Four Marines injured.. broken ankle, two concussions a few broken ribs, no serious injuries, no casualties."

"Thank god Doc's ok. Means Collins still owes him a few cases beer." Ramirez laughed and then groaned holding his side again.

"I shouldn't have done that... I should not have done that."

"Hermes, Charlie-One, tell Alpha-One we're on our way back. We'll rally at the ambush and head back to the wire."

"Hermes, Charlie-One, wilco. Hermes out."

As the three of them walked back, they continued watching the rooftops and checking their combat feeds...

Nothing.

The Corporal caught movement out of the corner of his eye, looked up and left raising his weapon. A smokey shape rolled upward and dissipated, a black column in its trail. He lowered his weapon and continued moving.

"Column of smoke by day," he murmured. "Pillar of fire by night."