A beta version of the next Confluence release is out. And guess what — it’s got gadgets. This is pretty cool, so I’m jumping the gun and telling you about it right now.

It’s still just a beta release: Confluence 3.1 Open Beta. The announcement is on the Atlassian News Blog, along with an invitation to try it out. So I got myself a copy and put some gadgets onto a wiki page.

Now, the gadgets I chose are perhaps not the most useful. The most usual business case would be to add gadgets published by other Atlassian applications. For example, you might want to add a gadget that displays some information from another Confluence site or from  JIRA, Bamboo, FishEye or Crucible. (Those are other applications developed by Atlassian, the company I work for.)

But for me, the fun bit is that I can add the gadget that I created and blogged about 8 months ago.

The same 2 gadgets in 3 different applications

Here’s a screenshot of a Confluence wiki page with two gadgets. One is mine, displaying an up-to-date list of recent blog posts about technical writing from WordPress.com. The other gadget was created by Donna, our support diva, showing recent entries in a Jive discussion forum. (Click the image to enlarge it.)

Gadgets on Confluence wiki pages - oh, and in JIRA and iGoogle

Here are the same two gadgets on my iGoogle page:

Gadgets on Confluence wiki pages - oh, and in JIRA and iGoogle

And here they are in JIRA:

Gadgets on Confluence wiki pages - oh, and in JIRA and iGoogle

How do you add a gadget to a Confluence page?

Your Confluence page can display two types of gadgets:

• Internal — These are gadgets published by the same Confluence site as where they are displayed. Typically such a gadget would display information sourced from the Confluence site, such as an activity stream or a search function.
• External — These are gadgets published by another Confluence site, or a JIRA site, or even something totally different like Remember the Milk, a hamster in a wheel or a pet monkey.

If your gadget is external, the Confluence administrator needs to add the gadget to the list of available gadgets before you can add it to your Confluence page. This needs to happen only once for each gadget.

To make an external gadget available in your Confluence site:

1. Log in as a Confluence administrator.
2. Go to ‘Confluence Admin‘ and click ‘External Gadgets‘ in the left-hand navigation panel.
3. Paste the URL of your gadget into the field labelled ‘Gadget Specification URL‘. The URL should point to the XML file that describes the gadget.

For example, take a look at the URLs for the two gadgets in my screenshots above. The URL for the WordPress gadget is:

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/117695765658379330528/
WordPress-dot-comRSSFeed.xml

And the URL for the Jive forums gadget is:

http://confluence.atlassian.com/download/attachments/203394872/forums.xml

Friendly warning: I’m just using my gadget as an example here. It’s a total hack, so please don’t insert it into any Confluence sites that matter! You’ll get all sorts of weird display problems, plus potential security issues too.

To add a gadget (external or internal) to a Confluence page:

1. Create a new page or edit an existing page.
2. Put your cursor in the edit box where you want the gadget displayed.
3. Click the ‘Insert/Edit Macro‘ icon  in the toolbar.
4. You’ll see the ‘Select Macro’ popup window. Enter some text into the search box at top right, to find the gadget you want.
   
5. Click the gadget you want. You’ll see a preview of the gadget. Most gadgets also offer you some options to configure the gadget, such as width of the display, background colour, etc.
   
6. Change the settings if you like, then click ‘Insert‘.
7. Save the Confluence page.

Extra authorisation step (OAuth)

Some gadgets require extra authorisation, to reassure the publishing server that it’s OK to send its data to the server where the gadget is displayed. Gadgets use an authorisation protocol called OAuth. There are two parts to the authorisation, one performed by the administrator and one by the person adding the gadget to or viewing the gadget on the page.

1. The administrator needs to set up the OAuth relationship between the gadget publishing server (called the provider) and the displaying server (called the consumer). This authorisation step needs to happen only once for each site. Once you’ve authorised one server to send information to another server, then you can add multiple gadgets from that server. For example, let’s say you want to display JIRA gadgets on a Confluence page. Your JIRA server needs to trust your Confluence server. So you’ll need to add Confluence as an OAuth consumer in JIRA. To do this, you will give JIRA the URL of your Confluence server. The instructions are in the JIRA documentation.
2. When you add a gadget to a page, you will need to authorise the display of information under the authority of your user ID. Similarly, every user who views the page will need to authorise the display of the information under their user ID.  The authorisation lasts for a while (a week or so, unless you revoke it). The gadget will display a ‘Log In and Approve‘ button. When you click the button, you will go to the login page of the site concerned. Log in and then approve the gadget’s access to the server’s information. Now you’ll see the gadget information displayed. There’s a full write-up in the Gadgets documentation.

Phew, I’m glad we’ve got that out of the way!

Would you like to try it yourself?

The Confluence 3.1 beta release is out, so you can hack away. If you’re very brave, you could even write your own gadget and put it on a Confluence page!

into the empty expanse of our shared frustrations i return

that melting crucible whence not one, nor twice

but seemingly always had my heels clipped and gleefully shamed

how the loud shrills of tormentors real and imagined gloried

over my already scared remains

to the left stood the remnants of that old house of shames -

that bottomless pit, even the gloried church of sour sweets

her carpets forever peopled by the accusing stains of

innocence eternally violated

how we all bribed death to perchance show her face

even once and how we always failed in this

there thus forsaken and seemingly cast from the

better sort of men

in due season we became not unlike those sublime vagabonds

to and fro we roamed as if in search of our clothed selves

the mangled refuses of sickness overpowering even those darkened streets

how even pain lost his monopolistic hold on us –

and how instead each took turns to laugh as it approached

pathetic joys – how low our being had fallen

for ours were not human movements –

neither could i ask any of the other sort to follow my barbaric yawp

The issues facing the American people are myriad.

America is much like a diamond.

As a natural product, every genuine diamond has flaws – some more pronounced than others – which are their defining hallmarks. Yet like every diamond, no matter the size, its value is deemed high enough to expend whatever time, capital and effort necessary to manifest a hidden beauty that sparkles when exposed to even the dimmest light of a flickering candle.

America IS that city upon a hill, a light upon a basket set high as an example for other nations to follow. And try as some have to extinguish that light, to lower that standard- through whatever means – they have not succeeded, nor will they succeed.

The American spirit is indomitable.

Our form of governance, though perhaps the youngest among the nations of the world, is the most enduring. Smelted in tyranny’s crucible, cast in unity’s form, strengthened with justice, and ever-tempered with mercy, America is a light to the paths of the world’s people, shining brighter and brighter ’til the perfect day.

Hello all! Hopefully everyone is having a great week?! I’ve been swamped with Crucible stuff. I’ve found myself really struggling with getting off book, or getting the script out of my hands for you non-theatre readers, but never fear…I have finally done so! Last night was the first rehearsal where I really felt fully committed to the character and only had to call line a handful of times. Still not a “perfect” night, but much better than Wednesday night where I surrendered to having a script on stage. :/

I couldn’t be more excited about being involved with this cast!! I LOVE them all so much! Everyone is giving it everything they have and just putting it out there. All for the love of performing arts! Arthur Miller is not easy to perform, but the 15+ people in this cast are all doing wonderful things on stage! Tonight we run the entire show for the first time and while that is a scary thing, I am super excited to see the entire story unfold at once. As for me, I finally get to test how unredeemable my character, Rev Samuel Parris, really is! I have never gotten to play that character that everyone just hates. I want audience members to tell me they hated my character. In my research of the real Parris I found that he was…well, kind of an asshole! He was constantly paranoid that the village was against him. When his daughter Betty was “bewitched” he fought to keep it secret for fear that he would be attacked for allowing witchery in his home. Also, Parris was being recruited as the new minister in Salem for a year before he actually accepted the post. He held out for outrageous demands to his contract. Demands such as, if the village had the funds to increase his salary, they were to do so IMMEDIATELY even if he had not earned it. Private donations given to him were NOT to be considered part of his salary. He demanded the deed to the parsonage, usually a public property. He also demanded that his firewood be freely given to him! In Salem, firewood was normally brought in from outside of the village so they added a six pound bonus to his salary so that he may buy his own wood. Reluctantly Parris accepted the post and became the minister of Salem Village. Just in time for the Witch Trials! Years after he was lead up to the high road and sent along his merry. That’s what you get when your entire congregation hates you!

On a different note, I am totally addicted to D&D: Tiny Adventures on Facebook. It’s an RPG (Role Playing Game), and is awesome! It’s actually the first RPG I’ve every really gotten into. In all my nerdiness I have until now never really been into RPGs. I think this is a good starter. I don’t know a lot about RPGs so this will give me the chance to learn about them. If you want to watch the real-time updates of the adventures of Marimac Gamwich, follow me on Twitter @riverscohen!

ANyways, back to work, and D&D. I hope all of you can come see The Crucible!!! Here’s our awesome poster!!

Poster for ACT's "The Crucible"

In both the crucible and the general idea of McCarthyism and the red scare people used publicity and histeria to benifit themselves. In McCarthism McCarthy used communism to take down his apponets and boost himself and other republicans up in the public eye. The crucible relates to this because Abigal and the other accussers used whitchcraft to take down powerful land-owners and enemies to gain from their lack of reputation. In both cases it got out of control and many people were killed or lowered in the social pyramid

Last week, The Complex Sale, Pedowitz Group, Eloqua, and Oracle hosted a luncheon designed to brief sales and marketing executives on how their worlds were changing.  It was a great turn out with even better insight into how buyers are changing their habits. At no time in history has Sales and Marketing seen as radical a shift in buying behaviors as in the last five years.  With tools like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, information is now quite literally at our buyer’s fingertips.

Organizations are having trouble adapting to this change.  The concept of the new “Sales 2.0” world has created more questions than answers as to how Sales and Marketing can leverage new technologies to drive messaging and sales effectiveness. 
 
Today, buyer “self education” renders Sales and Marketing blind to buyers’ interests, propensities, and levels of engagement in our typical Sales and Marketing plans.  Buyers are less likely to engage with sales teams or to read our messaging.  Instead, buyers leverage Webinars, Online Meetings, and interactive web sites and control the sales process themselves.

Steve Woods, author of Digital Body Language and CTO of Eloqua states, “a sales person’s biggest competition for an executive’s time is now Google.”  If we as sales people cannot bring more value to the conversation than what is available online, then we are not going to capture an executive’s time or imagination.

Rick Page, author of Hope is Not a Strategy and founder of The Complex Sale states, “lead generation used to be about a hammer, now it is about a hook.” The hammer was the telephone with endless cold calls beating executives into appointments by attrition.  The hook is an opportunity for the executive to learn something insightful about their own business, industry, or competition.

Debbie Qaquish, Chief Revenue Officer at the Pedowitz Group states, “Marketing is earning its way on sales incentives trips by first, collaborating with sales to create the definition of a lead and secondly, providing insight into buyer activity on the company website that will triage the sellers call efforts.

The session ended with the obvious question – what hasn’t changed in selling?

The evaluation process is still logical and rational where the decision making process is emotional and political.  By avoiding the three foot rule (being within three feet of the prospect) and handling the sale over the web and phone, sellers risk becoming a victim of the crucible concept. Sellers need to know the competitive and political landscape, source of urgency, and enterprise level issues to when complex deals.

How can I write about metal art in Oakland and not speak of The Crucible? It’s an institution, and one of my favorite things about Oakland. This is what makes Oakland cool. That you can throw a festival of fire next door to BART, in which a column of fire is sprayed 80 feet into the air, with the bart tracks & trains running right by. What do the people from Walnut Creek think?!!

This multi-disciplinary non-profit facility is responsible for a good chunk of art at Burning Man, the annual Fire Arts Festival in Oakland (which moved to a new location near Fruitvale this past summer), and a slew of classes at their West Oakland Bart oriented location… everything from blacksmithing (of course), to ceramics, fire-dancing, moldmaking, and much more. Please check out their links, because I simply can’t tell you enough to truly do them justice.

The word ‘crucible’ refers to a vessel or container used for heating substances to high temperatures. Below is an example of one they have sitting out front… It’s comprised of thick steel wrapped around an interior of concrete, and it is huge!

Another meaning of the word is “a place, time, or situation characterized by the confluence of powerful intellectual, social, economic, or political forces.” (dictionary.com) The Crucible truly is this, for they define themselves as a collaboration of Art, Industry, & Community, and rightfully so.

Their location in a historically depressed part of West Oakland rejuvenates the area with art, commerce, and education, accessible to all through classes, community events & service projects, and more..

They recently received an NEA grant that allowed them to install a new ramp, making the facility wheelchair accessible. See below all the intricate metal work adorning it, icons of bay area history, glossed in fire-engine red enamel … our current city logo (the oak tree), the Port of Oakland, the Fox Theater, the Tribune Tower, the Bay Bridge, the Black Panthers, Rosie the Riveter and more.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12

MINUTEMEN: THE CRUCIBLE

Chapter Thirteen: “The Pride of Portland”

“Ron? Ron?“

Ron Parsons opened his eyes lazily, squinting in the light and wincing as he rubbed a hand over his face. His chest, ribcage, and back burned in pain. He gave a very slow thumbs-up to indicate he was all right.

“Jesus,” the disembodied voice said out of Parsons’ vision, “you scared us. How do you feel?”

“I’ll live.” Parsons croaked.

“What the hell were you thinking, dude?”

Ron thought about rolling over on his side, but the weightless feeling and the lingering pain in his chest made him think twice. Ron chuckled to himself. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Seriously, you okay?”

Ron gave another thumbs-up and motioned for the voice to come closer. “How’d it look?”

“Get back on the boat and we’ll tell you.”

Parsons lazily spun his body around and began paddling toward the red, shiny new speedboat bobbing in the middle of the largely empty river. The sun beamed just over the distant mountains and bathed Ron in gentle yellow light. Ron sighed wistfully as he fought his wakeboard’s resistance behind him. “Be right there.”

Portland, Oregon
United North American Protectorate
August 4, 2550
Two years before Covenant invasion of Earth

“So why’d you wipe out?” A busty, black-haired beauty purred over the edge of the Togokhan watercraft. Ron shrugged mid-stroke.

“The freecam was right in front of me,” Parsons explained over the smooth hum of the vessel’s fusion drive. “I thought taking a bow would be too douchey. Gotta keep it fun.”

Ron Parsons climbed the short ladder up to the sleek boat, shaking the water from his shaggy blonde hair and deactivating his lifevest as he had done since he was old enough to stumble. The sleek black and gold floatation device disengaged with a moist hiss of air, straps retracting into the suddenly baggy device automatically, followed immediately by the vest itself separating around the ribs and compacting into a tiny dry square of what looked like plastic. The soggy Portland native tucked the lifevest into his back pocket, sat down in a heap on a comfy captain’s chair, and swiveled around to face the rest of the boat’s occupants.

Despite the craft’s size, a small convention had gathered composed of kids in their teens and early twenties, wearing swimwear that walked the fine line between revealing and indecent. With bodies and builds like theirs, though, no person would complain. On either side of the Togokhan VF-13 speedboat similar boats were idling, full of admirers of close age, build, and awe. They all looked up at Ron like Greeks at the temple of Apollo, and their sun god took a long pull from his bottle of beer before speaking again.

“How’d I do?” Parsons asked, beaming.

“Looks ok,” replied a nonchalant, heavily tattooed twenty-two year old who withdrew a data crystal from the hovering dark gray freecam.

Ron gave the cameraman a jovial finger. “Lisa?” He asked expectantly.

“Not bad.” Ron’s raven-haired girlfriend shrugged in her shiny black bikini as she slipped on sunglasses big as plate glass windows. As she flipped her long black hair over her shoulder, the sunglasses’ color shifted constantly, like looking through a kaleidoscope underwater. Parsons winked in her direction.

“A tumbleturn 720 into a Hilton Orbital! It was freaking extreme!” Bellowed an intoxicated fan that stepped up to the local wakeboarding hero and delivered a palm-deadening high five. The rest of the boat’s “crew” gave a big laugh over the popping of beers and the rhythmic slap of the craft’s hull against the cold, dark water.

Unsatisfied even with that outpouring of admiration, Ron shifted his weight in the chair and draped an arm confidently over the back. Across from the rising star a beautiful, angelic face framed by shimmering golden curls made a show of keeping an eye on the river.

“What’d you think, lil’ sis?” Ron jabbed playfully, mussing her hair with an outstretched hand. Katie Parsons smacked her big brother’s arm away and exaggerated a pout that lasted a grand total of ten seconds. As she did every time Ron asked her what she thought, she flashed a big, blissful smile and looked admiringly at her role model.

“My brother’s the best wakeboarder in the galaxy,” Katie said with all sincerity. “You’re gonna wow ‘em all, Ronnie.”

The tattooed cameraman took a glance at the images racing across his media player and shook his head in disbelief. “They’re gon’ be cryin’ fer help once Ron gets in the water with ‘em.”

“Help!” Tim McManus yelped as he and the surrounding soldiers rushed toward a fallen and unconscious Ron Parsons. Captain Jack O’Shea unnecessarily motioned for their chief medic, Harold Ibanez, to treat their wounded comrade.

“Get in there, doc,” Jack instructed in a hasty and grave voice. He tried hard not to wear an expression of resignation, but it was almost impossible after an entire day of watching people die.

“Everyone, back up!” The Captain bellowed. “Back! Up!“

The medic slid a short distance on his knees and inspected the young sharpshooter’s condition visually at first as he pulled off his gloves with his teeth. He pressed his fingers against Ron Parsons’ neck, checked for breathing, and after a split-second consultation with himself he began conscripting assistants, starting with Tim.

Ibanez locked onto the Harvard student’s eyes and spoke forcefully and clearly. “You. Medkit. Now.”

Tim shoved past soldiers to the last place he saw medical supplies. Ibanez then pointed a finger at Rachel Lynch, who was still staring, nearly hyperventilating, at Ron’s body. Considering the bullet in Ron was meant for her, she was handling it well. For now.

“Hey,” the medic commanded, snapping his fingers to pull Lynch out of herself. “Hey! Look at me.” The traumatized Boston College co-ed finally tore her gaze from Parsons to Ibanez as the medic pointed two fingers at her eyes and then to his own. “Right here. Good. Find me towels, anything relatively sterile that can keep his wound clean.”

Lynch nodded numbly and headed for the back of the bar. Ibanez then started to remove Ron’s body armor, talking the whole way.

“What was he shot with?”

One of the soldiers looked up from the body of Frank Walsh, holding the gangster’s stolen pistol.

“Pistol. M6.”

Ibanez looked at the soldier with a face full of frustration and twirled his fingers around angrily as if he were calling traveling on a miniature basketball player. “M6 what?“

“Oh! Uh, C. M6C.”

“Thank God he didn’t have a D. At least the C’s caliber gives us a chance. Captain, he’s gonna need blood.”

Jack O’Shea shook his head, frowning. “South Station’s got everything.”

Ibanez gestured purposefully at the slow ooze of red coming out of Ron, who’s breathing was becoming shallow. “That’s not gonna be good for us.”

Tim took a knee on the other side of his fallen friend and passed the large white medical kit to Ibanez. McManus did his best to look helpful, his green eyes flashing with desperation. “I’m universal,” he offered.

The white of Ibanez’s eyes contrasted sharply with the darkening bar, his stone-colored uniform, and his tan skin. The contrast only magnified the flash of confusion in the medic’s eyes. “What?” he distractedly asked Tim.

“I’m O neg,” the student explained. “I can give to all blood types.”

“It’s a start,” Ibanez muttered absent-mindedly, glancing up from Ron to look at an approaching O’Shea. “Yeah?” Harold asked.

Jack O’Shea frowned at the scene and tried his best to not appear coldly pragmatic. “Is he going to make it?”

The busy medic sighed irritably. “Considering I haven’t even begun to administer care, I’d say it’s bad that he’s unconscious but good that his vitals aren’t terrible. Looks like the armor took a lot of the bullet’s energy, but a semi-armor piercing round could have torn right through the plates and be God knows where in his body. There could be internal damage I can’t even see yet—”

“Ibanez.” Jack interjected sternly to cut off the medic’s rant. The ex-Marine’s shoulders sagged as he composed his thoughts for his Captain.

“I can’t do anything for him here.”

McManus’ body went rigid. “What?” He stammered, reaching over his fallen friend to grab Harold. “But he’s still breathing and—”

“I can’t do anything for him here,” Ibanez shot back, pushing Tim’s hand away and looking annoyed at the concerned student. “If I can find the bullet, we can stabilize him and hopefully not kill him in transit. If I can’t…”

“Then what?” Rachel and Tim asked nearly simultaneously.

“Then it doesn’t matter.” Ibanez said matter-of-factly. “So get someone in the back to start drawing blood from you, kid. Girl, get ready to assist me here.”

Tim leaped to his feet and sprinted for the back door to the kitchen, nearly kicking through the swinging door and slamming it against the wall.

The door to the modest Portland home swung shut with a metallic hiss that harkened back to a simpler time of screen doors in country homes on lazy summer evenings. The bright late morning sun shone down across an idyllic blue sky, one that was mercifully free of transports, warships, and space elevators. The whole scene was the picture of simple, carefree bliss.

Mrs. Meredith Parsons was the exact opposite of that carefree image, however, as she stood in the doorway of her middle-class home and scrunched her face in concern. A light breeze blew strands of her short, sandy brown hair across her face, and she swiped the errant hairs away irritably. She felt a heaving sigh building up inside her, but she swallowed it with no small amount of effort.

At the end of her driveway a civilian Warthog, painted hunter green with yellow racing stripes, was parked but still swaying with energy. The wakeboards secured to the vehicle’s roof rack was more than enough proof of where her son and only daughter had gone, and it wracked her heart with grief that her youngest son Ron was now so brazenly defying her wishes.

The son in question nimbly jumped out of the back of the ‘Hog, laughing about some unheard joke inside. A tattooed boy about Ron’s age stuck his head out of the passenger’s window, holding a data crystal and gesturing for Meredith’s youngest son’s attention. As Mrs. Parsons descended the stairs from her home, she could hear the exchange clearly.

“Oy!” The tattooed boy shouted, pointing at the data crystal. “This footage is incredible, man. I’ll have a rough cut for distribution tomorrow!”

“Cool!” Ron shouted back, and then recalled something from the back of his mind. “Oh! Hey! The music on the cut!”

“Yeah?” The inked apparent director eagerly asked.

The shaggy haired blonde star grabbed his sister’s backpack off her shoulder to carry it for her. Ron turned back and shouted at the Warthog, “Make it a local band.”

“All right,” the boy replied, giving a thumbs up to Parsons as Ron got closer to his mother.

“I mean it!” Ron said one last time. “Local band.” The 22 year old wakeboarding prodigy now reached his mother’s side and kissed her on the cheek in greeting.

“I’d say good morning,” Meredith Parsons said with a measured tone, still staring at the car, “but you weren’t here when I woke up.”

“I love you, mom,” Ron said in a warm, slightly guilty voice, “I wanted to get out early, didn’t want to wake you.”

“Go straight into the kitchen and do not leave until I say you can.” Ron’s mother replied, pointing at the front door. “I am so angry with you right now.” She watched as her traitorous children trudged to the front door, Ron holding the door open for Katie and letting the screen door slam behind him to broadcast his displeasure. The civilian ‘Hog beeped jubilantly, and Meredith fixed a hard glare in its direction, prompting it to beat a hasty retreat off her property.

Despite the cool reception and the certain heated discussion incoming, the Parsons’ kitchen was warm with natural sunlight, inviting and calm. Katie Parsons, knowing she would probably get off scot free from her mother’s rage, took a left through the doorway and nearly skipped to the large wood dining table that was ringed with hand-carved chairs, slightly creaky and worn from years of meals, homework, and socializing. Ron trudged off to the right, dragging his feet toward the cooking area. The stove, oven, cutting, and serving areas were all contained in one central island, a gleaming metallic silver that winked merrily to life as Ron approached.

Ron reached into the middle of the island where a small organic garden was growing fresh herbs and vegetables. On one end, a miniature orange tree, imported from the Harvest colony, was bearing fruit for the tenth time this season. The younger Parsons son reached absent-mindedly toward the fertile black soil and plucked a piece of tiny, succulent fruit from the tree and started peeling it, his mouth watering already from the trace scents of eggs, bacon, and toast that Ron’s mother had undoubtedly thrown away in anger.

The blonde-haired wakeboarder pushed the thought aside and sat heavily in the chair next to his little sister, offering a slice that Katie gladly snatched and popped into her mouth before Ron could change his mind.

Ron thought about saying something to Katie so their stories would be straight, but immediately cut himself off as Meredith Parsons stalked into the kitchen and marched straight toward the refrigerator. Mrs. Parsons let the silence hang, knowing from over twenty years of parenting that the anticipation was always worse than the punishment. Well, almost always.

Ron and Katie kept their eyes down, Ron busying himself with his orange while Katie picked at a rogue string on her hooded windbreaker. They went out of their way to not look up at the clinking and clanking of plates, afraid to meet their mother’s eye and signal the beginning of their punishment.

It surprised both of them when the frustrated sliding of plates gave way to the merry beeping of the stove and the fading scent of a robust breakfast suddenly increased and flooded their nostrils with rich, hearty aromas of home. The room brightened considerably and the kids looked up in hungrily.

Meredith glided gracefully across the kitchen, her movements trained out of years of plate balancing and dodging running children. She effortlessly slid the plates the short distance to her children and picked at her own slightly burnt toast. After a brief moment of almost contented silence, Mrs. Parsons folded her hands in front of her and looked at a famished Ron with infinite patience.

“Ronnie, we need to talk about the wakeboarding.”

The eating, and the artificial feeling of comfort, ceased immediately. Ron continued to look down at his plate. “Why?” He asked darkly.

“You know why,” Meredith replied calmly, indicating that she had already had this conversation in her mind at least a hundred times. Katie pushed her chair back a little, the scraping of wood on ceramic tile trying to derail a conversation that was heading toward war. “Peter.”

The single word prompted Ron to toss his fork across the plate in disgust. Katie Parsons dug her chin into her chest, obviously upset with the way the talk was going. Meredith reached an arm across the table and lightly touched her only daughter’s arm. “You’re excused, Katie,” Mrs. Parsons said softly. The short but athletic teenager got up wordlessly and fled the scene, kissing her mother on the top of the head before she made a beeline for the door.

Alone with her son, she faced the surly 22 year old and tried to soften her expression. The truth was Meredith hated having to deny her children the things that made them happy, and she had seen Ron out on the water. What she was asking was nearly criminal, and she knew it.

“You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important,” she said softly, doing everything she could to avoid raised voices. It was the last thing Katie needed.

“It’s important to me,” Ron muttered, tracing his finger along grooves in the wooden table.

“I know it is, sweetheart,” Meredith tried to reach across the table and take Ron’s hand, but he pulled it away angrily, “and I know you’re good at it.”

“I’m not good, mom” he said, looking up at his mother with contained fury, “I’m one of the best in the worlds.”

That’s what frightens me the most. “Peter’s out fighting a war, Ron.” Meredith’s voice dropped ever so slightly, fearing the words and the certainty attached to them, “A war that already took his arm.” Even Ron’s icy cold demeanor changed at the mention of the cost the Parsons family had already paid. “He’s still out in harm’s way, just try and think of others. If we lost him and you, too—”

Ron had enough. “He loses an arm in battle and stays out in space!” He said, banging a clenched fist against the table, “and I’m the one who’s selfish?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Meredith said, low.

“Think about what I can do, mom!” Tim said, raising his voice and sweeping his hands around the room. “I’m going to get sponsored! I can pay for Pete’s medical costs, maybe even pay off the house! I can make us all be together again!”

“Damn it, Ronnie!” Meredith finally let her restraints go, eyes blazing with the fire of a parent who would give anything to keep her children safe. “You could make a billion credits and it wouldn’t make up for you dying out there! You can yell at me and your father about Peter all you want, but he’s already gone. Like it or not, you’re what we have left.”

Just as soon as her fiery temper rose, it was instantly extinguished. Meredith’s shoulders sagged in her dull blue blouse, and her glacial blue eyes dropped to the table once more. “And we couldn’t live if we lost you.”

Ron rose from the table, hushed by his mother’s words. He walked slowly out of the kitchen, pausing to wrap his arms around his sniffling mother in a tender embrace. “If I can’t do what I love,” he said sincerely, “you’ll lose me anyway.”

A dark storm cloud hovered over the wakeboarding phenom’s head as he entered the homely living room. He sat down on the plush, memory foam sofa just in time to catch sixteen-year-old Katie Parsons dancing down the stairs, her small manicured hand tracing light patterns on the banister as she descended. Ron could not help but notice the black duffel back under her arm.

“Where are you going?” Ron inquired.

Katie’s laugh was bright and fleeting, though it filled the room with carefree bliss. “Going over to Trevor’s.”

Ron was off the couch so fast it stunned his little sister. “No, you’re not.”

The youngest Parsons immediately crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head in annoyance as she rolled her eyes. “I’m not hooking up with—”

Ron clutched his hands to his ears as if a fire engine was passing two feet away from him. “Okay! Great! Enough! Enough of the two words I don’t need my sixteen-year-old sister to say when referencing my 22 year old friend.”

Katie’s radiant blonde curls bounced around her head as she swung her duffel bag into her idol’s side. “You’re such a prude!”

Ron caught the bag as it smacked into his muscular ribcage. “Again! Another word I don’t need to hear from little sister!” He was about to lay into her again when he felt the odd, hard, familiar shapes inside the black duffel. Confused, Ron unzipped the bag despite Katie’s attempts to pull it from his grasp. The big brother’s eyes opened wide when he caught Katie’s wakeboarding boots in the bag. Ron immediately shoved the bag away from him and grabbed his younger sister by the upper arm, dragging her the short distance to the front door and away from their mother’s excellent eyes and ears.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ron hissed.

Katie zipped the bag up angrily. “I told you. I’m going to Trevor’s.”

Ron grabbed the bag out of the weaker girl’s grasp. “Don’t talk to me like mom. Don’t. If you think you’re going back out on the water today of all days, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”

“Why not?” Katie said, her voice barely above a whisper but filled with venom. “Mom tells you not to go and you still do it.”

“It’s differe—,” Parsons said a little too loudly, checking briefly to make sure Meredith had not heard them. “It’s different. I’m really good. You’re just learning. Kate, we talked about this. I said I’d train you when we had free time—”

“And you’ll never get out of the house with the way mom’s watching you.”

Ron’s mood soured further. “Mom isn’t going to tell me what to do.”

Katie’s data pad beeped cheerily. She glanced down at it, faster than Ron could, and stole her duffel back from her betrayed brother. Katie heaved a sigh and irritably ran a hand through her hair. “Look,” she said, her voice full of concession, “I’m going over to Trevor’s to edit your reel, and if we have time, if we have time, we’re going to hit the river and be back before sunset. Just…go hang out at Lisa’s if you don’t want to be here.”

The larger Parsons sibling looked like he was about to punch through the door, but he knew it was a losing battle. His little sister was every bit as crafty as him; she was going to get out one way or another.

Ron kicked a stray pebble down the drive with barely contained rage. “Don’t even think about doing tricks,” he said in a stern voice, trying not to get angrier at Katie’s growing delight, “You stay on the board and don’t take it over twenty, you got me?”

Katie Parsons was already skipping down the gravel driveway toward a hunter green Warthog hidden past the front bushes that ran on either side of the entrance.

“Promise me!” Ron shouted after her.

“I promise!” Katie beamed back, her voice full of excitement and joy. “Tell mom I said I love her!”

Ron stood, livid, on the front steps with his hands on his hips. He glanced over his shoulder into the house before turning back to Katie and throwing one hand into the air in exasperation. “You’re totally screwing me here!”

“I love you, too!” Katie shouted back, dancing backwards and looking happier than Ron could recall. She’s sixteen, Ron, he said to himself. She makes up her own mind. Parsons trudged back into the house, but only far enough to snatch his car keys and an extra light, black and gold windbreaker off a hook by the door.

“Love you, mom!” Ron called into the house. “Going to Lisa’s!”

Another stray piece of gravel laid on the front step just before the driveway, and Ron stooped to pick it up, examining it with bored curiosity before flinging it in a sidearm motion as far as he could down the drive.

I’m useless at this big brother thing.

God, I feel useless.

Tim McManus knew that he was doing his part to save Ron. He knew he’d do more harm than good if he was assisting Ibanez, but being strapped to an improvised IV and watching his friend bleed to death on the floor a bar made him feel utterly helpless. Until his own blood entered his hurt comrade, he was not contributing whatsoever. McManus clenched his fist again and again until his fingers turned white, willing himself to bleed faster. The irony of the moment was lost on him. The hushed, urgent conversation transpiring a few feet away between Captain Jack O’Shea and Master Gunnery Sergeant Gus Reynolds was not.

“Did you find any intel on Alper?” Jack asked, turning his back to the makeshift ER.

Gus looked even graver than usual; hard, deep creases lined his bare forehead and his frown was prominent. “Found a data pad and a few effects.” Gus answered, holding out a few trinkets in his palm but noticeably missing the mentioned data pad. “I’ve got McHale and some guys cracking it, but it’s an ONI pad, sir. We’ll be lucky to even turn it on.”

Jack leaned in closer to his second in command and Tim craned his neck as far as he dared. O’Shea’s tone was barely above a whisper. McManus could not be sure he was hearing everything correctly.

“We need to know what’s going on in our town, Master Guns,” Jack urged. “That Pelican getting shot down by UNSC rockets, those spooks from last week showing up today, the broken off evacuation, the Covenant occupying a city…we should be glass, Gus. None of this makes sense.”

Reynolds nodded darkly, not saying a word. “I don’t trust the body being here, Jack.”

O’Shea grunted in agreement. “She made a deal with Winter Hill and they screwed her big time on it. She’s ONI, she must have at least considered this scenario and formed a contingency plan.”

“If I were her,” the large Master Guns theorized, nodding along in agreement, “I’d have insurance.”

“She did,” Jack muttered, nodding his head back at the front door and the obliterated city beyond it, “and it got blown out of the sky with human missiles.”

“Did it?” Gus asked, shoulders hunched and hand strategically placed over his mouth. “Did anyone actually see that Pelican crash?“

Tim imagined he could see Jack roll his eyes at the ludicrous implication. As the Captain answered, Tim felt himself drawing closer to the pair as if pulled by a hidden magnet. “Old friend, you’re being paranoid. Speaking of paranoid,” Jack said in a louder voice, looking over his shoulder accusingly at Tim, “do you have anything you’d like to add to this, McManus, or would you like to just pull up a stool?”

McManus’ mouth refused to close despite his brain screaming for the orifice to comply. After what seemed like half and hour, Tim managed to force out a, “No, sir.”

Satisfied the newcomer had learned his lesson, Jack turned his attention back to his second in command. As soon as O’Shea did that, however, Tim shot his good hand out and extended one finger to ask for a moment. “Wait!” the Harvard student blurted out in a bad whisper. “What if she’s nano’d?”

Now the Master Gunnery Sergeant joined the Captain in looking perturbed at McManus. Gus shook his head in disbelief, hands on his hips. “The hell are you talking about?”

Tim spoke quickly, too quickly, trying to make a hasty point on a situation he had no business talking about. “In—in the cop thriller/drama holo films. Bad guys are always worried and checking people to see if they’re nano’d…you know, the cops listening in?”

Sensing his welcome was long worn out, McManus raced for the big finish. “No one’s going to think to scan people if the world’s ending, right? What if Dr. Alper was nano’d by ONI to keep track of her and what she’s doing?”

Reynolds reflexively opened his mouth to let the young upstart have it, but at that same moment his brain caught up with the boy’s words and the strong possibility that Tim was right immediately shut Gus’ mouth. He opened it again after a few seconds to the same result. The rookie had a point.

“Gus?” Jack asked simply, years of friendship and hard combat conveying the commanding officer’s wishes simply from his tone and context. Reynolds was already heading back toward the kitchen and the hidden cave underneath that held the corpse of Dr. Alper.

“I’ll check it out,” the XO said begrudgingly, putting a hard forearm to the swinging kitchen entrance, almost knocking over a careless soldier coming in the opposite direction. Captain O’Shea resumed his vigil over the organized chaos around Ron Parsons.

“Come on,” Jack whispered urgently, “come on…”

“Come on!” Ron pleaded in vain, groaning in disappointment as his girlfriend began putting her clothes back on.

“Nope,” Lisa Turner said vindictively, throwing her legs back onto the hardwood teak, sitting on the opposite side of the bed and turning her bare back to her boyfriend. She slowly slipped a black lace bra over her shoulders, coyly looking over her shoulder and taking her time to properly weaken Ron’s defenses. The sleepy summer afternoon breeze drifted lazily through the curtains, leading in the calming scent of lilac and cotton. Try as he might, Ron knew he was powerless to leave the bedroom and would have to relent.

“Fine,” Parsons muttered, falling back onto the queen-sized mattress with a defeated huff. The muscular wakeboarder put his hands behind his head and examined the ceiling with feral intensity. “I’ll tell you.”

The provocative undergarment flew back through the air and hit Ron in the face. Satisfied, Lisa came back to Ron’s side, curling up next to him under the sheets and tracing French manicured nails across his chest. The blonde watersport star could feel her satisfied smile outside of his vision. “So tell,” Turner purred. Ron made a show of rolling his eyes.

“Trevor sent Togokhan the reel we did last month.”

Ron felt Lisa move her head to stare at him. “But,” she whispered to herself, now confused and staring at the same spot in the ceiling that Parsons was, “why did we film today if you’re already sending your reel? Did they…” The busty raven haired girl reached up and toyed with an errant strand of blonde, “Did Togokhan say no?”

Now it was Ron’s turn to wear the satisfied smile. “Quite the opposite. The first check came yesterday.”

Parsons felt the wind whoosh out of his lungs as Lisa jumped on top of him in ecstatic surprise, throwing her soft, smooth hands on his chest and slapping them on him in excitement. Ron could not complain about the view. The grin grew wider as his jubilant girlfriend kissed him congratulations.

“Then why film this morning?” Turner asked, her face flushed with elation.

Ron traced his fingers along Lisa’s bare upper arms and kissed her wrist. “For the Seattle Open.”

Lisa Turner squealed like a preteen at her first pop concert. “You’re going to be in the Open?”

Parsons calmed her down. “Nothing’s for certain. The Open’s real hard to get into—”

Lisa huffed through her nose in disagreement.

“—Hard for a first timer who just got sponsored,” Ron qualified, leaning up for a quick kiss. “Besides, Mom wanted to shoot me out a MAC gun when she saw the wakeboards this morning, never mind if she finds out I actually got sponsored and didn’t tell her. I’ve actually got to compete if I want to keep earning checks.”

“You haven’t thought this through.”

“When was the last time I thought something through?”

All the possible roadblocks flew past Lisa and her softly shifting long black hair. Ron chose not to press the point; he saw a storm brewing in his girlfriend’s eyes, and it was a storm he absolutely, positively, 100% wanted to be around for. A small smile crept in from the corner of Lisa Turner’s full lips.

“My boyfriend,” she purred, “is the best pro wakeboarder in Oregon.”

“Togokhan said the United North American Protectorate,” Parsons softly corrected before he was shushed with Lisa’s mouth by his right earlobe. He obediently shut the hell up.

The most sought-after vixen in the Portland High class of ‘46 sat straddled across the well-defined body of Ron Parsons and bit the corner of her lip seductively. If Ron had been trying at all to concentrate on anything else besides the soft squeeze of Lisa’s toned legs, he would have failed incredibly.

“The newest pro wakeboarder for Togokhan, who does tricks no one’s ever thought of, going into the biggest watersports competition in the Sol System.” Lisa’s chocolate brown eyes were nearly aflame. Ron felt a gulp coming on. “Who also dates the hottest girl in Portland.”

“Amen,” The blonde Portland native breathed expectantly, feeling the warmth of desire growing with his partner’s.

“Do you know how proud she is of you?”

“I can think of ways she can show it.”

Tuner smiled and laughed, not a laugh that one would give to a particularly good joke, but a quiet laugh that formed at the top of the throat and prowled out through closed lips. It was a laugh that seemed out of place in the daylight, but neither of the hormonally-charged kids noticed.

They did notice the jangling ringtone of Ron’s personal datapad, indicating an incoming call.

“And…” Ron said, twisting his torso just enough to reach the bedside table and silence the device, “…that will be quite enough of that.”

Parsons turned back to face his girlfriend expectantly, reaching behind her head and slipping his fingers through the smooth ebony fibers. As their lips met again, the data pad vibrated harshly on the table, its ringer chirping and beeping in angry protest. Both of them sighed, exasperated. Ron grabbed the phone with such energy of action that Lisa wondered for an instant if the impulsive boy would simply hurl the slim black data pad through the open window. It would not be the first time. Instead, Lisa looked at her boyfriend with concern as he spoke.

“It’s…the police,” Parsons said, disbelief and confusion creeping through his voice, holding the phone from his face and looking at it like a tiny foreign animal. Ron sighed and put the phone to his ear warily. “Hello?”

Lisa strained to hear the voice on the other side. It certainly had the deep, clipped, hard tone of a police officer, but the words were indistinguishable. Turner then focused on reading Ron’s face. She was an expert at reading the 22 year old’s expressions and the meaning in them. She did not like what she saw.

“Yes, I’m Ron. What—?”

Turner’s brow furrowed as Parsons’ did.

“Is this about my brother? C’mon, just tell me—”

Lisa suddenly felt very self-conscious being on top of Ron like this. She dismounted, an apologetic expression on her face, as Parsons finished the obvious one-way conversation.

“No, I don’t need to be picked up. I’ll be there right now. I’m on my way. Yes, I’m on my way now.” When Parsons thumbed the off switch, he spent a few spare second staring at the device, his shaggy yellow hair partially obscuring Lisa’s view of his face. At the window, the breeze picked up and the smell of freshly cut grass mixed with the flowers; an early indication that rain was on the way.

“What is it? What did they say?” Lisa asked, feeling left out and vulnerable. She had already mostly dressed. Ron grunted in reply.

“I’m sorry,” Ron said, his mind clearly elsewhere, “I’ve got to go.”

“Did they say if it was your brother?” Lisa reached out verbally, trying to find some sort of traction in the swift turnaround.

Parsons had already hopped into jeans, the fly and waistband already automatically zipping up and forming to his body in a whisper of fabric. He grabbed his shirt off the floor and headed for the door, pausing only for a moment to kiss the top of his lover’s hair. “I’ll be back after.”

Lisa could not help but notice that Ron pushed through the door of her bedroom with more urgency than she had ever seen before.

“Sir?” Gus asked urgently as he barreled through the kitchen door and into the bar again. Behind the well-built Master Guns, two young soldiers carried the limp, lifeless body of Good Samaritan imposter/ONI operative Meryl Alper. Ibanez glanced up at the commotion and held up his palms like a soccer player appealing a particularly bad call.

“Hey!” The medic’s voice rose in complaint. “What’s with the bodies? I’m working here.”

Captain O’Shea silenced the petulant caregiver with a pointed finger, turning his back on the scene and facing his worried right hand man. Reynolds took that as the signal to begin. “Had a sweep scan done of the body,” Gus said, sweeping his hand dismissively across the dead woman. “She’s nano’d all right, but not how you think.”

One of the soldiers laid down Alper’s legs and held up his data pad. He thumbed a button and a series of clicks, high pitched tones, and a warbling stacatto burst of spoken sounds came forth in tinny playback. O’Shea’s head tilted to the side, confused.

“We didn’t know what to make of it, either,” Gus said, pulling open a vest pocket to retrieve his pad, “until I thought to run it through my translation/encryption software.”

The sounds melted from an incomprehensible mess to a heavily filtered but manageable series of words.

“This is a Captain Ultra distress call. In the name of the Prophets, all available Covenant forces are required for immediate reinforcement and assistance on penalty of death. Message repeats…”

“It’s linked to her vitals,” Gus said with a frustrated frown. “And no, techs can’t get it to stop.”

“She knew she was it,” O’Shea muttered, crouching by the body and picking up one of Alper’s arms by the wrist. “She knew no one was coming back for her, so she just made the best deal she could, knowing it would probably go wrong, and knew just how to fuck ‘em if they crossed her.” He let the limp appendage drop with a thud to the ground and resumed standing, arms crossed and chin buried in his chest. His dark eyes glared at the corpse. “That’s a real dirty move.”

Reynolds nudged the body with the toe of his boot, as if he was still prodding for an off switch. “We’d do the same thing at the end of the world.”

“Didn’t say it was a bad move,” Jack replied, turning around and pointing at the front watch to take another look outside. “Iban—?”

“Fifteen seconds!” The Latino medic suddenly yelled. “Can you give me fifteen fucking seconds without an interruption, extra bodies, or creepy Covenant distress calls coming from dead people? Jesus!”

Jack and Gus shared an exasperated look. O’Shea took the allotted fifteen seconds to direct the men around him.

“Tim, assist Ibanez. Master Guns, have a tech ask the Superintendent to keep an eye on the area.” Jack’s hand then slipped up to his right ear. “Delta,” he asked, his voice all business, “how’s that load out?”

“This is Delta actual. Getting the last in now,” the harried, disembodied voice replied, the echoing background noise of organized chaos nearly overwhelming the transmission, “Drivers need a course.”

“Super’s working on it,” O’Shea responded, trying to sound positive of the fact.

“With respect,” the Delta operator nearly groaned, “City’s Superintendent could probably go down any second now.

Reynolds voice was tinged with doubt. “City’s fried, sir,” Gus said, “we don’t know if the city’s AI is even functional.”

The Captain’s head twitched to the side. “Last time I checked,” He instructed, “We don’t have eyes all over the city, and the city Superintendent does. It will be up, it will tell us what’s coming and where to go, and if it doesn’t, you’re still going to get the job done because you’re my soldiers. Be ready to deploy in sixty seconds, that’s one minute. No excuses.”

The Captain crossed the distance between the dead body and the badly wounded body in seconds, taking a moment to stand over the shallow breathing body before he addressed the team huddled over Ron.

“Ibanez, kids,” the Captain said, trying to sound reassuring without being downright cold, “if we hear the Covies are coming and he’s not out of the woods,” O’Shea pointed directly at the prone gunshot victim, “we have to leave him here. It’s not up for debate.”

Harold Ibanez looked up at Tim and Rachel’s faces of trepedation with complete assurance. “We can do this,” he told them calmly, “but we can’t drop the ball.”

The supposedly shatterproof dish cracked and chipped as it clanked on the hard tile floor of Lisa Turner’s kitchen. Above it, Lisa waved a hand past the faucet and shut down the kitchen, still rooted in fear and staring out the front window and listening to the short gasping scream’s echo dissipate. She had not seen the figure standing alone through the now streaming rain, but the moment she looked up to put the spent dinner plate away, the unfamiliar silhouette shifted ever so slightly, catching her attention.

Now Lisa was running towards her large living room, where two housemates were lying in various states of repose in front of the holo tank. Turner clutched her thin sweatshirt around her neck, calling out her housemates’ names as she burst into the room. She thanked God the large, wide front windows that faced the yard were in the holo watch opaque setting. When confronted with her friend’s questioning, lazily stoned expressions, Lisa pointed straight outside, trembling.

“Oh,” one housemate replied, apparently miles ahead of the easily frightened girl, “you mean Ron? He’s been out there a couple minutes. He was annoying us out there, so we turned on the window screen.”

“What?” Lisa asked, shocked, her arms falling to her sides. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Slow shrugs were all she received in reply. Fuming, Lisa grabbed her rain jacket and ran barefoot out into the soggy front yard. Parsons stood out by the end of the brick walk, head down, rainwater coming off his hood in miniature streams, pooling by his feet. The miserable figure was soaked in the cold evening’s dark green and blue. Lisa held up a hand to shield herself from the rain, putting her hood up as she jogged out to him.

“Jesus, Ron, you look awful! What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

The shaggy-haired wakeboarder looked up from underneath the hood of his jacket, red eyes betraying any attempt at normality. Lisa stared, scared and confused, at her disturbingly silent boyfriend.

“Ron, what’s wrong?”

The voice that responded was thick with grief and Lisa felt disturbed at the words. “If I left Portland…right now…would you come with me?”

Lisa looked around her front yard as if she expected some people to jump out and say the whole scene was a prank. All that happened was Ron continued to look up at the black-haired beauty, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes, or rainwater, Turner could not tell.

Lisa looked back into her house, where the blurry silhouettes of her roommates could be seen through the artificially frosted glass. She felt her attention being tugged back to Ron, who had resumed his stance of boring holes into her front stairs with his eyes. Lisa crossed the distance between her and Parons and gently put her palms on Ron’s cheeks, searching his face for something, anything that could help her understand why her carefree boyfriend looked like he was a million miles away. Parsons’ eyes flitted up to meet hers for a second, then immediately darted away.

Lisa’s mind and heart were racing with confusion, bordering on panic. “Ron, please. Please tell me what’s wrong.” Turner had to strain to hear Ron’s dry whisper.

“It’s all…she’s gone.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ron’s shoulders shifted to lift an incredible burden once more. A silent shudder passed through his body. “Katie…Katie’s dead.”

Lisa’s hand shot to her mouth as she felt a wave of disbelief and nausea sweep over her. “H—how?” She managed to croak out, immediately regretting the question as soon as she heard it. Ron’s tears started anew.

“They…they said…She wanted to go out on the river, practice and show off for me the next time we went out. They thought she’d be fine…didn’t know any better. They said she tried something out they hadn’t seen before. She…” Ron sniffed loudly and he clutched the bridge of his nose to try and hold back the oncoming tears. Lisa grabbed Ron by the head and shoulders and pulled him in tight before he could keep going. His shoulders heaved with sobs and Lisa held on for dear life, soaked. After what seemed like hours, she tried to reach up to Ron’s face and tilted his chin to get a look at him. Water fell from Parsons’ hood and splashed against her face, making Lisa blink through the mist.

“Ron,” Lisa pleaded, “please come inside.”

Parsons only shook his head. “I can’t stay,” he said, now suddenly absorbed in the dark green of the pines that surrounded the modest house. “You don’t understand. I knew what this would do to my family if I kept going, but I didn’t think about what if Katie…” Lisa was now very afraid that Ron would just sink into the ground if she did not continue to hold on. Instead, the soaking wet wakeboard star pushed her away.

“I didn’t know how Mom felt. I know now. I know. I know, and she’ll never forgive…I wouldn’t want her to…I can’t face them, Lisa. This is hell that I made, and every day I’m here I’ll have to look at it and smell it and taste it and I just can’t deal with that. I’m leaving; I’m leaving and I’m not coming back.”

Ron turned around then and stared at Lisa with pleading eyes. “You’re all I got left. You’re all I need. Come with me, please.”

Lisa bit her lip again, this time in pure apprehension. She turned back once more and looked at the modest house that she shared with two friends from a botched try at college. She had never seen her normally bulletproof boyfriend like this, and she was equally torn as to whether run to him and tell him he would never, ever be alone; or run screaming into the house, lock the door, and leave this soon-to-be train wreck alone. Turner came around and looked at Parsons again.

“Ron,” she started apologetically, “Can you just—?”

Parsons’ glacier blue eyes pierced her heart again, showing her a man that she loved who needed her more than ever. More than once a simple look from Ron could do that to her. Ron’s gaze now turned anxious but expectant. Lisa did not have the heart to break Ron’s.

“—Can you just give me ten minutes to pack?”

The slight brightening of her boyfriend’s face told her she was making the kind, if irrational, choice. Fifteen minutes later the two of them were sitting in the cold dark of Ron’s Snow Leopard Fusion 850, the steady drizzle plinking off the alloy roof in what would almost be comforting, if situations were different. Finally, Lisa spoke.

“What are we going to do for money, Ron?” She asked. Parsons wordlessly reached into the back seat and threw a duffel bag full of bills into Lisa’s lap.

“I told you I got sponsored,” he said with the very briefest flash of a smile. “There’s enough to take us anywhere and start over. What do you think?”

“I, uh, have old college friends who live in Boston,” Lisa offered. “We can start going in that direction and see where we end up.”

“All right,” Ron said, still slightly choked up. “Boston.”

“Boston.”

The two lovers held hands in silence through the entire drive through Oregon. Neither of them looked back as they crossed the state border. Ron did not want to. Lisa could not bear to.

“Just listen,” Ibanez said, locking eyes with a near-petrified Rachel, trying to calm her down, “Do exactly what I say, and we can save this guy.”

Lynch simply nodded, looking down at the black hole ringed by sticky red and peachy, curling flesh. She took a moment to be grateful for her empty stomach and said with a suddenly dry mouth, “Ready.”

The medic wiped sweat from his brow with his forearm and grabbed a scanner with one hand and a pair of pliers from his set of medical tools spread across Ron’s stomach. He scrutinized the body scan as he traced it along the bullet’s path through Parsons’ body.

“Short path,” Ibanez sighed in relief, “shallow, too. Okay, girl, hold tight to those arms and don’t let him get in my way.” The medic then looked over at Tim, whose face seemed to be getting pale from the loss of blood. “Kid?” Ibanez asked once.

McManus met the man’s look with as much courage as he could muster and nodded. Tim could make out the bleachy smell of the biofoam between them. Ibanez nodded toward Parsons’ still legs.

“On those,” Ibanez motioned toward Ron’s feet. “Pretty good chance this guy’s gonna wake up when I get inside ‘im and wrench this sucker out.”

“Long range ping!” A startled ex-Marine at the front windows called out. “Super reads incoming hostiles.”

“From where?” O’Shea demanded, putting a hand to his ear and running toward the front windows, custom Battle Rifle slung across his chest and bouncing in the motion.

Tim and Rachel both looked up instinctively, frozen in panic. If not for Ibanez’s barking shout.

“Oye!”

Both of the kids snapped back like misbehaving dogs. The medic grabbed the pair roughly by the shoulders, causing a surprising amount of pain.

“You stay right here and you help me get this bullet out,” a fiery temper brewing in his growl as he put a thick leather strap in Parson’s mouth. “This guy’s gonna be my first save, and I’ll be goddamned if you’re gonna fuck it up on me.”

Tim tried as hard as he possibly could to forget that sentence had just been said. What’d he mean, “First?”

“It’s airborne,” the guard stated, trying not to let his anxiety come through his official tone, “Super reads a Phantom carrying heavy mechanized. Route solution’s going to take longer.”

“Secure and fortify the structure,” Jack said through grit teeth. “That truck’s got to get out first, so we’ve got to hold this building.”

Over the scattered outbursts of concern, Ibanez’s breathing had slowed and he stood poised over the pale body of Ron Parsons. He held his scanner just above the wound; it gave the combat physician a clear view of the area he would be working in. Miraculously, the semi-armor piercing round had missed the lucky cook’s major organs and arteries, and was still in one piece. Ibanez tried not to show his elation and he positioned his tweezers and tiny spreader.

“Here we go,” Ibanez nearly whispered, Tim and Rachel’s eyes clued to him. The signal to begin was hardly any louder. “Spreader.”

Tim and Rachel both threw all their weight on Ron’s limbs as the miniature spreader pushed the flesh aside and gave Harold a clear path to the bullet. However, it also caused searing, white-hot blinding pain to course through Parsons’ body, and the lithe blonde’s blue eyes shot open like a man waking from a nightmare.

“I see it!” Ibanez exclaimed, plunging his tweezers in to grip the round, fresh blood pouring in anew. Ron’s thrashing and muffled scream of pain caused some ex-Marines by the body to turn around in concern, but despite the bucking wounded, the medic’s “staff” had it under control.

In one swift motion, Ibanez withdrew the tweezers and gingerly wrenched out a large, wet, red and silver bullet. Its tip was mashed and slightly mangled, but no sharp edges protruded out. Before the Latino doctor could properly examine it, though, Parson’s right arm broke free of Rachel’s bad arm’s grip and involuntarily shot toward Ibanez.

In a blur, the medic deflected the hand and transferred all his weight to his left leg, trapping the renegade limb and freeing up Ibanez to reach for the biofoam.

“Hold! Still!” The short but well-built physician grunted, grabbing the white and red canister and applying the squat nozzle directly to the wound. In moments, a foamy gray substance expanded out like a marshmallow in the microwave, covering, disinfecting, and spreading powerful pain killers through Ron’s bloodstream. In half a minute, Ron’s panicked eye’s dulled and his eyelids fluttered closed.

Concerned and afraid, Tim misread the relaxed pose of his friend Ron. “He—?” McManus stammered. “He’s not…dead…?!

Ibanez put a firm but gentle hand on Tim’s arm. In the other, he held the intact bullet that, despite its best efforts, could not kill Ron Parsons. “He’s gonna make it,” Harold Ibanez assured him, a smile creeping across his face, “He’s better than ‘make it.’ He’s stabilized already, the armor took nearly all of it. He’s fine! He can probably walk!”

Tim and Rachel stared at each other for a minute, both of their eyes flashing with elation. For that moment, Harold would never have guessed in his life that the three kids before him were anything other than best friends. The medic grabbed a bottle of water that one of the soldiers had taken and unscrewed the cap merrily.

“Not to ruin the buzz,” Ibanez said, meaning to be serious but incapable of hiding the self-satisfaction in his voice, “but we better revive my first save before the Covies get here and turn us into the past tense.”

The medic then overturned the filtered water bottle and dumped a half liter of water on the newest sharpshooter in the team. Parsons soon started to blow the water out of his nose and groaning like a surly teenager woken from his sleep.

Tim could not stand waiting any longer “Ron? Ron?” He called.

Ron Parsons opened his eyes slowly, squinting in the light and wincing as he rubbed a hand over his face. His chest, ribcage, and back burned in pain. He gave a very slow thumbs-up to indicate he was all right.

“Jesus,” the disembodied voice said out of Parsons’ vision, “you scared us. How do you feel?”

“I’ll live.” Parsons croaked, his tongue searching for the stray drops of water that streaked down his cheeks and chin.

Ron felt the delicate grip of Rachel’s hand on his arm. Her voice was full of worry and guilt. “What the hell were you thinking?” She implored.

Ron thought about rolling over on his side, but the weightless feeling and the lingering pain in his chest made him think twice. Ron chuckled to himself. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” His head clearing, Ron listened to the words and replayed the short conversation in his head for a moment. The exchange was strangely familiar, and Parsons felt oddly disturbed by it. Before anyone else could say anything, Parsons waved them off weakly and grunted.

“Sorry, I’m just…having some déjà vu.”

Ron tried his new legs out slowly, bracing himself against his two friends as soldiers scurried around them. Despite his vision going slightly dark for a moment, Ron could sense the urgency and apprehension in the scene around him.

“What’d I miss?” Parsons muttered through grit teeth, the wound stretching against the hardening biofoam and causing their comrade unknown amounts of pain.

Tim did his best to improve his grip on Ron without jostling the victim. He and Rachel moved as quickly as they could behind the sturdy bar and placed Ron gently in a sitting position, out of sight and out of the line of fire for the moment.

“You know, same old,” Tim said, trying to act nonchalant as he stole a moment’s glance over the serving space, “there’s a bunch of refugees in the basement, we fell into a dead woman’s booby trap when she turned out to be a spy—”

“—I hate those,” Ron muttered in mock sympathy.

“—And now Covenant are moving to surround us before we can get out in time.”

“So we’re probably going to die,” Rachel finished, only slightly surprised at how normal that sounded.

Ron tried his best to chuckle, wincing noticeably. “Well, I guess I get to go out with my two new best friends, huh?”

Tim and Rachel both exchanged brief glances through the corners of their eyes. Then the three all laughed in the slow exhaling chuckle of the exhausted.

“God, this is messed up.” McManus shook his head, smiling quizzically.

Ron smiled to himself in a serene way that none of the kids had seen yet. “It’s actually kinda nice to have friends again.”

“Super’s got a route solution!” A soldier with sophisticated looking equipment strapped across his back and chest exclaimed. “Download to Delta…complete!”

“—elta here,” the COM chirped to life immediately. “We verify route solution download. Heading out with precious cargo.”

“Sync with tech!” O’Shea jumped to life, shouting orders as the soldiers still within the building started showing signs of hope. “I want an escort ‘Hog out with Delta now! Everyone else, get sync’d and stack up with your transport teams! I want smoke on hand and prepare to prison break!”

Ron accepted a lift from his new friends and propped himself up on the bar. Tim gave the injured blonde a wary look.

“I was shot in the chest, Timmy,” Ron rolled his eyes, “not in the legs. Let’s get outta here.”

“You’re not going out there without armor, Ron,” Jack O’Shea called over his shoulder, signaling the end of the honeymoon phase of Parsons’ recovery. The Captain pointed a stern finger at the torso protection that Ibanez had shed. Parsons loped over, masking the pain, and slipped the chest plates on gingerly.

“I’m a big boy, sir.” Ron replied through a set jaw.

“What’s a prison break?” Rachel Lynch asked to Ibanez, securing a spare pistol to her thigh as she had seen the professional soldiers do.

The medic strapped his helmet on tight and delicately slipped a holographic eyepiece into place over his right eye. “Prison break’s when you’re defending a low-priority structure, you’re significantly outnumbered, you have means of retreat,” he explained mechanically. “Defending the structure is impossible. In an urban environment, you send all your units in different directions all at once with a common rally point. It confuses the attackers and buys the most units the most time to escape.”

“Most?” Ron asked, already sensing where this was going.”

“We’re significantly outnumbered,” Ibanez looked back over his shoulder with an incredulous look on his face. “They’re not gonna not shoot. It just knocks ‘em off balance for a second or two.”

“Remaining Warthogs are secure in the alley behind the bar, sir,” Another soldier’s voice informed the group bunkered down in the building, “and, uh, a couple Deltas who seem to be left behind.”

“Delta,” Jack requested, upset, “explain why you’re not with your hauler and escort ‘Hog.”

“This is Delta,” a hardened voice that oozed combat replied, “Frankly, sir, you ordered us to come and assist you. We’re finishing the job, sir, and we have rocket launchers to make that job easier.”

Before the commanding officer could give a proper reprimand, a giant ray of stark white light swept past the boarded up façade and back again. The searchlight threw thin streaks of white across the bloodstained hardwood floor, passing over perfectly still faces filled with composure.

“Phantom must have slipped above the short range pings,” the soldier in the high-tech equipment mused while taking cover behind a fallen wooden table. “They know we’re here. We can’t leave now while they’re chilling overhead or we’re meat.”

“Hang tight,” The Captain hissed, checking the magazine of his Battle Rifle and motioning for everyone to keep their heads down. “They gotta put that mechanized heavy on the ground at some point, and when they do, we’ll go the other way.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Tim offered, putting a hand on Ron’s shoulder, “You’re my new best friend, too.”

“You’re a shitty best friend.” Ron grumbled playfully. “You couldn’t have woken me up after the shooting and killing.” Parsons reached over his shoulder and gave a quick punch of thanks to Tim’s arm.

The rumbling hum of the large, unseen aircraft thoroughly intimidated the three kids cowering in the bar below. Everything in the place seemed to vibrate from the anti-gravity engines: loose chairs, ammunition casings, and Tim’s teeth.

Jack came out of his crouch by the hastily constructed barrier and pointed at his eyes. “She’s committing,” O’Shea said in a low, urgent voice. “All hands, gather smoke and prepare to prison break on my mark.”

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11

MINUTEMEN: THE CRUCIBLE

Chapter Twelve: “An evening with Rachel Lynch”

Black Rose Bar
City of Boston
United North American Protectorate
October 19, 2552
Night before invasion of Earth

It was illegal to look that good in the Black Rose bar. It was sacrilege. The establishment simply did not deserve the beauty that was casually strutting through the front door and over the bouncer’s jaw. Autumnal red hair, meticulously blown and teased with an artist’s touch, sashayed and swayed along the middle of her back. A short black dress drew attention to her figure without being obnoxious or desperately showy. Subtle jewelry caught the dim light of arcade games, a dingy vending machine, and a single fritzing holo panel that was doing its level best to broadcast the Boston Bruins game.

To the clutches of blue collar Bostonians gathered in islands of bar stools and the midday drunks hunched over the horseshoe-shaped bar, she was gliding over the dark stained hardwood floor. The three attractive girls at the top of the horseshoe turned around on their stools to stare at incoming Aphrodite. A petite young girl with short blonde hair and a look that screamed preparatory schooling took a courageous sip of her martini, spilling a few drops on her jeans and making her curse softly. After dabbing at the drops with a cocktail napkin, she turned her attention back to the gorgeous redhead.

“I thought you were going on a date.”

“I am,” Rachel Lynch replied, a sly smile forming in the corner of her lips. The bartender was already standing at attention when the Boston College Junior perched herself on her bar stool. She could not be sure, but Rachel could have sworn the barrel chested barman was holding his breath. She put her elbows on the bar and leaned forward, craning her graceful neck to examine the arrangement of bottles, even though she knew the layout by heart. The bartender looked like he was about to pass out.

“Vodka soda,” Lynch said, locking eyes with her server. “Make it cheap and hard.”

The bartender’s legs buckled ever so slightly as he turned to fetch the beverage. Rachel now turned to face her friends as they threw her mildly disapproving looks.

“That’s just not fair to the new guy,” the blonde said, swirling her olive around in the martini glass as the rest of the attractive girls in the group turned back to their conversations. “So when’s this date?”

Lynch glanced at the ancient clock above the bar. “Should be…any minute now.”

Each of the girls turned as one and gave their well-dressed “bestie” a collective sideways glance. Blonde spoke for the group.

“He’s coming…here.”

Rachel nodded, avoiding eye contact and draining her cocktail hastily.

“R. Lynch! You’re breaking the rules!”

Lynch spun in her bar stool and stared at the ceiling tiles with feigned exasperation. “Am not.”

A striking girl with long, wavy, raven black hair fixed pleading eyes on Rachel and reached to put a soft, manicured hand on her arm to get Lynch’s attention. “R. Lynch. We. Like. This. Bar. We like that no one else from BC comes here. We like that us girls can be ourselves where no one can find us, and no strange guys hit on us. We like drinking here for next to nothing. You’re breaking rule number one: no boys, and rule number two: don’t dress to impress.”

Rachel shot a look at Raven like she had just been stabbed in the back. “I am not that dressed up,” the Boston College Junior declared.

All the girls swivled on their barstools like a Broadway musical chorus line. Their eyes flitted across the bar and locked on to the only cute boy in the entire establishment: a moderately built bar back sporting a backwards Boston Red Sox cap with a shock of red hair slipping out from underneath it. He was casual to the point of scruffy and shier than a nun at Mardi Gras. He was the girls’ favorite target. Their voices turned to honey while his knees turned to jello.

“Seamus,” Raven and Blonde cooed, “Seamus Conner, come here.”

Seamus looked over his shoulder, a schoolboy being called on in a class he never studied for. He seemed to be taking a second to answer the Sirens’ call. Finally, he stammered, “Yeah?”

“It’s all right,” Rachel said in a reassuring tone. The Irish import flipped a bar towel over his shoulder, thought better of it too late, then grabbed it again and began nervously wiping his hands as he approached.

“Seamus,” Blonde took over, “is Rachel overdressed?”

Seamus looked over his shoulder, then quickly examined the other rough-looking patrons around the bar. He looked at the girls uneasily and responded as if he detected a trick question. “…We don’t really have a dress code here.” His face was doing its best to match his hair.

“When Rachel walked in,” Blonde prodded, “did you notice her?”

“Oh hell yes,” Seamus blurted out, realizing simultaneously that he had indeed said those words and he was indeed staring at the girl in question. These thoughts caused a four-car pile up in his mind, and as the mental conflagration blazed, the young bar back beat a hasty retreat to a phantom emergency that had to be tended to immediately. The rest of the girls turned to Rachel with serene satisfied looks on their faces. Rachel was quietly amused.

“It’s not nice, or fair, to pick on Seamus.”

“Rach,” Blonde said, perfectly plucked eyebrow raised, “we’re picking on you.”

“What’s wrong?”

Rachel jumped with a start, jerked out of her thoughts by Tim McManus’ voice. The handsome, brown-haired, hazel eyed Harvard Junior looked up at the tired girl from his position next to the Warthog and tilted his head in concern. Rachel shook her head, putting on the grey jeep cap that she had been wringing in her hands a few moments before.

“Nothing,” Rachel said with an unconvincing smile, “just zoned out, is all.”

“Must be nice,” McManus said, unconvinced. He tossed up a large white object to the now unencumbered Rachel. “Here, stow that for me, will ya?”

Rachel examined the large, white and red painted plastic octagon. “What is this?”

“It’s a medkit,” Tim explained, pulling himself up into the Warthog next to Lynch, “Cap wants them out and ready to use as soon as we hit the target.”

“That wasn’t a worrying conference at all,” Ron Parsons added as he tossed his Battle Rifle in and hopped aboard behind the pair, “there’s a pretty good chance that the gang could use our captured COMs to listen in on us. Maybe our tech guys’ll be able to block the compromised units, maybe they won’t. In the meantime, recon thinks the windows are boarded up so they won’t shoot out at us, and they don’t think Winter Hill has rocket launchers.”

Three more soldiers entered the vehicle with the kids as the transports activated their engines. Though not deafening, it was definitely a sound that got the students’ adrenaline going. The two Warthogs accelerated into combat turns and bounded back into the obliterated city of Boston. Ron sighed and checked the magazine in his rifle. “This should be fascinating.”

“All units be advised on updated coordinates,” Master Gunnery Sergeant Gus Reynolds said in a clipped tone, “Rendezvous point is now 1167 Commonwealth Ave. The, uh, Black Rose bar in case you need a visual.”

“What?” Rachel asked to no one in particular, bolting upright in her seat. “Why are we going to the Black Rose?”

“Uh,” Tim gave a sideways look at Rachel, “best guess, that’s where they traced the signal?”

“Well what are they going to do when they get there?” Rachel asked, eyes getting wider by the second.

“Calm down.” Tim said, putting his hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “What’s the big deal?”

“They—it—the Black Rose…I used to go there all the time.”

Ron Parsons turned around his seat and fixed a look at Rachel that asked if she was kidding. “You used to drink at Black Rose.”

“My girlfriends and I…it was like our secret place. No one else from Boston College went there.”

Parsons nearly guffawed. “That’s ’cause the Black Rose is a Winter Hill bar. I wouldn’t go in there.”

“They weren’t like that!” Rachel insisted, voice rising testily. “They were always nice to us, all the time.”

“Look,” Ron said, putting his hands up in defense, “don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a good looking chick and you all tend to travel in packs. If a bunch of hot girls wanted to drink in my clubhouse, I’d make ‘em feel right at home, even if I was a bunch of murderers and drug runners.”

“Take that back!” Rachel yelled, startling Tim and Ron.

“Whoa!” Tim said, putting a hand on Rachel’s good shoulder and calming her down. “What’s with you?”

Lynch shook off Tim’s hand angrily and stared darkly out at the passing apocalyptic neighborhood, refusing to believe that the people who were so kind, sharing, and considerate could be capable of the things she had read in the news. “Just—just leave me alone for minute.”

“Captain,” One of the soldiers said over the COM, “In case we have to block COMs, what’s rules of engagement on arrival?”

“The Winter Hill gang was an organized crime group until they took UNSC Marines hostage. Protocol says they’re Innies now.”

“Innies?” Ron asked.

“Insurrectionists,” Tim explained, turning over his shoulder. “Rebels. Terrorists. Bad guys. You don’t read military thrillers?”

Ron shrugged. “Never enough character development.”

Captain O’Shea came back on the COM. “It’s full assault, weapons free the moment we get there.”

“Wait!” Rachel blurted out, instinctively joining in on the communications channel. “They’re not insurrectionists!”

“The law says otherwise,” O’Shea responded curtly.

“But, by law you’re all deserters,” Lynch said, disbelief creeping into her voice.

“I don’t think I like your tone, miss,” The Captain said coldly. “but if you think those sons of bitches won’t shoot the first thing that walks in the front door, then I’ll be happy to let you take point.”

“Christ, Jack,” Gus said from the lead Warthog, concerned. “Take it easy.”

“No, we’re not ‘taking it easy,’ any more,” Jack growled, glaring out his front windshield as though he were looking at his XO, “Everyone, listen up. I’m sick of playing by the rules and losing time and men every time we do the right thing. I won’t let Ibanez or anyone else die because they tried to help innocent people. If I have Innie supporters on my Warthogs, I want you off now. Switching COM traffic to command transmissions only. Cease chatter.”

The Captain turned over his shoulder in the passenger seat and looked hard at Rachel, who was nearly pouting at this point. “I can understand you might have some kind of rapport with these men, but they are not the people you think they are. I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to accept with everything else that happened today, but it’s the truth.”

Rachel retuned Jack’s look as the rushing wind whistled over their heads and chilled them through their body armor. “I think I need to stay out of this one,” Lynch said loudly, blinking against the wind.

O’Shea nodded, helmet bouncing slightly as the Warthog bumped over a crater. “Fair enough, but there’s an off chance I’ll need you to talk to these people. Wait for our all clear then enter.”

The girls had to hand it to Rachel; she had picked a winner. He walked into the Black Rose in a dressy but understated outfit. His square tie was tied expertly and hung at exactly the right length, the triangle lapels of his gray wool blazer stopped just an inch or two below his chiseled jaw. He looked every inch of the huge Boston College hockey posters hanging around the campus and the city. The senior defenseman looked slightly confused as he took in his surroundings and compared them to his getup, but once he saw Rachel at the bar, he brightened considerably and he put purpose back into his stride.

Rachel knew he had arrived the minute Blonde stopped speaking mid-sentence and stared behind Lynch. The BC Junior smiled out of the corner of her mouth and whispered, “He just came in, didn’t he?”

Blonde was still dumbstruck, “You didn’t tell me you were on a date with—?”

“Yep.”

Lynch’s friends forgot about their rules as he made up the distance between them. Rachel offered her cheek as he took a place at the bar next to her, taking an extra few seconds to shake hands and introduce himself to the rest of the group.

“James Madigan,” the hockey star said, offering a hand that only yesterday had pummeled Boston University in an exhibition game. Blonde did her best to affect disinterest, but her tongue betrayed her.

“I know who you are!” Blonde stammered, instantly realizing what she had done. She occupied herself with her martini as the rest of the girls followed suit, stealing glances with the subtlety of a fifth-grader.

Madigan turned to his well-dressed date with a look of amusement. “When you only told me the address,” he said, eyebrows up and making a show of looking around the faux wood paneling, “I thought it was some new trendy restaurant or something.”

Rachel laughed, and the room seemed to brighten. “James,” she said, patting the muscled arm of the athlete condescendingly, “I don’t know if you checked lately, but we’re college students. The last really good meal I had was back home on fall break, and my parents paid for it. This,” Lynch said, gesturing grandly around the meager furnishing and twirling expertly on her bar stool, “is much more my speed.”

“And it’s hard enough to keep up with these ladies,” a ruddy-faced, balding Irishman with multiple tattoos and the body of a longshoreman interjected, taking position behind the bar with a smile and refilling Rachel’s drink. He offered a large friendly hand to Madigan. “Frank Walsh. Owner; operator. Welcome to the Black Rose, Mr. Madigan.”

James shook hands with Walsh and glanced, surprised, at Rachel. “Thanks, Mr. Walsh.”

“Please! For a certain first round pick for my beloved Boston Bruins, it’s Frank.”

Madigan chuckled appreciatively. “It’s a long season, Frank. I’d be lucky to play for Boston if I’m not pressed into military service.”

Frank popped open a beer and took a generous swig, wiping his mouth with a bar rag and pointing the bottle at James. “Ain’t nothin’ in this world that’s luck. Don’t you worry about them jarheads stealin’ you from my Bruins. You’ll wear the black and gold, sonny,” Walsh slid a shot of Martian whiskey to the burly player with a wink, “don’t you think otherwise.”

The three clinked vessels and took a long drink, enjoying the moment and feeling the warmth of the alcohol course through them. “Now,” Frank said, popping another beer open and nodding at the gorgeous redhead across from him, “what’s it gonna be?”

“Did you eat?” Rachel asked her date, who responded no with a shake of his head. “Excellent!” Lynch said with delight, bringing her palms together as if to start a ceremony. “What do you say we go one for one?”

Both Madigan and Rachel’s friends all looked at the well-dressed girl with disbelief. James composed himself for a second before answering. “Not to be rude,” he said, still trying on the words for size, “but you…want to go drink for drink…with me.”

Rachel nodded enthusiastically, smiling. The BC hockey star shook his head, then shrugged off his blazer and loosened his tie. “All right,” he said in a near-resigned tone, “but I warned you.”

Lynch absent-mindedly tossed her hair over her shoulder and downed her drink, slapping it against the sturdy wood and wiping stray drops with the back of her hand while signaling Frank with the other. “You certainly did,” she replied coyly.

The two Warthogs raced west down the street toward the gleaming, black painted façade of the Black Rose. A third ‘Hog fishtailed into view up ahead and flew along the deserted road to meet up with O’Shea and Reynolds’ vehicles.

“This is Delta,” one of the soldiers announced from the third Warthog, “are captured COMs blocked?”

Captain O’Shea put a hand to his throat. “Captured COMs are blocked. Go ahead, Delta.”

“Delta standing by for orders.”

“Move your team into position at the rear entrance, Delta. Wait for my signal, then breach and clear.”

“Wilco. See you inside.”

Delta’s Warthog then slipped out of sight, skidding expertly into an alley and continuing to the bar’s rear. The rest of the vehicles braked to a hard stop in the middle of the road, relieved to see that recon had been right about the boarded and blocked windows. They left the business end of a M41 mounted chain gun pointed directly at the front entrance.

“Quick thought, Jack,” Gus said as he and his driver jumped out of their transport and scanned the area, “we could ping the hostages’ transponders and get their location inside the bar and leave the heavy lifting to the M41.”

“No good,” O’Shea said as he and the others disembarked and crouched by their Warthog. “We can’t be sure they haven’t packed that place with refugees and I wouldn’t put it past them to use ‘em as human shields. Nope,” Jack sighed quickly, “this one’s on us.”

Gus nodded. “Copy.”

The COM chirped in the leaders’ ears. “Delta, in position.”

Jack put two fingers to his throat. “How’s the alley looking?”

“Clear. Waiting for your go.”

Jack nodded. “Stand by. We’ll give peace one shot.” O’Shea tapped a Private First Class on the shoulder to get his attention. “Open Ibanez’s COM unit for a second,” he instructed, hearing a quick tone in his ear to let me know the channel was opened. The Captain fixed his gaze on the façade of the bar and spoke loud and clear over the COM.

“This is Captain Jack O’Shea to all Winter Hill members holding my Marines. This is your first and last warning. Bring my Marines out, unharmed, and return the refugees to us immediately. If you do so, you will be allowed to leave peacefully. If you do not comply, you will be killed.”

A soft hiss of static followed the declaration. Rachel peeked over the cover of the Warthog with pleading eyes, deathly afraid of what was about to happen. The answering beep of Ibanez’s COM reply made her flinch.

“This is Frank Walsh. We killed your Marines five minutes ago,” the disembodied voice said very matter-of-factly, “you come in here and you’ll get the same.”

Rachel felt the air leave her entire body as she slumped against the side of the troop transport. She was looking through a tunnel, head down and in utter disbelief of what she just heard. The innocent faces of the men who poured her drinks, joked with her and her friends, looked out for her and hailed cabs so she would not have to go outside alone, all those faces were now shattered, marred with the red blood of murder.

For her, it was the final straw, the very last thing she held on to that had not been destroyed. With just that sentence, everything she knew had changed. All that was left were two boys she had only known for hours, and though they were closer than any of them had imagined, Rachel Lynch felt achingly isolated and alone. She looked off into space, sitting on the cold concrete as Gus Reynolds marched past her to lead the other half of the soldiers.

Master Gunnery Sergeant Gus Reynolds’ face was fixed with barely controlled raged as he held up his data pad to the soldiers in front of him. Rachel looked up slowly as Gus got his team’s attention. The imposing ex-Marine stabbed a finger at a pulsing red dot in the middle of a wire frame schematic. “Check your pads quick and memorize that signal’s location, that’s where this Walsh motherfucker’s hiding. Mind your corners, and don’t take chances in there. It’s one in the chest, one in the head, and you drop every single one of those Innie fucks ’cause you’re the best. You get me?”

Tim, Ron, and the rest of the men nodded gravely. Rachel could not find the strength or desire to protest. The life she led only hours ago had finally ended. All that remained was the present with no assurances about the immediate future.

Jack’s voice became low and dark as he opened the COM and pointed two fingers at the front door. “Stack up. Prepare to breach.”

There were no shouts, war cries, or vengeful declarations. The sheer efficient movement of eight men moving silently toward the building was scary enough. They broke off into two teams of four, Ron and Tim were at the rear of each team’s stack. The gunner at the M41 swiveled slightly to the left, fixing his sights on the hinges of the front entrance. He looked down at Rachel for a moment, aware of the shivering girl on the ground for the first time.

“You might want to cover your ears,” the gunner offered. Rachel never heard him; she was numbly crawling on all fours to the corner of the troop Warthog, watching what might very well be the end of every friend she had left.

From her spot, Rachel watched as one of the soldiers took what looked like an aerosol can and sprayed a light gray foam along the hinged side of the large, red, wooden door. The foam hardened into a bulging mold as the soldier jammed what looked like a stainless steel meat thermometer into the substance. The eight black and grey clad warriors pressed themselves hard against the wall as the COM chirped open.

“All teams, breach.”

The two gray molds exploded outwards with surprising force, making Rachel flinch and put more weight on her bad shoulder than she wanted to. She cringed with the shock of pain and fought to keep her eyes focused as the two teams moved in swiftly, staccato flashes of their weapons creating a strobe light effect and giving Lynch instantaneous snapshots of what little she could see of the interior. Cracks and bursts of weapons firing could be heard, accompanied in rhythm with muffled shouted instructions.

Rachel watched breathlessly, heart rate skyrocketing as questions flew through her brain. It was maddening to have to wait for the all clear; the redheaded Boston College student did not even know if the all clear was ever going to be called. Rachel rose up from her position and caught sight of a first aid kit stashed away in the back of the troop ‘Hog and stared at it for a moment, paralyzed with instructions to stay put and the voice in her head screaming for her to get into that building.

“Fuck it,” she said aloud, grabbing the bag and running as fast as she could into the firefight. The Warthog gunner’s surprised exclamation did nothing to keep her there. Her legs churned cement and she gripped the heavy pistol in her good arm as the gaping black hole of the Black Rose bar became ever larger. She squeezed the grip in her moistening palm and swung her arm to the left, recalling vaguely some trivia that right handed enemies would hide to the left side of a door to get the drop on intruders. She flew across the threshold and left the last of Boston’s sunlight behind as the darkness engulfed her.

“Wha’s yer trick?“

Rachel looked bemused at Madigan, who was now completely laying his face and chest on the surface of the bar, a sizeable pyramid of shot glasses, highball glasses, and beer mugs next to him. “What do you mean?” Rachel asked with a smile, her speech a little fuzzy but nowhere near as bad as the intoxicated hockey player’s. James pointed unsteadily at Lynch, seeing three of her and taking a guess at which one was talking.

“You…must haf a supah power.”

“Yep,” Rachel said, “I do. Do you want to know what it is?”

Madigan, head resting on the bar like a pillow, nodded slowly.

“I have super hearing,” she leaned over and whispered into James’ ear. “Do you know what my super hearing heard last week in the trainer’s room?”

Madigan only gurgled; an indication, Lynch assumed, to continue. She stroked the hockey stud’s thick brown hair reassuringly, her words dripping with honey.

“I heard you talking to your boys about how you could ask me out and fuck me on the same day. I believe the phrase you used was ‘no contest.’”

Lynch looked cheerily over her shoulder at her friends, who, just hearing this news for the first time, looked fully prepared to rip the jock apart. Rachel nodded calmly at her best friends and teammates, staying their hands. Madigan, deep in a haze of alcohol, did not seem to appreciate the point.

“Is ’cause…’cause yer hawt.”

“I know, I know,” Lynch said as she went back to her drink, still talking in a sickly sweet voice. She stared straight ahead, only occasionally looking over at James. “I clean up well, I like to hang out, and I’m a pretty great lay. That’s something you’ll never get to experience with me, and if you ask me out again, I’ll tell all your buddies about the time a hundred twenty pound girl drank you under the table, you got me, stud?”

James nodded as best he could, though it was more like dragging his chin toward his chest. Rachel smiled sweetly and reached inside her bag.

“Great! And just so you don’t forget,” Lynch took out a large black permanent marker and took off the cap with flair, “I’m going to write down a few reminders. On your face.”

For the next five minutes Rachel and the girls took turns signing the unconscious hockey player’s face with their names, slogans, and all shapes and sizes of male genitalia. Once they were done, Blonde stumbled for a half-step.

“Whoa,” she said, holding on to the bar for a second, “Rach, how are you still standing? I’ve never seen you do that.”

Lynch shrugged and waved at Frank, who jogged over from watching the Red Sox playoff game on the holo panel, bottle of vodka in hand. “What’ll it be?” Walsh asked with a half grin.

“We’re gonna kill the bottle,” Rachel replied with a mischevious look, taking the bottle in hand and upending it, taking a long pull. Her friends stared on, bug eyed, until one of them grabbed it and took a sip. They put the gleaming glass vessel down and wagged their finger at the gorgeous mastermind.

“There’s no vodka in this,” Blonde said, thoroughly impressed. “You planned this.”

“Yep,” Lynch said confidently. “You know me; I like to win.”

Frank poked Madigan and cleared his throat. “So what do I do with this piece of work?” He asked, tilting his head toward the back of the bar. The Black Rose was made up of the horseshoe shaped bar, assorted raised circular tables, and a pool table dangerously close to an old basketball arcade game in the back right corner. On the right side of the bar were the bathrooms, the left side had a door marked, “kitchen.” Frank Walsh pointed a meaty thumb backward at the kitchen door. “I got a private space we can stash ‘im in,” he winked theatrically at the girls.

The girls laughed. “Is that where you keep the bodies, Frank?” Rachel asked, egging him on.

“Under lock and key,” Walsh said, making a show of sizing up the BC defenseman, “he won’t bother you any more.”

Rachel patted Frank’s hand and smiled at him as she turned around toward the front door. “You’re sweet, Frank, but I think we’ll throw him in a cab. Wouldn’t be very ladylike to kill him, would it?”

Frank nodded amicably. “Reckon not.”

Rachel never even considered the slickness of the Black Rose’s floor, so she was surprised when she slipped on the blood pooling by the front entrance. Pure luck and a rush to turn an exam paper in was the reason the Boston Collegian was wearing sneakers and not heels, but the slippery surface of the hardwood and the energy of Lynch’s entrance would have made a mockery of any footwear. Luckily, the fall caused a soldier’s knee-jerk reaction shot at the girl to miss high and wide.

“Hold fire!” Jack O’Shea roared, looking like he was about to punch the nervous ex-Marine. His attention turned to the sprawled out girl and he marched across the space to give the intruder a begrudging hand up. “Rachel! You want to get yourself killed?”

This is blood, Rachel thought, frantically wiping her hands on the white med kit. I’m in the Black Rose and I just fell in blood. Lynch turned around and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. She immediately wished she had not run into the fray.

The fight was over. Jack O’Shea and his men had wiped out the Winter Hill gang. In front of, behind, and draped over the bar were the bodies of Boston’s last major criminal element; stolen and smuggled UNSC weapons lay by their limp hands and were being collected by various soldiers. Rachel saw several men she recognized and one or two she might have known had their faces been intact. Lynch was suddenly very afraid of the soldiers who had saved her life several times today.

“Rach?”

The redhaired college student looked up from the floor and into the face of Tim McManus, who looked just as spooked as she did. Rachel did not even think, she only felt so relieved to see one person she knew who was alive that she jumped at the Harvard Junior and smothered him in a vice grip of a hug. A perplexed Tim patted the attractive survivor on the back and looked at Ron Parsons with a look of vague panic. Parsons only shrugged and resumed stripping a gang member’s pistol of ammunition. Everyone stopped what they were doing when the Captain approached.

“Rachel,” O’Shea said, sliding a fresh magazine into his customized Battle Rifle and pulling down his balaclava, “I need your help for a second.”

Lynch put a stray strand of hair behind her ear, realized she had marked herself with blood in the process, then decided to deal with it later so she could answer the Captain who had killed every single patron in her favorite bar. “Yeah,” she said, swallowing hard, “what do you need?”

“We took a prisoner in the kitchen.”

Gus Reynolds looked up from stripping a criminal’s assault rifle, “Lucky fucking coward. Bastard was wearing Ibanez’s body armor.”

O’Shea silenced his XO with a raised hand, then returned his attention to Rachel, gesturing toward the kitchen door. “Winter Hill’s notorious for concealing their leadership. This guy wouldn’t be wearing armor if he wasn’t important, but he didn’t have Ibanez’s COM on him. I need you to identify him and see if you can get anything out of him.”

“I’m not gonna torture him!” Lynch blurted out, panicked. Jack immediately put his strong hands on her shoulders.

“That’s not what I’m asking you to do,” he said, his voice level and incredibly calm for someone who had just killed several humans in the middle of the invasion of Earth. “We just want to know his name and maybe he’ll talk to you instead of us.”

Rachel nodded, then looked back at Tim and Ron. O’Shea anticipated her question.

“No, they can’t come with you. I need it to be as few people as possible.”

“O—OK,” Lynch replied, following behind Jack as they disappeared behind the swinging door misted with blood. Everyone else was left to his own devices.

Ron Parsons motioned for Tim to follow him to the horseshoe shaped bar at the back of the room. Tim, eyes still on the kitchen door and wondering what was happening in there, slowly followed behind. Ron leaned against the bar and, struck by inspiration, reached behind the bar and grabbed two bottles of beer that were still somewhat cold. He passed one to a grateful Tim McManus and the two new soldiers took a sip in silence.

“You shoot any of ‘em?” Ron asked.

“Nope,” Tim said, trying not to look around the bar, “you?”

“Nope. Kinda glad I didn’t.”

“Me too.”

“Did any of you—?”

“One Delta wounded, one of Gus’ got hit, too.” Jack answered, never breaking stride as they entered the kitchen. “The one bit of luck we’ve had all day.”

The stainless steel kitchen area was a wreck. Pots, pans, and all sorts of utensils were tossed around, and pools of blood were collecting by drains, fed by splatters and mists of red on the clean white walls. As they turned the corner of one serving station, Rachel felt herself go rigid and she took a step back. She had been anticipating and preparing herself for this moment, but now that she was here, it was completely different. There, on his knees, wearing torso armor with a bullet deflection in the center of his chest, was Frank Walsh. As shaken as Rachel was, Frank was worse.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Frank demanded, his ruddy face almost bright crimson. This was not the same man that Rachel had conspired with not twenty-four hours ago. She hardly recognized him. Lynch felt O’Shea looking at her, and she turned to face him.

“You know him?” O’Shea asked. Rachel nodded, and Frank fought against his restraints.

“Don’t tell him anything! You don’t know who he is!” Walsh began shouting. “You don’t know what he and these fascist bastards are going to do to you! You owe me, Rachel Lynch! You owe me!“

For half a second, Rachel actually wondered whom to trust. Then, just as quickly as doubt entered her mind, she remembered that this man in front of her had killed five soldiers who were putting their lives in jeopardy so she and innocent refugees might live. Frank read the conflict playing across her features and played his last card.

“You tell him who I am,” the burly bar owner growled, “and I’ll kill you. I promise you that.”

Rachel took off her jeep cap and looked Frank in the face. It was time to show her friends that she was not afraid to put her life on the line, either. “His name is Frank Walsh. He owns this bar, and yesterday he mentioned something about having a room in here where he keeps bodies.”

Frank’s head quivered with rage. Rachel wondered if it would actually explode. Instead, the Winter Hill gang leader let out an animal cry of rage and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Kill them! You hear me? Kill all the refugees and the Marines! Do it! Do it now!”

The Captain did not waste a second. As soon as Walsh started to open his mouth, Jack marched over to the leader, grabbed him by the collar of Ibanez’s armor and began dragging him across the kitchen back to the bar.

Tim and Ron had moved on to their second beer as ex-Marines continued to search bodies and pilfer booze from behind the bar. They loaded material into sacks, packs, whatever they could stash provisions and supplies in. The two friends leaned against the bar, feeling weary and drained. Ron chuckled to himself.

“She hugged you.”

“What?”

“She hugged you. She was happy to see you.”

Tim took a longer pull from the beer. “I guess.”

“Cut the shit, Timmy. You got feelings for her. She’s hot and you came back for her when she was trapped in a burning building. Don’t have to be a professor to figure this one out.”

“Harvard seems like a year ago.”

“Yeah.” Ron finished the last of his beer and tossed it over his shoulder, listening to it smash on the floor behind him. “She likes you too, dude. Hold on to that one. She may be able to hold her own, but females are gonna be in short supply real soon. Protectin’ people now’s a matter of life and death.”

Before Tim could reply, the door to the kitchen slapped open and Jack O’Shea tossed Frank Walsh into the middle of the room. Gus Reynolds and the rest of the soldiers in the bar looked at their CO for instructions.

“This is Frank Walsh,” Jack said with venom. “Strip the armor, keep him restrained on his knees, but do not—do not—shoot him. Our boys might still be alive.”

“There’s no time,” Jack said as he gripped a piece of rope attached to the trap door. “Get ready to flash and clear.”

A member of Delta instinctively readied a grey cylindrical grenade in his hands, prepared to throw on the go order. In one smooth motion, Jack jerked the trap door open and the other man tossed the flash grenade inside. O’Shea immediately shut the door tight as the loud bang clapped against the planks and a flash of light escaped through two of the looser slats.

With no hesitation, Delta nearly jumped into the abyss, tactical lights switched on and yelling in their loudest, most intimidating voices for everyone to get down on the floor. It was over in seconds, and Rachel did not hear the sound of any gunfire whatsoever. She strained her ears to hear anything, having no idea how far down the room could be and unable to see anything underneath the kitchen. Suddenly, Jack’s voice echoed from what sounded like forever away.

“Rachel! We’ve got a prisoner! I need you down here now!”

Lynch nearly slipped on the moldy wooden stairs as she scrambled down to meet up with Captain O’Shea and the men. The vague odor of mildew invaded her nostrils and she sneezed instinctively, losing her tenuous grip on the ladder and falling the remaining distance to a hard packed earthen floor. She got up as soon as she could, shocked that such a large earthen cave could exist in this day and age in this city.

The ceiling was nearly ten feet tall, over thirty feet long and twenty feet wide. The walls were bare brick and the ceiling was some kind of wood, Rachel guessed pine. From what little should could see, a few wooden crates dotted the space, but with Delta’s flashlights moving rapidly across the wide space, Rachel could not get her bearings and felt very disoriented. The darkness was truly frightening, an inky void that covered Rachel from head to toe.

She could not shake the feeling of heat coming from nearby and took several hesitant steps forward. As one of Delta’s weapons moved with Rachel’s movement, it swept across the faces of the missing refugees, very much alive but trapped behind the bars of what looked like a rudimentary holding cell.

Lynch let out a shrieking yelp and fell backwards, tripping over something and landing hard against the packed earth. Immediately, four lights focused on her and she could hear O’Shea’s voice barely filling the acoustically dead space.

“Dammit,” the Captain grumbled, “that’s Alper.”

Rachel scrambled to her feet and stumbled backwards to the far wall. “Dr. Alper’s—she’s dead?“

“That’s frustrating,” Jack said, backlit from his comrade’s weapons. He leaned down and checked her vitals, sighing heavily. The leader of the survivors turned and walked away from Rachel, racking the slide of his suppressed M6C. “Tell me who this is before I kill him.”

As the beam of O’Shea’s tactical flashlight settled, Rachel was shocked to see the light fall across the terrified face of Seamus Connor.

“Wait!” Rachel cried out. “Wait! He’s not one of them!”

Jack did not even bother to look over his shoulder. “We found him with guns, and he hasn’t told me where to find my Marines, Rachel. This is how it’s going to go.”

Seamus’s face contorted in confusion as he squinted against the light. “Rachel?” Connor stammered. “Rachel Lynch?”

“Seamus!” Rachel shouted, running to his side and squinting at Jack with pleading eyes. “Captain, whatever this looks like, Seamus wouldn’t hurt anyone. You’ve got to believe me.”

Jack was unconvinced. “Where are my Marines, Seamus?”

Connor was a nervous wreck, his voice breaking and on the brink of tears. “I’ve been trying to tell ya! They’ve put ‘em inside the wall with me brothers!”

“Where?” O’Shea demanded. Connor pointed a shaking finger over his shoulder, where a stack of crates stood, blocking the wall.

“F—Frank said if I didn’t do what I had to when the time came, he’d blow up my brothers and the soldiers.”

Jack and two soldiers immediately shoved the crates aside, revealing a large metal door in the middle of the brick wall. As Jack tapped on it, everyone in the secret basement heard a sound that made their hearts leap with joy.

“Cap?” Harold Ibanez called out, his voice muffled behind the heavy metal. “Anyone?”

An audible release of tension could be heard and the sound of hands clapping on shoulders sounded against the hastily constructed walls. O’Shea shut his eyes with a quick prayer of thanks. “Damn good to hear your voice, Ibanez.”

“You too, sir.”

O’Shea motioned for a Delta soldier to help him with the door. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“Wait!” Ibanez shouted. “The door’s rigged. We’ve got three kids in here; brothers, last name’s Connor! They say they’ve got a guy on the outside!”

O’Shea looked behind him at the lanky figure of Seamus Connor. The boy looked two parts relieved and three parts petrified. Rachel put her arm around the former bar back and nodded at the Captain, vouching for the kid.

“It’s an amateur device, Cap!” Ibanez instructed him. “Any one of us could defuse it from outside.”

Two minutes later the heavy door swung open and both soldiers and brothers had a tearful, joyous reunion. Ibanez and the Captain shared an embrace as Seamus and his three younger brothers joined in a mass of tears and smiles. Despite all this, Rachel did not feel like she could keep it together. The extremes of emotions, the certainty that someone she had trusted had killed those who tried to save her and then threatened to kill her, the sum of the parts was just too much for the young college co-ed to process. The man was willing to let children die so he might get out alive. She turned in a circle in the dark and finally found Seamus.

“Why?” Lynch asked, tears forming in her eyes, “why did he do this?”

“Frank Walsh is not the person you think he is,” Seamus said, anger starting to glow in his eyes. “He doesn’t operate with reason. He kills indiscriminately. He could have stopped this whenever he wanted, but the only thing the man wants is death.”

Rachel shook her head, unable to come to grips with this. All her mind could do after so much strain was lock on to the fact that she had an outlet for the pain, loss, and fear she had felt today. She had a target, and that target was sitting right above her, going nowhere until Captain O’Shea said different. Everyone’s doing something about their problems, Rachel thought, now I can, too.

Without so much as a warning, Rachel marched to the kitchen ladder and began climbing it with rage-fueled energy. Jack caught it just in time.

“Free those refugees and get me solutions for getting them to South Station!” Jack shouted over his shoulder as he ran after Rachel. “Ibanez, you need to come with me right now!”

The trip up the ladder and through the kitchen took Rachel less than a minute. She nearly took the kitchen door off its hinges as she burst through it. It took her two seconds to find Frank Walsh on his knees in the middle of the floor, where the soldiers had him at gunpoint. They had just removed Ibanez’s armor and were about to cuff his wrists as she marched across the space with her fists balled and chest heaving with anger. Tim and Ron barely had time to react to Lynch’s sudden entrance before she was on top of Walsh.

“Why?” Rachel screamed, putting her weight behind a furious punch that connected brutally with the side of the unarmed prisoner’s face.

“You could have stopped this whenever you wanted! You stupid! Fucking! Liar!” The surprisingly strong girl had to be pulled off the man by Ron and Tim as the Winter Hill gang leader laid on his back, breathing heavy, blood running down his nose, forehead, and ear.

“Grow up,” the gangster muttered, glaring at the Boston College co-ed. “This ain’t a world to live in.” His eyes now flew around the room, staring at the soldiers with absolute certainty. “You think you’re saving yourselves? You’re never getting out of this city! You’re going to die here! For nothing!” In his vindictive declaration, he never saw Rachel wrestle her way out of the kids’ grip and he certainly never saw the raised leg coming at him at full speed.

“Shut up!” Rachel yelled at the top of her lungs, driving a leg full of anger into the criminal’s chest. All of the soldiers could hear the wet crack of the man’s ribs breaking as he tumbled into one of the ex-Marines. In the confusion, the soldier fumbled with his M6C side arm, and the last member of Boston’s last gang took his chance with zeal, snatching the weapon and leveling it at the completely exposed girl’s exhausted body.

Rachel had never had a gun pointed at her before. Even though she had witnessed unimaginable carnage first hand all day, seeing the bleeding, broken, crazed criminal point that gun was the scariest thing Lynch had ever seen. Her muscles locked up and she instinctively shut her eyes tight.

“No!” Tim shouted reflexively, bringing his modified Battle Rifle up and squeezing off a three round burst in no direction in particular. Luckily, he had been right next to Lynch and was facing the action as the pistol came up. Two of the three rounds smacked into the gangster’s exposed chest and pushed the pistol to the leader’s right. McManus’ lucky shot was immediately followed by a barrage of fire from the soldiers, tearing into the criminal with dozens of rounds and filling the room with a echoing blast of sound that faded away just as O’Shea and Ibanez reached the scene. Jack put a hand to the side of his head in disbelief.

Tim glared at Walsh’s body, enraged at the coward’s final act. Before he or anyone else could say anything further, McManus’s eyes flitted down to the M6C lying in the limp hand of Frank Walsh and noticed a very faint trail of smoke wafting lazily from the barrel. Confused and afraid, Tim jerked his head toward Rachel and visually scanned her body armor in a panic. Lynch returned his look with equal confusion until she looked past Tim, eyes opening wide in shock. The color left Tim’s face as he heard the unusually shaky voice behind him.

“Uh…guys…?” Ron Parsons asked hesitantly, withdrawing his hand from the right side of his chest and revealing his gloved palm glistening red with fresh blood. As the group rushed toward the blonde cafeteria worker, Ron’s legs went slack and he collapsed on his side, still looking at his hand in bewilderment, hitting the dirty floor with a heavy thud.

Chapter 13: “The Pride of Portland”