Silence and solitude had always brought unwanted memories into Vasquez's mind.

This time was no exception.

Pictures and voices flooded her mind, some of them so old, she wondered how the hell she could even remember them. She shook her head softly as she crawled through the ceiling, the gridded panels marking both her hands and knees.

She was angry and frustrated as she clenched her tactical knife between her teeth, grumbling silently under her breath, annoyed with the little control she held over her own mind.

She stopped as two voices reached her, not that far away from the point she was kneeling. Breathing deeply, she approached the source, stopping to undo her boots with slow, silent movements as she sighted two men.

She held the boots for a few seconds, before throwing one in the direction of the pair.

"Crap! Did you hear that?" a slightly frightened voice inquired, as soon as the heavy shoe hit the panels, a few feet from where the two men were standing, sending an echoing sound through the whole hallway.

"Yeah, right over there." Vasquez threw the other boot in the opposite direction, still as a statue as the panels vibrated beneath her feet.

"You go check that way, I'll see over there." One of them commanded.

The sound of footsteps approached, until Vasquez had a clear view of a bulky man, holding a rifle, with an anxious expression.

She waited patiently until he disappeared into another corridor, before pulling up a panel close to her.

The impact of her feet and the floor produced a light 'thump', almost inaudible from more than three feet.

The knife felt too light, compared to the reassuring weight of the Smartgun she'd had to abandon in a cleaning pantry, being too large for her to carry it through the ceiling.

Vasquez was stealthy as she followed the footsteps, until she sighted him, just a few feet from the corner of the corridor she was in.

With three silent steps, Vasquez was just a few inches from his back, with her knife raised above her head, aiming for the back of the man's head.

The impact made his stiff body fell forward, the metallic sound of the rifle as it fell echoed through the hallway loudly.

"Greg, you're okay?" the voice sounded close, as if just a couple feet away. Vasquez span around and gave a quick race, raising the bloodstained knife again, her arm strong as steel as the blade penetrated the other man's torso. In the next moments, copper was the only thing she tasted, as the man spat a cup-full of blood onto her face.

The impact made his limp body fall back, an unceasing flow of blood falling into the other levels as it slipped through the gridded floor.

Vasquez was tempted to leave the hallway and abandon the bodies to be found by some patroller the group of rebels sent, before realizing that it would just warn them that there was still a free marine inside the complex.

She was quick as she dragged the corpses into a close room, not even minding about the pool of blood that was still falling through the floor. It didn't really mattered much, having in count the quantity of rust and dust that covered the whole level. The blood poll would go perfectly unnoticed, principally with such a poor illumination.

She walked silently, focusing on every little sound that reached her ears, ignoring the cold that numbed her feet.

Vasquez raised her head as she developed her plan, turning around to return to the room where she'd abandoned the bodies of the two rebels, feeling her confidence raising as she revised her plan over and over into her head.