Chapter Fifty: Back Against the Wall

Ethan was the first to meet us as we reached the far perimeter of our camp. He was running towards my detail and I with his ONI team in tow, and he looked both beleaguered and pissed.

I was glad to see he was still in one piece, though.

"What's going on?" I said when he was in range.

He gave me a look through his now-translucent visor. "You mean besides the sky falling?" He huffed a sigh before going on. "We just checked in with the military police team back at the holding cells. Laraza's gone."

"What?"

"Yeah. And the girl, too. Looks like the rebs broke them out after the battle started. I'm sorry, Nat."

"Christ almighty." I wondered when the barrage of bad news would end. It seemed I wasn't destined to get any breaks at all here today. "Where are the MPs now? Why weren't they stopped?"

He pointed towards the building where we'd kept the prisoners, and though nothing looked different from here, I was starting to get a sinking feeling.

"Come on," he said in a subdued voice. "I'll show you."

We trudged quickly through the snow, ducking whenever enemy aircraft would come screaming in. Just before we reached our destination, however, a group of two Pelicans and a Banshee swooped low, firing their chain guns, plasma cannons, and rockets - clearly gunning for us.

"Everyone hit the dirt!" I yelled.

My helmet and armor and rifle and boots were covered in snow in an instant as I sunk into the fluffy white face-first. I covered my head out of instinct with my gloved hands, listening to the heavy barrage and feeling the earth tremble beneath me. It felt like the end of the world; it always did.

Until one of ours showed up.

"Heads down, Marines! We got this!" I heard over the general channel, and my heart swelled. It was Willis.

He was coming to save us.

I risked poking my head up from the snow, just in time to see one of the Banshees get hit by a merciless wall of ordnance and lead. It went from pristine to smoking to a giant cloud of orange flame and purple metal scraps in the span of a few seconds.

I couldn't help the grin that spread wide across my face. "Nice work, Talon! Keep 'em off us!"

"Glad to help, Colonel," he answered tonelessly. "Now watch it - still got two bogies to go. Snoopy?"

"Yes, sir?" his wingmate, Captain Heat, responded.

"Let's get after 'em."

"Thought you'd never ask!"

It was nice to hear the pair reunited. What followed was an intricate and deadly air show above us, but there wasn't time to stop and marvel at their finesse. Now that the rebel aircraft were off our backs, it was time to move again.

"Marines, up, now! Let's go!"

I forged forward first, my security detail beside me, and Ethan followed behind with his group. Finally we reached the building, and still nothing looked out of place.

It wasn't until we rounded to the other side of the wall, to the entrance, that my breath caught in my throat.

The façade was entirely black, save for the patches of bloody red from the bodies. The whole side of the building on this side had been blasted out; it was nothing but crumbling debris now. And the MPs were all dead.

"I told you it was bad," my ex said softly, coming up on my right. "They were the first to get hit when the assault started. They're on the outskirts of the perimeter, and we were so busy dealing with the giant mob heading for us that we..." He shook his head. "We should've been faster."

I felt a wave of emotion go through me at the sight, and the implications began to make their way through my mind. Laraza had been freed - as had his daughter, our inside intelligence source and our one main leverage against him. Not only was the man who'd done terrible things to Cal and I - and many others - gone, but we'd also allowed him to get loose to make good on his outrageous plans with the portal and the Elites. It was a catastrophic failure on my part, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to fix this. He'd been hard enough to track down and capture the first time; now, he'd be a ghost.

"Shit," I said, and put my hands on either side of my head. "Shit, Ethan."

He stepped closer to try to comfort me, but I moved out of the way. So he lowered his arm.

"Natalie, we'll get him back. We'll find a way."

I shook my head vigorously. "No, we won't. He's out there again, Ethan. We're under attack, the portal's unsecured, he's loose, and he's going to try to get to Sanghelios." I could feel myself falling into despair, right then and there. "We've stopped nothing. Everything is - "

"Hey, hey," my ex said, stepping forward again and grabbing hold of my wrists this time, gently. He brought them down to my sides and looked me in the eyes, waiting until I focused on him to continue, not letting go. "You can do this, Cooper. We can still do this. Nothing is lost. Have we faced a fuckton of setbacks? Yes. It's discouraging, I get it. But our camp can be saved, and retaken, and the portal site can still be brought under our control. We just need to regroup, get our house in order, and make sure Laraza has no opportunity to use that link to the Elite homeworld. Okay?"

When I didn't answer, he spoke again.

"All this might sound impossible under someone else's command, but I believe in you. More importantly, so do your men. If anyone can right this ship, it's you, Nat."

He finally let go and I was left standing there, trying to muster up the courage to go on. I'd never felt this helpless and defeated in my whole life. My XO was out of commission, fighting for her life; the bulk of my forces had had to retreat; my base was under seige; the man who'd ordered my capture and torture was back on the streets; and my thirteen-year marriage to the man I loved was over, for good. Everything was crashing down before my very eyes, and it was tough to take all at once.

But Ethan was right. I had to at least try. It was my duty, and my purpose as an officer to do so.

And it wasn't over till it was over.

"All right, Marines," I said then over the general channel, with more confidence than I felt. "Let's take back our turf."


The added support from the newly rejoined air wing offered us considerable firepower, and that alone started to change the tide. In short order most of the rebels' air support had been shot down and left in smoking ruin in the snow, with the remainder making runs less and less often now. That, in turn, made the rebel ground forces nervous, and more cautious. While the assault continued, we had a chance here to finally take the upper hand.

By now we were well within the camp's bounds, and I started to get a sense of how dire the situation had been. Parts of the barracks had been demolished by the earlier air runs, and the mess hall was only barely still standing. As we rushed past to get to one of the larger pockets of resistance, just up ahead, I saw overturned desks, charred bunks, burned clothes...and several bodies, too, of those who'd been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some of the corpses were in full uniform, armor and all, and others were in nothing but what they'd gone to sleep in. It was a worrisome and awful loss of life, but we had the opportunity now to truly fight back, and make sure their sacrifices were worthwhile.

Around me, I did my best to rally the Marines who'd been engaged in combat since the beginning.

"Push forward, Marines!" I yelled as my detail opened up on the rebels in front of us. "Push up and push them back!"

I skittered to a stop myself and quickly ducked behind a half-torn-down wall as rebel forces fired back. In the moment I reloaded my battle rifle, replacing the mag with a satisfying clack, and got it ready to go again. Aiming down the sights, I pulled the trigger on the first reb I saw, hitting him in the throat. There was a spray of blood and his hand shot up to his neck, though there was nothing he could do now. I pulled the trigger again and he went down, motionless.

Unfortunately, there were plenty more where he came from.

"Frag out!" I heard Ethan yell on my flank, and I turned for just a second to watch as he threw the explosive far in an arch, landing in a group of at least five rebels hiding in the debris ahead. They shouted frantically, and one tried to pick it up. He was promptly blown into a thousand pieces, all over his friends.

Instead of using the chaos to tag my next reb, I turned away a moment and shuddered. That could've been me, I thought, and I remembered that I hadn't ever mentioned that incident to Willis. I didn't know why. Maybe I didn't want him to think I'd gone looking for death, or that I wanted it, or maybe it was just as simple as the main reason we were no longer together - I didn't think he'd understand my reasoning behind it. I was sure he'd take my willingness to die for my men as a slight against him, or our family, or my own life, when really, it was about none of those things. It was about them.

I glanced to my left and saw Gunnery Sergeant York, and Núñez with his damn fantastic SAW, and everyone else on my team, here to protect me. How could you not give your life for your brothers, when they would give it for you?

With that, I stepped forward once more, more determined than ever to make this right. To take back our base, to defeat the rebs here, and then head back out to the portal again - to make sure another war, that would send more men and women away from their families, wouldn't have a chance to happen.

It was more my gun than me that found the next reb; he was running down the snowy row between buildings, automatic weapon up, but I stopped him. I tagged him right in the chest in three bursts, bringing him sliding into the wet earth before his buddy appeared beside him, and met the same fate.

Just one reb at a time, I thought to myself then, feeling like the mass of enemy bodies being thrown at us would never stop. Just one at a time, and we'll take our home back.


After pushing the rebels back from the enlisted barracks, we made our way forward to the officers' quarters now, and during a momentary lull in the fighting, I jogged over to mine with my security detail in tow, still in sight of Ethan's team as well in case things got hairy unexpectedly. I entered our building fast, and found that while my quarters remained thankfully untouched, Brewer's and Mullen's had been destroyed.

Shit, I thought. It was a good thing no one had been here when the place was attacked. It looked like some overhead ordnance had done the honors here, and I quickly ran back to rejoin the larger group.

I finally had a moment then to key my COM. "All units, this is Colonel Cooper. I need a sitrep, now. Sound off."

"Ma'am, this is Major Mullen. We're at the head of the perimeter and we've still got stragglers, but it looks like the extra two battalions and overhead support have scared them off for now. We're beating them back, and those that are left are trying to retreat."

"Don't let 'em," I said. "Keep pushing forward. We want them gone, and we don't want them coming back. This isn't over yet."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Colonel, Captain Norfolk. Left flank is secure. We've got an MBT here with us making sure none of these bastards gain more ground."

"Excellent. Douglas?"

"We've got a little more work to do on the right, ma'am, but we're holding our own."

"All right. Sakato, let's get some of our Scorpions in to help the 213th."

"Moving now, ma'am!"

That just left Willis. "Talon? What's our situation upstairs?"

"Skies are clearing up, Colonel. Shouldn't have anymore trouble on the ground from these guys, but some did get away. Do you want us to go after them?"

I shook my head to myself, realizing belatedly that he couldn't see it. "No. We could use you guys to clear out the rest of the field down here now that you're not wholly focused on the air. Standby. We'll be marking targets for you."

"Understood."

I cut the connection then, feeling a little better now that things were stabilizing. With all the forces I'd dedicated to stopping this all-out assault on our base, it was nice to hear it was working...and that we wouldn't meet the same fate as previous outposts I'd been assigned to in the past. My commanders' failures back then had made me more prepared myself for this contingency now that I was the one in charge. And for that, despite the hard way I'd had to learn it, I was grateful.

"All right, Marines!" I said to my detail then, including Ethan and his team in the mix as well, though they weren't jarheads. "It sounds like we're slowly securing the lines and beating them back. Let's tag any remaining rebs left in camp and push up."


Hours later, some pockets of rebels remained here and there, but none were inside our lines anymore. I spotted a few still refusing to retreat within rifle range, and I took shots at a several of them while directing my snipers to handle the rest.

And that was that.

As I waited for the reports to come in, I finally pulled out another spent magazine from my rifle, searched my pockets for more, and found none. I was completely out, so I just dumped the used mag in the snow and slung my rifle behind my shoulder, pulling out my pistol instead.

"I think that's the last of them, Colonel," Ethan said beside me. He reached out to squeeze my shoulder. "You did good."

I shook him off and stepped out of his grasp. "Ethan, I don't want to have this rapport with you. Just...give me my space."

"Okay."

If he was hurt by what I'd said, he didn't show it. His spook training, no doubt.

"I'm sorry, you know," he said softly then. "About you and Willis. I know that has to be - "

"Crushing? Heart-wrenching?" I shook my head at him. "It's the last thing I could have ever imagined, but I'm well aware that I put myself in this position, and now I have to deal with it. So please, don't...don't act like you understand what you don't."

"Fair enough." He met my gaze in the waning light. "I guess I'll go make myself scarce then, Colonel. I'm sure there's other areas that could use our help now, maybe to clean up."

"Please do," I replied, and I was left standing there alone as he left, too.


Finally the assault was over, and our camp remained intact. But the damage was still visible as well - not everywhere, but several important buildings had been hit, and they now needed a quick repair to get things functional again, at least for tonight. In the morning, in the light, I figured we'd begin doing the real work of fixing what had been bombed, shot, and abused during the siege. But for now, barracks or no barracks, I just wanted to eat and then go to sleep.

Unfortunately, the time for that would come later for me than everyone else.

"Major Mullen," I said into the COM.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Your battalion's relieved, Major. Let your guys and gals get some rest."

"On it, Colonel. Thank you."

"Sakato, keep two tanks roving on patrol around our perimeter. Rotate in as necessary so everyone gets a break and stays fresh."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Norfolk?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Your batt's got first watch."

"Understood."

"Douglas, I want your battalion to back them up - half on standby, half can rest."

"Yes, ma'am. We'll be ready."

"All right. Cooper out."

As I spoke I made my way over to the medtent, to check in on my XO and to see how Cal was doing with everything. It was a somber walk through the camp, with reminders here and there of the large force we'd just repelled. Bodies still littered many areas, both Marines and rebs, and blackened spots in the snow and the sides of buildings remained. There were torn down tents as well. I couldn't wait to send in my former battalion, the 8th Engineers, to start putting things back into place tomorrow. Not even the mess hall was functional right now, so tonight we'd be sleeping under the stars in the cold, eating MREs.

Just like old times.

"Natalie?" I heard then, and I was startled at first by the voice.

I raised my pistol up, searching in the dark with my team still surrounding me, only to realize the sound had come from inside my helmet. I lowered my gun, a little embarrassed, and answered, "Yes?"

"Where do you want us now?"

It was Willis, and while during the fight I hadn't had much time to think about things, I did now, and the heartache was suddenly front and center. I had to swallow down the hurt to respond.

"I don't want to leave our skies fully open to another attack," I said. "They might be counting on us letting our guard down now that things've quieted down. Keep a squadron in the air on rotation, and one on standby, just in case. The rest of your flyboys are free to come groundside and get some food and sleep."

"Okay," he replied on a sigh. "I'll stay up here for first watch, then."

"Whatever you need to do. Cooper out."

I felt the tears fall down my cheeks inside my helmet then as we reached the medtent. As soon as I was inside, I pulled it off and quickly wiped them away with my sleeve.

I had to keep it together, at least for a few more hours.