A/N
Hey everyone! As I mentioned last Sunday, there was no chapter for Wednesday this week. Unfortunately that might happen again this week as well, so if there is no chapter then you know why...
Thankfully I only have two more exams to do, so the chapter schedule will pick up again after that.
Now, I think it's important for me to say this before THIS chapter in particular. This chapter is very dark, there will be mentions of extreme violence and depravity. I know that for some of my readers that might not be an issue; but those of you who are sensitive to that kind of stuff, please be warned.
Chapter 21…
Ashley's quarters were exactly as she remembered them.
It was a small, squat, grey room that was essentially nothing more than a bed and a bathroom. There was a sticky brown stain on the floor next to the bed- the remnants of a spilled bottle of booze Ashley hadn't bothered to clean up.
The dark haired woman took a moment to sniff the still air of the tiny room; it smelled sour, with the slightest undertone of alcohol stink.
So no had been rummaging around in her room then… that was good.
The female pilot stepped through the doorframe and smacked the control panel to seal the room. There was a faint "click" as the sliding door shut, cutting off the sounds of the bustling corridor she had just exited.
Dark eyes scanned right, and then left…
She was alone…
'Perfect'
Ashley put out a confident foot and quickly walked to the small bed shoved against the corner of the room. She got down on her knees and thrust her arm under the piece of furniture. Ashley's fingers wrapped around something cool and cylindrical and she carefully pulled it out.
No had been in her room and thus no one had found her secret alcohol stash...
'Extra-perfect'
With practiced ease the woman uncorked the cheap brandy in her hand. She raised the glass bottle to her lips and chugged a quarter of it's contents. Ashley sputtered as the liquid burned her throat and she removed the bottle so that she could cough. The dark haired woman continued this process several more times until the bottle was empty.
"Fuck," Ashley loosened her grip and let the empty glass vessel tap to the floor. She moved her hips so that she was sitting on her butt and wiggled a little to press her back against the bed frame.
She raised a hand and placed it against her sweaty forehead… her vision was starting to spin a little…
Ashley coughed and rubbed her hand down her face, feeling the sweat accumulating around her cheeks and lower neck. She removed her now damp hand and raised it to her nose to inhale the scent.
Unsurprisingly, the scent was sour… and Ashley was suddenly reminded that she hadn't showered in quite some time.
Was this how she smelled back on Erebus II when Blisk had found her sitting in that bar? If she had smelled like this back then…
Slowly, shakily, Ashley got back up to her feet. Her vision was definitely starting to swim, but she wasn't completely off balance yet. She stumbled over to the door of the tiny bathroom that came with her room; Ashley reached out to grab the door frame in order to steady herself. The dark haired woman hurled herself through the entryway and slammed against the interior wall of the cramped little lavatory.
The tiny bathroom in her quarters consisted of a toilet, sink, a mirrored medicine cabinet and a stand up shower. The shower was perhaps three feet by three feet- just big enough to fit the average adult.
Ashley turned the handle on the shower faucet and was about to jump in when she felt her armor jingle. The woman looked down in the sudden realization that she had never turned her armor over to the ship's quartermaster.
With a growl Ashley tore off her armor pieces - her fingers drunkenly fumbling on the latches - and let the parts scatter to the floor. She reached a hand up and hastily tugged down the zipper of her black jumpsuit. The underlayer was treated the same as her armor pieces and bunched up around her feet. Ashley tripped as she stumbled out of the bunched up jumpsuit and hastily stripped off her soiled undergarments.
By the time she was fully nude the shower had warmed up somewhat… good timing too, her vision was getting more unstable and her head more cloudy.
Sighing and hissing simultaneously, Ashley stepped into the stream of water and laid her body against the cool wall of the shower. She rolled her forehead back and forth along the wall, easing the tension that had plagued her for the past few hours.
The water was lukewarm… it only ever got lukewarm, never hot.
Ashley cracked her eyes open a little and tilted back her head. Her face was directly underneath the stream now and she could feel the jets of water smashing against her eyelids. Moving her hands up to her head, Ashley scratched her hair and discovered that she hadn't yet removed it from it's braid; she toyed with the braid until it finally came loose, allowing her hair to splay out against her sopping wet back.
There was something… nice about this. Like the hard alcohol, the stream of water eased her mind and allowed her to relax a little bit. The thrumming of the shower head filled her ears and drowned out her thoughts… and the voices…
'How many massacres were you involved in?'
Save for one voice… which ironically belonged to someone who was still alive.
'How many families did you drag from their homes?'
The kid had been opinionated… and rather bold for asking questions like that.
'How many civilians did you gun down like wild animals?'
"Quite a few"... was the answer Ashley had been too cowardly to give… it was a single answer that was applicable to every question.
The shower stopped being comforting… and her head suddenly felt rather… clear…
And it was under these sudden and strange circumstances that Ashley found herself taking a sudden trip down memory lane. The dark haired woman fell into her vivid memories just like how the water spiraled down the drain…
Suddenly… and without warning…
'How many massacres were you involved in?'
"Sir, we haven't found any Militia, just a handful of civilians!" Blisk called into his comm piece. The mercenary had to yell over the roaring engines of the Goblin dropship.
Ashley peered out the cargo door in half-interest. A small troupe of "Spectre" bots were making short work of a group of colonists.
"Copy that, keep looking," Admiral Graves buzzed back on the ship's comm system.
Blisk snorted and wiped his arm. "But I like the way these Spectres kill, eh!"
"Weirdo," Colton snorted next to Ashley. The uniformed pilot bumped her arm good naturedly.
"He's the money man…" Ashley nudged Colton back. "No complaints and no mockery."
The helmeted female pilot turned her attention back to the open cargo door. A small inferno was burning below, consuming the make-shift houses off the colony.
"Next-gen automated infantry is the future," Blisk grinned in the direction of Ashley and her team. The South African twisted his torso to peer out the window of the craft. "But taking out a bunch of civilians is hardly a test."
Blisk - still peering out of the craft - suddenly frowned. "We've got a bloody straggler out there…"
Ashley followed his eyes and spotted the straggler in question. Off in the distance a lone colonist was struggling to escape from a horde of Spectres.
"Do one of you want to help our shiny metal friends out?" Blisk jerked his head in the direction of the pursuit. "Eh?"
Ashley felt a gloved hand settle on her shoulder. She turned her head and peered up into the helmeted face of her team leader.
"You get that one, Ash," James nodded.
Ashley nodded in affirmation and raised her R-101; she peered into the scope and settled the crosshair on the fleeing man's back. The short burst of rounds she sent in his direction bit into his back and sent him sprawling onto the ground - but he wasn't dead yet.
Ashley didn't need to fire her rifle off again… the Spectres caught up and finished him off...
"Stop!" Ashley hissed. "I- I was following orders…"
Her bare bottom felt cold against the tiles of the shower floor. When had she fallen to the ground? She couldn't remember…
The shower water was pooling around her and Ashley moved her heel so that it wasn't blocking the drain.
'How many families did you drag from their homes?'
"I am a representative of the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation," James droned out. In his left hand was a piece of paper that authenticated his claim, he held it up for the small crowd to see. "This land has been marked with IMC ownership, you all need to go…"
Ashley's grip on her submachine gun tensed when the crowd began muttering. She could feel Caleb shifting uneasily next to her. The man had an excellent danger sense - better than hers…
If Caleb was uneasy then so was she…
A rock sailed from the crowd and bounced harmlessly off of James's helmet.
"Bastard!" An older man roared from the crowd. "My family has worked this land for generations! Who are you to tell us to leave!?"
"I am a representative of the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation," James repeated himself, his tone more terse than before. "I am telling you rabble to clear out! Grab your things and go or else we are authorized to use force!"
"I'm not leaving!" The same older man roared again. He stomped out of the crowd and came right up to James's face. "No! You have no right to do this!"
"The deed says otherwise…" James growled, his right hand moving low.
"Ash… Colt," Caleb whispered to his teammates over their helmet radios. "Move to surround 'em."
Ashley and Colton did as suggested. They stalked around the group of increasingly irate civilians with cautious motions. Ashley's grip on her CAR got a little bit tighter.
"This is your last warning," James spoke in a low, dangerous tone. "Get out… now…"
"No," the older man stiffened his upper lip and straightened his back.
James sighed and rolled his neck for a moment.
"Then you'll serve as the example then…"
Ashley's team leader drew his sidearm and neatly planted a bullet right between the older man's eyes.
"He was given every chance," Ashley chuckled humorously. "He could have just left… things didn't have to go that way."
The crowd had been far more compliant after the older man crumpled to the ground. Ironically, it hadn't been the land deed that had convinced them of the IMC's authority… it had been the execution.
Did the old man have family members in that crowd? Probably...
'How many civilians did you gun down like wild animals?'
"Come on, get up," Ashley grumbled. She slipped her rifle onto her back and bent down at the waist; she curled her gloved fingers into the jacket the man below her was clad in.
Ashley pulled the groaning man to his feet and roughly shoved him in the right direction. He stumbled for a moment and paused - Ashley gave him a swift kick on the ass to keep him moving.
"Move! And don't even think about running!" Ashley warned the injured civilian. "If you try to run… I'll shoot you."
"If I keep walking, I'll get shot," the man muttered.
"Tough luck," Ashley drew her pistol and jabbed the barrel into his back. "Now walk."
Their destination was a small concrete wall on the outskirts of a village the IMC was busy dismantling. Ashley's team leader was already waiting there for her, along with a firing line of Spectre droids.
"This one too?" James called out to Ashley, gesturing to the man she was escorting.
"He had some Militia hiding in his house," Ashley reported. She roughly shoved the man in the direction of her leader.
"Bad choice, pal," James sighed. He handed the injured civilian off to one of the Spectre droids. The droid roughly tugged the man over to the wall and shoved him against it, face-first.
There were several others lining the wall as well. All were made to face it… all were completely silent.
The Spectre droids lined up and raised their rifles.
"Real shame about all this," James turned away from the firing line. He planted a gentle hand on Ashley's shoulder pad and turned her to face the village. "I really wish that they would just accept it…"
"Likewise," Ashley grumbled. "This isn't what I signed up for…"
The sharp cracks of the firing line's rifles didn't make Ashley jump - it was a sound that she was becoming accustomed too.
The Spectre's would drag the bodies to the large pit the IMC had dug - where they would be thrown in with the rest. Firing lines were a rather efficient way of executing their enemies and a mass grave ensured that there would be as little stink as possible.
The IMC was always efficient...
"Shut up!" Ashley roared and kicked out her feet. Her toes smashed against the wall of the tight shower. Ashley hissed in agony and reached out her hands to tenderly clutch her throbbing toes.
"Fuck off and be quiet…" Ashley huffed again, blinking tears out of her eyes.
Were the tears from the pain? Or something else? She wasn't sure…
"Shut up, stay dead," Ashley choked.
All at once the voices were silent, leaving Ashley's head empty and silent. The drone of the showerhead quickly filled the empty void.
Ashley very gingerly stood up, turned the shower off, and limped out of the bathroom.
