It had been four days since Ana had a proper rest or a bite of food that didn't feel like viscous sludge on her tongue – all discomforts expected from working in the field, and not difficult to put out of her mind. After all, when surrounded by an army of omnics apt to shoot them on sight, creature comforts not so much as took a backseat, but was thrown and locked in the boot. Survival and discretion were priority, if they intended to return without incident – and Ana did so intend, for this had been her initiative.
Since arriving in the Alexandria base, General Mahmoud and Major Jaida had been butting heads with the resident commanders non-stop – practically fighting a war of their own at the war table, long before they even clashed with the omnics. They fought over every minute detail of their operations, not to mention the war-worn commanders' firm belief that they were deployed on a suicide mission. The argument was moot – they would mobilise their forces whether they liked it or not, but Ana couldn't stand their foolish waste of time any longer. She proposed a recon mission of her own to Jaida – who was more than happy to approve it, giving Ana the authority to assemble a few units to scout the enemy camp.
After months of following the conflict through maps, written reports and field cams, she was finally able to lay her eyes upon the very omnics responsible for their ever-rising death toll. Ana and her spotter had moved some distance ahead of the other scout units, setting up camp just before the omnics' field production plants. These were the storey-high structures highlighted in their map, that churned out omnics to replenish their depleted numbers – though it was fortunate that these were still not as effective as the main Omnium, only able to operate on a smaller scale. The three factories were their main targets for the upcoming assault, the key to loosening the omnics' grip over Alexandria. Though the problem could've been easily solved with an airstrike long ago, an aerial bombardment would cause excessive infrastructural damage to the city – necessitating a ground assault instead.
And that was what worried Ana. The longer she watched the omnics in action, the more she grew uneasy. Though she did appreciate their mechanical efficiency, there was something unsettling in the way they moved – it was so smooth, and not once had she spotted an omnic slowing down to communicate with another. They acted like a hive mind – each omnic knew its place and performed its duties without causing any disruptions. There were no words, only the rarest fleeting gestures as the omnics passed each other, before they flowed onto the next task. Ana couldn't help but think of them as puppets – and if they were, who or what was pulling their strings?
"There," her spotter said. "The engineer again. Or another one. Really can't tell the difference between those bastards."
Ana turned her scope towards the indicated direction, and spotted an omnic working at the lone control panel installed on the factory's back wall. It was of a slighter build than the regular infantry units, and had wire-like attachments on its arms that it used to interface with electronics. They were the engineers – a rare sight in combat, but an indispensable fixture within the omnic camp. They repaired injured soldiers and damaged weapons, produced new equipment, scrounged for tech in abandoned buildings, and were responsible for the upkeep of the production plants.
She watched the omnic stare at the panel with its red eye, right hand connected to a port beside the panel, and before long a stream of new omnic soldiers started marching out of the factory's front door one by one.
"Wish I could shoot them dead here and now," Amr growled, observing the very same scene through his spotter's scope. "Kill them before they can kill anyone else."
"You'll get your chance soon, Lieutenant," Ana replied flatly. When she noticed his hand curling repeatedly beside the scope, she said, "Check on our stealth unit."
"Yes, ma'am," he muttered. Leaving his scope on the table they had pushed up against the window, he approached the heavy device set up behind them. It was a new design based on the personal stealth kits – something that could produce a field to envelope a limited area, instead of just one person. It would be useful for positioning troops in the field while still flying under the omnics' radar, but it was unreliable. Just the day before, the device's displays had flickered dangerously as if losing power, forcing them to activate their personal kits so Amr could tinker with the prototype gadget.
Glancing back at her partner, Ana caught him biting his lip and frowning down at the device. "When you're done, take a break."
Amr blinked, looking up at her. "But ma'am, it's supposed to be your–"
"I can hold out longer. You look like you're going to fly out of here and punch the omnics with your bare hands."
He let out a gritty laugh. "If only I could, ma'am. But thanks."
Ana snorted softly, then turned her focus back to the omnics on the ground below. She watched the last of the new omnics march out of the plant, metallic grey doors finally sliding shut behind them. Her finger twitched against the trigger guard as the new soldiers merged seamlessly with the rest of the omnics. She understood Amr's sentiment all too well – each omnic they let live here, would likely take human lives in the future. But if they broke their cover now, they would only waste their own lives before doing any good.
So Ana watched and waited. Their time would come.
Two more uneventful days passed, and the recon units returned to base according to plan. Ana was glad to find Jaida in better spirits, the major having won the head-butting contest and was gearing their troops up for battle. But they met another unexpected delay when the recon teams submitted their reports – Ana's in particular had caught the eye of their engineers. The information and footage she gathered of the omnic factories had inspired a new method to shut them down – something more subtle and elegant than simply sticking explosives onto its walls. So the minds went to work immediately, cooking up an invention of their own, while the brawns were stuck at the barricades in an endless vigil.
Though Ana would've preferred to leap into action right after the recon, she was grateful for the chance to take a breather. Grabbing some sleep without her body on alert for danger was the first luxury she took, and the second was a hot meal at the mess hall. Both served to put her together before she made the first vidcall home in a week, and her fainter eye shadows seemed to go unnoticed by Kamilah, who was relieved to see her doing well.
Ana listened with a smile as Kamilah told of all that had happened with Fareeha, the most eventful of which was the girl's teething. Fareeha had started becoming restless and much more fussy, crying more often in the recent days. Kamilah grew infinitely worried when she noticed Fareeha's gums growing swollen, relaxing only when informed by the pediatrician that the girl was indeed teething, and not growing ill. She had lost quite a bit of sleep since then, but assured Ana that she was keeping things well under control. Fareeha had joined the vidcall too, but appeared sulky and didn't seem interested in much, spending most of the time snuggled tightly against Kamilah with pouted lips. She only responded to Ana's voice a couple of times, before hugging about Kamilah's neck with a whine – apparently a sign that she was getting bothered by her gums again.
Even though Fareeha was less than happy in the call, the memory of her chubby features scrunched in a pout still made Ana feel lighter. As it always did, a small smile hung on her lips before disappearing quickly with a sigh. Ana returned a fellow captain's nod as they passed each other, then came to a stop on the walkway. She looked out from where she stood on the base's southern wall, unconsciously reaching for her ring finger. After twisting the absent ring once around her finger, she looked down, vaguely amused at the lapse in memory. She had left her wedding ring at home for weeks now, and yet she hadn't stopped instinctively searching for it.
Tugging at the right sleeve of her uniform, Ana gazed down at the tattoo on her wrist, rubbing a thumb gently over the swallow's outline. She allowed herself a moment of wistful thought, mind wandering back home to her wife and child, before pressing her lips together. Straightening her sleeve, Ana resumed her daily round along the wall, keeping an eye on her company as they patrolled the perimeter. They had gotten excited at her return a few days earlier, only to fall into more restless waiting when no new commands came. Perhaps they were doing a little too much waiting, Ana thought, when her eyes fell upon a soldier standing guard by the turrets. His eyes were fixated on the rifle in his hands instead of keeping watch ahead, and his fingers fidgeted endlessly with the gun's fore grip and magazine.
Ana came to a stop behind him, but when he showed no sign of either noticing her presence or refocusing on his task, she cleared her throat loudly.
He jumped, spinning on his heels and snapping to attention when he recognised his commanding officer. "Ma'am!" he barked smartly.
"Something wrong with your rifle, sergeant?"
His throat bobbed as he swallowed nervously. "No, ma'am. I was–, distracted. I am sorry. It will never happen again."
"Get distracted again, and it might be the last time you ever do so." Ana smiled wryly when he seemed ready to wilt on his feet. Stepping forward, she grabbed onto his rifle and tugged it out of his grasp. Ignoring his half-hearted explanation, Ana turned the rifle over in her hands, running a sharp eye along the polished surface until she spotted two small scratches in its fore grip. Acting as if she hadn't noticed, she said lazily, "What's on your mind that is so important, sergeant?"
"It's nothing, ma'am," he replied almost reflexively, but seemed to lose conviction when Ana raised a brow at him. "I–, it's just nervousness, ma'am. Nothing more." He fell silent as Ana continued with her lengthy inspection of his rifle, hefting the weapon to get a feel of its weight, until he worked up his courage to speak again. "May I ask a question, ma'am?"
A small smile curved the corner of her lips, and she looked at the man. "Shoot."
"Do you think this will work, ma'am?" He nodded towards the combat zone. "This assault. Will we win?"
"What do you think?"
"I…don't know." He lowered his gaze in embarrassment, scratching at his growing stubble. "Right now, I'm just…nervous."
"We all are," Ana said. "Victory's never a certainty. It's all up to you, and how hard you're willing to fight to make it a reality." She thrust the rifle back into his hands, taking him aback with the sudden motion.
He gripped onto the rifle, and after a moment's thought, nodded resolutely. Ana took a discrete sigh of relief – that was the thinnest line of bravado to have ever passed her lips. Thankfully the sergeant didn't seem in the mood to question her words.
"Thank you, ma'am." He gave a weak smile and turned back to the front – then snapped back to Ana again as she started to leave. "May I ask another question, ma'am? If…you don't mind."
"Yes?"
His smile turned sheepish. "I heard that you have a child. Is that true?"
Ana cocked her head, curiosity piqued. "Yes. Why the question?"
"It's just that some of us think you look too young," he said slowly, growing more and more abashed by the words coming out of his mouth. "It's just that we've seen very little of you, and with all that we've heard, I just wanna know…"
"Really," Ana snorted, striding forward and knocking him in the chest. "Then go back and tell your fishwives it's true. And that I'm going to kick their asses for saying I look too young."
The sergeant let out a nervous laugh. "Yes, ma'am."
"Also," she added as she walked off, waving a hand nonchalantly. "If they survive the assault, drinks are on me."
She could hear the grin in his voice when he called after her, "Yes, ma'am!"
They moved from base at 0930, the large contingent reaching the barricades at 1000. At 1015, the assault commenced.
Ana fought alongside her company's first platoon for the initial phase, the assault rifle hot in her hands as she got her first taste of battle against the omnics – and it was terrifying. It was one thing to face humans willing to fight and die for a cause they believed in with a passion. It was another thing all together to fight cold, dispassionate beings with seemingly no other objective than the relentless slaughter of humans. The red-eyed omnics felt so…different from their normal counterparts. There was no sign of personality, no quirks, not even the spark of life within them – they were just machines programmed with a singular goal in mind. As Ana gunned down one omnic after another, her fear dissipated with each shower of sparks and shattering of alloy, leaving herself as empty as their foes appeared to be.
The army soon left a vast trail of bodies in its wake – flesh and metal alike – as they broke through the first line of defense, surging ever deeper into omnic territory. That was when Ana split off from her company as planned, leaving her experienced lieutenants in charge of their respective platoons, and sprinted along the edge of the combat zone with her own hand-picked squad. They activated their personal stealth kits as they neared the omnic factories, but as damned luck would have it, they came face-to-face with an omnic squad when only half of their people were fully cloaked. They won the ensuing firefight, but Ana lost her demolitions expert, and the engineer had taken a round in her shoulder and thigh. She had to be carried to their destination – the third floor of an office building.
As the engineer was getting patched up, Ana established radio contact with the rest of Ghost – three squads chosen to take down the factories while the omnics were preoccupied with the frontal assault. The squads comprised only of Guard soldiers, and Khalid was one of the squad leaders as well. All were in position, though Ghost-2 and 3 reported 1 and 3 KIA respectively. Ana gave her acknowledgement, then told them to hold positions until further orders.
She turned back to her squad, now visible with their stealth kits activated, though still invisible to others thanks to the new stealth field. Ana glanced down at the prototype device on the floor, making sure it was in working order. At a few quick gestures from her, three soldiers nodded and reactivated their personal kits, stepping out of the stealth field to take lookout positions by the windows.
Ana moved over to the group of soldiers still within the field, in the middle of which was their engineer, sitting on the floor as her wounds were bandaged by their medic.
"How is she?"
"Stable, but movement will be limited."
"Ma'am," the engineer piped up. "Recommend that you leave me behind when you go for the factory. I'll just slow you down."
Ana nodded. "We'll come back for you after."
"I'm counting on it," Nehal replied with a pained smirk. She held up a cylindrical device towards Ana, who took it. "Just stick it into the port beside the control panel, and it'll do the job for you."
"That simple, huh?"
"As long as you have it with you, yeah. Lose it, and I hope you can learn omnic code in, like, five minutes."
Ana snorted, rolling her eyes plainly enough for Nehal to see, before turning back to the windows when Khalid's voice crackled over her earpiece.
"Ghost-1, I think we have a problem. You have eyes on Target Alpha?"
She thumbed the power for her stealth kit, and walked towards the windows to look at the factory. Her stomach sank at the number of omnics still present around it. She glanced down at the map, where the blue markers of the army were marching inexorably upon the omnics, though slower than anticipated. "Yes, Ghost-2. Seems they're not diverting their forces yet."
"They might not move at all."
"Agreed," Ana replied, keeping her eyes on the patrolling omnics.
"Recommend we move before they start churning out more units."
A moment's pause. "Negative. We will hold for–"
Ana was cut short when Jaida's harsh bark blasted through the priority channel, amid gunfire and artillery shots in the background. "All units, fall back to Firepoint Theta! Ignore all previous orders and fall back to Firepoint Theta now!"
Surprised by the sudden change in plan, she tried to raise a channel to Jaida. It took a while for Ana to reach her on the comms, and the major sounded extremely pissed when she did. "Ma'am, what is happening–"
"Have you gone deaf, Amari? I said, fall back to Theta now – that includes Ghost as well."
"But if we don't take out the factories now, we won't get another chance to–"
"The omnics are pushing through the barricades at Theta. If they reach the base, Amari, you won't get another fucking chance to do anything other than rot in the goddamn ground!"
"But ma'am–"
"Get your people here at once, Amari! That's an order!"
"Yes, ma'am," Ana replied, but the channel was cut before she could finish.
"Captain?"
Ana turned back to her squad, heart pounding in her chest.
"Captain, are we falling back?" Nehal asked.
She gazed long and hard at the engineer, then scrutinised each of her soldiers' faces. Steeling herself, she took a deep breath and said, "No, not yet. We'll take out the factories first."
To her squad's credit, they didn't even blink at her words. Instead, they gave determined nods and readied their weapons as Ana relayed her orders to the other Ghost squads. Khalid threw his lot in with her immediately, and the third squad leader only did so after a short bout of argument.
They were ready to move.
Ana left her sniper in the building with Nehal, and led her eight remaining soldiers towards Target Alpha. The ranks of omnics surrounding them was daunting, but they took steady steps towards their objective, careful not to give away their cloaked positions. When they were close enough, Ana signaled for them to halt. Four soldiers drew their grenades and, at Ana's mark, lobbed them towards strategic spots in the omnic formation.
Red eyes swiveled up at the grenades that became visible while making their arcs through the air. The omnics tried to scramble away from the blast radius, but the combined EMP burst managed to take out more than a third of their numbers. Metal bodies fell to the ground as weapons were raised, their sniper's rifle already ringing out with continuous shots long before the rattle of assault weapons added to the cacophony.
Ana ordered her squad to spread out, ducking behind any cover they could find while advancing upon the omnic forces. One last grenade volley, and they sprinted for the factory. Ana leapt over an omnic engineer's body as she approached the control panel. Her squad formed a defensive line around her, fighting off the surrounding omnics as she withdrew the hacking device from her pocket. She tapped on the keypad experimentally, but a long line of omnic code appeared on the screen. Unable to read the gibberish, she followed Nehal's instruction and stabbed the device into the round port beside the keypad. The code onscreen disappeared, replaced by a simple phrase in Arabic: 'Override in progress'.
"Are you fucking kidding me!" Ana spun on her heel, hefting her rifle to join the firing line. "Not even a fucking progress bar? Nehal!" She opened a channel to their engineer, finger squeezing her rifle's trigger as she did so. "How am I supposed to know when it's done!"
"Look at the screen? Or – something will break inside the factory. So listen for something breaking."
Ana growled in frustration, cutting the channel off with a curt acknowledgement. Her eyes kept darting back to the screen, which was ever stuck on the same three maddening words, and she paid for her inattention by suffering a shot in her bicep. She grunted in pain and faltered for a second, before lunging forward to grab the grenade that had fallen into their midst. She flung it away just in the nick of time – it exploded in the air before reaching its highest arc.
Her right arm was starting to go numb under the pain and the constant kickback from the rifle, her sleeve getting soaked through with blood, when something finally creaked dangerously from inside the factory, followed by a loud crash. Ana turned back to the control panel immediately, relieved to find 'Override complete' written on the screen. She yanked the device from the jack, and the screen went dark – that was when she noticed that significant decrease in gunfire.
Ana looked around, and discovered the only shooting came from her squad, though they came to a stop after they realised the omnics had gone completely still. They stared at the inert robots, both human and machine forces frozen in their firing positions, until the omnics straightened themselves as one. They fired at the omnics reflexively, but their foes showed no signs of acknowledging their presence. Instead, they turned towards the south and fled – first in peace, then amid a hail of bullets when Ana ordered her squad to pick off as many as they could.
"Ghost-1, this is Ghost-2, over."
"This is Ghost-1 Actual. Report."
"Targets are hacked and neutralised, ma'am. The omnics have fled, and we're giving medical aid to Ghost-3. Nearly half of them are wounded."
Ana gritted her teeth and passed an eye over her own squad, many of whom were bleeding and being tended to by their medic. "Roger. Get patched up, then rendezvous at my position. We'd better hurry back before Jaida rips into my ass."
Khalid gave a short, tired laugh. "Our asses, you mean."
"No," Ana said firmly. "Only mine."
Ana stood as steadily as she could – eyes forward, back rigid, hands gripping each other behind her back. She fought down the urge to gulp under Jaida's gaze – cold enough to turn the whole of Egypt into a frozen wasteland. A part of her much preferred Jaida to yell at her and be done with it; at least she had practice with the major's wrath before. But this, being ordered to stay after their debriefing, waiting for a reprimand alone in a room, was so much more unnerving. Despite the mission being declared a success by command, and with the omnic factories under their custody, she knew Jaida was less than pleased with her behaviour in the field.
She nearly recoiled when Jaida took her first step towards Ana. Then another, and another, until Jaida stood before her closely enough that she couldn't turn her eyes away.
"I should have you court-martialed, Amari," Jaida hissed, quiet and ominous. "You disobeyed orders, led my soldiers on your own mission, and put the security of the base at risk. What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am."
"You're sorry?" Jaida barked a humourless laugh, pacing once in a circle in front of Ana, then faced her again. "But you're not."
"I made what I judged to be the best decision at the time, ma'am. If we didn't take out the factories then, they would've easily made more units and sent them to Theta. With our forces weakened as it is, we wouldn't have the numbers to repel them. Even if we did, command would've scrubbed our plan because we failed to achieve our primary objective. Then we'd be back at square one."
Jaida clenched her jaw, glaring daggers at Ana. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, making an obvious effort to relax her tense shoulders. "As much as I hate to say it, you're right."
Ana blinked at the admission, and blurted, "Ma'am?"
"We would've held off the omnics even without Ghost. I want you to understand – we could've had less casualties if Ghost had fallen back to Theta as ordered. But if you hadn't deactivated the factories…we would've been done for. Dragged back to Cairo to wait for a slow death." Jaida heaved a sigh. "You made a good call out there, Amari. But don't get used to disobeying orders. Not all your bets will win."
"I understand, ma'am. And I truly am sorry."
"Spare me your apologies." Jaida turned towards the war table, waving a hand. "Now get out of my sight before I really do punch you."
"So I heard you're the hero we have to thank for the win."
Ana raised a brow. "How'd you know?"
Kamilah laughed. "Deyab's the fishmonger among the fishwives here. Any gossip will go through him. And obviously anything about my wife comes straight to me."
"Well, he needs to shut up. I wanted to brag to you first, you know." Ana grinned at her phone, as she sat outside her barracks tent under the evening sky.
"You can still brag. I mean, when you get full of yourself, nothing can really shut you up."
"Hey! That's not true." She pouted, but couldn't keep it up with Kamilah smiling back at her. "Now, enough about my smart and talented self. How are you, my dearest wife?"
"I'm your only wife," Kamilah said drily. "And I'm obviously doing better than you. Please tell me that bandage on your arm is the only one."
Ana glanced down at her bicep which, despite her best efforts, had peeked into the screen. So she lifted it, giving Kamilah a better look. "Yeah, it is. Bullet wound."
"Guess I should be thankful you only got shot once," Kamilah sighed.
For now, Ana nearly quipped, but managed to hold her tongue. "Yup. How's Fareeha? Her teeth grow out yet? Where is she? I wanna see her."
"She's sleeping, let her be. The less she's aware of her teeth, the better." Kamilah shook her head tiredly. "But she's been fine. Her first bottom tooth's already grown, but another's also coming out. So she's still fussy."
"You poor things," Ana cooed. "But I'm sure you're being the best mama ever."
"I hope so," Kamilah huffed, lowering her gaze. "I miss you."
"I'm sure. In your place, I'd miss me too–" Ana burst out in cackles, unable to hold it in when Kamilah clicked her tongue. She bent over in laughter, then groaned out loud when the wound in her arm throbbed. "Ah…fuck."
"I'll let that one slide."
"You're such an angel," Ana laughed, then caught her breath. "I'll be back soon enough, albi."
"I know you will."
"What, not going to make me promise?"
Kamilah gazed at her through the screen, lips curving in a soft smile. "I don't need one."
A loud cry pierced the peaceful night air, and Kamilah woke immediately, already attuned to this particular alarm clock. But it was not without difficulty – Kamilah's eyes were barely open even as she rose sluggishly from the bed, taking a few disoriented steps before losing her balance, forcing her to lean against the wall for support. Only when she was steady on her feet, did she make her way to the crib, where Fareeha was crying and dragging her heels over the sheets, pulling at her own ear in her discomfort.
Kamilah bent down and carried the child carefully in her arms, blinking away the bleariness in her vision. She let Fareeha clutch onto her finger, swaying on her feet as she sang softly to the child. When the tears didn't show any sign of subsiding, Kamilah made a quick trip into the bathroom, running her fingertip under the tap before massaging Fareeha's gums gently. She started with the area beside Fareeha's single tooth, then at her upper gums, alternating between the two spots until Fareeha slowly calmed down, and was able to look at Kamilah properly through teary eyes.
Smiling down at her daughter, Kamilah planted kisses on her chubby hand, nose and forehead, until Fareeha had let go of her own ear, and was reaching both arms towards her mother. Lifting the girl up and hugging Fareeha to her chest, Kamilah guided the girl's head to rest on her shoulder, heart aching when she felt Fareeha's hiccups, and little hands grabbing onto her t-shirt. She knew this was normal during teething, but she couldn't help feeling powerless to ease the girl's discomfort. All she could do was alleviate the pain temporarily, or help to distract the girl from her little bouts of distress. What she wouldn't give to take her daughter's misery upon herself.
She sighed, taking to her habitual pacing around the bedroom, patting gently on Fareeha's back to lull her into sleepiness again. The first week of Fareeha's teething had left her feeling terribly insecure without Ana. Not that Ana always had the answers, but having her around made things easier to handle. Even when they fumbled, they fumbled and learnt and grew together. Ana's absence coupled with Fareeha's fusses had left Kamilah questioning herself, wondering if the past months had gone so smoothly solely because of Ana, and if she could handle being a mother alone.
Seeing the new tooth grow into place in Fareeha's mouth had served as an unexpected anchor, though. Not to mention that Fareeha still seemed to enjoy her mother's presence the most, even after spending nights whining on Kamilah's shoulder from the soreness in her gums. Maybe she wasn't doing that bad after all.
When Fareeha had calmed down, Kamilah lowered her carefully into the crib and rubbed her tummy, getting a gurgle from her. Fareeha cooed back at her mother, reaching up to tangle her fingers in Kamilah's hair. Chuckling softly, Kamilah leaned down and planted another kiss on her nose, Fareeha flashing a not-so-toothless grin in return.
Maybe she wasn't doing bad at all.