Chapter 3 - Present

Later that night, Anna had joined back up with most of her team, Lennox having gone to the computer communcations tent to video chat with his wife, Sarah a little bit ago after having the boy that they had found earlier that week wandering the dessert help him put some of the gear away.

Anna watched off to the side as Epps and the others played basketball against another team. She found it amusing when Epps trashtalked the other team. His comments could get real creative if he wanted to.

"Watch this crossover, baby. Like Jordan in his prime, pushing through the front line." Epps said, dribbling the ball.

linebreak

Anna looked up when she heard two jets launched into the sky, heading towards something. She began to get a bad feeling, something was coming. Anna had learned years ago to go with these feelings she got sometimes and every single time, she was right. She didn't know what it was, or why she got them, but she was real glad that she had them because they had saved her life and her teammates' several times throughout the years that they've been working together.

She went towards the barracks, speed walking, ignoring her teammates calling out for her before they went back to their basketball game.

Entering the barracks, she stripped out of her casual army issued clothes and began to put on her army fatigues and her kevlar vest, tying her hair into a braid, and then putting the braid into a bun, to keep her hair out of her face. She was letting her instincts now rule her movements, they have never steered her wrong before.

She grabbed her pair of Jimmy Choo Ello sunglasses and then grabbed an insulated backpack before heading to the dining hall tent. Entering, she grabbed twenty bottles of frozen water bottles and putting them into the insultated backpack and then strapping the bag over her shoulders before heading towards the weapon and utilities tent.

Anna was almost there, it being almost nightfall, when she began to hear it.

Shots being fired, the beginning of screams coming from men on the other side of the base. She began to sprint towards the weapons tent, coming inside, she grabbed and strapped on two handguns to her thighs, one MR-15 gun strapped acrossed her chest and two belts of grenades strapped the other way across her chest. She also grabbed some extra bullets for the guns and threw them into her backpack ontop of the water bottles as the sound of dying men and explosions was getting louder. Before she closed her bag, she saw a fully stocked first aid kit for a field medic lying on the table. She grabbed it, tossed it into her bag, and sprinted out of the tent, and towards where she could somehow sense her team were. She came around some tanks to see something that shouldn't be possible. A large, mechanical machine blowing up tanks, helicoptors, jets, and soldiers… And right in front of him, was Epps!

"EPPS!" Anna shouted, sprinting towards the fallen man, sliding into the dirt beside him on her knees. At the same time she did so, she took one of the grenades off of one of the belts across her chest, pulled the pin out, and threw it straight at the robots chest. She pulled Epps up and dragged him towards the others, just in time too because not only was the robot beginning to fire at them, but also, the grenade that she had just launched towards it, exploded.

"Epps, Jackson, let's go!" Lennox said, dragging the two of them in between two tanks just in time because the robot moved its attention from them and onto the large aircraft carriers, firing at them and other soldiers, destroying and killing them all.

As the robot was occupied, they got into one of the few intact tanks and began to move, away from the robot, and hopefully to be able to live another day. Fig drove while Donnely navigated, showing the little boy that had been with Lennox how things worked.

Epps, Anna, and Lennox sat in the back with the others of their team, in shock, not understanding what had happened, why it had happened. As they came down from the adernaline high and fear that had been consuming them, some just fell asleep, not having anymore energy in them. Anna, Lennox, and Epps stayed awake, not able to sleep as they each hoped that what had happened was only a nightmare and that they were going to wake up any minute. Sadly, that didn't happen.

linebreak

"Sir, there has been an emergency broadcast by the Secretary of Defense." JARVIS, the AI, reported. Interrupting his maker's work. Concerned and confused on why JARVIS was telling him this, he questioned him.

"And why should I care about what Secretary Keller has to say?" Tony Stark asked, putting down his wielding and taking off his mask.

"Sir, he has released a list of names of soldiers that were on a base in Qatar. I think you see his broadcast before I tell you anything further, Sir."

"Oh, alright, JARVIS, pull it up."

"I'm John Keller, the U.S. Secretary of Defense. At 1900 local time yesterday, the SOCCENT Forward Operations Base in Qatar was attacked. So far as we know, there were no survivors. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of the soldiers based at Qatar. We have not, as of yet, been able to identify who attacked the Qatar Base, but be reassured that we will and they will be held accountable for the lives that they destroyed. Thank you."

The broadcast turned off at the end. But then JARVIS pulled up a list of the hundreds of soldiers that had been on the base during the attack.

"What am I looking at here, JARVIS?"

"Sir, when you built my mainframe you uploaded a picture of a Miss Anna Stark and put into my protocol to look for any woman with the description and name as Miss Stark…" JARVIS paused, having noticed that his master had tensed up at the mention of his little sister. Tony began to dread what JARVIS was going to say next, fearing what he was about to say. JARVIS brought up one name, a Anna Jackson. And above the name was a picture. It was Anna!

"JARVIS, please tell me that this is a joke." Tony begged, not acting like his usual self. But he never did when concerning his sister, his little sister, who disappeared when he said something unforgivable years ago.

"I wish I could, Sir, but it appears that Miss Anna Maria Stark changed her name to Miss Anna Marie Jackson. And she was one of the soldiers based at Qatar when it was attacked."

Tony began to feel anger, anger towards whoever had taken his sister from him before they could reconcile, before he could see if he could salvage their relationship.

"JARVIS, I want you to find out who did this. Keep an eye on NSA, CIA, FBI, all of the alphabet soup companies, but do it discreetly. And also, buy a plot of land by Mom and Dad's graves… She would have wanted to be buried there."

"Of course, Sir."

Tony went over to his emergency stash of alcohol in his lab, grabbed all of the bottles, including the horrible cheap beer that Rhodey had gotten him as a gag gift for April Fools years ago, and began to drown his sorrows in alcohol.

His little sister was gone… Forever.