Camp Signal
04:21 hours
Captain Jade storms into the barracks of 4th Platoon and swipes on the lights.
"Wake up 4th Platoon!" he shouts, along with multiple other synonymous phrases laced with cursing. The soldiers scramble out of their bunks and pull on their camouflage pants, jackets and combat boots. "We're being mobilized for patrol on the borders! Report to the mess hall for chow then come back for your gear!" The soldiers file out the door one by one, Jade staring them down as they pass him. He's about to leave behind the last one when he notices something in his peripheral vision. He turns around and, sure enough, it's Private Rose. She has her sleep mask over her eyes and headphones covering her ears.
"Private Rose!" Jade shouts. No response from the girl. He walks over to her bunk and leans down so he's right next to her ear.
"PRIVATE ROSE!" he bellows. Rose immediately sits up, sitting her head on the bunk above hers. "GET THE FUCK UP PRIVATE!" The soldier lets out a quiet squeal and rips the mask and headphones from her face with shaking hands.
"Yes sir!" Rose cracks. Music is still blaring out of the headphones. She rolls out of bed and digs under the covers for her scroll.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING PRIVATE!" Jade yells. Rose unsurely stands at attention.
"I-"
"Keep working!" Rose goes back to the covers. She doesn't need to look at him to know that Jade is fuming right now. She feels the scroll under the blanket and feels for the volume button under the blanket. The sound turns up.
"You are a disgrace to the VAF, Private!" Jade shouts. Rose digs in her locker for her pants. Her jacket falls on the floor. "If I were waking you up because we were under attack, you and I would be in a smoking fucking crater!"
"Yes, Sir!" Rose says with a knot the size of said crater in her throat. She tries to sit down to slip through both pant legs at once, but hits her head on the bunk again, and stands back up.
"I'm not waiting on your sorry ass!" Jade declares. "Report to the mess hall in two mikes, or you're burning the base's shit for the next week!"
"Yes, Sir," Rose mutters, and Jade storms out. She eventually gets into her pants and picks her jacket up off the ground, but it's inside out. She reaches into one sleeve, and her hand gets stuck on the cuff. Finally, she snaps, and rips the jacket off with all her might, throws it onto the top bunk, and punches her fist into the bunk frame in front of her in a fit of rage.
"I see the Captain is treating you well," a voice says from the doorway. Rose turns around and sees Staff Sergeant Penny Blackwell leaning against the doorway, smiling. She must've slipped behind Jade, knowing Rose wouldn't hear him initially.
"Yeah, he's great," Rose says, rubbing her knuckles. "Reminds me of PE sometimes." Penny chuckles.
"Somehow I knew you'd say that, friend," she says. Rose smiles. Penny is her only real friend in the military; her other squadmates mostly mind her, but Penny goes out of her way to make sure Rose is comfortable, going as far as to volunteer to be her spotter. It must've been really obvious that Rose isn't typical VAF grunt material and could use the helping hand reforming.
"Isn't Jade gonna be mad?" Rose asks, getting her jacket on.
"Nah, it's just a drill, he doesn't really care. He only scares you because you're easy to scare," Penny explains with a smile. "Come on, let's walk together."
"No, don't let me hold you up," Rose says. She takes her boots out of the locker. "I'll meet you there in a bit. Jade's already gonna be pissed that I'll be late."
"How long are you burning shit this time?"
"A week." Penny motions her head to one side.
"Eh, not bad." The two women laugh. "See you soon, friend."
"See ya," Rose says, and Penny leaves for the mess hall. Rose pulls on her boots and begins tying them.
Why the hell am I here? She asks herself in her head. I'm not fit to be a soldier.
Of course, she's fooling herself. That's what her uncle, Lieutenant Qrow, legendary scout sniper from the First Human-Faunus War would tell her. Like uncle, like niece apparently. All her life, she's been the quick one. She was running about as long as she could stand. The first time she went squirrel hunting with her father and his brother and held a rifle for the first time, it felt like an extension of her arm. She could move passed people without them ever knowing she was there. When the popular girls would pick on her, she would start running and not stop until they were a mile away. She was practically born to be a scout sniper.
On the other hand, deep down inside her, she was just the same little girl, running from the crowds of the world just to play by herself with her toy gun. Likewise, she hated the military life of sleeping in the same room of her co-workers, eating packaged food that tasted about as good as they looked in a building full of trained killers, having to perform drill after drill after drill with them as if they really know each other. That's another reason why Rose is such a good scout sniper; she's only really relaxed when she's alone with her gun, her thoughts, and her spotter; someone she can really trust, like Penny.
She finishes tying both boots and heads outside.
It's a beautiful morning on Remnant. The stars are beginning their exodus, flickering away and being replaced by pink twilight. The moon is completing its orbit, the blown of chunks that stretched all the way to the core fully visible. A KA-21 Templar airship rests in the sky near the base, wings fully spread and silhouetted in the morning sky. Small dots, presumably the XL-449 Bullhead transport ships, dot back and forth, delivering and retrieving troops to and from the airship. That's most likely where 4th Platoon and the rest of the base will fly to first, in order to arrive at their drill location. Rose watches the little dots as she walks to the mess hall, like a girl watches butterflies jump from tree to tree.
Suddenly, all the lights in the base disappear; the barracks, the mess hall, the armory, the offices, the guard towers; everything goes dark. Not only that, but it turns unusually quiet. There's always trucks driving from one area of the base to the other, the generators feeding electricity to the base so they never have to risk a power failure caused by the civilian population, APCs, tanks and whatnot being worked on. It's like the base is one big machine with smaller components working independently. But none of that is happening now. Not a sound fills the dark sky. Rose starts to say aloud,
"What the-"
The dark sky is replaced by a sudden explosion of bright light, orange and white in color, and the mess hall is blown apart from the inside. Rose is thrust backward by the enormous shockwave as burning pieces of wood and metal fly out in all directions like a scaled up frag grenade. Sirens instantly wail.
Rose's mind races as she lays on the ground, the swirling flames of war stretching into the sky. What happened? Who caused it? Was it an accident? Are they under attack? Where's Penny?
Oh God, Penny. Her mind says. She scrambles to her feet and looks at what remains of the building, which is little more than the outer frame. Through the thick black smoke, she can see the airship fold its wings and start to move across the sky, puking out several squadrons of smaller ships. Gun shots ring out from the armory, and there's another explosion. Rose crouches down and reaches for her sidearm, but she left it in her locker.
Stupid, stupid! Fucking stupid! There's another explosion, possibly from the barracks, Rose isn't sure anymore, and a nearby squad of friendlies returns fire from the cover of a Paladin, an infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) developed in Atlas. Rose runs over to them.
"Who the hell are you?" one of them shouts to Rose.
"PFC Rose, scout sniper," she hastily replies. Adrenaline is beginning to take control of her body, and her mind switches to her training. She removes all thoughts of Penny and Jade and her platoon and panic from her head. "Who's CO?"
"Right here," a Lieutenant says. "Where's your unit?"
"In the mess hall," Rose answers, trying not to think about them. "What the hell is going on?"
"We got bogeys moving through the back of the base!" a soldier with an LMG replies. A squad of VAF troops runs out of their barracks, and are mowed down by someone inside. Rose momentarily freezes in terror as she watches the bodies fall, the blood spray from their backs, their screams of pain and agony joining the chorus of jet engines and gunshots and similar screams that fill the once peaceful twilight.
"Fuck, light it up!" the first soldier, a Lieutenant, orders. The soldiers turn around and open fire on the barracks, filling it with holes and shattering the windows. Someone hands Rose a rifle, she takes aim, and fires as well; her first shots in combat.
Welcome to war. She grimly tells herself.
A soldier jumps into the Paladin, crawls over to the drivers seat, and leaps out the door, next to the other soldiers. He's holding his bloodied leg.
"Sitrep, Corporal," the Lieutenant demands.
"Full scale attack," the Corporal says as he takes out his medkit. Rose stands up and piers through her scope across the hood of the Paladin, searching for targets. The fire from the mess hall illuminates several bodies, but she can't make out their uniforms. A grenade goes off nearby and makes them scatter. "There's maybe five, six dozen enemy troops inside the base right now. How the hell did they sneak up on us!?"
"Artillery? Armor?" the Lieutenant questions as he reloads his weapon.
"Negative, just infantry."
"Alright, we need to link up with that Templar," the Lieutenant says. Rose looks up and sees that the large ship is moving away from the base, its parasite aircraft returning to its hangars. "They won't engage if they think the enemy has anti air."
"Comms are down," a radioman says. "That blackout must've been an EMP burst, everything is down.
"I can make it," Rose says. The Lieutenant turns to her.
"What?" he asks.
"Airships aren't that fast. I can stay with it long enough to signal it and get it to turn around."
"What are you gonna do, run?"
"I told you, I'm a scout sniper." The Lieutenant begins to think it over, but is interrupted by a hail of gunfire pinging off the Paladin, and fires back.
"Fuck it, might as well," he decides, and hands Rose a flare. "Their infrared sensors won't detect something that small, so you'll have to get in visual range, and that's pretty damn close."
"I got it," Rose says, determined.
"Squad, hold fire!" the Lieutenant shouts. The soldiers get back into cover. "You run when we open up."
"Copy that," Rose says. She drops the rifle and pockets the flare. She plants her hands and feet firmly on the ground, ready to spring.
"Covering fire!" the Lieutenant shouts. The soldiers spring up and let out a hail of gunfire, and Rose shoots off.
She isn't entirely there for those first few seconds. The ground around her starts to explode from nearby bullets landing. She jumps over the dead bodies of her comrades, almost tripping over one of them. A fuel tank ignites a few hundred feet from her and, while it doesn't create a large explosion, she can feel the heat like she's standing right next to it. She tries to push the images surrounding her from her mind, looks straight ahead, and forces her legs to go a little faster.
She is apparently forgotten by both sides of the conflict by the time she leaves the perimeter of the base. She passes multiple bodies of retreating soldiers, most likely taken out by a sniper judging by the well placed wounds, but must've either been killed or relocated since, as she makes it far passed them without incident, but she doesn't slow down.
Even as the sounds of the battle fade behind her, and the endless desert where Camp Signal was located stretches out in front of her, she doesn't stop running, doesn't even slow down. She is facing the back engines of the airship as it moves away from the battle, out of range of the hostile surface to air missiles that don't exist. The first hour is most critical; this is when the Templar will use most of its engines to gain altitude in order to fly at max speed. That is when Rose must catch up to it. The lives of the men and women in Camp Signal depend on it.
She doesn't let the pressure slow her down, and forces her legs to work faster. She's already breathing hard, but doesn't care. She will make it in time.
As the airship starts to climb above the sand dunes, she lowers her head and watches the sand flowing beneath her. She knows that the only way to survive a run this long is to not worry about the goal.
"Only worry about the road in front of you," her uncle told her long ago.
He was the one that suggested that she join the VAF, when she was a young teenager. She initially protested it, never before thinking about becoming a soldier.
"You say you want to help people?" he asked her. She nodded. "Then protect them by keeping the bad guys far away from them. Don't take my word for it, research it yourself." And so she did. And she trained. And she went on more hunting trips. And she joined the high school track team. And, finally, enlisted on her 18th birthday.
Now, running through a barren desert, away from a massive ambush and towards a 70,000 ton airship, she realizes that she's not just fighting for the lives of everyone back home; she's fighting for everyone else back at that base, people that had the same dream of helping people as her.
For a whole hour she ran, full tilt, never slowing down, never thinking about the burning in her legs, her overworked lungs, the perspiration that soaks her from her waist up. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, she looks up. The airship has only climbed a few hundred meters, but it's enough to prepare for max speed. She's definitely gained ground on it; it's at least twice as big as it was when she was inside the base.
She unsheathes the flare, ignites it, and waves it over her head, without slowing down. Eventually, a single ship exits the Templar, and Rose keeps waving, keeps running.
The Bullhead lands about twenty feet ahead of her and then, finally, Rose slows down. The pain that has been building up in her legs is finally released as the adrenaline slows down, and she is overcome with exhaustion. She drops the flare and collapses in the sand as the crew chief jumps from down from the ship and runs to her.
"Hey, hey stay with me," he says, picking her up. Rose is still gasping for breath, eyes closed, and sweat dripping off her short, red hair. "You're real lucky, kid, we were-"
"No anti-air," Rose gasps.
"What?" the crew chief asks. Rose coughs a few times and says again,
"No...anti-air. Turn around."
"Alright," the crew chief says, and carries her back to the ship. He signals the pilot to take off.
"Get on horn with command," he tells him. "The enemy doesn't have any anti-air and the base is requesting air support."
"Roger," the pilot says, and relays the message through the radio. The crew chief returns to the cargo hold and takes Rose out of her jacket, which reeks of dust powder and sweat, and gives her water. She can barely feel her body.
"Did you seriously run all that way to get us to turn around?" he asks her. Rose opens her eyes wide enough to let the soldier see her silver eyes.
"Yep," she answers. She falls asleep to the crew chief chuckling and the jet engines of the aircraft.