FWWWTAK-TAK-TAK-TING-TANG!
Bullets whizz through the air and tear up the once pristine living room of the Manor House, striking the walls and smashing furniture all around Altare. He and his companions throw themselves down to the ground and take cover from the thundering storm of fiery brass. Countless shots zip in from the windows relentlessly, never ceasing for even a moment. Glass shards and wood splinters shower them as what furniture is left in the room either falls over or gets ripped apart. If not for the decently thick uniforms on their backs, they'd be standing in pools of crimson by now.
Ollie and Gura draw their M1911 pistols and try to fire back, but they're drops in the rain drowned out by the Pavolian torrent.
"DON'T FIGHT BACK; YOU'LL REVEAL OUR POSITIONS," Altare shouts, straining his voice over the cacophony. He points to the now pockmarked door, "WE CAN'T STAY HERE...! FOLLOW ME!"
Altare crawls through the debris-littered floor, arms sweeping past carpets of dust and glass shards. Ollie and the others follow his lead under hails of lead and shrapnel.
They approach the threshold, nearly at the door, when suddenly—
BAAAM! BRA-BAAAAAM!
Pavolian mortars whistle and smash into the Manor House, blasting the house with powerful, deafening bursts that cracks concrete and rings Altare's ears. Moreover, there were Pavolian machine guns still shooting into the hallway windows, keeping the shell-shocked Elysians belly-down on the floor.
"IT'S A FUCKING PINCER ATTACK!" Ollie curses, shielding her head from falling debris.
"That... That shouldn't be possible!" Gura huffs, struggling to inch forward to cover. Dust and soot dirty her sharp formal uniform until it is just as drab and smoky gray as everyone else's in that hellhole. "Intel says the Pavolian Army units are camped up north, THREE DAYS away at best!"
"SPEAK! UP!" Ollie shouts, firing her pistol out the window without looking.
"INTEL SAYS…!" Gura tries to repeat, "THE PAVIES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE AWAY NORTH! THREE GODDAMN DAYS AWAY!"
Another mortar shell explodes nearby, cracking the walls of the hallway.
"DOES THIS LOOK LIKE THREE DAYS AWAY TO YOU, LIEUTENANT!?" Ollie lambasts, "THEY'RE THREE MACHINE GUN BELTS FROM MY ASS HERE!"
Gura grits her teeth and wipes the blood from her grazed cheek. Still, she props herself up by the window and joins Ollie, shooting out with her own pistol too into the forest and hills illuminated with the muzzle flashes of Pavolian rifles and machine guns.
While the two lieutenants try to answer the overwhelming Pavolian gunfire, the unarmed Altare and Vesper huddle near them.
' Grab a rifle and get organized, she said. ' Altare's thoughts simmer in his mind. He looks at his empty, cut-up hands and grumbles, "What RIFLE? I ain't got shit..."
Suddenly, in the midst of all the gunfire coming from outside, Altare hears gunfire erupting inside the Manor House. It sounds nothing like any Elysian service weapon; they have the bark and roar of enemy materiel.
"F-Fuck, they're inside here too!?" Altare shouts upon his realization.
A handful of the Regular Army soldiers who were moving furniture earlier run into the hallway, but panic and sheer terror are painted on their faces.
"PAVIES!" They cry, "There's fuckin' PAVIES in the...!"
"GET DOWN, YOU IDIOTS!" Vesper tries to shout at them, but Pavolian machine guns mow the Elysian soldiers down mercilessly and with not a moment's hesitation, painting the pockmarked hallway red with blood. He winces and groans, "Damn it!"
"Vesper!" Altare hisses, "Their Garands – let's take 'em!"
Vesper, the pacifist, clicks his tongue with disdain, but does as Altare tells him. Together, the two men crawl to the fallen soldiers. All the while, bullets and debris shoot overhead.
They get closer, but find that one of the soldiers had survived the barrage. Vesper rushes to the soldier's side, but stops halfway. The soldier's eyes are bloodshot and glazed over. Blood flows down his mouth too, but he still whispers a gurgling lament.
"M-Mother Kanata... have you f-forsaken us...? Mama..."
The soldier breathes his last. Vesper frowns and, with a trembling hand, closes the poor corpse's eyes. Then, he and Altare pry the bloody M1 Garand rifles from the soldiers. They pick up any ammunition they could find too - and they do so just in time.
When Altare and Vesper rise up to return to Ollie and Gura, Pavolian soldiers rush into the hall, running up from the lower levels. Seven of them all at once. Their faded royal blue uniforms were stained red with blood: Elysian and Pavolian.
"CONTACT!" Altare yells.
He and Vesper raise up their Garand rifles right before the Pavolians can do the same. Then, they open fire.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
They pull their triggers as quickly as they could until their rifles are emptied with the ominous noise.
PING!
PING!
The shot-up Pavolians stumble and slip, but they die eventually all the same. Empty ammo clips fly out of Altare's and Vesper's smoking rifles. But an eighth Pavolian runs into the scene brandishing a grenade.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!" The Pavolian screams a primal scream.
The empty Garand rifles rattle hollowly in the two men's hands. They turn heel to try to run back to the two lieutenants, but then—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Three powerful shots pierce through the eighth Pavolian before he could pull the pin of his grenade. He tumbles down, joining his comrades and enemies in death on the bloodstained manor floor. The still-pinned grenade rolls harmlessly down the hall.
Altare and Vesper turn to the source of the shots. They see Ollie pointing her M1911 pistol downrange.
"Towa bless John Browning." Ollie huffs, lowering her smoking gun.
Altare heaves a sigh and agrees, solemnly tracing a triangle through the air with his hand, "Kanata bless him too."
After hurriedly rummaging through dead Elysian bandoliers for more clips, Altare and Vesper reload their guns and dash back to the pinned-down lieutenants. On their way there, though, the ferocious barking of Elysian heavy machine guns begin to answer the Pavolian attackers.
PRA-PA-PA-PANG! PRA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PANG!
The Elysian guns bark sparsely at first but become more determined. Little by little, the hail of Pavolian gunfire mellows out.
Then, a loud cry rings through the besieged grounds of the Manor Hall.
The voice of PFC Axel Syrios.
"SHOOT BACK! SHOOT BACK, YOU PISSY CUNTS!" Axel urges.
Altare pokes his head out of the window and sees the fiery-haired North Elysian manning an M2 Browning heavy machine gun. He watched Axel pull the trigger and unload on the Pavolian positions in the snowy forested hills.
PRA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PANG!
Spurred by Axel's calls and the bursts of his machine gun, a melange of soldiers of the Correctional Infantry, PCAPs tank crews and Regular Army troopers - even those higher ranked than him - scramble to answer his call. Ollie peeks through the window beside Altare too and snickers.
"If only the other North Elysian I know was as willing to get her hands as dirty as PFC Syrios there!" Ollie scoffs. Her eyes wander back to the bloody, devastated hallway and the pile of bodies that litter it, "This isn't over. Far from it. You three better have some fight left in you."
Motioning to the three behind her, she declares,
"We. Are. Leaving."
. . .
Ollie reloads her pistol and puts it into battery as she peeks around a shredded corner wall. Meanwhile, Altare, Vesper and Gura huddle close to her, still behind cover.
"Brigadier General Olivier's still in this building, probably." Ollie says, "We have to make sure she's safe. Then, we'll mount a proper defense with her and coordinate with the rest of her brigade. I'm sure as hell that we're gonna need all the support we can get if we want out of this with our heads on our shoulders."
"Where is she?" Altare asks.
"Should be upstairs." Ollie points up to the ceiling, "That's where they were bringing all of the furniture."
"Upstairs...?" Gura raises her brow, "I saw the ECN News Crew setting up their equipment in the grand ballroom there. They were getting ready for some sort of interview for the tele-whatchamacallits."
"You mean televisions?" Vesper asks.
"Yeah, those." Gura confirms, "Damned penny-arcade picture boxes."
Just as Gura spits, gunfire erupts again from within the Manor House. This time, the noises reverberate more loudly.
"Danger close. Look alive. We have to move." Altare determines, clutching his rifle, "I'll take point. Stay sharp, everyone."
Altare leads the team and keeps his Garand rifle pointed firmly ahead, wary of the smoke and soot around them. Vesper follows closely behind him while Ollie helps the injured Atlantean lieutenant limp across ruined floors. The two Lieutenants keep their M1911 pistols at the ready too, their eyes on the rear.
Together, the four soldiers keep their heads low and advance cautiously towards one of the Manor House's fancy spiral staircases – the one smack-dab in the middle of the main building. When they do, they hear footsteps coming from those stairwells, accompanied by the ominous rattle of rifles and submachine guns and a myriad of equipment.
Altare sees faded royal blue in the corner of his eyes and yells, "CONTACT! Twelve o' clock!"
Half a dozen Pavolian soldiers storm the hallway, but Altare and company are prepared for them.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
BANG!BANG!BANG!
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
BANG!BANG! BANG!BANG!
The Pavolians shoot back this time, but Altare and company take cover and shoot from the higher ground. Enemy soldiers wail and scream in pain as they're plugged with Elysian lead. Their guns fall silent and clatter to the ground. Some of their bodies fall lifelessly down onto the devastated hallway. The others clog up the stairwell where their blood stains a once-pristine statuette of the divine devil Towa in a macabre display.
The sight makes Ollie, the Pavolian deserter, and Vesper, the learned scholar, squirm a little.
But the rush of footsteps keeps coming from the other stairwells.
"Brace yourselves!" Altare cries.
A pair of Pavolian soldiers then come from the upper floors, rushing down the staircase. Again, Altare and company shoot them down with concentrated fire.
BAM! BAM! BANG! BANG! BAM! BAM!
The enemies and their weapons tumble down the stairs, but Altare frowns with displeasure.
"What the— They've already made their way up there!?"
Before Altare is able to say anything else, even more footsteps reach his ears.
"Six o' clock!" Altare yells.
He, Vesper, Ollie and Gura fan out and prepare to shoot at anything that moves. But they keep their trigger fingers still. They see an Elysian uniform - and the frightened face of an Elysian soldier before their sights.
The soldier raises up his hands in surrender, but his tone is still sharp, "H-Hey! Don't shoot, dumbasses! We're on the same team!"
"Wait... you're supposed to be...!" Vesper starts.
"Private Magni Dezmond." Altare recognizes him.
Magni shrugs, "My jail guards ran off to man the defenses, so I figured I didn't need to be kept in the basement anymore."
"Why you…!" Vesper seethes.
Footsteps echo in the halls again, and Magni groans.
"Hold on." Magni urges. He picks up the pinned grenade from the earlier attack, "I had Pavies on my ass. This'll just take a SECOND!"
Magni unpins the grenade and tosses it down the stairwell behind him. The grenade clinks and clanks as it bounces down the wall, but explodes eventually. Screams of pain follow. The body of a dismembered Pavolian soldier flies out, spilling his guts all over the floor.
"Private Dezmond!" Ollie addresses him from across the hall. "Are you armed?!"
Magni squats down and pries the Pavolian soldier's Karabiner 98 kurz bolt-action rifle out of his hands. He also picks the dead soldier's belongings clean with deft hands, slinging a Pavolian bandolier over himself.
"I am now, ma'am!" Magni answers cheekily, cocking his rifle and pocketing his loot, "Ain't a Garand, but it'll kill!"
"Madam Lieutenant..." Vesper growls, pointing angrily at Magni, "This scoundrel...!"
"This 'scoundrel' is part of our Battalion and our Brigade ." Ollie hijacks Vesper's words and emphasizes the chain of command, "He's going to help us. Ain't that right, son?"
"Yes, ma'am!" Magni answers and salutes Ollie, but a package of caffeinated Pavolian chocolate slips out of his pocket. Magni scrambles skillfully to catch it mid-air. He pockets it once more and frantically redoes his salute, "S-Sorry about that."
Ollie heaves a sigh.
"Mother Towa knows what we're gonna be up against." Ollie laments, "We're gonna need all the help we can get."
Vesper tries to protest again, but Altare lays a hand on his shoulder.
"I'll go with him, Ves." Altare reassures, knocking on the wooden stock of his Garand rifle, "I'll make sure he does what he's told."
Vesper clutches his own Garand rifle and scoffs, "Very well. I'll trust in your command, Altare."
With that, Altare bolts down the hall to join Magni at his stairwell. Vesper, Ollie, and Gura, meanwhile, prepare to climb up their stairs.
Magni grins at Altare and offers him the crumpled packet of ' Fowlboro' cigarettes he just took from the Pavolian.
"You smoke, chief?" Magni asks, "It'll take the edge off."
Altare shakes his head.
"Focus on the mission, Private Dezmond." Altare commands, pointing to the stairs and then to Magni, "You take point."
"Yeah, yeah." Magni shrugs, pocketing the cigarettes.
Once the two teams form up, they climb up the staircase to the upper floors of the besieged Manor House, prepared to fight their way through.
.
.
.
Meanwhile, in the grand ballroom of the Manor House, Bettel Gavis and Flayon X Machina of ECN news, frozen there in abject fear and dread, are subject to the aftermath of a fierce skirmish and the massacre that takes place right after. Cries and wails of pain and agony echo eerily clearly in the large, acoustic room – all while their motion picture camera and their microphones continue rolling. The unmanned, abandoned machines care not to look away from the carnage, not like their masters.
With their backs pressed to the pockmarked ballroom walls and hands helping little to keep their gaze off the slaughter, Bettel and Flayon stand helpless and before bodies of Pavolian and Elysian soldiers sprawled out all over the place.
Scarlet death paints the polished wooden floors, the poured concrete walls, and the ECN recording equipment cherry pie red.
They see bullet casings of Pavolian and Elysian calibers shimmer from the sparse sunlight coming in through the smashed, tall windows. Along with them, the medals and metallic insignia on the chests and shoulders of the ranking officers of Brigadier General Leslie Olivier's staff shimmer too – their sheens dulled by all the smoke and blood.
From where they stand, the two men could see Brigadier General Olivier herself cowering under a mahogany desk. Her shaking, frightened figure is clearly seen by the camera lens – a stark contrast to the proud, domineering image she put off posing before parading tanks just hours ago.
General Olivier glances at Bettel. She motions to him with her hand, slicing the air by her neck.
She wants him to stop recording.
Bettel nods, eager to comply, but he cannot move a muscle. The sight and stench of the dead bodies – the cries and wails of the dying men and women begging Mother Kanata or Mother Towa for death... it makes the news anchor want to spill his guts on the floor.
Someone else moves in Bettel's stead.
TOK-TOK-TOK-TOK.
Heavy Pavolian combat boots echo in the bloody ballroom, followed by the cocking of a Luger pistol.
The trembling voice of an Elysian officer, a colonel with many medals on his chest, shouts out.
"N-No, please!"
A scoff answers him. Then, the crack of pistol shots.
BANG! BANG!
The colonel's pleas are silenced forever. Bettel's trembling eyes follow the shooter – the last combatant still standing. He sees a petite, brown-haired Pavolian girl in a patchwork uniform two sizes too big. Blood from the colonel sullies her face, but she does not squirm nor try to wipe her face. Her wide, purple eyes are blank and expressionless.
Then, she brings forth a ceremonial Pavolian keris shortsword from its sheath. Its short but curvy blade is already caked with the blood of countless other victims.
' She's just a child! How many other people has she killed...!? ' Bettel thinks.
He sees his sullied reflection in the keris blade, making him gulp in fear.
Suddenly, the hardened child soldier points her Luger pistol at the mahogany desk and shoots at it.
BANG!
"ARGH!" General Olivier yelps. She bursts out of hiding and tries to run away.
The child soldier smirks.
BANG! BANG!
She shoots the General on the leg, making her trip over on the royal blue carpet.
"G-GET AWAY FROM ME, YOU FUCKING PAVIE !" General Olivier yells. She crawls desperately on the ground towards a standing Elysian flag, huffing and puffing while she draws a line of crimson red through the carpeted floor.
All the while, the child soldier stalks her, casting her shadow over her clamoring prey.
The general reaches a standing flag, one of the many that had been placed there for her television interview. She tries to hold onto it and get back onto her feet, but she trips. The emerald green Starfall Banner falls over her and entangles her.
This is when the child soldier decides to strike.
She holsters her Luger pistol and wields her keris shortsword with both hands. Then, she stabs the entangled General in the back through the Starfall Banner.
The Brigadier General wails, but her voice is swiftly drowned out by gurgling blood. All around her, the emerald green of the Starfall Banner that wrapped her is painted red. The general's blood pools around her and crawls up her sullied, torn flag.
She dies desecrating the flag that she paraded for the cameras through the snow – all while the unmanned ECN camera, abandoned by its cowardly crew, continues to roll.
The child soldier says something in Pavolian to the brigadier's corpse – words said with a bite that Bettel did not need to fully understand to know that they were words of anger and spite. The keris blade's wielder wipes it on the Starfall Banner and turns her eyes to Bettel and Flayon.
Her empty, remorseless purple eyes and the stubborn blood on her keris blade tell her message to Bettel and Flayon extremely clearly.
They are next.
Bettel and Flayon, with nowhere else to go, press their backs against the trembling walls of the manor. Through those walls, though, they hear the muffled sound of gunfire coming from the hallway outside.
Rifle cracks and pistol shots punctuated by the bark of submachine guns, grenade blasts and the mad shuffle of boots on the marble floor.
The child soldier pauses. Her expression sours.
She marches towards the terrified news crew. Then, Bettel trembles violently and passes out where he stands. Flayon catches him, but he too falls down to his knees, eyes shot wide and affixed on their assailant.
The child soldier scoffs.
She turns away from the pacified news crew, leaving Flayon to deal with the passed out Bettel. She proceeds to browse through the sea of blood and the mountain of bodies on the dance floor. She picks up a bandolier from a dead Pavolian soldier, grabs an MP40 submachine gun, and faces the double doors of the ballroom.
Then, the double doors burst open.
. . .
"GENERAL OLIVIER!" Ollie runs into the ballroom and cries.
Vesper and Gura follow after her, but all three of them stop in their tracks. The sheer carnage that greets them in the ballroom silences them. The smell of gunpowder mixed with entrails and other bodily fluids nearly makes the Atlantean lieutenant stumble to her knees.
"Oh shit..." Vesper murmurs, his eyes darting around the room. He wants to lament about the situation, but he is cut short by the ominous sound of an MP40 submachine gun cocking. The figure of a brunette, Pavolian child soldier covered in blood and gore appears in the corner of his eye. He yells, "CONTACT!"
Vesper, Gura and Ollie promptly retreat from the ballroom, and not a moment too soon—
RATATATATATATATATATATA!
Bullets whizz through the threshold, grazing Vesper in the shoulder as it kicks up dust and blood around them. The three hide behind the door frame and try to return fire. Vesper struggles to shoot back with his rifle, barely having time to aim his long weapon. Ollie and Gura, meanwhile, are too overwhelmed by the hail of automatic fire to fight back.
Ollie tries to poke her head into the threshold, but the shooter pulls out her Luger pistol and forces Ollie back again.
But that is enough for Ollie to see what – or who – they are up against and what travesties went on in that ballroom.
"No," Ollie shudders, gripping her pistol tightly. "Anya... What the hell did they do to you...?"
It is at this time that Altare and Magni run over to the threshold.
"We had too much resistance on our stairwell," Altare reports to Ollie. He is about to continue, when he sees the haunted, distraught look on Ollie's face, "Lieutenant Kureiji...?!"
"Olivier is dead," Ollie answers him. "And the culprit is still inside. I know her." Her face becomes sharply bitter, "She's still a child. Anya Melfissa. She was just a Pavolian civilian on exchange in Xenokuni – she was just a schoolgirl, but now she's—!"
Ollie shakes her head in disbelief, but another spray of submachine gun shots strike the walls and the doorframe in a violent display of force.
"Just a child," Altare repeats. His heart starts to ache.
For a moment, the image of Kobo in her youth comes to his mind. Altare then peers into the ballroom for a glance of the shooter, withdrawing just as pistol rounds fly past his hair, just barely missing him.
' DAMN IT ALL! But if Kobo didn't defect when she did... then she would be...' Altare thinks.
He remembers the other child soldier he gunned down with a heavy machine gun too from the cupola of his M3 Stuart. Altare clenches his fists, gripping his Garand rifle tightly.
Gura holds onto the door frame for support and shoots blindly into the threshold.
"We have to flush her out!" Gura cries desperately, answering the child soldier's shots with her own, "We've got Brigade-level intel and equipment in there! We can't let the Pavies have it!" She reloads her gun and growls, "We can't let them jeopardize our rescue mission!"
"Anyone have any bright ideas?!" Vesper asks her, awkwardly firing his rifle into the gap again.
"We have grenades," Magni reminds.
"No, I saw the ECN crew there." Ollie warns, "They're still alive somehow. We can't risk killing them."
"We could all charge, but..." Gura starts, but stops herself halfway. "Nope. That would end badly – for all of us."
Altare takes a deep breath and makes his proposal.
"I need all of you to make a diversion for me. Keep her busy." Altare requests. "Then, I'll charge in and subdue her."
"That's insane!" Vesper argues, head ducking under bursts of automatic fire.
"And it's necessary," Altare makes the counterpoint.
"Corporal Regis...!" Ollie's multicolored eyes shimmer, but she frowns, "Can you really do it?"
"One way to find out." Altare wears a solemn, albeit confident smile.
Ollie purses her lips. Then, she calls her play.
"Alright everyone. Next time she empties her SMG, we'll start blasting her at the same time," Ollie declares. She points to Altare. "Then, you better not mess up, Corporal Regis."
Altare nods.
Another spray of submachine gun rounds strike the walls and the doorframe.
RATATATATATATATATATATA— Chunk!
Empty.
. . .
With that, Ollie, Gura, Vesper and Magni take up their positions and fire a rolling volley at their shooter. The entrenched Anya falls back and rushes to reload her MP40, but she skillfully keeps on firing her Luger pistol to keep them all at bay.
In that short span of time, Altare ducks underneath the whizzing pistol shots and he sprints into the bloodied ballroom.
Anya curses in Pavolian and reloads her submachine gun. She pulls back to the mahogany desk and turns it over, making herself a barricade as it slams to the ground with a loud thud . From there, she sprays the doorway with bullets while keeping Altare huddled behind cover with deadly aim.
' Damn, she's good... ' Altare hisses beneath his breath. He claps his cheeks and spurs himself on. ' Can't hesitate now! '
Altare sprints and keeps his head low, keeping to the mess of furniture that filled the room. Then, as soon as Anya's guns go silent, he leaps over the mahogany desk and charges her!
Anya's once-expressionless face is suddenly ignited with rage. She drops her MP40 submachine gun and draws her keris . She advances furiously and thrusts the keris at Altare.
Altare raises up his Garand rifle and blocks the keris with its wooden frame. Then, his heavy boot strikes Anya's stomach with a loud THUMP , forcing her back two paces.
Anya grunts but maintains her footing. Angrier now, she grits her teeth and points her Luger pistol at Altare.
Altare bobs and weaves like a boxer. So, when Anya pulls the trigger, her shot tears through Altare's hair - missing his head by but just an inch.
Her jaw drops in disbelief.
Then, Altare closes the distance and shoves his Garand rifle into Anya's face, slamming her and her Luger pistol down to the ground. Going down, his free hand tries to pin down her keris too, but he is out of position and he finds that the child soldier is remarkably strong.
The blade of the keris cuts through Altare's uniform and it digs shallowly into his rib, drawing blood.
" LEPASKAN, BANGSAT! " The child soldier curses in Pavolian, forcing her keris deeper into Altare's side, " ENYAHLAH, TOLOL! "
" YOU DIAM, BOCAH! " Altare shouts back at the child, growling in passable but sharp Pavolian.
His words startle the child soldier. That gives Altare enough room to push down her sword arm and finally knock the keris out from her hand.
Vesper, Magni, and Gura rush to the scene and surround the child soldier, steel barrels readily pointed at the Pavolian. Then, Ollie marches over, her eyes twitching between sadness and relief.
"Anya... What the fuck," Ollie starts, saying her name with great compassion followed by words of vulgar yet genuine disbelief.
Anya, however, snarls at Ollie and speaks some impassioned tirade in Pavolian - a tirade so complex and so venomous that Altare couldn't figure out half of what she said. Ollie, on the other hand, lowers her head and translates for them.
"She says that we won't savor our victory for long." Ollie reveals, speaking on Anya's behalf, "Pavolia already got what they wanted here, but they're not done – or so she says."
Anya screams and shrieks more profanities in Pavolian. With every word that escapes her lips, the light in Ollie's eyes darkens.
"...Tie her up and gag her too." Ollie finally says, turning away from her old countryman. She looks at the dead body of the brigadier general and the mess of equipment scattered about the ballroom and she sighs, "We have to secure this place and get things back in order." She eyes the brigade-level radio nearby and sharpens her gaze.
"I'm radioing Captain Hakos, and let's hope she's still kickin'. We have to know what the hell is going on."
.
.
.
-TEMPEST-