Welcome to the first update of the new year! I hope everyone had a good holiday season, and can't thank you enough for being here after all this time. Shoutout to my beta team, BrambleStar14 and Minaethiel. This should be fun.
Photo Negative
And you can try
To be civilized
But I'm gonna stay alive
-Hidden Citizens, 'Stay Alive'
I know heaven is not my home
-Within Temptation ft. Annisokay, 'Shed My Skin'
It started like any other day. Alarm ringing in the barracks, loading into the Pelican pointed in a random direction, boots in the unfamiliar grey dirt, rifle on her shoulder. Blizzard on, Steele gone.
"Okay, so what's the plan, Oh Fearless Leader?"
To his credit, Falcon didn't miss a beat before taking a knee. The rest of Phoenix tightened their circle around the temporary commander as he poked around on his bracer. A map flickered in the air, showing vibrant lines between tangles of trees.
"We're here." Falcon pointed to the western edge of the forest. "And the Marine base is here." His finger skipped across a river and two glowing red roads.
Circuit groaned.
"Problem?" Blizzard could hear the sardonic eyebrow raise in Falcon's single word.
Circuit shook his head. "No, sir, no. But I didn't put on my hiking boots this morning."
"It's sir, no sir," stage-whispered Firefly, hand to his visor as if Falcon might somehow read his lips.
"Yeah, we're a ways out, but you'll notice these amazingly massive AA guns flanking their base if you look with your eyeballs. Is this your first mission, recruit?" Crosshair asked sweetly.
"Sir! No, sir!" Circuit slapped a hand to his faceplate in a crisp salute. "Did I get it right this time?"
Firefly flashed a double thumbs-up.
Falcon turned to Blizzard. She stared silently back, uncertain whether she wanted him to admonish Circuit and Firefly, or if she hoped he'd wait in awkward silence until they were ready to give their undivided attention. She shrugged.
He'd wanted to take over in Harper's absence. She wasn't going to offer advice.
"Team AA guns: Geist, Circuit, Firefly. Get those offline so the rest of our people can land," Falcon continued as if he'd never been interrupted. "Crosshair, Blizzard: you're with me. We're going to take out the sentries and regroup here."
He pointed just south of the base at a clearing.
"Once the other Pelicans start offloading, we'll help clear the base."
Phoenix was silent, heads tilted attentively, hands stacked and still on the butts of slung weapons.
"Good. Get moving, team," dismissed Falcon, standing and brushing dirt from his knee plate.
Blizzard lifted two fingers in farewell. Circuit and Firefly mirrored her before disappearing into the undergrowth with Geist. She turned back to Falcon. "Good brief. Short and to the point. Easy to remember. I liked it."
"Shut up."
"No, the ice queen's got a point," put in Crosshair.
"You know, I expected this from her, but I thought you'd at least behave."
"Aw, stop your whining, big shot," laughed Blizzard. "It was a compliment."
"Yeah, a loaded one."
It could have been any day out of Blizzard's life.
By the time they had splashed through the river, crawled a kilometer through undergrowth and climbed a dozen steep hills, even Falcon's enthusiasm for hiking had dimmed. Crosshair had been stepping primly over logs and humming under his breath, long legs suited for the trek. Now he silently trudged at Blizzard's side, keeping pace with her much shorter stride. To cap it all off, rain started dripping through the canopy. The leaves underfoot turned slick and visibility deteriorated as the clouds rolled in.
Blizzard was starting to think about her warm bed when Falcon held up a fist. She stopped dead, immediately thumbing the safety of her rifle. Waiting.
Falcon motioned her behind a tree, Crosshair to a deadfall flanked by evergreen saplings. The three of them scattered, vanishing into their hiding spots. Minutes dragged by while Blizzard strained to hear anything past the spatter of drizzle on leaves. Then, so faint she thought she had imagined it, the distant creak of armour and boots breaking twigs.
Six Marines melted out of the mist, strolling along oblivious to the Innies lying in wait.
Blizzard waited, breathing as quietly as possible. Frozen. A statue of metal instead of a live soldier. Anything to keep from pinging their motion trackers.
Her finger itched on the trigger as they passed her hiding place. Still the order to fire didn't come. One of the Marines laughed at a joke. Another gestured, telling their neighbour a story.
They looked, she realized, like Phoenix with their heads bent toward each other.
Lost in that thought, she nearly missed the green light flick on as Falcon ordered them to shoot.
Three Marines collapsed, red mixing with rain. The others had their weapons up, swivelling through the brush in search of their ambush. Blizzard squeezed the trigger, putting a centre-mass spread in the rearguard. Three more corpses hit forest floor.
She forced the image of six downed Innies out of her head and swung out from behind her tree. Joining Falcon and Crosshair on the trail, she put a round from her sidearm in three of the six heads. Falcon did the same.
That was her team. Cold. Efficient. Already moving down the trail like nothing had happened.
It was easy when they did the same thing any day of the week.
"So were we expecting company?"
Blizzard nearly sighed as she ducked a machine gun spray. Her shoulder scraped over concrete when she pressed tighter to the wall.
"This your way of telling me the AA guns aren't ours yet?" Falcon asked.
There was a pointed silence from Firefly.
"Use your words, mate."
"Uh, 'kay, so like. Frigate just jumped into the system with an escort."
"Firefly!"
"A'ight, chill. Our guys can land at the same time, right? Not like they can shoot into the swarm without risking their own reinforcements."
Blizzard heard a gap in the gunfire. She leaned out of cover and tossed a grenade into the barricades around the base entrance. Warning shouts erupted and soldiers dived out of range. Crosshair picked two off in quick succession.
"Hey, Bliz. You busy?"
"Do you," she ground out, taking a potshot at a target before they recovered, "ever think you'll get tired of asking me that stupid fucking question?"
"What if I say 'please'?"
"I'd tell you to ask my fireteam leader."
"Hey, Falcon, can Bliz come out to play at my house?"
A crackling sigh came down the comm link. "I'll trade you Bliz for Geist. Deal, Firefly?"
"You're the bossman today, boss. I'll take what I can get."
"What, are you saying the going rate is one Blizzard for one Geist?" she cut in, swapping out for a new magazine. "Aw, you guys are gonna make me cry."
"I'm gonna be honest here. You know I love ya, Bliz. I trust you with computers more than Geist. Let's be real. Technology hates him." There was a pause. "What? You know it's true, mate. I once watched you short-out the microwave back on Byzantium. Don't think I forgot about that."
"Cute," said Blizzard. She hunkered down as suppressing fire hammered the ground near her boots. "Ready when, Crosshair."
His sniper rifle barked once, twice, thrice. A green light flashed on her HUD. Sparing a second to blink a blue light in response to both Crosshair and Falcon in farewell, Blizzard gathered her legs under her and sprinted for the treeline. She was a tiny target at best, but she still hunched down low over her rifle, grateful for the thick rain.
And then she was wrapped between trees and swirling fog. The base and raging firefight was swallowed by the weather in seconds, leaving her alone in the world. The only living soul she could prove.
She plotted her route as she jogged, picking a direct path to the farther AA gun. The first half of the race went fine, aside from nearly tumbling down a ridge she thought was a thick wall of fog. Skidding and slipping, Blizzard was glad nobody saw her graceless descent that nearly ended on her ass. Or faceplate. Still, the layer of mud was effective camouflage, she decided. And the leaves glued to her chest completed the look.
But after recovering from her near-tumble, she heard a distinctive whistle overhead. Coming up short of a clearing, she risked poking her grimy helmet out of cover to confirm her sinking feeling. ODST drop pods punched through the low hanging clouds. They landed closer than Blizzard would have liked, painfully close to where she and Geist would meet.
"You didn't mention the Helljumpers, Firefly," she growled, debating the wisdom of rerouting to avoid the fresh team itching for a short, decisively brutal fight.
"Shit. That's news to me."
She pulled her map forward on her HUD and sent a ping to both Geist and her new fireteam leader. "Five to eight at a time. If it was me, I'd have them split up and comb the forest for any of our guys landing. Just sayin'."
"I read you," said Geist. "Plan?"
"Not much. Keep an eye on your six. They'll probably pair up. One'll jump you the second you're focused on another."
His only response was a blue acknowledgement light.
Gritting her teeth, Blizzard exchanged rifle for pistol. Her hustling jog turned to stalking forward one tree at a time. She got the distinct feeling of being trapped in the forest with predators and wondered, for the first time in her life, if this was what her victims had felt in the moments before they died.
The forest crept by in cautious steps and running between thickets of some sort of berry bushes. Then, as she gathered herself to cross the river again, she saw them.
Familiar helmets, black with green stripes, peeked between halves of a split boulder.
Blizzard held very still, not daring to hope she hadn't been spotted. She patted her vest for grenades and came up empty. Swallowing a string of swears, she clocked the range of open space between them. Too much to close quickly, especially when the river rushed by, chest deep.
The ODSTs gestured to each other. Not good. If they were signing instead of speaking, they knew she was nearby. The one with broad shoulders pointed to the riverbank.
Frustrated, Blizzard bit down hard on her tongue. She risked a glance upward, calculating weight quickly and estimating the size of branches. She made her choice and painstakingly began inching her way up the nearest trunk. She had the distinct impression of being back at bootcamp, hauling herself up the rope in the central gym. Her reach had been too short to easily stretch between knots. Her feet were too small to grip the rope like her fellow recruits. But she'd still learned to claw her way to the ceiling.
Clinging to the massive tree felt the same as she dug her fingers and toes into the soft bark. Slowly, so slowly, she climbed. It would have been simpler to launch herself between branches, but it would have been loud. It would have pinged their motion trackers. It would have been flashes of movement in the lifting fog. She may as well have lit a flare and screamed for attention. So she clung to the trunk and forced herself into a patient calm.
At last, she slipped out onto a limb that extended to a neighbouring tree. Peering across the river, she spotted the ODST pair searching perfectly square grids through the brush. Well, no time like the present if they were happy to take their sweet time.
Questioning her sanity—and not liking how frequently she found herself doing so—Blizzard stared at the next tree.
Keep looking forward. Dom's ancient advice echoed through her. It was how she'd conquered her fear of heights back in boot. How she'd gotten so comfortable with freefall. Made her home in midair.
She leaped, praying she hadn't misjudged the distance. If she shorted herself, she'd break the branch and tumble into the river. If she jumped too far, she'd trip the ODST's detection suite. And make an awful racket.
She landed, arms reflexively wrapping around the trunk so tightly the wood creaked. Blizzard risked a glance down at the rush of brown water over hidden rocks. Then she planned her next jump. And the next, never once forgetting the pair of soldiers steadily approaching.
As she clung to her final tree, a green light flared to life on her HUD. Blizzard's lips twitched into a grim smile.
"Hey, clowns!"
Two guns pointed at her before the words were fully out. Before anyone could move, Geist slipped out of the trees and buried his knife in one ODST's neck. The other fired at Blizzard, who was already dropping to a lower branch.
Slipping down the trunk, she twisted out of sight. Wood sprayed past her visor, then Geist was squaring up to the other ODST. Blizzard heard metal clash. More gunfire. Then her boots hit metal shoulder pauldrons and she had her sidearm aimed. The ODST collapsed under her sudden weight. Pistol to faceplate. Blizzard pulled the trigger twice.
"We need to talk about your obsession with jumping off things." Geist wiped his combat knife clean on his thigh, not even looking up.
Blizzard couldn't tear her eyes away from the corpses. She'd killed so many people by now. Their faces were gone—their names blurred out of memory. All she could manage was a shrug in reply.
There was a pause where she felt the sigh. He wouldn't let it out—no, Geist was far too professional, far too good at keeping his emotions in check. But she saw it in the careful posture he held a beat longer than necessary.
"How close is the next pair?" he asked instead.
She couldn't ignore the prompt, but she recognized it as the distraction it was. It made her check the forest map and refocus her mind on the mission. "I'd put them here." She pinged the bridge a kilometer upriver. "That's where I'd send my invasion force across. Easiest place to get a big force over a deep river."
He nodded. "That's what I thought."
"Eyes up out there," she said, turning on a heel.
"You too."
Without ceremony, Geist waded into the churning water. Blizzard gave herself one moment to envy his longer legs and broader chest as he forced his way through the current. Then the rain picked up again and she forced herself into a jog toward the AA guns.
"Well, howdy little lady!"
"This welcome party for lame old me?"
Firefly jerked his head lower behind his rock as a burst of gunfire pelted a little too close for comfort. "So glad you could make it. Surprise!"
"He hasn't shut up for a single bloody second," complained Circuit. He balanced a data pad on his knee and typed with one hand, pistol semi-forgotten in the other.
"Always so happy to see me," Blizzard sighed dreamily. "What's the play here?"
"You and me clean house. Nerdbrain over here's busy," said Firefly, depolarizing his visor to wink.
"Busy cracking into their system, he means."
"I'm just saying, leave the breaching to the pros. I'm happy to leave the keyboarding to you."
Blizzard rolled her eyes. "Geist was so much quieter than you."
Firefly mimed locking his lips and throwing away the key. The shit-eating grin ruined the effect.
"Okay, here's the plan."
Chest burning, Blizzard ground out a breathless growl when her rifle clicked empty. She spun behind Firefly, more than small enough to use him as cover while she reloaded. His SMG roared into the control room. The fresh magazine slid home with a satisfying click. She nudged him with a shoulder and stepped up to his left elbow.
The Marine was half standing, drawing a pistol from the hip. Blizzard put a burst into a shoulder. Another in the torso. Blood sprayed over the terminal he never fully left. The body sagged over the back of the chair.
It was uncomfortably quiet. Only the ragged chorus of their breathing broke the jarring silence.
"Fuck," said Firefly, bending to plant his hands on his knees. "Who put you in charge? Your plans," he paused to suck down air, "involve too much," and again, "running."
She waved him off and used a foot to push the dead Marine from the chair. Trying to hide how tired she was, Blizzard fought to flop down into it. She dragged herself to the terminal. "A'right, Circuit. What do you need?"
As she typed, Firefly's breathing settled. He double checked the bodies, pilfering ammo from both, looking for comm units. The usual.
"Didn't know you were a computer aficionado, Bliz."
"I'm not." She sat back, cracking her knuckles after all the typing. "I have a really good teacher."
"He's a good teacher?" Firefly shook his head. "Never thought I'd see the day."
"Okay, he's got ADHD, but he's patient and uses small words."
"There it is."
"And guess what? It worked!" she said, both to the room and her open link to Circuit.
"Told you it would."
She pushed back from the terminal and stretched her back. "Are these for me?" she asked, nodding to the neat line of assault rifle magazines.
Firefly nodded. He tensed, head cocked.
She collected the ammo, checking her sidearm against the dead Marine's and scavenging that as well. Chatter filled her ears as Circuit patched her into the same team comm Firefly was intently listening to.
"In you go, Rat."
"Circuit, location," Blizzard barked.
"Roof. Busy. They're running—"
"Didn't ask. Sit tight."
Because it didn't matter how much he'd improved in sparring. Fighting Marines was one thing. ODSTs would tear him to shreds. And there was a whole squad of them.
"Ding, ding, ding! Round two, Bliz." Firefly rolled out his shoulders and ignited his gauntlet.
She swallowed a growl and kicked over a chair. It skittered across the control room to partially block the doorway. By sinking into a crouch she made her small target that much smaller.
"Contacts!"
"Yeah, no shit," said Firefly. He stepped up first, hosing the leader down with his flamethrower.
The small room exploded into a whirl of motion. The lead ODST bulled through the fire, vacuum seals shut and armour plating holding against the worst heat. But they tripped over Blizzard's chair, probably saving their life. Coming up on a knee, they squeezed off a round and gave their teammates a chance to enter. Blizzard simply fired into the crush. As long as she didn't aim at Firefly, she was bound to hit one of them.
The initial shock wore off and the ODSTs rallied. There were eight of them total, armour turning bullets and fire aside.
But Blizzard knew where the armour weave was weak. She gritted her teeth and refined her attention. Instead of firing blindly, she took careful aim. They weren't able to do much without risking the AA gun's main terminal and instead focused on Firefly who was soon surrounded.
It was times like these that she really missed Jason. Hell, she'd take Harper if he'd help bail them out.
But they weren't here. It was her job to get Firefly out of this situation. So she drew her combat knife and pistol and dove into the crowd.
The first ODST hesitated for an entire second when she stepped up to Blizzard. But everyone underestimated her petite stature. Blizzard pounced in that second, knocking the battle rifle aside with her elbow and stabbing forward. The ODST reeled back. Blizzard chased her. They fell into a familiar rhythm of Blizzard attacking and the ODST scrambling for safety.
Blizzard was about to bury her knife in the ODST's neck when blood sprayed across her visor. The red point of someone else's blade punched through the thin weave under the ODST's chin. Wary, Blizzard retreated two steps, palming her pistol.
The ODST doubled over. Collapsed. Her teammate yanked the knife from her neck and stared down at Blizzard. She flipped her own knife in her hand, reversing the grip. Buying herself time to size him up.
A grey rat was painted on the forehead of his helmet. The insignia on his shoulder meant Lance Corporal. The patch on his vest said Mathesson, K.
"Bring it, then, Mathesson," said Blizzard, pointing her pistol at his faceplate.
He shook his head. Turned. Pulled his teammate off Firefly's back and shot the ODST.
Blizzard narrowed her eyes. But then another soldier was on her. She parried the opening jab and forced her blade into the ODST's armpit. Two rounds to the chest to finish the job.
Again.
Again.
And again.
Until it was just the three of them. Firefly was bleeding from a dozen cuts on his forearms. Blizzard was running on adrenaline alone, certain she'd caught a couple rounds in the chaos. But she still launched herself at Mathesson while his back was turned. He staggered and tried to thrash free. Her arms slithered around his head. Her boot smashed into his knee, forcing it sideways. He sunk down to her level.
Her armour was heavier than his. The plates thicker. The weave a denser material. She tipped them over, planting herself on his chest. Her pistol kissed the rat on his forehead.
"Bliz—"
"Fuck off, Firefly."
"'Fuck off, Firefly'," he mimicked. "You should be a poet."
She ignored him, focus nailed to the ODST pinned to the floor. "Let's have a chat, just you and me."
He grunted and twisted, trying to throw her off. But with a foot planted on either wrist and her weight firmly on his hips, there was little he could do. Maybe if he was flexible enough he could kick her in the head, but she was so short…
"You turned on your own teammates. That's a dirty fuckin' move, Rat."
"Fuck you, bitch," he snarled.
"See, that's what I'm saying. Not a friendly guy."
"They deserved it." He savoured the taste of the words. "Made my life hell from day one. Every. Single. One of them. File their deaths under general world improvement."
She scoffed. "ODSTs are family."
"Not this one. Maybe an abusive one."
He depolarized his visor and Blizzard was staring into the force of his hatred.
"They hated me. Called me Gutter Rat because I was born a nobody. Sergeant Prick liked to break into my room and steal my things." He turned his head to the woman Blizzard had been fighting. The one he'd killed first. "And she—"
He swallowed hard.
"Bliz," said Firefly. Warning threaded through his tone.
"And you didn't report them?" she pushed.
Mathesson cracked out a cold laugh. "My word against theirs? That's seven to one. Dozens of firefights, three medals, and a Sarge against the Gutter Rat." His expression twisted. "Fuck you."
Blizzard didn't move. She said, "Give me a good reason not to."
It was Mathesson's turn to scoff. "You'd be doing me a favour. Go for it."
His eyes rolled away from her, from the pistol touching his forehead, and stared through the ceiling.
"Bliz!"
She thought about it. About how much she missed Orange. Her family. About how everything was a little colder without them. The days a little darker. About the part of her buried with them. About the part of her that hated being alive. The part that had said you'd be doing me a favour, too.
She flicked the safety on and clipped the pistol to her thigh. "Fine. He's all yours."
Blizzard walked out of the control room.
She watched the dropships land in the distance. Feet dangling off the roof's ledge, she pulled her helmet off and scrubbed armoured fingers against her scalp. The rain had eased off, clouds starting to break apart. She'd reported the all-clear to Falcon, who was still overseeing total mop-up at the base. Geist had arrived in one piece to help the invasion along. And then she'd field-dressed the bullet holes in her side and arm. They'd need attention after, but the biofoam packing the wounds was good enough to fight if needed.
But it wasn't needed.
Circuit groaned as he sat stiffly. His boots dangled next to hers.
"So you don't like the new guy."
"What." She was certain she'd misheard.
"Nothing official, of course. Gotta wait for Falcon and Harper to give the green light. But y'know, he's just the sort we're in the business of recruiting."
"Absolutely not," she said.
He blew out a long sigh and tugged off his own helmet. "Is it last year again?" he said to himself. He tapped his fingers on his thigh absently. "You don't have to like him."
"Like him? Like him? Lucas, I don't trust him."
"He saved your life," he protested.
She shook her head. "Wrong. He turned against his teammates and threw himself at our mercy. That's low, cowardly and, frankly, weak. Firefly and I were doing fine."
"That's not what I heard from Firefly."
"We were fine," she insisted.
"Okay, look. You changed your mind and spared him."
"Not because I thought his stuff would look good hanging in the locker beside mine!"
"And we're down two members right now," Circuit went on as if she hadn't spoken. "We need another set of hands and Kyle needs a new start."
"I don't care what his name is."
"Look, I've been doing this a lot longer than you have—"
"And I've been a soldier a lot longer than you. I know what he's like. I've seen people like him snap in battle. How many people do you think he's killed because he's snapped? How many has he let die? You get on his bad side and then there's a knife sticking out of my throat."
Red spraying across her visor. Teammate turning on teammate.
Circuit took a deep breath. "I'm telling you this as your best friend, Hannah. Give Kyle a chance. He might surprise you."
"Or smother me in my sleep," she said darkly.
"Or he might find the family the ODSTs refused to be. Doesn't everyone deserve a shot at what you have?"
She didn't have an answer. Not when Lucas turned his big doe eyes on her and wheedled. She couldn't summon the sour spite to stomp on his hope. On his soft spot for lost causes.
For Phoenix's addiction to broken things.
She sighed. "Fine."
But it made her skin crawl when she fell into her seat in the Pelican and saw Mathesson in Jason's spot.