AUTHOR'S NOTES: For once, a chapter that came in a little shorter than I anticipated. Still, it's all combat, so for those of you who have been wishing everyone would just shut up for a few chapters, here you go.

Just as a quick accuracy note: the ZSU referred here is the earlier 1950s-era vehicle, the ZSU-57-2, not the more well-known ZSU-23-4 Shilka. With the Soviet Union having been destroyed in 1962 in this AU, the Shilka would have never gone into production (though it was in testing, so there's a good chance that Salem might have them). I wanted to make that clear before someone yells at me in the comments that I got it wrong. (I probably got other things wrong, but at least I got that one, right?)

This one also gets pretty squicky, so if blood and guts bothers you, might not want to read this chapter...

South of Groom Lake (Area 51)

Nevada, United States of Canada

26 April 2002

0755 Hours Local

While Yang's eyesight was not as amazing as her sister's, it was still rather good. As she roared over Area 51, the sonic boom in her wake, she spotted something. Yang throttled back the F-15, though she would be some distance away before she could slow down and turn around from Mach 1.1. "Weiss, Ruby, this is Yang! Can't see Blake or Em, but I think I saw a Rapier down there!"

"Yang, Weiss." Yang heard Weiss' voice strained with exertion. "Can confirm…one just shot past me."

Ruby was following behind Weiss, and spotted the missile going ballistic away from them. Damn, Rapiers. The Rapier was a British-made surface-to-air missile system: it was short-ranged, but while it was radar guided, it also had a backup optical/infrared guidance system. It meant that, even if Ruby knocked out the SAM radars, the sites themselves would still be operational. The Rapier was a small missile and hard to evade; the operator had panic-fired it at Weiss. "Weiss, Ruby—come in behind me!"

"Roger." Weiss snapped the Typhoon to the right into a wide circle to settle into trail behind her.

Ruby switched the HUD to ground attack and went to the HARMs. To her surprise, the HUD immediately showed a lock. "Hope this works," Ruby mused to herself, and pulled the trigger. "Magnum, Magnum!" The HARM shot off the rail and was soon just a dot ahead of the F-16 as Groom Lake came into view. A few seconds later, she was rewarded with an explosion ahead of her, next to a huge hangar.

Flak began to curl up towards her, evidenced by little fireballs—tracer rounds, showing the gunners where to shoot. It always bothered Ruby, who remembered her father telling her that every fifth round was a tracer—which meant there were four other shells she couldn't see. They seemed to come at her and then curve away, which meant that the gunners weren't leading her very well. She kept her speed up as the F-16 shot over Area 51 at 800 feet. "Weiss, watch it—lot of flak." Ruby kept her head moving around, trying to identify where everyone was and find Blake and Emerald. Normally, a pilot on the ground would signal by tossing a smoke grenade or using a recognition panel, but that wasn't going to happen here. She did see a lot of ground troops on the tarmac, some of whom shot at her as she went by. Ruby's RWR told her where the other Rapier position was, and she began dropping flares and chaff behind her as she went past. It might have saved her life, because she had a glimpse of a missile trail behind her as the Rapier fired. The missile, however, never had a decent lock-on and went behind her, chasing flares before it exploded. Then Ruby was past the empty Kobold launch tubes and over the dry lake itself. She began to climb, still leaving flares behind her. "Ruby Flight, Lead!" she called out. "Lot of ground fire down there! I got one Rapier radar—"

"Lead, Weiss, Judy." Weiss was making her own attack run and didn't want the distraction of Ruby's voice. She saw two flak positions swinging around to fire at her, then the Rapier mount. Realizing that the SAM operator would be able to shoot her before she could shoot the site, Weiss snapped "DUST, Sidewinder, engage ground target!" She looked at the site and pulled the trigger. Luckily, DUST was not programmed to take into account that the Sidewinder was not designed for what she was using it for.

The missile fired and quickly locked onto the nearest source of heat—the desert floor. It hit the ground near a long building and exploded, but served its purpose: the Rapier crew had abandoned their position, thinking Weiss had fired it at them. That gave her a second or two. "DUST, guns, ground attack." The computer switched her HUD to ground attack mode, and she settled the projected gunsight onto the Rapier position, trying to ignore the flak guns that were still firing at her. She said a prayer—she couldn't jink on the gun run—and then opened fire. The Mauser spit several 27 millimeter shells and Weiss saw sparks on the Rapier. She tightened her turn, and was proven right when the Rapier missiles still on the rails exploded. Weiss roared over a gun site, close enough to see the crew frantically trying to spin the mount around to engage, then rolled level and climbed. "Ruby, Weiss—southern Rapier destroyed."

"Roger, Weiss. Okay, Rubies—we've got one Rapier site to the north, and looks like two 40 mike-mikes to the south. I think I saw a Zip Gun down there too, so be careful." Weiss and Yang translated Ruby's shorthand: the base was defended by one more Rapier site, two 40 millimeter gun mounts to the south, and a ZPU-4—a towed quad 23mm gun mount.

"Ruby, Nora. ETA two minutes." Nora quickly broke into the conversation.

"Roger, Nora." Ruby rolled out of her climb at 15,000 feet and turned back. She dipped the nose and locked onto the last Rapier site's radar with the last HARM. "Magnum!" Ruby yelled over the net, and fired. This one guided as true as the first one, destroying the last SAM radar.

"All aircraft, Disco. Bandits, bandits proceeding Bullseye, 35 for 101. Raid count is 30. This is Disco, 1355 Zulu." The AWACS was calling out the Kobolds. Ruby quickly worked out the position in her head: the GRIMM were 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas and headed towards the city.

"Ruby, Yang. I'm in, north to south." Ruby spotted Yang's F-15 darting across the dry lake bed. She throttled back a little to let Yang edge out ahead of her; it would embarrassing if she had a midair collision with her sister over the target. Ruby kept dropping flares and slowed even more as she spotted another forty millimeter flak gun near the Rapier mount. C'mon, assholes, she thought, look at me, not Yang.

She didn't know if it worked, but as Yang came in, she saw a puff of smoke from the Eagle as her sister fired. There was an explosion as Yang hit the forty millimeter mount. The F-15 continued south as flak followed it, but Yang rolled into a side canyon and disappeared. Ruby broke off her run and climbed again. "Yang, Weiss, head south; rejoin Prince. I'll hang out here and help Nora." Both acknowledged, and Ruby watched the F-15 and the Typhoon climb and head south.

"Ruby, Nora. Go on. I'll assume CAP," Nora radioed.

"Negative, Nora. Not leaving you out here alone." Cruising around by one's lonesome was asking to get ambushed.

"Ruby, Nora. They need you south. I got this."

Ruby warred with herself for a moment. "Dammit," she whispered to herself, then touched the radio button. "Understood. I'll make one more pass, north to south. See if you can get Blake or Emerald to come up." Ruby once more dived, almost vertically towards the ground, then pulled into a more shallow descent. The HARMs worked great. Now let's see if the gunpod works. She switched to the SUU-23, put the gun pipper on the Rapier site, and as she pulled out of the dive, cut loose.

The gunpod roared to life, spitting 20mm shells at the site. Ruby felt her teeth chatter as the gunpod shook the F-16 unmercifully, and it scattered shells all over the place. It did hit the Rapier site with enough of them to blow the missile battery to pieces, and probably killed anyone around it. She let off the trigger and the shaking stopped, and she headed for the same side canyon Yang had. "Good luck, Nora."

Area 51

0800 Hours

Blake and Emerald took cover in the trench as Ruby Flight came over, but Blake could not resist at least glancing upwards to watch her friends work. The ground shuddered with explosions and jet noise as Yang, Weiss and Ruby made their attacks. Emerald got up as well as Ruby flew past and away from the base, leaving a rumbling in her wake. "I really hope they don't charge us," Blake repeated in the silence that briefly followed.

The survival radio crackled. "Blake, Em, this is Nora. Come up on channel."

Emerald fired a few more shots in the general direction of the guards as Blake grabbed the survival radio out of the side of the ditch. "Nora, Blake. Read you five-by."

"On my way, ETA 30 secs. Can you mark your position?"

Blake cursed. There had really been no way to smuggle in something to mark their position with. We should've thought of something, she thought to herself angrily. "Negative—" Blake began to say, but then she saw Emerald fish something out of her back pocket. It was a tiny makeup kit, and she opened it to reveal a mirror. She handed it to Blake, winked, and resumed scanning for any guard brave enough to show themselves. Blake did a quick check of the sun, then turned the mirror to catch the light. "Nora, marking our position with mirror."

"Roger that. I see your flash. Okay, I'm in south to north! Danger close!"

"Oh shit!" Emerald shouted. "They're rushing us!"

Blake dropped the radio and grabbed her AK-47. A-10s were remarkably quiet until they were on top of their target, but someone had evidently seen Nora, or just figured that the airstrike wasn't over, and the safest place to be was right next to Blake and Emerald. Whatever the reason, nearly two dozen guards left their cover and charged across the open tarmac, shouting at the top of their lungs and firing their rifles from the hip. It wasn't terribly accurate, but the volume of fire kept Blake and Emerald from more than the occasional shot back over the top of the ditch. Blake spotted Zira behind the charging guards, urging them on with her pistol. Figures, she thought idly as she fired off the rest of her magazine. "Reloading!" she warned Emerald.

The charge would have worked—if it had been launched thirty seconds earlier. Zira's troops would have made the run and been in the ditch before Nora arrived. Unfortunately, they were too late. Nora, confronted with the sight of personnel in the open, pushed the nose slightly down and pulled the trigger. Blake heard the chainsaw-like sound of the GAU-8, and dived back down into the ditch. Nora's A-10 came over a second later with a bansheelike wail, and Blake heard heavy explosions. She quickly got up to see flak explode in Nora's wake—heavier flak bursts than the forty millimeters. Nora flew out over the dry lake and began turning around to make her second pass.

"Dios mio," Emerald breathed, and Blake looked around. About half of the guards were moving back under cover. They were the only ones. The heavy thirty millimeter depleted uranium rounds had torn the concrete tarmac up into a field of small craters, but that was nothing compared to what they had done to soft human bodies. Most were torn apart into so many pieces that Blake did not see anything recognizably human. Blood and viscera coated the ground.

Blake grabbed the radio. "Nora, good pass. 75 percent BDA on that one. Hold north for a second; I want to look at something." She squeezed past Emerald and half-ran, half-stumbled down the ditch a few yards. "Fuck," she cursed, then went back to her former position. "Nora, you've got a ZSU down here. Twin 57s."

"Dammit," Nora mused to herself, as she made a quick orbit out of range. Her A-10's armor could survive 23 millimeter hits, but not 57 millimeter.

"Nora, Spooky 21, status?" Cola Shamir's voice came up on the radio.

"Spooky, heavy flak on target. Give me a minute, but go ahead and come north. Yo, Joe!" Nora called out. That would at least get the Marines coming north as well.

"Nora, Spooky—let us know when you've suppressed the flak." The AC-130 was a slow target, very vulnerable to ground fire.

"Roger. Making my second run, north to south. Get small, Blake! I'm coming in over your head!" Nora pushed up the throttle and came in, jinking and leaving flares behind her—the Rapiers were destroyed, but there just might be someone down there with a Stinger. She came down the length of the runway, and spotted the ZSU—essentially a twin-gun turret on treads. The gunner was not leading her, but the flak bursts were still uncomfortably close. 40 millimeter shells reached out for her from the other remaining flak gun, and Nora jerked the stick to the right. She had only a split-second to line up the 40 millimeter mount in her gunsight, then once more pulled the trigger. The GAU-8 shredded the position; Blake, watching from the ditch, saw the shells impact before she heard the noise of the gun being fired.

Nora now slammed the stick further to the right, adding in right rudder pedal, using the Warthog's superb low-level turning radius to its limit. She felt the G-suit squeezing her, but she barely noticed: Nora Valkyrie was a part of her aircraft now, as much as if she had been built with Magnhild Too at the factory. In the middle of her turn, she switched to her rockets. Now behind the ZPU site, she emptied one pod at it, hit too short, then fired another. That one hit, sending pieces of the flak gun over her wing as she flew past it, through the debris kicked up from the rocket impacts. Nora stayed low, moving the stick constantly as she flew east, back over Blake and Emerald's head. Once more the gunners failed to lead their target, and she escaped unscathed.

Blake watched Nora fly past. "Hot damn. Emerald, if she can get that ZSU, Spooky can come in here." She grinned. "We might just get out of this after all."

"Hope so." Emerald pointed. "They're bringing in more troops. A lot more. Where the hell did were they keeping all these assholes?" She dropped the magazine out of her AK. "I'm out."

"Take mine." Blake handed over her rifle. "I'll work Nora." She raised the radio to her lips. "Good pass, Nora. You knocked out the last 40 mount and got that ZPU. Be advised, we have more bad guys lining up for another charge."

"Roger that. No prob. I'll circle around and hit them from the west. Can you see the ZSU?"

Blake squinted. "Nora, Blake—the ZSU is between two buildings…can you see an L-shaped building from where you are?"

There was a pause. "Roger."

"That's him."

"Got it. I'll nail his ass on the next pass—let me take care of your problem first."

Blake watched as the A-10 curved around to the north, on a long circle to come in from the mountains. "They're getting ready for another charge," Emerald warned her. She raised the rifle to her shoulder.

"Okay." Blake grabbed the empty AK and pulled out the integral bayonet underneath the barrel. She doubted anyone would get close after Nora's gun run, but a Marine was always prepared. Then she took a quick drink of water and set aside the canteen.

"Here they come." Emerald started to pull the trigger, but Blake put out a hand. "Hold your fire until they're closer," she warned. "You've got about thirty rounds and that's it."

"Nora's in, northwest to southeast." The A-10 was coming in at an angle to avoid hitting Blake or Emerald.

"Roger—" Blake began, then her eyes widened. "Nora, break off! Break off!"

"You fucking bastards!" Emerald screamed, because Zira was pushing the recent arrivals ahead of her remaining troops as human shields. If Nora fired, she would kill them as well.

"Shit!" Nora yelled, a second before she would have pulled the trigger. She pulled the nose up and aborted her run, rolling to the left.

And this time, the ZSU crew led her almost perfectly.

The A-10 shuddered under several hits—all the shells missed the cockpit, but tore off the left wingtip, holed the outer wing panel, ripped apart her port engine, and tore off most of the left tail endplate. Magnhild instantly pulled to the left, but Nora slammed the stick right and the throttle forward, putting in as much right rudder as she could before the A-10 simply continued its left roll into the ground. The Warthog staggered, but somehow kept flying. She got out of range and checked her instrument panel. No fire lights…hydraulics are okay…port engine gone, port rudder's gone… Nora glanced back behind her. Shit, no wonder she's hard to control. She reached up and hit the emergency stores button, cleaning off everything on the wing hardpoints—the Sidewinders and the rocket pods—to save weight and reduce drag. The A-10 lurched to the left again, but Nora fougtht the controls. "Easy, girl! We're too cute to die!" She got more altitude, in case she had to eject. "Disco, Nora. I'm hit. Major damage to aircraft. I'm gonna try to keep her in the air. I'm not hit myself, just the aircraft." She added the latter in case Ren heard her; she didn't want him to get worried.

"Nora, Disco. Do you need the Jolly Greens?"

"Negative," Nora replied. If she ejected, it would complicate the situation. She could keep the A-10 in the air until the Marines secured the runway, then land. I hope, she added to herself.

"Nora, this is Joe!" She recognized the voice of Captain Metzger. "Is the flak suppressed or not?"

"Joe, Disco, clear the channel." The E-3 controller sounded annoyed.

"Negative," Nora repeated. She tightened the straps on her seat in case she had to eject anyway, and risked turning to the left. The A-10 simply didn't respond, and she almost lost control. She was then forced to turn to the right. "ZSU still active."

"Oh, no," Blake groaned, because she saw what Zira's plan was—as brilliant as it was diabolical. She was forcing the prisoners forward in a line, with her guards hiding behind. Not only could Nora not fire, even if her aircraft wasn't crippled, but Blake and Emerald couldn't fire either. When they got close enough, the guards would shove their way past the prisoners and be in the ditch before Blake or Emerald could do anything. She guessed that neither Zira nor her troops would be in a prisoner-taking mood.

Emerald suddenly leaped out of the ditch. "Wait!" Blake called out, but the other woman was running forward, into the charnel house that Nora had turned the tarmac into. She stopped among the gore, and was looking around frantically. Blake heard Zira snap out an order, and the prisoners began to run forward, their hands still raised, the guards jogging behind. "Get back here, Emerald!" Blake shouted, then realized what the former thief was doing.

Emerald found what she was looking for: two undamaged AK-47s. She grabbed both and threw them towards Blake, praying that the tough construction of the old Soviet assault rifle would keep them from breaking. Blake stuffed the radio into her pants and scrambled out of the ditch to scoop up one of the rifles. She raised it as she knelt down next to a hole torn in the tarmac, and fired two shots over the prisoners' heads, trying to get them to drop down. Emerald was still looking for another weapon, but turned at the shots and crouched.

Zira realized that her quarry was in the open. "Kill them!" she screamed. The guards shoved down the prisoners in front of them or just ran over them, and charged forward. Once more, they fired on the run, which meant their shots were inaccurate.

Blake fought down the fear of her imminent death and remembered the lessons on the firing range drilled into her by an irate Gunny Hartman. She aimed low and fired, picking each target, never getting too fixated on one of them, resisting the AK's tendency to pull upwards after each shot. Emerald was doing the same, firing twice, taking a step backwards, then firing again. Their shots were accurate, and guards fell, knocked backwards by the impact of the heavy rounds, or falling forward, doubled up as Blake's and Emerald's shots hit them in the abdomen. Blake saw her enemies' own return fire kicking up pieces of concrete around her, and idly marveled that she was not being hit.

Then she heard two things at once: the whine of the A-10, and Emerald's scream.

Nora had finally come around and flew west. Her Magnhild was sluggish, and she was unable to get much power, with the left engine a shredded mess and the right engine beginning to overheat, but Nora was angry. Her friends were going to die, and it was her fault for getting tagged by some mercenaries in the middle of the Nevada desert. That, Nora decided, simply would not do.

She pointed the A-10 directly at the ZSU. The sight of the Warthog bearing down on them, she hoped, would panic the crew into firing too soon or too late. If not, then she would get them before they got her. In her mind's eye, she saw Ren, but she had to do something. Sorry, I love you, Ren, she thought, and pushed the throttle to its limits. She saw the ZSU's turret come around and the twin guns point directly at her with unnatural clarity.

"Nora, Spooky 21, abort, abort, abort!"

At first, Nora ignored the call, but then she saw something moving out of the corner of one eye. She abruptly realized what it was. "Holy shit!" She broke off her run, going right as hard as the Warthog could take her, knowing that she was now giving the ZSU crew a perfect target.

The ZSU crew thought so as well. It was their last thought before they died, as a 105 millimeter artillery shell hit the top of their vehicle. The ZSU exploded in a fireball.

Blake saw the guards hesitate, then suddenly turned and ran, forgetting her and Emerald as the A-10 came in. They couldn't know that Nora was not aiming at them; all they knew was what had happened to their comrades the last time the Warthog had made its run. In running away from one trap, they stepped right into another.

"Get down!" Blake screamed, and fired off the rest of her magazine high over the prisoners' heads. Some had already done so, but the rest screamed and dropped to the bloody tarmac. Blake threw down the empty AK and pulled out the radio. "Spooky 21, Blake! The people running west are enemy! Everyone on the tarmac is friendly! Danger close, danger close!" Then she got down as well and prayed that her hasty call was enough. If the AC-130 used either its howitzer or its 40 millimeter Bofors cannon, it would probably kill her and the civilians as well as Zira's people.

Luckily, Shamir knew her trade. The AC-130 droned over Area 51, dipping its wing as it continued its pylon turn, bringing the twin 20 millimeter Vulcans to bear instead. Blake heard the ripping paper noise as the AC-130 opened fire. The ground erupted in puffs of smoke as the shells first hit the ground, then tore through the guards like a scythe through wheat. As Spooky 21 continued its orbit, its gunners added one shot from the Bofors for good measure, aimed well west of Blake's position at a guard tower. The thump of the gun's shot and the impact were the same noise. After that explosion, there was nothing but the thrum of the AC-130's turboprops as Shamir continued her orbit, her crew looking with human and electronic eyes for new targets. There were none. If any guards had survived Spooky 21's onslaught, they were smart enough not to draw attention to themselves.

Blake slowly got to her feet. The gunship's fire had been accurate: none of the shells had fallen near the civilians. "Stay down!" she warned them all the same. A few were wounded, but with a professional eye, she saw that none of the wounds were emergencies. Then she raced over to Emerald.

She lay on the tarmac, lying spreadeagled. "Emerald!" Blake shouted.

"I'm…hit," Emerald struggled out. Blake knelt next to her and her bile rose. Blood soaked Emerald's shirt and pooled beneath her. Quickly, Blake tore off the other woman's shirt and bra, eschewing modesty for emergency. The entry wound was just above the right breast's dark nipple; Blake guessed that it had exited somewhere out of Emerald's back. It was bleeding heavily, so Blake grabbed the shirt and held it over the wound, putting pressure on it. Emerald coughed, and Blake noticed that it was pink froth. Lung shot. Shit.

"Blake…" Emerald tried to talk.

"Don't talk," Blake ordered. She kept up the pressure with one hand while she fished out the radio. "Joe, Blake. Get your fucking ass in here. I've got casualties."

"Joe, Spooky," Shamir added. "Area clear. No flak. Nora, do you need priority for landing?"

"Negative," Nora said. "I can wait."

"Blake, Joe," Metzger finally responded. "ETA two minutes. Report runway clear."

"The runway's clear, goddammit!" Blake shouted, then put down the radio. She had to elevate Emerald's head somehow to keep her from choking on her own blood, and bandage the exit wound before she bled out.

"Can I help?" Blake looked up and saw it was the bighorn Faunus she had hid behind the night before. He was bleeding from several cuts on his arms and legs, but was on his feet.

"Put pressure on this wound. You're not a doctor, are you?" Blake asked.

The bighorn knelt next to Emerald and took over holding the bandage in place. "Roofer," he replied. "Out of work one, too."

"Okay—just hold that." Blake searched around desperately for something to raise Emerald's head, then spotted the severed leg of someone Nora's strafing run had torn apart. She grabbed that, dragged it over, and put it underneath Emerald's head. She coughed up more blood and more pink froth. Blake noticed that Emerald's pupils were dilated. Oh Jesus, Blake thought, she's going into shock. She touched Emerald's forehead. "Stay with me, girl."

"Blake…" Emerald tried again, this time with a weak smile. Her teeth were bloodied, her lips pale.

"No, no—don't talk. We're going to roll you over, okay? I've got to bandage the exit wound. Hold on." She motioned to the bighorn, and gently, slowly, they rolled Emerald over. Her back was equally soaked with blood, and Blake thought she saw shards of bone mixed in the pool. Blood spurted from an exit wound in weak pulses. Blake stripped off her own shirt and put that onto the wound, then they rolled Emerald back on top of it. The bighorn looked up as the Marine C-130 landed, the noise of its turboprops rising to a roar as the pilot reversed engines even before the nose gear was down, to stop the transport as quickly as possible. The ramp was already coming down before it fully stopped, and Metzger led his Marines out and off the runway. Above them, the AC-130 still droned.

Blake turned and yelled "Corpsman up!" at the top of her voice. Emerald's eyes began to flutter, and Blake grabbed her cheeks, smearing more blood over them. "Emerald, dammit, stay with me! The Marines are here. You're gonna be okay."

Emerald gave her a lazy nod. "Blake," she whispered, then weakly grabbed the Faunus' shoulder. Blake leaned closer. "Tell…Pyrrha…tell…" She coughed again, swallowed, then continued. "Tell…I'm sorry…I'm…so sorry…" Blake saw tears well up in Emerald's eyes and drift to either side. "About Beacon...sorry…"

"It's okay, Emerald," Blake said. "No need to be sorry. You're…it's okay." Then she was pulled back. Blake's head came around to find herself staring into the face of a Navy corpsman. She nodded and stepped back. The bighorn Faunus was similarly and politely shooed away as the medics went to work on Emerald.

Metzger ran over. "You all right?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." She stared at where Emerald was being worked on. All she could see was the girl's legs, one of which was twitching uncontrollably.

"Captain Belladonna." She turned at the sound of her rank. "Where are the prisoners kept? Is this all of them? Any other guards?"

Blake shook herself. "Check the old barracks there, behind what's left of the ZSU. Most of them are out here. There's probably a few more guards." She pointed out where the barracks were, and the control tower. "Hanlon Fifestone's out here somewhere. Big guy, scarred face. We need him alive. Possibly Zira Zietan too. Lioness Faunus."

"We'll need you to identify them. I don't have time to brief my troops." Blake looked angrily at him, but Metzger stood his ground. "Captain, you can't help her. I need you with me, Marine."

Blake glanced down at Emerald and the medics, and knew Metzger was right. "You're right, you're right." She turned away from Emerald and picked up one of the fallen AKs. The C-130 was turning down at the far end of the tarmac, away from where the ZSU was still exploding, as the remaining ammunition cooked off. She looked over at the sound of tortured turbofans, as Nora brought Magnhild in to land. Considering the damage, the landing was near perfect. Nora taxied her A-10 into the sand along the runway, and it rumbled to a stop.

Metzger cleared his throat, and Blake saw that he had pulled off his flak jacket. He handed it to her, and Blake suddenly remembered that she had been standing there in her bra. She quickly strapped the too large jacket around her, and followed Metzger towards the hangars.

If Nora's strafe had left the tarmac a bloody ruin, the AC-130 had done much the same job on a smaller scale. A still smoking crater marked where the Bofors round had landed, taking out one of the guard towers and blowing a hole in the fence. "Shit!" Metzger suddenly exclaimed. "What the fuck…" He was backpedaling quickly. Blake looked down and gave a start of both surprise and horror. It was Zira—but only her head. Either one of the 20 millimeter rounds or the Bofors impact had decapitated her. Her lips were peeled back and her eyes stared sightlessly at Blake, as if Zira was still hating her from beyond death. "That's Zietan," Blake informed Metzger.

"Guess we can classify her as dead," Metzger said. His radio crackled and he spoke into his shoulder mike. "This is Six, go ahead."

"Six, this is Five. We've got four prisoners. Got them coming out of the tower. One's a big bastard. He wants to talk to you."

"Does he have a scar?" Metzger asked.

"Sure does, Six. How'd you know?"

"Fifestone," Blake said. "Guess he didn't want to die. Tell your men to keep an eye on him—he's former SAS."

"Wonderful." Metzger spoke into his mike. "Five, keep that asshole under heavy guard. If he twitches, blow off his fucking kneecaps. I'm on my way." He winked at Blake. "I'd normally apologize for my language in front of a lady, but you're a BAM, so I don't think you care."

Despite the situation and someone's head lying at their feet, Blake laughed. "BAM? That's old school, Joe." She laughed again. BAM was an old term for a female Marine—it stood for Broad-Assed Marine.

He thumbed back towards the tarmac. "Why don't you head back there, Captain? I guess I don't need you to identify anyone after all." He spotted one of his squad leaders and motioned him over. "Corporal, bag the head." As the corporal said exactly what he thought of that order, Blake began walking back the way she had came. Metzger's use of BAM was still funny, and she marveled at how she could still snicker while surrounded by ripped apart human beings. On some detached level, she knew that it was just her mind refusing to see what was around her, to protect herself from the horror. The sight of the bodies would come back later, when she was alone in the dark, along with the other terrors of the night.

One of the corpsmen jogged up to her. "Captain Belladonna?" She nodded. "Ma'am, Spooky 21 is reporting one hell of an air battle north of Las Vegas. We've got a radio set up if you want to listen—Spooky thought maybe you wanted to know."

"Yeah, thanks," Blake replied, still feeling that odd sense of detachment, like someone had just asked if she wanted to watch something on TV. In that air battle was almost everyone she loved and held dear, but she was still trying to process that she was still alive. "How's Emerald? The woman you were working on? I forgot to tell you—there's probably a hospital somewhere on base."

The corpsman didn't reply at first, but his face told Blake the answer to her question before he spoke. "I'm sorry, ma'am. She's gone."

Blake blinked. "She's what?"

The corpsman shook his head. "She died, Captain. Too much trauma and blood loss, ma'am. Nothing we could do. We tried. Believe me, we tried," he said helplessly, and Blake could tell he was lamenting the loss of a patient. "Was she a friend of yours, ma'am?"

Blake suddenly could no longer stand. She sat down hard, on a part of the tarmac that wasn't torn apart or covered in human remains. "Yes. She was."