Blinking out
WHO: Lunar Mariell & Zarah (NPC) WHERE: Apartment complex, few clicks from base. WHEN: Evening local time, Y03 Jan 06 (begins at 2345hrs CST)
The evening had settled across the city as the street lights started to cycle into operation, house lights slowly coming on as the people living in the city, living on Sagittaron prepared for their evenings; those family meals around the table, those nights huddled in front of the fire watching television with the kids or just parents helping their kids with homework.
For Lieutenant Mariell, Lunar, she didn’t have that to look forward to as she was on the night watch which was scheduled for start in an hour. Her second was a reliable soul, kept things in check so she felt comfortable leaving the Admiral in his watch so that a suitable rotation could be devised and implemented. Lucky for her, her apartment wasn’t too far from the base so if anything did happen she could get there quickly.
Lunar had grabbed a shower, spent time on her hair and really groomed herself for lack of a better word. She was tough as nails, no pun intended but she was still a woman with those same sensibilities regardless of career. After finishing for the moment everything in the bathroom, she exited into her bedroom, towel around her in order to get dressed ready for work.
It didn’t take her long to get into uniform, using the dress mirror in her bedroom to correct any crease in its appearance before then tying her hair into a ponytail for ease. She was a woman but she hated the whole hair needs to be fantastic stereotype thing. With her hair neatly contained in a ponytail, brushed first of course, Lunar checked the clock in her room to see how long before her shift. Still a little time, enough time for some coffee because each night shift was long and often was a feat of endurance training.
Walking from her bedroom, her military boots carried her into the main room where everything was connected, the hub as she called it. She placed her sidearm down on the glass table in the living room and started towards the kettle to make some coffee, some extra strong coffee. Hitting the button, it whistled into action and while she waited, Lunar approached the large window back in the living room that looked out across the street and beyond at the view of the city at night. Beautiful it was. She was going to miss it when she got reassigned – she hadn’t forgotten Captain Simmons promise. Her wings again.
The kettle whistled as it boiled, Lunar standing directly at the window, arms crossed looking out at the view and finding some solace in its tranquillity. She had grown perhaps a little attached to its uniqueness. She stood at the window a moment longer until the kettle boiled to its limit, Lunar turning to move and just at that moment, a glass shattering sound followed with the sound of a bullet impacting the far wall. It made her dive to the ground and crawl to cover behind the wall adjacent.
“What the....” Lunar pinned her back against the wall next to the glass window, her hand instinctively lowered to her right side for her weapon but it wasn’t there. Her eyes looked over the room and spotted her weapon on the glass table directly in view of the glass window. “Frak!” She cursed strongly.
Lunar’s breathing was fast as she tried to piece together what the hell this was. A sniper with a really lousy shot. She leaned forward slightly to look out the window, the cracked glass which all silhouetted around a single hole in it, the bullet hole. No secondary shot was made so Lunar started to move slowly. FLASH.
Covering her eyes, Lunar had a fair idea what that flash was. She turned away and headed for her weapon knowing her duty station would need all hands on deck tonight. Lunar crawled to make her a more difficult target for whoever shot that bullet through her window, obviously lacking military sniper training. She was thinking all the time about her duty. Something was going on; she had the good sense to know that this wasn’t random chance. Part of her wanted to believe it was Jill Simmons removing the thorn from her side but Jill, a graduate from the same academy as her, didn’t seem the assassination type nor the pyrotechnic. Besides, this didn’t smell military, too green with the aim.
Reaching her weapon, Lunar was in the middle of pulling it out the belt holster when her front door was kicked in, practically shattered as if opened with explosives. She cocked back the hammer and scrambled to her feet, moving towards the kitchen, pulling back on the trigger as two figures moved into the room with heavy duty weapons, spraying bullets at her on sight. Lunar fired her weapon in the general direction of the door while moving as quickly as she could to the kitchen where she immediately jumped over the counter to hide behind and landed behind it with a thud and grunt of pain. Their bullets took down kitchen utensils, tiles shattered off the wall and this was some serious frak. She shielded her head from the fragments and then reached over the top, squeezing back the trigger and blindly firing her weapon into her nice living space.
More high velocity bullets screeched through the room, Lunar covering up as more things fell from the wall and the kitchen overhang. “Frak me!” The Lieutenant took out the clip as it was empty and grabbed another one from her belt that she had carried across the room with her. She slammed it into the sidearm and took a deep breath, remembering what she saw on her mad dash for cover. “Right, no military markings which is good, but what difference does that frakking make right now?! They have the big weapons....ah frak!” Lunar covered up as more fragments of tile fell from the wall of what was her kitchen. People were screaming, her neighbours must have all fled into the streets.
Lunar looked up at the metallic cooker hood, seeing their reflection, well one reflection. She must have taken one out. It was a frakking woman, blond and packing some mean heat. Lunar grunting, “Don’t suppose we can talk about....FRAK!” The woman opened fire again, bullets ricocheting everywhere and brought plaster and more tiles down on her than ever before. Her nice uniform was ruined, frak!
The woman cursed and, “What?” The sound of a trigger being pulled was met with a click, click, click and Lunar sighed in relief, whipping herself up onto her feet, taking aim at the blond with both hands mounted around the weapon. “Frakking bitch!” She glared at the blond and was tempted, very tempted to pull the trigger but she wanted answers. Lunar took the moment to observe, her nice apartment turned into a battle zone with bullet holes everywhere and a dead body on her floor. “Aha, looks like your partner snuffed it. Can’t say I’m sorry though because you know, you came in frakking shooting at me!”
The woman was busy trying to get her weapon to work but it refused. She cursed and barely observed the threat facing her, totally not afraid of what was to come, her fate in life.
“It’s frakking jammed you moron so put it the frak down!” Lunar wiped her face clear of the dust from the plaster and moved around her ruined kitchen counter which had prepared so many meals over the weeks she had been there. “Want to tell me your name blondie?”
“Zarah,” the woman replied with no hesitation, no double thinking. She dropped the weapon and stood there ready for her fate.
Lunar nodded, “Zarah, mind telling me what the frak this is?” She waved her weapon around the room, pointing at the bullet holes around it and the dead body because this wasn’t no theft, not with those weapons, not with the fuss going on outside. “What was that flash?”
“Fate,” Zarah replied, holding her hands up like any good person having a gun held at her would.
“Fate, huh?” Lunar listened to the answer with a scoff, moving herself while keeping her eyes and weapon drawn on the mysterious gunslinger. The noise from outside, people screaming and running had absolutely nothing to do with this or did it? She stopped for a moment and took a look down at the streets to see the people of the city running in mass panic. “What the h....” Turning back to her prisoner, she was ambushed.
Zarah punched the Lieutenant across the face, kneed her on the arm to disarm her which caused the Lieutenant to scream at the sound of a bone being broken and then threw her across the room. “It’s the sound of retribution.” She moved after the Lieutenant with her bare hands because she had orders to complete and she intended on completing them no matter what the cost.
Lunar coughed as she landed, blood dripping from her mouth as she was stunned, eyes a little blurry before they refocused and got glimpse of the blond coming at her again. Lunar swung her leg out, kicking away the two legs this blond bitch was walking on. She tried to catch her breath as the blond lay there half dazed but was then grabbed by the leg, pulled across the hard floor and pinned down, the blond on top punching and punching at her face, Lunar trying to cover up but each punch was powerful and direct.
“We are the creation and we have come to end our creator’s existence.” Zarah, a six battered the hell out of Lunar before wrapping her hand around the Lieutenant’s throat, pulling her to her feet, supporting her human frailty, “Today we have come home....” Her face seemed to explode with anger as she tossed the Lieutenant across the room and into the large television hanging on the wall, the electrics sparking and bursting with the impact.
Lunar fell to the floor, coughing some blood from the impact but still conscious – barely. She watched with her face on the floor as the woman walked across the room slowly with purpose. She was truly frakked, that was all Lunar could think. Her eyes scanned over what she saw; her sidearm behind the woman as she approached so that was useless now. She looked around and heard the sparks of electricity from behind her. Lunar rolled onto her back, screaming at the pain because of her broken arm, her eyes looking at the blond approaching, “Yeah, go frak yourself bitch!” She kicked herself back, her television shattered around her in bits, wires everywhere but one was still live, sparking with power.
“Open your heart to god Lunar, it is the only way he will embrace you after death.” The blond heard the noise outside, Zarah could feel her brothers and sisters nearby and so she had to finish up here and join them. “I hate to end things like this Lieutenant but I promise god will be waiting for you.” The blond moved in for the kill, ready to snap Lunar’s neck and as she pounced, Lunar acted.
Making a last ditch effort for the live wire, being careful not to shock herself, Lunar took it in hand and pressed it against the leg of the blond on her approach, shocking her with it. The blond screamed and then fell to the floor in a heap with a smell of burnt flesh now joining the complete mess of Lunar’s apartment. Lunar grunted at the pain she was experiencing. With her attackers subdued, Lunar fell back, lying down and closing her eyes, feeling too tired to move, that she was too wounded to move. Let her die, gods please let me die.