Tears Amidst the Starlight

“Damn it!” she screamed and ducked back behind cover. Her rifle whined in stubborn refusal at her incessant finger. With low clicks, the weapon simply lay useless in her hands. The sensor was quite clear. The damn thing just wouldn’t cool down. Unthinking, she grabbed at the housing of the thermal clip. She growled in pain and swore again as she burned her hand. Even with her gloves the damn thing was still burning hot. With a grunt, she flicked the lever and the housing sprang open, ejecting the worthless heat sink. She quickly fumbled for a new clip, wincing as her hand flared with pain as her fingers wrapped around the heat sink and forced the new cartridge into the housing. “Stupid engineers!”

She grumbled as the housing latched back into place and the readouts flashed battle readiness. She growled as she cradled the rifle into her hand, partly from annoyance but mostly from the anger that flared to life as pain shot through her hand. She focused that anger and leaned out of cover and squeezed the trigger. The rifle obediently roared and a spray of rounds tore through the air towards the targets. One brief howl rang out as one pirate shuddered as a dozen rounds riddled his body before crumbling to the ground. The other, a Turian, merely grunted as three rounds exploded into him in quick succession. The pirate’s body snapped to the left as the first blow took him in the shoulder, hobbled as the second swept his leg out from beneath him, and fell deathly silent as the last tore through his helmet.

Ashley swung back into cover, pivoting on her right foot to face the opposite direction. She pressed against the cold stone and listened briefly. She could hear a few low grunts and barked orders in the distance, followed by the clamouring of armoured pirates rushing to obey. There were at least five hostiles left in the area. She had to be careful. She rocked forward slightly and peeked her head out to glance down-field. Dark shadows weaved through the scattered boulders and rocks strewn over the bleak brown ground. She almost laughed. Clearly this was a joke. There wasn’t any strategy involved. With a bemused gaze, she watched as they started to simply storm her position en masse. Granted, a five on one rush is often deadly, but not this. They were all in a nice little line for her gun them down ruthlessly. Really, this was just ridiculous.

Shaking her head, Ashley leaned back into cover and readied her rifle. She smiled. It was going to be so easy. She spun out of cover and immediately opened fire. The first two pirates crashed to the ground silently, dead before a single sound could escape their lips, the shattered faceplates of their helmets digging small bloody furrows into the ground. The third pirate tried to dive out of the way, but a half dozen rounds ripped into his legs and he flopped to the ground. He screamed pitifully and tried to crawl to cover. One precise burst from her rifle to the back of his head ended his screaming.

That left two pirates. One stubbornly continued to rush her as another skidded to halt and started to back away, firing in slow bursts hoping to distract her. The pirates were not so lucky. Ashley calmly aimed the rifle into the rushing pirate’s chest and fired. The pirate grunted and died quickly. Her shields flared briefly as a few rounds bounced harmlessly away and she swung her rifle to the remaining pirate and squeezed the trigger. A deafening roar erupted just to her left and Ashley turned immediately, still firing. Nearly a dozen rounds went astray. From behind a boulder, a large hulking form bolted towards her. She quickly cracked the butt of her rifle off the side of the daring and slightly-more-clever pirate’s head. She winced as the jarring impact sent pain shooting through her hand and sent the pirate sprawling to the ground with a groan. He was barely dazed and was already scrambling to his feet, but Ashley only smirked, aimed and fired. The smirk quickly faded. Only a scant smattering of rounds burst from the rifle. Not even enough to tear through the shields and rip through the armour of this one pirate.

“Fuck!” Ashley mechanically squeezed the trigger a few more times as the rifle only clicked in response before flinging the rifle to the ground and reaching for her pistol. She barely managed to raise the pistol before the pirate shot back to his feet and leapt to tackle her. She swore again as he bore her to the ground, but she agilely rolled with the momentum and flicked her wrist. She pulled the trigger. The pirate grunted as three rounds tore into his stomach, point blank. Ashley scowled and pushed the dying pirate to the side as she kept rolling. Twisting slightly, she rolled to her knees, turning to face the sole surviving pirate. He was rushing her, firing wildly.

She quickly raised her pistol in both hands and fired off several rounds as the pirate bore down on her. If he had been a professional of any sort, she would have been dead, bleeding from dozens of wounds. But he wasn’t. So, he only gurgled as several rounds shredded his throat and died slowly, falling to his knees and clutching the tattered mass of his throat, gasping for breath through his own blood. Finally, he flopped to the ground, gurgled one last time, and died. Ashley barely noticed. She was too busy trying not to explode into a string of obscenities.

The world pulsed around her and slowly started to dissolve, the pirates, rocks, and bleak landscape fading to metallic uniformity. She stood in the middle of a vast room, high arching walls and a dark ceiling contradicting the once wide open sky and open landscape.

“Good job, Chief.” The gritty voice of the operator rang over the comm system. Ashley could only inhale sharply at the comment. “Return all weapons to the armoury. All training for the day is completed. You may return to your quarters.”

Ashley sneered and stood for a few moments. With a sigh she shook her head and quickly marched forward to pick up the discarded rifle. She wanted to continue, but she knew arguing would do no good. They were not going to allow her to break the regulations for the training. Ten hours of intense simulated combat was the limit per day, forty per week, under the current training guidelines. She had already breached that limit for the day. In fact, she was dangerously close to the maximum limit for the week, and it was only Tuesday.

She didn’t like being so limited, but she had no choice. She hoisted the rifle, wincing again as her hand burned briefly. She growled and spun around. She walked from the simulator and into the dark corridors of the station. She barely noticed the shadows clinging to the dimly lit walls or the loud clacks of her own footfalls. Still fuming, she clenched her jaw and walked silently to the armoury, her footfalls echoing in the empty halls. Fortunately, the armoury was close and she was soon walking through the door. The room always seemed small to her, the walls lined with locker after locker where each weapon was stored. And the large metallic table sitting in the middle of the room didn’t make it seem any bigger. But then, she was used to the open bay of the Normandy.

“No.” she squeezed her eyes shut and took one breath. She didn’t want to think about that place, about that ship. It still hurt. Shaking her head, she walked towards the table in the centre of the room. The quarter master, a shorter and surprisingly lean Alliance soldier, stood to the side of the table, turned towards a locker and working on a data pad. For several moments he merely bent his head over his work before he finally looked up and nodded.

“Good session, Williams.” He turned towards her and smiled, slight wrinkles beginning to crinkle at the edge of his brown eyes. His smile was warm and understanding. From others, it would have annoyed her. But with him, she accepted it with a numb resignation. He had earned it. He was one of those who helped to pull her back.

“Good session my ass, Johnson!” she slammed the weapons down onto the table. “I would have been dead if the last pirate had been a competent soldier. Lucky for me, all I have to deal with is imbeciles playing at piracy.”

Johnson only smiled and shook his head, knowing the upcoming rant all too well. She wasn’t the only one. And it wasn’t the first time with her.

“What dumb ass decided to redesign our weapons with a shitty heat sink cartridge that has to be replaced every dozen shots?” Ashley flattened her hands and leaned forward over the table. She grimaced and stood back up with a grunt. She gently rubbed her hand through her glove and glared through the mask of her helmet. “Let’s not even mention the fact that the damn thing gets too hot to even touch, let alone pocket to use later!”

“Don’t ask me, Chief.” Johnson shrugged as he calmly picked up the weapons, returned them to their respective lockers, and quickly verified his inventory on the data-pad. “It wasn’t my idea.”

Ashley stared for a few silent moments, still rubbing her hand as Johnson completed his work.

“Don’t get too worked up about it.” His fingers flew over the data pad one last time before he calmly placed it in its assigned slot next to the lockers. He looked up and waved one arm toward the door. Ashley turned and began to walk, Johnson following close behind. “Stupid designs are part of the gig. You know those scientists can’t leave well enough alone. They have to tinker and fuck up anything they touch. It’s in the blood.”

Ashley gave a small chuckle and Johnson hid a smile as they walked out the door. She was starting to laugh again. It was rare and it was short, but she was laughing. He sighed as he locked the door behind them and turned towards her.

“And it will get better. It almost always does.” He stared at her for a few moments before he gave a slight smile and nodded to her. She paused for several seconds before nodding back. “Goodnight, Williams.”

She only nodded one last time as Johnson turned and walked off down the corridor. She stood still, thinking and rubbing her hand. Then, slowly, she started off down the corridor towards her quarters. Lost in thought, she was quickly back in her room and started to strip off her armour. The angry red colour of her hand caught her eyes as she slid off her gloves gingerly. It still hurt, but it was already much less painful that it was less than thirty minutes prior. She sighed. She could not get his last words out of her head. He might have been talking about the boondoggle with the armament redesign, but she knew the real meaning behind the words. She would get better. The wound would fade and heal and she would be able to move on.

She slowly stripped her boots off, careful not to aggravate her sensitive palm. She smiled briefly as her feet slid from the boots and cool air caressed her skin. She wiggled her toes for a few seconds before inhaling deeply and continuing to strip off the armour covering her legs, arms, and chest. She sighed in content relief as her body was slowly welcomed by the cool air of her room. Soon, all she was wearing was her pants and shirt. She stretched and smiled again, surprisingly glad to be free of the armour. Still, she could not get Johnson’s words out of her head.

She stood and diligently examined her armour, trying to push his words from her mind. But, aside from a few scrapes that could be polished out, the armour was in perfect condition. Her brief relief from his incessant echo in her head only lasted moments. With a sigh, she tucked the armour into its storage locker, resting the helmet at the edge of the table. Her fingers traced the curve only briefly before she turned back towards her main locker. Back towards her bed. She wasn’t really tired. But there was nothing else she could do. With another sigh, she unbuttoned her pants and slid them down her legs quickly. She tossed them into the clothes hamper. Her shirt soon followed. She simply stood there in only her small clinging panties, enjoying the gentle cool, swirling air in her quarters as it wafted across her naked skin. For some reason, it was soothing. It helped relax. And she slept better for it. She really didn’t understand why, but she went with it.

She turned towards her locker and her arm rose as she reached for a large shirt to slip into. But as her hand came into view, she glimpsed the small burn and suddenly the thoughts came hammering back. It would get better. She would heal. She already was healing. She was living, she was working, she was one more day farther from that horrible place. She was moving on. Her head slowly raised, her eyes roaming achingly over the locker until their gaze rested unerringly on one thing. With a trembling breath, her hand rose past the shirt and upward until her fingers brushed smooth black leather. She stood there, staring into her locker, her fingertips wandered over the raised silver lettering and tears glistening in her eyes. One step farther away… she was moving on.