Shannon Bennet's Story

"Damn it, I want these people off the streets," a woman's voice barked out over the din and commotion of the rioting mobs in the distance that still dotted the burning city.

The woman's uniform marked her as an Aschen marine, the staple of the Aschen ground forces, and while Shannon Bennet wasn't a particularly imposing woman on a physical level, nor an overly seasoned officer, what she lacked in size and years she made up for in the authoritative tone of her voice. She had a commanding air about her that when she spoke, it was plain to see that she expected to be listened to. While the Aschen High Space Command was mobilizing to address the threat of the unknown ship that had appeared within the planetary atmosphere, the marines were mobilizing to prepare in quelling ground disturbances.

"Give me that," she instructed as she took a comm device from one of her men. Flipping it on, her voice echoed up and down the neighboring streets as her voice was broadcasted through emergency channels.

"Attention citizens of Caprica City," she began. "This is Master Sergeant Shannon Bennet. You are instructed to clear the streets and to take shelter within the available bunkers. Standby for evacuation information. I repeat, you are instructed to clear the streets and to take shelter within the available bunkers. This is a harrowing time for the Aschen Empire, but you have not been abandoned. May his merciful shadow fall upon you."

Flipping the comm device off she scowled. The military, the CPF and the local law enforcement were mobilizing to try and restore order to the city, but the rioting continued unabated. With foreign ships present in Aschen space, it was looking more and more likely that the city would soon become a war zone.

"Get as many men as you can spare to assist the CPF and local law enforcement in getting these streets cleared," she told the man as she returned the comm device. "If this city is about to turn into a war zone, we don't want civilians running amok in the line of fire. Get them to shelter."

Though Rei Harkov and many others had the luck, or simply the foresight of taking shelter within the defensive bunkers before the nuke had detonated within Caprica City, many had been less fortunate. It wasn't until after the detonation that others began to flood into the bunker that Rei had taken shelter within.

Bearing uniforms that marked them as Aschen Marines, the new arrivals were clearly militant in nature and burdened heavily with wounded. The team had been fortunate to be located on the outskirts of the blast, but caught out in the open they had sustained heavy damage.

Rei and the scattering of civilians who had already taken shelter within the bunker were ushered out of the way as wounded men and women were helped inside.

"Colonel? Colonel Bennet?" a man's voice spoke up over the pained groans that filled the room. "Colonel can you hear me?" The woman he spoke to was in shock and had a ragged piece of metal lodged deeply into her side. "Stay with us Colonel," the soldier said as he looked around. Settling his gaze on Rei he gestured to her. "You there, come stay with her. Keep her conscious, and don't let her try to take that out."

The man moved off already barking orders at the other marines that were still on their feet.

“Do I look like a fuckin’ medic?” Rei said grumpily. She wasn’t terribly happy with being pressed into service of the Aschen military yet again. She’d done her damnedest to stay as clear as possible over the last few decades, and liked to keep it that way. “Keep ‘er conscious.. don’t let ‘er talk… bla bla bla…” She muttered mocking the man behind his back as he left.

“Well missy, looks like I’m to be your new pal, or so says Captain grumpy over there.” Rei commented jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the man who had volunteered her for the unwanted job. Squatting down by Colonel Bennet, she just shook her head. “You Aschen sure are damned good at getting in trouble, or maybe I should say you’re good at pissing off just the right person… I don't know.” She couldn’t help making a few snide remarks; the filter between the brain and mouth wasn’t exactly present most days.

Looking at the hunk of metal lodged in the woman’s side, Rei let out a low whistle. “You know lady I’m amazed your not dead yet.”

Rei certainly had a way with words around the wounded, a fact that Shannon might have noted with some measure of wry amusement had she not been the one on the floor. Her skin was pale and slick with sweat as she stared up at the ceiling overhead.

"What happened," Shannon asked between pained breaths.

The Coalition? No how could they have gotten this far into Aschen space without word reaching the ground troops.

She raised a hand to her brow only to pull it away as she felt the split skin of a gash over her eye. Laying her hand back down at her side, she decided it best to just not try to move.

Rei offered a slight shrug to Shannon as she eased herself down onto the cold, concrete floor of the bunker. "Don't know. All I know is some genius tried to fly a ship in the atmosphere... I think. Maybe they dropped a bomb, but I really don't know. Besides, I thought you military types knew everything." She replied crossing her legs and leaning over Shannon.

Badly injured was probably the understatement of the year, from what she could tell, most of the woman's wounds should have led to fatal blood loss or at least shock leading to death. "That," Rei said pointing to the large wound in Shannon's side. "Will eventually have to be fixed. So, lets just hope Captain Grumpy comes back with a real medic." She finished knowing that any sort of interference on her end would cause an inordinately large amount of trouble.

"If only," Shannon replied.

She closed her eyes against an onslaught of dizziness and nausea.

"What's your name?" she asked.

The signs of shock were there in the palor of the woman's skin, and the sweat that beaded across her brow.

"Rei," Shannon replied. "That's a nice name."

"'m Shannon," she added. Her words a bit muddled. "When we get out of here, remind me to get you a drink sometime."

"Any family here?" Shannon asked. "Mine are all in Tauron."

"You know, parents, siblings..." Shannon replied.

The woman was fading, consciousness a fleeting thing that was slipping from her.

Shannon didn't say anything at first, her words slow to formulate as she tried to pull her thoughts together through the haze of her injuries.

"Not much to say," she replied finally.

If she was going to offer anything further, it would seem she wouldn't get the opportunity to. No further words came as unconscious stole over her. Her breaths were thready and shallow as her head lolled to the side.

Rei raised an eyebrow at Shannon's comment about not having much to say. "Funny thing to hear from someone who's so curious about their assigned babysitter." She remarked noting the extreme shortness of breath and inability to focus that Shannon possessed. 'This is going to get me in so much trouble...' Rei thought to herself as she watched in horror as the woman's head lolled off to one side. "Hey, hey... look at me!" She said with slight panic knowing from personal experience just how little sense the Aschen possessed when it came to assigning people to keep track of the injured, especially an officer judging by the woman's uniform.

"Oh fuck me... if you croak I croak." Rei muttered taking a quick survey of the injuries. This was a situation of self preservation, necessarily something done out of the goodness of her heart. Checking Shannon's pulse, she found it to be faint and thready, with it possibly growing worse with each passing moment. "No sign of Captain Grumpy Pants..." She said to herself as looked at the large hunk of metal protruding from Shannon's side, and pulled.

Shannon didn't so much as stir as the metal was jerked free from the flesh. It would seem the object was all that was keeping the officer from bleeding out sooner and the blood welled from the ragged wound alarmingly to further soak her uniform. Her ashen skin was swiftly taking on an alarming chalky hue, and her lips were growing blue.

Trying to hide how panicked she felt, and probably looked, Rei tossed the piece of metal aside with a clang against the cold concrete floor of the bunker. She briefly wondered just how far back the bunker went, and if they were possibly connected to any sort of tunnel system; she'd have to find out once her business here was finished. "Okay, deep breaths and stay calm." She said mostly to herself than Shannon as she put her hand over the gushing wound.

Taking a deep breath, and letting it out slowly, Rei concentrated on the wound in Shannon's side; and having only done this once or twice, it wasn't exactly something that came easy to her. There was massive devastation to the surrounding tissues, and an enormous amount of blood loss. A gentle white light bathed the wound as Rei stopped the bleeding, and encouraged the tissues to begin to repair themselves. The wound in Shannon's side was much more important than the gash across her head, or any other bruises the woman might have had. Leaning back after she finished she waited only moments to see if Shannon would come around.

The process had made her tired, weak, and she more than likely had taken on Shannon's own wound temporarily. Despite all this she made it her number one priority to make herself scarce by doing what she'd been explicitly told not to do, leave. Rei knew there would be a price of some sort to pay for her actions, self serving or not.

As the Aschen Sergeant barked his warning, Shannon Bennet barely had time to duck for cover as the pillar of plasma seared down to impact with the street. The heat gusted past her position and the stench of ozone filled the air.

"For frak's sake," she muttered as she surveyed the damage.

It had been a reckless gambit, but fortunately whoever was up there was spot on mark as the pillar struck the intersection up ahead. The street further down from the fighting had been swept clear of the worst of the cyborgs; though, dozens more remained that had been safely outside of the blast zone as they were engaged with those near the blockade, but the locals were making short work of them now that the incoming flood had been momentarily stemmed.

She checked the micro-fushion cell in her disruptor rifle before moving out into the street with the other Aschen soldiers and Terran military that were rushing down the street. The cyborgs wouldn't leave the area clear for long, and they had to secure the position if they intended to hold it. Cyborgs were felled by the dozens as the soldiers broke through the surviving zombies to reach the cleared street ahead.

One cyborg reached for Shannon's leg in passing - its lower extremities having been incinerated by the plasma beam - but Shannon quickly finished it off with a single shot.

Back at the blocade the break in the cyborg flood had the fight for Main Street swaying in favor of those manning the barricades. In a roar of gunfire WCPD officers, NPA officers, and Invictus soldiers were cutting through the remaining cyborgs and laying down cover fire for the soldiers moving out into the street to retake it. Daniel Johnson, a man of thirty-two and a long standing member of the police force was among those holding the line. Popping a fresh magazine into his rifle, he sighted down it and fired off a few more shots that dropped another cyborg.

The bodies piling up in the street in front of the blocade were beyond count, and those still walking were rapidly thinning, but movement far in the distance betrayed the imminent arrival of the next wave if the soldiers didn't secure the street.

Snuffing out the still blazing corpse of a nearby cyborg tentatively with the heel of his boot, Benjamin Davis sighed, nudging the charred body away and wrinkling his nose. It was starting to smell badly of rotting flesh, the piles of bodies formed of already dead flesh swiftly deteriorating as the battle went on.

"Uhg," the long-haired mage grimaced, wringing his hands together and glancing at Daniel, who was adjacent to him in the line. "Did we miss a mass excavation of graveyards, recently? Where does anyone get this many bodies? This isn't what I signed up for."

"Damned if I know," Daniel shouted back over the gunfire. "But I'm sure they'll take your preference into account if they break through the blockades."

There was another crack of Daniel's rifle and another cyborg fell to join its brethren on the pavement.

"Do you think? They don't seem very considerate, to me." Ben replied, frowning and extending a hand outwards to catch an approaching cyborg in a burst of fire that knocked it to the ground where it was promptly finished off by one of the others on the barricade.

"Have you ever tried to give out parking tickets in this city?" Daniel yelled back. "Believe me, these things are far more reasonable."

Ben cracked a smile at that remark, "I suppose you're right. In no other city will you see something escalate from a speeding fine, to resisting arrest and several thousand dollars worth of property damage in the space of ten minutes. That was a fun one."

oh hi there

Aneres Coreveon wasn't dressed as obscurely as she would have liked to believe. The shimmering white kimono-style overlayer embroidered with golden moons down the sleeves, the long-hemmed fringe coming to rest just above the hemline of golden bell-bottoms. Beneath was a plain white top. A golden chain poked out from the collar but the rest of it was tucked beneath the shirt.

There was nothing Aneres could do about the bodyguards who followed her, but she had grown used to that to some degree. At least they let her style them at this point. It made everyone's job easier.

Aneres flicked golden braids to look one way up the street, then the other, then back again. A grunt from one of the bodyguards signaled that it was alright to cross. Halfway across the street she felt a slight tremor of energy. The bodyguards picked up their pace and hurried Aneres across. She didn't protest. They came to stop a stone's throw from a mercedes, a man perched atop the back.

"Did you feel that?" Aneres asked the man, half looking down her nose despite the fact that he was literally seated higher up than where she stood. Her tone wasn't pretentious but there was something about it that dripped with royalty.