Jaira scanned their perimeter through their newly acquired night vision goggles with satisfaction. Even though the greenness of everything was a little jarring, she understood the benefits of being able to see like it was a clear sunny day. Her gaze lingered upon the derelict hospital for several long moments. The building and its dead occupants were not that far away. She jumped as a hand clapped down on her shoulder. She froze for a split second and pushed the hand away, “Natalie, one day I am going to kill you by accident.”

“Maybe,” replied Natalie, “and if I had wanted to hurt you, think I would have come this close?” she nodded to the heavy rifle she was cradling, “I’d have just shot you from the other side of the roof.” The two laughed for a moment, “Anything?”

“Nothing so far tonight,” she replied, the blade hissing as she returned in to its scabbard. They stood in silence for a moment and Natalie capitalized, “What is going on between you and Cameron?”

Jaira blinked, the motion masked by her eyewear, “Nothing.”

“That’s more of a something-nothing than a nothing-nothing you know?” countered Natalie.

“Here’s the thing… we started out as friends… and that was good but then things happened and I don’t know… it took time and it’s going to take a lot more, before he admits to anything.”

“What? Cameron? He’s quiet, doesn’t talk unless you ask him a question, I mean just because you’re sleeping with him…” the wind whipped up slightly as the clouds blocking the moon shifted slightly, letting a little more light fill in the blocky shadows cast by the buildings. Natalie’s comment brought a bittersweet laugh from Jaira, as something having caught her gaze, beyond the distant perimeter of the base.

A somewhat detached portion of Jaira’s mind kept a hold upon the “conversation” she was having with the sniper, wondering if she should burst the bubble that surrounded her relationship with Cameron, but stayed silent especially since she wanted Cameron to herself. But she didn’t have time to think about it too much, “Something moving out there!”

Natalie’s mouths snapped shut as she spread the legs of the rifle’s bipod with practiced ease and dropped in to a crouch. The edge of the roof was a good place to balance the long barreled rifle as she powered its infrared night vision scope to life, “Direction?”

“Main gate!” was the semi hushed reply. There was no reason to whisper but they both did it out of habit. Natalie’s thumb flicked the safety as her crosshairs descended between the pair of headlights that grew in size and luminosity as the van closed upon the base perimeter. It was sudden unwelcome intrusion in to the month of peace and quiet as gunfire echoed along the wind like fire crackers, “Automatic weapons fire,” hissed Natalie as the van executed a series of erratic S-shaped curves.

The cause of such reckless driving came in to view close behind the van. A cluster of motorbikes and quad-axle ATVs flanked two stripped down pickup trucks. Muzzles flared as the van took a horrendous volley of fire. Natalie sighted in on one of the smaller pursuing vehicles but held her fire, the range was just outside the effective range of the Barrett Mark 50 Anti Material Rifle, “Get word to the others,” snapped Natalie as she slipped her earpiece in to place, “I’ll hold fire for as long as I can,” she took a deep breath to calm her nerves and reacquired her target, keeping her cross hairs just ahead of it to compensate for the speed and drop of the bullet over the distance. The van swerved round a derelict humvee and bleached skeletons. Natalie waited for a target.

Jaira clambered aboard and shouted, “Contact!” Middle of the night emergencies were a common occurrence for them and everyone was on their feet, strapping on their body armor and equipment and were ready in seconds as Jaira filled them in.

Cameron switched his radio to the channel reserved for their archangel on overwatch, “Archangel, sitrep.”

“One van with roughly twenty giving chase on motorbikes and ATVs. Two pickup trucks with shooters on the flatbeds back, automatics and submachine guns. Orders?”

Cameron pondered the situation for the moment, “Hold fire. Robert: Get ready to hit the road! Jaira, Nastia: Get the gates then the launcher and the guns!” he was about to call Natalie down from the roof when the situation took a turn for the worst.

“Van's flipped!” snapped Natalie as she fired the targeting laser mounted on the rifle. The drivers play had been dangerous, trying to lose their pursuers amongst the tangle of base buildings. In general, vans have a wider turn that in turn raises the center of gravity. As a result high speed turns tend to make them flip, “Survivors in the wreckage, two female, and one male, Four hundred meters out!” While the night vision scope blurred some of the detail, it made clear that the raiders were not taking prisoners as one of the fleeing woman was knocked down by a hail of gunfire. Forced to watch it happen all over again, watch somebody die when she could have done something about it caused something the metaphorical bullet in her head to move the fatal microscopic distance.

“Engaging hostiles!” she snarled as red flooded her vision, memories played back, superimposed over the carnage unfolding down below. His body had never extracted from the ruined Starbucks, never given a funeral he deserved. The red haze tainted everything the color of blood as rage flooded through her blood.

Her preferred rifle was a Steryr Scout Tactical Elite and she’d modified her M16A4 for sniping at a range of under 300 meters. Tonight however, she'd opted to take the Barrett Mark 50 Caliber Anti Material Rifle up on to the roof to tune the sight to her preference in the event they ever to kill a rhinoceros with a single shot. She took less than a minute to adjust the scope. The bullet leapt from the barrel on a tongue of flame, accompanied a second later by a saurian roar heard around the world as it flashed in to the night.

The “bullet” of the Barrett M82A1 .50 Caliber measures 12.7mm by 99mm, and are effective at killing people and shredding light vehicles almost two kilometers away in the hands of a proficient sniper. Natalie first shot demonstrated her proficiency as the hip and pelvis of her target liquefied under the impact at just over 1.1 kilometers.

Stunned silence reigned for a moment, as both attackers and victims paused in confusion. The maimed mans’ scream of ripped through the air and the raiders sought cover as their quarry put a little more distance between them. Natalie ignored the civilians as she swung her rifle to the right, took a half breath, held it and fired between the heartbeats.

The bullet bisected its target from right shoulder to left hip. Down below, Cameron cursed as he realized that Natalie was playing “who's the better sniper” on her own as the Fortress surged through the gates.

Robert floored the accelerator, as they scrambled in to position, “Nastia: - Suppression fire until we extract those civilians.” He took a breath and gave an order he had privately hoped never to have to give, especially against humans, “Shoot to kill. Weapons free!” Cameron scrambled upfront and worked the bolt on the mounted machine gun before donning the night vision goggles, following Robert’s example, “No light, less warning that we’re coming, ya know?” said Robert.

“Just make sure you don’t hit the people we’re trying to save.” grunted Cameron. Outside, the couple had found temporary shelter from their pursuers behind some heavy fifty gallon oil drums, and the wall of a building, a hundred or so meters from the multi-ton behemoth charging towards them. Natalie actively hunted the cowering bandits, having killed another pair and maimed a third who had left his knee exposed. The raiders had realized that whatever hunted them would find them, even behind stone and concrete as Natalie locked on to the telltale body heat and fired again tearing a grapefruit sized opening in the target’s abdomen.

Peering through a narrow gap between the barrels, Peter Sanchez did the best he could, noting the muzzle flashes like he’d seen in movies before popping up to let fly a few return shots of his own. His hands shook slightly but his paltry return fire was enough to buy him a moment. Dropping behind cover, he turned to his female companion, trying desperately to staunch the bleeding from a gunshot wound to the thigh. She was pale, loosing color and fading and there was nothing he could do with his gun and another seven bullets. If it were not for the vengeful guardian angel overhead, he and Isabel would be lying dead like Joanna, somewhere out in the darkness of night, “Isabel! Stay with me! Stay awake!”

Only silence answered him as bullets ricocheted off the fuel barrels. He threw himself over her but she was beyond caring, beyond pain, “Isabel?” he touched his hand to her neck. No pulse, no breathing, no point in starting CPR.

He was covered in her blood as he popped up and loosened two shots in to the darkness. Five rounds left, four for the enemy. They were not going to take him alive. Whoever was out there watching over head, he thanked them silently for their support. Then he heard the deep growling roar of a bestial engine. Figuring he had nothing left to lose besides his life, he peeked over the top of the closest barrel just in time to see the Fortress pull towards him, burning away the darkness of night as its lights suddenly snapped on. It was like being at the heart of a supernova as a machine gun threw its red laser sight and found a target. Two ATVs came apart in showers of incandescent metal and fire.

The massive vehicle ripped past Peter and came to a halt, encircling Isabel, him and the barrels in tons of heavy armor as the vehicle came to a halt. Cameron and Robert scrambled out of the cab, as Robert manned the last free machine gun pointed out at the raiders; Cameron unlocked the side door, as he screamed to Jaira in the turret overhead. The mark 19 grenade launcher mounted on the roof turret fired. Cameron pulled open the side sliding door, flicking on the external spotlight, shouting in to the darkness, “Survivors! On board!” There was no movement, and Cameron cursed under his breath, “Let's go!”