The Silence of Alium [On Hiatus]

Chapter 5 - Fire & Smoke - Part 1

"Alright everyone. Snap to it!" Sergeant Lance rose with a new and unquestioned authority. Private Fahima Karzai recognized it immediately. With Simmons dead and Robles unconscious and possibly dying, Lance was the new leader of the squad. There could be no doubt. Lance allowed for none.

As Fahima considered this shift in the balance of power, Lance continued shouting orders. Her shouts blended with, and yet rose above, the rising cacophony filling the capsule. "Unbuckle and disembark," she shouted, her words blending with the crackling of a small fire flaring near the manual overrides, and the sparking of a severed tangle of wires now swinging loose beside Simmons' body.

It seemed wrong somehow - his death. Fahima had served under Staff Sergeant Simmons in six engagements over the past four years. He had been a hardass, but he had also been an honorable man. Death by a freak descent accident seemed too mundane. He deserved something less pedestrian, something glorious. Instead, he had died in a botched capsule descent.

Fahima shook her head, shaking the thought away. Now was time for action, not reverie. The squad seemed scrambled, everyone aside from Sergeant Lance struggling just to regain their bearings. Meanwhile the smoke from the flames continued to fill the capsule. Someone needed to open the hatch. Fahima could see it, directly across from the manual overrides where the fire now burned, in the other gap between the panoramic windows.

She unstrapped and made her way to the door, careful to keep her head low and to dodge any loose debris or live wires. Halfway there, she came across team Baker. Park and Walcott had returned to Robles' side, Walcott praying beside her friend, while Park scanned for signs of further injury. Ruegger hovered over both of them, observing with a cold and calculated glare. Private Ruegger was the type that never looked you in the eye when he spoke. He didn't connect with his team, always maintaining an almost inhuman emotional distance.

"Park?" Fahima asked.

The medic cast a brief glance up, then returned his gaze to his patient. "Can't say yet. No immediate signs of additional injury, but until he is conscious..." Park trailed off scanning the floor. Suddenly he rose, lurching over to a long panel in the lithium alloy flooring - the lid to another storage hatch.

"This." He tapped the lid with a bare foot, his boots still helping to pin Robles to the floor. "We need this."

Fahima knelt, helping Park open the hatch. Slowly the world darkened as a shadow flickered over her. Sergeant Lance loomed above Baker company.

"Private Karzai, help Varma with the door." Even as she ordered Fahima away, Lance knelt to take her place helping Park. Fahima sensed a different commander in Lance than she had in Simmons. She was one of them. She would wade into the thick with them, kneel beside them, and follow their lead even as she led them. Fahima couldn't be certain if that was for better or worse.

"Yes, sir."

"No sir. Not anymore. Ma'am."

"Yes, ma'am."

Fahima rose to her feet and rushed to the exit. Varma had the emergency handle released, and Fahima could make out a faint line of light seeping through the seal, so she knew the exit hatch had successfully unlocked, yet she could also see the veins bulging in Varma's neck as he thrust his shoulder against the door. Fahima cast a glance back to the spider-webbed windows, and while it might be possible for many of them to scramble through if they kicked out the glass, it would be nearly impossible to safely haul Robles out.

"Put your back into it, soldier!" Fahima slammed into the door beside Varma. "We're the shockwave squad of Hailstorm, proud platoon of the 37th! Are we going to let a fucking door beat us?"

"Cool it, Karzai. I'm all for guns blazing, but the bastard's jammed."

Fahima slammed into the door again, planted her feet, and pushed. She felt the strain as she leveraged every muscle that she could. Even with both Varma and her pushing full force, the door would barely budge.

"Bills, stop shitting yourself and get over here!"

Private Bills wedged between Varma and Fahima. "Already on it."

The trio pushed, struggling to force an exit. Behind them, Fahima could hear Lance still shouting at team Baker.

"You're too damn close to him. Private Ruegger is acting squad leader and I don't give a rat's ass your opinion on the matter. Don't talk seniority. Don't talk loyalty. Don't say a God Damn thing unless it's 'Yes, ma'am!"

"Fine," Walcott said, clearly less than enthused in her colleague's battlefield promotion.

"What was that?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Damn right." Sergeant Lance pivoted her attention to Ruegger, even as she held the floor hatch open, Park still working on removing it from its hinges. "My men will get that door open, but your job is to keep Robles alive until we do. Private Park and I will tend to his immediate needs, but you make sure that fire doesn't reach him."

"Yes, ma'am. On it." Ruegger spoke with no emotion and no intonation of urgency - not even a hint of anger at Walcott's resistance. Even as he assumed command, that cold disconnect clung to him. "Walcott, secure Extinguisher One and attack from the left. I'll take the right."

"What? Fuck, Lance, he doesn't even speak English."

"Rat's ass, Walcott. Remember, not even a rat's ass."

Ruegger ripped an extinguisher from a stowage unit in the wall. "Am I the only one that reads the blueprints?"

A chorus of 'Yes's' rose around him.

"Fine," Ruegger said, still lacking even a hint of agitation in his voice. He stamped his foot down on a pressure hatch, releasing the lock on one of the floor storage units. "Grab the extinguisher from the floor stowage and put out the fire."

"See, why couldn't you just say that?"

Ruegger tuned Walcott out, already repositioning himself on the rightmost extension of the flames. He fired his extinguisher, focused on the task at hand.