The Edging Ring - Day 1 - 1721

And they day had started off so great, what with the sun shining and sky almost an actual blue. Lt. Kathryn Douglas barely dodged a red claw fro the mutate in front of her. She pressed her trigger, sending a rain of machine gun death into its armored body, killing it almost instantly. She took a moment to choose her next target, and settled on the mutate attacking Sergeant Phil Tomlinson, who had set his robot dogs after it even has he fired into its body.

A globe of flame came streaking towards her. She dropped to the street and it flew past her, exploding into a shower of sparks as it impacted on a deserted building. “Rodriguez! WIZKID!” She pointed at the gangly youth as Rodriguez swiveled the turret that direction. His bullets ricocheted harmlessly of the kid's blue shield, but the shield soon shattered and the kid fell to the ground, never to rise again.

A scream behind her made her turn just in time to see a purple claw cut Helmut in two. She tossed two grenades in that direction; two satisfying explosions later and a large chunk of the mutate was gone. It fell onto the street below. A quick search of the scene resulted in her finding the half-eaten bodies of Clemins and Sanches and the monster eating them; a barrage of fire from the remaining men utterly obliterated the remaining monster.

The encounter over the men scavenged what they could of the dead men's equipment before setting the corpses on fire. Lt. Kathryn Douglas fumed. The smell of the decaying corpses was beginning to penetrate her gas mask; she had hoped to have returned well before the filters had begun to wear out. That was before her squad had faced down the team of mutates led by their very own wizkid. Taking stock, they had barely managed to survive the encounter, but not without almost depleting their ammunition. They were forced to take the long way home, and that would add a good two hours to the trip.

The squad manged to avoid a couple of roving mutates, but they needed to get home before they ran into another team. If they could rush the last few blocks they would be in the clear, but the worst things tended to happen just before they were in the clear. The team slowed when they could see the warning pylons; the ten-foot poles lit the area around them but did little to reveal any mutates hiding in the alleys surrounding the entryway. No matter how well cleared they were the mutates would always return with just enough of their number to re-establish their haunts. It was finally decided to just let them be.

The area, now called The Gauntlet, was the final run. It usually a matter of bluffing their way through: They were usually only attacked by a single mutate and those were usually of the weaker sort. This meant that just the appearance of superior force was enough to keep them in their holes. However, a team of mutates working together would be emboldened enough to attack even a platoon coming back from the field. Without ammunition the odds of her team seeing dinner, well, they were depending on just dealing with one of the stupider demons.

Her fist went up and the squad froze where they were. She motioned for visors to be dropped and for bounding to start. She quickly looked over the remnants of her squad: They had lost three good men on the patrol. Relying on her experience with The Gauntlet she decided to go down the right side; the setting sun would throw the most light down those alleys and hopefully the wide-band optics in the visor would pick up any potential targets. The squad started moving quickly and efficiently; a soldier would move forward to the entrance of an alley, check it out, and signal things were clear. Another soldier would then move to the next alley and repeat the process.

Slowly but surely they made their way past the pylons; the mutates had decided to stay where they were. Lt. Douglas breathed a sigh of release when her squad was inside the door and in the decontamination room. Once allowed to exit the room she headed to the mess, her service tablet firmly in her cargo pocket. While she ate dinner she filled out the necessary paperwork, from the targets they had engaged to notes on places to send the scavenging teams. She filled out the necessary supply forms, with the usual requests for material she knew would never appear.

Every so often she would glance over at her squad, vicariously enjoying a joke being made about the targets they had eliminated, a far too euphemistic way of referring to the mutates they had vanquished. Soon she had only to deal with the paperwork that would be the last paperwork filed for Privates Bartholemew Clemins and Jorge Sanches and Sergeant Helmut Jorgensen. A small mercy was that she did not have to write the letters to their families; with the world outside ravaged there was no way to get those letter to families, assuming they had even survived.

She put her tablet away and tipped her drink to her squad; they toasted silently to the departed. She soon left for her person quarters where she would soon be enjoying a hot shower, one of the few creature comforts remaining. She would spend the rest of the nigh reading before finally falling asleep. Fortunately she could sleep in tomorrow, a minor mercy due all those who went on patrol.

* * * * *

She was the first of her squad to breakfast, and she would most likely be the only one. The rest of her men would likely sleep until noon and then join the others for light duty. There was another three days before patrol duty cycled back to her squad and she wanted to enjoy it as much as she could, which meant grabbing some time on the firing line and avoiding the patrol sims. She sighed as she realized why she hated being an officer: Her men were saved from having to deal with the debriefings and other meetings and at least they had hero status as regular patrollers. The leader of that patrol, however, was an outsider in office politics and that could make life difficult for an officer.

She eventually finished her breakfast and headed to the office of the general. The underground bunker had been refurbished from a subway depot; the basic renovations had only taken a week to do when they had moved in as groups of soldiers quickly gathered at the abandoned subway depot. General Hendricks had been on leave when the first attacks came and had happened on the depot while retreating; with the nearest base virtually destroyed he had decided the depot was easily defensible and large enough to make a headquarters out of. General Hendricks quickly got a ham operator to take up shop there and send out a repeating signal in order to rally the troops.

Within weeks they had been able to find generators and enough equipment on foraging trips back to the original base to almost have a semblance of order. Backed by goods from various stores they had been able to fortify the depot and create a formidable base. Fortunately, at least from the survivors' perspective, the attack had been to drive people away from the cities; this meant that the utilities and such were still working, although they were degrading quickly. Fort Subway had a limited duration and all of the jerry-rigged repairs in the world couldn't stop that.

She finally approached the General's office. Lieutenant Eric Tamden was serving as the secretary and was serving as well as he could consider the circumstances. “Good morning, Eric.”

Tamden looked up from his screen. “Hey, Kat. You're the second one in this morning. Sleeping okay?”

“About as well as I can considering.”

“I hear that. Condolences about your men. Some good news, however: We found another vehicle for your squad as well as two power suits. We'll have them ready for you when you go out.”

“Thanks. I'm sure we can put them to good use.”

“I know you can! Oh, and be prepared for some weirdness in the meeting. We found another treasure box, and there were some actual artifacts.”

“That is interesting.”

The door to the office opened. Captain Harris Eckleberg exited. He walked past the two lieutenants at full pace. Eric's eyes followed him as he left; Kathryn watched the watching. Eric's voice dropped to whisper: “Someone got some bad news. Go on in.”

She smiled as she walked in. The general seemed more ancient than usual, but a frost melted as he saw Kathryn. A mandatory salute given and returned, and a chair was pointed out. She sat, her hat on her lap. “Good morning, Lieutenant. Condolences on your losses, but always a pleasure to see one of our best patrol leaders.”

“Thank you, sir. And thanks for the additional material.”

“You're going to need it. We think we've determined the final three spots for consideration for the evacuation and we need you to check them out.”

“Sounds good. We'll do the reconnaissance as quickly as possible, sir.”

“I know you will.” He opened his top drawer and pulled out a small ring. He tossed it at her. “Catch.”

She grabbed at it, and caught it. She inspected it; it appeared to be a plain silver band, no setting, with some script on the inside.

“The two words are 'advocabit' and 'dimitte', or or 'summon' and 'dismiss'. The guys in red think it summons some sort of positive assistance. We need someone to test it.”

And there it was. She pondered for a moment, but it was mostly for the sake of making a point. “Fine. Any idea how it works?”

“Wear it and say the first word. Say the second if things get out of control. Just make sure that you're in one of the blue areas.”

She looked up him as she pocketed the ring. “Willdo, sir.”