Aerial view of the battlefield An icy reunion “Welcome back on board!” The exclamation was accompanied by a resounding slap on the back that almost made her roll away from her seat. She held precariously to the bar stool, managing not to send anybody’s drink flying in the microgravity of the station - in a hole like the one they were in, that could have easily resulted in having to knife-fight their way out of the evening. Mariam didn’t much appreciate the physical sort of camaraderie, but she returned Dinka’s smile anyway - he meant well, it was just that life in the barrio had a tendency to make people a little heavy handed. “Oi, no need to make her cough out a lung!” protested Zuri, right behind him with the rest of their beers in hand. The ends of her cornrows floated around her head and swirled as she shook it, looking almost alive like the snake-hair of a gorgon. They sat down with her and Oni - the bullet wound received not even four hours earlier didn’t stop him from comin...
404 Platoon Recon Team and aerial view of the batlefield Back into the fray Little lights danced before Mariam’s eyes, tones of iridescent purple-green against the haze of evenly spaced floodlights. With effort, she forced her eyes to focus on the high roof - she was lying on her back, air entering her lungs in sharp, shallow gulps through the filtration mask. A clue on what the hell was going on came from the sudden pain blossoming on the left side of her ribcage - she probed it with an unsteady hand expecting blood, and breathed a painful sigh of relief feeling only bruised armor plates. Slowly, her brain started to catch up. BV station. Reconnaissance mission. She groaned, propping her back against the frame of the staircase she had fallen behind - bless Santa Muerte for that solid piece of metal between her and whatever had been shooting in that direction. “High caliber impact, no major internal damage sustained” informed her the bio-monitor in a corner of her visor. “Mariam? Maria...