Prodigal Son: Part 11 Kyoko
Posted By: Scott D
Date: 25 May 2004, 5:53 PM
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Part 11: Innocence(one of two)
ONI Division one personnel compound, Planet Reach
Kyoko cried in the arms of woman holding her for dear life as the skies became bright blue. Flares of plasma licked the buildings around the ONI citadel; she was with the refugee civilians in the first bunker layer. They were exposed, and only a few dozen marines guarded them with a broken down tank, smoldering from heavy weapons fire. Kyoko was terrified, she didn't want to die, and she sobbed into the white material of the woman's coat.
A day ago this woman would have been Dr. Ferrisbauer, a heavy set older woman she would pass every day in the botany laboratories. The woman was a lab director, and helped govern the distribution of the fauna all over Reach, terraforming a planet was a difficult process after all, and making a transplanted environment resilient to a planet's changes often took thousands of years. Kyoko didn't work under the woman, she was in a different lab group altogether, her lab group had been killed already; their laboratory was vaporized by a Covenant ship hovering barely half a meter off the ground.
Four hours ago Kyoko had been disembarking from her car, nodding to the handsome marine that guarded the entrance to the citadel compound. She was returning from lunch with an attractive Lieutenant who had met her over the past month of docking over Reach. He was a charming man, smart and funny. Kyoko enjoyed his company, and had blushed when he kissed her, feeling excitement bloom within her. In her most secret desires, she felt love blossoming from that moment. Lieutenant Gerald Harkins was indeed a lucky man.
Three hours and fifty seven minutes ago the plasma energy rained down upon her lab group as it fled Ecological Compound A4. In a bright blue explosion her friends and colleagues were vaporized, the shockwave tossed her car end over end. Marine drop ship engines woke her from her daze as they streaked to deploy, countering the insurgency. Kyoko had been seized by their fall back team, and flown to the center of the Citadel compound. The city like military installation was being turned into a war zone; Kyoko had been mortified by the destruction.
Now she was here in the bunker, her white suit was stained with blood and dirt. She was terrified, she didn't want to die, she kept crying. The thumping of far off mortars was suddenly pierced by the staccato clamor of machine gun fire. Gruff voices shouted all around as armored humans ran to protect the bottlenecked entrance of the bunker. "Lay 'em down marines!" Their commanding officer shouted. Kyoko threw herself to the ground, even without being in the line of fire this was too much for her senses. She cowered, hoping for anything, anyone to save her, to save her father, to take them away from all this.
"HOLY SHIT DID YOU SEE THAT?"
"HUNTERS! HUNTERS!"
"NO! NO! GET THAT ROCKET HERE ASAP!"
"Manny what the hell is that black thing?"
"Dear god I don't want to die!"
"I'm out I'm out! Reload! Give me reload now!"
"The scrapper's gone! Oh my god noooooooo...."
"Those motherfuckers got Gabe! Someone for the love of god get that fucking rocket on them!"
"Rocket? What rocket! Tycho was wasted outside on patrol! We've got no fucking rock!"
The machine gun fire flustered in the air, and suddenly Kyoko felt a deafening thud wash over her, rolling her body and tossing her in the air and then to the side of the room. She couldn't hear anything, and she looked around in a daze, the lights flickering. The marines were recovering; she could see bodies, freshly killed bodies. Human and alien bodies alike were massed around the opening. The red gore of several dead marines was mingling with strange colored bloody pools around massive blue armored figures. Her head hurt, blood dripped from her ears, she felt feint as she pushed off of the floor.
The black figure was in the door way, its machine guns still spurting a yellow flame from their barrels. Shooting outside away from the refugees, the squirming masses all huddled inside the massive first tier of the invasion bunkers. There had been two hundred of them in here at the beginning, with a half a company of marines inside and out.
The figure was black, it was burned. It stopped shooting and Kyoko could barely hear the whispers of men and women shouting at her. The figure turned and its golden amber face watched her, walking swiftly to her, it knelt to her and its massive armored gauntlet gently touched her face.
"Kyoko Adrienne Yu," she heard a hard voiced whisper close to her ear, "I promise you...."
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