Corporal Tala Aponi took a deep breath, then wrenched the shrapnel out of her arm, clenching her teeth to keep from crying out.  She was tucked into a dark corner of a hallway, back behind a pile of crates covered with Obscura Korps symbols and full of foul smells.  She didn’t want to know what was inside of them.  All around her, in the darkness of the catacombs, she could hear the sounds of battle.  The sharp, staccato crack of the almost alien “Flash Guns” of Tala’s squad let her know that they were still in the fight, somewhere.

She kicked her empty medkit to the side as she finished bandaging up her arm and stood up, clutching her service revolver tightly with her good hand.  This mission was hell, but they all were for the 24^th Marine Special Forces.  She’d been everywhere from the jungle muck of the South Pacific to the frozen wastes of Novgorod, but this was by far the single worst place she’d ever been. Continue Reading