The Cardinal Directive: Mission Log #25

Rock and a Hard Place (pt. 2)

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The biodome over Piket Rock is still red when the feed resumes, images of a quiet, sharp-black shadowcast world flickering back into view.

Townsfolk huddle in their houses, their makeshift prisons, wide awake and holding their breath, waiting for the gunshots to return. Parents hold their children tight, soothing crying babies. Others have taken to barricading the door from their side, lining their healthiest up to take on any assailant that might come through the door. Still, there’s been no motion outside for several minutes now.

In the tavern, the Hand members have set themselves up similarly. Most of the wounded are teenagers. A hardy few are able to grit their teeth and bear the pain, but the rest shake with fear.

For some, their friends haven’t left their side, either wounded as well or just holding their hands.

For others, their friends are stationed at the doors, armed to the teeth and itching for an enemy to dare breach this makeshift sanctum.

Sloan is not among them.

Slipping expertly through the streets and alleys, she’s assembled a strike team from her remaining members for a mission that requires precision and speed. Unlike the general makeup of the group she commands, this team has no teenagers. Each is a battle-hardened veteran of the Red, one of her most trusted and well-trained, and it shows as they follow in her wake. Between the entire group, not a step is out of sync with her.

And behind them — never too close, but never far enough to lose track of them — is another figure.