Thermal rounds shredded the vegetation around her, devouring dura-steel walls and throwing up plumes of molten grit.
Nurses dragged the wounded toward the shadows of the loading docks while medics collapsed in the crossfire, their ivory kits turning crimson before they hit the dirt.
In the corner of her eye, Sheba caught the sight of Imani tearing through the carnage without even a protective vest.
The woman was fearless.
Until a lance of white-hot energy bisected the air, catching Imani mid-stride.
The impact threw her body backward, a fountain of sparks and scarlet mist erupting from the rupture in her chest.
Sheba lunged through the searing heat, her knees skidding across the debris till she reached her fallen colleague.
Staring at Imani and swiping her weapons strap onto her back, she crouched, blinking at the hole in the woman’s side.
‘How bad is it?’ the doctor whispered, trembling fingers hovering over the hideous wound.
‘Focus on breathing, Imani, I’ve got you,’ Sheba countered, her pulse hammering as she pressed her palms into the gash, in a desperate attempt to hold her friend’s life inside.
‘Stay with me, Imani. Keep your eyes on me.’
The roar of the ongoing bombardment drowned out Sheba’s fractured whisper.
She leaned over the shuddering woman, shielding her from the spray of debris with her own frame.
Imani’s eyelids flickered, her pupils shimmering with a terrifying clarity.
‘Sheba,’ she breathed, the sound a ghost of a murmur. ‘I’m not going to make it, I’ve lost too much blood.’
She was right, the pool of crimson under her was horrendous.
Still, Sheba fought on.
A minute later, Imani sighed. ‘Fokk, I want to sleep.’
‘No sleeping, honey, not here. The extraction team is on the way,’ Sheba lied, her heart fracturing at the sight of more gore pooling beneath her friend’s supine frame.
Imani’s grip on Sheba’s sleeve tightened with a surge of strength. ‘Tell everyone goodbye for me. My mother. My brother, Raido. Tell them I felt no fear and that I love them so much.’
‘You’ll tell them yourself,’ Sheba choked, but the light behind Imani’s irises was already retreating.
The tension in Imani’s limbs gave way, and her head fell to the ground, her eyes empty and still.
‘Nada!’
Sheba gasped, hyperventilating as she reached out and drew her fingers down across Imani’s lids, sealing their stillness.
She said a quick prayer under her breath, willing Imani’s life to eternal peace.
The sound of even more bombardment pierced her grief.
Another of her workmates, Brad, crumpled a meter away, his frame folding and yielding to the kinetic force of a lethal blast.
A steel pinion from a double-level demountable nearby groaned above her before it surrendered to gravity. Slamming into the ground with a bone-shaking thud that sent a curtain of dust and shrapnel into the sky.
Sheba threw herself behind the remains of the collapsed structure as the heavens turned a bruised purple from the persistent artillery fire.
Laser beams hammered the wreckage, carving molten grooves into the metal inches from her temple.
