Cure for a Nation

Twilight

Claire was huddled against Bear for cover as she fed the ammunition into Bears machine gun. Her arms aches from holding the belt of bullets up and her fingertips were raw from the belt itself rubbing against them. She could feel the heat of from the weapons barrel washing over her face as though she sat before a campfire. Suddenly, a chunk of the pillar they were ducking behind exploded into dust and rocks showered the pair. Bear shielded Claire with her arm until the rocks stopped falling. That must have been from a carbine, Claire thought.
"We need a plan!" Lawrence shouted to Alex.
"Don't look at me! I only look good!" Alex retorted.
"We need to leave!" Joan screamed from behind them. Suddenly, Bear turned and pointed her machine gun right at Joan and stared her down.
"We're not leaving without Daniel!" Claire yelled for Bear.
"But we can't even look for him!" Lawrence shouted as he loosed a pair of shots into a couple bandits.
"Then we keep killing every single one of these bastards until we can," Claire growled. Bear eyed her over her shoulder before nodding and turning back to face the bandits.
"That is stupid plan," Alex grumbled. A rock hit him in the head.
"I love this plan," he amended hastily. Claire peered over the pillar and scanned the courtyard. It's all coming apart, she thought, and we were so close. Come on, Daniel, I know you're out there. Come to my rescue, just one more time. She was blinded by a distant muzzle flash and she instinctively ducked lower. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her ears were ringing with the sound of gunfire. She looked down at the roll of bullets for Bears machine gun. She was on her last one and rapidly running out of it. Somethings got to give, she thought. There were a few spare carbines they had retrieved from the Walker to keep from the bandits but they were still low on ammunition. The Warriors were relying more on their magic but the bandits had to be close for it to do any damage. She knew Daniel wasn't lost, he was too tough for that. He always seemed to find a way back to her, she reasoned, this time won't be any different.
"What the hell was that?" Alex yelled to her right. She peered between bears arm and her chest at the battlefield to see what Alex was talking about. She looked just in time to see a bandit get launched into the air some distance away. Suddenly, she spied an Imperium helmet pop up over the lip of a crater before being pulled down by a bandit.
"It's Daniel!" She screamed suddenly, "He's back!" She rushed out to the side only to have bear rip her back into cover.
"Hey," she protested, "let me go! He needs help!" Bear shook her head and set her machine gun down.
"You can't leave that here, you're the only thing keeping them from swarming us. Give me a carbine, I'll run it out to him," Claire pleaded. Bear was about to ignore her until she saw a group of bandits seize the opportunity and rush them. She quickly picked up her machine gun and mowed them down. She then took a spare carbine and affixed her combat knife on the end of it. She pushed it roughly into Claire's chest along with a satchel if ammunition. Claire beamed. Bear held up five fingers and counted Claire down. At one, Bear let a spread of bullets loose and silenced the bandits for a moment. Claire jumped to her feet and ran as fast as she could into the battlefield with her head down. The satchel was banging against her leg and the carbine was heavy. Bullets whizzed and snapped by her ears as she leapt between craters. One even bounced off of the carbine and staggered her. Don't think about it, she thought to herself, just get there. Finally, she slid into a crater and found a pair of bandits pinning Daniel down. With a battle cry that surprised herself, Claire immediately launched herself at the bandits. She rammed the bayonet into ones side and pushed them into the ground. She turned and stuck the bayonet into the others chest before cocking the carbine and pulling the trigger. With a boom, thebandit was propelled away from her and her hair jumped away from her face. Her hands and sleeves were spattered red and muddy. Her expression was fierce; her jaw was set and her eyes had a ferocious gleam to them. She hadn't even staggered. Behind his visor, Daniels jaw dropped.
"Hubba hubba," he muttered. Claire snapped to him and fell on top of him with a hug.
"Oh, Danny," she shouted over the gunfire, "I thought you were gone! We didn't know where you were! You-"
"Claire!" Daniel interrupted, "Now is not the time. We need to get to the others, right now." He took the carbine from her along with the ammunition and laid against the lip of the crater.
"I'll cover you while you make a run for it. Get ready," he ordered. He began to take careful shots at the buildings hiding bandits and Claire readied herself for the return trip to the tower.
"Go!"
She was gone in an instant. Daniel emptied his magazine before ramming a new one in and following Claire. His breath was heavy and loud in his ears. He was getting slower, he could tell. He stumbled and a bandit leapt up to take him only to be stopped with a bullet in the back. Hazels doing, he thought. I owe ya. A bullet struck him between the shoulder blades and he went rolling into the dirt.
"Dammit!" He yelled as he forced himself to his feet. I'm accelerating the plagues process, he realized. I'll be dead in a meet few hours. Finally, he vaulted a pillar and landed right between Claire and Bear. He gasped for breath and rested his back against the pillar.
"What's...the status," he huffed. Bear patted him fondly on the shoulder and Claire couldn't help but smile. She had found her soldier.
"Joan says we can't do it without hazel but she's missing. We're just trying to survive now," Claire responded. Daniel knelt beside her and looked behind them. The tower wasn't far away from them and the entire lobby was destroyed. Only the bottoms of the walls were left standing and he could see that the staircase in the back was still intact. He looked up and spotted the hole in the building he had last looked out seven years ago. The room he had slaughtered the Magisters in. He snapped back to Claire.
"Here's what's going to happen," he explained, "we're going to fall back into the tower. Bear, Alex, and Lawrence will hold the ground floor while the rest of us will move up to that exposed room."
"But what about hazel?" Claire asked.
"She's wounded but alive. She's watching over us with a rifle in one of the buildings but I don't know how much longer she'll be able to help us."
"So were just going to leave her behind? We can't even do this without her!"
"We don't have any other choice! If we try to bring her out here, she will die. If I had just left with her, you all would have died in vain! I will go in her place, I'll complete the circle. Got that?" Claire reeled. Not even under fire had he spoken to her like that before.
"I said you got that?!" He repeated, his voice breaking. Claire noticed him leaning against his carbine and slowly swaying. He's running out of time, she realized. She nodded grimly. Daniel turned and set about sending his orders down the line. On his mark, the Peacekeepers and the Warriors got to their feet and made one last push before retreating to the tower. Daniel was right behind Claire, shielding her with his own body. Once inside the tower, the Peacekeepers went about fortifying their position as best they could with whatever they could find. They were able to scavenge more supplies from the Imperium soldiers who had died years before. Daniel tried not to look at them. Joan began to lead the warriors up the stairs while Daniel lagged behind. Claire watched form the stair case as he hugged bear tightly and the two looked at each other intently as they pushed helmets together. Like a mama bear, Claire thought absentmindedly. Daniel went to the staircase and holstered his carbine.
"Are you sure you're up to this?" Claire asked.
"Wouldn't matter if I wasn't. Come on, we've got a climb ahead of us," Daniel responded.