Sally's Journal: April 7, 3235 PT2

Journal of Sally Acorn
April 7, 3235
Entry Made @ 1414 (2:14 PM) 0645 TBMT

Dear Journal,

Today is Saturday, April 7th. I say this because it's hard to keep track of what happened and when. If it weren't for the journal, I would have lost all track of what day it is and what time it was. So I have to say I'm thankful for that.

I thought the worst part about this day would be that when I woke up, I would find my Emerald missing. Right off the belt. We had all turned in for a siesta because we were incredibly tired from all of the walking and the trauma. We needed to sleep it off. It seemed the best thing to do in a situation like this. But when I woke up... no Emerald, and no gun by the bed either. Both were missing. Miles was lying on his side snoring loudly, face scrunched into the kind you make when you're plastered to the sheets. Nobody else was in the dormitory. My pulse quickened, and I got concerned at once. I threw off the sheets of the borrowed bed and tried to make sense of where everyone was. Then I heard three muffled cracks. Gunshots, and all of them came from a ROC-7 rifle. Miles' ear twitched, and he pulled his head from the mattress. Broken arm hefted above him.

“What...”

“Stay there.” I told him, searching around for a weapon. No DMRs anywhere inside the dorm, but I found a flare pistol in about two minutes. The design hadn't changed in centuries: a stubby little tube, and a stubby little grip with a stubby little trigger sent a phosphorus-magnesuim slug into the sky where it slowly descended to the ground all the while burning for all to see. I also grabbed a handful of 12 gauge shells that the gun used for ammunition and shoved them into my pocket, minus one that I slipped into the breech and locked shut. The gun was never designed to be an actual weapon, but could certainly function as one if I needed it to. No other gunshots. Dread filled my stomach. The wolves had to have found us by now. They wouldn't have been deceived for long. They had to have known where the outpost was and made a beeline for it when they realized we left the cave, and I prayed to the Ancestors that they hadn't just cut down another survivor.

But I was wrong.

The wolves weren't there at all, but we lost one more.

Mercer was dead.

I ran into the painful cold with the flare gun up and sighted. Sighted is a bit of an inaccuracy as it was really supposed to be fired into the sky and not at enemies.

Mercer had been in the garage. The doors were slightly folded out slightly, but a body was visible, lying face up on the dry floor inside. Mercer's hand was wrapped around the grip of one of our DMRs tightly, the other was splayed like a wing out at her side, her legs buckled at the knees, and her eyes were well open and staring at the ceiling of the garage. Her mouth had been clamped shut. From here, I could see a little blood on the ground in splatters. I looked to my left. Copper was holding his own rifle. The barrel shroud was spilling steam into the air from firing.

“What happened?” I asked in a hollow voice. Not so much that we had lost another person but that Copper apparently was the one who did the dispatching.

“Mercer tried to make a run for it. She has your Emerald, ma'am. Look. You can see the canister.”

I did see it. Clipped onto the belt of Evelyn Mercer's cargo pants was the hexagonal container that held the Chaos Emerald. None of the bullets hit the container it seemed. It was safe.

Evelyn however was already cooling down.

Stone ran out from the central building. For a man his age he was covering ground quickly. He called Mercer's name and ran into the garage, sliding to her side.

“No! No! Why? Why did she do it?”

“She didn't do anything.” I turned to Copper.

“Hold on...” he began, piecing it together rapidly. “Are you saying something here?”

“The man with the smoking gun asks?”

“She FIRED on me!”

“Yeah? Looks like you wanted to get your hands on that emerald so you took a shot when it seemed convenient.”

Copper's mouth dropped. “I don't believe this! I didn't even kill her! She committed suicide!”

“Of all the bullshit I've heard from you, that's the biggest piece yet.”

The rest of the survivors congregated. Pairs of eyes looked at the corpse in the garage. Benoit and Jones trudged through the snow to see Mercer. The looked her over and turned the body. Benoit, on her left side, dropped her.

“Round went straight through her heart. Took some of her back off with it. Yup. There's the bullet hole.” he pointed at a space right between a row of hammers.

Jones shook his head. “Aiming for center of mass. Something a trained shooter would look for.”

Copper's face looked like it flushed. His eyes contracted, and his jaw dropped. He realized that they were all against him. He had been found out.

“Motherfucker could have planted the Emerald on her.”

Copper began to breathe quickly. “She had a gun! Doesn't that prove anything?”

“It proves she was scared as hell of you.” Stevens said. “You really are a violent son of a bitch, you know that, Copper? I thought you were sick in the head before, but you've just stooped to a new low.” She tightened her grip on the other ROC-7. “Can I shoot this traitor?”

“Shoot...!” Copper's head whipped around. “I didn't kill her! She shot herself with the gun! There's blood on it!”

“Spatter from your own hit. She pulled the trigger out of reflex.” Jones said.

The bastard had run out of short straws to pull.

“I don't like you, John.” I told him. “I think you're a violent man and a killer. You also tried to get me to part with the Emerald. You know how much these things have hurt us back home? You know what would happen if Robotnik ever got his hands on one of these again? Mobius will be nothing compared to what he'll cook up if he can even get a handful of these... and you tried to take it from me.”

“You think he's the saboteur?” Bolen asked, teeth clenched, and not just from the cold.

“No, but I think he's a murderer. You betrayed your oath to your service and unit. You are a soldier no longer, and as soon as we leave this planet, I will be placing you under arrest for the murder of Evelyn Mercer.”

Stone nodded energetically, wiping a tear from his eye.

Copper shook his head, and I saw him raise the gun, and I had only begun to move before the thunderbolt struck

I went deaf for a moment, and I became disoriented. The world began to spin, but I caught myself. Copper's head snapped to the side, part of it gone. His body followed and crashed into the snow which was beginning to turn red already. The wall of the research center became a shade of crimson darker, and we were all silent.

I looked to my right. ROC-7 at shoulder height. As soon as she saw us, she lowered it and snapped on the safety. When the buzzing subsided, she said, “I swore to protect country and crown.”

I didn't order the weapon away from her. In fact I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Lola.”

“I didn't want to do it, Highness. I didn't think that one assigned to protect you would have done this sort of thing to you. I... did my duty, Highness.”

I felt no remorse for John Copper. Supposedly an honorable man. He had dropped his principles when life had gotten tough. He broke like many of us had begun to, but had lost out against what he wanted, and what was needed. I stared down at him, not paying attention to the line of red spreading ten feet away from his prone form. Not one person had moved to defend Copper.

It was horrible, but we could all breathe a sigh of relief. In a way, Copper had been even worse than the wolves, because the wolves would have to search to find us. Copper would simply have to pull the trigger.

But he could have taken us at any time. Why now? Was it because we were now within reach of evacuation? I don't know, but all the same, a sigh of relief. We're one step closer to safety.

I know that none of this can leave this planet, but ONI will know about it. People will wonder why we survived and others didn't, but the official response will have to be that we got lucky.

Poor Evelyn. She was a researcher – a woman of science. She didn't deserve this... but why did she try to run? Why did she steal the Emerald? She couldn't have. Copper would have had to plant it on her, and he had time to. My only regret was that I wasn't there to put him down the instant he pulled the trigger.

The medicine we have is not working for Miles. One of they key things that we need is a strong smart chem that can analyze the necrotic disease and readjust itself to neutralize it. Not something that a backwater research base would carry. We gave him some morphine to help with the pain and some white blood cell supplement so that his body would have a chance against the illness. We need to get back to orbit though. Some of the fur is beginning to fall off his arm, and his skin is not healthy. Stone doesn't know how to help him, and he's likely messed up from Evelyn dying.

God DAMN Copper. God damn this planet!

Wait... I hear that engine again. It's the ship! It's coming back!

[JONES]: I hear it! I'm going to make a run for the radio antenna! We can get it down here before it passes!

Do it! I'll get the flares ready just in... it stopped.

Did you hear that? It stopped!

[BENOIT]: You don't think it landed, did you? Did it... land?

[STONE]: Oh please say it's so...

[LOUDSPEAKER]: To any survivors of the UNSC Currie, please come outside! We're here to pick you up!

[Analysis reveals Cockney accent, no inflection deviation suggests the United Kingdom as point of origin]

I'm going out there! No weapons, no nothing! Oh thank you God! Thank you God! We're saved! Stone, stay inside and look after Miles! Stevens, Bolen, Jones, with me! Time to give some big kisses right on the lips!

::END ENTRY::