[headquarters]

Lady Takashi looked up at the grey sky with serene eyes.The sound and the fury of the battle raging behind her nothing more than the flickering images from a television set on mute would have been to her ,if she had been sitting on her sofa reading a magazine .

The relaxation technique was one she had learned from her now dead husband Lord Joe.He had been able to remove himself totally -even in the face of certain death, to places of beauty and tranquility .A garden blossoming with cherry trees.A mountain stream trickling playfully over white washed rocks a sunny summer morning.To the image of his children sleeping happily after a long day of play.

She wondered if those were the images he had seen in his mind as his fighterplane roared in an arc of death towards the blue plane of the Pacific at 1000 km an hour.

The medic kneeling before her pulled the bandages taut once more and she flinched.She was annoyed by her own reaction and how it brought her back to the mud and debris where she was currently seated.A charred section of brick wall at her back and a few heaps of debris around her position hid her from view and gave cover from the incessant hail of erratic projectiles that swept the ruins. In a motley line of two man positions the assault squad she was part of had strung itself out along the ruins of two or three brick and cinder block buildings.The debris between them and the enemy positions hid them and seemed sturdy enough to stop shrapnel and bullets, but RPGs and mortars were landing on their side of the cover too . All in all ,their position was one of a springboard for an advance or a cover for their retreat.But staying seemed only as a long wait to be decimated.The medic glued plastic sheet around the bandages to keep them clean and dry -and without saying so or disapproving of it - to keep her in the fight a little longer .She had insisted .A leader must be seen to fight at times like these -or morale might suffer a slump. The medic finished up and she waiwed him away .Once he had scuttled to another foxhole ,she opened a small pouch on her assault rig and got the autoinjectors out .She hit herself twice with local anesthetic around her leg wound.Running would indeed be akward -and could have been hilarious to watch were she not in a postapocalyptic,rad-dust covered firefight to the death with an enemy both fanatical and prudent.
She then gave herself an injection of combat stimulants.The amphetamines soared through her veins like a sickening buzz but then clarity and a feeling of being reenergized. The throbbing pain subsided to a weird feeling -almost like she had spilt some liquid or drink on her leg where the entry and exit wounds were.

She packed her injectors and checked her assaultrifle. 10 mags ready and an 11th in the mag well. The red dot sight sharp and functional.The muzzle clear of dirt .She released the mag and pulled the loading arm .The springs propelled the bolt fluidly forward .Click! Pulling the trigger .Everything in order.She picked up the expelled round and reinserted into her mag .Then she clicked the mag backinto the well and repeated loading the weapon.

Go-time would be soon .

A few MG-rounds hit the other side of the ruins she was behind.She hardly noticed.Her eyes once more looked up and saw into the grey light a beautiful garden of cherry trees -blossoming in the setting sun.