Opus Veda

The insurgents opened their masks. The first revolutionary line broke, blind and deaf.

The second line held. Black and Red slammed together. Guns fired, weapons clashed, fists and claws tore like animals. Order left. A feral struggle began.

Both sides sought advantage. Esmé weaved around one defender, slicing her knives in an x up his neck as her mask eyes flashed. Sima Ren kicked his opponent back to gain distance but the fight was too intense to get his strike.

Andrez and Maqbool faired better; Andrez arcing his blade through a Sergeant and firing his last round on another. Maqbool used his mass to plough three defenders, grabbing one's hand and twisting her bayonet through her face.

Zenia died before she could fall.

Sermon stood in formation with the third line. He heard slaughter; saw only smoke and blaring masks.

Trumpets blared - the signal to attack. The line advanced.

Too slow. Sermon's fear couldn't handle it. He let off a battle cry, broke rank, and ran into the frenzy.

Kasia searched for an enemy. She was hemmed on all sides. Her ears rang. Her throat wheezed on dust.

Gunshots claimed the insurgent in front. Kasia pushed into the gap and locked sight with a corporal.

She engaged, veering sideways, flicking her katana under the corporal's arms and through his stomach. He collapsed into the staircase. Kasia tried prising her sword free but it wouldn't move. She switched to her knife.

A guardsman tackled her down. She twisted his head, mounted him, stabbed his chest. She saw him. He was a teenager - a boy - and he was yelling at her to stop.

Kasia stabbed again, twice, a third time, but he would not die.

A shield slammed down and opened his skull. His mashed features stared at Kasia with dangling eyes. Kasia vomited. Bile spewed through her mouthpiece and filled her mask up. She held a stair rail and choked on sick.

* * *

"Boss!" Kristoff thumped Luis's shoulder and shouted in his ear, "boss they're inside!"

Luis checked around him. Fire teams were low on ammo, their targets pot shots. The front sections were inside. Over the grounds Medical began their grim triage on writhing casualties.

The sounds from the palace were unbearable. Luis's friends were in hell, and he was stuck out here.

Always assigned elsewhere when his people needed him.

He moved ahead of the line and lifted his blade.

"Fire teams! We're moving into close quarters! Draw your weapons!"

The back line followed him, running across ruined fields to meet the fray.

* * *

The revolutionaries retreated to the first floor. Andrez and Maqbool pursued up the grand staircase, dispatching a man each. Sima Ren leapt at another two, managing both.

They secured the upper landing. The battle paused, offering both sides a welcome lull.

Esmé stopped at the stair's base.

"Kasia! Kasia what are you doing!?"

Kasia held to the rail. Her mask lay at her feet.

"I can't do it Esmé, I-"

"Come on! We trained for this! We need you Kasia!"

A shotgun blasted above. Someone on one side or other died. Kasia couldn't move. Even running away felt impossibly terrifying. All she wanted was for someone to take her out of this palace.

"Esmé I can't do this…. I need help… Please don't leave…"

Esmé pulled free of Kasia's grasp and stepped back. Her posture spoke of disappointment.

"Kasia, we've given you all we have… I have to help them now. Both of us do..."

She headed upstairs. Kasia backed against the wall, broken, ashamed, helpless. Alone. Abandoned by the nicest person she'd ever met.

Their kiss ran through her mind; soothed her even now. And Andrez, the father she never had. The times she'd spent with them weren't supposed to exist anymore.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

And in their company Kasia realised that Imany's life lessons had got one thing wrong. For so long she had told Kasia to ask for help. Kasia never wanted to and she still didn't. But Opus Veda gave her something bigger. They let her help others. People needed her and recognised her for it

Her skill was acknowledged, her faults accepted.

She found a reason to carry on.

"Alright Kasia? Fancied a lunch break?"

Luis was in front of her. The fire teams were searching bodies for ammo and preparing to head on.

Kasia pulled herself together.

"I lost the others… do you know where they are?"

"I believe I do," Luis put her mask in her hand, "are you coming with us?"

Kasia remasked.

"I believe I shall."

* * *

Varma gathered his strength in the command centre. He had rallied what soldiers he could. Many had fallen behind, broken into small pockets of resistance, condemned to be picked away piecemeal by Opus Veda.

Major Kinnock strode forward and saluted him.

"Captain. The main host has engaged outside London. We won't be able to assist them now. What are your orders?"

"All we can do is hold..." Varma seethed as he said it, "at least long enough for the army to relieve us."

Kinnock tipped his head sideways, "my marines and I can venture out for a bit if you like? Rally some more of your guys and get a second line between you and the Blacks?"

Varma considered the major before him, deferential but superior. He sighed.

"Go no further than the King's Gallery. Barricade it. We'll leave the command centre open for you to fall back."

"That won't be necessary captain…"

Varma grinned, "planning on an easy night out?"

"Aye…" Kinnock stepped away.

"Marines!"

First Division's platoon fell in and drifted outside.

* * *

Sermon pulled his helmet off. It clattered away. Muffled voices shouted distant commands. Blind spots danced in his eyes.

He rubbed his face and groaned. One terrorist had died by his hand. He'd beaten a second back but their mask caught him. The revolutionaries then routed upstairs and he'd barely escaped. In the ensuing lull he managed only to wipe his sweat away and sob. No one noticed him.

The world sped up again. He heard people dying. The fight was back on.

Terrorists began surrounding packs of defenders and snuffing them out.

Someone slapped Sermon's face and put a pistol in his hand. Orders were barked in his ear. He staggered forward into a portrait room, where a shrinking few fought for survival.

A terrorist finished her target and picked Sermon out.

Training kicked in. He dropped low, firing under her shield and capping her knee. She swiped her knife; Sermon disarmed it and and tripped her leg away. He tugged her mask up to deliver the blow, and he found a young girl. A teenager, pale with reddened eyes.

Her eyelids drooped shut.

She reminded Sermon of Eva - of all those he left behind, of the hard choices Revolution Britannia said were inevitable.

He didn't care what was inevitable. He couldn't go further. Killing children was not his choice.

His pistol lowered. The girl opened her eyes. They showed him gratitude.

Then surprise. She reached behind him. A barb flew into Sermon's back. He howled as it dragged him off. The girl tripped on her shattered knee and went delirious.

He was the only revolutionary left. Sermon yanked the barb free and prepared to fight.

Esmé spun her knives towards him.

"No."

Andrez pointed a metal finger out.

"Lie down and play dead, Sermon Mkenda."

The other terrorists gathered their casualties and moved on. Two remained with Sermon. And Sermon knew the one - the man who took Luca from him. In three decades Sermon had found one person he imagined calling boyfriend; one person he liked enough to risk the taboo, the bitter audience, the vulnerability.

A doctor neither of them could afford took him away. All Sermon had left was a revolution he didn't believe in anymore.

Andrez saw the change: the flittering fears and doubts as Sermon pondered fate, slowly settling into determination.

Esmé noticed too late.

Sermon kicked her chest and pulled a knife from his boot.

He charged at Andrez. Andrez sidestepped the lunge and held Sermon down. His mask wailed. Sermon roared back at it, head on, defiant, angry, disappointed. His voice cracked once; regret.

But he refused to give in.

Andrez's sympathy ran out. He reversed Sermon's knife and plunged it in. With final strength Sermon swung his fist against Andrez's mask. Andrez spun away and hissed.

Esmé stabbed twice into Sermon's back. His neck flung back and air gushed out. He landed hard. His head declined softly against carpet. It felt like falling asleep.

His determination had gone. In its place was peace, and, for himself, forgiveness.

The terrorists left.

The battle carried on.

* * *

Gemma watched the vagrants rush past the cameras. It was a poignant way to go - given her failure to deal with one gang, she would be undone by another.

She tried her phone again, found no signal, and threw it away. There was one good deed left, and she was determined to win.

She pulled Eva out of the office. The mob raved and cheered nearby. Something broke. Eva screamed.

"Gemma what's happenin'!?"

"Don't talk."

She opened a maintenance cupboard, led Eva through the jumbled equipment, and plucked a tile from the ceiling. She lifted Eva into the cavity.

"Keep that taser pointed away from you and do not come outside no matter what you hear happening. Do you understand?"

"What are you talking about!? Gemma what're you doing!?"

"Do you understand girl?"

Eva cried and shook her head but there was no more time. Gemma replaced the tile, locked the cupboard door, and rested her head against it.

More crashing. The vagrants were near.

She paced into the control room. The career that had been her escape would become her death. She pictured her parents at the funeral, no doubt telling their narrow-minded friends how they'd warned Gemma about this, if only she had listened.

They would grieve, but a more honest side of them would indulge.

She prayed for Luis to survive the night wherever he was. And Scarlett, her beautiful fiancée, who hid behind jokes and destructive nights out, the only way she could handle trauma. She would have to manage without a wife beside her.

The vagrants caught her. They laughed and threw things; encircled her against the wall. Gemma identified ringleaders to target first, weak links to pick on second, and weapons to avoid.

A flying bottle smashed over her head. Her heart trembled. Women spat at her. Men climbed the desks and flashed their genitals.

She resolved to go down fighting. With slow and purposeful steps, she walked towards them.