Fabienne Gschwind - The Fallen Heroine

Back to me: I left running for today and wanted to go back to the barracks to start my duty on time. But in front of the barracks there were about 100 people armed with banners and flags.

On them were slogans like.

"THANK YOU ReS!"

"Super Tamara!"

"Our Saviors from the Nuclear Drop."

When Tartelette arrived from a swim out of the sea, people erupted in cheers and they formed an alley to let her through. Our captain smiled and signed autographs. When I joined them, I was also cheered and they patted me on the back.

The chief waved one last time and went into the barracks.

"So junior sailor, occasionally people show appreciation when you save their asses. You should read the fan messages I get on a regular basis." She laughed and stepped into her office.

I quickly stood under the Evapshower to get rid of the sweat. Fortunately, with this modern technology, it was no longer necessary to take off my clothes, because they were cleaned at the same time.

I thought of Tartelette: she was a living legend. She was highly respected by the people and the army, but as Thibault has already pointed out a few times, she had a habit of making herself very unpopular, at least with the nobles running the government, because she liked to cause trouble. That was exactly how it was with her letter calling for the elite unit. In it, she had pissed everyone off and named all the people she considered incompetent.

I put on my duty beret and went into our common office to have breakfast.

"Oh, our old Commodore Laura Cortaux is currently released from duty, her artificial heart has given out and she is motionless in the hospital..."

Emily read the ReS news. “The Headquarter is looking for a new commodore to take over. Well at least until Laura can be ready for action again... Hey, Tamara isn't that something for you?"

Tartelette nodded and absently explained that she had been forbidden to apply. But suddenly she stood up and taped a piece of paper with the training schedule to the wall instead of using the projector.

Sniper training, hand-to-hand combat, hacker training, and more.

Tartelette explained, “I am heading to Auvergne ... something went violently wrong there. Two units are said to have been hit. ReS headquarters wants me to look into it along with the incompetent USDU representatives..." We heard the rotor noise of a deca.

"Aha, here comes my Decacopter to pick me up. See you guys in a few days."

She was about to leave, but turned around one last time, "And make sure no one gets killed, or you'll be in for a treat!"

With that, Tartelette grabbed her gear and climbed to the roof, from which the Decacopter picked her up.

We were all still sitting at the table, looking at each other stunned after this departure. Two whole units had died? Surely that couldn't be!

In fact, it got worse.

We were training when an official announcement arrived:

The death of all members of two units in Auvergne was confirmed. Also, ten members of USDU representatives had been killed, two seriously wounded. They had all been attacked by reprogrammed Repros that a crazy rich man had kept in hidden in his private zoo located in a cavern in the Auvergne.

I was panicked that something had happened to the commander.

Fortunately, a text message from Tartelette arrived for us.

"Don't worry about me. Stop. Hospital food is horrible. Stop. See you tomorrow. Over."

Why Tartelette wrote in an old-fashioned telegram style was less important. It was bad enough to hear that she was in the hospital. But at least she was still hungry, so it couldn't be all bad, I tried to reassure myself.

Sunday was actually a day of rest, but not for us. At nine o'clock sharp we were all ready. Tartelette was waiting for us in the office in full battle gear with her visor on.

We sat down.

"Yesterday was a complete disaster. I've never seen such a disaster, and I officially blame the stupid USDU troops. Don't have a clue about repros, all of them. Had simply said that it was just a couple of cats. And that we could go there safely. I don't know what they were thinking…. They were absolutely sure they could just do it quickly...just run into the cave without any real equipment!"

Tartelette spoke extremely slurred and in choppy sentences.

"And then no one was probing the situation in that cave either. And to make matters worse, the critters were trained."

We looked at each other perplexed, what was she talking about?

"I've never been so angry in my life."

She suddenly let her combat visor ride up and we gasped.

The right side of Tartelette's face was torn away almost to the bone and covered all over with translucent synthetic skin and regeneration packs. But one could still clearly see the deep claw mark.

"A full-grown Bengal tiger knocked me over and dented my visor with a paw strike!"

She angrily snapped the new visor shut. And started to explain everything:

Essentially, what French intelligence believed had happened was this: these were not repros from a private zoo, as had been initially believed. It was much worse! Some terrorists who wanted to harm France had produced their own repros and somehow trained them! Tartelette further explained: "To some extent, they can control them. We don't know how. But we could save a couple corpse and pass them to research center. The Intelligence believes that the terrorist or terrorists probably set up a base in another cave system in Auvergne.

And here's the ironic part of all this:

The King President, after seeing the bodies, or what was left of ten USDU representatives, accepted all my proposals and conditions. The USDU was dissolved. The Regent proclaimed us the only active ReS special unit an hour ago and ordered us to solve the mess in Auvergne. We have four days to do so. Otherwise, the area will be evacuated and the beautiful region will be turned into a radioactive inferno. And I will get the blame! Countdown is on!"

I gulped, that was quite a bit of dramatic information all at once.

She sent Gabin and Emily off to pack the equipment. Thibault had already, left to set up a command post at a Hotel in Saint-Nectaire. Then she looked at me: "Junior, you can join me for breakfast."

Ten minutes later, we were sitting by the harbor in a sinfully expensive seafood restaurant.

"We don't serve at this hour yet," said an grumpy waiter. Wrong answer, I thought to myself, because Tartelette was extremely irritable today and I was already grinning to myself in anticipation of what was about to happen. Like Gabin I was beginning to enjoy my captain's games. And finally, the landlord would simply publish the camera footage where he was threatened by Tartelette and could enjoy thriving sales for the next few months. So this was all just a gimmick.

The captain unabashedly walked over to the counter and sniffed the unopened oysters that had just been delivered.

"Ah, don't I smell repro smell?"

She wordlessly took the shotgun out of its holster and pointed it at the oysters. The waiter lost his nerve.

"I'm calling the police," he screeched. A woman - by the look of her, the bistro manager - joined in and stopped her co-worker from using the communicator.

"It's not necessary," she said to him and to Tartelette, who was loading her pump-action shotgun, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

"Please, it's not necessary," she repeated to Tartelette, raising her hands imploringly, "Please."

I was beginning to feel uncomfortable myself.

"My waiter didn't mean it, he didn't recognize you, Captain Arlette. We will serve you any time of the day or night."

Tartelette slowly turned to the woman, pointing her loaded pump shotgun at her head. It remained that way for a few interminable seconds before the weapon smoothly locked into the back holster. The ashen-faced manager disappeared into the kitchen.