Fabienne Gschwind - The Fallen Heroine

I lay with Tartelette behind a mound of earth and watched the bushes. We waited for Gabin and Emily to move around it to cut off the path. We had orders to stun and decapitate the animal so the scientists could examine it. No one understood what exactly was going on, and the examinations of the big cats in this private zoo had revealed that someone had probably implanted electrodes in the muscle. So with targeted electrical impulses, the animal could be more or less controlled.

Gabin was now aiming his zapper at the bushes and Emily was almost in position, too.

"Don't shoot! Repros don't move like that! Something's wrong" Tamara suddenly opined, "Retreat all to cover."

The Repro didn't react to us and kept repeating the movement. Tamara aimed the zapper and fired from a safe distance.

A blast wave pinned me flat to the ground. Fortunately, the helmet had automatically set to highest isolation, otherwise my eardrums would have burst. The armor was certified to withstand a HAN grenade at a distance of five meters. It had done its job.

Somebody had preped a cadaver with a bomb and it was triggered when Tartelte shot at it with the zapper. Luckliy we had been in safe distanc, in our usual combat distance we would all be a soup of molten metal and plastic!

Tartelette looked at the crater and fumed. We flew back to the hotel. I was shaking; we had been hit. This attack was targeting us. After all, we were the only ReS patrol on duty here. That meant that we not only had to defend ourselves against repros, but that people were also planting bombs to kill us! Gabin looked at me worriedly and showed me where I could located the menu to instruct the combat unit to inject me with Adalin. At first I didn't know if I should take on purpose military drugs, but Emily also took a shot. A few milligrams wouldn't hurt!

The chief met in the command station with the other senior ReS officers and strategists for a briefing. Even outside, we could hear her loudly berating everyone and everything. Tartelette was unresponsive and extremely angry because someone must have purposefully laid this trap for a ReS Patrol. We waited outside the room in full gear, not knowing what to do next. Thanks to the mini-squirt Adalin, I felt really good, brave, strong and fearless.

The captain came out and slammed the door so hard that a hinge broke. I saw two soldiers helping themselves at the coffee machine quickly make their exit. I would have liked to do the same. But the captain headed straight for us. One of the many seams on her face had broken open and blood was dripping out. She screwed off her helmet. Her icy gaze lingered on us.

"Follow me. Emily get the first aid kit and take care of my wound," she hissed coldly.

We followed Tamara along the swimming pool outside into the garden. Suddenly she grabbed me by the shoulder and smiled, "Do you have an account of any of the many social media platforms?" I replied in the negative. Tamara was suddenly super friendly, there was no longer any sign of anger. So she had probably played it.

"Then you're about to start one. Because I'll show you how to get pocket money: turn on the helmet camera, look at me and keep your head still."

I had no idea what was going on and did as told.

Emily came running up and held the well-endowed emergency kit.

"What took you so long!" the boss hissed, snatching the backpack from Emily. With a kick, she launched her into the water of the pool.

"Gabin get the stapler and sew up my wound!" she threw herself on a lounge chair. But Gabin huge paws were not fit to operate the small medical stapler. And as he slid and ripped open another suture, Tamara slammed her fist through the open visor. She waved me over.

"Cadet, you're a semi-trained zookeeper! Get to work!" the boss ordered angrily.

I quickly approached, but carefully closed my visor. I stapled the wound together, it was now clear to me what Tamara had planned. I was almost envious of the commander; surely the scene of me stitching her up would be clicked on a million times and everyone would rave about what a badass fighter Tartelette was.

"Very good and cut!" Tamara sat up and ordered Gabin: “Show to our Junior how to upload the video. If he's lucky he can make a few chunks before headquarters shuts down and markets the footage themselves." She laughed.

Emily was visibly pissed off by the kick and complained, "We agreed you'd warn us if you faked another tantrum like that!"

While Gabin pulled me away I heard Tamara say that Emily and Gabin were grotty actors and would screw up the movie scenes otherwise.

I was relieved that if Tamara behaved irascibly or stomped us, it was only meant so we could make some pocket money from movie earnings.

The video was quickly uploaded, but the control center also reacted quickly and deleted it after a few minutes. But at least I had secured the income of a week's wages. "You'll be a superstar yet!" grinned Gabin when he saw all the comments.

"That cadet’s really got it!"

"Professional, I'm sure he got a medical degree before the ReS pulled him off."

"Has anyone seen him without a helmet yet?"

"Badass, bravo keep up the good work!”

Gabin was proud and showed me a further trick: “If you want to earn more money you need to use a private camera. “ He showed me his small high quality camera. “The footage captured with our helmets camera belongs to ReS.” He went on to explain that even our private recordings would not be online for long because the ReS confiscated them each time, claiming that we had recorded them while on duty and therefore it belonged to them. They were mostly proven right by the streaming platforms as well. But it took a good week for the law to be enforced, so plenty of time to make extra ramp money.

I happily took a real shower with water and hung out in the room with Gabin for a bit. After that we got Emily and took a walk around the village. There were many villas and other gorgeous houses that used to be hotels. After all, Saint-Nectaire was known as a spa in Roman times. All the houses were uninhabited and renovation robots kept them in good repair. We then arrived at the 'Grottes Petrifiantes'. That is, caves from which extremely calcareous water gushes, at one point as a 14 meter high waterfall. In former times one let things 'petrify' in it. Any object was covered with lime and after a few days it looked like a work of art. A robot let us in and took us on a tour.

Afterwards we visited the old Romanesque church and trundled back. After dinner, at which Tartelette did not appear, we all turned in early. There was no telling what would happen next.

Gabin, for some unknown reason, had meant that we had to be in the lobby at eight o'clock, ready to go. So we all waited there in full gear and draped with weapons.

At some point Tartelette came out of the kitchen and balanced a fully packed breakfast tray past us with one hand.

"What are you standing there for? Did I somehow say something about it starting? I'm still waiting for the cave experts from Switzerland to discuss the situation," she grumbled.

"Yeah, so what are we supposed to do until that happens?" asked Gabin. Tartelette turned away and walked to the command room.

"I don't know. Stand in a corner and switch to stand-by..."

Then she disappeared into the dining room, which had been converted into a command center, where Thibault and operations officers from the ReS and military were working. They were trying to track down the hidden base of the terrorists with drones and satellite images.

In the press it was claimed that terrorists were producing trained repros in Auvergne.

A headline that naturally caused panic. The fact that our troop had almost died in the bomb trap was not mentioned anywhere.