Three Strikes [✓]

Culmination

Chapter Sixty: Culmination

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Selatapura, Usea.
October 30th, 2019.
0330hrs.

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Rosa was very well aware that she was not a soldier. Even long before politics and nobility took over her life, back when she was actually free to be her own person, she wasn't raised to pick a fight. She grew up searching for harmony. But she had learned as soon as her father took the throne that people could change, and when necessary sometimes they had to play roles they did not like. So, soldier or not, she was willing to step out on a battlefield if she had to.

No one would have blamed her if she stayed behind. In fact, they probably would have been thrilled given the stakes and circumstances. The coalition, once introductions were out of the way, briefed them on an operation that would require the utmost stealth if they wanted to succeed. In order to take back the space elevator's support facility they'd draw attention away from the main building, and then a team would be sent in to seize control of it from the inside. The team that had been put together was mostly Oseans, thankfully ones that Rosa was familiar with, but there were a number of refugees and Erusean soldiers that were among them.

Avril volunteered in spite of her bad leg, along with Major Foulke's father, Bandog, Georg, the journalist, Genette, and a large group of soldiers led by Major Grimm. Henri also offered his services before Rosa spoke up, and that only gave her more reason to go through with it. After a bit of a back and forth, trying to make them realize she could be an asset in negotiations and that she could hold her own, everyone agreed to let her go. She promised she could handle herself and she wouldn't slow them down, and she intended to keep that promise.

Even though it was a struggle not to fall behind and even though she was exhausted, she followed them all through the shadows. Rosa wasn't sure how they managed to move as silently as they did. She didn't have the same uniforms they did, but she was wearing the same heavy boots they were and she was barely managing to mirror the way that they were moving in them. She at least had had practice moving around in them, so she wasn't clumsily following them. And hopefully she wouldn't be the reason this operation went south.

Thankfully she wasn't on her own, wedged in the middle of the formation with Avril and Genette, a pair that unlike her were actually holding the weapons they'd been given at the ready. Avril had a rifle while Genette had a pistol she had learned was his personal weapon. Everyone but her seemed to be anticipating an attack. Everyone but her also seemed completely unfazed by all of this, even the refugees that had been hesitant to even leave Tyler Island.

Just in front of her, Henri showed no signs of strain, his condition having improved in the weeks that had gone by. He was her guide as they carefully, quietly moved between buildings and shipping containers and unattended vehicles, and she watched his every move to make sure she didn't slip up. She could only hope nothing was going to happen to them, not sure if she could handle watching another family member die.

The main building came into view before too long, patrolled more in the front than on the sides and in the back. It allowed their group a chance to pause and collect themselves, the time for their allies to do their part coming up on them. Rosa pressed her back against one of the steel shipping containers once she saw Henri and the others do the same around her. The small alleyway they were waiting in left some of them on one side, up against the shipping containers, and the others across from them lining up down the wall of the facility. They were lucky enough to be in just enough shadow, along with having a few crates and barrels stacked up to help conceal them.