Sergeant Foster cursed as bullets peppered the ground around her squad. They were pinned down in a small town outside Fallujah after raiding a suspected child trafficking house. She was pretty sure it had been a trap. Her squad of mostly women had been nicknamed 'The Sisters of the Light' as a result of their propensity for doing night raids on known child trafficking cartels. They had obviously gained enough attention from disrupting business that someone had lured them into a trap with false information. She cursed again as a grenade landed on the ground behind the car they were hiding behind. Without a second thought, she dove onto the grenade, hoping the act would buy her squad some time to escape.
A deafening boom shook the ground and shattered windows; way too loud to have been the grenade. As she lay on the grenade, hoping for a quick death, another boom shook the ground. After another five seconds of continuing to breathe, she hesitantly rolled off of the grenade. There was nothing there but ash.
"What the freak?" Private Higgs gasped in shock as she stared at the ash pile. "What happened?"
"No idea," Sergeant Foster replied in bewilderment. "What are all of those booms? Do we have air support?"
"Hey!" Private Scott shouted in alarm. "There's a girl walking out in the road!"
Sergeant Foster swore again and ran out into the road, "Give me cover!"
Bullets rained down all around her as she ran toward the dark-haired girl. There was something very strange about the girl. Aside from the flash of gunfire, it was completely dark outside, yet the girl was perfectly visible, as if she was lit by an inner light.
Sergeant Foster froze as dozens of bullets suddenly stopped in the air in front of her, accompanied by another inverted boom. The girl spared her a brief glance and Sergeant Foster took a step back in sudden fear at the raw power in her eyes. The girl turned back to face several dozen militants, the light around her growing brighter. A fourth boom shook the ground and the gunmen finally noticed that reality was taking a lunch break. Their guns suddenly glowed orange in the blackness, followed by shrieks of pain. One final boom, and every militant fell to the ground, unmoving.
The girl turned back to her, the aura around her slowly fading. "Keep up the good work, Sergeant."
Then she vanished.
"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!" Private Scott breathed fervently. "What the hell just happened?"
Sergeant Foster just shook her head in disbelief as she walked over to the prone bodies. A quick check indicated that all of the gunmen were dead. There were no visible wounds, no indication of how they had died.
"They're all dead," She told her squad. "No idea how. No wounds, aside from burnt hands."
"Did an apparition really just save our asses?" Private Nekervis asked with an excited grin on her tanned face. "That is so freaking cool!"
"You're so freaking weird," Private Freer announced, shaking her head ruefully. "I know that you're obsessed with the paranormal, but seriously?"
"Anything about those booms catch your attention?" Sergeant Foster asked Private Nekervis with a raised eyebrow.
Private Nekervis suddenly smacked her palm to her forehead in astonishment. "Holy freaking monkey diarrhea! It was her! It was, wasn't it?"
Sergeant Foster just shrugged, "Sure. I mean, have you ever heard of anyone else that goes around doing supernatural crap with loud booming noises."
"Care to enlighten the rest of us?" Private Scott asked impatiently.
"Don't you remember all of the hype about that girl named Heidi that knocked a whole school out when a gunman was on the loose?" Private Nekervis asked her. "They said there were loud booming noises every time she did something supernatural."
"Oh yeah," Private Scott recalled with a frown. "How in the name of all that's not holy did she get over to this side of the world? And how did she even know we needed help in the first place?"
"I'm pretty sure that was just a projection," Private Nekervis informed her with an excited gleam in her eyes. "Maybe she's like a goddess or something. You know, omnipresent."
"Hell, I can't even argue with you," Private Scott said in exasperation. "Considering I don't have any other explanations."
"I sort of called out to her," Private Guay said sheepishly. "I was pretty sure we were goners, so I thought to myself, 'wouldn't it be nice if Heidi was here to save our asses'. Then she appeared."
They all turned to stare at her in surprise. "So what, we can pray to her?" Private Scott asked in disbelief.
"I don't think it works like that," Private Guay answered slowly. "My emotions were all over the board. Maybe that has something to do with it. I doubt she would appear just from someone calling her name."
"Hello Heidi!" Private Scott called out loudly, looking only a little disappointed when she didn't appear. "I guess we'll never know, unless we get into another tight spot."
"What did she say to you?" Private Nekervis asked Sergeant Foster curiously.
"She said to keep up the good work," Sergeant Foster said with a wide grin. "Apparently she approves of what we are doing."
"Should we report this to the Lieutenant?" Private Guay asked doubtfully.
"We'll have to," Sergeant Foster said with a heavy sigh. "We have several dozen bodies here with no explanation of how they died. Too many questions will arise if the locals have to clean this mess up."
Sergeant Foster called the Lieutenant and let him know that they had dozens of bodies that would need to be disposed of. The lieutenant had a famous temper, even in the army. Sergeant Foster waited patiently for the string of profanities to run down as Lieutenant Clark shouted into the radio loud enough to almost make the device unnecessary.
"You dumbasses don't move an inch until we get there," he roared into the radio. "And if I find a YouTube video of your squad picking a fight with the locals, I'll have your ass court martialed!"
"Yes sir," Sergeant Foster replied curtly.
"Do you think they'll finally break up our squad?" Private Guay asked apprehensively. "You're not really in danger of getting a Big Chicken Dinner, are you?
"No, of course not," Sergeant Foster scoffed with false confidence. They had become a tight knit group. Private Guay was an orphan and considered the squad her family.
"What the hell were you jumping on that grenade for, anyway?" Private Scott asked her grumpily. "Do you know what they would do to us if we came back without you? It would be better if you just let it take all of us out at once."
Sergeant Foster just chuckled, knowing that was Private Scott's way of thanking her for her willingness to sacrifice herself for the squad. As the oldest member of the squad, many of the soldiers thought of her as an older sister, rather than a commanding officer. She felt like an older sister most of the time. It was a full time job keeping these girls out of trouble inside the wire.
"BOHICA," Private Scott muttered as the rest of the platoon arrived.
The fifteen minute trip from the base had not noticeably improved Lieutenant Clark's temper—if anything, it had let it stew to a higher temperature. Curses littered the air around him as he surveyed the number of dead bodies all over the ground with the rest of the platoon.
"What the hell did you do to their hands?" he demanded as he studied a few of the corpses.
Sergeant Foster took a deep breath, knowing how unbelievable their tale would sound. "Their guns overheated and burned them," she replied levelly.
"You can shove that bullshit flag up your ass," he snorted, searching one of the bodies roughly. "What the hell did you use to kill them?"
"We didn't kill them, sir." Sergeant Foster replied stiffly.
He stalked over until he was inches from her face. "Do I look like I'm in the mood for games, Sergeant?"
"No sir," she replied, holding back a sigh.
"Do you think I want to be out here screwing with corpses instead of enjoying my rack time?" he asked in a growl.
"No sir," she replied curtly.
"Then stop playing games and tell me what in the hell killed them!" he roared into her face.
"We don't know what killed them, sir," Sergeant Foster told him. "One second they were shooting at us, the next they were all dead."
"By the gods, this surpasses all previous fuckups by far from anyone I've ever had in my command," the lieutenant shouted at her. "You expect me to believe they just fell over dead?"
"Sir, it looks like their hearts burst," one of the medics examining the bodies called out. "There are no entry wounds though."
"What the hell made their hearts burst, doc?" Lieutenant Clark demanded as he walked back over to look at the medic's handiwork.
"Not a clue, I've never seen anything like it," the medic replied. He looked up at Sergeant Foster. "You using any special weapons?"
"I wish," she replied fervently. "No, we were pinned down and black on ammo."
"Well it's safe to say this won't happen again," The lieutenant told her darkly. "Tomorrow, your squad is getting reassigned. You've been given way too much leniency."
Sergeant Foster could almost feel Private Guay stiffen in sudden anxiety at the announcement that her family would be broken up tomorrow. She took a deep breath.
"Sir, permission to speak freely?" she asked the lieutenant tightly.
"Negative, Sergeant," he growled irritably. "Now get your asses back to the COP."
BOOM!
The rest of the platoon spun around, looking for the source of the inverted boom. It didn't take long to find. Heidi had once again appeared, this time looking even more solid, and not happy. She was illuminated by some kind of inner glow that chased the remaining shadows away from the street around them.
The few soldiers that weren't paralyzed in sudden fear as the enormous presence of something otherworldly washed over them raised their M16's in shaky hands and took aim at her.
She walked right up to the now white faced lieutenant and glared into his terrified eyes. "I hope I misheard you when you said you were going to break up this squad," she told him in a deadly calm voice. "Because I fully support what these soldiers are doing and will do everything in my considerable power to ensure that they keep doing it. Do I make myself clear?"
He nodded quickly, seemingly unable to find his voice.
"Good," Heidi told him with a humorless smile. "Now there will be no need for any...unpleasantness."
She stared into his eyes for a moment longer, then vanished, leaving a faint auroral discharge in the air behind her. The street was cast back into sharply contrasting shadows from Humvee headlights.
"What the hell was that?" Sergeant Kraus asked, his voice shaky.
"That was the person that saved our asses," Sergeant Foster replied calmly. "She appeared while we were pinned down behind the car over there. She killed all of the militants, then vanished."
"Who is she?" Private Almanza asked in awe.
Sergeant Foster shared a look with her squad before shrugging. "Who knows? Maybe some long forgotten goddess that doesn't like children being abused."
"Bullshit," Sergeant Meyer snorted. "That was Heidi Rockwell. I was still stateside when her name was all over the news."
Silence fell across the platoon as they all absorbed the revelation.
"So much for keeping that a secret," Private Scott muttered.
"Isn't she a Colonel's daughter?" Private McElfresh asked with a frown.
"Yeah," Sergeant Meyer nodded his head. "I heard some RUMINT that she did that apparition trick and ghosted a senator after he sent some meat eaters out to pick her up. That's one person I wouldn't care to tangle with."
"Why didn't you just tell us it was Heidi?" Private Almanza asked in annoyance.
"Would you have believed us?" Private Scott asked him archly.
"Good point," he admitted.
"Great GOFO," Sergeant Meyers snorted.
"Shut your pie holes you bloody oxygen thieves, and get these bodies loaded up," Lieutenant Clark snapped, making a visible effort to regain his composure.
Sergeant Foster fist-bumped Private Guay as she walked passed. "Thanks, I owe you one."
Private Guay colored slightly and nodded. Her family wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon.