another drabble

[youfallback]

Carolina can't believe the moment she's attacking Texas, mid-mission, her AIs screaming in her ears and she can't think and there's an enemy under her fingers. Checking the style of armor or color would easily solve this but she can't see, can't think, and her body seems to be moving on its own, clicks and turns of gears and automatic. Her heel connects with the side of Tex's helmet and she thinks for a moment she's won when she's right side up and her enemy is down on the ground.

As she charges through the fog of her AI, of shouts from her teammates, she barely sees Tex's hands close around a shotgun and a sudden flash of pain in her chest as she flies backwards.

---

There's no way to describe how Carolina's limp arm hanging off the side of the gurney means so much more to York than 'another downed soldier on a mission.' She was more than a mistake, more than an experiment gone wrong. As he chases after the medical crew down the hall, he can't help but see her as a sign of the end, of that limp arm being more than just hers anymore. She's only the first of what will be multiple casualties and for a second he thinks he sees the future in an abrupt clarity before a door slams between them.

He has to get out of here and take as many as he can with him.