For Adalynn

Hadrian grinned as he watched Adalynn twirl. The humidity might've been oppressive, but the whispering breeze and tree-induced shade surrounding them made it tolerable. Pleasurable, even.

"Hadrian, this is beautiful." She gathered the silk and lace into her hands. She looked like a princess. "It must've been so expensive."

An entire month's pay. Troopers that just left training weren't making a lot of money. The Organization didn't believe in giving their first-years very much to start. Hadrian met her eyes. "Don't worry about it. I enjoy getting you gifts."

She gave him a sidelong glance, but despite the scrutiny, let her shoulders drop. "What's it like?"

Hadrian frowned. "What's what like?"

"New Britannia? I've always wanted to go." She sobered for a second, her hand coming to rest on the heart-shaped pewter locket that never left her neck. "Mother always told me she'd take me, but then she died. My father found work down here and the colonies are great and all, but I still miss it, you know?"

"Camenate?"

She gave an earnest nod. "Yeah. I know that everything here is supposed to make it feel like home, but it doesn't." She swallowed. "Makes me miss home all the more."

Hadrian couldn't sympathize. He'd joined the Troopers for the opportunities they offered. Getting to travel. To see the world. Help bring world peace into his generation. He was nineteen when he’d joined. He'd heard about the Old Age. The Last War. But that was only in history books. He was born decades after it'd ended. This was how he knew the world to be. Peaceful and kept peaceful by the Troopers, the Organization, and The Family. A force for good in this broken world. They brought peace and normalcy to places like these. Like South America. Like the Malan Kingdom. Hadrian couldn't think of a better calling in life than to take up arms and serve The Family through the Organization.

He was a street urchin, living in one of the many nameless slum provinces of New Britannia. He couldn't wait to leave it all behind.

"You're getting lost in your head again." She smiled. "I didn't mean to bring up poor memories."

Swallowing, he shook his head. "N-no. Not at all. I was just thinking."

"Yeah?"

"Remembering what life was like... Without this, I don't know where I'd be."

She grinned, looking every bit her youthful eighteen years. "I'm glad you're here. Protecting us all. I know I feel safer."

His cheeks reddened. "Just doing my job."

"There you are."

Hadrian wanted to kick Aslan into next year. Did he have to come find him now? He looked over his shoulder at the man. "I still have ten minutes."

"What can I say?" Aslan shrugged; his helmet tucked against his side. "Lieutenant's calling us in early. Something's got him spooked."

Hadrian groaned. "What doesn't spook him?"

"I'm just the messenger." Aslan threw up his unoccupied hand. "Complain to him."

Hadrian pinched the bridge of his nose, getting to his feet. "Just tell him it took longer to find me. Give me another minute."

"Quickly, though."

He rounded his attention back onto Adalynn to see her pouting. And he captured her in his arms. "My shift's over in a few more hours. Then we can come back here."

She shook her head. "Daddy says the tribes move around too much at night. He doesn't like me outside the house after dark."

"We're still inside the fence." Hadrian whined. And that was true. The fence was electric. Reinforced. Steel. No tribe had penetrated it before. And no tribe ever would. Adalynn was here.

For Adalynn. Better motivation would never exist.

"I promise not to let anything happen to you."

She pulled away and smiled up at him. "Tomorrow. Lunch again. It'll give Daddy some peace of mind."

Hadrian wanted to protest, but he knew how important it was to Adalynn to keep her father from stressing more than he already was.

"Here." She pressed the locket into his hands.

"I can't take this." He said once he realized what she'd pressed into his palm.

"It's a promise, Hadrian. I'll see you tomorrow—"

"I never doubted that."

"I know." She shrugged. "But this way, you can be extra sure."

Hadrian frowned. Something not sitting right with him. And as he looked up at her, seeing her neckline without it, he knew what that something was. "I-I can't take it." He held it out to her, letting it dangle on the chain. "I already trust you. That was never the issue."

"But I want you to." She said, curling his fingers around it. "I want you to keep it safe. Something to encourage you when you go back to your shift. A small piece of me."

Hadrian leaned in, capturing her mouth with his. "I love you."

And she pulled back with a stumbling. Her lips parted, and her eyes widened. "Hadrian, I—"

A cacophony surrounded them. Alarms. The Colony's alarms. It broke through the chirping birds and the rustling leaves. It tore through his eardrums. And he heard Adalynn's moan as she shoved her hands over her ears, bracing herself against the noise. Hadrian grabbed her and brought her to his chest. Hugged her.

"—drian!"

He turned, looking at Aslan running back toward him. "Is this a drill?"

Aslan's expression was one of urgency, though. And as Hadrian stood there. As Aslan approached... Hadrian felt his blood run cold. His heart stopped before it began earnestly thumping against his ribcage.

Cries of desperation and beastly chants filled the space between the beats of the alarm.

It wasn't a drill. It was...

A massacre.

Hadrian's hold on Adalynn tightened. If he could just protect her—

A hand on his shoulder pulled him back, and Hadrian whirled on Aslan.

"We have to get back. The others they'll need our help."

Hearing her cry of fear and feeling her cling tighter to him broke his heart, but he pulled away before snatching up his phaser rifle and helmet. "Hide. Adalynn. I'll find you after this is over."

Tears poured down her rosy cheeks. And she wrapped her arms around herself... Oh, how he longed to hold her. But he had a job to do. People were counting on him.

"Run. Hide." He impressed again.

Watching as she ran away from the chaos, leaving him alone with Aslan shattered what remained of his heart. But he'd see her again. He would.

Turning, Hadrian copied Aslan and threw his helmet on and buckled the chinstrap. The enhanced vision and auditory on the full-face visor and helmet, allowed Hadrian to see the heat signatures of what went on just around the tree bend.

For Adalynn. That thought—mantra—tumbled through his mind repeatedly. For Adalynn. He had to expel the tribes. Protect her. Her father. The Colony.

For Adalynn.

With that thought echoing in his mind, he pocketed the small heart-shaped trinket she'd pressed into his palm moments ago and fell in step with Aslan.

As they broke into the fray, they stopped and watched a naked tribal savage charge across the open courtyard covered in blood with a bullet-gun. Hadrian let out his own battle cry and squeezed the trigger.

From this distance, the phaser round easily charred a hole right through his chest. The savage lifelessly thumped to ground. He and Aslan tag-teamed and bounded across the open area. Barbarians littered throughout their wake. These things weren't human. They couldn't be.

Between bursts of phaser rounds and sprints across the open field from building to building, Hadrian was sick at what he saw. They tore colonists to shreds. Leaving their chests open and internals splattered amongst the blood.

Hadrian tried not to step on the dead, but he couldn't avoid it. The closer he got to the center, the fewer survivors he saw. His fear for Adalynn grew with each new carcass he saw—

The alarm silenced as a sleek, black form of a hovercraft coasted through the air above. Rustling the debris and carnage on the ground as its underside propellers and jet engines carried it forward.

A short distance away, beyond the buildings surrounding them, it shifted to descend.

A few Troopers in the area dashed forward in the hovercraft's direction, and Hadrian and Aslan hastened to follow. They'd have to get supplies from headquarters and the hovercraft and return for the injured. He would not abandon these people. He only hoped that Adalynn wasn't one of them. That he'd find her safe and whole somewhere.

For Adalynn.

"Please, no!"

Hadrian stumbled to a stop. The telltale whirring of a phaser round swiftly followed. And then silence...

The pattern repeated.

"No survivors."

The order went out over his communique system, and he knew Aslan heard it, too, because when he turned, Aslan was throwing his visor up.

Hadrian frowned and did the same. "What's—"

"Did you hear that?"

Hadrian's frown deepened. Something twisted within him, but before he could answer, a familiar voice broke through his thoughts. He turned to her with horrific realization overcoming him.

Catching her in his scaled, kevlar encased arms, he hugged her close. "You have to hide."

She simply hugged him tighter. "I love yous" pouring from her mouth.

"You have to hide. Get somewhere safe." His voice couldn't do anything more than a whisper. No survivors.

Plea. Phaser round. Silence.

"Have you seen Daddy?"

His heart plummeted. He hadn't. But that wasn't important right now. For Adalynn. "Adalynn." He tried again with a swallow. And he felt her stiffen in his arms at the repetition of her name. "Run and hide. Something's wrong."

Another plea. Another phaser round. More silence.

But the silence was too close. And then a soft whir of an all-too close terrible sound. The responding silence deafened him. Hadrian stumbled. He vaguely sensed Aslan's hands try to brace him as his back hit the brick building behind him.

Hadrian flitted his gaze to see Troopers. Higher ranking than he'd ever seen before, clearing each building and open area. Double tapping the homes with grenades and phaser rounds. The weak and strong pleas going silent.

They moved forward. A machine of a unit. Synchronized. And for just a moment, Hadrian thought it looked like a beautifully efficient symphony. But then the stillness and silence forced his attention away. And that's when he saw her. Adalynn's still form. A hole burned through her chest.

And Hadrian screamed. It tore through him. He hadn't known how long he was there, kneeling beside her cold corpse, before rough, gloved hands hoisted him up.

"—it is both the Organization's and Camenatian policy The Colony never existed. Should you speak of this to anyone or even aloud to yourself, you will know a similar fate—"

He looked over to find Aslan across from him, also being hoisted to his feet. Looking around him, he saw his own teammates getting similar treatments. The high-ranking Troopers letting their helmet's voice modulator rip the humanity from their words. Each one of them adorned in pristine black uniforms. As though the tragedy never happened.

Hadrian swallowed, letting his gaze drift up to the Trooper handling him, a plea pressing against his lips, but he turned away as the soulless gaze of the blackened visor stared him down.

There was a reason he'd never heard of massacres. Had The Family done this before? The thought was as hollow as it was terrifying. And Hadrian wondered how long it would take for him to believe the lie. How long would it take for him to doubt his own sanity?

And then that familiar shape pressed against his thigh when he shifted. That heart-shaped pewter locket he'd pocketed at the start of it all.

Like a mantra, a whispered thought resounded through his mind. Like an alarm. Like a cry of silent desperation. To remember. Even if he was the only one. To remember her.

For Adalynn.