Solstice Strides (Resplendent)

Do you know what it takes to keep moving when you're so afraid—SO afraid?

In the EDZ, we were starting to mount an organized defense. It was still Cabal territory. She and I drew the short straw to hit a rolling transport: a fat Cabal train on wheels coming out of a munitions depot and heading for the Farm.

So we're waiting behind a ridge and the carrier approaches. She blasts it with her Grenade Launcher. The shell slams into a tread on the carrier and it just… sticks. Doesn't blow up. I look at her. She's gritting her teeth.

While I'm still in shock, she leaps to her feet, hops on a Sparrow, and zips about a mile down the road. I watch through the binocs. She pulls out a sidearm and aims from behind a bunch of steel girders. Shoots at the shell in the transport tread. Takes another shot. Three. Five. It's unlike her to miss.

Then I see why: her whole body is shaking with fear.

Finally she detonates the shell. And I mean, I have never seen a blast like this. An orange dome that reaches almost all the way back to me. It melts the rubber on my goggles.

It was the right move. You don't come back from that, though.