Rene stood shivering slightly despite the morning heat. Adrenaline still surged in his system making his skin prickle unpleasantly in time with his thudding heart. The woman who rose from behind the stone wall was beautiful despite the filth and blood that caked her. It wasn’t the kind of beauty that occured naturally, no natural face was as perfectly symmetrical or as crisply defined. Her hair caught the light of the rising sun glinting like gold as it refracted the radiation. It was the kind of beauty that only the scions of the nobility could afford.  For a moment his heart throbbed painfully in his chest and he was standing over Amellia’s body, as it lay on the blood stained sheets eyes wide in wonder or terror. 

He blinked back to the present his mind registering that she had spoken to him and that it was rude not to respond. A noble could be cruel, but they should never be rude. It wasn’t a maxim that had served him very well as a marine but it was deeply ingrained in his psyche. Muscle memory compelled him to make an abbreviated courtly bow.

“I am Rene Quentain… My lady,” he responded, realising as the words left his mouth that what she really meant is what are you doing here. He was acutely embarrassed to be still holding the pistol and lowered his arm to hold the weapons muzzle down close to his thigh. The barrel still warped the air slightly as waste head cooled the barrel. Electromotive slug throwers were extremely powerful but the flux needed to accelerate the slugs heated the ceramic barrel after even a few rounds.

“Ma’am,” he tried seeking to clarify his earlier statement and switching to the appropriate form of address. My lady as a form of address between nobles and not something a lowly marine as he now was ought to adopt.

“I’m with... or that is I’m an Imperial Marine my garrison was attacked…” he trailed off and made a gesture to the three slain soldiers with his free hand. The sergeant had been nearly decapitated by the wire and the air stank of blood and worse things. He looked over the dead as though seeing them for the first time. Rene had trained to kill but he had never actually don it until today. Irrational embarrassment washed over him to be standing amidst such carnage with a highborn lady.

He wondered what he looked like to her, his own aristocratic features drawn and haggard from the exertions of these last few hours. He was at least partially dressed as a marine, brown on green camouflage pants with tan boots and a tan PT shirt but he lacked armor and his only weapon was the looted pistol. Blood leaked slowly from the graze on his chest and older blood stained the side of his head from a pressure cut. Self conscious, he ran his fingers through his dark hair feeling the slime of mud and sweat which coated him. His eyes fixated on the blood that stained her pale skin.

“I don’t know what is going on I thought I would head for the embassy and…” he trailed off again uncertain where to take the conversation and aware that the shots would surely bring other Gids before too long. He reached down and scooped up the boxy assault rifle the sergeant had flung away in his death spasms and reflexively checked the safety. 

“Are you ok ma’am?”