Gunfire was almost constant as I stared down the hall I knew held a very powerful Telepath though I still wasn’t able to see him and chewed on ideas to make things more difficult for him.

“Goggles!” I heard Lulu shout and got mine in place just after the lights in the data center went out. That was good thinking and I kicked myself for not having it done sooner. Now our attackers were lit and backlit while we were hidden in shadow or even darkness.

“Enfilade.” I whispered to myself. (See? I have been reading those damned tactical manuals.) and ordered. “Sergeant Ramirez, have your people fire down that hallway and to keep up a steady fire that won’t deplete your ammo too fast.”

They were already doing that and I got a look that plainly told me it was nice I’d noticed the opportunity, but to leave that kind of thing to the real professionals. I shrugged, gave him a grin and nodded.

Now for the part I could actually do that hadn’t been done.

I nearly cringed as the keening, cutting sound of a bullet passed by my right ear. From behind. I just had to trust the teams holding the other doors hadn’t been overwhelmed and knew they hadn’t or there would have been a lot more than one round whining past me. I did remind myself that standing upright probably wasn’t the best of ideas just then and dropped into a crouch as another round ripped through the air where my head had been seconds before.

But there was something else to worry about then. I reached out and changed the flooring of the hallway I was facing just a bit. Uneven footing for the bad guys had to be good for us. At least that’s what I thought. And if a few feet got caught in the floor as a result, well, that’s the breaks, right?

The image of an empty hallway wavered and was replaced with one full of troops, a lot of them down or scrambling to find nonexistent cover. My SOF people (why do I just automatically include anyone participating in something I’m involved in as mine? Later inanities, no time for you just now!) were gleefully hosing the revealed targets with fire the moment they appeared.

Hah! I thought. Come out and play big man, now that you’re troops are visible!

Me and my big mouth, even if it was just my mind that had said that.

“Oh, you are good, little girl.” The voice returned and I started feeling pressure on my mind and perceptions as the bloody scene in front of me faded to show a wide field under a warm sun that was filled with green grass and dandelions. Dandelions? Okay, I think my opponent was a little rushed there too, but the scene looked so damned normal.

I lowered the ceiling in the hallway in response to that, even if I couldn’t see the hallway just then I knew it was still there. Go figure, the sky in my vision got a whole lot closer once I’d done that and I felt rather than heard a very distinct cry of pain from my opponent.

As I was waving a hand to get the cloud that had suddenly decided my head would make a fine surrogate for a mountain, the scene dissolved and I again saw the once pristine hallway. Now it looked like a butcher shop in an earthquake.

I really wanted to puke after that, but I’d seen things just as bad, hell, I’d caused things just as bad. Just not on — this scale is all.

Evidently, I’d scored big time on the telepath because the attackers started pulling back. It couldn’t have a thing to do with the withering devastating fire my SOF people were putting out, could it? Oh yeah, I decided that it was real good idea to make friends with these people and keep them as friends.

“Telepath is down.” I informed Ramirez while I blocked the corridor with extrusions of the stone just under the walls we could see. “They’ll have to blast to get through that now.”

I’d essentially plugged the hole that hallway had been. Just by changing things so the part of the hallway closest to us didn’t exist. Big, really big plug there.

Ramirez looked at the now blocked hall, then to me, and shook his head. “Ma’am, remind me to never, ever get you pissed off enough to do something to me.”

“I don’t do that to friends, Alphonse.” I answered then added. “Leave a couple of people to watch this one, there’s bound to be someone around here who can undo what I just did.”

He nodded, grinned and started giving orders. Things were not quite desperate any longer so I started paying attention to the ops chatter on my comm.

“Charlie team is pinned, I repeat, Charlie team is pinned!” An absurdly calm voice informed whoever was listening. “Containment was breached at grid numbers…”

You don’t need all that technical positioning crap here. Team Charlie was in trouble is all you need to understand. Armed soldiers were getting out of the barracks section and had one of my teams in a bad spot.

“Help on the way, Charlie.” Torrance’s voice came through. “Five minutes.”

“Roger that, We’ll be ready.” The response was crisp and I knew that even though Charlie team was probably being cut to bloody ribbons at the moment, they would hit their attackers once the support got there.

“Alpha, status?” Torrance’s voice came through again.

“Holding data center, still secure.” I shot back then added. Alpha leader here. Status?”

“Bravo has secured prisoners and labs.” Kris’ voice, sounding a bit sick but dangerously determined responded. “Hostiles down here.”

That one had floored me. Kris and her team had showed up and I’d expected to hand command over to her. Not.

“You know the sit, you have the planning, use us where you need us.” She’d flatly told me which shot down any idea I’d entertained of getting out of the painful duty of really being in command of a battle group going into real combat. “We’re here to support you, Luce. Do the damned job.”

So I did.

Which brings us back to the really nasty stuff now.

Laramie was working hard, not just on my team members. Evidently the bad guys didn’t care who they hit when firing into the darkness Lulu had brought to the Data Center. There were an awful lot of dead computer techs and more than a few of the ones still breathing were hurt.

“So much for taking care of your employees.” Laramie, her usually rich chocolate complexion looking more like weak chocolate milk now, told me. “The bastards actually targeted these people before Lulu turned the lights off.”

“They don’t want them in our hands.” I gave her shoulder a squeeze while wincing at the pain I knew she was enduring just from that brief contact.

“Yeah, I’m a healer, pure and simple.” Closing her eyes as she began to regain her usual color, she glared at the still open hallways. “But there are some people I would really like to hurt, really hurt right now.”

“Know how you feel, hon.” Giving her shoulder another squeeze I started moving away. “Don’t over extend yourself. If you can’t do something without killing yourself, don’t.”

Laramie’s style of healing took more guts than I think I could ever manage to show. She actually took the injured people’s wounds, broken bones, or whatever, into herself. As in literally feeling their pain and suffering their injuries. Along with the real physical damage. I’d seen bullets extrude from her flesh at times.

No, I don’t think I could ever be that selfless, or brave, as much as admitting that made me feel really small.

Kelly, on the other hand was having a great time. Gun nuts. What can I say?

“Got ‘em pinned down.” She informed me, then slapped another mag into her weapon and fired down the hall to discourage someone from even showing the top of their head. “We got this one, Luce.”

Light exploded into the Data center from another hallway and I heard the distinctly different sounds of rushing water — fire sprinklers, probably — and the crackle of electricity. Claire and Sam were doing their jobs with a grim efficiency that I had to admire though I knew both of them would be very sick when this was done. If they survived it.

Okay, by now you’re probably asking… If I’m a probability warper, why didn’t I just reach out and finish the battle from where I was. Come on, I’m not god. Or a goddess. I have to at least see what I’m changing, and my range isn’t even close to god-like. If some schmuck with a grenade was within a hundred yards of me, sure, I could just change the grenade into a rock or a nerf toy. Or make it explode in his hand. Which I’d done already and let me tell you, that isn’t fun at all, because when I did change some reality I saw it. Up close and as if I was tapping the person on the shoulder to let them know I’d fucked them up.

I knew I was going to be sick when this was over.

The ceiling hit me again.

Which told me that damned telepath was back.

“You’re a lot more dangerous that we’d thought, little girl.” His voice whispered through my mind and showed a hint of real admiration. “But it’s time to put away your toys and go to sleep.”

“This is bullshit.” I told myself as my eyes got heavy and I had to fight to just stay upright and awake while I told him. “I’ve stood off better than you, ass hole. Come up and try to make me do that when I can see you.”

“Oh, that would be no fun at all, little girl.” His sweet soothing voice answered in my mind.

The scene in the hallway I was facing wavered for a moment, still a bloody nasty mess, but different and I tapped Kelly lightly on the shoulder and pointed. “There.”

One round and that was over with. The telepath’s head exploded as the high velocity round hit and that annoyance was gone for good.

What? You thought I was going to walk out there and do something stupidly heroic? Evans’s mama — even if she was my step mother, didn’t raise a damned fool. If I didn’t absolutely have to risk death, there was no way I was going to step right into the grim reaper’s path if I could help it. there is a good reason heros don't hang around once the fighting is done and it isn't because they're happily screwing the maiden they rescued. Think about that one.

That didn’t win the battle. How egocentric do you think I am to even start believing that what I had done with Kelly’s help would have made everyone else stop shooting at people they didn’t recognize as one of their own?

The action was still a bloody, screaming mess like any other battle that had happened in history. People that didn’t deserve it died, people that should have died if the gods were paying attention survived. But we took the facility.

Torrance and I exchanged looks. No congratulations, no jubilation. We’d done the job. That was all. The butcher’s bill had been paid and neither one of us really liked the cost, but both of us knew it was something we couldn’t change.

“Yancy.” I don’t know when we’d reached first name status, but we had, and the Airborne colonel gave me a questioning look as I went on. “Good job. Drinks are on me for everyone.”

He nodded then grinned. “I’ll sneak one to you if I can, Luce.”

“This time I’d take it.” I told him while sighing as I seated myself. “Just don’t send me one of those girly drinks with the umbrella and fruit floating in it if you don’t mind?”

“Straight Scotch, no ice.” He told me and chuckled. “I really want to see you the first time you taste that.”

“You’re contributing to delinquency of a minor here.” I grinned.

“Hell, Luce, I’ve known grown men who aren’t near as adult as you are.” He told me while pouring something into a shot glass and handing it to me. “Drink up.”

I did. My eyes watered, I tried to choke when my throat attempted to close up, and my stomach burned with that cargo of liquid fire for a few seconds.

The fucker laughed at me. Then poured me another one.