Chapter Text
Song of Silence
WARNINGS: Some scenes contain strong violence, actual and implied. Those of a sensitive nature may find some portions disturbing. There are a few instances of alien language (Regalian). I've provided a brief glossary at the end.
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"Okay, this looks like a real sleeper.” Kris looked around at the quiet park, the sizable pond and the clear, nearly cloudless sky.
"Kris, do you ever stop complaining?" Mark sighed and looked out over the pond.
"Nope." Matt walked over and leaned against the fence next to his cousin. "You should hear her when she thinks the Chief is trying to get us killed." The look Kris gave her partner would have melted frozen butter in Siberia within a few seconds.
"Think of it as a working vacation." Key suggested.
"I don't do "working" vacations." Kris grumbled.
"Or real vacations for that matter." Paul grinned and ducked behind Pet to keep Kris from hitting him.
"All right, people, can we please try to get some work done?"
Kris flashed Paul a vulgar sign and made the pretense of turning her attention to Mark.
“The Chief is concerned about the dearth of communication and periodic friction between the teams, which appears to stem from a lack of familiarity. To that end, he would like us to become better acquainted."
“Say what?” Yale gave Mark a blank look.
“Let me try, Mark.” Matt chuckled. “Guys, Anderson thinks we don’t play well together. He wants us to try to get know each other a little better.”
“Are you serious?” “Er, we’ve known each other for at least eight years now.” “Is he aware that several of us hang out together off duty?” “Man, just because we cleaned up the gym with each other last week.”
The responses were varied, but the reaction was much the same: amused disbelief.
“We may know a little about each other off duty, but face it, folks, we don’t know how the other team works or thinks.” Matt half laughed. “Think about it, every time we work together, we usually pair off with someone from our own team. Hardly ever do we work with one of our opposites.”
"To help rectify that,” Mark resumed his briefing, “We pair up with a person from the other team, each pair taking a section of the city, look around for a couple of hours then meet back here to compare notes."
**Gee, what a unique approach. What's he going to say next .. stick together and stay in contact?** Kris telepathically laughed.
**Kris….** Paul stifled a laugh.
**Of course it could be worse, he could be suggesting we all stay together, make one big target.**
**Better yet. Remind us not to go nosing around in Battlesuit.** Paul chortled.
"If you two are done." Mark glowered at the twins. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he could tell they were talking to each other. And knowing them, it was at his expense.
Matt laughed softly and said something to Mark that prompted a brief conversation in Rigan.
Mark sighed and reminded them why Chief Anderson wanted the two strike teams to become more accustomed to working together. The way some of the newer factions of the Alliance were moving, it was becoming more and more necessary to mix the two main teams. While it was not unheard of for them to back each other up in the past, and they had worked as one team on a few occasions, there was always some friction. The Chief thought throwing them together on fairly simple assignments would improve working relations and increase efficiencies amongst the team members.
**Okay, place your bets, kiddies,** Ellie cut in, **How long before the 'common good' line?**
**Within the next minute.** Ellie relayed Ben's bid, inflections included.
**Nah, give him at least three. Two just to get warmed up.** Yale chimed in.
**Guess I'll take minute and half.** Pet smirked.
**I’d say five minutes.**
**Why five, Paul?** Pet queried
**Three minutes for the "common good" reference, two minutes explaining why he had to make the "common good" reference.**
**Three and a half to get to the line and a dirty look when we all start laughing.** Kris quirked an eyebrow and smothered a grin.
**Okay, my turn,** Ellie jumped back in. ** Less than a minute. We're already getting the dirty look.**
"All right, enough already." Mark shot a dark look around as the Force Seven team, with the exception of Matt, started laughing. You know, it is to our mutual benefit if we can learn to merge the two teams."
**Mutual Benefit. Close enough. Damn, Ellie.** Kris sniggered.
Matt reached out and patted his cousin's shoulder as the rest of his team doubled over in laughter. "You get used to it after a while, Cousin."
“I’m surprised you haven’t killed them yet.” Mark shook his head. “Are they always this, er, insolent?”
“Not once we hit the field.”
“Ok, let's grab the equipment and get moving. We’ll meet back at the Command Craft in four hours. Try not to kill each other, people.” Several members of the unit moved to where several cases of photography equipment were stacked, knelt down and started gathering up gear.
“As long as we keep Kris and Jason apart, I think we are safe.” Pet chuckled.
Key smiled and picked up a camera bag. “They’d kill each other in less than five minutes.”
“I don’t know, Squirt, we’d be more likely to get something done then you two. I half expect you to find a video parlor and waste the day away.” Jason smirked.
“You may expect Key to, but I don’t expect Pet to do that.” Yale straightened up slowly, scowling at Jason.
“You would be surprised how much the local children know.” Ben added softly. “Young people often know more than the adults think.”
“This is exactly why the Chief wanted us to take this trip,” Jun sighed. “He wants us to try and learn to get along, become a bit more compatible.”
Paul smirked. **Gee, is she saying the Chief is trying to get the bull to behave in the china shop?**
**No, I think she is saying he only wants to lose three place settings, not five.** Ellie smiled.
**The breakage of china is directly proportional to the price of said china.** Ben added via Ellie.
Kris looked up at her brother, rolled her eyes and started laughing. **Long as the store owner is alive when the bull leaves, who cares how much damage he causes?**
Mark shook his head in abject frustration as the members of Force Seven started laughing at the telepathic joking.
Tiny held his hand out to help Kris up, smiling softly. “Care to let others in?”
Kris looked at him, the extended hand, for a second, right eyebrow arching slightly, then reached up and grasped his hand and pulled herself up. “We were wondering why Neal thinks he can convince the bull to leave the china shop without causing any damage.”
Tiny cocked his head and started chuckling. “Maybe he is simply trying to convince it to leave the other bull alone.”
********
Kris and Tiny moved along the historic district, dutifully playing the naive tourists, making general small talk. When they paused for a moment just off the main square Tiny apparently decided to see if he could find out something about his current partner. "Hey, can I ask a question?"
Kris tipped her head back and stared at the cloudless sky and looked at Tiny from the corner of her eye. "Sure. I make no guarantees about the lucidity of the answer, but you can ask."
Tiny smiled slightly. "You and Paul, do you guys like know everything the other is doing?"
Kris brought her head down and studied the stout Polynesian for a long second then tipped her head indicating they should start moving again.
They walked for a few moments in silence.
"The short and simple answer," she finally spoke up, "is no and yes.
“The long answer is, it is difficult to explain. If you mean can we always hear or see what the other is saying or doing? The answer is no. We don't hear or see what the other is doing, unless we deliberately allow it. I mean, Paul can't hear what I am saying, or thinking, unless I purposely let him, and vice versa. Although sometimes we slip up and one another gets fragments, nothing in this world is perfect, even our control of our gifts. A distraction, like pain, or whatever can sometimes lead to leakage.
“Can we see or hear through the other one? Not in the way you might think. We can pick up mental images from each other. If Paul were to see something he thought I would be interested in, he would contact me and show me an image. It would be kind of like looking at a photograph. I cannot see through his eyes, I would see a representation of what he had seen. Same with hearing, I would hear an echo.
“Can we talk to each other any time we want? Anyone who has sat through a staff meeting with one or both of us knows the answer to that one." Kris smiled at Tiny's soft chuckle. "We keep each other company, entertained, most of the time.
“Are we aware of the other's presence? That's the one that is hard to pin down. We are, but rather in the way you are aware of your left hand. It is there. It has always been there. You know it is there, if it were missing you would notice its absence, but most of the time you are not consciously aware of its presence. I know that really does not make a lot of sense, but that's the best way I can explain it.” She shook her head. "Paul and I are aware of each other's presence in the back of our minds, we can even use the presence to track each other, not an exact location mind you, just a general direction and distance, but as a rule we don't pay the presence any more attention than you do your left hand.”
"Hun? Track each other? How?"
"The link, or presence, can serve as a kind of low band locator beacon. It is there, like a soft white noise, rather like the air circulation system at Alpha. You hear it, but ignore it, unless it is not working. We can get a general idea of direction and distance by how loud the 'beacon' is. If we're under fire or hurt the 'beacon' gets more intense and the location is more precise.
"So, you see, the answer is no and yes. We don't know exactly what the other is doing or exactly where they are standing, but we are always aware of the other and their physical and mental state. And we can, and do, share experiences, but rarely is it involuntary."
"I was just wondering. I'd heard that you two shared pretty much everything." His cheeks turned a dark rose color as he looked away.
"I see Jennie has been talking again." Kris kept her voice neutral. "Yes, we can pick up extreme emotions from the other. Strong emotions and pain can be hard to block in fact, which is how we always know when the other has been hurt. But do I get a "backseat" view every time my brother decides to bed someone? No. We can and do screen things so the other is not disturbed." She pointed towards a large building, and the 'fascinating design', resuming their role as tourists. "I'm going to kill that bitch yet," she added softly in Regalian.
Tiny had the grace not to ask her to repeat the line in English. He dropped back a step, letting her point the camera at the building. "I apologize if I said something that upset you."
"You did nothing that requires an apology, Randy." Kris angled the camera to pick up the building they were standing in front of and most of the one to the left.
"Then why did your voice get so tight? I've noticed that you tend to do that when you are angry and trying to refrain from seriously hurting someone."
”I get aggravated at people assuming they know something and then broadcasting that 'information' as fact, when in reality they don't know anything. Yes, Paul and I are very close, but we also respect each other's privacy. Something that little andarn never learned. Trust me, I am far from disappointed that she is out of his life. The only thing that would make me happier is for her to vanish completely from the known universe, taking her lies and distortions with her.”
**Something wrong, Kris?** Paul interrupted the conversation, amusement and mild concern tingeing his mental voice.
**Not really, why?**
**I just got the impression you wanted to do bodily harm to someone.**
"Andarn. That is an interesting word. You two use it for any and all, regardless of gender."
**Interesting…that’s a funny way of describing THAT word.** Paul teased as he caught the echo of Tiny’s comment.
Kris shook her head, reshielding herself with an admonishment to her brother to quit eavesdropping and lowered the camera, giving Tiny a thin smile. "Randolf, if you are asking for a translation, the answer is no. There really isn't an English translation. Besides, I've heard you muttering something I think was none too polite at Jason in your mother tongue."
"Having a second language can be useful," he agreed. "By the way, we are being watched."
"I noticed." Kris pointed towards the sculpting at the roof of the building. "Can you get a better look at them?"
"I think so." Tiny pulled his camera out and started fumbling with the lens. "Two males, about twenty to twenty-five years earth-time, dressed in loose fitting clothes, one has a triangle pendant on."
Kris turned to look down the street in the opposite direction. "Can you see anything inside that triangle?"
Tiny reached around to refocus the camera and almost dropped it. "Yeah. Something almost like an inverted cross."
"Or a sword?" Kris calmly turned back towards him and reached out to turn the zoom on the lens.
"Yeah, that would work." He scowled down at his camera and let it hang from the strap around his neck.
Kris glanced at the concealed top viewfinder of her camera and swore softly. "Kevas. That's Tan-Meit." She brought the camera up to look through the lens, swinging it up towards the building roof, snapping a shot as it arced.
"Tan-Meit, that's the "new" group." Tiny casually glanced down the street, seeming indifferent.
"Yep. Fanatical religious zealots with sociopathic tendencies."
"Our way or death, real charmers." He laughed humorlessly.
"Two people do not an invasion make. Let's move on, give our friends over there something else to look at."
They moved on to the left, studying the fascia of the buildings as they went.
Tiny just finished explaining the relationship between him, Key and Jun, which Kris quickly compared to her and Paul, and Pet and Yale, when Kris stopped to retie her boot.
"We have company again."
Tiny glanced back down the street. "I see."
"Notice how they are watching all of the tourists?"
"Yes, like they are watching for something, or someone, in particular. Not the same group though. These guys are wearing some kind of black and white device on their collars."
Kris straightened up slowly. "Black and white? Can you see any red?" Tiny shook his head and started to turn. "Kevas! I wish Paul were here." She gave Tiny an abashed smile. "He has something like 20/10 vision. He's the smart-ass that actually read the "Printed in Cleveland" line on the eye chart."
"Oh." Tiny's eyes widened. "I thought that was just a joke."
"No, the snot really did it. And right about now, we could use that. If I'm right, we not only have Tan-Meit, we also have Bantiel here." She started moving down the street, no longer paying attention to the buildings. "I don't care to mess with those guys again."
"Hang on a sec, I want to get a shot of that mural." Tiny pointed to a painting not far from where the observers were standing. "I think I saw a third person standing behind them," he added softly as she paused, looking over her shoulder.
Kris nodded, leaned against a lamppost looking around with a bored expression while he fidgeted with the lens of the camera. "Yep, third person alright. This is weird,” he snapped a couple of frames. “He looks like he is wearing the same kind of clothing as our Tan-Meit friends."
Kris raised her head and looked at him, "Diathair."
"Maybe I'm wrong."
Kris didn't bother with a pretense of looking at the painting; she pointed the camera towards the three men. A long string of swearing followed two quick photos. As the string got longer, Tiny's eyes widened.
"Er, how many languages can you swear in, anyway?" Kris gave him a faint scowl. "I thought Jason's Rigan / Sicilian fusion was interesting."
"Four, if you count the odd Terran Japanese words I picked up from Ben," Kris quirked an eyebrow at him and started opening the memory port of her camera and removing the memick. "I didn't know Jason knew Rigan." She slipped the stick into the pocket of her jeans.
"Only the swear words." Tiny chuckled.
"We need to get back to the rendezvous point." Kris looked at her watch. "It's about Two klicks north-northwest of our current location. Pull the memick and put it in your pocket. Whatever you do, don't lose it."
"Okay, care to fill me in?" He glanced up from opening the memory port.
"You were right. The third guy is Tan-Meit. And, I think I got a shot of him handing something to one of the Bantiel boys. Either way, between us we have got shots of them together."
"You mean .."
"We have one HELL of a problem."
**Kris, What's wrong? You just tripped all the way to “Condition Red”, nevermind Orange”.**
**Paul, pull back to the rendezvous point.. We need to get out of here, now. We just got evidence of a possible Bantiel and Tan-Meit collaboration.** Kris jerked her head, indicating Tiny should start moving.
Paul's swearing lasted almost as long as Kris' had. **I'll pass it along. We're fairly quiet here so I can afford the distraction. You two just get out of there.**
**Thanks, bro. I'll see you on the Falcon.**
Tiny and Kris started casually strolling back down the road in the direction they had come from, only this time they were paying more attention to glass windows. They paused for a second at the intersection that led back to the main square.
“I’m going to suggest that we split up when we hit the main courtyard.” Kris flicked a glance towards a nearby window and watched the tail they had picked up stop in a doorway.
Tiny stretched, looking towards the building tops. “Uhm, ok.”
“You go left, I go right. We have a small lead on them, so we’ll have about thirty seconds to get to the T-split before they round the corner. We need to make sure we are clear of the visible path before then.”
“It’ll take us just under thirty to reach the split,” Tiny frowned.
“Which means once we hit it, we need to kick it in, clear the area as fast as possible.” Kris quirked an eyebrow at the hesitant, unenthusiastic, look on Tiny’s face. “Don’t give me that look, I’ve seen you go after a quarterback. I know how fast you really are.”
Tiny gave a low, sardonic, laugh. “I didn’t think you watched sports.”
“You’d be surprised at what I pay attention to, Randy.” Kris took another surreptitious look around, making sure their tail was still ‘occupied’ and there were no other followers. With a slight tip of the head, she indicated they should start moving again. “I just don’t watch my brother’s races live. He says it distracts him too much. Something about watching him go nose first into the wall makes me a bit nervous.” She grinned slightly at the low chuckle. “Not that I don’t worry about him during the races, but I worry less if I can’t see what he just narrowly missed.”
“Like other drivers hitting him?”
“Yeah.” Kris nodded faintly, glancing behind them. “We’re clear.” She reached up and thumped him on the shoulder, grinning evilly. “Go get your quarterback, Harper.” She was rewarded with a chuckle disguised as a snort.
Kris waited a few seconds, watching Tiny before turning and headed in the opposite direction.
A few minutes later Kris was fervently hoping Tiny was having better luck than her. She hadn’t been able to go more than a block without seeing a member of either the Tan-Meit or Bantiel. Twice she had come within seconds of changing to her battlesuit only to breathe a silent sigh of relief when a Bantiel member walked past without looking at her a second time; never mind that changing in public was very much against regulations. She would vastly prefer to deal with Chief Anderson, and his never-ending stack of paper work, than try to fight any of the Alliance factions without the protection of the suit.
‘The problem with aerial maps,’ Kris thought darkly, ‘is the lack of ground perspective. I know I have problems with ground base navigation, but this is getting ridiculous.’ She eyed the warehouses grimly. ‘A left, a right, second left and another right should have brought me to the secondary route to the rendezvous. So, why am I standing in the middle of the warehouse district?’ She backed up a few steps, leaned against a nearby wall and looked around. The tourist routine wouldn’t work for long in this area, so out came the ‘historical’ map. She had almost figured out what wrong turn brought her to this area when the sound of voices drew her attention.
Two men dressed in rough work clothes were walking from a nearby alley. One glanced in her direction. The young Regalian decided to play a gamble.
“Excuse me, gentles, Ah seem ta ‘ave gott’n a bit lost. Cou’d either a’ya tell me how ta ge’ back ta tha main squ’re?”
“Girly, you are kilmils from there.”
Kris’ eyes narrowed briefly behind dark lenses, both at the condescending tone and the sight of a certain black and white pin on the collars of the men. ‘Kevas, these andrans are as thick as hounds with a tick.’ “Well, kin ya show me where ah am?” She held out the map. “If ah know where ah am, per’aps ah kin fin’ ma why back.”
“Sure, for a price,” the one that had first seen her laughed.
*You must not like living,* Kris answered in Regalian, smiling gently.
“Enough,” the second man, silent till then, shoved his partner in the shoulder. “We have more important things to do.” He jerked his head towards the far left end of the street. “Back that way, you should be able to find your way.”
“Thank ya.” Kris nodded and took a few steps in the direction he had pointed. She looked down at the map and allowed her peripheral to widen enough to follow their movements. She watched as they continued down the grimy street, opposite from the route they had pointed her towards. A bolt of adrenalin flashed through her when she noticed the second man pause and look back in her direction. Pocketing the map, she surreptitiously touched the memick and started walking away. A few steps farther along she relaxed a fraction when no sound of approaching footsteps reached her ears.
The relief was short-lived. At the intersection of the next alleyway she caught sight of five men standing around listening to a radio. Dropping back a half step to get behind the corner of the office building, Kris cocked her head slightly and half closed her eyes.
Paul was the one with the reputation for seeing small details at long distances. For Kris, it was her hearing that was sharper than normal. During one of the early screening tests, she had driven the otologist nearly insane with her insistence that she could hear something the entire time. They had gone so far as to have Paul leave the room, in case he had somehow been cuing her. Finally they brought in an acoustic meter and discovered that the testing equipment was emitting a very faint hum. The hum had been transmitted through the headset into the examination chamber.
Kris turned her attention to trying to hear the radio conversation. Distant sounds of the city masked portions, making it difficult to follow the entire dialogue.
**Kris?**
**Hold on a moment.**
“Return .. base … target …lost. Tourist .. heavy.”
“..we had one .. section 46.”
“Repeat.”
“We had .. tourist who .. lost in .. 46.”
“Advise .. last seen .. description.”
“Female, young adult … wearing tinted glasses .. wide brim. Pointed her … main square. .. be there now.”
“Wundebah,” Kris sighed to herself and moved to the far side of the building, leaning against the wall a few strides around the corner, watching the narrow alley and the main road at the same time.
**What’s wrong?** Paul took her apparent relaxed concentration as indication he could finally speak.
**Try what isn’t; it would be a shorter list. Listen, these mis-borns are looking for someone. They haven’t found them yet. They are pulling back to their main base for now.**
**Okay, and you know this how?**
**I’m just within range to hear part of their radio traffic.**
**Terrific. Look, Matt is wondering when you are going to grace us with your presence.**
**Tell Wolf I said to sit on it and rotate.**
Paul stifled a half chuckle at his sister’s growl. **Okay, so what’s the real problem?**
**I took a bloody wrong turn and ended up in the warehouse district. It’s going to take me a few minutes to get back to recognizable ground. And I have a suspicion I may have been made.** Kris tipped her head back and eyed the roof of the building next to her. ‘Maybe one and half stories, with a local grav field of one point one six, could be tricky.’ She noticed a stack of packing crates about five feet away. **Hang on, I have an idea.**
**You are not going to go find the base by yourself.**
**I may be crazy, Paul, but I am not stupid.** Kris mentally chuckled. **Since part of the problem is I lose perspective on the ground, I’m going to try taking the high ground, so to speak. I saw what appears to be packing crates a few yards to my left. If I can get a boost of several feet, I should be able to make the ledge with little difficulty. I don’t think our friends here would think to look on the roof for a lost tourist. I think I better get moving. Sounds like my would-be playmates are done talking and headed this way.**
Whatever reservations Paul had, he kept to himself. **Be careful.**
**I will. Pass on what little we have, will ya.** Kris broke contact and started moving towards the stack of crates, pausing once to pull back into the shadow of the building when the group she had been monitoring passed in front of the building. Once they had passed, she moved to the stack of crates and lightly vaulted to the top. She swore softly to herself when the plank under her left heel cracked and splintered. The sudden shift in weight caused the crate to tilt and fall off the stack, landing its occupant ingloriously on the ground.
Kris levered herself up, shoved her right boot against the crate to free her left foot, and shook her head to clear the ringing. She started to reach back and pick up her hat, wondering how much worse the day could get, when the sound of people running reached her ears.
Disregarding the hat, she scuttled over next to the crates and peered through a crack. A group of Tan-Meit soldiers were moving down the alley in her direction. Casting a glance over her right shoulder Kris made sure no one was close by, or in direct line of sight. Once she felt she was unseen she tapped two buttons on her watch.
A faint shimmer of light glowed behind the stack of crates. When the shimmer faded, instead of worn jeans and a loose fitting open collared shirt, Kris wore an outfit that almost resembled a stereotypical Terran Japanese Ninja costume. The similarity was purely superficial though. The battlesuits were designed not only help conceal the wearer, but also to protect them from most types of common battle injuries. Made of ultra lightweight fibers and nanites and virtually seamless, they would stop standard bullets up to a sixty caliber, could stand up to fire for several minutes, and even offered some protection against laser weapons. They didn’t stop
the wearer from getting hurt, blades or shrapnel sharp enough to pass between the fibers would still cut and strong acids would burn through, guns shots would still hurt, possibly even break bones and the heat from direct flames would cause burns, but they would keep most injuries from being life-threatening. As one team member had once said, they kept the wearer from leaking copious amounts of body fluids.
Once the energy pulse from the signal transformation passed, Kris shifted position to where she could see a little better; trusting in the limited chameleon effect to shift her grey, charcoal and black to something close to the wood and shadow of her environment. She peered around the crates. A group of soldiers had stopped in front of the crates and were scanning the area. She thought they would move on when one that had crossed the alley to look around spotted her hat laying a few feet from where she had fallen.
“Crov,” the young soldier called to his group leader as he moved towards the abandoned hat, “someone was here.”
Kris swore mentally as the senior moved in her direction. The suit might keep her from being noticed from several yards away, but it wouldn’t work up close and this guy was about to cross with a few feet of her. Before he got close enough to detect her she unholstered her gun and started firing. The first two went down in rapid succession as she came out of her crouch and started moving, the soldiers scattering in confusion. Shouts from around the corner warned of more soldiers enroute. The swearing became audible as she dove to avoid return fire and made a rough count of the incoming forces. Five to one odds was turning into about a dozen to one.
“Save your ammunition,” one of the new soldiers yelled, “that suit will stop standard fire.”
“What do you suggest, Der? Talking him to death? And how do you purpose to get him to stop firing at us?”
“Ya don’,” Kris responded and promptly shot him. “By tha way, i’s her, na him.”
Der signaled for his team, and what was left of the first team, to circle Kris.
Kris backed up and almost stumbled over Crov’s body as the circle closed in around her. A fast check of the gun showed a three-quarter charge. Leveling the gun at mid-waist level she pulled the trigger, holding it while she pivoted around, hitting three in the chest before she was tackled from behind. An elbow to the face convinced the man to relax his hold enough for her roll from underneath him and scramble to her feet. Another sustained burst from the gun hit one more in the face and backed off two others. A second glance at the gun showed the charge had dropped below half, any more sustained discharges and she would need to replace the power pack.
The soldiers, except one, back up a half step, eyeing her warily. The one, older by several years, held his ground and met her gaze unblinking. He sidestepped, trying to circle around and come on a blind side. Kris shifted to follow him while trying to watch the others at the same time. The man behind her stepped forward, a large plank in his hand. Before she could get turned around, he swung and hit her across the back of the head and shoulders. Kris dropped face down, her gun falling to the ground.