Leanna O’Regan struggled fruitlessly, her wrists held firmly behind her back by Dante Valderez. Her long black hair flailed about, whipping at Dante’s chest and shoulders. He was pushing her towards the stairwell they had entered the battlestation’s deck from, and was followed closely by the two guards in light-grey armor. Standing with his back to them, General Thompson watched the just-launched rocket’s plume begin to drift in the ocean breezes, the bee-line path towards it’s target starting to swirl into a white ribbon over the waves. The General picked up a pair of binoculars and followed the guided missile, now far into the distance and speeding towards its target. On the green screen next to him, the missile’s path was overlaid on the map of southern California, inching towards the blinking cross hairs pinpointing a spot not far in from the coastline.

Leanna stumbled closer to the stairwell, squirming violently in Dante’s grip. With a sudden burst of energy, she twisted her wrists out of Dante’s grasp, and dropped to the bridge deck’s floor, rolling away from her captors. Dante tried to grab her again, catching one of the sleeves of her yellow hoodie, which slipped off Leanna completely. Only in her white t-shirt and shorts, Leanna ran back to the green console next to the pudgy, middle-aged General who started to turn around. As he dropped the binoculars from his eyes, Leanna reached out to the stylus connected to the console. General Thompson stepped aside, his face scowling at her, as she quickly hit the end of the pen against the middle of the screen, where the battleship was represented as a large four-point star. The blinking cross-hairs moved to where Leanna hit the screen, away from the intended target of Ojai.

General Thompson calmly put the binoculars down on the counter in front of the console, and grabbed the stylus from Leanna as Dante swiftly ran up behind her and pulled her away from the green screen. The two guards appeared on each side of her, with each grabbing her arms under her shoulder. Dante grabbed Leanna under the chin with one of his large, black-gloved hands and roughly turned her head to face the General, who was looking at her with a now blank expression.

“That was a pointless exercise, Ms. Jardine. The coordinates were programmed into the missile’s guidance system at launch. We have no way to change its destination now; we sealed the fate of the CIM base at Paraiso en la Tierra the second it left this battle station,” the General sternly explained to the immobilized Leanna.

“What were you hoping to achieve, Rosa?” Dante roared into her ear, his eyes large and bloodshot over the rim of his respirator’s mask. “You wanted to kill us all!”

General Thompson nodded at the green screen next to him and addressed Dante, “On second thought, let’s make her watch us finish off her beloved CIM traitors.” Dante moved Leanna’s head with his grip on her chin, turning her towards the green screen, to watch the uninterrupted progress of the missile towards its originally intended target. “It will all be over for your friends in a few minutes,” the General said to her, looking her up and down slowly. “While we wait, maybe you’ll tell us more about the gold you were transporting? And curiously, maybe you can tell us more about the set of slides that were tucked in one of the suitcase pockets? They seem to be only pictures of landscapes at national parks around California… or is there something more to them that you would like to tell us?”

Leanna didn’t respond, here eyes still fixed on the blinking dot moving closer to the coastline. Then she mumbled quietly to the General after a few moments, when the blinking dot moved inland and started adjusting its path to match the terrain, moving steadily closer to Ojai: “I am not Rosa Jardine. She has nothing to do with any of this. I’m ready to talk.”

*** This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. ***