Descent into Darkness (Major Spoilers for House of Ashes)

Chapter One

A/N: Just gonna get in the meanings for some of the military jargon now, for clarification purposes. Had to look some of this up myself too since it was new to me when I first played House of Ashes. Will do more in future chapters should I feel the need to.

CENTCOM - United States Central Command

Helo - Helicopter

WP - White Phosporous

PSYOPS - Psychological Operations

LZ - Landing Zone

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Iraq

2003

Today was a big day for US Marine Corporal Gabrielle Foster and her fellow special forces squadmates, although she hadn't been too keen on all this waiting around at the newly set up base. She just wanted to get straight to the new mission at hand, whatever it was going to be.

The squad leader, First Lieutenant Jason Kolchek had gone to greet the Colonel, who'd, as it turns out, arrived early while the rest of the team was still setting up the base and getting other preparations in order. She was helping with setting up the briefing room while Joey was sat behind a desk in the other room.

A few minutes or so later, Jason had made his way to the room with the new arrivals to the base.

"Sir, I am so sorry. Rachel never said she was married." Jason was apologising to the newcomer on the way into the briefing room proper. "We've been working apart this last year." The man explained before continuing on. "So, she's the "Queen Bitch" now? She's gone up in the world."

Gabrielle had tuned out the last little bit of the conversation. At least until Jason had brought the Colonel over to her for introductions. "And this is Corporal Gabrielle Foster." Jason introduced her. 

"Lieutenant Colonel Eric King, nice to meet you." Eric was addressing her now, holding his hand out for a handshake. She returned the handshake, followed by a polite nod and salute. "If you don't mind me asking, do you happen to be a relative of Lieutenant Joseph Foster?" He asked, having recognised her surname.

The question almost seemed to catch her off guard, not having realised until now that Eric had known her dad. "Yes sir, his daughter." She answered, not wanting to dwell on her father's death now, especially not in front of the Colonel. Eric's expression seemed to soften for a brief moment. "Then my condolences for your loss, Corporal, your father was a good man." He finished, before his expression got more serious again.

"Thank you, sir." She thanked him.

Once that was over with, Jason went to help Eric and who she'd assumed was his assistant get set up for the briefing. After that the room went silent, apart from Jason maintaing a conversation with the assistant about the prior purpose for the former ballroom before the group had taken it over.

At least until Rachel entered the room, going straight over to talk to Eric. It was during this conversation that both women learned that Eric had become the new commanding officer for the team and had been taking over from Rachel.

It was also through this conversation that Gabrielle had learned the name of Eric's assistant, Doctor Clarice Stokes. "Dr Stokes, please prepare the presentation." The Colonel instructed once Clarice had been patched through to the network.

"You've found something?" Rachel asked Eric after hearing that, her husband nodding in response.

Once the rest of the team had converged in the briefing room, Eric got the briefing started, having loaded up some footage on the computer, a small section of map left up on the bigger screen. "Fuck is that? Modern art or something?" Merwin questioned, not entirely sure what the map was.