North doesn't stop and as she runs forward, dodging bullets that fall like rain. Stop and think and you're dead. Engaging anything other the most instinctual ROM information and you're dead. Look and care and feel about the fallen and you're dead. Keep moving on, keep moving straight. All you can do, she thinks.

She rendezvous with Markus behind a pillar as he provides cover fire; she joins, the rat-a-tat-tat of their guns a percussive symphony. The humans fall back, for just a moment, and she takes a deep breath.

"North," Markus says, and bends his head low, and despite all the risks, she leans forward into the kiss, celebrating as they melt together. "For luck!" he says softly, and somehow on a battlefield, she hears him.

Then he's gone, and she moves too. Keep moving forward.

All you can do.