Madeline groaned awake, her body aching as the sun cruelly deprived her of sleep. Slowly she became aware of the incessant beeping of medical equipment and the general bustling of a hospital. She slowly sat up, her muscles screaming in protest for a moment before she flopped back down on the bed.

“You know, you’re in a bit better shape than they said you were in.” A voice said from her right, and she turned to look at the familiar face.

“Captain.” She grunted, attempting to sit up.

“Stay down, we’re not at headquarters.” Captain Jameson said, moving to close the blinds so Madeline would not be blinded by the afternoon sun.

“What?” Madeline said groggily. “Why?”

“The raid went as bad as you predicted, though from reports, you performed admirably regardless.” He replied. That response made Madeline’s mind clear as she jolted upright.

“How bad.” She demanded of her superior as she grunted in pain.

“I cannot debrief you here, you know that.” He replied, subdued. “But Commander Goethe has been relieved of command, if that makes you feel better.”

“A little.” She muttered, leaning back against the headboard.

“You’ve been given leave to take as long as you need to recover, especially since you’ve been booked here. But if you are cleared to leave within two days, you’ll need to come to the debriefing.” He said with some sympathy she suspected was faked. Captain Jameson got up to leave, heading for the closed door.

“Wait.” Madeline said, Captain Jameson stopped looking back at her. “Why am I here, and not at headquarters?” She asked, already suspecting an answer.

“Headquarters ran out of beds.” He said with a stone cold expression, her familiar captain surfacing after an uncharacteristically nice few minutes. Then he left, leaving Madeline to wonder how many of her squad had survived.

She got her answer a few days later after being discharged from the hospital with a number of nice bruises but still mostly intact. A portion of her right ear was missing, but her hair hid it well. Walking out into the autumnal sunshine, leaves crunched under her feet as she walked to headquarters. She liked Toronto, but it was a little too crowded for her liking. She didn’t have to live in the city, but the installing a teleportation array in a private residence was far too convoluted to be practical. Plus, legal teleporters only worked two times a day. She could hire a personal transportation mage, but that was a little too expensive for her liking. And she liked to walk as much as she possibly could, so Toronto was just fine.

What was not just fine were the expressions on her colleagues faces when she entered the debriefing room. Most were in better shape than she had been, but a quarter of the roughly hundred strong raid team was absent. She grit her teeth and took a seat, waiting for the meeting to begin. The room was dreadfully silent, as everyone could feel this meeting was going to be particularly rough.

The door creaked open to reveal Captain Jameson in full official uniform, which surprised nobody. With how badly the raid had gone, no one was surprised someone had died. Captain Jameson fiddled with the hologram setup for a few silent minutes before giving up and standing at the podium.

“I, Captain Jameson call this debriefing session to order.” He said as a formality to the silent room. Looking at the room, he took a deep breath and sighed. “The raid was a failure on practically every level, no primary objectives were achieved, two of five secondary objectives were achieved and all but one target escaped. And the target we did get was a sick goblin.” He took another breath before straightening up. “Questions?”

He chose a person from the back, though practically everyone had a hand raised. The person Madeline barely recognized as a member of the Philadelphia branch. Like her, he had been conscripted for the mission. And they’d been transported back for treatment, so most had stayed for the debriefing.

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“Casualties?” He asked, and Captain Jameson took out a notepad, looking uncomfortable.

“Eleven dead, and another thirteen still in hospital are stable, though one is in a coma.” He read off his notepad. The room stilled to the point Madeline could hear her own heartbeat before Captain Jameson spoke again. “Everyone not in this room is either in hospital recovering or is dead. There will be a list of the dead on the cork board in the hall. Any other questions?” He asked. There were none.

“Right.” He continued. “Commander Gotha has been stripped of rank and transferred.”

“She should be shot!” Someone shouted, and immediately the room erupted into shouting and yelling as the agents voiced their support for that statement, Madeline herself inclined to join in but stayed quiet. For now.

“QUIET!” Shouted the captain, and the room gradually fell silent. “Believe me, I am fully aware of how you all feel. But this was the decision of Regional. We can’t do anything about it.” He said, sounding slightly depressed. But Madeline knew Jameson. He had joined three years after her but was already two promotions above her. There was a reason he was a captain and she was still a squad leader after six years with the Bureau.

“I declared this debriefing over. Submit your personal reports on the raid by the end of the month. I’ve also secured three days leave for everyone involved.” He finished and walked out of the room. The agents did not feel like talking as they filed out of the room, hushed tones comforting each other as they passed Madeline, who was the last to leave. She briefly paused to read the casualties list outside.

Her four squad members were on the list of wounded, which made her sigh with relief. Then she went to visit her squad in the headquarters medical ward. They were surprisingly cheerful all things considered, though she did notice a souring of the mood when she informed them of the debrief. She liked her squad, and had trained them basically since they’d been with the Bureau. Hopefully they took the events of the raid well, otherwise she'd have to beat it out of them. She reminisced on the night of the raid, trying to put together a coherent picture for her report she would be writing the next day.

She’d led her squad as planned around the back of the building, entering the basement as A and B teams breached the entrance. But A and B teams never got through the front door, and her team went uncontested deeper into the facility. They lost radio contact, and ran into a couple of half-blood vampires which ambushed them, nearly capturing her squad. She remembered ordering a retreat as they fought off the vampires, dragging two wounded with them, though she did not remember who had been wounded when. She stayed behind to fend off the vampires, but they opted to escape rather than fight. She remember the moment of panic when she returned to find her squad sprawled on the ground, the sinking feeling of powerlessness in that moment. She stretched as she walked, her right side protesting from the line of bruises lining her body. Whatever knocked her out had hit her like a troll. The more she struggled the more the thing hit her. Eventually she had passed out.

From her discussions with her squad they woke up with bandaged wounds, and radioed for help before evacuating Madeline and the two who had been slashed by the vampire ambush. The other two had stayed to help the raid but had gotten into a spellfight with a Fae and were lucky it was in a good mood. And that she had beat spellfighting into them every day for the past two years.

Madeline frowned, opening the door to her apartment in the dark evening after fiddling with the lock for a moment. How had the intelligence been so wrong? It was supposed to be a minor trafficking ring run by a few trolls and goblins, maybe a hobgoblin or two running the place. Instead they stumbled into a nest of vampires and their guests they were entertaining. It just seemed wrong to think they had been that wrong.

Sighing, she prepared a sad premade meal and took an afternoon nap. It was far too short but the sun was down and her sleep schedule was already a mess, so she got up to stretch and exercise before dinner. She already felt much better than before she went to sleep, which was nice as she had expected to be sore for weeks after the beating from that thing. Again, her thoughts wandered to the creature that had knocked her out.

Madeline was uncomfortable with the whole thing. Nobody had even known they had been attacked, so the Bureau had assigned the bandaging to herself. Maybe she had done it, but if she ever met someone who claimed it, she’d buy them a drink or two.

Smiling a little, she pulled a bottle of white wine from the fridge and watched the moon rise, feeling more alive than she had in weeks, despite the injuries. The raid was a failure, but her squad was battered but alive, and that was enough for her.