Stories from Naoh’ra Rabntah

The Legend Lives

Captain Hartfield was back.

Station 36’s break room hadn’t shut up since Engine 36 returned.

“I was running delta,” Foster said. “Didn’t even register it was him at first. Just heard Central making calls like it was nothing. And then I realized.”

“Don’t tell me you got sentimental on the radio.” Roberts, a paramedic from Aid 36, snickered.

“Hey, screw you, I was surprised!” He laughed. “Figured I’d say something before someone else did.”

“Good call. Station 33 would’ve beat you to it.”

“Didn’t matter. Once the radio picked up on it, the whole damn channel turned into a reunion. Hartfield didn’t even react. Just kept pushing through like nothing happened.”

“Classic,” Mason muttered. “Guess that means the legend lives.”

“Speaking of legends,” Roberts said. “Who here knows about the airstrike?”

“The—what?” a probie said.

“The airstrike,” she repeated, like this was standard lore.

“You mean a real airstrike? On a fire?”

“On a building,” someone corrected.

“Why would that ever happen?”

“Ask Copter 3. They get the aviation gossip.”

Every head turned to Mason.

“Oh, it’s real,” he said with a straight face. “Classified on our side, but the military guys talk. There’s even a policy addendum if you know where to look.”

The probies exchanged looks of sheer disbelief, but the senior crew had already moved on.

“Okay, okay, but you can’t tell that one without the train incident.”

“Alright, listen up,” Foster started. “Hartfield once stopped a runaway train with nothing but a halligan and an extremely bad attitude.”

“That’s not how halligans work!”

“Don’t look at me, kid, I wasn’t there. But that’s what they say. And by they, I mean at least four different stations and a guy from DOT who swears he saw the whole thing.”

“I heard he got on the train while it was still moving,” another firefighter added.

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Mason shook his head, almost fond. “Guy doesn’t even try to be cool. Just does something insane, shrugs, and walks off like it’s nothing.”

“I thought he was the one who fell down the elevator shaft?”

“What elevator shaft?”

Roberts glanced away. Someone cleared their throat.

“Ah,” Foster said, breaking the silence. “Long story short? Structural failure, no warning. He went down hard. Been recovering since.”

“That was the only time someone got hurt under his watch,” Roberts said.

“Damn unlucky accident,” Mason added. “Takes something else to come back from that.”

The probies quieted.

“Come on, let’s not leave the kids too rattled. Give ’em the Eastridge collapse.”

“Wait, you mean the daycare one?”

“Yeah, that one,” Mason said. “Half the building was already down when they got there. Engineers said it was still shifting, readings all over the place. They weren’t expecting survivors.”

“But there were. It was all over the news.”

“Right. Hartfield called it. Somehow, he knew exactly where to look. Two kids came out alive because of it.”

“You ask me, that’s the real legend,” Roberts said. “Say what you want about the airstrikes and train stunts, but anyone who worked with him knows. He got people home.”

“Still, though,” Mason said, grinning. “The airstrike was pretty badass.”

Laughter cracked through the circle, and more wild stories piled in.

Someone claimed he once found a kid by “listening to the city breathe.” Another insisted he fought off an intruder with an axe, and someone else swore up and down he made Dispatch reroute an entire water main with nothing but pure authority.

The tales kept growing, with the mandatory reminder that crossing Mrs. Hartfield was a mistake no one made twice.

And maybe, just maybe, an airstrike had been involved.

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