“O'Malley!” The drill instructor called out as Freya walked out of the jungle to the forest where she had spent the last month in Basic Training.

Training kicked in and Freya rushed over to where the drill instructor was sitting on a pink lawn chair. “Ma'am,” Freya said standing at attention in front of the drill instructor. It was only then that she realized that she was back in her working uniform and her battle gear was gone.

“Good stuff, Marine. Two bonuses. Dangerous assignment and kill leader. That's what I want to see in my recruits.” The drill instructor said smiling

Feye took a second to answer. She was trying not to laugh at the hard as nails drill instructor sitting on a pink lawn chair. After making sure she wasn’t going to laugh she thanked her drill instructor.

“You going again?” The drill instructor asked using her hand to shade her eyes against the sun looking up Freya.

Not waiting for Freya to respond The drill instructor continued. “You might as well. Right now you have a chance at getting twelve points before you graduate. That will allow you to get Basic Infantry and you can jump right in on real missions. Hell, if you make enough Credits you can junk your crappy rifle instead of modding it. That will save you some credits right off the bat and depending on the Template you chose, you might be able to buy your starting Template rifle right away.”

Freya thought about what the drill instructor said and mentally shrugged. This was her life now. The faster she could rise in levels the better chance she could go on real-world missions. That’s where she knew was where the real points were.

“Yes, Ma'am,” Freya replied.

“That’s my Marine.” The drill instructor said happily. “Go, give em hell recruit.”

Freya smiled and yelled. “Yes, Ma' am!”

Freya looked at the screen on the console tree. She had chosen the tree closest to the lobby she had just come from. She was trying to decide between the two mission. The second mission was to survive ten hours and keep at least one of five machine gun nests operational. It was also a night mission. The third mission was a house-clearing mission and a day mission.

She picked the second mission just because the house clearing mission sounded a lot easier than fighting in the dark with no night vision. If she failed the second mission she still had the easier third mission. She really wanted the Basic infantry skill now since she was so close to it.

The console directed her to the second lobby which was at the opposite side from where she was. It was almost directly across the console tree she had first used. Cursing her luck she made her way over to the door with the blue two painted on it. She placed her hand on the lock and walked into the blue light.

“Hey, I’m Torres. I’m going to be the platoon leader. We have all the machine guns nest full so you’re going to be an ammo runner.” A woman Freya didn’t know said walking up to her. “We are waiting for one more then we can go. In the meantime get into your battle gear and read up on the mission. ”

Freya looked at the woman annoyed. She thought about telling the woman to go to hell there was no way she was going to play servant but then she reconsidered. She had already passed one mission. This was just an extra mission. Shrugging Freya agreed.

She equipped her battle gear and then sat down on the wooden bench right in front of the locker and looked upwards. The mission specifics were being displayed on a bunch of TVs all around the lobby. She vaguely remembered the same TV in the last lobby she was in but she hadn’t had the time to look at it. This time she did.

It had a vague outline of a hill with five bunkers that were named Machine gun nests. They each had a number from one to five if a person went clockwise. There two nests in the front of the hill and one on each of the rest of the hill. There was a building that was marked with ammo icon. A second building was marked with a respawn icon. By the two machine gun nests was a red arrow that was pointed at the hill. It was marked with enemy direction. Below the picture of the hill, there were directions on what to do.

The first direction was to pick a recruit platoon leader. The second on the list was to choose positions then it listed the positions. The positions were one gunner and two support gunner per nest and three ammo runners. The last direction as a warning about leaving the hill. It would be considered a failed mission if a person left the hill.

Freya and her new platoon sat around waiting on someone to fill the last spot for nearly five minutes. The woman that made herself the recruit platoon leader told the new-comer, when he appeared in the lobby, that he was going to be an ammo runner then told him to hurry up he was the last person to arrive. The marine didn’t complain and equipped his stuff as soon as she finished talking.

“I’ll go first. Gunners and support gunner follow. Ammo runners you guy follow last.” The Recruit platoon leader told them. She put her had on the lock and walked into the light. Freya rolled her eyes at the newest member of the ammo runners. He laughed and followed Freya as she walked into the light

Freya found herself standing in a very small respawn pad bay as she walked out of the blue light. She forced herself to keep walking as her first desire was to stop and look around. There were only two pods one on each side of the small building. There was only one equipment locker though. The door they had exited was at the back of the building and as soon as the last guy walked through the light it closed.

Outside Freya found herself on a very cold hilltop. Night had fallen and it was pitch black outside with no light source but some low light glow light by the ammo bunker. There was a single glow stick by each machine gun. It was hard to see because the lights were so dim. She shivered as the wind cut right through her crappy armor. Wanting to get out of the cold she went directly to the ammo bunker.

The ammo bunker was open to air bunker made up from old fashioned sandbags. Inside the bunker was a large pile of really big boxes of ammo and five spare machine guns for the nests. In the left-hand side of Freya’s field of vision, there was a countdown. The countdown was at four minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

“These guns don’t have ammo.” Their self appointed Recruit platoon leader yelled. “Runners get your butts in gear and get us ammo.”

Taking a deep breath to prevent herself from yelling at the lady Freya tried to pick up the ammo box but it was too heavy. The three runners looked at each other and Freya sighed. “You guys take a box together to princess jackhole. Then go clockwise around the hill. I’ll drag a box to five and meet you guys somewhere in the middle.” She told the other two men.

“Sounds good.” The bigger runner said with a smile. He grabbed one end of the box and the short skinny runner grabbed the other end and they both made their way to the first nest where their recruit platoon leader had placed herself at.

Freya grabbed a box and started dragging it to the last machine gun nest. By the time she got there, she was tired and her back was achy. The machine gun nest was about ten feet from the top of the hill and it was steep.

“Hey, you guys come help.” She called down to the nest.

Two of the guys climbed up the hill and grabbed the ammo box. They slid the box down the side of the hill to the nest. The gunner unlatched the box’s top. He picked up the front part of the chained linked bullets and fed it into the side of the gun. Freya watched them load the gun before heading back to the ammo bunker. She grabbed another box and headed to the next nest.

She only made it halfway to the nest before the other two runners finished running out the ammo to all the other nests. They helped her bring the last box to the nest. They all stood around and watched the gunner load the gun. Freya bent over trying to stretch out a kink in her back.

“What now.” The skinny ammo runner asked.

It took a few seconds to realize that he was talking to her. She thought about it then said, “Let's head back and do an inventory of everything in the bunker.” She was trying to sound smart but in reality, she had no idea what to do now. They still had a little more than a minute left on the countdown.

The quickly did an inventory. They had fifteen boxes of machine gun ammo. Ten boxes of .556 magazines full of bullets and five replacement machine guns for the big machine gun in the nests. Freya frowned. "That was a lot of ammo. It is going to be a pain to resupply the nests under fire." She thought to herself. Looking back over at the nests she could just picture their recruit platoon leader letting her gun run dry and then yelling at them to resupply her.

“We should just take everything over to the hill above the nests.” She told the other two who were joking around.

“Yea, good idea. I was just thinking it would be a pain in the butt getting the ammo over to the nests if they all ran dry at the same time. It shouldn't be all that hard for them to run up the hill and get their own ammo” The smaller ammo guy said.

“Yea, that way we can still be in the fight and get kills.” The big ammo runner said smiling.

“So that's what three boxes of machine gun ammo and two .556 ammo boxes per nest. Right?” The skinny ammo runner asked Freya. Slightly surprised she nodded.

“What about the extra machine guns? Should we leave them here or take them to the nests.” The big guy asked.

“Well, you want to be in the fight. It would suck if we had to stop fighting to get a machine gun. Let's bring them as well.” Freya said shrugging.

“Yea, good idea boss.” The big guy said smiling. He turned and picked up one side of an ammo box. The skinner guy picked up the other side and they were off.

“Boss.” Freya mutter laughing. She grabbed an end of another box and started sliding it towards the last nest.

The countdown ended and the machine gun nest one and two immediately started to fire. It gave Freya an adrenaline boost and she dragged the box faster. She left the box at the top of the hill and left to get another box. They were halfway done supplying the ammo to the nests when they passed the first objective.

Objective met. All members of the platoon survived the first wave.

The machine guns died down and stopped. Freya stopped by the ammo bunker to look in the direction of the first two nests. She thought about what they were doing and frowned. So far only machine gun nests one and two had any action. They must have run through a lot of ammo. She changed her mind about how to supply the rest of the nests.

“Hey guys, hold up a second. We need to take one box each from the other nests and put it by one and two. They used up a lot of ammo and they are facing the direction where the enemy is coming from. I think they will use up most of the ammo. Maybe supply them an extra .556 ammo box also” Freya told them.

“Yea, you’re probably right. There are three nests though. What are we going to do about the extra boxes.” The skinny guy asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe put them between the two nests. That way it will be faster to resupply the nest that runs out first.” Freya said frowning looking off into the distance.

“Sounds good boss.” The big guys said grabbing the next box.

As if the gods of war heard her all the nests opened fire almost at the same time. “Well, we’re surrounded now.” The skinny guys said grabbing the other side of the box and started off towards the next nest with the large guy. Freya grabbed the next box and headed off to the forth nest.

She had no idea how long she had been on this mission so far but she knew she only had to last for ten hours. She finished dragging the last box to the nest and started on .556 boxes. She headed towards the second nest to drop the box off. Once she dropped the box off she got onto her knees and watch the nests in action.

It was the first time she stopped to watch the action. It was an odd firefight. It was so dark that there was no way any of the marines could see what they we shooting at. She assumed it must be true for the other side as well though because so far there were no casualties on the marines side. She watched the occasional luminescent round go off and the pink light would either disappear into the night or bounce off something. It was oddly beautiful. She sighed and turned around and got back to work.

It took a lot longer than to put out the supplies from the bunker than Freya thought it should have. She met the other runners in the bunker and sat down on an empty crate. “What now?” The big guy asked.

“Go find a place to hunker down near a nest. Just don’t go into the nest there is not enough room.” Freya told him.

He smiled. “Thanks! I’m going to hang out at nest two.” He told them.

“Five is seeing some good action. I think I’ll head there.” The skinny guys said smiling. He gave her a two finger mocking salute and left.

Freya thought about where to go. She thought about heading to one but she didn’t want the recruit platoon leader to get her panties in a bunch. Picking a number out of thin air she picked nest three. She slung her gun around and wandered off toward machine gun nest three. Before she left she grabbed some plastic wrap that the ammo boxes had been wrapped in so she could use as a resting platform for her gun.

She found a good spot just to the right of the nest and laid down on her stomach. She bunched up the plastic wrap and sat her gun on top of it. She looked out into the darkness and saw nothing. She thought about shooting into the dark but she had no idea where the enemy was except that they were somewhere at the bottom of the hill.

She wished she had night vision as she scanned the area with her rifle. “Using iron sights at night suck.” She thought to herself.

As she scanned the area she saw a shadow move between the nest three and four. She swung her rifle around but the shadow disappeared. “Was that an enemy of my imagination?” She asked herself as she looked around where the shadow had been. She scanned the area for about a minute not seeing anything. She was just about to look somewhere else when the shadow moved again. Taking aim she pulled the trigger and kept on pulling the trigger until the red kill count appeared on her HUD with the kill.

She smiled at her first enemy kill for the mission. She knew she didn’t have a chance for the kill leader on this mission because there was no way she could compete with the Machine guns. She didn’t mind though. She only needed five more e-points to get Basic Infantry and she still had another mission she could go on. She spotted another shadow trying to climb the hill between the nests again. She aimed in the general direction and started firing. She went through a magazine and a half before her kill count went up to two.

Her kill count had gone up to nine a few hours later. The enemy came in waves. It started with them charging the nests. They would then get bogged down right at the tree line. They would try to send people up in between the two nests only to get cut down by the support gunners and herself. She was getting worried though. Each wave got larger and they took longer to disappear in the woods. Worse they would fire off a bright white flare that screwed up whatever natural night vision she had.

The machine gun had run dry twice now and she was worried that they might not have enough ammo to last the rest of the night. She had snuck around the hill to look at everyone's ammo levels and got worried. Except for the last box between nests one and two, no one had any spare heavy machine gun ammo. She told her recruit platoon leader and got yelled at for wasting ammo. She sighted down her iron sights again and pulled the trigger on a moving shadow. Her kill count went up.

Objective met. Survive six enemy waves. Warning inbound enemy aircraft detected. Take cover.

“Take cover?” She thought when she read the blue box. “Where the hell does it want me to take cover.” She looked over at the empty ammo bunker and thought about running there but she spotted a shadow that moved. Turning she spotted it only ten feet away from nest three. She pulled the trigger until her gun ran dry but she didn’t get a kill count increase. She reloaded not taking her eyes off the area. She just reloaded when the shadow started running towards the nest screaming a foreign warcry. Freya fired as fast as she could.

She must have hit the enemy because he stumbled. When her kill count didn’t go up she kept firing. Finally, she got an increase in the kill count. She was smiling when an explosion went off just outside the machine gun nest. She froze when the machine gun went silent.

She heard someone inside the nest start to scream in pain just after the explosion. She looked down into the nest to see one of the support gunners squirming in pain while the main gunner was laying on the ground not moving. "It exploded outside the nest!" She thought to herself in shock. She got up and ran to the nest when she heard a very loud and weird fart noise behind and above her.

The world suddenly got blurry as all the colors seemed to spin and merge together. Freya felt herself briefly in the air before she landed painfully on the side of the hill. She bounced and started slipping down the hill. She stopped sliding and she looked up. She wasn’t in any pain and she didn’t feel anything was broken so she got up. Her health meter had changed on her HUD though. The number had changed from 100 to 94 and there was a light red mark on her back.

The explosion and thrown her down the hill a little bit and she had slid just past the machine gun nest. She took a look behind her, down the hill, and spotted a bunch of shadows massing up together.

Warning the respawn bay has been destroyed. Respawn option has been disabled. Objective complete. More than fifty percent of the platoon has survived air attack.

Cursing lifted her rifle and fired at the shadow massing below her. They moved back into the tree line briefly and she spun around and ran for the quiet nest. She jumped and almost get shot as the last surviving member of the nest raised his gun.

“Don’t shoot it's me the ammo runner.” Freya cried out ducking down.

“Oh, sorry.” The man in the nest said. He sounded confused. He sat back down and leaned against the sandbags dropping his rifle and held his head.

Freya looked up over the sandbags and saw the shadow massing again. She grabbed the machine gun and aimed it at the shadow. The machine gun had two handles with long metal triggers attached to the handles. She pulled the trigger and sent a few rounds down the hill towards the shadows. The shadows retreated and her kill count went higher.

She stopped shooting to look around and then stopped to look to her right. The fourth Machine gun was silent. Curing she turned to the support gunner. “Hey, can you still fire this thing?” She asked him.

“Yea, I think so.” He told her letting his hands drop to their sides. He stood up and took the machine gun from her. She looked at his head and saw that he was bleeding. She reached over and grabbed his Medipen from his pocket and sprayed his cut to stop the bleeding. She put the pen back into his shirt.

“Thanks.” He mumbled as he fired into the shadows below.

“Four has gone quiet. I’m going to head there. You stay here and keep them off the hill.” She told him. He nodded but didn’t look away from the bottom of the hill.

Freya ran up the hill then raced across the top towards the fourth machine gun nest. As she ran to the edge of the hill above the nest she spotted several men standing around the nest. There were way too many people in the nest for them to be part of the platoon. She pulled up short and fired down into the bunker. It was only about ten feet away and they were all bunched up in the nest. It took her entire clip but they all died. Her kill count jump upwards once more.

She reloaded and slid on her butt to the nest. She put another round into each of the bodies that weren’t in her platoon that was on the ground to make sure they all stayed dead. She grabbed the machine gun looked out over the hill. It was covered in shadows. She turned the machine gun loose and sprayed the hill until there were no more moving shadows. She stepped back from the machine gun and reloaded her rifle then grabbed the handles machine gun again. It was her last rifle magazine

She was relieved to hear gunfire from both three and five machine gun nests. She scanned the area looking for any movement but didn’t see any. She looked around the nest to see if there were any .556 ammo but didn’t see anything besides the dead bodies. She looked down the hill and didn’t see any shadow. Taking a deep breath she let go of the machine gun and turned and ran up the hill to get some more ammo for her rifle. It saved her life.

She didn’t see the enemy soldier who threw the grenade into the nest but she felt the explosion on her back. She was knocked forward to the ground. She got up immediately and spun around. She spotted a man run into the nest screaming something in a foreign language. She raised her rifle and pulled the trigger. Her kill count rose.

From the top of the hill, she could see the machine gun was broken. Cursing she grabbed the extra machine gun and with a grunt put it onto her shoulder. She staggered to the edge of the hill and slid down the hill to the bunker. It took her a few seconds to figure out how to change out the guns. There was a pin she had to pull out and then she could remove the gun from the mount. She tossed the broken gun over the edge of the bunker wall and placed the gun into the mount. The pin went into the first hole but not the second. She gave up on putting the pin in the second hole after a few seconds.

The ammo was protected by a dead body so all she had to do was cut the broken ammo chain and thread it into the side of the new gun. She racked the gun and looked down the hill as the gathering shadows started to move en masse towards her. She pulled the trigger and the machine gun bounced in the mount but her kill count rose again. It was hard to aim but she didn’t need all the much accuracy. All she needed to do was sweep the gun side to side and the shadows fell.

The wave petered out and Freya kept an eye on her flanks. She found a couple of magazines on her dead platoon mates which she stole but she was still alive for the next wave. The next wave lasted a long time. In the middle of the wave, the bunker started getting hit by rockets. She was sweeping her jumping machine gun across the middle of the hill when there was a spark below her and the left side of the bunker wall exploded.

This time she felt it. The something hard hit the left side of her chest. It hurt enough that she grit her teeth from screaming out. “Reduction of pain tolerance to twenty percent in clones, my ass.” She thought as she struggled to stand up. She felt dizzy and every time she took a breath she felt a sharp pain in her chest. Her health meter had fallen to 68 and the left side of the outline of the human body chest was deep red. She cleared the machine gun and let out a sigh of relief as the machine gun fired. Her kill count rose again as shadows fell.

The wave seemed never-ending as more and more shadows tried to climb the hill toward her nest. Five had gone quite a few minutes ago after a large explosion that lite up the sky. Three was still in the fight though as she could hear the machine gun still firing. Finally, the wave pressure let off.

“Two more objectives left.” She thought to herself as she looked around. “Better check in on five. Hopefully, there is someone still alive that can take over.”

She stumbled up the hill and ran towards five. As she ran she spotted several people she didn’t know walking around the top of the hill. She thought about saying something to try to identify them when one of the men said something in a foreign language pointing at her.

“Thanks. That cleared that up.” She thought to herself as she killed both men. Her kill count rose yet again.

She half ran and half stumbled to the faith machine gun nest. Her health meter had fallen again and was now at 51 percent. When she got to the edge of the nest she stopped in shock. The sandbag walls were gone. The machine gun was tipped over. She couldn’t see if it was working or not as she slid down the side of the hill towards the broken nest. She could see shadows moving up the hill towards her. She reached over and pulled the gun up and back upright. The ammo chain was still attached but she had to move a couple of sandbags that were on top of the ammo box so the gun would fire.

She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. To her delight, the gun fired. She swept the gun across the shadows and her kill count rose again. When the last of the shadows fell she looked off to the direction of the first nest. There was still someone firing from that nest so she turned back to her side of the hill until there was a loud explosion of the other side of the hill. It came from two. Not seeing any shadows she made a decision.

Cursing she climbed up the hill again and ran towards two and as she passed machine gun nest one she noted that the illumination rounds were heading towards two from one. Frowning she stopped and retraced her steps to one and looked down into the nest. Instead of her recruit platoon leader and her support gunners, there were unfamiliar men in strange uniforms. She unloaded on the men and her kill count rose once again.

She slid down towards the nest and put a few rounds into the bodies that were on the ground. Looking around the hill she noticed there was a lot of shadows heading towards two. There was sporadic gunfire from two but while it was from a gun she recognized it was not the heavy machine gun. She unloaded on the shadows on the hill. The numbers on her kill count spun as they rose so fast. Finally the last of the shadows fell.

The sporadic gunfire from two did not stop however and she dropped the machine gun and ran up the hill once more. Her breathing ragged as she ran towards two. Her health was dropped once more. It was now at 48. She reached into her pocket and grabbed her Medipen and pressed it to her side. The pain diminished but her health didn't go up. taking a deep breath she stood up once more and ran towards two.

Reaching the edge of the hill she looked down and spotted a mostly intact nest. There was marine laying down in the bunker he was firing from around the wall down towards the bottom of the hill. She slid down the hill and into the nest. She fired at a shadow that was sneaking up on the marine. She grabbed the machine gun and pulled the trigger but nothing happened.

“Out of ammo.” The marine said not looking up, he then fired his gun at something down the hill.

Freya cursed and went to the opposite side of the nest and found a few targets. She knelt down beside the sandbags and lined up a shot. Her kill count rose as the two fought off the attacking shadow without their machine gun. She ran out of ammo towards the end of the fight but the marine in the nest with her showed her the box of .556 that someone he had grabbed earlier. Taking the last few magazines she returned to her side of the bunker. When the last of the shadow fell she stood up.

“Stay here I’m going to check on three.” She told the man tiredly. She was so tired now. Her health meter was still at 48 though. "Not healed but not dying anymore." She thought to herself. "When will this stupid sim end? Has it ten hours yet?" She wondered.

“Yes, boss.” The man replied and Freya stopped and looked at the man. His voice and what he said made her pause. Then she laughed as she realized who it was. It was the big ammo runner she had worked with earlier.

She made it to the top of the hill when the blue box appeared.

Objective complete. Survive the Final wave without using the respawn bay. You have completed the last objectives, Survive the Final wave with at least two platoon members still alive. Three platoon member currently alive. Please return to the lobby.

“Finally,” Freya muttered as a yellow waypoint appeared on her HUD map. She made her way towards the waypoint.

She spotted the guy she had used the Medipen on walking towards them. He waved at them but didn’t stop walking towards the waypoint.

“Hell of the fight, right boss?” The big ammo runner asked as he stepped beside her.

“Yea, one hell of a fight,” Freya muttered as she saw the door. She walked through the door into the blue light.