Freya walked out of the shop and smile. She felt ready. She found the stairs and walked down to the first floor. The floor was still a little crowded but not as bad as before. She waited for her turn. When it was at last her turn she pressed her hand on the screen.

Recruit missions lock is now locked.

Tier 1 missions are now unlocked.

Tier 2 missions are locked. Mission points are locked. Time to unlock 5 weeks, 6 days, 11 hours, 44 minutes, and 28 seconds.

Warning all short term and long term missions are locked at this time.

Time to unlock 5 weeks, 6 days, 11 hours, 44 minutes, and 25 seconds.

“Mission points, that’s new.” Freya thought to herself as she looked at the list of missions. The looking at the top of the mission descriptions she noticed that the shortest mission was two weeks and the longest was three months. Under the mission description, there was a list of templates needed to start the mission. On almost every single mission the scout template was missing and needed to be filled. Freya smiled.

Most of the missions greyed out, even the ones looking for scouts. She got an annoying message when she tried to click on one the missions telling her that she did not qualify for 2nd platoon scout position. The reason it gave was that she didn’t have the required wetware mods for the position. It told her that she only qualified for general infantry positions. She ground her teeth in frustrations because most of the general infantry positions were already filled.

She found an open mission at the bottom and she was able to get in. It was the only open mission that she found. Only after accepting the mission did she read the description. The mission appeared to be simple fortify and guard a forest. The description warned that the mission’s length may be dependant on how many surviving Federation Marines that were left. The description stated the number of respawns available for each person was five. The mission objectives only had three questions marks on it so Freya had no idea how many objectives the mission had. The reward for a successful mission was five E-points and two mod and two skill points.

Frowning Freya noticed that there were no mentions of mission points. Looking at all the other missions they didn’t say anything about mission points either. She brought up her status window and nothing there mentioned mission points. Sighing, Freya closed out the console and checked which lobby she was supposed to go to. Looking up she checked the numbers on the door then cursed. She was on the wrong side, again.

“I need to start using the consoles in the middle.” She grumbled to herself silently.

Stepping out of the light she found herself in a slightly more advanced lobby than she had been in before. It looked the same. It has the same lockers and bench by the lockers. It even had the monitors hanging from the ceiling but what was different with this lobby was a large table with a holographic map on it. It showed a small town that was surrounded by a forest. A small part of the forest by the far edge was glowing blue.

“Our area to guard?” She wondered to herself as she walked past to get to the lockers.

A sergeant looked up from the table to look at Freya as she entered. He looked her over then shook his head. With a sigh, he looked back down at the table. Not sure what happened to upset the sergeant, Freya went to the locker and equipped her battle gear. The sleeves to her uniform returned as well as her goofy helmet. She thought about putting the face shield down but after looking around she noticed that no one had theirs down so she kept hers up. She swung her new rifle over her shoulder and checked to see that her spare batteries were on her charge on her belt. She equipped her knife onto her belt on her right-hand side of her belt because her battery charger was on the left.

Sitting down on the bench, Freya looked up at the screen for more information. The first thing she read was that it was winter time on the part of the planet they were going to be deployed to. Temps were expected to stay in the negative numbers throughout their deployment. Their platoon had one sergeant listed as their platoon leader and four corporals as the squad leaders. She found her name written last under a Corporal named Sneed. She was the only recruit in the entire platoon. Everyone else was either a private first class or above.

There was a soft ding and another name was added to the platoon roster. It was another corporal but he didn’t get a squad leader under his name though. He walked through a few minutes later. The sergeant looked up and smiled at the man.

“Jesus, it’s good to you again. You’re the last one. Get dress out and we can begin.” The sergeant said pronouncing the man’s name with an H instead of a J.

The corporal picked a locker near Freya and equipped his combat armor and weapons. His combat gear was thick with white armor plating. His helmet when he equipped had a skull face on it. His gun was huge almost as tall as he was and it was connected to his armor. He swung it around a few times before he brought it up right then he let go of it. The gun kept moving and swung over his shoulder until it was pointed downwards where it stopped moving.

“That’s some serious heavy armor.” Freya thought to herself. “He must be a heavy machine gunner.”

The sergeant waited until the corporal was done before told everyone to gather around the holographic table. Tapping the table he enlarged the town.

“This town is called O’Mist and will be the command center for the operation. This will be our command and control center as well as a respawn point. This church will be our causality and collect rally point for wounded. We will not have air superiority for this mission so expect the respawn point to be bombed within the first days of combat. That means no stupid deaths. We have limited supply so once we arrive, make sure to collect the maximum amount of rations if you need it before we leave the town.” The sergeant said.

“Our mission will be to defend the outer edge here.” He said tapping the table again to bring up the blue area at the same time he shrunk the town back down. “We will be part of company Charle and our platoon will be Fourth Platoon. Our first priority is to dig in as soon as possible once we get in place. I want fox holes dug every forty feet and about sixty feet from the edge of the forest. Fox holes by squads. Two people per fox hole. I want the squad leaders roaming. Jesus, you got the boot. Make sure she doesn’t get anyone killed. Questions?”

Jesus tapped Freya on the shoulder and nodded his head away from the table. Stepping away she followed him. “What kind of equipment besides the armor and guns do you have.” He asked her.

“I got three batteries with a fast charger ….” Freya began to say but Jesus stopped her.

“No, I mean stuff like a trenching tool. Stuff like that.” He asked her.

“Nothing like that Corporal. Sorry, I wasn’t told to carry anything like that.” Freya told him feeling her cheeks burn.

“I figured.” He told her tapping the locker and bringing out a few things. He handed Freya a trench shovel and several empty canvas bags which she assumed was for making sandbags. He also handed her a water purifier and several slottable liquid nutrition boxes. He kept handing her things and she had to put stuff down on the bench. Seeing this he shook his head and showed her how to use her backpack on her armor.

“You’re going to have to get a bigger backpack as soon as you can. It doesn’t cost all the much but you’ll need it.” He told her once she had put everything in the backpack. She had to physically put everything into the backpack and take it out the same way when she needed it. It wasn’t like a locker where everything disappeared once put into the backpack. She didn’t have a printer so she couldn’t print a trench shovel from her backpack either or any other supplies for that matter.

“I assume you’re broke after buying all your expensive toys, right?” He asked her. He waited for her to nod before he continued. “This is my old stuff and you can keep it. All I ask is when you have the money send me about ten credits to pay me back. I’m not going to be a butt head and make you pay me back from the rewards ‘cause I know you need the money right now and I’m still flush from my reenlistment bonus. I’ll send you a text with all the equipment you’re going to need to keep in your locker at all times. You can get them from pretty much any store you go to but if you want to good stuff, which you shouldn't until you're a lot higher rank, there are specialty stores you can buy them at.”

“Stick with me and don’t do anything stupid and you should be fine. By the armor, I’m assuming that you bought the cloudforged right?” When she nodded again he continued. “Ok, that’s actually a really good purchase. I assume all you got is the alert sensor, right? Good don’t abuse it but use it every so often. That thing is amazing even if it’s limited in range. As soon as you can, get it upgraded to increase the production speed. The other options are good but being able to use the sensor every minute or so is a godsend. Especially in missions like this.”

“Jesus, show the boot how to change her camo to hashtag 41 winter and while you’re at it get rid of the skull. And Jesus, thanks.” The Sergeant said tapping Jesus on the shoulder. Jesus nodded to the sergeant and showed Freya how to change her camo on her suite.

The Sergeant opened the door and stepped into the light. The rest of the company followed him.

Freya stepped out of the light and found herself in a really old fashion looking town. Everything was made of bricks or stone including the street. She had read about cobbled streets but had never seen one in real life. Looking around she saw a lot of snow. Not like back home but just enough to cover the ground in a light dusting. She smiled as the cold air hit her face before she reluctantly brought her face shield up.

With her face shield down she noticed that her HUD had changed. Instead of an outline of a human body, she now had an outline of her armor. There was still a number in the middle of it that read one-hundred percent but the number was now blue with a second green one-hundred percent below it. She assumed the green was her body while the blue was her armor. Next to the outline of her armor was a vertical energy indicator that also read one-hundred percent which she guessed was how much energy her armor had. Her top ammo counter had the number thirty displayed instead of the ten it was in basic. The line for her secondary weapon was greyed out though. She had a gauge that read the temperature, the atmospheric gasses present and the gravity.

“Boot!” Someone yelled bringing Freya back to where she was. Looking around she spotted Jesus and the rest of the platoon walking off to the side of the street.

She ran over to the side of the street and found that the platoon was collecting boxes of nutrition drinks and other supplies. Jesus grabbed two boxes and lifted them with ease. Freya struggled with one box. Once everyone had a least one box the sergeant led the way with a light jog. Freya turned off her exterior speaker to prevent anyone from realizing just how bad she was struggling to keep up. She told herself that she was going to spend a lot more time in the gym when she could or buy some strength and health mods.

The sergeant led them out of the town and deep into the woods for several miles. Refusing to give up or ask for the platoon to slow down Freya lowered her head and forced herself to go on. Finally, after what seemed like forever to Freay, the sergeant stopped where he wanted to build his bunker and had everyone set their boxes down in a neat pile. Trying to get her breathing under control she followed Jesus out to where he wanted to build their foxhole.

“I’ll break it up. You shovel it into the bags.” He told her taking out his trenching tool. Not saying anything further he started hammering the frozen dirt. They both worked for nearly an hour building their foxhole. Using the bags he had given her they made a crude wall all around the foxhole. The rest of the dirt-filled sandbags went to the sergeant who was waiting with the supplies. He had Freya add her sandbags to the others as they slowly turned the area around the supplies into a bunker.

“Now the fun part,” Jesus said and leaned back into the hole. “You have an entertainment screen in that thing?” He asked her. She checked she did but it was currently empty. Telling him he chuckled in response. “Going to be a long two weeks then.”

Jesus didn’t talk to her for the rest of the day. He sat there doing something on his entertainment screen. Bored Freya looked around. In front of their foxhole was about sixty feet of forest that ended abruptly to an open field. The field was covered in snow and stretched for about four to five football lengths wide. At the far end was some more woods. Late into the afternoon, it started to snow.

Just as the sun was setting their squad leader came their foxhole and joined them. “Hey boot, the sergeant wants you. I’ll take your place until you get back.” He told her as he settled in the tight foxhole.

‘On my way corporal.” She told him and got up and went to the sergeant bunker.

“Boot, I need a runner.” The sergeant said as Freya made her way into the bunker. He touched her arm and she was notified that she had just received a data packet and that it was encrypted. “Run this up to command and deliver it to Gunnery Sergeant Etty. Tell the gunny that I don't have coms. The snow is messing the signals up.”

The Sergeant dropped a waypoint on her map then told her to run. She left her platoon and headed towards the waypoint. It was about a half a mile away through a snowstorm that was slowly getting worse. She knew by daylight that they would have at least a foot of snow.

She found the company command camp and asking around she found the Gunnery Sergeant. She was not allowed into the bunker so the Gunnery Sergeant came out to meet her. “Gunny Etty.” She greeted the Gunnery Sergeant.

“What is it recruit?” The gunny asked. He was dressed out in medium armor with a compact energy rifle. She gave him the message from the sergeant. The gunny told her to wait and he disappeared back into the bunker. When he returned the gunny gave her a bunch of waypoints then told her to head to the other platoons and get their reports. He had her tell them until the snowstorm ends they were to make all their reports by runners. She used her sensor cloud several times during the run and found that even running the sensor cloud followed her and she did not outrun the cloud.

By the time she got back to the command bunker, it was dark. The temperature had dropped ten degrees during her run. While her armor may look like normal uniform pants and shirt it was still armor and had been designed to withstand the freezing cold of outer space. She found the gunny and gave him the data packets. He told her to wait for him and he wandered back into the bunker.

The Gunny took his time getting back to Freya but she didn’t mind. She enjoyed the snowstorm. It reminded her of many nights back home at one of her people's hunting lodge. When the Gunny came back he sent her off to Divisional Command with a large data packet. She didn’t mind the run through the woods because of her night vision it looked like it was mid-afternoon rather than late at night. As she ran she listened to the hissing sound as the snow fell through the trees.

The town had changed over the day. Surrounding the town was a five-foot wall with a lot of fixed heavy machine guns nests. She was stopped just outside the wall by a roadblock and she had to send her info over the secured server by putting her hand on the scanner. Only after she info came back green did they allow her to enter the town.

Besides the wall, there were spawn ships around the town's center that were protected by anti-defenses. She ran past several roving patrols and stopped at yet another roadblock to prove her identification all over again before she was allowed to pass. She found the command center and handed her data packet over to a Master Sergeant. He told her to wait outside and so she did.

A half hour later the Master Sergeant came out to give her a data packet to her platoon leader. She was delayed yet again at the two roadblocks as she tried to leave the town. She was getting tired and just wanted to head back to her foxhole and get some rest.

She made it back to the Gunnery Sergeant and handed over the data packet. Again she was told to wait and he left to read it. She sat outside the bunker for what seemed like forever before he came back out and told her to head back to her Platoon. Grateful she left.

She checked in with her sergeant who told her to head back to her foxhole. She slid into her foxhole as the squad leader got out. She had to explain why she was gone for so long but once she told them what was going on the Corporal just nodded and left. Jesus gave her the second watch when she settled down. She closed her eyes and was soon out asleep.

It had stopped snowing in the morning as Freya watched the sunrise. Since the snow was not screwing up their communications anymore Freya expected she would be able to stay in her foxhole and not be volunteered again as a runner. While she had been asleep Jesus had put a tarp over the foxhole to keep the snow off. He had left only a few inches in the front to see out of.

She drank a nutrition drink from her suit and kept watch. She was rocked out of her boredom when there was a loud crack somewhere above her. Startled she reached up to pull the tarp off but Jesus stopped her. He shook his head.

“Don’t bother. We are just shooting down their drones. They are going for our respawn points. They’ll get them eventually.” He told her then turned over and went was quiet.

Settling back down she listened to the explosions throughout the day. Sometime around one in the afternoon there was a loud crack above her that was louder than the others and out of the sky, a piece of twisted metal that was almost covered in black smoke crashed down in the field just outside the forest. Jesus got up briefly looked at the drone then he sat back down again.

Sometime late that night there was a really loud explosion that came from behind them. Jesus snorted. “Their goes out respawn points.” He told her.

“I thought we were supposed to have five respawns,” Freya told him.

“We were until they bombed out respawn points.” He told her. “Now we have none.”

“Does this happen often?” Freya asked.

“Yea, you’ll see this in almost every mission we take. Respawns are our greatest strength and most enemies know this. There is no point in attacking us unless you take respawn points out. We would just respawn and come back. Although in some missions the enemy tires to wear out the supply of Batk out by the hard way. Those missions usually suck and you can blow a lot of credit on respawns that way.” He told her.

"Whats Balk?" Freya asked.

"LIquid used in printing clones," Jesus said only half paying attention to her.

“Where you from Jesus?” Freya asked him curiously.

“Andreasonland. It’s a mining world. My grandparents were from Mexico and go in on an indentured contract. They bought out their contracts two years early then spent the next twenty years saving up the credits to buy my dad a citizenship. He owns the Heavy machine repair shop that my parents worked at. My brothers run it now. I was just not fit to be a mechanic. So here I am. What about you? Heard you're from Earth.” He asked her.

“Yea, I’m from the North American territories. From the Tundra territory. My people have been there longer than European settlers who arrived to screw everything up. My people are too proud to leave their ancestral lands. I watched my people struggle to survive on what is left on mother Earth. As kids, it’s a struggle to survive. There is never enough wildlife to eat. We have to rely on government handouts when there is not enough to go around. When you get older people to expect you to marry some man you barely know and pop out a bunch of kids you can’t afford so you get a bigger handout. You hope the guy you decide to settle down with is not some useless jackhole that will ruin your life. Then you get to watch your kids get older hoping they don’t die because of the pollution or some old war virus that still makes its way around each year. Then you reach your fifties and die of diabetes or cancer from all the government handouts you been eating just to survive.” Freya said bitterly.

“So, you’re in it for a better life?” He asked her quietly.

“Nah, I want to be a fighter pilot.” She told him then laughed. He laughed with her shaking his head.

“Why the marines then?” He asked her.

“I’d be bored to tears in any other service. Who doesn’t want to fly around the universe and kill things.” Freya said smiling.

“Why not the Army?” He asked her

“I’m from Earth so I’d either end up staying on Earth or heading to the moon. I might get lucky and get stationed on Mars but come on, that’s a long shot. Plus here I get to kill things.” She told him smiling in her helmet.

“Yea, you’ll fit right in with these jarheads.” He told her putting his hands behind his head.

The snow started back up several hours later and the squad leader told her the sergeant was asking for her again. With a weary sigh, she headed to the supply bunker to see the sergeant. He sent her to the company command with a data package. The Gunny there sent her to the town with the rest of the data packets.

“It sucks being the lowest ranking person in the company.” She grumbled to herself. “At least I’m getting my exercise in instead of sitting on my butt in the foxhole where I would be much happier,” Freya grumbled to herself as she left the command center and made her way out of the town.

She wasn’t all that mad that she was a runner though. Running in the woods during the snow was relaxing. She was looping along in the six inches or so of snow following her map back to her company’s command center when there was whistling coming from above her. She didn’t even pause as she dove towards the ground. She knew the sounds of Mortars.

Some of the mortars landed high up in the trees sending shrapnel to rain down on her but her suit despite being light armor was more than capable of keeping the shrapnel out. All around her explosions rained down. She thought about getting up and trying to make a run for the company’s command bunker but a mortar exploded not ten feet from her. Instead, she forced herself deeper into the snow and waited for the attack to end.

The attack lasted a while and she was just thinking about getting up again and making a run to the company bunker when the last of the mortars landed. She got up and looked around noticing that the forest had been thinned out a bit with the attack. There was a lot of leaves and tree limbs down on the snow.

The Command bunker had taken a hit from the mortar but it didn’t appear that anyone was injured or killed. She found the Gunny in charge of a bunch of people putting the bunker back into place. She gave him the report and he had her help with repairing the bunker. Sighing she got in line and started to stack sandbags. Roughly twenty minutes later the bunker was put back in place and the gunny gave her a data package for her sergeant. She dropped the data package off after explaining about the Company command bunker being hit. The sergeant just shrugged and sent her back to her foxhole.

She was standing up in the foxhole several hours later looking through her rifle scope looking at the birds on the other side of the field pretending to shoot them. She was practicing using her scope or at least she told herself. “I’m not playing, I’m practicing.” She thought to herself smiling.

She had her scope to all the way zoomed in. It wasn’t like her scope at home where she could focus it herself. The scope of her rifle only had three preset settings. The setting was a one-touch button on the side of her scope that had three different preset zoom settings on her scope. It was really fast to zoom in and out but she missed how she could focus in on something specific. She was lining up the crosshairs on a bird when all of a sudden all the birds in the area suddenly scattered. Frowning she kicked Jesus beside her not taking her eyes off the forest.

“What?” He asked her sounding annoyed.

“I think we’re about to be attacked.” She told him just as a bunch of tanks broke through the tree line on across the field. They weren't going all that fast.

“Oi, Oi, Oi,” Jesus shouted and the shout was taken up on either side of them from the different foxholes.

Still zoomed in she spotted something behind the tanks when she looked under the tanks. It took her a few seconds to realize that they were legs.

“There are people behind the tanks." She told him.

“They’re using the tanks a cover,” Jesus said from beside her. He set his gun beside her.

Looking at the legs, she lined up a shot. “I have a shot.” She told him.

“Take it.” He replied looking down his scope.

She gently squeezed the trigger just as she had been taught back when she was first learning how to shoot as a child. She squeezed the trigger and didn’t try to force the shot by pulling the trigger too hard and making the gun jerk slightly away from her target. She saw a flash of red then the person fell giving her a nice view of his back. She pulled the trigger again and her aim was perfect. Her kill count appeared on the left-hand side of her vision. She targeted another leg that was behind the tank and pulled the trigger. This time when the person fell he fell forward and all she could see was the top of his head. She gently squeezed the trigger again and her kill count went up again.

The people behind the tank appeared to understand they were under attack and the legs disappeared. She scanned the tank and spotted someone riding behind the tank. His shoulder was sticking out from behind the tank. She took her time and squeezed the trigger. The man spun off the tank and fell to the ground just left of the tank. She lined a shot up as the man struggled to stand up. She changed her mind when she saw someone leaning out of cover to help him. She pulled the trigger and a body fell off the tank. The man on the ground finally got up and started to limp towards the tank. She waited a few seconds to see if anyone else would try to help him. When it became obvious that no one else was going to break cover she pulled the trigger again and the man who was trying to catch up to the tank dropped. Her kill count went up again.

“This is easier than trying to shoot an elk. Plus there is more than one target.” Freya thought as she scanned the other tanks looking for a shot. The tanks sped up to about a third away across the field. “The soldiers must have jumped on the back of the tanks.” She thought as she scanned the five tanks that were crossing the field. They were close enough that Freya had to zoom back out to get a better view.

There was a loud crack and one of the tanks exploded sending the turret upwards. Huge amounts of smoke rose into the air and the tank stopped. She spotted a few soldiers running for another tank. She lined up a shot on the lead runner and pulled the trigger. He dropped tripping the guy behind him. She ignored the man on the ground and aimed at the next man who was in the lead trying to make it to the tanks. She pulled the trigger and he dropped. The other soldiers who were running made it behind the tank. She spotted the man who had fallen, get up and run towards the tank. He didn’t make it and her kill count rose.

There was another crack and another tank exploded sending a few soldiers in the back flying off the tank. She scanned the downed soldiers but didn’t spot any of them moving. The tanks were about halfway across the field now. There was another crack and another tank exploded. This time she spotted a man who was thrown about ten feet upwards from the tank. He spun in the air like a rag doll. She tracked him until he landed. The way he landed made it unmistakable to Freya that he was dead.

One of the soldiers who were tossed off the tank with the explosion got to his knees. Before she could take the shot someone else took it and killed the kneeling man. The tanks started to fire after that. The tanks weren’t front line tanks so they didn’t have a huge cannon or anything like that. They had multiple Gatling guns mounted instead. The men behind the tanks jumped down and raced beside the tanks shooting into the woods where Freya’s platoon had dug in.

Freya could hear the bullets whizzing just over her head as she aimed her rifle at one of the enemy soldiers and pulled the trigger. Her kill count went up again. Beside her, she heard Jesus as he fired at the oncoming troops. His machine gun tore into the enemy soldiers and for the first time, Freya understood why people say machine guns shred people as bits and pieces their body parts were ripped off as they were hit.

There was another crack and then there was only one tank left but it was close to the tree line. Someone fired off a lesser explosive and it hit the tank but the tank shrugged it off as it shrugged off a few more explosive rounds aimed at after that. Freya flinched as the tank found one of the foxholes and the guns tore it apart. She heard screams from her fellow Marines before they were cut off suddenly.

Trying to ignore the bullets flying all around her she lined up another shot and her kill count rose once again. Beside her, Jesus dropped down to reload his gun. Freya lined up another shot and took out another soldier. In the corner of her eye, she watched as the tank finally reached the tree line and opened up on another foxhole. She tried to ignore it as she lined up yet another shot but the guns on the last tank slowly turned towards her foxhole.

Grabbing her gun she dropped as low as she could go as the tank unloaded onto her foxhole. Jesus forced her down further and covered her body with his. The bullets tore through their fox hole above Freya and she closed her eyes waiting for one to take her out. The shoot stopped just as suddenly it had started.

“It either ran out of bullets or something happened to that tank.” Freya thought as she opened her eyes.

She felt Jesus’s body move off her and immediately got up pulling her rifle around to the ready position. She immediately noticed that most of her fox hole was gone. It was like someone had dug out the front part of her fox hole. Through it, she could see what was left of the tank. She brought her rifle to bear as she looked around for a target but saw nothing but bodies. Lowering her rifle she looked to her left and spotted Jesus frantically messing with his gun.

See that he was still alive and in one piece she turned back around and looked for anything that was moving that shouldn’t be. Her kill count was at eight, now.

“O’Malley, your a wanna be scout right?” Someone shouted from another fox hole to her right.

“Yea.” She shouted back.

“Go scout out that tank and make sure everyone is dead. Shoot anything that is still moving.” The person replied. It was only then that she realized that it was the platoon leader.

She looked at Jesus who had dropped his big machine gun and had pulled out a smaller machine gun from his backpack. He looked up at her and nodded his head towards the tank. She nodded back and slid forward through the hole the tank had made of their foxhole. She low crawled towards the tank. She was about halfway there and she heard something. Her body reacted faster than her mind as she rose up slightly and fired at the sound. She then dropped down to the ground panting. She smiled as her kill count rose up yet again.

“I wonder if that was the perception mod working.” She thought as she continued her low crawl towards the tank.

When she was a kid someone had pulled up a huge cable while they were fishing in the ocean. Once they got on land they coiled the cable up and set it on fire to melt the plastic insulation around the copper wiring. She smelled the same smell as she got close to the burning tank. She passed a charred body as she went. She frowned at the burnt chicken smell.

She got as close as she could to the still burning tank. Whatever was still on fire in the tank was burning really hot. She could feel the warmth through her armor. She then paused nearly punching herself in the head. She set off one of the sensor alert clouds. The cloud took up position around her. On her HUD map, several black dots appeared. She assumed black meant dead because the charred corpse was showing up as one of the black dots. She slowly circled around the tank. New black dots appeared as she crawled around the tank.

She was crawling around the back of the tank when she spotted a red dot. Looking in the direction she spotted an enemy soldier lying face down in the snow not five feet in front of her. He looked dead. She raised her gun and pulled the trigger. The body shook and then stilled. The red dot turned black and her kill count rose once more.

Once she completed her circle around the tanks she set off another sensor cloud. This time she had it go in front of her instead of circling around her. Black dots appeared all around the tank. After a few seconds with no other dots appearing she stood up.

“We’re clear.” She called out and looked around. She slowly spun around so that she got a full scan of the area but besides a few more black dots she had missed there was nothing alive around her.

“Get your butt back into a foxhole and stop being sniper bait.” Her sergeant called out from one of the foxholes. Freya, feeling her cheeks burn in embarrassment dropped back down and low crawled back to her foxhole.

She found Jesus in the foxhole with his trenching tool. He looked at her and smiled. He handed her some canvas bags. With a sigh, she got her shovel out and started filling sandbags.

“There has got to be a better way of doing this,” Freya complained.

“There is but it costs too many credits. This is cheaper and does almost as well. For one credit I can make fifty sandbags” Jesus explained as he dug up the loose dirt and filled his sandbag. “Plus where are we going to put all this dirt. Plus weapon tech is different on each planet we go to. Some of the really back-world planets are using muskets and swords. It’s crazy. For most worlds, sandbags do just fine. Now more work less bitching.”