You have been evaluated and awarded the skill Engineer at the rank of Apprentice. To increase this rank to Journeyman, you will need to complete a Master’s degree program in Engineering at an accredited college or university.

Due to demonstrating the necessary knowledge to complete a Master’s degree class, you have been award college credits toward a Master’s program in Engineering. You have been awarded a passing grade in the following Master's degree classes: Drone Mechanics, Cloud Mechanics, Applied FTL Physics, and Master’s degree project and theses.

The ‘Limited Range FTL Communication and Surveillance Drone’ that you have created has been classified as Secret by Navy Intelligence. Speaking to non-authorized personnel about the design of the drones is a criminal offense which may lead to fines and imprisonment. The ‘Limited Range FTL Communication and Surveillance Drone’ has also been restricted for Federation Military usage only.

Freya paused in mid-step as she read the notifications. While she was pleased about the new skills and the classes she had been given credit for, she was a little worried about the classification and warning on her design in the blue box. She was still worrying about the warning when she received another blue box. She smiled as she read it. This one told her that her design had been sold and the credits deposited into her account. The amount more than paid off her loan with the platoon. In fact, when she checked, she had more than enough credits to buy her dream engine. Actually, if she splurged, she could afford all the mods that she wanted to buy for it. It would leave her with only a thousand credits.

“Only a thousand credits.” Freya thought to herself, with a snort. She raised her face to the sky and screamed out her joy to the world. She was in the middle of the most embarrassing victory dance she had ever done in her life, when she noticed that she had company.

She had forgotten that almost no time had passed while she had been in the lab. Both Sergeant Torres and Toast were standing by the entrance to the lobby watching her. She stopped dancing and tried to play off her crazy victory dance as if she was just fixing her hair. She had no idea why she did that and it made her even more embarrassed when she looked up at them.

“So it worked?” Toast asked her.

The Sergeant answered for her. “It worked, but not as well as I had hoped. We’re not rich, but we are pretty well off. There won’t be any platoon taxes for us for the next five years and we can expand the camp to a small degree.”

“That’s what you call being well off?” Toast asked, scandalized.

“I was hoping to add an ocean and a mountain range to the camp, but we will just have to settle for one mountain and enlarging the lake.” The Sergeant said seriously.

“You serious?” Toast asked unsure of himself.

“Yes of course.” The Sergeant said then smiled and shouted. “We’re rich, bitches!”

The Sergeant called a meeting in the barracks once they arrived. It felt weird to Freya, looking at all the people in her new platoon, to know that, while she had spent a very long time in the lab under a time compression zone, everyone else had lived less than a second. She wasn’t weirded out about the time difference so much as the lack of feeling different than when she went into the lab under compressed time. If she had to guess, she thought she might have spent months, if not a year, under the compressed time but she felt no different than when she entered the lab in the first place. She wondered if the Monarch had something to do with that.

The barracks’ social room was a medium-sized, rectangular room with a bunch of couches and comfortable chairs that encircled a wooden table with the Platoon’s crest engraved on it. The table had six old fashioned, wooden chairs - one for each squad leader and the platoon leader. The Sergeant sat at the head of the table while One sat to his right and Done sat on his left. Toast ended up sitting on the opposite side of the table because he was in charge of the last squad.

“I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that, thanks to Magic, we, as a platoon, are now rolling in credits. She created a new type of drone. The platoon helped financed her research and has reaped the rewards of her hard work. We have enough credits to do a lot of things. I am redesigning the camp to allow for a mountain and I’m going to bring the lake closer to us, as well as make it bigger.” The Sergeant said, smiling.

He waited until the cheering had died down before he started again. “Another part of the good news is that we have enough credits to buy a medium-sized building or two smaller sized buildings. We will vote at the end of the meeting for what type of building the platoon wants. The vote will be by simple majority, with myself as the tiebreaker.” He flicked his wrist at the wall and a list of all the buildings that could be built appeared.

“Another benefit of aiding Magic with her research is there is a surplus of credits. I have created a budget that will hopefully allow us to go tax-free for the next five years. That budget is also enough to enlarge our barracks so that we each get a room to ourselves.” The Sergeant stopped, as the cheering got too loud for his voice to be heard.

“Your rooms will be small with your own bathroom, but they’ll be your own. The room will be locked to you and you can set it so that it will allow anyone that you want to enter. Guest privileges to the camp must be approved by a squad leader or myself. The only people that will have the ability to enter your room unannounced are your squad leader and above. They will not abuse this privilege and nor will you.”

“We also have room in the budget for free meals. You each will be given a food chit each week for food. Any extra food credit will carry over to the next week. You will not be able to use the food chit if you spent it all for that week. People, be adults. Don’t spend it all at the start of the week or you will have to buy your meals with your own credits. Also, I may have leaked that the platoon has some extra money to spend. I hope to get us a discount at some of the shops by the end of the week. I will push for this to be retroactive, so that if you buy something between now and then, the shop will refund you the amount of the discount.”

“My request for refunds on respawn credits was rejected by Gunny. He believes that, if we give refunds, people will become sloppy. I disagreed with him, but he’s the Company Commander and I’m just a platoon leader.” Sergeant Torres said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Last bit of news is that there is a change to the mission tomorrow. Gunny has told me that there is a tournament coming up in about a week or so. That means we have to get our crap together as a platoon, fast. It will be an open tournament, so everyone from the first division to the recruits will be competing. The prize pot is one-hundred thousand credits. The top platoon in each division will get sixty thousand credits to split amongst themselves. Second place gets twenty-five thousand and third place gets fifteen. If we fall in the top ten percent as a platoon, we are guaranteed to go on the next real-world mission. I don’t know about you people, but I need that real-world mission. Questions?” Sergeant Torres asked.

There were only a few questions and Freya only half-listened to them. She had just remembered her Crew chief wanted her to send any changes that she wanted to make to the dropship to her to check it wasn’t junk. Freya made a list of everything she wanted to buy and sent it off as a message. She didn’t expect an immediate reply but that’s what she got.

To: Private O’Malley.

‘You serious with these upgrades? You know it’s going to cost twice what you paid for the ship, right? Well, the engine is the best out there, as of right now. Rumor has it that a new engine is coming out soon, but it’s going to cost a hell of a lot more credits than the Mac 10-27 Recurve Engine and there are bound to be a lot of problems that need to be worked out. I’d say go with the Mac.

The only other problem I see is the anti-personnel gun. It’s not bad, but there are better ones out there. My suggestion is the Shand’s Auto Cannon. The SAC cost a little more but it’s not only effective against ground personnel, - it’s also pretty good at anti-air protection as well. The downside is that it burns through all your ammo in six seconds but, with the weapon’s tracking system, it’s extremely effective. If you mod it to resupply from the Mech reloading pod, then you can resupply it in about four seconds. You can go with either weapon but, if I had the credits, I would go with SAC.

From: Petty Officer Second Class Diaz, Crew Chief to the Marine RDS (Respawn dropship) B127.

Freya pulled out her tablet and looked up the gun the Crew Chief suggested. It was similar to her rifle, in that it fired a combination of ballistic and energy rounds, but much bigger and a lot more powerful. The gun came with a tracking system that turned all the rounds fired into smart rounds that could track incoming fire and moving targets and adjust course to intercept them. Freya watched a small instructional video about the smart rounds. They were not smart missiles that could turn on a dime, but they did have a pretty tight arc and changed directions pretty fast. The cost of an ammo rod was two hundred Credits. The energy requirements needed to fire a full volley were not that bad and, if she bought her new engine, would be insignificant.

“Two hundred credits for six seconds.” Freya thought to herself. She knew that the gun would rarely fire the full volley, but she balked at the two hundred credits. She looked back at her credit balance and sighed. She could mod the gun to hold more rods so that it could reload in half the time that it could from the Mech reloading pod. She could also mod the gun with both and reload the rods as they were used up. If she added the maximum amount of heat sinks, then she could mod the weapon to carry five ammo rods and still be able to use the Mech reloading pod continuously without it overheating.

Freya contemplated the suggestion. She had the credits from what she got for the drone she designed but, if she bought everything she wanted, it would eat nearly all of her credits. She would go from being rich to being well off. She brought up the different weapons’ pages and saw that her next weapons upgrade would cost her almost five hundred credits and her next upgrade for her armor would cost twice that much. Not that she could upgrade her armor yet. She needed twenty-five levels in her current rank to be eligible to equip it - or she could wait until she reached Corporal, then pay to remove the mod that made her armor tier 3, making it tier 4 again.

“Hey, you need to vote.” One of her new Platoon mates said, elbowing her.

Freya looked up and noticed that the platoon was voting on what building or buildings they wanted to buy. She quickly scanned the buildings that were on the whiteboard and voted for a Platoon training facility. Once she finished voting, the results came in. The training facility won by twenty-eight percent.

“Ok, it looks like we’re going with the training facility. If there are no more questions, then I need everyone to step out of the camp for a few seconds while it resets, then you can come back in. Don’t worry about your stuff in your rooms. It will be sent to your new room once the reset is complete. I’ll see everyone back here at 07:00. Dismissed.” Sergeant Torres said from his seat at the head of the table.

“Hey everyone, wait a sec. This is a tier-three mission so auto-aiming, smart bullets, reflectors and the like are authorized. I strongly suggest that if you have it, use it and if you don’t have it, get some. That's all.” Sergeant Torres said to the room as everyone was leaving.

“Everyone in my squad, please wait up for a few seconds.” Toast said raising his voice to be heard over the crowd.

Freya stayed seated and waited on the crowd to leave, then joined Toast and the others at the table. “I know you all got things to do, but we need to get together later on. How about we meet up in about an hour at Chivia’s? It’s a really cool nightclub where a lot of people in named platoons hang out. We can get to know each other there. Sound good?” Toast asked.

“Oh man, I love that place. They had a Chivia’s on my last ship and it was awesome.” A tall but thin man said, with a smile. His name tag said he was Patterson. The rank tabs on his shoulder said he was a Private First Class. He looked kind of handsome, in a geeky way, to Freya.

“Oh, I love that place. First round’s on you, squad leader.” A short, red-headed woman said, smiling. Her name tag said Tike. She was also a Private First Class.

“Fine, but the second round is on you.” Toast said, with a smirk.

“Or we can get Ms. Moneybags to buy our drinks,” Patterson said, smiling at Freya.

“Hell no,” Freya said, shaking her head. “I’m broke. I have to upgrade my ship. It’s going to cost me almost everything I made selling the copyright.”

“You're getting a Mech reloading ammo pod right?” Patterson said leaning forward and smiling.

“Yeah,” Freya said cautiously.

“Great! Make sure it can carry portable ammo. If you can do that, then I’m going to get a bigger gun.” Patterson said, smiling in his seat.

“Why the hell don’t you just use the locker on the ship?” Tike asked, frowning.

“The requirement is too big for the locker,” Patterson said, smiling.

“What the hell are you buying that it needs a Mech ammo pod?” Tike asked, looking at Patterson like he was deranged.

“Let’s pick this up at Chivia’s. I just got a message from Torres. He wants us out so he can upgrade the camp.” Toast said, standing up. The rest of the squad followed him.

Freya made her way to the shop that sold her the dropship. She talked to the android about buying the mods for her ship. They haggled over the price for the increased tank-size upgrade for the mech ammo pod. In the end, she got what she thought was a good deal. She was not sure, because the android agreed almost too fast. The good news was that she didn’t lose any of her respawn pods. She was happy with that.

The android tried to sell her two Shands Auto Cannons - one for the nose of her ship and one for the tail - but, looking at the price of everything, she didn’t have enough credits for it. She went with one for the nose. She got a contract to pay for the ammo up-front, so that she didn’t have to keep buying it after each mission. It cost her a lot more credits than she was expecting, but she was now set for unlimited ammo for the autocannon for the next five years.

She went to the weapons store on the fourth floor to browse around. The android there tried to sell her auto-aiming for both guns but, when she looked it up on her tablet, she found her accuracy and time percentages were in the same range as the auto-aiming mod. She turned it down, but she did let the android talk her into buying some grenades and some other fun stuff that she would normally not have the credits for.

She walked up the stairs to the sixth floor and to the armor shop. She talked to the super polite android and asked her for her recommendations. To her surprise, the android showed her the latest in spy drones. The drones were based off of her design. She looked up the drones’ specs and found that they were so much better and cheaper than her design that it wasn’t even funny.

The drones weren’t piecemealed from other copyrights like her design was. They each had their own, well-written and well-designed specs. She was kicking herself at how simple it looked now. Her done wasn’t even for sale. It was listed as a prototype on the company’s website. She wasn't going to get any royalties from her design because the company wasn’t selling it. She bit her lip as she realized that she got screwed.

While they were cheaper than her design they were still expensive for spy drones. She used almost the rest of her credits to buy one of the new designs for her cloud forge - the design was just that much better than her’s. It had a longer scanning range and it could spend a lot longer in the air before it expired. The design she had created only lasted for five to ten minutes in the air, depending on the cloud forge. The new drones would last for fifteen minutes with the cloud forge she had. If she had heavier armor, then she could get one that could last almost an hour. She could buy the long-lasting drones premade, but that would end up costing her too many credits in the long run, as she would have to rebuy them every time they got destroyed or she was unable to retrieve them.

She asked about reflectors and was told that they were consumable armor plating that reduced damage from energy weapons. She was also told she was unable to use them, because they were heavy and got in the way of the active and passive camouflage for her suit. She didn’t find anything else that she wanted for her suit. Her armor was pretty much maxed out in mods already. She did look around at the armor that was higher tier than hers but all she found was that, besides more communication and squad mods, she had the best that she could buy. There were a few tier ten armors that had such amazing stats they were basically medium armor, but one had to be a telekinetic psychic to use them.

“How do you know if you’re psychic?” Freya asked the polite android.

“There is a test that they do when you go to the training facilities. I doubt you are, because your stats in perception are too low right now. I can look up your medical files though, if you suspect you are.” The android replied.

“You can do that?” Freya asked in surprise.

“Yes, I can, but I have to erase the information after our interaction is complete. Do I have your permission to look at your latest exams?” The polite android asked her.

“Yes,” Freya said, strangely scared. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know if she was psychic or not.

“According to your medical records, you are not, but it has you listed as possible with more mods to your perception.” The polite android told her, after a few seconds. “The Monarch has flagged your record because of your performance. That is all that is listed in your medical record. According to medical studies that I have accessed, you are unlikely to have any signs of psychic abilities until you have at least three hundred mod upgrades in your perception. Most studies show it can take upwards of five hundred mod upgrades for an ability to show. Are you worried that you will get a psychic ability and have to retire from the military because of it?”

“Retire? Why would I have to retire if I become psychic?” Freya asked, curiously.

“Most psychic abilities are not combat oriented. From my research, it may actually hinder you in combat.” The polite android explained.

“Oh, I heard that before,” Freya said, smiling at the sudden insight. “And no, I am not worried. Thank you for your time.”

With a little less than thirty minutes left until the squad was supposed to meet up at the bar, Freya decided to head to the store that sold college classes. She had finished all her previous classes while she was creating her new drone and was now seven classes away from her Master's degree. She decided that she was far enough through it and it was the best way to kill time when it was slow on a mission, so she picked up the rest of the course requirements. The ones she was most interested in were the advanced math classes and the coding classes. The classes she was not interested in, but had to have, were economics and business she could see why they were required, but she would never have picked them up if she didn’t need to for the degree. She left the store a little worried about how many credits she had already spent.

She made her way to Chivia’s to meet her squad. She was going to be early but she didn’t mind. She figured she could read up on the syllabus on one of her classes while she waited. She walked up to the entrance to the bar and stopped by the plain-looking door. Back home she would never be able to get into a bar like this because she wasn’t old enough to drink.

The Marines didn’t have a drinking age while in the digital world. That was mostly because getting drunk in the digital world was quite different to getting drunk in the real world - drinking in the digital world only made you feel drunk, instead of being physically drunk. There was no physical or mental loss of control. A person could drink as much as they wanted and the only problem they would feel was the hit to their bank account.

Freya felt let down when she entered Chivia’s. She was not sure what to expect, but what she saw of the decor inside was not it. The bar was packed with old, mismatched junk that people were using as chairs and tables. She spotted what could have been the pilot’s seat from a dropship pushed up next to an old plywood table, that looked like someone had just hammered a sheet of plywood into a plastic bucket. The counter was made up of what looked like old fashioned beer kegs and a hunk of metal, that might have come from an armored vehicle of some sort.

The walls were covered in graffiti. Except for the amazing painting of the seal of the Federation Marines painted on the wall across from the bar, it was handwritten names and odd or vulgar memes. At the back of the bar was a large square hole, that was fenced off at about waist height. There were three storeys of metal catwalk spiraled around the hole, with the same mismatched furniture as the rest of the club on it. The crowd that was surrounding the pit were cheering whatever was happening inside.

That made Freya curious and she walked over to a less crowded spot on the first floor to peek into the pit. What she saw made her blink. She was looking down at a large open field where people were riding what looked like mini tanks and shooting at each other. The tanks were painted either blue or red and had a small-looking cannon on the front. The riders were seated in the middle of the tanks with their upper bodies sticking out. As she watched, a blue tank that was surrounded by three red tanks took a direct hit from one of them. The blue tank exploded in a rainbow of pixels and the crowd roared its approval.

Freya didn’t know how long she watched the mini tank war but she jumped a little, startled, when Toast tapped her on the shoulder. “We're over here.” Toast shouted over the crowd. Freya nodded to him and followed him up the catwalk to the second floor. The rest of the squad were seated at a table made from a huge tire and two old, beat-up doors welded together with a piece of thick, rusted metal. Fixed to the piece of metal was a really old, chunky tablet with the Chivia’s logo on it.

Freya sat down next to Tike on what used to be a bench seat from the back of some kind of vehicle. To Freya’s surprise, the sound immediately quieted down. She could still hear it, but it was much softer. Blending in with the crowd’s cheering was some fast but hard music that seemed to come out of nowhere.

Toast reached over, tapped the old tablet and asked, “Duck’s extra stout good with you guys?”

“Going with the expensive stuff?” Patterson asked, with a snort.

“When it’s your turn you can get something better.” Toast replied, tapping in the order. A few seconds later, a life-like android waitress appeared with their drinks and placed them on the table.

Freya picked up her beer and took a drink. She hardly ever drank when she was growing up. Her people had a past history of alcoholism and were too poor to get the cure. Even though it was the digital world, she still felt a little scared drinking it. To her surprise, it tasted pretty good, unlike the sips of the stuff she had when she was a teenager in high school. She took a deep swig of the beer before putting it down on the table.

Patterson, who was sitting on something like a toilet seat, downed his before slamming his bottle onto the table. He looked around at the rest of the squad, then belched out a loud and long burp. Freya frowned at him, but then spun around as Tike burped beside her.

“It feels like I’m surrounded by kids.” Toast complained, as he finished taking a drink from his beer. “You guys up for Mosique fried cheese?”

“Cheap beer and finger food. I’m impressed.” Patterson said, smiling.

“Hey, it might be cheap, but it tastes pretty good,” Tike said, before she took another long drink from her beer bottle.

“Not everyone is a beer snob.” Toast said, with a chuckle, as he ordered the fried cheese. Patterson started laughing in a weird kind of honking sound that made Freya burst out laughing. Beside her, Tike spat out her beer in surprise.

The fried cheese arrived shortly afterward. Freya looked at the weird orange block, as the android placed it in the middle of the table. The rest of her squad barely waited until the food was on the table before reaching in and breaking off a piece. Freya hesitated.

“Never had fried Mosique cheese before?” Tike asked her, after she swallowed.

“No,” Freya said as she broke off a small chunk of the cheese and put it in her mouth. The cheese was tangy and spicy but Freya found she really liked it. “It’s so good,” she told Tike, as she broke off a bigger piece and ate it. Tike nodded her agreement as she also broke off another chunk of cheese.

“Ok, let’s get the team building crap over with.” Toast said, leaning forward a bit. “My name is James O’Bannon, but I go by Toast. I am a level 68 Corporal, First Company Scout. All I need for the Second Scout template is my Golden E. Which I will be getting sometime this deployment. If you guys want to help when we are not on a Platoon mission, I would appreciate it. Now that we are on a tier 3 mission, I can’t justify going without auto-aiming and you can’t get the ribbon using auto-aiming.”

“Do we have to use auto-aiming?” Freya asked, suddenly concerned.

“You? Hell no.” Toast said shaking his head. “I have nearly double your mods and you can still outshoot me. No, I think you’re safe. Ok, Patterson, you’re next.”

“Isaac Patterson. Level 54 Private First Class, Squad Ambusher Second Class. All I need is about eighteen more in strength and sixty-two in dex for Large weapons master, which should put me over the hump for Squad Ambusher First Class.” Patterson told them, grabbing another beer and taking a swig out of it.

“Do you already have Small and Medium weapons master?” Tike asked, looking at him.

“Small, yes, but not Medium weapons yet. I’m working on Large for the moment. I tried Medium, but I kept losing mission points when I was working on it. I did better with Large weapons, so I decided to go with it first.” Patterson said, shrugging.

“You know that’s backwards, right?” Tike asked him. “Most go in order. It's going to be a pain to get Medium once you get Large. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, I know but I like Large weapons better. I might specialize in them. If I do, then I can work on it in my spare time.” Patterson told Tike. “What’s your build like?”

“Demo’s,” Tike replied. “Well, I’ll guess I’ll go next. My names Michaela Tike. I am a level 82 Private First Class, First Company Engineer. I can build a whole bunch of stuff and blow it to hell, too. I can operate most vehicles we run across. I have a bunch of licenses for all sorts of stuff, so if we run across something on a mission, there is a really good chance I can drive it. I have heavy armor, but I’m better in my medium armor. I’m working on my chemical warfare, so I just need a whole lot of skill points.”

“Wow, what the hell are you doing in the Second Division? Why didn’t anyone pick you up?” Toast said, amazed.

“You haven’t heard about it yet?” Tike asked him. When he shook his head, she sighed. “Might as well tell you guys about it then. On my last ship, I was in First Platoon, Second Company, First Division. We were on a real-world mission and my platoon was tasked with EOD, Explosive Ordnance Disposal. We kept on finding these crappy IED’s, Improvised Explosive Devices. I was on a roll with disarming them.” Tike paused to take a drink from her beer.

“They were crappy, you know? They only had maybe one or two triggers and they were obvious ones at that. Well, I found one that was really well made. Protocol said to destroy one of the five parts that make up the bomb but I was really on a roll and I went to disarm it instead. Well, I got through six triggers. Six! What kind of paranoid idiot builds a bomb with that many triggers. I thought I had it. I thought I disarmed the bomb, but when I went to locate where all the explosives were it blew. Took out my entire platoon and a bunch of civilians.” Tike told them, staring off into the distance as she absently peeled the label off her beer bottle.

“The First Lieutenant pulled my platoon off the mission and sent us back to the ship. He took all the rewards and E-points that we made on the mission away from us. I was given an Article 15 and went in front of the old man. I was lucky - the old man told me it was a teaching moment. He didn’t take anything, but he did give me an eighty percent reduction on all E-points from all future missions for the rest of my deployment.” Tike said, looking down at her hands. She raised her drink and took a swallow.

“My platoon kicked me out.” She said, continuing her story. “No one wanted to touch me after that. I ran PUGs (Pick up groups) for a while, then I made an unnamed platoon. We got so good that we became a farm platoon. I would train up some people and the named platoons would steal them. But it wasn’t all that bad. I got some people who dropped too low in mission points to stay in their platoons. I would teach them some stuff and pump up their mission points again. Some made it back into the named platoons, some didn’t.”

“Torres was there on my last ship. He was a Sergeant at the time, but wasn’t running his own platoon yet. He used to come to me all the time and ask about the better people in my platoon. I didn’t mind it when he stole my people, you know, because he came to me in person and we would talk. Most of the time, I wouldn’t even get a message when one of the Sergeants stole one of my people. Torres was different though. He’s a good guy. When I got deployed to this ship, he came and found me. He said he wanted me in his platoon. He’s giving me my last chance at a career.” Tike said.

“Sounds like he’s grooming you for a squad leader position.” Toast said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, I think he is too,” Tike said, shrugging.

“You coming after my job, Tike?” Toast said, sounding halfway serious.

“Hell no. Torres called off a mission to try to get you guys. There’s no way he is going to let you two go. He even restructured the platoon so that both of you would have a place. No, I’m pretty sure your position is safe as long as you don’t screw up. No, I think if anyone goes, it’s going to be Tater in third squad. He’s ok, but not that great, you know?” Tike told Toast.

Toast chuckled and drained the last of his beer. “Ok, who’s got the next round?” He asked the squad.

Patterson got the next round. Freya smiled as the life-like android placed a Duck Extra Stout in front of her. Toast gave him a look, but Patterson wouldn’t look at the squad leader until he started laughing. Then he sheepishly looked up.

Freya told the others about herself, while starting on her second beer. She was starting to feel relaxed and comfortable. When she got to the point where Sergeant Gawain kicked her out of his platoon, she was glad that both Tike and Patterson got upset. They sounded like they didn’t care if she was from Earth.

“And even if they are, I’m glad they are hiding it.” Freya thought, as she bought the next round. She even got some more of that awesome fried cheese.

They stayed at Chivia’s for several hours just talking and drinking. She learned that Patterson was the son of a career corporate father. He bounced around from planet to planet following his father, as he rose in the corporation. Tike, Freya learned, was an academy graduate who was working on her bachelor's degree in chemistry. They left Chivia's late in the night and headed towards the camp. Freya barely looked at her new room as she walked in. She didn’t bother taking her clothes off as she slid under her blanket and went to sleep.