Freya sighed and sat back against the dirt wall. The tunnels and rooms at the lowest levels that Tike had built were claustrophobic in their design. The tunnels were big enough that a normal sized adult could walk without bending over, but not by much. The walls themselves were only wide enough apart to allow one person to pass through at a time. The closer one got to the surface, the tighter and smaller the tunnels and rooms got. Freya was currently sitting in a room designed to be the Fifth Squad’s barracks. Not that there was any bed or furniture - it was just a plain room that was large enough for a single person to lay down in.

Freya looked at her tablet. Her last fake ID had been discovered. She was surprised it had taken them this long to find it, but it was annoying that she could not learn anything new from the enemy. She had spent most of the time since she had been run over by the tank either out on patrol or diving into the depths of the servers getting intel and creating all sorts of chaos in the ranks. She had sent so many false orders that the enemy high command had to send paper orders just to avoid confusion. Her last little mischief in the enemy servers had been when she changed an order from more ammunition to more cleaning equipment. It had been the same chemical that they had used to blow up the camp in the woods.

She put her tablet away and looked at her mission timer. They had two days left. Well, a day and a wake up. The past few days had been boring because of her meddling with the enemy. They had thought the Federation Marines were somewhere hiding in the mountains. She had deliberately sent orders more than once that ordered a full company to sweep the forest where they were hiding. She had done it a few times when she intercepted orders that had come down from the enemy central command to search the mountains. She had also sent orders for them to search the city and the surrounding areas. She always made sure that the enemy left the mountains alone and because of that they got more updates on the bonus mission to get more non-priority prisoners across the mountain.

“Magic, we’re up.” Tike said, by way of the radio, interrupting Freya’s ego trip down memory lane.

“Roger, on my way.” Freya replied, as she stood up and grabbed her weapons. She checked her map then started walking down the darkened tunnels. She could see very well because of her dark vision in her armor, but anyone trying to find their way through the maze of tunnels without dark vision would have a nightmare of a time. On top of the darkness, there were a lot of traps that ranged from IFF mines to crude spike traps.

At a junction, Freya climbed up to the next level of tunnels above her. A hundred or so feet of twists and turns later, she found the next junction and climbed up once more. This time the tunnels were so small that she had to crawl on her hands and knees to get around. There were no rooms on this level, but there were a lot more traps. She had to avoid some roots that hung down inside the tunnel while she crawled down the earthen passageway. She was glad when she got to her destination and climbed up to the surface. She gave the night sky a brief look before she turned back to the tunnel entrance.

The entrance to the tunnels was hidden behind a wooden trap door that was covered in leaves. She paused long enough to turn on her active camouflage and climbed out of the tunnels. She pushed the leaves back into position before she turned and went looking for Tike. She found her squadmate setting a trap not that far into the woods. Freya watched the woman bury the explosive under the dirt then push leaves over it.

“Ready?” Freya asked Tike, when the woman was done.

“Sure.” Tike replied.

Freya led the other woman deeper into the woods, randomly choosing to go west. For the next hour they patrolled the forest not seeing anything until Freya got an alert on her platoon sensor. She immediately stopped and looked at her HUD mini map. In the east was a single red dot that was moving way too fast to be a ground vehicle. The red turned into three dots then nine dots. A second later the platoon sensor identified the vehicles as being bomber aircraft.

Freya cursed and started looking around for the closest tunnel entrance. “This way,” Tike called out and started running further west. Freya followed her squadmate, her eyes on the mini map, as the bombers got closer. Tike found the entrance a few minutes later. Freya watched her squadmate as she slid headfirst into the hole. She checked her mini map and saw the bombers continue to approach. When she looked up, she saw Tike’s feet disappear into the hole. Freya wasted no time throwing herself in after her. She didn’t bother pulling the wooden trap door back but crawled down the tunnel as fast as she could.

“We need to get to the third level as fast as possible.” Tike called out, sounding on the verge of panic.

“Junction coming up.” Freya called up, to calm her friend.

They dove down into the second floor and this time they were able to rise to a crouch as they ran down the tunnel. On Freya’s mini map, the platoon sensor failed and the bomber disappeared. She cursed and tried to run faster. Tike was slowly out-pacing her.

At the last junction, Tike dropped down feet-first and Freya followed her, using the sides to slow her fall down. By the time she was down, Tike was already halfway down the tunnel. Freya followed the woman. Seconds later, Freya heard the rumble of bombs being dropped nearby. The rumbling got louder and louder by the second. Freya spotted Tike stopping at a reinforced room and increased her speed, trying to reach the room before the bombs hit.

She baseball slid in next to Tike as her audio shut off in her armor to prevent hearing loss. They huddled together as the bombs dropped above them, getting closer and closer. She hugged Tike as the world started to shake like an earthquake that got worse by the second. Freya felt dirt falling on top of her and felt a zing of the fear of being buried alive. Then the bombers passed them by, the shaking slowed down and the dirt stopped falling on them. Freya stayed on the ground next to Tike for a few more seconds as her armor turned her audio back on. They stayed where they were until they couldn’t hear the bombs falling anymore before they got up.

Tike started laughing and Freya joined in. They were still alive. Freya never felt more alive than she did at that second. She leaned up against the dirt walls and laughed. When their laughter died down, Tike held up her hand.

“We need to check what’s going on outside.” She told Freya.

“Yeah, okay.” Freya said, slowly standing up. They walked back to the first junction on the third floor and climbed up. Part of the second floor had caved in, so they had to backtrack in the opposite direction to get to a junction that led to the first floor. When they reached it they stopped because smoke was slowly leaking from above them.

“Hang on, let me send a drone up and see what’s happening.” Freya said, sitting down and accessing her Cloudforge.

“The forest is on fire. That's what’s happening.” Tike said, but she sat down beside Freya.

Once her drone was ready, she launched it and took direct control. She sent it up to the next level. Even with the best sensors she had, she only got a few feet of visibility. She guided the surveillance drone through the first floor, through a partially collapsed tunnel, to the outside world. What she found shocked her. The world was filled with thick, black and grey smoke. She moved the drone further out then up into the air. She quickly saw huge walls of flames all around her. She guided the drone upwards past the treetops and had it pan its camera around so that she could take in more of the forest below her. What she saw amazed her. The entire forest was one big cloud of greyish smoke with the occasional flicker of orange flames poking out between the clouds. She sent the feed to Tike and then to the platoon command staff.

They stayed where they were for hours as Freya sent drone after drone into the air and the forest burned at an insane pace. By daybreak, the forest fire mostly burnt itself out. A light breeze blew most of the smoke away and let Freya see the devastation. Almost all of the forest was gone. There were a few lone trees sticking up here and there, but they were mostly just burnt corpses of the once beautiful trees they used to be.

She was still looking at the devastation hours later, when the platoon sensors came back online. With the sensors back online, her mini map showed her multiple landing craft setting down at what was once the edge of the forest. The landing craft were disgorging troops into the forest. Freya cursed.

“We need to head back, now!” Tike said, standing up.

They tried to take the tunnels back, but there were a lot of cave-ins along the way and they had to take short trips outside to bypass the blocked parts of the tunnels. Freya found the burnt-out forest eerie and strange after spending so long walking around under the living canopy. The fallen leaves were all gone as well as the underbrush. It was like they were running around on a new planet. With hard, blackened dirt and soil. Here and there, Freya saw what was left of the old forest, like a fallen tree that wasn’t quiet burnt all the way or a small green plant that somehow survived the fire.

They were nearly back to where the fifth squad was staying, when a new waypoint appeared on their map. Freya changed directions and led Tike towards the waypoint. Once she got close, she spotted Toast and Patterson waiting on them. Toast motioned for them to come closer.

“We need to draw the enemy away from the bunkers. Third squad is setting up a listening post off to their left flank for them to find. We are hoping that it will be enough for them to change directions. Our jobs are to pick them off like we are trying to slow them down and draw them back towards the south.” Toast said, once they got close enough.

“Tike, I want a series of traps laid out along the western path. Magic, I need you to protect her until she’s done. then start taking out their chain of command. Patterson and I will set up five hundred yards to the east of you and do the same thing. Try to draw them directly south. Third and fourth squads are setting up an ambush site here, at waypoint number two. That’s where we want them to head to. They’ll be in position in less than a half hour. That's more than enough time to draw them back that far.” Toast said, as a new waypoint appeared on Freya’s mini map.

“Magic, how’s your ship looking?” Toast asked her.

“Did anyone die during the bombing?” She asked him.

“Not as far as I know.” Toast replied.

“Well, I guess it’s still good, since I didn’t a notification that it was destroyed, but I don’t know if I would since it’s never happened before.” She told him.

“Let’s hope it's still good. We’re going to take a lot of casualties, with the way things are turning out.” Toast said, shaking his head.

“Any idea on how they figured out where we were?” Tike asked.

“No idea. It could be because they back-traced the hack or it could be someone saw something that they shouldn’t have.” Toast said, giving her a shrug.

“Or it could be that the Monarch made the enemies smarter.” Patterson added. That made Freya think about the Monarch as a sun-like being with sparks that were people flying around her. She wondered if the sim people were real people just like everyone else. If that was true, then were they parts of the Monarch or were they her short-lived children?

“We don’t know. Don’t get yourself killed thinking about it though. We need to move out. Those troopers are getting closer as we spend time dicking around here. Move out, people.” Toast ordered them.

Freya led Tike towards the enemy. She sent her sensor drone out to give her an advance warning in case of any enemies nearby. She spent the time walking towards the enemy looking for good sniper blinds. Tike stopped her a few times to set some kind of trap. Some were simple, like planting a few mines, while for others she had Freya take out her shovel and dig a few deep holes, making pit traps. Once, she set a bunch of claymores on the side of a tree then placed a waypoint south of it.

“This place will make a good fallback position.” Tike told her. “We take cover behind this tree, pick off a few, then run away. When they make it here, we set off the claymores to give us some room to retreat.”

Freya looked around and nodded. The fallen, mostly burnt tree was sitting on a hill and looked down a small valley. She nodded to Tike. “Looks good,” She told her.

They made their way closer to the incoming troops, with Tike setting up a few more fallback positions and setting traps to hinder the enemy. It wasn’t long before Tike stopped Freya, after she was done setting more claymores around yet another fallback position.

“Let’s wait here. It won’t take them long to get here. The fake listening post is only a half mile away.” Tike told her.

Freya nodded, slung her short rifle over her shoulder and took out her big one. She settled down near a large pile of dirt that had been piled up when a tree had fallen over, pulling its roots up. There was not much of the tree or it’s root plate left, but it did give Freya a natural-made foxhole to use. She settled down and started scanning the horizon with her scope. She saw the fake listening post through the active camouflage. She scanned the post and saw two burnt bodies. She felt a flash of fear as she wondered if they were members of her platoon. If that was true then, since she didn’t get a notification that someone was using her ship to respawn, it meant her ship was gone. She felt a flash of sadness as she thought about it.

She spotted the enemy not long afterwards. It was a large patrol of about thirty members strung along in one long line coming right at her. She scanned them, looking for targets. She didn’t see anyone who looked like they were in command, but she did pick out two targets with large guns and one guy with a really big backpack. She pointed her gun at the backpack guy then moved her gun to point to one then the second enemy soldier with the big guns. She watched as they got closer. She saw that the right side of the line would stumble over the fake listening post.

Freya felt Tike tap her on her arm. She looked up to see her squadmate give her the hold signal then the wait to fire signal. Then Tike motioned that she would tap Freya on the shoulder. Freya nodded her understanding and pointed at the targets and made a hold position sign then tapped herself on the shoulder then mimed pulling the trigger. Tike nodded her head. Freya returned to her scope and watched as the enemy soldiers got closer and closer to the fake listening post.

It was the fourth guy from the end who stumbled onto the listening post. The enemy platoon froze as soon as he entered the active camouflage of the listening post. She spotted two people break away from the line and make their way towards the listening post. She updated her targets to make them her primary targets.

It took them awhile to investigate the fake listening post. The soldiers remained at their post while the two soldiers who looked like they were in charge examined the post. They were still at it when a small shuttle landed, two soldiers got out and started going over the site. Freya watched the shuttle leave and examined the two new arrivals. The two new people started to take apart the equipment.

“Not officers, technicians.” Freya thought to herself, as she examined them in her scope. She removed them from her primary target lists and turned back to the two soldiers who were talking together. As she watched, one of them nodded to the other then waved his hand as he walked back to his position. The other one didn’t do anything but walked back to his position. She moved the one who waved to the rest of the platoon to the top of her target list. She watched as the platoon got to their feet and started walking towards them again.

She was so focused on watching them that she nearly jumped out of her skin when Tike tapped her shoulder. Once she calmed down she adjusted the stock of her rifle and took a deep breath. She lined up on her target, let the air out of her lungs and slowly squeezed the trigger. She knew her gun had fired because it vibrated and the man in her scope dropped to the ground with a new hole in his head.

The entire enemy platoon dropped to the ground. They started firing wildly all around the area as their targeting computers were unable to get a lock on which direction her shot had come from. As she was switching targets she briefly looked over at the two soldiers who were examining the fake listening post. She saw that they were panicking trying to find cover.

“Definitely techs then.” She thought to herself, as they bunched up and took very poor cover behind one of the machines in the listening post. She knew she could put a round right through the machine the techs were hiding behind and take them both out, but she moved on to the next most important target.

She lined up her second shot and pulled the trigger. Her shot was a bit low but it hit the target high in the chest, center mass. She quickly turned, grabbed Tike’s shoulder and pulled her away from their cover, knowing what was coming next. The return fire got more accurate as the enemy targeting computers started to zero in on her shots. She ran nearly full speed trying to get some distance from her sniper’s nest, trusting her active camouflage to cover her. Less than thirty seconds later, mortar shells began to fall all around the natural foxhole.

Freya laid down on the ground and looked back. She smiled as she saw the platoon push forward after the last mortar landed. She lined up another shot, pulled the trigger and the man with the big backpack dropped to the ground. She stood up again and was about to grab Tike, but saw that she was already on her feet beginning to run, heading south. Freya followed her.

The next fallback position was a small depression in the ground that ran east to west. Freya laid down with her feet angled to the west and looked north towards where the enemy soldiers would come from. She scanned the area but didn’t see anyone. Thirty minutes later she was about to suggest to Tike that they head back towards the last encounter with the enemy soldiers, to see if they were following them, when she saw the first soldier crest over a small hill in front of her. He slowly walked forward with his rifle at the ready, looking alert.

He kept walking and, when he got about fifty yards from the hill, a second soldier walked over it. Not long after that, a line of soldiers crested the hill and walked forward. It was the same platoon as before. Freya scanned for new targets, but, not seeing anyone that looked important, focused on the two heavy gunners. She waited until the first soldier was within fifty yards before she fired on the platoon behind him. The first heavy gunner dropped as the rest of the platoon dropped and started shooting roughly in her direction. She lined up her second shot and pulled the trigger, dropping the second heavy gunner.

Beside her Tike started firing at the enemy scout in front of them dropping him. Freya rolled over as the enemy fire got a lot more accurate and rolled down the far side of the depression. Once she was out of sight of the enemy she stood up and started running with Tike beside her. Tike quickly outpaced her and it took everything Freya had to stay somewhat close to the woman.

Behind them Freya heard the mines that Tike had set up go off. She counted four explosions as she ran. She didn’t bother looking back. If they made it to the top of the depression and spotted her, there was nothing she could do but die. As she ran, she had a feeling in the middle of her back. It felt like she was waiting for an enemy round to land there. She kept running. Somehow she made it to the next fallback position, which was a river bed that was covered in dirty water and blackened tree limbs.

She laid down in the dirty water and waited. Tike was lying beside her about twenty feet away with the trigger for the claymores in her hand. She looked briefly at Freya then looked back. Time seemed to slow down as they waited. It took nearly an hour before the enemy came into view. Freya looked out as saw a lot more soldiers walking towards them.

She scanned the hundred or so enemy soldiers and spotted at least one soldier that looked like she was in charge. Every now and again she would wave her hand encouraging the rest of the soldiers forward. Freya marked her as her next primary target. She waited until the enemy soldiers entered the killing zone of the claymores then lined up her shot, but she didn’t fire. She waited for Tike to start it off. Tike waited for half the company to walk past the killing zone before she triggered the claymores. Freya saw a flash of plasma and the back half of the company died. She took her shot, only pausing long enough to see her target fall to the ground dead before she followed Tike, running towards the next fallback position.

This time, they didn’t make it before mortar rounds started landing all around them. Freya dropped to the ground and covered her head as the mortars rained down death. For a long ten seconds, the shelling continued, then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Freya looked up, surprised that she was still alive. She looked around for Tike but didn’t see her. She then got a notification that someone was using her ship to respawn. Freya let out her breath in relief before she ran to the next fallback position. She got about ten feet and saw Tike’s body. It was missing the top half from her chest upwards. Freya kept running.

She looked at her mini map on her HUD and saw that she was getting close to the ambush site. She had two more fallback positions to go. The next fallback position was a bunch of rocks that went on for about half a mile in either direction. Freya took up position between two medium-sized rocks on the top of a hill. She looked out and waited.

She spotted the enemy not long afterwards. She bit her lip as the first tank rose over a hill. Freya immediately sent off a surveillance drone and programmed its feed to be sent to Toast and the command staff. Behind the tanks, there were a bunch of infantry walking towards her. She didn’t have anything that could take the tanks but she didn’t think they could make it over the rocks. She scanned the tanks hoping for one of their commanders being an idiot and riding with his head sticking out, but she didn’t luck out - all the tanks were shut tight and no target presented themselves to her. She turned around without firing a shot and went to the last fallback position, hoping that the mines and the rocks would stop the tanks. Behind her the tanks unloaded onto the rocks. Freya ran faster.

Freya got to the last fallback position to find both Toast and Patterson waiting on her. She dropped down beside them and took up her position waiting on the enemy. This time it took the enemy hours before she spotted them. Thankfully there didn’t seem to be any tanks but her sensor cloud spotted several low-flying aircraft in the area. She sent up another surveillance drone and sent the feed to both Patterson and Toast at the same time as she sent it off to the platoon staff. In the feed, she saw a carpet of enemy soldiers marching right for them. There were no signs of the tanks though.

Freya felt a tap on her shoulder and she looked up from her scope to see Toast crouching next to her. He motioned for her to fall back. She nodded her head and followed as Toast took the lead. She waited until Patterson went next and she took the charlie position. Toast led them to the ambush site, where the Third platoon had dug into the side of a mountain. They were using mass active camouflage machines, like the ones used to disguise listening posts, to hide their presence.

Toast ran up to Tater and started talking to him as Patterson waved Freya towards a foxhole. She followed Patterson into the empty foxhole. Patterson put his huge gun on the lip of the foxhole as soon as he landed. He gave Freya a thumbs up.

“What happened to Tike?” He asked her.

“She got hit by an unlucky mortar while we were running between fallback positions.” Freya told him.

Patterson winced. “That’s some bad luck.” He told her, as he looked down the sights on his gun.

“Yeah.” Freya replied as she put her rifle on the edge of the foxhole. She looked up and noticed the time. They had a bit more than twelve hours left on the mission.

“Twelve hours.” She told him.

“Yeah. Still enough time for them to find the correct bunkers and end our mission early.” Patterson told her.

“Yeah.” Freya replied, feeling both excited and scared at the same time. “Way to be a depressing jackhole.” She told him and he chuckled in reply.

Less than an hour later, Toast came by their foxhole. “Enemy is about ten minutes out. Tater wants to wait until he can take out the air support before we open fire. Ed is set up behind us with a mortar team. Magic, do your thing. Patterson tell me you have AT rounds in there?” Toast asked him, pointing to his gun.

“I can switch out. Take me about two minutes.” He replied.

“Do it.” Toast said, nodding to him. “The tanks made their way around the rocky ground and joined up with the infantry. Prioritize the tanks.”

“Can do, boss.” Patterson said, pulling his backpack off.

“Tike is on her way back with both the first and second squads. They should be here before the fireworks kick off.” Toast told them. “We need to hold them for as long as possible. We need for them to think that this is our main base. We fight to the last person. If you die, then don’t come back here. Head back to the main bunker and defend.”

“Roger that.” Both Freya and Patterson replied.

“This mission is going great so far. You don’t want to be that guy that screws it up for everyone.” Toast said, looking at them both.

“Ah, come on boss. What did I ever do to make you doubt me?” Patterson asked.

“I’m not doubting you, I’m just warning you not to do anything stupid.” He replied, with a smile.

“That the same thing, boss?” Patterson asked, as he unloaded the ammo that was in his gun to replace it with armor piercing rounds.

“Nope. Not the same thing.” Toast said, as he stepped away from them and headed back towards where Tater was standing.

“Well, I think it’s the same thing.” Patterson said, leaning towards Freya. “It’s not like I ever shot the hell out of a machine that I should have left well enough alone.”

“Never going to let me forget that, are you?” Freya asked.

“Nope.” Patterson replied smugly, as he snapped the breach of his gun shut.

The battle started with a barrage from the tanks a little more than ten minutes later. Freya hunkered down in the foxhole with Patterson. “You think they know we’re here?” She asked, over the sounds of explosions.

“Nah, they’re just being cautious.” Patterson yelled back.

The barrage went on for ten minutes as the sun slowly set. Freya was running her sensor cloud so she could see what was happening without sticking her head out of her foxhole. So she was one of the first to see the enemy start to charge the hill they were on while the barrage slowly faded away. She ordered her sensor cloud to self destruct and sent up her surveillance drone. She sent the feed to everyone in the fifth squad as well as the command staff, knowing that Ed and Tater would be among them.

She was starting to get concerned at how close the enemy was getting when there was an explosion in the air and they were given permission to open fire. Freya jumped up and found her first target not forty feet away. She pulled the trigger and he fell and rolled down the hill. She noticed that since the vegetation was gone the ground had become loose and slippery. The enemy soldiers were having a hard time climbing up the hill. She used that to her advantage.

Beside her, Patterson started firing at the tanks that were lined up at the bottom of the hill. She watched his targets in between shots. His gun punched holes into the tanks. That didn’t mean they were taken out right away as some of the tanks returned fire in their general direction. The only thing that kept them alive was the active camouflage that was running around the hill. On her next shot, her gun beeped at her telling her that her battery was dead. She sat back down in the foxhole and replaced the battery before she jumped up again and got back into the fight.

Some time later she changed the battery for the third of fourth time but when she jumped up and pulled the trigger again, the gun beeped at her. She sat back down cursing as she realized that she had run out of ballistic ammo. She quickly changed it out, then popped back up and quickly fired at a soldier that was about five feet from the edge of the active camouflage. He dropped and rolled down the hill.

Then the enemy soldiers were in full retreat. Freya took a few more shots killing a couple more retreating soldiers before she stopped firing. She looked around and smiled. She slapped Patterson on the shoulder trying to get his attention as he looked down the hill.

“Take cover.” He yelled suddenly, pulling her down and jumping on top of her. For a few seconds the world went crazy. Freya closed her eyes as massive explosions rained down on them. She got notification after notification that the pods on her ship were being used and there was now a queue for respawning.

When the explosions stopped, Freya pushed Patterson off and stood up. The front part of their foxhole was gone. Freya looked down and saw that the tanks were slowly working their way up the hill.

“Get up.” She muttered to Patterson, who was still lying on the ground. When he didn’t move, she kicked him. She froze when he still didn’t move. She cursed, bent down and rolled him over. There was a crack in his face plate and it was covered in blood. She bent over his chest to check his vital signs and saw that they were zeroed out. Cursing, she stood back up and looked at the approaching tanks. She looked around and spotted Patterson’s gun lying on the ground right in front of her foxhole. She leaned out and pulled the gun back into the foxhole. She grabbed the grip and waited a second to see if it would allow her to use the gun. When nothing happened she shrugged and aimed at one of the approaching tanks.

She pulled the trigger and Patterson’s gun spat out a single round, but she didn’t see where it landed because the recoil sent her flying backwards. Once she was on her feet, she saw that the tank she had fired on had a hole in it, but it was still moving up the hill. Freya cursed, lined up a second shot and pulled the trigger. This time, she braced better and didn’t fall back on her butt, but she was shaken for a few seconds.

“How the hell does Patterson fire this thing?” She wondered, as she looked at the still advancing tank. She pulled the trigger once more and, after she recovered, she saw that the tank had stopped moving. She was just about to move the big gun around to the next tank when she spotted the top hatch of the tank opened up. She dropped Patterson’s gun and found her big gun. She brought her gun around and saw that there were three tank crewmembers desperately trying to evacuate the tank. Four seconds later they were dead and Freya dropped her gun to pick up Patterson’s heavy gun again.

She got two more shots off before someone else took care of the tank she was targeting with what looked like a bazooka. She moved the heavy gun around but saw that the tanks were retreating. She sighed and let go of the heavy gun. Then the world went crazy again. Freya was thrown to the floor of her foxhole. She rolled over and pulled Patterson’s body over her. The world stayed crazy for a very long time. When it stopped, Freya stood up and looked around her. Large chunks of the hill were missing. She could see many bodies of her fellow Marines lying on the hillside. In a daze, she looked down the hill and saw the infantry coming up the hill again.

She reached down beside her and found her big gun buried in the dirt. She brushed it off carefully, like she had all the time in the world, before she brought it up and over the lip of the foxhole. She lined up a target and took a deep breath then let it out while squeezing the trigger. Her target dropped to the ground. She turned to her next target and did the same thing.

Time seemed to slow to a near stop as she found her targets and dropped them. They didn’t stop coming up the hill though. She dropped her big gun when the battery died. She used her short gun and fired until the battery on it too ran dry. She changed it out as fast as she could and resumed firing. She got two more shots off before an enemy soldier jumped into her foxhole. She dropped her gun, pulled out her pistol and unloaded it into the enemy soldier. He fell over Patterson’s body and didn’t move.

Freya picked up her short gun again and resumed firing. This time she nearly ran the gun dry as the enemy soldiers ran up the hill. Her foxhole was overrun a second time but this time someone lobbed a grenade into it. She scrambled out of the foxhole and rushed down the hill with just her hand gun. She fired it on fully automatic, taking the soldier who had thrown the grenade out. She fell, rolled down the hill and found herself in between several enemy soldiers. She sprayed them with her gun and they dropped. She scrambled back towards her foxhole, but whatever cover it previously provided had been blown away by the grenade.

She looked back behind her and saw some of the enemy soldiers behind her trying to shoot her. The only reason she was still alive was because whenever someone tried to shoot her they started sliding down the hill. The ones that did get a shot off missed. She turned back, and on all fours, crawled up the hill towards the top. To her surprise, she made it.

She rolled over the edge of the top of the hill and looked around. Most of the top of the hill was gone - what was left looked like the surface of the moon. There were so many craters that they were overlapping. She could see a few bodies lying around in Federation armor. She saw a few people either lying or kneeling in the dirt shooting downward.

Freya turned around, looked down the hill and saw a few soldiers climbing towards her. She switched from fully automatic to semi-automatic and started picking them off. She easily took out the medium-armored soldiers but had less success with the heavy soldiers. Her bullets did send them sliding down the hill though,so she kept firing.

She took out all the medium-armored soldiers but that left more than enough heavy-armored soldiers trying to climb up towards her. She lowered her pistol and looked around for a better weapon. She found a standard automatic rifle a few feet away by a corpse that was lying half in and half out of a crater. Freya holstered her pistol and ran towards the gun on the ground. She picked it up and checked the ammo count. She sighed in relief as she saw that it was nearly full. She looked down at the dead body and saw the face of Petey through his broken faceplate. He had a neat hole in his cheek.

Freya returned to the edge of the hilltop and raised Petey’s gun towards the on-coming heavy-armored soldiers. She pulled the trigger and rained down energy rounds towards the heavily armored soldiers. It took a few shots but they eventually penetrated the armor. After she killed two more soldiers the remaining troops broke and retreated.

“Magic!” someone yelled. Freya turned around and saw Done running towards her. “Pull back!” He yelled at her, pointing to the far side of the hill. She nodded and ran towards where he was pointing. She saw the remaining members of her company running with her towards the edge of the hill. She leaped over the edge of the hill and started falling uncontrollably down as the hill went crazy above her. She got control over herself and started to slide in a more controlled manner down the hill, as the enemy shelled the hill for a third time.

She followed the rest of her platoon towards a really big rock. She saw people run around the rock but she didn’t see them on the other side. She was wondering where they were going as she too ran around the rock and saw Mon standing by the entrance of the hole motioning for people into it. There were a few people in front of her so she turned around,looking for a place to guard the stragglers that were still coming down off the hill.

Freya took up position by the big rock and raised her borrowed gun. It didn’t have a scope but a holographic red dot with an automatic range adjustment on. It annoyed her as it constantly changed while she scanned the area. She saw that the shelling had stopped and the night had gotten dark. She could hear the occasional gunfire but it was nowhere as heavy as it was before.

“Magic, come on, you beautiful killing machine. Get in the hole.” Mon yelled at her, after a while.

Freya blinked in surprise and looked back at Mon. She saw a pair of feet sticking out of the hole that disappeared a few seconds later. There was no one else outside the hole besides her and Mon. As she was looking at the hole a round struck the rock beside her head. She turned around and dropped to her knees. She raised her borrowed gun and aimed it all in one motion. She silently cursed as the holographic dot took forever to adjust itself. She finally ignored it and pulled the trigger.

On top of the hill, a dark figure dropped and started to fall down the side of the hill. She turned and jumped headfirst into the hole in the ground. She must have been a lot smaller than the last person because she easily cleared the hole and landed on her arms inside the tunnel. Conscious of Mon still outside, she crawled away as fast as she could to give him room. He soon followed her. He closed the trapdoor and joined her in crawling away.

She followed her platoon mates as they crawled through the tunnels. She noted that there were not a lot of them left. After a long while of crawling in the dark she saw a light ahead of her. She followed the line of people, pulled herself out of the hole and back onto the surface again. She looked around as she activated her active camouflage. They were several miles south of the mountain.

“People, I want an ammo and weapons count.” Done said, in a loud whisper. “We are going to set up another ambush right here.”

Freya checked over her borrowed rifle and saw that, while it had a full battery, it used a different one that she had. Once she used it up she was out. She made a note of it and then checked her pistol. To her surprise she’d used a lot of its ammo. She still had a few rods in her backpack but she was concerned that she had used so much, so fast. Other than her borrowed rifle and her handgun, all she had left was her knife and trenching tool.

The platoon took turns telling each other what they had and how much ammo they had left. When it came to her turn, she was handed an extra battery for her rifle but no one had any extra ammo rods for her pistol. Dog had somehow lost all of his extra batteries for his gun, so Freya handed over one of hers to him. He nodded his thanks.

“We are going to use the dirt for cover. Dig yourself a shallow grave and I’ll come around and bury you.” Done joked.

Freya used her trenching tool to dig a small hole the same length as her and laid down in it. Done came by and threw some dirt on her to hide her, before moving on. Once everyone was under cover they waited, facing the mountain. Time seemed to creep by as they waited for the enemy. Freya was stressing over if the enemy would ever come when she saw them in the distance.

She knew that this was it. They might get a few of them, but they would all die here. There was just no other cover but what they had dug. The tunnel was not connected to anything so they could not retreat back into a hole and run away. The ground around them was flat and had no cover, now that the trees had been burnt away.

Freya brought up her rifle and ground her teeth as the red dot got in the way. She used her thumb to turn it off and sighed in relief even though she didn’t have anything but her own judgement to aim her gun. She watched as the dark figures slowly closed in on them. What was worse was that the night was slowly getting brighter as the sun got closer to the horizon right before sunrise. They were facing east so the sun would be in their eyes.

The enemy troops didn’t seem to be in a hurry and slowly made their way across the flat land in front of them. Freya targeted a dark dot in the distance. She wished she had found a better gun that had some form of basic telescopic function so that she could see further into the distance. Instead she was stuck with a crappy holographic sight that she couldn’t even use because it was too slow.

The enemy soldiers were about half way across the flat ground when the sun peeked over the edge of the horizon. Ferya blinked as the dark dots disappeared in the blinding light of the rising sun. She cursed and blinked trying to see through the glare. Then the sky opened up and a fleet of ships raced across the sky. In the distance the ground exploded and the enemy troops were decimated.

You have completed the mission successfully.

Please return to your respawn dropship and return it to the Monarch.

Freya joined in with the rest of her platoon as they laughed in relief. The ships continued to fly across the sky dropping bombs on the enemy infantry. A door opened in front of them and Freya’s platoon mates slowly stood up and walked towards the door. Freya didn’t bother getting up as she used her suicide mod to kill herself and respawn on her ship. She then despawned and appeared inside her cockpit. She smiled as she did her preflight check off. Once she was done she flipped the engines on and powered up her ship. An alarm screamed at her and she looked down and swore. The next thing she knew she was looking out of a respawn pod door.

You have died. Cost of respawn: 75 credits after discount.

With a sigh, she bumped her head on the glass door. “That sucked.” She muttered to herself.