Freya scanned the balcony and parking lot in front of her as a few people came and went. Most of them were going to their cars, but a few of them were leaving the area. She made sure to check each person against the photo she had. Time seemed to drag on as she looked on through her scope, but when she checked the time on her HUD it showed that she had only been in position for a little more than a half an hour.

“So, what's up with you and Mon?” Tike asked out of the blue.

“We’re dating.” Freya replied as she followed a short, chubby guy in way too tight clothes. His belly was peaking out of the bottom of his shirt and his pants were riding up in between his butt cheeks.

“Oh, gimmy the details.” Tike said, sounding excited.

Freya smiled behind her scope and told Tike about their trip to Meou. She explained how everything seemed to click. She blinked as she realized she got distracted and refocused on a target that was just entering the hotel. She missed seeing his face and she felt a sense of panic until she realized that the guy was too tall. He was about six-four. The guy she was looking for was roughly five-ten. She let out a breath that she hadn't realized she had been holding.

“Mind on the task.” She told herself fiercely.

“Oh, my.” Tike said, after a few seconds. “You’re so lucky. I know Dancing had been trying to hook up with him. Might be why she’s been kind of a bitch to you lately.”

“I didn’t know.” Freya replied feeling slightly scared and possessive at the same time.

“Just be careful. You don’t want to end up like Wilson.” Tike told her.

“What happened to Wilson?” She asked Tike.

“You didn’t hear?” Tike asked her, scandalized. “Wilson got into a fight with some Navy guy. Apparently he had been seeing this girl from the Navy. He had been out with her on a date when her boyfriend stopped by and started pushing her around. Instead of staying out of it like he was supposed to, Wilson lost his cool and cold-clocked the dude. The guy got archived, I mean like his digital copy got stored somewhere until they make a civilian copy and then he’s going to be dishonorably discharged. No one knows what Wilson and the Navy chick got, but he isn’t looking too happy.”

“Damn, that sucks.” Freya replied, slightly distracted as a guy who looked like her target walked in from the parking lot. She dismissed him a few seconds later when she saw his reflection in the glass door as he opened it.

“What do you think is going to happen to him?” She asked Tike, as she scanned the empty parking lot.

“Well, he still has his stripes so he wasn’t demoted. Maybe fined? I’m not sure, but getting into a fight is really bad for his long-term career goals.” Tike replied. “This is going to sound bad, but I hope he loses his position as assistant executive officer. It would open up a lot of leadership positions.”

“That’s cold.” Freya replied.

“I know, but there are only so many leadership positions and I’m not the only one who needs to up my leadership points.” Tike replied.

“I hate sounding like a boot, but what are leadership points?” Freya asked.

“Nah, you’re cool.” Tike told her. “You know that the AIs track our command points right?”

“Is that like mission points?” Freya asked.

“No.”

“Then nope.” Freya replied as the door to the hotel opened and a guy dragging a dull green trash bin walked out. She tracked him and watched as he dumped the bin into a recycling dumpster. She had a nice view of the trash as it tumbled out. No one was hiding inside.

“Yeah, sorry I keep forgetting that you’re only a private. Once you get your PFC rank, you need to take a command course. It’s broken down into two parts, leadership and tactics. Leadership points are just what they sound like. You need to take a leadership position and be in charge of at least one other person. It gets harder to find leadership positions as you move up and if you don’t have enough leadership and tactics points then the odds of you having enough E-points to reenlist are almost nonexistent.” Tike told her.

“Tactics points are just what they sound like. You need to come with a plan, Implement that plan, and, if the plan works, you get a really nice bonus. The problem is that the AIs won’t tell you how you’re doing. It’s something about how they don’t want to limit our leadership or tactics. It’s in the course you have to take. The rule of thumb is that if you're winning, your command points are going to be high as long as you are in a leadership position and you actively plan for mission objectives.”

“Toast said I was in the command staff. He told me that, since I’m a pilot, I have to be in with the command staff. Does that mean I’m getting command points even though I haven’t taken the class?” Tike asked, right before leaning back. She lowered her face shield to rub her eyes. They were starting to feel dry. Once she was done she closed her face shield.

“Command staff is about tactics not leadership, so kind of.” Tike replied. “Look, you’re flying crazy fast through your template ranks.That is another way to get into a leadership position. For most, the highest template rank is almost always a leadership position. It’s stupidly hard to do, and most don’t ever get that high up in their template before they abandon it to start working on their command stuff. But for those who do, it’s almost a guarantee that you’re going to go far in the Marines. I think it’s best to start working on your tactics right now. I think Toast is right to push you. You are already higher ranked in your template than he is, and you're only on your first tour of duty.”

“Look, I don’t think you realize just how impossible you are. People spend thousands of skill and mod points to get as accurate as you are. That’s not even mentioning how lucky you are. That thing with stealing the assault shuttle. That should have been impossible. No active camo is that good, especially for a tier three or four like you are wearing. I get that you’re testing out a new type of active camo, but still, you have to see why some people think you’re cheating.” Tike said.

Freya slowly looked away from her scope to look at Tike. “You don’t think I’m cheating do you?”

“You have to see why people think you are. For the record, I hope you’re not, but if someday I read about you getting court martialed, I won’t be surprised.” Tike told her.

Hurt, Freya looked back through her scope. “I’m not cheating. My grandfather taught me how to shoot when I was a kid. He was an even better shot than I am right now. Look, I grew up dependent on hunting to feed my family. There were times when the pollution in the ocean got so bad that there was no fish to eat. We either got something when we went hunting or we starved. I know what it feels like when you don’t eat for a few days. It’s a weird feeling, after a certain point you stop feeling hungry and you get tired. The government on Earth doesn't care about us. If it wasn’t for the rest of the universe watching, they’d let us starve. ” She told Tike, feeling mentally tired.

Tike didn’t say anything in return. Freya let the silence linger as she scanned the parking lot that was full of cars but empty of people. She was done talking to Tike. She was done talking to anyone who thought she was cheating.

“The real world mission.” Tike said after a few minutes. “There is no way to cheat in the real world. Show everyone that you can keep doing what you’re doing now, but in the real world. That will shut everyone up.”

Feeling petty and mean, Freya replied, “Even you?”

“Yeah, even me.” Tike replied softly.

They spent the next several hours scanning the hotel. Tike got up to set some traps, but that only took a few minutes. She returned to lay down next to Freya when she was done. Freya went through a gamut of emotions. First she was angry.

“How dare Tike or anyone think I’m cheating.” Freya thought to herself as Tike remained quiet beside her. That emotion slowly petered out until all Freya could feel was depression.

“It’s not fair.” She told herself as the hours slowly dragged on. Sometime, after about six hours laying on the roof under the sun watching people come and go, the depression turned back to anger.

“Screw fair. If they want to see what I’m truly capable of, then let them watch.” She told herself angrily.

Time dragged on and Freya was starting to think the bonus mission was a bust when a car pulled up to the back door. The driver didn’t get out but the back door opened and two men got out, helping a third. Freya was zooming in with her scope when Tike finally spoke.

“Is this our guy? I can’t make a positive ID.” She asked Freya.

Freya ignored her and kept her scope zoomed on the back of the guy. She noted that he had salt and pepper hair like the man in the photo, but she still couldn’t see his face. The light was wrong for a reflection on the window so even that was out. She bit her lip as the two guys opened the door for the third. She noted that one of the bodyguard-looking guys looked in her direction, but unless he had some kind of sensor there was no way he was going to penetrate their active camo.

“Magic, seriously is this our target?” Tike asked Freya.

“Mission first, feelings second.” She told herself sternly

“Don’t know. Can’t see his face to make a positive ID.” She told Tike, reluctantly.

Freya started grinding her teeth over her lip as the guy walked into the hotel. Then a miracle happened. The car that the three men came in left and the third guy turned around briefly to watch before turning back, facing away from Freya.

“Target acquired. He just entered the hotel with two bodyguards from the back door.” Freya said over the squad channel on the radio.

“Do we have a second confirmation?” Toast replied.

“Negative. I didn’t see his face.” Tike told him.

Freya looked away from her scope to stare at Tike in shock. Tike was looking at the door and her face shield was down. Freya knew that Tike had a binocular mod in her armor to let her see things in the distance. It was a fairly standard mod.

“He turned at the last second. I didn’t get a good look, but I trust Magic. Call it in, Toast.” Tike said at last. Shocked once again, Freya couldn’t stop looking at Tike. Tike turned her head and nodded. “Target’s in the field.”

“Copy, target is in the field.” Toast replied. “Stand by and stay out of sight.”

“Why did you back me up?” Freya asked Tike, confused.

“Because we’re Marines. It’s what we do.” Tike replied before she turned back to look at the hotel. Freya turned back to her scope. She left like she had whiplash from the back and forth with Tike. She felt a little lost as she tried to and failed to figure her squadmate out.

“Platoon Boi-e-o, coming from the east. ETA, forty seconds.” Toast told them on the radio.

Freya started to aggressively scan the area looking for threats. She was on her third sweep when she spotted a guy leaving the back door with a man-portable anti-ship weapon. He was with three other men as they ran into the parking lot. Two of the men were carrying medium sized rifles while the third was carrying a big, heavy machine gun that was nearly half the size of Patterson’s big gun.

“I got four bogeys in the back. One has an anti-ship weapon.” Freya called out over the radio. “Permission to fire?”

Toast cursed over the radio and Freya watched as the man charged up his shoulder-fired anti-ship weapon. Freya let her finger fall onto her trigger as she lined up the shot. Even three hundred feet away she could hear the whine of the anti-ship weapon powering up. The three other men took cover behind cars in the parking lot. She noted their professionalism as they ignored the threat from the air and checked out the surrounding area for enemies like Tike and herself.

“Permission gran….” Toast started to say as Freya gently pulled the trigger and fired. She hit the man in the side of the head and he dropped to the ground, his anti-ship weapon falling sideways, pointing at the roof where they were hiding.

Freya felt in the zone as she quickly changed targets. She could hear Tike cursing, but she ignored it as she watched the big anti-ship weapon’s muzzle start to glow. She gently pulled the trigger and fired her long rifle. She felt the buzz from the vibration of her gun as it fired. The shot hit the dead man’s left shoulder spinning the body and the weapon around and away from them.

The world went white and Freya heard a loud crack-boom sound before her face shield compensated for the over-powering light. Freya found herself looking at a crater where the parking lot had been. The weapon had spun to point directly downwards and fired point-blank at the dead man's feet. The crater was devoid of cars but the surrounding area was filled with broken bits of metal and glass. Freya was surprised that there was not a lot of smoke. Not to say that there weren’t things on fire in the parking lot, but there was very little smoke. She looked around, but there was no sign of the three other guards who had been in the parking lot.

“Frack me!” Tike whispered in awe beside her.

Seconds later, Freya heard the sound of breaking glass then the snap crack of bullets flying over her head. She pulled her gun down so that she could get closer to the ground as bullets flew above her.

“Frack me!” Tike yelled in terror, as she covered her head with her arms, trying to avoid the rounds above them. For what seemed like eternity the rounds flew all around them, but left them unscratched.

Freya had only seconds to identify a roar behind her as an assault ship’s engines before the wake of the ship lifted her off the roof a few inches before dropping her back down on her belly. She looked up to see the assault shuttle fly over the hotel, but as it did it dropped four heavily-armored, black-camo’ed marines. Freya watched in awe as they gently flew down at an angle and, with precision unlike anything she had ever seen, they crashed right through the windows where most of the gunfire was coming from.

“Frack me.” Freya muttered in awe, as the four marines disappeared into the hotel. The assault shuttle rose sharply upwards and more marines started falling from the back of it onto the roof of the hotel. The shuttle rocketed straight up after the last marine fell from it. There was a crack and some dust rose from the roof, but Freya couldn’t see what had happened. The gun fire from the windows stopped but the sounds continued deep inside of the hotel. She could hear the short burst of gunfire from multiple guns firing almost at the same time over and over. Then there was silence.

She watched as the black-clad marines started pouring out of the back of the hotel, dragging a man in shackles with a hood over his head. Freya recognized the suit from the man she had identified as the target earlier. The marines spread out and took command of what was left of the parking lot. The last marine that left the hotel was taller than most of the other marines and a bit wider. He walked calmly out of the hotel and over to where their prisoner was kneeling. She blinked as the marine looked up and right at them.

“Oh, hey Magic. Long time no see.” The marine said to her over the radio, giving her a wave with his left hand. It took Freya a couple of seconds to recognize the marine, who had a white skull painted on his shoulder.

“Hey, Jesus.” Freya replied, still a little bit stunned.

Whatever Jesus was going to say was drowned out as the assault shuttle landed, blocking Freya’s view of him. It took the marines less than ten seconds to break cover and load back up into the assault shuttle. Then the shuttle was gonem rocketing upwards ninety degrees from the ground.

“At that, boys and girls, is a squad from the First Division.” Toast said quietly over the radio. “That’s what you have to measure up to if you are ever promoted into their lofty division.”

“Okay, enough acting like greenie boots. We need to be gone before the enemy response comes.” Toast said after a few seconds of silence. “Form up on me.”