Freya frowned as she looked around through her scope. “How the hell did they spot Tike and Patterson?” She asked herself. “Spy satellite. That would mean…”

Freya jumped and was running out of the office before she realized what she was doing. She felt hot air and a bunch of what felt like fists hitting her in the back as she was thrown forward. The next thing she knew she was on her knees and everything looked fuzzy.

“Get up!” Her instincts screamed at her. She pulled herself up and looked around, confused.

“Run! The elevator!” Her instincts screamed in her mind. She shook her head as the fuzziness faded a bit and ran towards the elevator. She dropped her backpack, pulled out her trenching tool and slammed it between the two doors. With a jerk she pulled the door open. Looked down into the shaft she didn’t see anything but darkness. She looked up, but she found no sign of the elevator.

“Run or die!” Her instincts yelled at her once more. Freya grabbed her backpack, tossed it over her shoulder and threw her primary gun over her shoulder with her GMZ. Holding her trenching tool, she leaned out and grabbed the cable. She twisted her foot around the cable and put her other foot on top of it to make a stop lock. As she did the door to the elevator closed shut and her dark vision turned on.

She cursed herself as she realized that she forgot to turn it on as she looked up and spotted the elevator above her. For a second she froze thinking that the elevator was coming down to crush her, but after waiting a few seconds for her impending death nothing happened. She cursed her foolishness as she realized that it had been her imagination that the elevator had been moving downwards. Taking a deep breath she released some pressure on her right foot and she started to slide downward on the cable.

“I’m glad I’m wearing armor.” She thought to herself as she slid down the elevator a bit faster than she expected. “It would be a really bad time to get a metal splinter right now.” She thought to herself looked down below her. She slid down and stopped herself a floor above the ground floor.

“First floor is probably not a good place to be right now.” She told herself, as she leaned to get closer to the elevator door. She jammed her trenching tool into the door and pulled it open a crack. She waited as her sensor drone flowed out into the second floor giving it time to scan the room on the other side of the doors. She pulled her trenching tool back as her mini map lit up with enemy icons.

Cursing silently, she slid her trenching tool in her belt and started climbing back upwards. It took her about a minute for her to climb up the cable to the third floor. As soon as she got close enough she jammed her trenching tool into the door, cracking it open slightly, and her sensor drone flowed outwards. Her mini map showed the floor plan, but more importantly the only enemy icons were those on the stairs.

Not sure if they were heading towards that floor or not, she decided to not chance it and climbed to the fourth floor. When she cracked the door this time there were no enemy icons. She pulled herself out of the elevator shaft and looked around. She found herself in a lobby with three doors that had small office signs on them. Freya picked the one that was an accounting office and, using her sabotage kit, picked the lock and walked in.

The office was a medium-sized room with a maze of cubicles in it. Freya looked around, not sure what to do now. She thought about hiding. She was under active camo, and it wouldn’t be that hard to find a spot that was out of the way. She was just worried that they had a scanner strong enough to find her. She had never come across them before, but she knew they were out there.

She passed the cubicles and looked out of the window. She was about fifty feet or so from the street below her. While there were no military vehicles below her she could see a bunch on either side of the small alleyway below her. She pulled herself away from the window and walked towards one of the corner offices hoping to find a good hiding spot. She was just pulling her backpack off once more to pull out her sabotage kit to unlock the door, when her sensor drone picked up a drone entering its radius.

“Kill the drone!” Her instincts bellowed at her and, before she realized it, she had done so.

“Out the window. Run!” They told her and she didn’t hesitate. Instead of pulling out her sabotage kit she pulled out the first rope she came too. Panicking, she quickly tied the rope to her trenching tool, and raised it high into the air. With all her strength she slammed it down into the floor. To her surprise she buried it almost plast the shovel part to the shaft.

“Run!” Her instincts screamed at her.

Freya pulled out her pistol and sprayed the window with bullets. The window didn’t shatter like she thought. It cracked like a car windshield did when it got damaged. She sprayed some more bullets and used her hand to punch a hole in the window.

“Run now or die.” Her instincts told her. She slammed her body against the window and after a slight delay she fell out. She was not really expecting to fall through the window, and she hadn’t tied the rope correctly yet. She had panicked and not thought it though. The only good news was that she had wrapped it around her arm. She fell from the window, only to get pulled up about halfway to the bottom with a jerk that wrenched her arm upwards and pulled it out of its socket. Screaming, her arm let go of the rope and she fell the last twenty or so feet. She landed hard on a truck's roof, bounced off it and dropped to the street, jamming her arm once more.

“Run!” Her instincts yelled at her, forcing her to ignore the pain and get up. With tears flowing down her cheeks, she stumbled to her feet and started to run towards the next building. Using her left hand, she pulled her pistol awkwardly and fired it at a small glass window that was about eight feet or so above the alley across from the building she had just jumped out of. She paused long enough to put her pistol away before she ran at the building and jumped up towards the window.

Her right arm screamed in pain as she slammed into the wall, but held onto the bottom edge of the windowsill. Yelling in pain, she pulled herself up. She got a boost of adrenaline when she heard the sounds of a heavy machine gun going off and the snap-crack of bullets flying past her. She pulled herself inside so fast she felt like she had floated through the window.

She fell to the ground in what looked like the back room of some store that was filled with pill bottles. She didn’t have that much time to look around before the back room exploded as the heavy machine gun’s bullets penetrated the building’s wall and tore through the room. She threw herself on the ground and scooted across the floor as all sorts of things fell on her, from chunks of what used to be the wall to pill bottles and other things that were stored in the back room.

She pulled herself out of the room to find herself in a large, fancy-looking health store. She didn’t bother to look further when she saw that the door opened to a small covered area that looked like some kind of shopping district. She didn’t think as she pulled her pistol out with her right hand, and she nearly dropped it in pain. Biting her lip she ignored the pain, raised her hand and sprayed the glass door with bullets. Unlike the office building the glass door exploded. She put her pistol away and body slammed the metal frame of the door. It broke open and she stumbled out into the nice, covered shopping area.

The shopping area looked like it had been a street once, but now was an upscale shopping center with a glass roof. She was at the middle of the street and it looked like it went on for another quarter-mile or so. She looked both ways then she turned and walked southwest because, according to her mini map, it would get her further away from the enemy staging area and closer to the river. She would have to backtrack east a bit to get to the bridge, but she was fine with that. She jogged down the empty street as something roared above her. She looked up through the glass ceiling and saw a civilian police hover vehicle flying overhead.

Cursing, she moved closer to the stores. She didn’t think the police vehicle could see past her active camo, but she was not going to take any chances. She jogged down the street, occasionally looking behind her at the hover vehicle. While it didn’t seem to be tracking her, it did seem to be staying in the area. She debated shooting it down, but decided that it was too risky for too many reasons. She did fire off another sensor alert drone, but the vehicle was too high in the sky for it to track.

She reached the end of the street and stopped by a bright, colorful, gaudy sign that told her that she was in the Gearist open shopping mall. She looked past the edge of where the edge of the mall roof ended. She was sure that the spy satellite had the area covered. From the way it tracked Tike and Patterson she knew she could not stay uncovered. The mall ended at a T-intersection with three-story office buildings across the street. To her left was a large cafe that had at least one person inside behind the counter, watching TV. To her right was a convenience store that had its lights off. She did spot a manhole cover on the street to her right, but without her trenching tool to pop it up she didn’t think she could open it. The street was full of cars parked on either side of the street.

“What would Toast do?” She asked herself, as she looked for options. Then she smiled. She pulled off her rifles and put them down beside the convenience store wall. She pulled off her helmet and stuffed it into her backpack. She placed them down beside her rifles. Then she shifted her camo to match the woman in the cafe’s uniform. Pulling out her sabotage kit from her backpack on the ground, she dropped her active camo. She tried to walk as normally as she could towards an old, worn-looking car. Still trying to act normal, she pretended to unlock the car but instead of using a key she used her sabotage kit. It easily opened and she jumped in.

Once she hot-wired the car she backed it up to the mall and got out again. She picked up her stuff, making sure to keep her stolen car between the cafe and where she had dropped it. She dumped it in the back seat and walked around the car again. Seeing the woman in the cafe watching her, Freya gave her a little friendly wave before she opened the driver’s side door and got in. She pulled into the street and drove in the opposite direction to the bridge but kept going north along the river.

Freya laughed as she drove down the deserted street. Her right arm was throbbing along with her hip on her left side, but she felt amazing. Conscious that she was the only person on the road, she drove towards the edge of the river and found a spot to park near an old, deserted-looking building. She chose it because there was a worn, blue tarp on the window. She got out, still pretending to be normal, and walked towards the tarp. She reached up and, with a yank, pulled the tarp off and bundled it up. She walked towards the building's front door. She looked around to see if anyone was watching. Not seeing anyone she kicked the door in and walked inside.

The place was empty and dingy. The floor was covered with trash and smelled like old booze and urine. She walked through the building, looking for any squatters, but it was empty. She thought about searching the two floors above her, but decided against it as she wouldn’t be here all that long. She did find a back door that led out to a small, empty parking lot that was built right next to the river. There was an old chain-link fence that separated it and the river, but she could see at least two large holes in it if she needed to run that way. With an escape plan in place she went back out to her car. Wrapping her stuff up in the blue tarp, she carried it inside the building. Seconds later she was back under active camo and in her platoon’s personalized camo colors.

She settled down and launched a surveillance drone programmed to give her a view of the street. With her adrenaline fading away her pain came back. She took a medi pen from her backpack and slotted it into her suit. She sighed in relief as the pain slowly faded until she couldn’t feel it anymore. She checked her health and frowned when she found that she was only down eleven percent. Her arm was blinking yellow and her left hip was a steady green. As she watched the color on her arm went from yellow to green. Unlike her hip, it still kept blinking. As the medi pen fixed her arm, her health rose until she was only down six percent. She thought about using another medi pen to get back to one-hundred percent, but in the end decided she might need it in the future.

She waited for an hour to see if the spy satellite was still tracing her, but when nothing happened she decided to get back into the battle. Her waypoint had moved closer to the bridge, and the objective had not changed yet. She used the back door to sneak out of the building and walked along the riverbank to get closer to the bridge. She changed her drone back to her sensor alert drone drone, because she didn’t want to be distracted by the surveillance feed. That and what she might miss with her eyes would not be missed with her sensor alert drone.

She was about a mile or so from the bridge when her sensor drone picked up another drone scanning the area. She killed the drone and moved back towards a parking lot that she had passed earlier. She cursed as she slid under a car and tried to think of what to do. She could see the bridge in the distance from where she was at.

“The odds that the drone could pick up my drone is low, but high enough that I shouldn’t chance it. The odds of it picking me up while under active camo is just as unlikely, but still possible. You know, what if they don’t have a spy satellite and they were using a drone.” She asked herself, cursing the possibility.

A drone that could pick up a person under active camo was out there. It was a big drone. Too big to be built using her cloud forge, but the enemy didn’t have to have a just small cloud forge. It was expensive, but they could have a large cloud forge attached to a vehicle. Freya bit her lip. She was not sure what to do. Just to do something, she had her cloud forge build a new sensor drone. Her surveillance drone could only pick up visual cues. She didn’t design it to pick up other drones.

Once it was built she sent it out and, to her relief, it didn’t detect any other drones in the area. Granted, it could only pick up things up to forty feet away. Everything was clear on her mini map. No enemy icons were showing up on her mini map. She expanded her map to look at a bigger picture of the city. She thought about heading across the river and joining back up with her company, but her objective was still active. She had her orders and even if going at it alone looked impossible she was a Marine and a Marine followed orders.

“Now would be a great time to have a drone hunter-killer.” She thought to herself as she looked over the city. They came in various sizes, but they were really expensive. They were also very loud in that there was no way to hide killing a drone. It would tell the enemy that you are either in the area or at least interested in the area. It was why she never got one. Well, that and the price.

She found a large building with seven floors that overlooked the bridge and gave her a good vantage point to scout the enemy’s position. With her plan in place, and hoping that the enemy had drones designed to spot someone under active camouflage and not a spy satellite like she first thought they had, she climbed out from under the car and headed north.

She had to kill her drone a couple of times as it discovered other drones. She did it just to be sure. When that happened she retreated a few blocks and waited until her cloud forge could build a new one. It was annoying, but she told herself it was better to be safe than to be sorry and zeroed out. It took her nearly half an hour to arrive at the building she had picked out.

The building was a tall one and mostly concrete. There were a few windows in the building, but mostly it was just a large, ugly, tan-colored building. There was no lobby, but a space to wait on the elevators. There was a console directory for all the businesses that used the building, but Freya ignored it. She also ignored the elevators and opted for the stairs. It would be annoying, but she guessed it was the best way to access the roof. Nine floors later, Freya stopped by the door to the roof. There were only eight floors but the last staircase led to the roof. There was a big red pipe by the door with a gauge that was pegged at five hundred. She guessed it was how they measured the water pressure for the building.

“It wouldn’t do to check the water pressure at the bottom of the building.” She told herself with a mental snort. “Ok, stop stalling and go. If there is a spy satellite, I’ll stick out like a sore thumb. If there are drones, then I’m good. Today is a good day to die!” She mentally told herself, as she used her sabotage kit to unlock the door and disable the alarm. She paused long enough to put her stuff away before she pushed the door open and walked out onto the roof.

The first thing she did was look up. It was a stupid reaction, as there was no way she would be able to see a spy satellite, but she still did it. Shaking her head at her own stupidity, she looked out towards the bridge. She sighed at the sight. It looked bad.

They hadn’t lost the bridge yet, but it didn’t look like it would take long for the enemy to win it back. She could see there were a bunch of enemy vehicles by the foot of the bridge on the city-side shooting towards the far bank. The bridge had taken some damage, but still looked usable. She could see the enemy was massing by the foot of the bridge to make a rush towards the other side. She didn’t think Third Platoon could hold out if they did it.

That thought made her ask herself why is the bridge still up? “They have to know the bridge is lost. They should blow it and run.” She questioned herself. She frowned and shook her head.

“Now would be a good time to call in the assault shuttle.” She thought to herself. Then she got another idea. “An artillery barrage would work. I hope the Mechs are still up.”

She killed her sensor drone. It was pretty useless up on the roof. She had her forge build a surveillance drone instead. As soon as it was done she launched it and had sent the feed to the command staff, but made sure to include Done with the others. She had to reprogram the drone a bit so she could add the coordinates in white numbers and letters at the bottom. Then she waited and hoped. As she did so she started building a second surveillance drone just in case.

The drone was close to the end of it’s life when she heard a sharp crack then a loud boom even through her muted audio speakers. A big pillar of smoke rose up just north of the massed enemy. Seeing them over shoot she killed the drone and added the corrected coordinates before sending the new drone up. In the meantime the enemy started rushing the bridge. She crossed her fingers as new artillery shells landed right on target in the middle of the cluster of the enemy. She smiled at the hit. Four more rounds landed in quick succession wiping out the enemy on the city-side of the bridge. Two shells even landed on either side of the bridge by the side of the river taking out the enemy trucks.

Freya smiled until she spotted five trucks on the bridge racing towards the far side. Cursing, she pulled her long-barrel Dessus off her back and lined up a shot. She pulled the trigger and her round hit the lead car right in the hood. It slowed down, but it didn’t stop. She put two more rounds in it. Black smoke rose as the truck slowed to a stop.

The second truck had to slow down to go around the first car. It gave Freya more than enough time to put a couple of rounds into its hood as well. The third car tried to push the first one out of its way, but Freya took care of that. The last two started trying to turn around as people spilled out from their trucks. Freya ignored them and fired to disable the last two trucks. With all their vehicles disabled, the enemy tried to hold their position. Freya took her time picking them off one by one. She was sure she missed a few, but her objective changed. Her new orders came in not an hour later. Her new objective was to find the enemy command center and send the coordinates in for an artillery strike.

Freya sighed. “Where is the armored platoon? They should be here by now.” She asked herself, as she saw that Third Platoon had started to push onto the bridge. She saw a soldier who had hidden in the wrecked vehicles. Two seconds later he was dead and she had another kill to add to her count. She turned back and made her way back into the building.

“Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs.” Freya quoted to herself as she closed the door. She had to admit, she was having a good time.