Chapter 60

Finishing the last objective

“What do you mean it’s shielded? You're my drone operator. Why do you not have a drone that can penetrate a shielded wall?” Sergeant Torres said, in a deadly quiet voice.

“It’s not that simple, Sergeant.” Ostrich replied, looking up from his boxy drone console.

“It is that simple, Private Stoddar. You should… you know what, never mind. Magic, you got anything that can penetrate the fort?” Sergeant Torres asked over the radio. Freya had been listening and had an answer right away.

“No, Sergeant. I got nothing.” She replied, hoping that it would not set the sergeant off. She looked behind her to check on the rest of the platoon. They were spread out, grouped up in squads particular to the fort, with her squad in the forward-most position. She couldn’t see the sergeant, but she could feel his irritation from where she was crouching.

The fort was about fifty feet in front of them. It was a two-story, old, ugly, round, brick building. The bricks were not really bricks though. They were just there for decoration - hiding a heavily-shielded wall behind a fake facade. She also knew that there had to be floors below the ground level. She knew that there was no way that a military building of this size didn’t have bunker floors beneath the main floor.

“Okay, this is what we are going to do. Useless here, says that just behind the door is a hallway that goes east and west. After that he has no clue. Sixth squad will blow the door and cover as Third and Fourth rush the door. Third heads east and Fourth goes west. First squad, you stay on Third’s heels. If they come to another hallway, you break off and clear it. Squad leaders - don’t get too spread out. Keep your people together as best you can. Second, you follow Fourth squad. Toast, take your squad and see if you can find something to give us a map of the fort. Sixth, back Fifth squad up, and be our Jonny-on-the-spot squad if someone needs help. I’ll be with Tater. Leni will be with Ed.” Sergeant Torres told them.

“Tater, have your squad send grenades down both sides of the hallway before you make entry.” Leni said over the radio.

“Good call. This is going to be a crapfest, people. We go hard and fast. If someone drops, leave them. If you get hit and can’t continue, don’t waste time. Just zero yourself out and respawn. Let’s move out, people.” Sergeant Torres told them.

“Dunder, please tell me you brought your bang stick.” The sergeant asked the quiet PFC from Sixth squad. Freya knew him, but not that well. He was a guy from Sixth squad who kept to himself much of the time. She vaguely remembered that he was from a deep space colony ship.

“On it, Sarge.” Dunder said in a high-pitched voice.

Freya winced. There was an unwritten rule in the Marines that you never called a Sergeant Sarge unless he tells you to. Freya was pretty sure Torres was not the type of person to let anyone call him that.

“On my mark, and Dunder if you ever call me Sarge again I’ll have you standing door greeter for the rest of the tour. Got me, Private?” He said in a deadly serious tone.

Freya bit her lip in irritation. “Why can’t people stop screwing up? He is already pissed that Ostrich is screwing up. Let’s just do this right and go home already.” Freya thought to herself.

“Go, go, go!” Sergeant Torres suddenly called out. As soon as the last go was out there was a flash of light and then a loud boom. Freya looked at the door and saw it was missing, as well as some of the wall on either side of it. Marines raced by her on either side as they ran towards the door. She kept her position with her rifle pointed where the door used to be.

She watched as Third squad paused by the door to toss grenades into the opening. They barely waited for them to go off before they were rushing in. Fourth squad followed them, then First and, lastly, Second squad ran into the fort.

“Up.” Toast called out. Freya got up and, not waiting for the order, ran towards the door. She stopped to let Patterson go first before she followed him in. Her mini map showed her that Toast was behind her and Tike was last in. Behind Tike she could see Sixth squad following,with Wilson in the lead.

Freya released her sensor cloud and paused just long enough to look around. She found herself in a small waiting room that was maybe six feet by six feet. There had been a clear plastic, bullet-proof wall that started at the end of a desk that was about waist height. It made up the back wall of the waiting room. The wall separated the small waiting room from another room behind it. Her mini map showed that the second room was about ten feet by eight feet. It also showed that there was no way out of the second room, besides a small door to the left hand side of the wall that led back into the waiting room. The mini map also showed four dead enemies inside the second room. The hallway ran, just as Ostrich had said, from east to west. It was long enough that her sensor cloud couldn’t see either end. She also noted that the hallways were bare with no doors of any kind.

“Magic, give me a direction.” Toast ordered.

“Back room. Four dead bodies and hopefully a working console.” Freya told him, pointing at the ten by eight room in front of them.

“Go.” He told her and she ran into the room.

She looked at the dead soldiers as she passed them, but she didn’t stop. She ran to the side wall where her mini map told her there should be a console somewhere. She didn’t have much faith that it was working, as the office was wrecked by Dundar’s anti-tank weapon. She stopped in front of a desk that was on fire. She quickly slapped her hand on the fire, trying to put it out. Her armor warned her that what she was doing was stupid, but she only stopped when Tike appeared from behind her with a fire extinguisher and put the fire out.

The console screen was melted, but that didn’t really matter. She pulled out her sabotage kit and pried the screen up so that she could look underneath. It was a mess, but she did note that it wasn’t a total loss. She cut the last two fasteners to the screen and tossed it aside to get a better look at what she was working with.

“Can you get anything from that?” Toast asked, looking over her shoulder.

“Don’t know. Maybe?” She replied absently as she studied the circuit board.

“If you can do it in five minutes then we stay, but if it takes longer then we move and try to find something better. Got me?” Toast asked her.

“Gotcha.” Freya said, not looking away from the circuit board. She pulled out her scanner, and started scanning the important bits. Most of the circuit was melted, but she knew she could use her suit to bypass some of the damaged parts. Gunny had shown her some tricks she could do with her suit during the last objective. She hoped that she was good enough to put what Gunny had shown her to good use.

Two minutes later she had her suit hooked up and a holographic display flickered in and out before stabilizing. She had used her drone software to act as a makeshift screen. Smiling she mentally commanded her suit via her Personal AI to bring up an access port to the servers inside the fort. She ran into security software, but she was able to back out and start the download for two of her hacking programs.

“Getting access.” She told her squad, not looking away from the download bars on her holographic screen.

“How long?” Toast asked.

She didn’t speak for a few seconds as her first program finished downloading. It was a simple password hacking program. Well, not really simple, but all it did was to try and guess a password while not setting the enemy’s security auto-locking program off. The last thing she wanted to do was lock out this console. Two seconds and 1.4 billion passwords later it broke in.

“I’m in.” She replied to Toast. “Looking for a map now.”

She paged down the screen and found two maps. The first one was an open access map meaning that anyone with access to the system could look at it. It had both floors that were above the ground and the cellar below them. The second map she had to use her password hack again to get access. The second map, once her program found the correct password, showed six floors beneath the cellar. She copied both maps and sent them out in a message to everyone in the platoon. She didn’t think it mattered if the message got intercepted anymore. Time, she thought, was more important than security at this point.

She looked at her second program and saw that it had finished downloading and was working. It was deeper into the system, copying all the information it could find. She set the program up to send the information to the Monarch. She didn’t think it would get much, but anything helped. She turned off her holographic screen and stood up.

She turned around to find Ostrich standing behind her. He was standing really close to her. Too close. She couldn’t see his expression behind his face-shield because he had darkened it. She pushed him away from her when he didn’t immediately move out of her space. He stumbled back a step, but he didn’t stop looking at her.

“Ostrich, back the hell up.” She told him angrily.

Toast took a step and pushed Ostrich violently to the side making him move a few more feet away from her. “Back away, jackhole.” Toast said angrily.

“Knock it off.” Wilson said, stepping between the two. “We have what we need. Let’s get going. Ostrich, wake up, for Tom’s sake. You are inside, past the shield wall. Why haven’t you set up a drone yet? We need something up and working yesterday.”

“Working on it.” Ostrich said. His voice sounded annoying to Freya’s ears.

“Work faster.” Wilson ordered as he turned away from him. Freya caught him staring at her for a few seconds before he started working on his drones. Freya looked away from him as he looked down. Her eyes were drawn to her mini map and she saw that her squad had a new waypoint. She looked up at Toast, waiting for orders. Toast in turn looked to Wilson for orders.

“Let’s head towards the waypoint. Ostrich, work while you walk. Get at least one drone before we get there. We need to know where the enemy is.” Wilson said, waving his hand towards the door - motioning for them to leave the room.

Freya found the rest of her squad as well as the rest of Sixth squad. Netty crouched behind Dundar, who was crouched by the wall guarding the west hallway. She looked up at Freya and nodded to her. Freya nodded back.

“Le Aron, you got point.” Wilson told the Sixth squad’s heavy weapons expert. Freya knew his template was like Patterson’s, except he didn’t have active camo like Patterson did. Instead he had a lot more armor and health mods. She also remembered he loved volleyball even though he was only five foot five and couldn’t reach the top of the net without his mods helping him to jump high enough.

Freya switched her rifle with her Asy Minor short-ranged rifle and fell into fourth position. The three people in front of her were all Sixth squad members. Freya noted on her mini map that Toast fell in behind her, pushing Ostrich back. She hadn’t even noticed that Ostrich had moved behind her. Patterson fell in behind Ostrich and Tike fell in behind him.

“What’s his problem?” Freya wondered, while she looked away from her mini map as the line in front of her started moving forward. “You know, I bet it’s because I’m doing a better job at what he’s supposed to be doing than he is.” Freya told herself.

The hallway was oddly skinny. It was so skinny that the heavy-armored people in the squads could only pass through in single file. Freya, in her light armor, thought that if someone was as skinny as she was, they both could walk side by side. She made sure to give the person in front of her enough room in case they walked into a trap. The last thing she wanted was to go down because she was too close to the guy in front of her. She really didn’t want to get the bonehead award again. So far, according to her memory, she hadn’t done anything that stupid yet. She didn’t plan on screwing up during the last objective.

According to the map she had found, the hallway ended at the far end of the building and turned back towards the back of the building. They needed to head to the back of the building to gain access to the middle part, where the stairs to the cellar were. From there, they had to gain access to a hidden trapdoor at the far end of the cellar. The trapdoor led to the first sub-basement. Then it was just zig-zagging back and forth to the stairs that lead from one basement level to the next. Each staircase was at the opposite end of the floor from the other.

They had just reached the end of the long hallway when the entire building shook. She was immediately notified that all six respawn pods were now active. Both squads stopped when the building shook, but soon moved when the building didn’t collapse on them. Freya adjusted her grip on her rifle nervously as she looked up at the ceiling.

“Why don’t they just blow this place to Sandy’s beaches?” Netty asked, breaking radio silence. “One good bunker bomb and that’s all folks.”

“They want live prisoners. Don’t want martyrs.” Wilson replied. Freya noted that he didn’t say anything to Netty for breaking radio silence. She wondered why.

“Coms from the Monarch.” Dennis, the platoon’s communication expert suddenly said over the radio. Freya pictured him the last time she saw him out of his medium armor - he was a tall, well-built, sandy blond haired man. He spent a lot of time around Sergeant Torres and Leni. He seemed to get along with them better than anyone else in the platoon.

“Can you patch it through to Sergeant Torres?” Wilson asked.

“They’re near the basement. It’s shielded. I’ll need to up the power to punch through, and that will increase the odds of the enemy intercepting the coms to almost certain, if they are listening. They won’t be able to break the encryption, but they’ll know we’re talking to the ship.” Dennis told him.

“What’s the message priority?” Wilson asked.

“Tier four.” Dennis replied.

“Send it.” Wilson said immediately.

“Connection established.” Dennis said after a few seconds. He was silent for about thirty seconds then he spoke again. “Message ended. New orders from Torres. We have one high priority target in the bottom-most sub-basement. We need to rush in case of suicide.”

“Move it, people!” Wilson ordered loudly. They had stopped when Dennis got the coms from the Monarch, but they started running as soon as Wilson ordered.

They turned the second corner to find a bunch of bodies on the floor. Some of the bodies were wearing Federation Marine colors, but most weren’t. They kept going towards the back of the building. The hallway opened up in the back of the building to what looked like a medium-sized room that was filled with very expensive and gaudy-looking furniture.

Well, it probably looked expensive before the firefight had started. Now it was filled with mostly broken furniture that showed that a brief but heavy firefight had happened there. There was a painting of a man's face hanging on the wall. It had several neat bullet holes running in a line from one side of the guy's forehead to the other. Just below the painting was a gold vase that stood about three feet tall. It was filled with colorful flowers. The vase had a chunk missing near the lip at the top. Behind the vase where the chunk was missing was a large hole in the wall about the size of Freya’s fist.

The main lights were off, but the emergency lights in the corner of the room were lighting the room up enough that her armor hadn’t turned on her dark vision. At the far end was a nice-looking, wide, marble staircase that led both up and down. Near the top of the stairs was a bunch of bodies in Federation Marine uniforms. The railing was broken off and blackened as well as the wall opposite the railing on the stairs that led down.

“Explosives in the wall.” Freya guessed as they ran towards the stairs. “Nasty.”

Freya noted that her mini map was showing what was left of her platoon in the basement. They were near the back of the room. Freya followed the people from Sixth squad down the stairs. The stairs stopped mid floors at a landing before angling back downwards. She couldn’t see the back of the room until she was on the second to last step. From there, she could see the rest of the platoon pushing a big metal box to the side. As it moved, she saw that there was a narrow metal plate under the box. From where she was, she didn’t see a way to open the metal plate.

“Tike, you have thirty second to blow the door open.” Torres said, stepping back from helping move the metal box.

“On it.” Tike replied as Freya registered her running by. “Toast, Magic, I need help.” She said, not looking at them as she ran by. Freya immediately broke ranks and started running behind her. On her mini map she noted that Toast was right behind her.

Tike took off her backpack and, without looking, tossed it to her. Freya grabbed it from the air and put it down on the ground before opening it. Toast ran past her and dropped to his knees beside Tike as they examined the metal plate. Tike had a scanner in her hand which she was running over the metal plate. Freya turned her attention to Tike’s backpack and opened it up.

“Damn, she has a lot of explosives in here.” Freya thought, as she pulled the backpack completely open.

“I need one section of the pure to four of the mixed.” Tike called out, looking at Freya. “Gimme five sets.”

“On it.” Freya said pulling the candy bar sized explosive out of the backpack and, using her knife, cut a single section off of the black explosive that was labeled pure. She then grabbed a grey, candy bar-sized explosive and cut a single section off. She tossed the leftover slices of the grey explosive into the backpack. She taped the small, single, black explosive to the longer grey explosives with det tap. She tossed the explosive to Tike. Toast scooted over and helped her cut the explosives. Freya took what he cut and taped it before tossing it to Tike.

Freya looked up as she taped her fourth explosive to see Tike carefully measure the distance between the two explosives before she pushed the two different-colored explosives together and placed them on the metal plate. As soon as Tike was done, Torres had everyone back up to the landing on the staircase. He nodded to Tike who made a fist by her head then brought it down fast. There was a muffled boom, and what was left of Third squad raced down the stairs, with Fourth squad following them.

Seconds later, the sound of gunfire came up from the cellar. Freya waited behind Le Aron. As soon as he started running down the stairs she followed him. She saw one body by what was left of the metal plate in Federation Marine uniform. It took a second for her to recognize it belonged to Petey. Le Aron didn’t hesitate and jumped right into the hole that used to be the metal plate. Freya followed him.

She found two more Marine bodies on the landing that led downwards toward the next sub-basement. It was too dark and she didn’t stop long enough for her to see who the bodies belonged to. She raced after Le Aron. They raced across the first sub-basement. It looked like someone's living room except it was about two hundred feet long. There were a few large couches that faced each other and a lot of single, heavily-padded white chairs. She did note that there was a really nice black and blue rug in the center of the room.

There were a lot of dead enemy soldiers lying all around the room. She took comfort that she didn’t see any more Federation Marine bodies. She found Torres standing by the stairs leading down to the next level. He was motioning for Marines to go ahead of him. Neither Le Aron nor Freya slowed down as they raced by him, heading down towards the stairs.

She found Dusty’s body on the landing. He was sitting in the corner with his gun loosely held in his right hand. He had several small black holes in the center of his armor. “What an oddly peaceful death.” Freya thought to herself, as she ran past.

Like the sub-basement above them the room she found herself in was very large. Unlike the room above her, this room looked like the chow hall on the Monarch. On the left hand side was an empty, buffet-style food court. The rest of the room was full of small, round tables that were bolted to the floor. Why they were bolted to the floor Freya had no idea. She thought they could have been moved to slow the Marines down if they had not been stuck to the floor as they were.

“Stupid design.” She thought, as she ran past. As she ran for the next set of stairs she did notice a small pizza stall at the far end of the food court. “Oh, pizza. I should really head to the chow hall when I get back and get a slice.” She thought with delight.

When Le Aron, who was still in front of her, reached the landing, the body of a Marine came flying in front of them, hitting the wall. Freya had just enough time to see the body fall limply to the floor, before she turned towards the second set of stairs and looked out at the third room. It looked like a giant barracks filled with a bunch of bunk beds.

“Ha, bunk beds. Beds in a bunker. I get it now.” Freya thought to herself, just before she noticed the firefight going on in the room.

Le Aron went left and she went right as soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs. She dove to the ground as someone opened fire at her. She slid on the slick floor as she heard the snap-crack of ballistic bullets flying above her. She was still sliding on the floor when she spotted a pair of feet from under the bunk bed. The feet were about five or so rows down. Freya brought her gun up and pulled the trigger as soon as she stopped moving. The rounds literally ripped through the enemy soldier’s legs. The soldier dropped to the ground leaving his feet where they were. Freya pulled the trigger once leaving a half-inch hole in the middle of the enemy soldier’s face shield.

“Get up!” Someone yelled. Freya started to stand up, but spotted an enemy moving toward them from the right flank through the bunk beds. She paused long enough to put two rounds in the enemy’s chest before continuing standing up. She moved to the right, guarding the flank. She reached the end of the bunk beds, but before she moved out of the row she peeked. She was very glad she did as rounds tore past her, hitting the wall behind her.

She closed her eyes and pictured the four enemies in front of her. She reached into her belt pocket and pulled out a grenade. She pulled the pin and tossed the grenade down the row in front of her. She opened her eyes as the grenade went off. Not stopping to see if it was safe she burst into the row. She found three of the four lying on the floor not moving. The last was holding his face, squirming on the floor. Freya put a round in each of the enemies on the ground. The guy who had been squirming went still. To be safe, Freya put a second round into each of them.

She ran forward and crouched so that she could see in between the bunk beds. All around her she could hear the sounds of a lot of guns being fired and the occasional loud boom of a grenade going off. It was hard to see too far ahead, as the room had filled up with smoke. She kept going. She had her orders. She knew what to do.

About halfway down the row, a group of soldiers came running out of the row in front of her. Freya pulled the trigger even as she dove to the ground. She got up and they didn’t. She shook her head as she felt the adrenaline rush through her. She put a few rounds into the bodies lying on the floor, just to be safe, then moved forward.

About ten feet later her instincts screamed at her to get to the ground again. She dove down as someone fired at her from behind. She rolled over and raised her gun only to pull her finger away from the trigger.

“Sorry. Sorry. I thought you were the enemy. It’s all this smoke.” Dancing from Third squad said, running up to her. “Are you hurt?”

“Nah, I’m good.” Freya said, standing up. Her legs felt really shaky and weak. She shook her head then turned around, trying to ignore the feeling. “Let’s get going.”

Freya reached the end of the row near the far wall. She peeked around the corner and saw weapons fire coming from inside the stairwell. She couldn’t see the enemy but she could see the flashes from their guns. She reached into her belt and pulled out another grenade. She turned to Dancing and showed her the grenade. Dancing nodded back, pulling out a grenade as well.

Freya led Dancing along the wall towards the staircase. She pulled the pin and set the time for six seconds, but held the arming arm. She showed the time to Dancing who nodded and set her own grenade. Freya held up three fingers, then counted down slowly looking into Dancing’s face shield. She looked away when she got to one and tossed her grenade when she got to zero. She threw the grenade underhanded and backwards towards the far edge of the stairwell.

She watched the grenade bounce off the wall and disappear into the stairwell. Dancing stood a step away from the wall and tossed the grenade with an overhand throw. Freya flinched as soon as she did so. Dancing was knocked backward as she took fire from the stairwell. Freya turned away from the stairwell just as the grenades went off. She turned back and, ignoring Dancing’s body behind her, ran around the corner. She nearly froze when she spotted an auto turret standing right at the edge of the stairs. It took a moment for her to realize that the gun sitting on the tripod was bent and smoking. She guessed that the shockwave from the grenade going off bent the barrel of the turret. It must have tried to fire again only to backfire, killing the guidance system.

All that went through Freya’s mind as she turned the corner and saw the auto turret. She kept going however, knocking the broken auto turret to the ground. She did stop near the next landing and peek around the corner, only to nearly get her head shot off. There was an entire squad waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. She was in the process of sending her sensor cloud down when Mon came rushing down the stairs. He stopped beside her.

“Hey sexy, what do we have?” He asked her.

Before she could answer, Dog came rushing up as well. He was followed by Toast then Sergeant Leni. “What is the situation?” Leni asked.

“Full squad at the entrance. A second squad spread out behind them.” Freya said reading the information from her mini map that her drone sent her.

“Grenades. Then Dog, Mon, and myself rush. You two cover us. Wait for a count of five then follow. Understood?” Sergeant Leni asked. She got a bunch of ‘yes sergeants’ in return.

Freya pulled out another grenade and noted that she had one more high explosive grenade left. She pulled the pin and waited as the others did the same. Dog and Mon moved in front of her and she moved up the stairs a bit to give them room. On Sergeant Leni’s signal, they all tossed their grenades down the stairs. As soon as the grenades started to go off, Dog and Mon turned the corner and raced down the stairs with Leni close on their heels. Freya followed Leni but stopped on the landing, leaning against the far fall. Toast moved forward onto the landing as well, but he stopped by the railing.

Freya saw a few downed soldiers, but she couldn’t see too far into the room so she dropped to her belly and started to slide down the stairs. She got halfway down and stopped, as she could see most of the room from her position. As she was moving, the three marines had rushed the room, their weapons spraying rounds into the enemy soldiers. She noted in the corner of her eye as Toast followed them, a lot more slowly, into the room.

The room was a lot smaller than the rooms above them. She noted in the split second as she looked around, that there was a large, oval, polished, wooden table in the center of the room. On the walls that she could see were large screens showing different parts of the tournament world or maps colored in blue and red. She did note that there was a lot more red than blue.

Not seeing any targets she got up and ran down the last bit of stairs. She came out of the stairwell about five feet behind Toast. As she did, she saw Leni go down to a hail of bullets. She tracked the bullets back to the enemy. She leaped to the side, crashing into the wall beside her. Using the wall to steady her aim, she tracked five or so enemies who were busy shooting at her fellow marines. They were all standing up leaving themselves open to get a better shot at the marines who rushed into the room.

To Freya, it seemed like she had all the time in the world to line up her shots and pull the trigger. The last one must have noticed something wrong because he turned toward the stairwell. He fired a few rounds blindly at her and she replied with much more accurate fire. He dropped to the ground and she stood up to look for more targets. She scanned the room and didn’t see anyone else. She did see all three marines who rushed the room lying near the middle of the room, not moving. She turned to her left only to spot Toast lying in the middle of the stairwell holding his stomach.

Cursing, she rushed to him. “Guard the friggin room.” He ordered her as he pushed her away from himself. Shocked, Freya took a few steps away from him then, shaking off her feelings, she raised her rifle and pointed it towards the room. She walked sideways towards the wall and crouched next to it. She spared a glance at Toast. He was in the process of slotting a Medi pen into his armor. He depressed it and seemed to relax. She watched him pull the pen out and toss it aside.

“Friendlies incoming.” Sergeant Torres’s voice called over the radio.

“We got the room covered, but don’t have the manpower to move on.” Toast replied, his voice full of pain.

“Roger that.” Sergeant Torres said, coming around the corner of the landing and moving down towards them. Behind him were Bob and Jacob.

“You, combat-worthy?” Sergeant Torres asked, as Bob and Jacob moved around him to take up guard positions by the stairwell.

“No. down to twenty percent health and dropping. Internal bleeding. I got two minutes until I’m out cold then five or so until I bleed out.” Toast told him.

“Zero out and respawn. Might need you if we can’t take the fort in the next five minutes.” Torres told him.

“See you on the other side, boss.” Toast said, before he went limp.

“That is so creepy. I’ll never get used to you scouts and your sucide mods.” Torres said, looking at Freya. “Ok, this objective won’t get itself done. Jacob, you’re up. Bob, you got rear. Magic, then me. Two more floors people. We have reinforcements on the way. Take it slow until they show up.” Torres told them.

Freya moved off to the left and behind Jacob. She looked at the table and saw open ports in the desk. She wondered if they had the time for her to try and access the systems here. She guessed that the information would be much more exciting than the stuff she had her worm coping upstairs. She turned to ask Torres but he shook his head before she could even ask.

“We are on a time limit. Can’t waste it just for some bonus points.” He told her. She nodded and turned back around.

Jacob paused by the stairs, giving Freya enough time to send her sensor drone into the staircase to the landing. Her mini map didn’t ping any enemies so she didn’t say anything. Jacob slowly climbed down the stairs until he got to the landing. Freya crept up behind him and put her hand on his shoulder stopping him. He froze, but he didn’t turn around. Freya sent her sensor cloud down the staircase and into the room below. It didn’t get far but it did show two people and it marked them with enemy icons on her mini map.

She raised two fingers beside her head to show Torres and Bob then moved her hand so that it was in front of Jacob’s helmet. She watched him nod before she pulled her hand back and raised her gun. She gently pushed Jacob back and eased around him. She leaned down on her belly once more. She smiled as she had no idea how many times she had done it since the start of this objective. For some strange reason it felt like she had been on her belly a few too many times.

She kept the barrel next to her face as she gently eased to the edge of the railing. She pushed her feet up against the stair behind her. Taking a deep breath, she used her toes to push her closer to the wall. All of a sudden she pushed her gun forward. She fired blindly towards where the icon said one of the enemies was waiting for her, while she kept herself safe behind the wall. The wall in front of her exploded as rounds punched into it. Freya fired blindly until she ran out of ammo and quickly replaced the battery as she stood up. Jacob in the meantime rushed past her and raced down the stairs, with Sergeant Torres and Bob behind him.

As soon as she was back on her feet she ran around the railing and followed them. She was just clearing the stairs when she saw the man dressed in some elaborate tan robe with two blue stripes on it. He had his hands raised high into the air. She nearly gunned him down by accident. She quickly looked around and saw that Jacob was down, but so were all the other enemies. Sergeant Torrres was holding his gun in one hand and with the other he was holding his stomach. Bob, who was standing in front of him covering the stairs across the small room, seemed fine.

She looked back at the guy in the robe, but he had his hands still raised in the air. Freya nearly smiled as she realized the man was nearly on his tippy toes as he tried to raise his hands as high as possible. She walked towards him.

“Turn around, face the wall!” She shouted at him. “Keep your hands in the air! Do not move unless I tell you to!” She told him, as she stopped about ten feet away from him. “I will shoot you if you give me an excuse.”

“I will comply with you. I am Talous. Leader of the Andader. Council member to the Grand Etus. Please do not kill me. I will comply with the Federation.” The man in the tan robe told her, facing the wall.

You have completed the last objective in the Mission.

Please return to your dropship, and fly to the Monarch to complete the Tournament.

“Well, that was easier than I thought it would be.” Bob told them.