Freya stepped out of the pod and looked around. She was in what looked like a warehouse. The huge open floor was filled with respawn pods. She noted that most of the pods were in the process of spawning someone. She quickly moved across the way towards a large printing machine that had a bunch of small hatches that looked like lockers on it. She walked towards one of the locker looking things and saw that it had a screen just like a normal locker. A few seconds later the printer sprayed her armor on her. Before it was completely done, she heard her name being called.

“Magic, good you’re out.” Sergeant Torres said, walking up to her. She looked over at him as her armor hardened around her body.

He was fully dressed, but he lacked any of his weapons. Behind him, she spotted Sergeant Leni getting armor sprayed on. Even as she noticed that, she saw more and more of her platoon leaving the respawn pods and looking around, confused. She spotted Toast at the same time he spotted her.

“I’ve read what happened, but tell me what happened in your own words.” Sergeant Torres ordered, drawing her attention back to him.

“The Monarch is dead. Some kind of alien tech. It’s been a little over thirty-eight years since then.” Freya said, still feeling the pang of loss at the ship's death.

“Well, that was pretty much what I read.” Torres said sarcastically, shaking his head. “You know anything else that can help?”

“Ok. Well, you see, what happened was...” Freya started and outlined what had happened since she had last seen her boss. As she talked, she was surprised at how happy she was to see him. While the years had passed she only experienced a fraction of it in real time. Still, she had been stuck in her cockpit for close to a year subjectively without contacting anyone outside the few messages she had sent out to her resistance cells. Even then, the fear of being caught by the enemy was always in the back of her mind. She looked up, nearly in tears, as Toast walked up to them with a slight, confused smile on his face. Torres waved him off then turned back to her.

“Okay, we got our orders.” He said, his voice louder now so that Freya was pretty sure he wasn’t just talking to her any more. “Get your gear on and meet up in the back of the warehouse. I want to meet with the command staff as soon as everyone has this stuff on.”

Freya did as he asked and met up with him and the rest of the command staff by a small, oddly smooth, wooden table. She watched him drop his portable holo table onto the wooden one then turn it on. It took the rest of the command staff a few more minutes before he joined them.

“The Monarch has been shot down. The only survivor was Magic here. The Monarch was able to back us all up on Magic’s ship so we still have our memories of the past few months. It’s been a little more than thirty-eight years since that happened. We have a Federation ship, the Raja, incoming in less than a week, and we need to take down the alien tech that shot the Monarch down before it arrives.” Sergeant Torres told his command staff. Freya blinked as she realized that she hadn’t been spawned as soon as she had been sent back to her platoon.

“Magic woke the colonel in a sim back on her ship. The colonel has a plan to take down the alien-made weapons so that the Raja’s marines can land safely. For us, it’s a two-part mission. First part is getting to our AO. We have vehicles ready for us, so that won’t be a problem. The second part will be a KoC and hold mission.” Sergeant Torres said not taking his eyes off the table.

Freya winced when he said that. She hadn’t ever been on a Kill or Capture mission. Sure, she had spent a couple of days learning how to do them in boot camp, but she had never done one in a sim mission before. She looked away from the table as she felt Toast’s hand on her shoulder. He gave her a warm smile and a shrug as if to say don’t worry about it. Freya smiled and gave him a grateful nod in return.

“We have four vehicles. Toast, you’re in charge of the first vehicle. Since you are our most experienced scout, I want you up front and scouting for us. Mon will be your driver, and Patterson will be your gunner. You’ll have Stena as your rifleman.” He said, looking at Toast.

“I’ll be in the second vehicle with the new people, with Dunnar driving. Dennis will be on the turret, and Knowles as my riflewoman and drone operator. One will be in charge of the follow up vehicle. You’ll have Netty as your driver, Tike as your gunner, and Magic as your riflewoman and scout. That leaves everyone else.” Sergeant Torres said, looking back down at the holo table.

“We have a truck. It’s an old APC that we got from the enemy. Leni will be in charge of it with Le Aron driving. Our destination is what is believed to be a Command and Control node for several alien anti-ship weapons. Our intel says it’s staffed by twenty-two enemy combatants. Now here is the tricky part. Our intel says that there might be two Ezriael citizens there to oversee the weapon. There is some confusion if there are two aliens per node or just two on the planet to oversee the entire weapons systems. Either way, if we find them, the two are to be kept alive at any cost except if the Raja is in any danger. Then we have permission to kill them.” Sergeant Torres explained.

“How many CC nodes are there?” One asked, frowning.

Freya was still reeling from the fact that her little program never got a whiff that the aliens were still on the planet. It did pick up that they did come here nearly five years before the Monarch arrived to set up weapons. It just never found any evidence to show that they were still on the planet. In fact, it found the exact opposite - evidence of them coming and going both before and after the weapon was built, well before the Monarch arrived. She did know the answer to One’s question though.

“Eighty-six.” She told them. “Enough to cover the planet.”

“I assume we are holding the node and not destroying it.” Dusty stated, standing on the opposite side of the table from Sergeant Torres.

“Right.” Torres replied. “We hold until the last possible moment. If we are about to lose the node, I have orders to destroy it. They are spawning both the First and Second Divisions, plus a few talented platoons from Third Division, to take the other nodes.”

“Why not blow them up, for Tom’s sake?” Tater asked, sounding very angry.

“Not our call. Colonel wants them intact, so that’s what we are going to do.” Sergeant Torres told them, sternly.

“We are all professionals here. Let's keep both our attitudes and those of our people under us in check.” Leni warned, looking at Tater. “We don’t have to like the orders, but we will be professional about it. Understood?”

“I know we are all emotional about the Monarch, but we are marines. We do our job and that’s it. I don’t want any mistakes. Everything is still being recorded, and the Raja will go over the record with a fine-tooth comb. If someone accidentally misfires, if you get my meaning, they will be brought up on charges. Nothing has changed. Someone is always looking over our shoulder. It’s just not the Monarch this time.” Sergeant Torreas said looking at each of them. “Keep your people in check or there will be consequences.”

“How long do we have to hold out?” One asked, looking away from Sergeant Torres and back down to the holo table.

“Until the Raja arrives and the assault begins.” Torres replied.

“What’s our route to the AO?” Toast asked.

Freya sat back passively as Torres answered their questions, soaking up what was being said. As she did so, she examined her feelings. She was furious that the Monarch had been killed, but she had had time to process it a bit. She still wanted revenge and it was easy to blame everyone on the planet, but she knew better. She had seen behind the curtain, and knew what was going on behind the people’s backs. All she really could blame the planet's population for was swallowing the propaganda that the government was dishing out without question.

Looking at those around her, all she saw was anger on their faces. They were going to be out for blood. Looking at them, she realized why Leni had said what she said. She could easily see people around her taking their anger out on those around them. She looked over her shoulder and saw the same expressions on the rest of her platoon.

“They want revenge.” Freya thought, as she saw a bunch of her people in small crowds. It wasn’t just her platoon either. She spotted several Navy people also muttering amongst themselves. There were a lot of angry whispers going around.

The meeting broke up and Freya turned her passive camo to the enemy’s normal camo. Part of the plan was that they were just going to walk in and take over. Someone had fixed some orders so that the command node was expecting to be relieved by new troops. If everything went down how they expected it to then they would just take over and let the enemy leave. If things went south, then they were to kill everyone, except the two aliens, before taking the node over. Freya somehow doubted it would be that simple. One wrong move by the Federation Marines, at any of the nodes, and the enemy would know something was up.

Freya sat on an old metal can next to Toast and the rest of her squad as Torres summed up their mission. He stressed the need for restraint if any gun fights broke out. He reminded them it was a KoC mission, not an extermination one. People didn’t seem pleased, but she did note that they listened to what he had to say.

She groaned with the rest of the platoon when they learned they had an eleven-hour drive ahead of them before they arrived in their AO. What was worse, she learned, was that Torres ordered no stops along the way. He told them they didn’t have the time. If all went well, then they would take over for the troops manning the node, and have a six-hour wait. If things went bad, then they would need the time to fight their way in.

Leni stepped in a few times to calm the platoon down when they got heated, but less than what Freya expected. Her platoon was out for blood, but they weren’t out of control. In the end, Freya thought that it was a good thing that the enemy was facing the Federation Marines. Anyone else less professional might have started a bloodbath.

Freya made her way over to where One was standing with Tike and Netty. One gave her a nod, but otherwise didn’t say anything. Tike gave Freya a look that she couldn’t figure out, so she just ignored it. Netty gave Freya a big grin and seemed the most relaxed of everyone she saw so far.

Freya leaned up against the four-man jeep that she would be riding in soon. It was a simple, medium-armored, scout class vehicle with a multiple barrel, mini railgun for a turret. They had been common enemy vehicles during the tournament, and she bought a bunch of them over the time she had been waiting on the return signal from the Federation. She absently wondered if it was one of the ones she bought back then.

She spotted Mon talking to Toast. He seemed really angry and was making a lot of hand movements at Toast. She wondered what he was saying. She watched him for a bit until Toast said something - his body language was tense. Mon said something in reply and Toast took a step forward into Mon’s space and said something in return. Mon stayed tense for a few seconds, then he seemed to deflate a little bit and he turned away from Toast. She watched as Toast remained where he was and Mon walked towards the driver’s side and got into the vehicle. Only then did Toast turn away.

“Everyone, mount up.” Torres shouted, breaking Freya’s train of thought.

She turned to see everyone moving towards their vehicles. She quickly turned around, opened the door to the rear passenger side and got in. One got into the front seat, while Netty and Tike made their way to the other side of the car. Tike took the seat beside her in the back, while Netty got in the driver’s side and turned the car on.

Freya looked over at the gunner’s station in front of Tike. Unlike military vehicles of old, this vehicle had the gunner’s station inside the car. Tike messed with the cameras in front of her and played with the joystick, making sure the turret moved correctly. Freya felt a connection to the station and knew, if something bad happened, she could work the station remotely with her Personal AI.

It still took about five or so minutes until they were all ready to leave. Freya waited, looking out the window watching her people get ready. Once they were all set, she watched the Navy guys wander around working on the respawn pods. She noted that they were already getting ready to respawn another platoon when Netty started the engine and followed the convoy out of the warehouse.

She had seen the devastation on her screens inside the cockpit, but seeing it with her own eyes shocked her to the core. Even after nearly forty years the planet was still recovering. The warehouse was in a small town that once might have been a city. There were some new buildings and a lot of old-looking ruins. As they made their way out of the town, Freya spotted several rusted shapes that might have been cars before the Monarch fell.

The sky was also overcast, and Freya knew that the sun rarely showed through the cloud that was made up of dust and debris. It reminded Freya of home. They too had a sky that rarely let the sun shine through. Unlike Earth though, the planet's dirt was mostly ok except for a few places where the more volatile parts of the Monarch came down. There also wasn’t any left-over combat viruses or bacteria.

As they traveled through the countryside, Freya saw most of the vegetation was dead or in very poor shape. She did spot a few farms with huge lighting systems that looked healthy and green, but everything else looked grey and black. There were huge craters in the ground from the wreckage. Most of them had some form of water in them and some of them were big enough to create what were, for all intents and purposes, lakes.

They passed huge shanty towns - as the population still struggled to recreate what they had before. There were also a lot of propaganda signs everywhere. Some of them were religious, but for the most part the main theme seemed to be: “Federation bad, the people in the government and military good”. There were even billboards telling the citizens to turn in traitors.

Freya felt a throb of sadness in her chest as she thought about how many people in the resistance cells had died, all because of signs like those that they were passing. She had the sudden desire to roll down her window and scream that the Federation wasn’t responsible, and that they needed to look towards their government for the destruction that had been caused. In the end she didn’t. Mostly because, one, she knew that the situation would change soon, and, two, the window wasn’t the rolling-down type. It had latches and the window folded down on itself.

True to Sergeant Torres’ order, they didn’t stop. They even didn’t stop for a bathroom break as they could go in their suits, and they would take care of it. Freya spent the time looking out over the desolate landscape. She did try to do her job and keep an eye out for possible dangers, but, besides the towns they passed, there was nothing out there but dead and dying vegetation. Even the once-vast forest with its living canopy was suffering. The trees were dead or dying and there were no leaves left.

A little over eleven hours later, fifteen minutes late, they arrived at their destination. It was a small dirt and rock covered hill that looked like every other dirt and rock covered hill around it, except for a large smart metal door that was built right into the side. There was a fence about a mile before the hill, and a medium-sized security shack at the gate. Toast’s car slowed down and waited off to the side. Freya couldn’t see what was going on in front of them because of the APC in front of her, but she assumed that they had moved off to the side so that Sergeant Torres’ car could go ahead. Toast’s car pulled in behind them as they passed the gate.

Freya was kind of surprised that they were let in without too many problems. Granted, they were held up for a few minutes, but it really wasn’t all that long. She kept her rifle down below the window, but ready if things went bad. Things didn’t go bad, and they passed the gate without a problem. She watched the two security people in the shack look at them pass them by, but to Freya’s eyes they didn’t seem too upset or tense.

Freya was looking at the small hill as they traveled down the winding street when the radio cracked to life. “Out! Out! Out! Take cover!” Sergeant Torres shouted.

Freya found herself already pulling the door open and jumping out before she even recognized what was happening. Her mini map pinged her, showing two tanks and the symbol of active camouflage on them in front of her. While she was processing that, heavy gunfire erupted on either side of them tearing into the medium-armored vehicles.

Freya activated her active camo even as she looked towards the small hill that she had been looking at as they made their way towards the door. She didn’t see anything until a feed popped up on the side of her HUD showing a bunch of soldiers laying on the tops of the hills. They were slightly translucent, which told her they were also under active camo. Seeing her targets, she used her Personal AI to connect to the gunner’s station inside the car she had just got out of and targeted the soldiers.

She could feel the compression waves as the bullets passed above her and tore into the soldiers on the hill. She stayed where she was and used the feed to track the enemy. A second feed popped up on her HUD just as Torres’ car exploded. She hoped that, since she was getting the second feed, they had got out and survived.

The second feed showed more enemies on the opposite side. Freya had no access to the other vehicles since her Personal AI was tied up with her car already, so she had the turret on her vehicle turn around and target the people on the other side. She noted, as she did so, that whoever was in charge screwed up. They had relied on their active camo too much and had placed their people on top of the hill instead of being slightly lower on the opposite side of the hill. Granted, the troops still had cover, but that cover was useless against the heavy firepower of the turret.

She had just started tracking the turret fire down the line when she lost connection to the gunner’s station. At the same time, she felt the heat and the shockwave crash over her as the tanks targeted her vehicle. She felt dirt and small rocks land on her legs and back as debris came down on her. It hurt even through her armor, butm when Feya looked at her armor status on her HUDm it showed no serious damage. Her health was still at one-hundred percent.

She used her Personal AI and went looking for another connection.She found one in the APC in front of her. She reacquired her targets and turned the turret on them. She noted that someone had gotten smart and moved their people back down the hill a bit, the only problem was that the APC had a much more powerful turret than the scout truck had. She watched through her feed as the bullets tore through the dirt and mowed the enemy down on the other side of the hill. The turret had a much greater firing rate as well and it didn’t take long for Freya to clear the left side of the convoy.

She was just switching back to her side of the convoy when she heard a loud explosion in front of her. She checked her mini map again, and noted that both tanks were down. Not questioning it, she quickly looked back to her feed. She noted that the enemy was running away. She lit up the turret again and mowed the fleeing soldiers down. There were none left when she was done. All in all, the firefight had taken about fifteen to twenty seconds from when Torres shouted his order to leave the trucks, to the last soldier dropping dead.

“Knowles, get up here, and get the door open. Tike, you come as well. Get ready to breach if she takes too long. Tater, you and Ed are first in. Toast, keep an eye out. Done, you and Dusty help him out. One, your people are in after Tater and Ed.” Torres ordered over the command channel.

A new waypoint appeared on Freya’s mini map and she moved towards it. As she did so, Torres came back on the radio. “Toast, give me a body count. We can’t assume that they were from here, but just in case I want to know how many dead.”

Freya found her position, lined up her long-barrel Desus and scanned the area. She counted five dead in front of her. Not questioning Torres’ order, even though, if he was getting the same feed she was, then he could count the dead bodies himself, she reported the number to Toast. On her mini map she saw that he had taken a position on the opposite side of the convoy from where she was.

“I count eleven dead.” Toast replied to Torres.

“Copy.” Torres replied. “How's my door coming?”

“Two minutes.” Freya heard Knowels's reply.

“How are we still alive?” Mon asked over the talk-around-channel.

“We reacted faster than they expected. They thought they were safe behind their active camo. We are only alive because of Knowles' drone and Magic doing her thing. Now, keep this channel clear.” Leni told them.

Freya kept her eyes open, scanning the area in front of her. Less than two minutes later Knowles came over the radio again. “Got it.” She told them.

“Tater, your squad goes in first. Ed, back him up.” Torres ordered.

Freya’s eyes flickered to her mini map as she heard a muffled boom. She saw Tater’s squad waiting on the side of the door for a couple of seconds before rushing in. Ed didn’t wait and rushed in as soon as the last person in Tater’s squad had passed the door. Freya heard gunfire inside the hill, but, like the explosion, it was muffled.

“One, take your squad in. Toast, I’m taking Tike. Stay out here with Done and Dusty. You're in charge. Keep an eye out. If things go badly, take everyone and come running.” Torres ordered over the radio.

“Copy that.” Toast replied. It seemed like forever but it was, according to Freya’s mini map clock, only five minutes later that Torres called to tell them to come in. They had taken the command node.