Freya stuffed a large piece of cheese into a bowl of liquid chocolate. Making sure that the cheese was covered completely, she raised the tiny fork that she had speared the cheese with and stuffed the cheese-covered morsel into her mouth. She closed her eyes as the flavor exploded. Growing up, all she knew about cheese was the fake, imitation cheese that came in the government welfare meals. The cheese that she ate now made her realise just how bad it really was back then. Sure, she had fried cheese when she was back on the Monarch, but this cheese put even that to shame. That thought made her miss the Monarch.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and looked around at Pops. The restaurant was nothing like Chivia’s. Where Chivia’s was a hole-in-the-wall with graffiti on the wall, Pop’s had real furniture and nice, clean walls. Granted, it wasn’t the best place in the world, with its ultra-thin, purple carpet and red covered booths, but it was a huge step up from Chivia’s, where the furniture looked like it came out of a junkyard.

Freya winced as someone started singing in the corner. She turned to look and saw a man on the small karaoke stage singing very badly to an old, popular song. She did have to admit that he made up for his bad singing with his enthusiasm. He was swinging his arms around and jumping side to side in what she thought might be some kind of dance. Anyway, his friends at the table near him were cheering him on. Beside her, Monkeyman was cheering the guy on while Lurch was looking off into the distance. He had the expression of someone going over their status screen. She was glad she had turned Monkeyman down when he asked if she wanted to sing with him. There was no way she was going up there and embarrassing herself.

She sighed and finally opened up her notifications. The list went on for ages. A lot of it made her blush. Apparently she was the best, or at least that was what she got from most of her notifications. Aside from the stupid amount of rewards she recieved, she was awarded the medal Silver Cluster (with Honors). Apparently the medal had two different rewards packed in one. The first being the Medal, and the second being the ‘With Honors’ part. She read the citation silently to herself.

She was surprised to find she was not awarded the medal for surviving when everyone else died. No, according to the citation, she was awarded it because she remained hidden for two years and for contacting the Federation. There was an entire paragraph on how well she did. She was slightly embarrassed at what she read. She read it and honestly didn’t feel that she should have been awarded any of it for what was basically just trying to survive.

The ‘with Honors’ part was added for her showing leadership ability during that time. That part took up four of the five paragraphs that were in the citation. It went on about her building a FTL communication device to make contact with her superiors. It wasn’t like she didn’t have a Phd. and previous knowledge on how to build the stupid thing. That took up the first of the four paragraphs. The next paragraph was on her hacking programs, especially her worm that got into everything. Granted, it was a nice piece of programming, but she didn’t think it was that impressive.

The last two paragraphs were about her instigating an insurgency. It listed how she trained and supplied enemies of the planetary government towards rebellion. It also listed her as embarking on a very effective campaign of social and psychological warfare by creating doubt towards the propaganda lies that the government was feeding its civilians.

It sounded incredibly impressive considering that, while yes she did everything it said she did, it wasn’t anywhere near that exciting. Hell, she even admitted to herself that most of those actions were an accident. Something she came up with at the last moment after finding some tidbit of information and acting on it. She had no clue she was starting a campaign of social and psychological warfare, as it stated. She just wanted to help those people who saw through their government lies.

Apparently those rebels that she helped, according to the citation, supplied the Federation with intelligence that was vital to the fall of the alien command nodes and led to the capture of the two aliens. While, yes, she was very glad the Federation captured the aliens, she had no idea what the rebels told her people. It must have been impressive, by the tone of what was said in the citation though. On the flip side, she really wished that she had been allowed a more active role in things after she contacted her Colonel. She knew that there were better qualified people out there, but she still felt a little resentment at the fact that she had been pushed aside. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself down. What was done was done. She needed to move on. She looked past the citation to her rewards for getting the medal.

The reward was only kind of impressive. For getting the medal she got a twenty-five percent increase in rewards from the mission for which she was awarded the medal. For getting the ‘with Honors’ part she was only rewarded with a fifty-percent increase in command points. She was ambivalent on the command points reward. It wasn’t like they ever showed her how many command points she got or how they affected her. All in all, she thought her hacking badge was better and all she had to do to get that was spend skill points to train in it.

The crazy part, she learned, was that she was not given a battlefield promotion to corporal like she had thought. Everything she earned, she earned through rewards. That included her rank and level ups. With a smile, she checked her status screen to see the changes.

Had there still been even a little bit of chocolate-covered cheese in her mouth she would have spit it out when she saw her status screen. In just one real-world mission she had got more points than all the other missions she had been on previously, combined. Most of it was from before she had been respawned. The funny part, she noted, was she got just as many E-points and other rewards from the two real-world missions that had barely lasted two days as she got on one of her tournament missions that lasted weeks.

Status Screen

Name: Freya O’Malley

Rank: Corporal Level: 14

Template: 1st scout

Enlisted points: 3,399,104

Credits: 422,621

Skill points: 100,402

Mod points: 100,403

Weapons:

Desus MOA Magnetic heavy rifle

Mega Colax purified battery Six heat sinks NG rod ammo

Armor:

Wrath EC Tier 5 (modded to tier 3)

Massimio Friction assistance Veddarius battery Cloudforge Sensor alert Seven drones Memory Expansion Module Ove Standard Battery AIT Stealth boost

Side weapons:

GMZ 127 energy rifle

Colax purified battery

Hayes 2020 pistol

Two Mrock pistol ammo rods

Asy Minor short barrel energy rifle

Colax purified battery

Basic combat knife

Ship:

Goozden 127 light armored Respawn Dropship

Causnix Mac 127 Recurve Engine Active camouflage Six respawn pods Vehicle dock Mech reloading printer Shand’s Auto Cannon

Wetware mods

Health

Level: 85

Health Regen

Level: 85

Strength

Level: 76

Perception

Level: 450

Agility

Level: 450

Dexterity:

Level: 450

Memory

Level: 250

Processing speed

Level: 260

Personal AI

Level: 106

Skills cont:

Zero G Maneuvering

Level 5

Advanced Shipboard Tactics

N/A

Spaceborn Vessel

Systems

List

Martial Arts:

Líng Zhònglì Zhàndòu

Level 5

Master

Awareness Skills

List

Dropship Deployment Tactics (Single ship)

Level 15

General Rifle skills

List

Shooting skills

List

Advanced Targeting

N/A

Skills:

Enhanced sensing

Level: 2

Tracking

Level: 5

Acrobatics

Level: 5

One time infantry Drop ship

Level: 1

Special Warfare

N/A

FTL Communication

Phd.+ Postgrad

FTL Communication

Alien Engineering

Phd.

FTL Communication Corporate

MS.

Engineer

Master

Advanced Drone Operator

Level: 14

Piloting

Level: 22

Silent Walking

Level: 5

Silent Combat Running

Level: 5

Hacking

Level: 5

Zero G. Combat

N/A

Bomb Making

*Non template skill*

Level 10

Driving Skills

List

Hardware mods: Suicide mod

Medals: Gold E Sharpshooter, Silver Cluster (With Honors) Badges: Cyber warfare

As she deleted the rest of the notifications, she realized that her message center was blinking. She clicked it and felt her heart break. The message was from Mon. He took the early out. He left the Marines. He got a job in the same department as his sister as a tech so they could be together. In his message he spoke about how much Freya meant to him and how much his time with her had been one of the most exciting things that had ever happened to him. The problem was, he admitted in his message, that he missed his life from before he joined. He didn’t want to miss out on his niece growing up without her uncle. It made her tear up. She could understand why he did it, but it still hurt.

“I need a beer.” Freya declared as she deleted the message. She blinked, trying to seem like she wasn’t about to cry.

“Another beer coming up.” Monkeyman said, ordering her another.

“This one is still full.” Lurch said, picking up the beer that was in front of her. Freya gave him a dirty look and took it away from him. She tilted the beer back and did her best to drink it all. It didn’t work, but she did get about half of it down before she had to stop and take a breath. Once she got her breath back she turned it upside down again and drank the rest of it, slamming it on the table.

“Chia fool. Standa wit no-body. Ba nic tat, you cans be number one chiv.” Monkeyman said, slapping his hands on the table.

“I hate when you talk like that. What does that even mean?” Lurch asked, leaning back as he put his empty beer down on the table.

Freya looked at Monkeyman, completely confused. She searched her memory of all the languages that had been downloaded into her head in bootcamp, but came up blank. Whatever language Monkeyman was speaking, it wasn’t in the download she got. From Lurch’s expression she could see he was also stumped, and not a little mad. What made it worse was that Monkeyman didn’t answer, he just smiled and ordered another round of beers.

“He used to do this back in Saint Micheals too. He could have graduated summa cum laude, but he kept pissing the instructors off by speaking that gutter language.”

“Hey now, tating lic tat tells o smokey. Yud na o smokey rund.” Monkeyman said, sounding sad and shaking his head slowly looking at the table.

“Speak. Universal.” Lurch said, leaning forwards and sounding annoyed. Monkeyman didn’t say anything, but he lost his fake-sad expression as he looked up from the table and gave them a smug smile.

“Wat a rub des a smoke?” A woman said from behind Freya, in the same language that Monkeyman was speaking. “Yuds a bic rat?”

Monkeyman lost his smug smile as he looked over Freya’s head to whoever was speaking to them. Freya turned around to see a sergeant standing a couple of feet behind her. She had her arms crossed and a frown on her face.

“No one here’s a smoke, nor a rat.” Monkeyman said in normal language again, but devoid of all emotion. It was the first time Freya heard him being serious. She felt a warm feeling as he defended her. Well, she thought he was defending her. She knew what a rat was, but she had no idea what a smoke was. Then he ruined it by speaking in the weird language again. “Alls rep, yud bus shuf.”

Freya turned back to look at him and saw that he was sitting stiffly in his chair with his hands neatly folded in front of him. She turned back to look at the sergeant, completely confused. The sergeant had no expression on her face that Freya could see. It was the most neutral expression she had ever seen. She was staring at Monkeyman with dead eyes. Then unexpectedly she smiled and nodded. The smile, Freya noted, did not reach her eyes.

“Names Kruz, nice to meet with you all. By the way, Monkeyman’s not his real name. It’s his title from back at the hellhole that we call home. It means soldier in gang-speak. I’m surprised someone like you would sit and buy an Earther a beer. Care to explain?” Sergeant Kruz asked, sounding normal even with her weirdly flat expression.

“You're the second person to call her that.” Monkeyman said a hostile tone of voice. He tilted his head sideways as he looked at the Sergeant. “Everyone here is a Marine.”

“Sergeant Gawain, from Third Division. I assume.” Sergeant Kruz said, with a smile that seemed fake.

“He’s in Third Division now?” Freya replied, surprised, as she looked up at the sergeant. She tried very hard not to smile. She looked down again when she realized she spoke that out loud. She found her face getting red as she realized that everyone was looking at her. “Sorry.” She muttered.

“No worries. He’s something from Tom’s bum.” The sergeant said, her tone of voice suddenly changing again to a happier and normal tone. She grabbed an empty chair from another table, ignoring the angry looks she got from the people who were sitting there, and sat down at their table.

“That’s dirty.” Monkeyman said with a smile. Sergeant Kruz rolled her eyes in response.

Their conversation was briefly stopped as an android dressed in a really nice black and white suit came over and delivered their drinks. Sergeant Kruz snatched Monkeyman’s beer before he could grab it. She did it so fast that it left Freya blinking in surprise. She looked back at the sergeant, who was smiling as she poured the beer into a glass.

That made Freya look around the table, trying to see if the android had left some for them, but there was nothing. It hadn’t left any before either. She could have sworn that the sergeant didn’t have anything in her hands before she sat down either. She looked over at the table the sergeant had stolen the chair from, but they didn’t have any glasses either. She looked back and saw the sergeant looking at her with a smile. The sergeant raised her glass to toast everyone at the table before she brought it to her lips.

They all watched silently as Sergeant Kruz drank Monkeyman’s drink. When she was done she slammed it down on the table just like Freya had with her bottle. The sergeant looked at them with a smile before she let out a long, wet burp. “Thanks for the beer, Marine.” She said looking at Monkeyman.

“What do you want, Sergeant? Besides stealing my beer.” Monkeyman asked her, looking sadly at the empty glass. Freya felt bad for the guy and reached over to the console in the middle of the table to order Monkeyman a beer. She looked up and saw everyone was looking at her again.

“What?” She asked, confused.

The sergeant gave her a half smile and shook her head. “My friend wanted me to meet with you three since she can’t. Not yet anyway. She wanted to say hi.” Kruz said, looking each of them in the eye. “I was not expecting to see you three together, but it’s good news for us. Anyway, I have a few more people I have to say hi to. Thanks for the beer, Monkeyman.” She said, standing up and nodding to him.

“Any time.” Monkeyman said, who was now smiling. Freya blinked, trying to figure out why his attitude had suddenly changed as the sergeant left.

Freya watched the sergeant walk away, feeling like she had missed something. It was like the sergeant was speaking in two languages at the same time. She shook her head and looked up as the android with the nice suit came back and dropped Monkeyman’s drink off. She slid the drink to Monkeyman who was still watching the sergeant leave. She frowned as she looked back at the sergeant, who was nearly halfway across the restaurant now. She looked back at the two boys at the table. They were both still looking at the sergeant.

“Oh my god. Are they staring at her butt? Pervs.” She thought, disgusted. She speared another piece of cheese and dunked it into the chocolate. She was pulling it out when the boys came back to themselves. To her surprise the conversation didn’t go as she expected it to go.

“Did what I think just happen, really happen?” Lurch asked.

“If you’re thinking we just got scouted by a spec ops platoon, then I’m pretty sure that happened. What do you think, Magic?” Monkeyboy asked excitedly.

Freya froze with the long, but thin, cheese fork in her mouth as they both looked at her. She gently pulled the fork out of her mouth and put it down before she spoke, as she desperately tried to swallow the cheese as fast as she could. When it finally went down right, she spoke.

“I have no idea what just happened. I thought she was rude and… I don’t know. A jerk.” Freya said, looking at the two of them.

“That’s just spec ops attitude. They all have it.” Lurch said, waving his hand in dismissal.

“I met a lot of people like her back home. She was just testing the waters. Seeing how we got along. I’d say she was definitely recruiting though. She even came at me like the gangs do back home, but with less breaking my face bones. Oh, how I don’t miss that place.”Monkeyman said, pretending to be sad, and doing a very bad job about it.

“I wonder what company? Definitely First Division though. I don’t do Second Division.” Lurch said, looking back the direction the Sergeant had left.

“Looky here at Mr. Big Shorts. ‘I don’t do Second Division.’” Monkeyman said, snorting.

“Like you’re not the same. You’ve never been anywhere but First Division. Just like me.” Lurch said, condescendingly. “I don’t know about you, Magic, but I’m good. Not as good as Monkeyman here, but still very good. If she was looking for you as well, then you must be something. What makes an assistant platoon leader take time out of her day to come find you? You know what, I bet it was the mission you were on. Right? Care to talk about it?” He asked excitedly.

Freya snorted and shook her head no. She liked his enthusiasm. He sounded like Netty did when she got overexcited. Thinking of her friend made her sad. She wondered how the others were doing now that they weren’t on the Monarch. That made her think of Toast, and the rest of the squad. Were they still in? Did they take the offer and stay in or did they leave like Mon did? She shook her head of the dark thoughts and looked up again.

“What? Sorry. Got lost in my head again.” Freya said, not remembering what Lurch had asked.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Lurch said, with an understanding expression. “I take it it was a really bad mission?”

“Sorry, can’t talk about it. Classified.” Freya said, as another warning popped up on her HUD. She looked down at her new beer. She had been unconsciously ripping the paper label off. She stopped herself, raised the beer up to drink and took a deep pull off of it, before she put it back down.

Feeling suddenly claustrophobic she looked up at the two. They were both looking at her with expressions that made her feel a little better. She smiled in return before she put her beer back down on the table. She opened her mouth to speak, but Monkeyman spoke before she could.

“Hey gang, let's meet up at the mission consoles in an hour. We can do some tier 1 missions together. Something light. We can screw around during the mission and come up with a name for our gang. I call dibs on the gang leader.” He told them with a huge smile.

“We are not in a gang, and we need to be serious on our missions. They’ll be watching us. If we screw up, then we might not get the invite.” Lurch said, looking scared.

“We’ll be fine.” Monkeyman said, with a laugh. “They came looking for us. That means they want us. Relax. Now, I have my reenlistment bonus burning a hole in my pocket. I need to buy some cool toys. See you peeps in an hour.”

Freya couldn’t help but smile when Monkeyman gave them a wave over his shoulder as he walked away.

“He never takes anything seriously.” Lurch complained as he too got up. “Still, it’ll look good if we did missions together. Seriously, you going to be ok?”

She smiled at his look and nodded as she too stood up. She still felt weird. It felt like something was missing. No, that was right - she felt like she was in a sim, and at any minute she would finish whatever mission she was on and then go back to camp Iron Hand and her friends. As she walked away from Lurch, who was looking off into the distance at something on his HUD, she felt like everything was both right and wrong at the same time.

“I need retail therapy.” She muttered to herself as she left the restaurant. She brought up her mini map and looked for some stores. Like Monkeyman had said, she had a lot of money burning in her pocket. It was time to get some cool toys.