Freya blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light and sounds of the first floor of the Marine concourse. It took her senses a few seconds to get used to her new mods, even though she spent a while in the training facility getting used to them. Once she was ready, she took a few steps and thankfully didn’t fall on her face. Feeling better, she stepped away from the training facility’s door and wandered towards the wall, where she had spotted a small clearing free of people.

Once she got enough room to breathe, she checked the time. She had just about four minutes until she was to meet with Monkeyman and Lurch. Even though no time passes in the training facility, it still seemed like she had been in there for ages. She looked at her status screen and smiled. She noted that she still had a crap-ton of skill points left to spend, but, right at this second, no one could pay her to go back into the training facility to get more skills. She did note that she still hadn’t gotten a contract yet for her ship BaTk fluid.

She pushed off the wall and headed towards the nearest vehicle store. Remembering how some of the merchants had tried to overcharge her in their contracts, she made a plan as she walked in. There were several people standing around talking to several marines in front of consoles showing all sorts of vehicles. She spotted at least two people looking at tanks and one guy looking at what looked to be a much larger Mech than what One and Done had. That made her think of Mon and how he never got to use his Mech in a sim mission, let alone a real world mission. She shook off the depressing thoughts as an android walked up to her.

“Give me a deal on a contract for BatK fluid or I’m walking up stairs to your competitors.”

She told him before he could introduce himself.

“Of course, Fraulein. If the corporal would come this way.” The android said in a funny accent. It brought her to an empty console and opened it up showing a contract.

Two paragraphs in Freya closed the contract and shook her head. “You’re going to have to do better than that. You have one more chance before I leave.” She told it.

“I’m sorry, but there is a supply problem currently in the Federation. This is the best I am authorized to do.” It told her. She thanked it and left the store, contractless. She checked the time and shook her head sadly. She didn’t have time to go to another store to get a new contact. Mentally cursing herself she made her way back towards the mission consoles. She cursed herself again for spending too much time window shopping.

She slipped through the crowd as she made her way towards the end of the line for the mission consoles, but a friendly voice stopped her. “Hey my Chiv, we’re over here.” The voice of Monkeyman yelled out from behind her. She turned around and spotted both Lurch and Monkeyman in line for the mission console. She made her way over towards them.

“Make way for my gangsta.” Monkeyman said to the PFC behind him. The private gave him a glance full of fear and stepped back so that Freya could cut in line.

As she stepped up to him, Monkeyman held out his hand for her to shake. Shrugging off the fact that she had seen him only an hour ago she reached out to shake his hand. Instead of shaking her hand like a normal person he grabbed her hand around her thumb and clasped her hand in an old-fashioned handshake. She would have just shrugged that off if he hadn’t pulled her towards his chest and given her a hug. Before she could push him back, he stepped back and released her hand.

“Who said chivalry was dead?” Lurch said sarcastically.

“Wrong century, brother.” Monkeyman said, shaking his head sadly. “That was from the 21st Earth century, not the 12th.”

Freya blinked at his knowledge. She briefly looked it up and while she couldn’t find any evidence to support the handshake’s age she did find that chivalry started sometime in the 12th century. She made a mental note not to underestimate him despite his antics. Then she realized he was an academy baby who was almost the head of his class. She changed her mental note to make sure she didn’t underestimate him just because he talked funny.

“So what kind of mission should we go on?” Lurch said. “If you both have special warfare, I say we take one of the tier 1 special warfare missions on. Those won’t last long before they are bumped back up to tier 4..”

“Nah, brotha. Let’s relax and do an easy mission. A sit-and-wait then slash-and-kill mission.” Monkeyman said, looking off towards the front of the line.

“We should be using this time to try and impress potential platoon leaders.” Lurch replied, sounding nervous.

“Nah mate, we were already approached. Do you really think anyone is watching us? We already have the rep. I say we relax and do an easy mission while at the same time helping out some sergeant that’s looking for a platoon leader position. We will get more rep than trying to showcase stuff that everyone knows we already have. We can always do a harder mission later on.”

Thinking back to how Jesus was on what had to be, for him, an easy mission right at the start of his deployment, she had to agree with Monkeyman. She doubted that he would have avoided the harder missions like he did if there wasn’t a reason for it. Or, she admitted to herself, he just didn’t care. Either way, she had a feeling that her first tier 1 mission really didn’t matter as long as she did one and didn’t wait it out until the named platoons were created.

“I’m going to have to agree with Monkeyboy.” Freya said, as the line moved forward. She stepped forward with her group before she continued. “I don’t think it matters as long as we do some missions.”

“Monkeyman.” Monkeyman corrected.

“I suppose. It might be better to get to know each other's strengths and weaknesses before we break into the harder missions.” Lurch said, looking at his feet.

“Speak for yourself, kiss-knuckles. I got no weaknesses.” Monkeyman said, puffing out his chest.

“You have weaknesses. Everyone has them. Do you want me to list them? I can if you want.” Lurch replied.

“Hey look, an opening.” Monkeyman said, hurriedly. They all made their way to the open console and Monkeyman opened up the list of available missions. Freya watched as he had to exit out of the notification that told them that all other mission tiers were locked for five weeks, six days and 8 hours. She watched as he took his time and picked out two missions.

“Here we should take one of these.” He told them, stepping back so that they could read the descriptions. The first mission was very similar to her very first tier one mission. It was to defend a position until there was an opening, then move forward to capture a town. The biggest difference was that it was going to be a summer-time mission and instead of a forest they had to defend it was instead a burnt out tiny town that was by a river. The second mission that he picked out was a forward operating base mission where they had to hold the base for fourteen days.

“I vote for the one in the burnt out town.” Freya said, thinking back, nostalgically.

“Why? That mission means that we would be stuck camping in foxholes. The FOB has barracks and beds.” Lurch replied, sounding anxious.

“And end the mission early if we get unlucky and a shell hits the barracks. I say we go with the first mission as well.” Monkeyman said, nodding to Freya.

“I see your point. Fine, lets go camping.” Lurch said, giving up.

Monkeyman clicked accept on the mission then closed it out so that someone else could use the console. Lurch waved Freya forwards, but she just shook her head and let him go first. It made Monekyman smile at her. Once Lurch was done she accessed the console and quickly accepted the mission. As soon as she closed the mission console out, Monkeyman turned around and led them towards the mission lobby door.

Freya stepped into the light and stepped out in a run-down-looking locker room behind Lurch and Monkeyman. She noted it was very different from the debriefing room in Camp Iron Hand barracks. For one thing it really looked like a locker room - with a bench that ran down each side of the long but narrow room. It had the standard-looking lockers, but it felt weird that there were no pods between them like she was used to seeing in a pod bay. There were old-fashioned monitors hanging from the ceiling with the mission details on them and a two-D map of the AOC. There was no holo table at all that she could see anywhere in the locker room.

As she was looking around, a sergeant came walking up to her. “Magic?” He asked, looking at her.

“Yes, Sergeant.” Freya replied, as she turned her attention towards him.

“Sergeant Maxwell. Is there any chance we can use your dropship for the mission?” He asked her. Both Monkeyman and Lurch turned to face her with expressions of surprise on their faces.

“I went looking for a contract for my BatK fluid, but got nothing. I’m waiting on a more favorable deal. The dropship is out, at least for this mission.” She told him, shrugging with a what-can-you-do expression.

“Ok, that's not going to be that big of a deal-breaker on this mission. Just so you know, I expect our respawns to be bombed out a day or so into the mission. You know how it is.” The sergeant said, with the same expression that she showed him not a second ago. “I see that you didn’t pick a squad leader position. You want one? I can bounce someone down for you. That‘s not to say that I can guarantee objectives like someone with your skills usually goes on.”

“It’s fine. I’m here to help. Squadmate position is fine with me.” Freya told him, with a smile.

“Thanks.” He told her, looking relieved. “Not many snipers are as laid-back as you are. Why don’t you take your people and get loaded out? We are waiting for four more people.” The sergeant told her.

She nodded in return and walked towards an empty spot on the bench. She noted that a lot of people were staring at her. She felt a bit embarrassed by all the attention she was getting, but that passed as Monkeyman comically pushed past her and claimed a spot on the bench. He quickly equipped his armor and weapons in an over-dramatic way.

She took note that he wore medium armor that looked like it had active camo nodes on it. The gun that he was carrying strapped to his chest wasn’t anything special - it looked like a slightly fatter version of the Tobogin she had seen in the weapons store. She wondered if it had explosive shells like the one she saw. What made him stand out to her was the bazooka strapped on his back. It wasn’t one of those fire-and-forget weapons. She spotted a reload slot on the side of the weapon. He saw her looking at him and gave her a grin.

She quickly looked away and equipped her gear. It was the first time she had ever equipped her ASO with her armor and she could feel the difference between it and what she used to use. She swished back and forth, testing out how the longer and heavier gun felt. While it didn’t impede her movements, it did stick up above her head a bit more than her Desus ever did. It was also slightly distracting. She had her Nester strapped to her chest. It felt a lot more comfortable than her ASO did. When she sat down on the bench, she had to move the butt of her ASO out of the way so that it didn’t bump into the bench.

She looked over and saw Lurch sitting down. He wore medium armor like Monkeyman did. The very first thing that she noticed after that was he had two large cloud forges on the back of his armor. On top of that, he also had what looked like active camo nodes on his armor as well. He had a large, heavy ballistic machine gun that she didn’t recognize on his chest and a smaller weapon, that looked like some kind of energy rifle, on his back.

He turned to look at her and gave her a hurt look. “Where did you find the skill points and credits to buy a dropship? I’ve been saving for ages and I’m not even halfway there yet.” He told her.

“I got it by selling a technique to war college. Plus I used a Master perk I got from bootcamp to get some stuff to help me get it.” Freya said, skipping over how much the Monarch helped her.

“Damn, must have been a crazy technique to be able to afford the ship.” Lurch replied. She watched his eyes as they roved around her face. She was not sure what he was looking for, but hoped it wasn’t some kind of Earther crap that she usually heard from people like Tike when she learned what Freya could do. Tike had been really nice in the beginning, before the rumors. He stopped looking at her after a few minutes and turned back around to stare at the floor.

“Hey my Chiv, I know I said that I called dibs on gang leader, but, if you’re better, it’s good for the gang if you take over.” Monkeyman said, quietly.

“Nah, you’re good with gang leader.” She told him, shaking her head.

“Okay.” He said, suddenly smiling. “I promise not to get us into too many crazy situations.”

“You really don’t know me, do you?” Freya said, wearily. “I get into them all the time.”

“Ha! That’s a relief. I get into them all the time, too.” He said, his smile getting bigger.

“He’s not kidding.” Lurch said, looking like he recovered from whatever he had been thinking about. “The good news is that, for the most part, he’s good at getting out of them too.”

That made both Freya and Monkeyman chuckle, but it also killed the conversation. Freya leaned up against the locker behind her and closed her eyes as she waited for the mission to start. She heard Lurch start to sing quietly beside her. It was an odd song about a drunken sailor that had passed out and all the things that his mates did to him while unconscious. He was just getting into a verse about a rusty razor and shaving the unconscious sailor’s stomach when Sergeant Maxwell started speaking.

“Ok that’s everyone. Magic, can you do me a huge favor? Look after the boot.” Sergeant Maxwell asked Freya, making her open her eyes. She looked up and saw a private with some very low level equipment on. He looked oddly like a little kid. She didn’t know if it was what he was wearing or he just looked that young. Either way he looked way too young to be in the Marines.

“No problem, Sergeant.” Freya replied, nodding her head.

“Okay, you're in Monkeyboy’s squad.” Sergeant Maxwell said, pointing to him. “Just do what they tell you and you’ll be fine.”

“It’s Monkeyman.” Monkeyman said quietly beside her.

“I don’t think so. At least not anymore.” Freya whispered back to him, trying not to smile at the grumpy man.

“Reporting for duty, corporal.” The newly minted private said, standing at attention. Monkeyman snorted while Freya did her best not to laugh.

“Relax, man. You’re not in Basic anymore.” Lurch said, kindly. “Take a seat.”

Freya and Lurch each moved so that the Private had room to sit down between them. Freya watched, amused, as the Private sat beside her stiffly. She wondered if she looked that way to Jesus back in the day. “Back in the day” She snorted mentally to herself. “It was only three years or so ago. I technically still haven’t completed a full deployment yet.”

“Our mission is to occupy this township here by this bridge until we can move forward and take a larger town somewhere north of it. The township is mostly bombed out so don’t expect any place to lay your head other than the one you dig yourself. The weather is expected to be warm but rainy, with fog in the mornings. That means expect attacks from across the water in the mornings. Keep alert at nights for swimmers.” The sergeant told them.

“Other than that, there will be some supplies you can pick up at the start of the mission, but don’t expect that to last, as I’m pretty sure the October will bomb the hell out of the area. If you’re relying on supplies from the mission, take double what you think you need. Most of you have gone on tier 3 missions, so I expect you have what you need already. If you don’t, grab enough at the start of the mission then don't come crawling to me when you go hungry or run out of ammo. That’s on you.” He told them.

“Mission points are locked, but I expect you veterans to play well. That means no stupid deaths. Expect our respawn to get bombed out with our supplies. For those of you chasing things like the Golden E award, now's the time to do it. If you need help or have questions we have an honest to Tom sniper in our midst. Ask questions, but don’t be stupid about it.” Sergeant Maxwell said, looking them over.

“Questions?” He asked. When no one said anything he nodded like he expected it. “Let’s get to work then.”

“Who's the sniper?” The private asked looking around.

“The one with the biggest gun.” Lurch said looking at Freya. She gave him an annoyed look as she stood up. Her look was ruined as her gun banged bounced off her helmet. She took a deep breath as Monkeyman started laughing. She looked at him and made a vow that he would forever be known as Monkeyboy, from here on out. He must have not been a mind reader because he slapped her on the shoulder and joined in the line to the mission door. She joined the line behind him and slowly smiled. She found herself eager for the mission. It was an odd but pleasant feeling. The private and Lurch joined in behind her.