Freya sighed as the private asked yet another annoying question. The bad part was that he hadn’t yet asked her a single question. She looked up and watched the rain fall on her face shield. It had been raining ever since they had stepped out of the lobby door into the sim. Unlike tier three missions, there was an actual door that they stepped out of. It felt so odd to Freya to see a door floating in the sky that people entered the sim mission through, instead of taking her ship or dropping in a OTIDS. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen doors floating in the sky in tier 3 missions, it was just that no one entered the mission that way. It was the way most people exited the tier 3 mission, after all. Still, it felt wrong to see people come out the door.

“So memory stat doesn't give you perfect memory?” The private asked, sounding curious. “So why get the mod then?”

“Eidetic memory, and it kinda does. It gives you photographic memory for a few minutes to hours and perfect recall for a few days to weeks afterwards. If they focus on something very hard, then they can recall it perfectly years later. It is a pretty important mod to have if you need to remember things as they are, exactly in the moment.” Lurch told him.

“Why is being a sniper such a big deal?” The private asked Lurch, as he dumped a pile of dirt and small rubble in front of him with his entrenching tool. Unlike her in her first mission, he knew what to bring on his missions. His dad taught him well.

“It’s the end job of a template. Most people don’t get that far before they give their template up to focus on leadership skills. There are very few people with end of the line titles like that.” Lurch informed him.

Freya looked down and started moving the rubble again, creating a larger hole in what used to be a building. She was in the process of making a foxhole with the private and Lurch. Monkeyboy was with the command staff, doing command staff stuff. She kind of wished she had had the sergeant bump Monkeyboy off of the squad leader position and let her take over. That way she could be standing around making plans instead of lugging what used to be pieces of a wall in the rain into some kind of barrier to protect her in the event of enemy fire. She had no idea how she ended up picking up the larger pieces of the rubble while Lurch and the new private dug into the smaller stuff. Even though she knew Lurch had to have much more strength than she did.

“What’s your template?” The private asked Lurch, after a few minutes of blissful quiet.

“Hey kid, how by all of Tom’s pinky toes did you make rank? There is no way you're an academy baby with all these stupid questions.” Lurch replied, sounding like he was finally getting fed up with the private’s non-stop questions.

“Academy baby?” The private asked, sounding confused. “Oh, no, I didn’t go to any academy. Dad was a Marine. He taught me how to hunt and fish.”

“No fishing here kid.” Lurch replied, sarcastically.

“I have a grenade. There is a river right there. Trust me, we can get some fish.” The newly made private told him, as he pointed at the river that was only ten feet away with his entrenching tool. Lurch burst out laughing in reply. He had such a goofy laugh that Freya lost it and started to laugh as well.

“Do not use that grenade unless someone tells you to.” Freya said, as her laughter tapered off. “You are more dangerous to us than the enemy, with that thing.”

“Nah, we use explosives back home at the mine. Sure, we don’t use grenades, but we do use TAS explosives for Landing Day. Makes some good fireworks, let me tell you.” The private replied, with a big grin under his face shield.

“Damn, you must be an outer rim colonial kid.” Lurch said, as he stopped digging to give the new kid a look. “No one uses TASes anymore. Do me a favor - tell Monkeyman. He’ll get a kick out of that.”

“Okay.” The new kid said, as he kept shoveling - building up the dirt wall in front of them.

“Can we call something like this a foxhole?” Freya asked herself as she took a break and looked at what they were building. She was sweating even though she could feel her air conditioner going full-blast in her armor. The gravity on this planet was heavier than Earth’s. While it wasn’t as heavy as some of the planets she had visited on sim missions, it was much heavier than her last mission planet.

“It’s more like a trench.” She thought, as she looked at the long, eight-foot deep ‘foxhole’. It had been Lurch’s idea to make one big hole instead of two much smaller holes. It was harder work, but, as she looked at it, she came to the realization that it gave them more room to work with when the enemy attacked. The bad part was that any explosives that landed inside could kill them all.

“We should dig backup holes behind us in case someone decides to toss a grenade in here.” She thought and looked behind her. “Or we can use what’s left of that wall for cover. It won’t stop the heavier projectiles, but it will make it harder for them to target us.”

The wall in question was a small wall that was broken in half. The explosions that had decimated the town had come from the opposite direction, from over the river, so there was more than enough rubble behind the half-wall to give them good cover. That is, as long as they were ducking really low.

She turned back to start pulling rocks out of her hole, but caught something out the corner of her eye. She didn’t stop moving, but she looked at a large, waterside tree that was about ten feet or so beyond the far bank of the river from the corner of her eye. There was some movement behind the long, dangling, thin, yellow branches. There were no leaves on the branches, but there were so many branches that it was hard to make out what had caught her eye. Then she spotted it, or rather who.

“Finally, all those skill points in my awareness training are finally paying off.” She thought, as she saw a human-like figure, very well hidden, but without active camo, hiding behind the branches. She watched him for a few minutes, but the figure didn’t leave. She debated on how to bring her watcher up to the others without alerting him. “He could be monitoring our coms.” She thought, as she considered sending a private message to Monkeyman.

“Indirect message it is.” She thought, changing her mind, as she dropped a very large flat rock onto her pile, letting it slide down the other side a bit.

“Hey Monkeyboy, what’s our ROE?” She said, radioing Monkeyman on their squad channel.

“It’s Monkeyman, and I’m a bit busy at the moment.” He answered, after a few seconds of silence. “And why do you want to know the rules of engagement? Did the new guy do something chiv worthy?”

She laughed over her coms at the unexpected comment. “I was just wondering if I can shoot something for dinner tonight? I was going to ask Lurch to send up a drone to hunt.” She asked, hoping he got her horrible message within a message.

She saw the shadow under the tree move and frowned. “Dammit, he is listening in on our coms.”

“You know what, never mind. I’m going back to get us some rations. You want any?” She asked, hoping whoever was hiding under the tree didn’t run for it. She watched the area, but whoever was undercover there didn’t make a run for it, so she hoped that he would stay that way for just a little bit longer.

“You can’t kill the new guy on his first day. That is unless he does something baka - then just knock him over the head and call it a day. That clear enough ROE orders?” Monkeyman asked, sounding annoyed.

“So no rations for you?” Freya said with a smile, climbing out of her hole.

“Lovelies gotta be lovely.” Monkeyman replied, completely confusing her while ending their conversation.

“Hey, y’all want some rations? I’m going to see if there are any left.” Freya asked over her armor speakers to the two others in her squad, as she dusted her legs off. A cloud of white smoke billowed out as she slapped her armor.

“Hey, yeah. Can you get me some of the villa ones?” The new guy asked.

“Sure.” Freya said, sliding her new, long-barrel rifle back into the trench they were making and swinging her Nester over her shoulder. She looked up and saw Lurch giving her an odd look. She gave him a small wave before turning away and moving back towards the center of what was left of the town.

Once she was behind cover, she activated her active camo and took off in a sprint, trying to flank the man under the tree from the right. She stopped by the river and eased herself in. The river was about twelve feet wide, and roughly five feet deep. The problem was that it was a fast-moving river. She was more than strong enough to fight the current, but fighting the current would cause turbulence in the river. That would give her position away like nothing else. She let herself go and be carried by the current as she started to swim across the water.

She saw Lurch look up from digging the trench as she passed their position, but to her relief he bent down again and kept digging. The current took her down much farther than she expected. She passed two more positions where Marines were digging in before she was able to get to the other side. Only one Marine looked up as she passed him. She mentally cursed him when he didn’t immediately get back to work, but tracked her - his helmet following in her direction as she moved passed him.

She got out of the river with him still watching her. She stopped and gave him the finger, only then realizing that he was not tracking her with his eyes, but on his mini map. She was still trying to figure out what to do when he jerked and started digging again. Feeling relieved, she started her way back up the river. It only took her a few seconds to come to the realization that someone had to have radioed him to get back to work. Feeling like that might have spooked the scout, she picked up the pace.

She kepting looking around for more scouts, but she didn’t spot any. What she did spot was that her target had left his cover behind his tree and was making his way, low-crawling, down the river bank. She slowed down and watched him move closer to her. She noted that he had some kind of equipment that he kept pointed towards the Marine side of the river.

“A listening device or a camera?” She wondered, as he slowly crept towards her position.

She pulled out her knife and got ready. The subject of taking an enemy captive was a complicated one. How do you take an armored person out without killing him? You can’t choke him out - his armor would be more than enough to protect him from that. Even if you had the strength mods to get past the armor plating, then you would crush the guy inside the armor. If he had some crazy health wetware mods, then, while he would survive his armor being crushed, he would also be almost impossible to choke out anyway. Now add in hardware health mod most medium and heavy armored soldiers had and choking someone out became next to impossible.

A soldier's armor was, by its very design, shockproof and self-contained. That meant that tasing or gassing them were out. So how do you incapacitate a person without killing them? The Marines had a method that they trained into their recruits in boot camp. It was quick and dirty, but it worked most of the time.

Freya crept towards the man as he low-crawled slowly towards her. She adjusted her grip on the kinfie holding it with the sharp tip facing downwards. She moved slightly out of the scout’s path before speeding up. She focused on making sure she was not making any noise as she moved towards him. He never saw her coming. In fact, he wasn’t even looking in her direction as she jumped. She noticed that he was looking back towards Lurch and the new guy. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Monkeyman back at their position holding out a small package. Then she had no more time to look around as she leaped up in the air and onto him, bringing her knife down between the armored plates that overlapped between his back and his neck. She slammed it down with all of her might and it slid in. She felt the knife hit his spinal cord and felt the jarring feeling as it slid between the vertebrae. He went down instantly.

She yanked the knife out, but kept it ready in case he had some crazy health hardware mods in him that let him bypass a severed spinal cord. She used her other hand to turn the scout’s body over. As she did, she looked around behind her for any enemies. Not seeing any, she turned her attention back to her enemy. In the corner of her eye, she saw Lurch and Monkeyman run towards their side of the river. Confused, she checked her HUD to make sure her active camo was still in place. It was.

She found the medi port in the scout’s armor and used her knife on the unmoving scout to pry the top off. She pulled a medi pen from her belt and slammed it home. As she did, she slid her knife back into its sheath at her waist. She looked behind her one more time to make sure there were no enemies, before grabbing the scout under his arms and dragging him towards the river. As she did so, she spotted Monkeyman and Lurch coming towards her in an inflatable raft. They were using a rope that they had somehow gotten attached to the other side of the river to pull themselves toward her.

They were a bit further up the river, so she dragged the unmoving scout to meet them. She spotted the new guy still in the trench with his rifle out looking like he knew what he was doing. As soon as the raft got close to the river bank, Monkeyman jumped out and rushed towards her in the river. He didn’t acknowledge her at all. He just grabbed the closest arm and started dragging the scout towards the raft in the water. Freya let go of that arm and jumped into the river, pulling on the other one.

Once they got to the raft, and with both of them working together, they slid the unmoving scout onto it. She jumped in as soon as the scout was on. She pulled out the empty medi pen and tossed it down into the raft while grabbing a new one from her belt. She slammed it home as Monkeyman slid into the raft. They didn’t say anything as Freya pulled out her pistol and bent down to hold the scout onto the raft. Monekyman and Lurch both started pulling frantically trying to get them back to the other side. Freya rested the business end of the gun on the enemy scout’s neck, just in case he woke up.

She looked up as they got close to their side of the river to see six marines waiting on them by the bank of the river. There were two more Marines who had jumped into the trench and joined the new guy covering them. As soon as they got close, a couple of marines broke off and jumped into the river. They grabbed the scout, who was still motionless on the raft. One of the marines pulled out Freya’s second, expired medi pen from the scout’s armor and slid another one home, before helping the other guy pull him off the raft.

Freya took that time to slide off the raft and into the river. She pulled her rifle off her back and crouched down in the water covering the others. She scanned the area, but didn’t see an enemy response. Both Monkeyman and Lurch slid off on either side of the raft into the water. Monkeyman stepped a few feet down the river and, like Freya, crouched down to cover the rest. Lurch grabbed whatever the scout had been carying and followed the other marines up onto the river bank.

Then the scout woke up. He started screaming and fighting, but there were more than enough marines to subdue him. Freya ignored them and kept watch on the other side of the river. Monkeyman grabbed the raft with one hand and pulled it with him as he walked backwards onto the river bank. Freya moved in deeper, so that she was in front of him, then waited until he was completely out of the river and had taken cover, before she turned and raced out of the river and towards the rubble where Monkeyman had taken cover.

She jumped down and banged her knee on a rock. Cursing, she adjusted herself to a more comfortable position and had her rifle up and ready in seconds. She could hear the scout as he shouted behind her. The sounds got softer as the marines carried him away. She didn’t look away from the river bank. She kept scanning the area looking for an enemy response.

“We need to get back to our position. You go first. I’ll cover you.” Monkeyman said suddenly in the silence. She nodded her head, still not looking away from the opposite side of the river bank.

“Covering.” He suddenly said, and Freya got up and ran about fifteen feet before she stopped at a large rock and took up a position to cover him.

“Go.” She whispered loudly. From the corner of her eye she saw him get up and run toward her. She heard him run past her and keep going. He slid to the ground about twenty feet or so away in a small depression in the ground.

“Go.” He whispered loudly. She turned and raced towards him. She passed him and kept on going until she got to the trench that was halfway completed. She slid into it, bumping a marine who was standing too close to the edge.

‘Move.” She whispered furiously, then turned back to Monkeyman and called for him to move. She had her rifle up covering him, but no enemy fire came. She took a few steps sideways, pushing the other marine to make room for Monkeyman. The marine finally took the hint and moved away from her. Monkeyman slid into the trench a few seconds later.

“That was fun.” He told her, as he took a position beside her.

“Lovelies got to be Lovelies.” She muttered to him.

“No, it’s lovelies got to be lovely.” He corrected her. “It means ‘you do you’. That reminds me - we really need to work on your accent. It’s horrible.” He told her, sounding amused. She punched him in the shoulder.