Freya quietly walked through the tall grass, fully upright. The grass was easily eight or so feet tall. Behind her she could hear Lurch crash his way through the same grass. While she tended to weave through the grass not leaving much of a trail, Lurch was steamrolling over everything in his path. It irritated the hell out of her. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Getting angry at him while on a patrol would not help. She needed to calm down and remain focused on what mattered.

She was still trying to calm herself down when she pushed aside some thick pieces of grass and found a large rock hidden in front of her. She stopped and waited until Lurch noticed that she wasn’t moving on his mini map. She heard him stop and shook her head. She switched out her rifles so she had the AOS ready, and climbed up the rock.

She recognized her frustration wasn’t completely Lurch’s fault. It was the eight days of no action that was getting to her. After she caught the scout things had gotten very quiet. They had spotted two more scouts that got close to the township they were taking cover in. The sergeant had sent out two groups to capture the two scouts. Freya had not been invited to either group nor had Monkeyman or Lurch. In any case, the captures had failed, leaving the enemy scouts dead.

Freya used the rock so that she could see over the very tall grass and looked around. Both Lurch and herself were running their active camo, so she wasn’t afraid that they would be spotted. Still, she only rose high enough so that she could peek over the tops of the grass stalks. She didn’t see anything but the hill that was still in the distance. She didn’t leave right away though. She watched the tops of the grass stalks, looking for movement that was not the wind. Seeing nothing, she stepped back down off the rock and continued moving forward.

Lurch had two of his drones out scouting ahead of them. One was the basic sensor alert that she had, but his had a much bigger range than her’s. The other was a surveillance drone that was currently focused on the hill in front of them. They were still too far away for the drone, so all she saw was just the front side of the hill on the feed. There wasn’t any indication that the enemy was anywhere near the hill, but the sergeant wanted the hill scouted. The enemy scout had informed them that his battalion was waiting on the other side of it.

She knew that the sergeant was getting worried about the fact they hadn’t been attacked in eight days. She was too. She was not used to this much downtime on a sim mission. Usually the downtimes only lasted a couple of days. She was not used to waiting more than a week to be attacked. Plus the mission had stated that they still had to advance at some point and attack another town. So far, the order hadn’t come down yet.

Ten minutes later, the drone was close enough that it could rise above the hill and take a peek on what was on the other side. She stopped where she was and crouched down as the drone made it over the rounded top of the hill. She watched the feed as it filmed what was on the other side. She froze at what she saw. The town was right where the sergeant had said it was. What he hadn’t said, nor, she suspected, he’d known, was that the town was occupied by at least 200 soldiers and at least a company worth of tanks.

She remained where she was as she awaited orders. She knew the feed was going to all the squad leaders plus the sergeant so she knew that she would be getting orders sometime soon. She heard some rustling behind her. Her eyes quickly raced upwards towards her HUD mini map and she let herself relax as she saw the icon for Lurch walking towards her. Lurch’s sensor drone wasn’t showing anything except for the two of them.

Even though he was only twenty feet behind her, it still took him a few minutes to reach her. She watched, amused, as he fought his way past the last bit of grass stalks between them. Instead of trying to walk between the stalks, he violently pushed his way through them. At one point he even pulled out his knife and started hacking his way forward. She winced as she thought about the trail he was leaving behind. She made a note to tell him not to do that and to teach him how to weave his way instead.

When he got to her, he pulled off his backpack and pulled out a large bag. He looked up at her and, as he did, she noted the sweat dripping down his face behind his face shield. She had acclimated to the planet’s gravity, but it appeared to her that he was still struggling. He pulled out a handful of small, one-inch circles that were paper-thin. He counted out ten and handed them to her before he dumped the rest back into his bag.

She looked down at what he gave her and had an ah-ha moment. She had seen the circles before. They were sensors that were placed on the ground and they would monitor the area for up to a week, maybe longer depending on the environment. She looked up as he grabbed her arm and traced a five then two zeros on it with his finger before he used the same hand to point to her left. She nodded as she realized he wanted her to place the sensors down up to five hundred feet away to her left. He then pointed to himself before pointing to the right. She nodded in reply. She watched him bend down and place a sensor he had pulled from his bag down at their feet.

She did the simple math in her head. She needed to place ten sensors down between her and five hundred feet. This meant she needed to place a sensor down every fifty feet. Nodded to him again she turned and started walking off to her left. As she did it started to rain again. Looking up she could still see the sun, but there were a few whitish grey clouds floating not that far away in the sky. She looked back down and continued with her task.

As she walked through the grass she thought back to why she had never used the sensors. It took her a few minutes to remember that, one, she hated to buy expensive disposable gear, and, two, she didn’t have the space on her armor for the receiver. Lurch, with his medium armor, had more than enough space for it. As she was thinking about it, she reached her first fifty-foot marker and knelt down to place the sensor in the dirt. She used her hand to shovel some dirt on top of it before she stood up and started walking towards her next marker.

The dirt was dark and moist looking. That made her think of home for the first time in a while. The land back home was nothing like the muddy but healthy-looking dirt that was all around her. The land back home was covered in granite rocks and old trash that was left over from centuries of human dumping. The pollution was worse by the seas, as sometimes a trash island would break apart and wash up near the beaches.

Pollution wasn’t the only thing that a person had to worry about when walking around outside the rez.There was more than enough landmines and other leftover war ordinance laying around that people still got hurt or even died. She made good money back when she was a kid picking up old brass shells she found in the rivers and selling them to the recycling center. You just had to know the difference between the irradiated ones and the normal ones. You could still sell the irradiated ones, but they often caused rashes and, if you were really unlucky, they could cause cancer down the road.

The rain only lasted a few minutes before it stopped, but Freya had made good time. She got to the five hundred-feet mark and dropped the last sensor before turning around and backtracking towards where they had stopped. As she walked, she checked her mini map and noted that Lurch hadn’t moved yet. She frowned as she noted that he was still sitting where they stopped. She knew that there was no way he could have accomplished setting down the sensors already. Concerned, but not alarmed,she quickened her step and made her way back to him.

He looked up at her when she slid sideways between two green grass stalks. He held up the bag then pointed to his right. She grabbed the bag, but tilted her head to the side to let him know she was wondering why he hadn’t done it. His response nearly made her laugh. He pointed behind him to the clearly marked trail he had created to get to her. Then he pointed to the non-existent path she had created on her way to place the sensors down. Shaking her head in amusement, she walked past him, and repeated what she had done from the other side.

Once she got back she tried to hand back the bag of unused sensors only for him to refuse to take it. He motioned for her to go ahead and place more lines of sensors down. He indicated that he would wait here for her while she did it. She pointed ahead of them then pointed behind them and tilted her head. He looked behind and shook his head before pointing ahead of them. She nodded her acknowledgement and started walking forwards, weaving her way through the grass stalks. As she did so, she looked at her mini map and noted that they still hadn’t received any new waypoints indicating new orders. That made her wonder what was going on back where the rest of the marines were waiting.

She left Lurch behind and made her way forward until she reached about a thousand feet and stopped. She turned to her left again and marked out five hundred feet and started walking. This time she didn’t put them all in the straight line. She moved forward about twenty-five feet each time she placed a sensor down, making a staggered line that slowly made its way forward. When she was done,she returned to where she started and did the same in the other direction. She made two more lines each about a thousand feet from each other and tried to make each sensor line as irregular as she could. It took her a quarter of an hour to complete her task and return to Lurch. By then, they had orders to return to the township.

Lurch was waiting for her when she got back. Instead of wanting to go right away he handed her a small, round box and indicated that he wanted her to bury it somewhere away from the obvious trail. She nodded to him and took the box from him. As she started walking off in a random path she looked down at what he gave her. It took a few seconds for it to click, but once it did she realized she was holding some kind of signal repeater. She knew the sensors were powerful enough that they would get the signal from their base, so she had no idea why he wanted her to bury it here. She wondered if they were for his drones. It made sense, but she wasn’t completely sure. It was the only reason she could think of to have a repeater out here. She stopped about a hundred feet or so north of their position and pulled out her trenching tool. She dug a two foot deep hole in the ground and buried the box. She made sure it was camouflaged to the best of her ability before making her way back to Lurch.

He looked up at her when she arrived back at their position. She nodded to him and he looked relieved when he nodded back to her. Then she saw him smile before he pointed towards the very obvious path he had created. She rolled her eyes and started walking down the path, leading him back towards the base. She made sure not to walk on the path, but she noted that Lurch did. She knew it was their path, but, still, she thought it was a bad habit to get into.

It took them just under an hour to get back - which was much faster than the two hours that it took them to get close enough for Lurch to use his drone. Monkeyman was waiting for them as they finished swimming across the river. He was standing at the top of the riverbank on the marines’ side of the river. He nodded to Freya as she stepped out of the water.

“Bossmon wants to see us about what you've found.” He told them, as Freya started climbing up the steep, four-foot hill that made up the river bank.

She turned around to see Lurch following her as she climbed up the steep little hill. Monkeyman held up his hand to her once she was close enough to reach it. He pulled her up then reached out again to help Lurch up the rest of the way. She turned around to scan the far side of the river, but she didn’t see any sign of the enemy. When she turned back, Monkeyman and Lurch had already started to walk away. She increased her speed to a semi-jog to catch up to them and slowed down again when she was beside Monkeyman.

“You seen the feed?” Lurch asked him.

“Yeah.” Monkeyman replied.

“What do you think we should do?” Lurch asked.

“We have two options. Attack or wait for them to attack. We’ve dug in pretty well, so it would be hard to take us here, especially with the river to slow down their vehicles. But to complete the mission we need to take that town while keeping the enemy from getting past this position here. It’s been eight days, and I have no idea why the enemy hasn’t attacked unless they are waiting for something. My guess is that they are either waiting on reinforcements or for us to attack their position.” Monkeyman said, shrugging. “What would you do, Magic?”

Freya had been looking down at her feet as he talked, thinking about what he said. She looked up and shrugged. “I’m guessing we can’t call in an artillery or air strike, right?” She asked him. When he nodded his head she looked back down at her feet thinking. “We can’t stay here, and I’m pretty sure they’ll spot most of us if we get too close. If they saw us coming that would mean a battle in the open. That would be very bad for us. We need to take out their vehicles then use hit and run tactics to whittle them down. There’s too many of them for anything else.”

She looked up to see both of them nodding their heads in agreement. “Yeah, that makes sense.” Lurch said, looking past Monkeyman to look at her.

Freya could see Monkeyman grinning. “Perfect mission for us, yeah?” He asked, looking at her.

“Oh, yeah.” Freya said, returning his grin.

They met up with the sergeant inside an old building that was mostly intact except for the roof. The other squad leaders were waiting with him. The sergeant waved them over towards some flat rocks and waved for them to sit down. Once everyone was seated, he looked at Monkeyman. Monkeyman didn’t waste time and brought up Freya’s points, giving her credit at the end.

“That’s my thoughts as well. You three up for some mischief?” He asked, after Monkeyman got done talking.

“That we are. You call the shot and we bring them down.” Monkeyman said for the three of them.

“Magic, you're the sniper here. What’s your plan?” The sergeant asked her.

Freya froze for a second, not used to being put on the spot, but quickly recovered. “We three are the only ones that have active camo in the platoon. So we get close and Lurch uses his drones to scout out the town and find our targets. Then we sneak in. Monkeyboy plants the explosives which then kills the vehicles. We then spend some time taking out the chain of command, before we retreat. We keep the pressure up so they follow us to an ambush you set up, sir.”

The sergeant shook his head and looked down. “I can see several holes in your plan. What happens if one of you gets hit or, worse, gets caught planting the explosives? Best case scenario, it will slow you down and that will force us to attack early. If things go badly then we might get overwhelmed and that will lead to mission failure.” He told them.

“It’s Monkeyman.” Monkeyman grumbled under his breath before turning towards the others. “We ain’t your normal Marines, Sarge. We got this.”

“I understand that, but this is a really shaky plan.” The sergeant told them. He looked worried to Freya. Before she could open her mouth to apologize to him, Monkeyman spoke again.

“The only other alternative is to draw their vehicles out of the town without infantry support. We might be able to pull just the infantry out, but you know, at the first sign of an attack, they will call in their vehicles for support. We can’t fight both of them at the same time. I can’t think of any way to attack without getting the vehicles involved. Can you, sir?” Monkeyman asked him.

“No.” The sergeant said, looking down at the ground.

“Then we do our jobs, like normal, and we go home early.” Monkeyman said, with a big smile.

“You sure you can pull this off?” The sergeant asked Freya.

“Of course.” Freya lied.

The sergeant took a deep breath then nodded. “Okay, then that means we need an ambush site. Any ideas?” He asked the rest of the command staff.

“Be honest Monkeyman, can we do this?” Lurch asked, after they left the meeting. Freya didn’t look up from her feet as she really wanted an answer as well.

“Honestly, maybe. If we had the resources and the people to do anything else, I would have shot the plan down. But Magic is right. We can only trust ourselves in this. I know we are good, but I don’t know that with the rest of them. Magic’s plan has the best chance of success with all the unknowns in play. That doesn’t mean if we find out the town's too well guarded we don’t bail. We sure as hell won’t do anything stupid, but it’s the best bet with what we have.” Monkeyman said softly.

“Okay.” Lurch said and Freya saw him nod from the corner of her eye.

Feeling slightly better with her plan, Freya looked up then looked at Monkeyman. “How good are you at walking in tall grass? I ask that because Lurch sucks. Before we go, I’m going to have to teach him how not to leave such an obvious trail behind us.” Freya said, smiling at Lurch from behind Monkeyman’s back.

“Better than Lurch.” Monkeyman said, sounding amused.

“Yeah, okay. I’m no scout, but I wasn’t that bad.” Lurch said, defensively.

“Yes, you were.” Freya said, trying not to laugh. Monkeyman didn’t bother trying to hide his laugh.

“Seriously, I’m not that bad.” Lurch replied.

An hour later, Freya was ready to shoot Lurch in the head. “Weave between the stalks. Don’t just plow into them.” She told him, frustrated. Monkeyman had been just as bad as Lurch at leaving a trail, but he quickly caught on to what she had been teaching him. Lurch, on the other hand, didn’t seem to get it.

“They are all tangled up with these stupid vines.” Lurch said, sounding frustrated to Freya.

“Avoid them. You’re being lazy. Look, you don’t have to walk in a straight line. Zig zag, ma brother. Every time you cut the vines you increase the possibility that you’ll break a stalk.” Monkeyman said, sounding tired from behind Freya.

Freya watched Lurch’s shoulders droop and sighed. “Let's take a break, and get something to eat.” She told him.

“No. I got this.” Lurch said, not turning around.

Freya watched as he walked forward to a new patch of grass. She moved in behind him so that she could see what he was doing. She watched him as he moved the stalks aside to his left and stepped into the opening, just like she had taught him. For the first few seconds he did fine. Then he came to a place where a bunch of stalks had grown together with a thin, vine-like thing that acted like a rope tying stalks together. She held her breath as he pulled out his knife, but he hesitated and put it away. She watched as he found an opening between the thick stalks and slid through. She smiled, but let him continue for a bit.

“Finally.” She thought to herself, as he passed yet another tangle. He was going much slower, but she didn’t mind all that much. The biggest thing to her was that he finally stopped leaving a visible trail for anyone to follow.

“Okay, you got it.” Freya said, putting her hand on his shoulder. He came to a stop and turned his head back to her. “Let’s head back. Get some food then head out. Sounds good?” She asked him.

“Did he do it?” Freya heard Monkeyman ask from somewhere behind them, hidden by the tall grass stalks.

“He’s slow, but he finally got it. Let’s eat then tell the sergeant that we are good to go.” Freya called out as she weaved her way through the grass. She pushed the last bit of grass to the side and spotted Monkeyman laying on the ground by the river. He had his hands behind his head and his feet crossed as he looked upwards. Freya smirked and shook her head at the sight.

Twenty minutes later, they were on their way, with Freya in the lead. Lurch was following about twenty feet behind her and Monkeyman covering the rear. It was slow going because Lurch had trouble keeping up, but she did have to admit that he did learn and get faster as he went along. They followed the trail that Lurch had made earlier, but off to the right by about fifty feet or so. Just enough that they could keep an eye on it with Lurch’s sensor alert drone. She didn’t have her drone out, mainly because Lurch's drone had greater range and more icons than her’s did.

She stopped right around where they stopped before and waited on the other two to catch up. Just before Lurch caught up to her, he launched a drone. She watched it readily rise into the air and fly towards the hill like before. As it rose, the drone kept its camera pointed at the hill as the sun started to set. It leveled out around a hundred feet or so in the air. She was still watching the feed when Monkeyman came up beside her and knelt down. They crouched there in the grass together, not saying anything, as the drone got closer to the hill. It started to rise again when Freya spotted something at the bottom edge of the feed.

“Stop.” She whispered. The drone immediately froze. Freya was very impressed at Lurch’s ability to control his drone so fast. She knew she could freeze a drone like that, but only with her Personal AI. She knew that he didn’t have one, which made his ability to freeze his drone that fast more impressive.

“Angle the camera down a bit.” She told him, frowning. She didn’t know what set her off, but she knew that if she ignored it she would be sorry.

“Keep going. Slower.” She told him as the camera panned downwards. “There.” She said and Lurch once more froze the drone.

“You see it?” She asked, as she turned to look at them.

“I don’t see anything.” Lurch told her, looking forward towards the hill like he could see that far away with just his eyesight. Monkeyman shook his head back and forth and shrugged his shoulders in what Freya took as an apology.

“Down about thirty feet from the center of the feed, and about forty feet to the left.” She told them. When neither of them said anything for a few seconds, she cursed mentally and looked back over the feed for something she could point to. Then she remembered she had her tablet in her backpack. Grinning, she slipped off her backpack and pulled it out.

She quickly linked the tablet to her suit then uploaded the feed’s video to it. She tapped the zoom button then used her fingers to push the picture so that what she saw was right in the middle of the tablet. She spun it around and showed her fellow squadmates, grinning. Her finger tapping lightly to show them what she spotted. She frowned when neither of them seemed to get it.

“Sorry, Magic. I don’t see anything.” Monkeyman said, sounding apologetic.

“Right here.” She said tapping the center again.

“All I see is some stalks.” Lurch told her.

Frustrated, she tapped the screen again. “Look around. Do you see the hole?” She told them. “Now look closer.”

She zoomed in a bit more so that all they saw was the black spot where the hole was between two twisted stalks. “Does that look natural?” She asked them.

She watched Monkeyman's expression change as he figured out what she was saying. Seconds later she smiled as Lurch’s expression changed as well. “Gun emplacements.” Lurch said, nodding in understanding.

“Lurch, scan the rest of the hill. Let’s see if they have any more.” Monkeyman ordered .

Lurch sent his drones along the hill and, while the other two didn’t see anything else, Freya spotted three more emplacements. There were three on the front side along the edge near the top of the hill and one on the backside of the hill. She pointed them out.

“Drop some waypoints on them so we know where they are.” Monkeyman ordered her.

Freya nearly slapped her forehead as she realized she forgot she was now a corporal and had the ability to drop waypoints on their mini maps. It would have made pointing out the first gun emplacement a lot faster. She did as he asked. She had trouble with the first one though, and had to move it a few times until she got it near it. She got better on the second one, but the last one gave her a lot of trouble. Monkeyman finally told her to give it up and leave it. It was in the general area, so he told her it was fine.

“It’s a lot easier to use in cities.” Lurch said with a kind smile on his face. “Out here where everything looks the same it gets hard.” She nodded her head, feeling slightly embarrassed.

“So, plan?” Lurch asked, after a few seconds looking at both Monkeyman and her.

“Can you get close to the town from here?” Monkeyman asked him.

“Yeah. Just a sec.” Lurch replied and the feed turned away from the hill and towards the town.

Freya watched the feed as the drone slowly flew closer to the town. It stopped about half way to it, but then Lurch zoomed in on it. “Best that I can do from here.” He told them.

“Let’s get closer then.” Monkeyman replied. “How close do you have to be to float it over the whole town?”

“Another half mile or so.” He replied to Monkeyman’s question.

“Magic, get us closer.” Monkeyman said as he turned to look at her. She nodded in reply and moved deeper into the grass, staying crouched, just in case.

She stopped twenty minutes later and waited for the other to catch up to her. Lurch must have seen her stop because he sent up another drone. The last drone’s feed had ended abruptly when she started walking forward, so Freya guessed he must have killed it. He drove this drone a bit faster this time. She watched the feed as the drone sped over the hill and flew towards the town. He stopped it when it was about over the center of the town. A couple of seconds later he came up beside her and crouched down.

“I see six tanks, and eight other vehicles. Most of them armored as well.” Lurch told them quietly, once Monkeyman caught up to them.

“Their defensive line is pretty sloppy.” Freya pointed out. Circling the town was a bunch of sandbag bunkers, but they were pretty far away from each other. She didn’t spot any turrets in the feed, nor did she see any big guns in the bunkers. The soldiers mostly had their personal weapons to defend themselves inside the bunkers. She did spot that they had the two roads that led into and out of the town covered with bigger weapons inside the bunkers that were beside the roads. She figured it covered the road pretty good, but the rest of the defensive line was weak.

“You going to have enough explosives to take out all the vehicles?” Lurch asked Monkeyman.

“Yes and no.” Monkeyman replied, looking forward. “But I don’t think that’s going to be that big of a deal. I have enough to take out the tanks and a few of the bigger vehicles, but not all of them. I say we focus all our explosives on the vehicles that can drive off the road safely. After that, I have some mines we can place on the road. It might not take them all out, but it will slow them down. Me and Magic can snipe the rest when they get close. She can use her huge-ass rifle and I have my big bang.” He told them, as he reached up and patted his bazooka.

“Sounds good. How do you want to do this?” Lurch asked, nodding his head up and down. Freya nodded as well when Monkeyman looked at her.

“We mine the road then circle around to the back of the town. Magic covers us while we plant the explosives on the tanks. Then we run while they go up in flames. The guns on the hill will be a problem though. Not sure what to do about them.” Monkeyman told them.

“If we can plant the explosives without alerting them, I say we sneak up the hill and take them out using the bombs to distract them. If we’re spotted we can leave them alone for now and make for the ambush sight. I can cover you guys until you leave town. I follow you two after you're safe.” Freya told them.

“Sounds good.” Monkeyman said nodding his head in agreement. “We just have to not get caught mining the road.”

“That’s all good and all, but how are we going to get them to follow us to the ambush site?” Lurch asked them. “After our attack, no one will be stupid enough to follow us.”

Freya turned to look at Monkeyman hoping he had an answer. To her disappointment she saw that he was looking at her with the same expression that she was sure she had on her face. She looked away from him to see Lurch shaking his head in mock sadness.

“We don’t have to have everyone come after us. I’m sure they’ll send out a patrol and we can lead them back to the ambush site. We whittle them down slowly until we can take the town without too many casualties.” She told him, making it up on the spot. She looked at Monkeyman for help and he nodded his head.

“They weren’t ever going to follow us into the grassland. We just need to take out those vehicles. Even if we die, they will still send out patrols to find the rest of us. The plan still works either way.” Monkeyman replied, looking at her.

“Just making sure you two big-brains know what we are doing.” Lurch said looking at both of them. “What are we waiting for? Let's stick this pig.”