Freya looked behind her at the hill the enemy was shelling and shook her head. The entire hill was on fire. They had circled around the hill, keeping towards the base of it, as the enemy focused on the middle and top. It wasn’t a stupid way to go, but Freya would haved walked the shells up from the bottom of the hill towards the top instead of just randomly shelling different parts of the hill. Still the enemy fire was hard to predict and it certainly set the grass stalks and the entire hill on fire. The only problem with that was the wind was blowing towards the city so, while the fire was spreading north and south-ish, it was mostly moving towards the city. She wondered if they would have to evacuate the outer parts of the city.

She led her squad mates towards the ambush site. It was on the other side from where Lurch had his sensors. They moved quickly and in less than fifteen minutes they got to the ambush site. She noted on her mini map that the rest of the platoon was set up in groups of four and spaced out about fifty feet or so in a staggered line, with two groups set perpendicular to everyone else in the line, making an irregular L-shape.

“Friendlies coming in.” Freya said softly over her speakers. Normally she wouldn’t have bothered, but she didn’t know these people and couldn’t trust them not to get trigger happy.

“Come in.” Came the response.

Freya led her team past the waiting Marines. She noted that most of them did keep their discipline and didn’t get distracted as they passed by. There were a few who watched them, but for the most part the Marines did their job and focused on their task. She found the sergeant’s group and made her way towards them.

“How did it go?” The Sergeant whispered as they got close.

“Easy.” Monkeyman replied. “Far too easy.” He then explained what he meant to the sergeant as he went over what they did and saw.

The sergeant cursed. “That means I screwed up.” He told them, looking down at the ground, and to Freya he looked nervous. She watched him for a little bit, but he didn’t say or do anything for about fifteen seconds or so before he looked up at the sky and muttered. “Lesson learned.”

He looked down and at her. “They’re going to break. Magic, take your squad and head towards waypoint one. I want you to hit them hard and fast. Take the boot. Go fast, but no stupid deaths. I’ve already taken a hit. I can’t afford it if you or your people get overconfident. Drive the enemy towards the roads on the other side of the town. I’ll split up the platoon and have them push towards the town. Hopefully we can crush them as they leave. Break away if the fighting gets too tough. Push them, but be smart about it. At oh four thirty start your attack. Got it?” He asked, looking at her.

Freya glanced at Monkeyman, but when the sergeant didn’t stop looking at her she told him she understood. She got up and the rest of her squad mates got up with her. They left the sergeant's group as one and moved towards where the recruit’s group was located. Once they were out of earshot she quickly looked at Monkeyman and apologized to him.

“No worries, shiv. I can be the man behind the talking head.” He said with a grin. “Let’s go find our wayward recruit and get a move on.”

The platoon was breaking up to move as they grabbed their fellow squad mate and headed towards the hill once more. This time, Freya led them around the opposite side of the hill from where they had come from while heading towards the ambush site. She noted that the fire on the hill was mostly out leaving a wide swath of blackened dirt in its wake as they walked past it. She could still see smoke rising behind the hill, so she assumed that the fire was still going. She hoped it wouldn’t affect their attack, but she knew the sergeant had given them more than enough time to set up if it did in some way affect them. They had about two hours until the time of attack.

They found the boot waiting on them with an eager expression. Monkeyman waved at him as they went by. Freya scouted ahead, but could hear both Monkeyman and Lurch explain the plan to the new guy. Sneaking around the hill was a lot easier than Freya expected. There was a lot of smoke to reduce their visibility, but their armor prevented any health concerns. Lurch had a sensor drone up so, while the smoke affected their vision, the drone kept them from walking into any ambushes. All she had to do was watch her mini map while at the same time keep aware of her surroundings.

As she walked past the unburnt grass stalks, she had a ah-ha moment when she realized that their armor would most likely protect them from the fire for a few minutes. Shaking her head at how stupid she was at times, she kept moving. Once past the hill, she had to circle around large swaths of burnt out areas. The fire had completely burned away the tall grass stalks leaving only blackened ground behind.

That gave her ideas on possible different ways their mission could have gone if they had deliberately set fires and used it for cover when attacking the town. That led to her questioning the sergeant’s ability to tactically plan attacks. She felt bad about it, but it didn’t go away. She rationalized her critique as how could he have known just how flammable the grass was? Or how much smoke it would produce? Still it bothered her a bit.

She stopped about a hundred feet from the city in a grassy area that the fire had missed, and waited on her squad. It didn’t take long for them to catch up. She looked back to see Monkeyman arrive first quickly followed by the boot and finally Lurch. The boot looked remarkably calm to her eyes. She didn’t know why, but she expected him to be twitchy and overly excited. Contrary to her expectations he moved well. He moved better than Lurch through the grass. She smiled and shook her head as she heard Lurch come stomping in. He looked like he was trying his best - at least she hoped he was. He still left more of a trail than she wanted, but she didn’t think it mattered now so she kept her mouth shut. The boot on the other hand moved fairly well. Monkeyman moved better, but not by a lot.

“So how are we going to do this?” The boot asked. “Where do you want me?”

Freya nearly facepalmed herself. She had assumed that they would do something like they did before, but she had totally forgotten about adding in the boot.. She didn’t do it on purpose, but she mentally kicked herself for not thinking about it. She looked to Monkeyman, who returned the look at her with an embarrassed expression on his face.

“What’s your template again?” Monkeyman asked, looked over at the recruit.

“Heavy assault with health mods.” He replied. “But I was thinking of switching over to demo or sniper.”

“Wait, you can do that?” Freya asked, taken by surprise. When everyone looked at her with a confused expression on their face she clarified. “I mean switch templates.”

“Sure, it’s best to do it when you're a recruit otherwise you might waste Skill Points.” Lurch told her. “How do you not know this?”

“I didn’t spend a lot of time as a recruit.” Freya said, feeling her face get red. “We don’t have the time to talk about it right now. We need to figure out what we’re going to do with the boot.”

No one said anything for a few seconds, and she got the feeling that they wouldn’t let it go. To prevent more embarrassing questions from popping up she turned to the boot and started asking him questions, trying to figure out where to put him.

“You want to hang back with me to work on your Golden E or do you want to go blow things up with Monkeyboy?” She asked him.

“Monkeyman.” Monkeyman muttered back darkly.

His smile got very big, but she noted he took his time answering her question. “I want that E, but I also want to blow things up. Screw it, I’ll stick back here with you if you’ll let me.” He finally answered. “That way I can see if I want to go the scout route.”

“Fine by me.” She said looking at Monkeyman with a mischievous smile on her face. “You good with that, Monkeyboy?

“You’re not going to let that one go are you?” He asked her.

“Nope.” She told him happily.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” He said as he looked away from her towards the boot. “Now, what are we going to talk about for the next forty-five minutes?” He asked, as he turned back to Freya with a huge grin on his face.

“We really should follow protocol here, and keep the excess chatter to a minimum.” Freya said, turning away and bringing her large rifle up to scan the town. She quickly realized that, one, she was too far away to see anything through all the grass between her and the town, and, two, the others had no intention of ignoring her stupid remark.

“Fine, I got a battlefield promotion after a few tier one missions. It was an invite-only mission led by my first lieutenant.” She told them, breaking down after ignoring their excessive questions for nearly ten minutes.

“You must have impressed someone pretty high up to get an invite to that without going to an academy before you enlisted.” Lurch said, sounding impressed.

“What’s an invite-only mission? I thought officers didn’t actively do sim missions. At least that’s what my dad told me.” The boot asked, sounding hurt - like his dad had lied to him or something. At least that was what Freya took his tone to sound like.

“It comes up when two LTs are the same rank, and they need to figure out who is going to lead what division. It’s not uncommon, but it doesn’t happen all that often.” Lurch told him. “I’ve never been on an invite-only mission.”

“I have.” Monkeyman replied. “It was a beast of a mission. Spent more time dead than alive.”

“Yeah, my mission was bad as well. We had to charge this beach after landing in an amphibious assault. The enemy had the entire beach under auto turrets and mortars. They mowed us down like you wouldn’t believe.” Freya told them, lost in a memory of her using Jesus’s body to hide behind when she got close enough to the turrets to take them down.

“Oh wow.” The boot exclaimed. “Do you think we might have one this time?”

“Don’t know.” Monkeyman replied. “I haven’t checked our chain of command yet. It’s possible.”

“Guys. We’re on a mission here. We can talk later. Let’s focus on what we’re doing.” Lurch said, suddenly breaking into their conversation.

Freya, feeling embarrassed, nodded to Lurch. “I’m going to get closer to the town. Boot, if you still want to work on your E then come with me. We’ll stay outside of the town, but find someplace safe that we can still cover you two.” She told Monkeyman and Lurch.

“Sounds good.” Monkeyman replied. “Do you want us to send you a signal when we’re heading in?”

“Naw, just make sure to attack on time. We should be fine.” Freya told them as she expanded her mini map looking for a good place to set up a sniper nest. She didn’t want to head back to the hill, but wanted an area where the boot could shoot from without the tall grass getting in the way. She didn’t find anything that stood out to her, so she led the boot towards the town near where the fire had burnt off the grass.

She eventually settled on the outer rim between the still smoldering grass and the town. It was about a hundred yards from the town and slightly higher than the town proper. She laid down and low-crawled towards the edge of the grass. She stopped about five feet from the edge and waved for the boot to come to her. She noted in relief that he followed her example and crawled to where she was.

“I’ll call the shots, you fire only when I tell you.” She whispered to him. “Take your time. This is not a race. If you miss, do not shoot again unless I tell you too. Understood?”

She looked over at him as he nodded to her. She watched him bring up his crappy rifle. The rifle, she noted, didn’t have a scope on it - only iron sights. She was tempted to lend him her’s, not the E.S.I., the Irish Nester, but she didn’t know if it was allowed or if it would affect his chances of getting the Golden E. In the end she left him alone with his crappy rifle.

The sun hadn't risen yet when the time to attack came. The bunkers around the town had their lights on, shining away from the town. Freya’s scope easily defeated the lights so she could see beyond them. She took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. Her rifle vibrated in her hands as the light in front of her shattered. Quickly repositioning, she took out several more, leaving almost a hundred and fifty feet of darkness around the town.

“Bunker to our right. Two targets.” Freya told the boot as soon as the lights were out. Quickly checking her scope for information she related it to him. “Three hundred and twenty feet, cross wind to the left at four miles an hour. Fire when ready.”

To her relief the boot took a couple of seconds before firing. In the background she could hear sirens going off. She hadn’t seen either of her two other squad mates yet, but assumed they had to be trying to sneak into the town at that moment. She was still thinking about them when the boot fired. She smiled when the closest target in the bunker dropped.

“Hit. Target is down.” She told him, not looking away from her scope. She noted the second target crouch down, but he still had his head above his sandbag bunker. “Wind has changed. We now have gusts up to seven miles an hour. Watch the crosswinds.”

“Copy.” He told her then fired again. This time he missed. She saw the impact striking the back of the bunker.

“Miss. Come down one and to your right two. Fire when ready.” She told him, noting the target duck down for a second before his head popped up. The enemy soldier apparently panicked because he opened fire blindly in front of him. The incoming fire was nowhere near where they were, but she admitted that it might distract the boot.

The boot fired a second shot at the same target and missed again. This time Freya didn’t waste time and pulled her trigger. The target dropped in her scope. “Bunker to our left. Two targets. Three hundred and sixty feet out. Adjust for the wind. It took your last shot three feet to the target’s left and down a foot.” She told the boot.

“Copy.” He replied. A few seconds later he fired again and missed. The enemy wasn’t as panicky as before and they adjusted their fire near where they were laying. The enemy fire was coming in about ten or so feet to their left, but it was very distracting.

“Miss. Up a foot and two feet to the target;s left. You’re over-adjusting. Take a breath and don’t let it get to you. We have the time.” She told him as she saw both Monekyman and Lurch already inside the town. She knew they needed to move soon, but wanted to give the boot another chance.

He fired his fifth shot and the target went down, but the other enemy soldier readjusted his fire. Freya could hear the shots snap and crack over her head as she quickly pulled the trigger and dropped the second target. She grabbed the noot’s armor and pushed him backwards as she moved in the same direction.

“Repositioning.” She called out to him as she got up and started to run, crouched over. She saw him do the same on her mini map.

A few seconds later, mortar shells started to fall where they had been shooting from. She led him about two hundred feet away then dropped to the ground. She looked over at the town to get an idea on how she wanted to get inside. The enemy were shining their lights towards the no man’s land between the town and the unburnt grass like spot lights. It was, she admitted, crude but effective. She got an idea. It was a stupid and risky idea, but she didn’t have any other ideas to get past the lights.

She targeted the lights on the far side of the area where she had shot them out. Her plan was to make it seem like they were attacking from the other side from where they were. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was all she could think of at that second. She quickly went down the bunkers shooting out the lights. The enemy lights on their side were suddenly aimed to cover that area and the mortar shells started blankeding that area. She smiled and motioned for the boot to follow her as she low-crawled under the enemy lights.

She was much faster than the boot and when she got across she had to wait nearly thirty anxious seconds for him to make it across. When he got close to the bunker she jumped up from beside it and quickly killed the two inside with her Irish Nester rifle. She didn’t think they ever saw the boot, let alone her with her active camo on. She motioned for the boot to stand up and follow her.

As she led him deeper into the town she could hear explosions going off somewhere close by. She smiled because she knew it was Monkeyman doing his thing. She found a two-story building and led the boot towards the small alleyway that was beside it. The building was made up of the same crappy concrete that every other building in the town was made of, which meant that she quickly found a route she could climb her way up.

“Can you climb this?” She asked the boot as he stopped beside her. She noted he was breathing harder than he should be.

“I can try.” He replied to her. She watched him look at the side of the building and noted that he didn’t look all that confident.

“Wait here. Once I get to the top, I’ll drop a rope. We can’t afford you falling.” She told him, feeling slightly bad about not trusting him. She quickly found the first hand-hold and rose steadily upwards. A few seconds later, she pulled her backpack off, pulled out her medium-sized rope and dropped it over the side. Once it was hanging down she looked around, checking on what was happening.

Two blocks away, her mini map showed Lurch without active camo hiding behind a burnt out vehicle, being shot at. She quickly rose until she was standing and could see the firefight while wondering why he didn’t have his active camo on. She swiftly dismissed that thought, as she spotted him and four enemy soldiers that were converging on his position from behind him. He didn’t appear to notice that he was about to get flanked. She quickly snapped off four shots from her Nester and, to her relief, all four of the enemy soldiers dropped. She then adjusted her rifle so that she could see who was firing at her squad mate from in front of him.

She saw six enemy soldiers shooting at him from a bunker that was in front of a building. She was about to shoot at the closest one when she heard the boot finally make it up onto the roof. She heard the sounds of his boots as he climbed over the rim of the roof and his grunting as he pulled himself over. She pulled the trigger and dropped the enemy as she heard the sounds of him raising his rifle. It was the odd sound of metal and the almost whisper-quiet rustling of his crappy cloth-like armor.

“Forty-three feet to my left. Large building with sandbags in front of it. Five targets. Wind less than 1 mile an hour. I’ll take the three to the left and you take the two on the right. Fire as soon as you get a target.” She told him as she pulled the trigger when one of her targets popped his head out to shoot at Lurch - who was exposed as he fired at them. She dropped her target. Lurch ducked under cover.

She heard the boot fire, but none of the targets fell. She dropped another target as she used her scope to see his bio-electrical energy on her scope. The boot fired again, and missed a second time. She killed her last target as he backed up for some reason, giving her a perfect target to shoot at. She turned towards the last two targets and got an idea.

“On the count of three, aim at the far end of the boxes. I’ll make your target pop his head out.” She told him as she targeted to the left of where the target was crouched. She counted to two and pulled the trigger - deliberating missing. The target jerked to the right after her round burst through the boxes - leaving himself exposed. The boot took the shot and this time the target dropped.

“Nice shot.” She complimented him as she reloaded the battery on the Nester.

As she was doing that, the last enemy exposed himself as he ran away. It took the boot two shots to hit the running man, but in the end he did hit his target. She looked in Lurch’s direction, but saw that he had already moved two streets down, his active camo back on. She smiled as she noted that he used his time wisely and hadn’t waited for them to kill everyone, but she was worried about why he dropped his active camo.

“We need to reposition.” She told the Boot as she turned back to the edge behind them.

“We just got here.” The boot complained, sounding slightly amused to Freya.

“Welcome to the Scout’s life. Wait four hours to shoot once then run away.” Freya told him, as she threw herself over the edge and down the rope. She landed fairly quickly and took up guard position until the boot landed beside her.

“Yeah, I think I’m going to go with demo’s. I’m nowhere as good as you.” He told her, as she moved towards the edge of the building to check their surroundings.

“You’re not that bad.” She told him as she thought. “You’re also not that great either.”

She led him down a street, only to curse as she spotted several enemy soldiers closing in on their position. She paused to look around, but the boot didn’t hesitate. He ran towards a small, dark store. Cursing under her breath, she chased after him. He got to the store first, tried to kick the door in and failed. Smirking, she ran past him and kicked at the door. This time the door broke open.

Not wasting time, she ran in with her gun raised. She quickly moved left and scanned the store as the boot came in. He went right after closing the door behind him, making the store even darker. She hoped his armor had dark vision as she looked around the mostly empty bicycle shop. She noted there were several rows of hanging bikes, but for the most part the store was an open space. She took note of a door at the far end of the shop and moved quickly towards it. On her mini map she noted the boot following her.

As soon as she reached the door, she kicked it in. This time the boot went first and she followed him. The back room was a third of the size of the store, and was just as open as the shopfront was. It had a few work benches on the sides, and a large metal table in the middle with a bike that had been taken apart or was maybe being put together. She was not sure. The important fact was that she didn’t see anyone in the room. There was another door that had a fire alarm handle on it that she guessed led outside. As soon as she finished scanning the room she turned around and part-closed the door to the shopfront, leaving only a crack to see out of.

“Now what?” The boot asked her in a whisper.

She held her hand up for him to be quiet as she looked through the door and out the window at the front of the store. A few seconds later, she saw a squad of ten soldiers pass by the store. They were running and looked disorganized. She counted to ten after the last one passed before she closed the door.

“We’re good now.” She told the boot.

“So what’s the plan?” He asked her, smiling.

“You have any grenades left?” She asked him, smiling back at him.

A few minutes later, she closed her sabotage kit back up and opened the door out the back. To her relief the alarm didn’t sound. Smiling, she led the boot out the back of the building and towards where the enemy squad had gone. Lurch’s drones were down. She hoped he was just in the middle of something and couldn’t get a new set up, but she sent her own sensor drone up just in case. About thirty seconds or so later, it pinged - telling her that it had found the squad that had passed them by. Worse, it found where they had been heading to.

She stopped behind a building and looked out to see them loading themselves into what looked like two APCs. The personnel carriers were only halfway loaded, but were filling fast. She looked behind her and motioned for the boot to move ahead of her and look. He did as she asked and then turned to look at her. She held up two grenades and handed him one. She pointed to herself then to the right. She then pointed at him then pointed to the left. She looked at him to make sure he understood. He nodded and smiled.

Smiling back she crept up beside him then gave a two-count with her fingers. As soon as she finished, both her and the boot stepped forward into the open and tossed their grenades. Her target was the farthest away, but even then it was only about twenty-five feet or so to the back of the APC. Her grenade found its way into the back easily as the door was closing. She quickly ducked back behind cover in case the gunner spotted her. She didn’t see where the boot’s grenade went.

A second later there were two muffled explosions. Freya peeked around the corner and saw smoke billowing out from the two APCs. She waited a few seconds to see if anyone survived the attack, but there was no movement. Still not taking any chances she turned back around to the boot.

“We need to make sure they are out of commission. Cover me.” She told him, looking into his eyes to make sure he understood the importance of what she was asking.

She waited for him to nod then raced out from behind the building and towards the two vehicles. Expecting a bullet to hit her, she was pleasantly surprised when she reached the vehicles. She leaned against the armored truck and looked back towards the boot. She spotted him actively scanning the area with his rifle. Nodding at his competence, she turned back towards her task.

She found an electronic port in the side of the vehicle that she guessed was used for maintenance. She quickly hacked her way in with her personal AI and found a limited menu. It was enough though. as she found that there were no life signs inside the truck that the boot had tossed his grenade into. Then she changed the passwords on the truck. While everyone was dead inside the truck it was still operational. The last thing she wanted was for them to recover the truck and use it against her people.

She hacked her way into the second truck, but this time found a soldier that was alive. He was listed as critical condition though and unconscious. The truck asked her to request an emergency Evac for the soldier. Fearing that it might set off an emergency beacon for the injured soldier, she quickly hacked her way into the radio. She found the beacon she was worried about and turned it off. She then changed the passwords for this truck as well. While she could have opened the truck and killed the injured soldier, she was worried about the fact that the beacon had been activated already. She left the injured soldier behind and ran back to where the boot was waiting on her, then left the area in search of more targets.

Five minutes of fruitless searching later, the blue screen appeared before her telling her the last objective had been completed. It requested her to find the door to the lobby and return to the October. Smiling, she relaxed and led the boot to where the waypoint indicated the door was. They were nearly the last people to get there, and the sergeant, who was waiting, nodded to them and waved them in. She let the boot go first then, smiling, she followed stepping into the light.