Freya smiled as the controller on the October gave her permission to leave. She loved flying. It felt freeing to her. Like no matter what was going on in her life she still had her ship and the freedom of space. Her cockpit felt more like home than her barracks room back on the Monarch. She was not sure when it started to feel that way, whether before she went on the real world mission or maybe during, but it was hers and hers alone now. She took a deep breath and let it out as she passed under the October and flew around her towards the mission planet.

She checked on her respawn pods and smiled as she saw that they were almost done with the first batch of respawns from ourth Squad. She had timed them to be done just as she was entering the Krmán line for this planet, the imaginary line where the atmosphere of the planet started. She then wanted the rest of the squad done by the time she got to the mission area. That way she could just unload them and move off to her deployment area and not worry about waiting in the valley for them to spawn. She looked away and back towards the feed of the October as she flew under it.

The October, she reflected as she watched it on her sensor, was different than how the Monarch looked. The Monarch was wider while the October was much skinnier. The Monarch was built horizontally, with the widest part on top, while the October was built vertically with its widest part along her side. She still had the two huge guns on the top with countless smaller guns on the sides just like the Monarch, but she looked like a very wide skyscraper instead of the flattish chunk of metal that was the Monarch. Not to say that the Monarch looked like a chunk of metal, she didn’t, but it was the best way Freya could describe it to herself. The October was much smoother-looking on the outside than the Monarch, who had a lot of edges in her design. In the end, Freya decided that they were both very beautiful ships in their own way.

Freya tore her eyes away from her ship and towards the mission planet. It was a whitish-grey planet with large, greyish-dark clouds swirling around. The poles of the planet were whiter than the rest, sticking out in how white they looked compared to the more greyish-looking color on the rest. She checked her sensors, and saw that they had picked up some satellites in orbit, but nothing alien nor military. According to her sensors they were terraforming satellites. They were spread out enough that Freya didn’t think she would have any problems getting past them. She did find it novel to see satellites floating around a planet. Most planets, even the very poor planets like Earth, stopped using them many years ago, well before she had been born. Nowadays, they were really only common on planets that the Federation was in the process of terraforming.

That made her check the mission planet more thoroughly on her computer. There were a lot of things she needed to know about a terraforming planet. both as a pilot and a combatant. Like if there were explosive gases on the planet, or were there storms she needed to be aware of that might change where she wanted to deploy her ship. She really hated how fast they were being thrown into this mission. In the wave mission it didn’t matter all that much because it was mostly the same mission all the time. Here, she didn’t know any of the important things she really needed to, and that could blow up in her face in a big way.

The planet, she learned, was in the middle stages of terraforming. They had gotten much of the excess ammonia out of the atmosphere, and were in the process of removing it from the water on the surface. They had also just finished adding single oxygen atoms to the air to create an ozone layer to protect from solar radiation, but it was still in a slightly unstable state. The gas used to prevent the oxygen atoms from combining had to be phased out without the whole thing collapsing. It wasn’t anything she had to worry about, but it did explain all the terraforming satellites orbiting the planet. It also told her that large scale war would set the terraforming of the planet back decades.

Thinking about the terraforming brought back memories of her time learning how to pilot a dropship back in the learning facility. If she remembered right, and depending on what was available in the system, there might be a space station orbiting around the planet. She double-checked her sensors, but they didn’t find any. She didn’t have time to check the rest of the system, but she wasn’t worried. There might not be any asteroids that were big enough for a station to be built. Still, she mentally noted it just in case, as she broke past the Kármán line.

That made her realize that so far there was no anti-ship fire from the planet. That didn’t mean that they weren’t watching her, she was sure that they were, but it could mean that they hadn’t taken the planet that long ago, and hadn’t had time to set up any defenses. That bode well for the mission in her mind. She hoped that it would give them enough time to search for survivors before they were discovered. Still, she had no idea what the tier of this mission was. She knew that the missions were still locked at tier one, but so far this tryout was ignoring a lot of the ‘normal’ rules.

Her pod bay sensors alerted her that the first batch of marines had just been spawned and the second round was underway. She looked at the camera in the bay and saw them getting dressed up in their armor. She spotted their squad leader,Bess, and keyed up the back radio.

“Hey Bess, five minutes and some change until we are on the ground. No signs of any anti-ship weapons so far, but keep your people secured just in case.” She told the other woman.

“On it. Why the long flight time?” Bess asked, looking right at Freya through the camera.

“Wanted a long lead to hide your LZ. It also gives us enough time to get all of your squad spawned, and ready to go.” Freya replied.

“Sounds good.” Bess said, nodding at the camera before she turned away to check on the rest of her squad.

Freya turned away from the camera and back to her flying. She had planned out two flight paths. Her first flight path had her going straight down to level out around two hundred feet above the ground, which didn’t give her a lot of room to maneuver, but was safer than trying to dodge anti-ship fire. Her time to death in case something went wrong was about a second at that height. Her second route, the one she was currently following, had her flying at near orbit for about two minutes, normally a thing she would never attempt, but since she had received no anti-ship fire she felt safer to do so.

She used that time to get a good scan of the planet and look for enemy positions. She was going a bit fast so she had time to scan a large portion of the planet. At the two minute mark, she warned her passengers and sent her scans to the command staff before making a sudden, and she hoped an unexpected, descent towards the planet surface. She powered up her engines and rocketed downwards. She checked on her passengers, but to her relief they took her warning seriously and had braced themselves for the sudden change.

She turned away from her screen and paid more attention to her sensors. She didn’t see any enemy aircraft, but knew that the enemy had to be tracking them. It only took forty-one seconds to reach two hundred feet, but Freya held her breath the whole time. Normally, flying towards the planet surface was mostly safe from any anti-ship weapons once a ship got past the red zone, but since she spent so much time orbiting the planet she knew they would have far more time to target her ship. That meant that the red zone before she was safe was much larger than it would have normally been.

She didn’t see any signs of the enemy as she leveled out and flew a long loop towards Fourth Squad’s LZ. That worried her. She knew it might be because they weren't ready for her descent, but it also could be that they had somehow already figured out where she was going and were waiting on her. If they could somehow corrupt the data on respawns, then what else could they do? She wouldn’t put it past Mother to put something like that in the mission. She had her ship's guns ready, and she was ready to break away at a moment's notice. There was not much else she could do. Not now. She was fully committed.

Her ship dinged telling her the second batch of spawns were done twenty seconds out from the LZ. She updated her passengers and the bay got very crowded as the last of the Fourth Squad was spawned. She cut power to her engines, so she could coast the rest of the way in, and had her ship passively scan the area for anyone, either friendly or not, as she glided silently towards the LZ.

“Hot drop in five.” She told the people in the back, as she turned the lighting from the normal white to red in warning. She gave them a countdown as she used her maneuvering engines to slow her ship down and go in for a landing. She didn’t bother with her landing struts and just dropped the ramp in the back of the ship.

Over the radio she heard Bess yell, “Go, go, go!” as she led her marines down her ramp.

“No signs of anyone in the immediate area.” She told Bess as soon as she was off her ship and on the mission planet. Bess didn’t reply and Freya assumed she was too busy getting her squad set up to defend the dropship in case of an ambush. It was standard practice even if there wasn’t anyone in the area.

“Leaving now.” She warned the squad leader once the last marine was off the ramp. She didn’t bother waiting on the ramp to close as she took off and raced towards her deployment area. She looked at her feed showing the squad she had just dropped off already moving away from the LZ. She noted that the ground was covered in green, wet-looking grass that was leaving stains on the marines as they got up and moved away. It was unexpected, as combat armor was designed not to get dirty because it could affect the passive camo. She made a note and sent it off as a message to the command staff with a close-up picture of one of Bess’s squadmates, who was covered in the odd-looking grass stain.

It took her fifty-two seconds to get to her deployment spot and she slowed down as she flew into the weird, covered canyon. The feed from outside her ship as she landed inside the covered part of the canyon showed that maybe deploying there wasn’t the best idea,as the rock above her was very thin. While it wouldn’t give her any protection if her position got shelled, it still helped camouflage her ship.

It never crossed her mind that it would be so thin. Still, it was better than nothing. If it came down she doubted it would do anything to her ship, but if there were marines outside at the time, it might be a problem. She took a picture and sent off a message warning all the squad leaders about the danger, as she set down on her landing struts and turned on the active camo.

She set her ship’s weapons auto-targeting from defensive to offensive, so it would now actively seek out vehicles or troops if they got close enough. Then she settled back to wait for her turn to spawn. She did scan the area, but it came back with nothing interesting except rocks and more rocks. She noted that there was none of that wet grass near her ship. She had spotted a few green patches on the way in on the mountain range, but her scanners didn’t find any nearby.

Unicorn and Second Squad were spawned next. Freya noted that she had the first of her squad put down several auto turrets to protect the ship as they waited for the rest to spawn. It was something that they never did in her last platoon, and since it was such a simple thing they should have done it any time she had deployed. Granted, she never had the chance once she had the dropship training, but it was such a simple tactic that she was surprised that no one else in the platoon had come up with it. Especially after her ship got broken into on a sim mission in the past. Freya also watched as Unicorn had two of her people mine the surrounding area in a complete circle. It took a few extra minutes, but Freya was very glad they took the time before they wandered off.

The next squad to spawn was Third Squad with Fred. As soon as Fred was dressed, he stopped and didn’t get out of the bay like the rest of his squad. He just froze in front of the pod by the locker, and seemed to stare at her ship's bulkhead. About a minute or so later he looked up at her camera and shook his head.

“Thanks for the information, Magic.” He told her, seemingly looking right at her. “But a bit much. Next time send everything with the high priority tag, but not the long scan of the planet from orbit. Don’t get me wrong - it’s good info, but I wouldn’t send it with a priority tag.”

“Sorry.” Freya told him, feeling slightly embarrassed.

“Don’t worry, I’ve changed it.” He told her with a smile.

She watched him leave her ship and wondered what else she screwed up. She went through her messages and saw that he had indeed changed her message to show low priority. He also moved up her message about the grass stains on the armor and put a star on the heading line. She knew that anything that left a grass stain on their armor was important, but she didn’t get why it got moved up to the top of the list and starred as ‘read immediately’.

She frowned as she thought about it. Not wanting to ask him, and possibly look like an idiot, she checked her computer to see why. Her frown deepened when she read just how bad it could be if anything got past the anti-stain guard on the armor. In bold capital letters, the computer told her that it could affect active camo, reducing its effectiveness. It told her it was very rare, but it did happen. She read that some low-tech planets who discovered how to bypass the stain guard used the information to set early warning traps. She had no idea that was even possible. It never came up in any of her training, and that made her question why.

She did a deeper search and found out why. There were very few chemicals that could bypass the stain guard and, once reported the stain guard was updated for free as soon as possible. There was even a law about how any company that sold armor to any of thel branches of the Federation militaries had to have the ability to update their stain guard as soon as possible. Since she had the time, she went deeper to look for the reason why it was a law, and she found an article about how the law came from the revolution. According to what she read, the colonies had used it as a tactic against the empire. The corporations at the time took their time updating their stain guards, to the empire’s detriment, costing them several battles. Not that there was active camo tech during the war like there was now, but the reduction of the passive camo was still big enough for the empire to lose several battles. The Federation wasn’t stupid, and made sure no one could use those tatics against them in the future. Hence the law.

She had lost track of time as she read and was surprised when she was notified that it was time to despawn so that she could spawn in her clone. She looked up and did one last sensor sweep, but found nothing out of the ordinary. She checked, and made sure her ship’s guns were still active and switched to target ground troops. Not seeing anything else she needed to do, she despawned out of her cockpit.

She opened her eyes to find herself in a pod. She quickly opened the door and went to the locker beside it. As soon as she equipped her armor and slipped her weapons on, she followed the rest of her squad out of the dropship. She made sure she was the last one out and closed the ramp, as there was no one left to spawn. She found Cannon waiting on her by the bottom of the ramp. She nodded to the squad leader who nodded back.

“On me.” Cannon called out, as she started walking towards the front of the dropship. “Drake wants us to do a grid search from here to the top of the mountain. He split the rest of the fire teams and sent them down the mountain. That means that we are going up the mountain in a zigzag pattern that will include some of the ridge on either side. He wants us to stop when we reach this height on the other side and wait for the rest of the squad.”

Cannon had stopped at the nose of the ship as she explained the plan. She gave Freya a nod, motioning her to take the lead. Freya nodded in reply and started walking up and to the right. She noted that Cannon hadn’t set any waypoints, so she looked over at her mini map and created her own path. She zoomed her map out and dropped a personal waypoint where she thought she should turn towards the next dog-leg of the switchback.

“What are our orders if we find the civilians?” Lurch asked over the fire team’s talk-around radio channel.

“Make sure they’re secure, secure the area, then call it in.” Cannon replied on the same channel.

“Do you think we will find them up here?” Lurch asked.

“Doubt it.” Monkeyman replied this time. “I bet you a three-course meal at Pop’s, that's an appetizer, the main course, and dessert, that we will find them at or near the bottom of the mountain.”

“Not gonna take that bet.” Cannon said, sounding amused. “They’re civilians. They’d want to stick together, and there would be people who can’t make the climb, like kids and old people.”

“Ehh, it’s a nice day for a hike.” Monkeyman replied.

Freya had to agree. The sky was blue and clear. Granted, it was a much lighter blue than Earth’s sky, but it was crystal clear. There was a light wind, and her armor told her it was warm out. Not that she could feel it. as her armor kept her at a comfortable temperature. Still, as she walked over the large, smooth boulders that made up the side of the mountain, it was a nice walk. She didn’t like how exposed they were, but there were large cracks in between the boulders that she could jump into for cover. She was just glad that there was no grass at this altitude to compromise her active camo.

The boulders got smaller and smaller the closer they got to the ridge between the two mountains, until finally they were just a bunch of small, head-sized rocks. While most of the rocks were locked in with each other, there were some that were loose, so she had to make sure to watch her step, while still keeping an eye on the surrounding area for danger. They were about a hundred feet past the edge of the mountain and on the ridge, when Lurch fell.

Freya heard him yell out over his loudspeakers. She dropped to her stomach on the uncomfortable rocks and scanned the area, thinking they were under attack, but when she looked at her mini map she saw Lurch’s icon falling downwards. She looked behind her and spotted him coming to rest about fifteen feet below her. She looked up at Cannon, who was behind him in the line and saw her hold her fist up, motioning them to stop and remain where they were. She then motioned for them to keep an eye on their surroundings in case of an ambush.

Freya did as she was told, but not before looking down where Lurch had fallen. To her relief,he was already moving around trying to get back on his feet, but the rocks he was on were not stable enough and he kept falling down. She turned back and scanned her surroundings, knowing that even though Lurch was using his active camo, he just gave away their position. As much as she wanted to watch him to make sure he was safe, she knew her job. That wasn’t to say she didn’t take a look now and then - enough to see Cannon tie a rope around a much larger rock that didn’t look like it was going anywhere before she started making her way towards the downed marine.

It took nearly ten minutes before Cannon was able to get to him and get him back up the mountain to where the rest of the fire team was waiting. Freya kept thinking that the October would use Lurch’s blunder to send the enemy to them, but it didn’t happen. That made her worry all the more, as she wondered what the October and Mother had up their sleeves. Cannon clicked on the radio to get everyone’s attention without breaking radio silence too bad. Freya turned around and saw that both Lurch and Cannon were now back to their level on the ridge. Freya watched as Cannon made sure that both she and Monkeyman were looking at her before she motioned for them to continue.

Freya nodded her acknowledgement and moved forward, but this time at a much slower pace. She checked each rock and made sure it was stable enough to walk on. The last thing she wanted was to fall like Lurch had done. Thinking of Lurch she looked back at him. She noted that he wasn’t limping nor did he look like he got hurt. Feeling better, Freya turned her attention back on leading them towards her personal waypoint.

Twenty minutes later she stopped and waited for the rest of the fireteam to catch up with her. Cannon spotted her not moving and gave her a keep going gesture. Freya nodded, realizing that, one, Cannon trusted her to make their path and, two, that bunching up was a really bad idea. Especially on the side of a mountain.

Freya started back towards the middle mountain and at an angle that would take them upwards about seventy feet or so. She didn’t want to go any higher faster in case they missed something. Seventy feet was just high enough that they would spot anything that they had missed, but still kept them moving upwards at a reasonable rate. Cannon must have agreed because she never stopped her.

They were on their third switchback on their way up the mountain, when someone in Fourth Squad called out that they were being attacked over the radio. Freya froze and looked back. She noted that the rest of the squad had frozen as well. She looked to Cannon, but their fire team leader wasn’t looking at them. She was looking down the mountain. Freya thought that maybe she was waiting on orders, but Freya knew in her heart that they were way too far away to do any good for them. Still, she didn’t say anything in case Drake or Fred gave different orders.

Freya watched the mission timer for an agonizing two minutes before Cannon turned back to them and motioned for them to keep going. Freya nodded her acknowledgement and started moving upwards again. She did wonder if Cannon got any orders or if she was just doing what she thought they should do. Either way, Freya did as she was told and kept going, but that didn’t stop her worrying about Fourth Squad. After the initial call about being under attack, there was no further communication from them or anyone else, at least that she could hear. She knew that they could be talking on a channel she was not authorised to hear or use, but, still, it was worrying that no one else spoke over the radio.

Thoughts about ambushes and the rest of the platoon getting zeroed out without being able to respawn boiled up in her mind as she continued up the ridge towards the mountain peak. It made her paranoid and she was extra careful when she scanned around her for enemies. She hadn’t heard of the Ketica having active camo abilities, but that didn’t mean the October or Mother wouldn’t throw that into the sim just to keep them on their toes. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she thought it likely. She was so deep in thought that she nearly missed that they were almost to the top of the mountain. She stopped and looked back to see Lurch behind her not looking at her as he had his head down. Cannon, on the other hand, noticed that she had stopped and clicked her radio to get everyone's attention.

As soon as everyone was looking at Cannon, she made a motion that they were going to keep going, but pointed to the ground indicating that they would rest before they headed out. She raised her hand and spread her fingers out to indicate that they would take a five minute break. She looked right at Freya until she nodded before she looked at everyone else in the team and sat down. Freya sat down and took in the view from near the top of the mountain. She found it strangely fascinating. The greyish-white mountains rose up over the green valley before her. Freya found the view amazing and smiled. She thought about Earth and her home and just how different it was from where she was now.

She lost the smile when she remembered that Fourth Squad had been attacked. She looked around at the beautiful valley in front of her for signs of battle, but didn’t spot any. There was no smoke. No signs of explosives being used, whether they were Federation mortar shells or the strange, greenish-blue mortars that the enemy used. She guessed that whatever happened was over now. She hoped that Fourth Squad was still alive and kicking, but the thought that they might not be killed whatever mood she had been in since she had reached the top of the mountain.

Looking down the steep surface of the mountain made her think about the civilians and how likely they were to be on the mountain, at least this far up it. They hadn’t found any caves nor any sign that the civilians had come up this far. She had seen no tracks or garbage anywhere, nor had she seen any signs of a trail that they could have followed. That made her wonder what the other side of the mountain looked like. She looked down at her team and noted that none of them were looking at her. They were looking either out at the view or down the mountain.

Giving in to her curiosity, she low-crawled over the smooth boulders towards the top of the mountain. Even though she had been up several mountains on Earth and knew better, she had expected the mountain to have a pointy top like the ridges on either side of the mountain. It didn’t. The top of the mountain was smooth from what she guessed was the wind passing over it for many years. There was a large boulder that rose up further for about ten feet, but the rest of the top was mostly flat with rounded bits.

Even though the top was about fifty feet wide she could still see the other side. Not the mountain, but what lay beyond the mountain. For as far as she could see, there was a sea of green patches that were only broken up by small patches of greyish black spots. They looked natural and not made by combat to her so she didn’t get worried. Still the view was just as amazing if not more so than what she had seen behind her. When she had her fill she turned around to see her team looking at her.

“Enemy?” Cannon motioned.

Freya shook her head, no. Then she flattened her hand then indicated fifty to tell Cannon that the top of the mountain was flat, and it was about fifty feet wide.

Cannon nodded then motioned for them to move forward. Freya acknowledged her with a nod and stood up. She walked across the mountain top towards the back of the mountain. She looked to her sides as she passed the midway between the ridges and she could see what lay on the other side of them. On her left, it was extremely steep with loose soil and rocks. On her right, it was a straight drop with a single flat rock making up that side of the ridge.

“That will make our search much easier,” she thought to herself, as she came close to the edge of the mountain top. She knelt down and crawled on her hands and knees as she got close to the edge. She peeked over the edge and noted that there was about a ten or fifteen foot drop to some loose soil and small rocks. It wasn’t as bad as the mountain ridge to her left, but it would be a pain to climb up or down. She let her eyes rove further downwards and saw that, a few hundred yards away, grass was growing on this side of the mountain.

She was thinking about how they would be much more likely to find the civilians on this side of the mountain when she spotted the enemy spy bio construct. It was crawling up the mountain through the grass. What was worse was that she would have never spotted it if it hadn’t been passing a grass-free area, where its green exoskeleton stood out as it moved. That made Freya give the mountainside a more thorough look. It took her eyes a second to see it, but the entire mountainside was crawling with them. Worse, the closest one was only a hundred feet away and moving straight towards her at a good pace. It wouldn’t take long before it reached the rock face and started climbing up the ten or fifteen feet of rock to the top.