Freya stopped as Monkeyman called out a warning. She dropped to a crouch and turned back towards the mountain top. She had been leading her team down the mountain for the past two minutes or so without any signs of the enemy. The biggest problem she had found was that there was no cover this close to the mountain top. It was just medium sized rocks and patches of the green algae stuff. She had been leading them around the green patches because they were all under active camo and she didn’t want that to fail. It delayed them, but she thought it was safer than exposing them to the green slime that would stick to their uniforms.

It was a move that she was now regretting as she spotted the first spy construct peeking out over the edge of the ledge that made up the mount peak. She raised her rifle, but held her fire not wanting to give away their position. Cannon had no such constraint. Her heavy gun thundered away obliterating the spy construct. When the gunfire ended there was nothing left of the construct.

“Here is far enough.” Cannon said after a few seconds. “Monkey, get some auto turrets up around us. I’ll keep you covered. Magic and Lurch, head down the mountain about five hundred feet. We’ll fall back to your position if we are under fire, otherwise we will mine the area in between. Magic, the dropship’s location will be compromised soon. Look over the map and get us a new location away from the mountains. As soon as your drone pops, get the feed up and link it to the command staff. Input both our location and where you’ll be deploying the ship once it’s up. Lurch, keep her alive.”

“It’s Monkeyman.” Monkeyman muttered quietly as he and Cannon moved back up the mountain.

Freya half slid and half ran down the mountain until she found a dip along the mountainside that would give better coverage than just laying on the uneven rocks. She stopped even though it wasn’t quite five hundred feet and settled into the dip. Lurch slid in beside her, but she ignored him as she brought up her map to look for a new location for her ship. She heard Lurch slip a bit, but when she looked up she saw he had recovered and was in position to cover the rest of the team. She ducked back down deeper into the dip and looked at the mission map on her HUD.

She frowned as she looked over the map. The valley was mostly flat wil very little concealment or cover for something the size of her ship. The area’s that she found that could give her ship some cover or conceal it were far too obvious to anyone with half a brain. In the end she picked some random spot that was a half mile away from the base of the middle mountain. It was a short trip, so she had her ship start preparing her clone so it would be ready when she needed it.

She looked up from her map on her HUD, and saw that Monkeyman had set up his turrets and was heading down the mountain with Cannon stopping here and there to toss out mines. She looked away from them to scan the mountain top, but didn’t see any spy constructs. Adjusting her body position so that it was more comfortable, she slid down a bit further into the dip and had to brace herself so that she didn’t slide right out of the dip.

“Contact! Multiple, top of mountain!” Lurch called out and started firing.

Freya looked back up at the top of the mountain, as she braced herself enough so she was not sliding out of the dip anymore. She saw a bunch of spy constructs dropping down from the cliff’s edge on the mountain top. Lurch got a few of them before she could get a shot lined up and kill one that had stopped right at the edge. It looked to Freya that it was recording them. It fell back when her round hit it. She moved onto the next target, but didn’t fire as her target exploded as she heard the loud thunderous fire as the turrets came online. The spy constructs were torn to pieces as the turrets mowed them all down.

Cannon and Monkeyman came sliding into the dip as the turret fire died down a bit as the flood of spy constructs slowed down to a trickle. The turrets were extremely effective as any spy bot that appeared got zeroed as soon as it showed its face. Freya lowered her gun as the Turrets didn’t look like they needed any help from her.

“How long until the drone is up?” Cannon yelled over the occasional turret fire.

Freya checked her cloudforge and answered. “Forty-two seconds.” She yelled back.

“Move out.” Cannon called out and Freya watched her fire team leader slide out of the dip and move down the mountain. She slid after her. On her mini map, she saw Monkeyman follow her with Lurch keeping them covered until it was his time to leave. Behind her she could hear the sounds of the Auto Turrets keeping them covered.

Not long after they left the dip her cloudforge dinged her telling her that her drone was ready. She immediately programmed it with her fireteams location and the new location for the dropship. She then linked it to the command staff and sent it off. They were out of range of the top of the mountain, so she sent it up and zoomed in on the top of the mountain. It took it a few seconds to get a good angle on the mountain top, but when it got into position it gave them a very good view for the feed.

Freya cursed as she saw a massive build up of all sorts of constructs on the mountain top. The spy constructs were still getting mowed down by the auto turrets, but the rest of the constructs were waiting out of sight of the turrets like they were waiting on something. Freya had no idea why they were waiting, but was very glad that they were. She didn’t think the turrets could stop the flood that was being built up.

“How long will those turret’s hold out?” Cannon asked over her armor’s loudspeakers.

“At the current rate of fire, another ten minutes or so without being rearmed.” Monkeyman called back. Freya realized that he wasn’t in the link for the drone feed so she changed the program on the fly to add him and Lurch.

“It won’t stop that many constructs.” Monkeyman said after a few seconds. “Best guess, the turrets will hold out for thirty seconds. That is if they get off their asses and charge. Maybe a lot less depending on what they send down first.”

“We need to move faster.” Cannon told them, after hearing the news from Monkeyman. “Pick up the pace!”

Freya mentally cursed her fireteam leader as she tried her best to move faster, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do as the mountain was very slippery. It was all she could do not to lose control and start to tumble down the mountain. As it was, Cannon, who was leading them, led them right through the algae patches which were extremely slick and slippery. Her HUD was screaming at her that her active camo was compromised. It got so bad that she shut the camo off, and went with her passive camo for concealment.

Then before her eyes Cannon disappeared into a green patch. Freya was not that far behind and she couldn’t stop her momentum and slid right in behind her. The green patch turned out to be deep, but the patch was thankfully small. Her HUD warned her that it was a toxic alkaline solution that was deadly to humans. As she recovered and tried to swim in the odd solution she thanked the Marines for making her wear armor that kept her alive in times like these. The last thing she wanted was someone to see her get zeroed out because she didn’t realize that the algae patches could be hiding toxic ponds. As she swam/climbed out of the pond she had a vivid memory of getting run over by the tank in her last platoon.

She rose to the surface of the pond to see a hand waiting just above the water. She reached out and the hand grabbed the hand which pulled her up and out of the toxic water. As she broke the surface she saw the hand was attached to Monkeyman. Behind his face shield, she saw that he was giving her a ‘jokes on you’ smile tinted in green from the algae. She wasn’t even mad. In fact she was more embarrassed than mad. She was embarrassed because she never thought about the algae hiding something like a toxic pond. It was a stupid mistake even if she wan’t the only one to fall into the pond. A few feet away from where she was climbing out of the pond she spotted Cannon covered in green slime trying to wipe it off, and failing miserably.

Freya understood why her team leader was trying to wipe it off as she also found her face shield was covered in the green colored algae. Thankfully it wasn’t too bad, and she could easily see through it even if the thing was stubbornly not coming off. In the end she gave up trying to clean up, and just accepted seeing the world through the green tint. She told herself that she would be changing soon because she had to despawn to fly her ship. She wondered if Cannon would change once they reached the ship as her team started moving back down the mountain.

She took the lead with Cannon following her. Freya did take the time to look back, and she saw that she and Cannon were the only ones on the team who took a bath in the pond. Lurch who was taking up the rear looked fine despite the few green smears that came from moving through the algae patches. Monkeyman to her annoyance was the least marked. Only his boots and the bottoms of his armored pants were covered. She resisted the urge to give him the finger as she turned around and led them towards her ship.

As she moved she checked and saw that her drone was still in the air and sending them a feed. The enemy were still waiting on something and sending a few spy constructs at a time towards the mountain tops edge. The turrets, thankfully, were still doing their job very effectively. She looked away as she nearly slipped on some rocks.

She found she was having a harder time moving on the rocks because the algae that was sticking to the bottom of her feet was making everything very slippery. When she tried to catch herself with her hands she found that it was just as slippery. The only thing she guessed that was helping her was her high agility stats. She hated to think of what would happen if she went on this mission before the real world mission. She didn’t know if she could have made it down without all the mod points she got from it.

A little more than a minute after she had crawled out of the pond, Monkeyman yelled, “Here they come. Auto Turrets down.”

Freya looked at the feed to see whoever was in charge of the constructs finally got their head out of their butts. There was a mass charge of lizards with some spy constructs mixed in. She noted that there were a lot of dead bodies being trampled on as the constructs raced down after them. She also noted that the constructs were having just as much problems running down the mountain as they were. In fact Freya saw that they were having a much worse time as a big lizard fell smashing it’s head onto a rock leaving a wet stain as it slid further down. It was trampled by others of its kind a few seconds later, tripping more causing the flood to slow down.

“When we get to the ship, Magic, get it ready to move. Lurch, get the auto turrets on to the ship. Monkey, you and me are going to get as much of those mines as we can before we leave.” Cannon said on the radio surprising Freya. She did note that Cannon sounded out of breath as she spoke. Freya took a peek at her mini map and noted that they were less than a minute out from the ship at their current speed.

The team broke off as soon as they got to the ship. Freya kept running towards the back of the ship as the others moved to follow Cannon’s orders. She used her Personal AI to connect to the ship and get it running after she had the ship lower the ramp in the back. She ran up the ramp and opened the closest pod before jumping in. She quickly despawned and found herself in the cockpit. The ship’s generator was already running as Freya had turned it on with her Personal AI before she had reached the ship. She quickly made sure the engines were set to pre flight before she started them.

As she was getting her ship ready, she quickly glanced at her monitor and saw that the enemy was still coming towards them. Her sensors told her that they were less than a minute out. She then switched her attenuation to her team and noted that Lurch had already pulled down most of the Auto Turrets and was working on the last one. Cannon and Monkeyman had split up and were on either side of her ship picking up mines.

“Constructs are thirty seconds out.” Freya told them as she waited impatiently for the engines to warm up. She made sure her ship’s guns were on and pointed towards the enemy as she spoke.

“Take what you have, leave the rest.” Cannon said over the radio.

Freya looked at the camera that had her Fireteam leader on it, and saw the woman was running towards the ramp. Freya noted that Lurch was already in the back of the ship with the Auto Turrets already broken down and tied up to the grill on the floor. She looked for Monkeyman and saw him come running as felt her ship's engines complete their warm up cycle. She pushed the button to close the ramp as Monkeyman reached it. It sent him stumbling into the ship, but Freya barely had time to notice it as her ship’s guns started to fire.

She didn’t even bother looking at the enemy as she switched her engine over to flight and pushed her maneuvering engines to one-hundred percent hoping to get off the ground as fast as possible. She called a warning for her team to brace as she lifted off her ship shaking as it fired on the enemy.

Freya grunted at the G’s as her ship lifted off at the maximum take off speed, straight up. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw her team fall to ground as the gravity overwhelmed them. She ignored them as her Personal AI told her that they were still alive and mostly unhurt. She spun her ship around and flew towards the valley and away from the mountains. Her guns fell silent as the ship moved too far away for it to track the enemy accurately. Once she was far enough away she lowered the power to her maneuvering engines and increased the power to her main engines by seventy percent.

She was just relaxing when her ship's sensors started screaming at her telling her that she was taking damage. Her AI told her that the ship was taking damage from the top of the ship. It also told her without having to have to look at the damage control console that a construct had made it on her ship and was trying to pry its way in. She even knew approximately where it was on her ship.

It was an odd and strange feeling Freya felt, knowing exactly where the construct was without looking at any of her sensors or cameras. The best way Freya could describe it was like her ship was alive and talking to her, but without words. More like she was a part of the ship, yet two separate beings at the same time. She knew the feeling was from her Personal AI, but it didn’t feel like it was involved at all. She knew her Personal AI was a separate thing, but it didn’t feel like it to her. It was a very odd feeling.

“Hold on, we got a stowaway.” Freya called out over the radio, warning her team. “Brace yourselves.”

She glanced at the camera to the back of her ship and saw that they were taking her advice and were holding on. She waited until she was sure that they were all as secure as possible before she jerked the yoke to her ship to the side spinning her ship. She increased the spin by increasing the maneuvering engine's power to sixty percent. She knew as soon as the construct was thrown off by the odd knowing feeling from her Personal AI. She also ‘knew’ that the construct hadn’t gotten far and the damage to her ship was minimal. Freya still double checked her sensors, but the info she read backed her feelings from her Personal AI up. She smiled and shook her head.

Remembering to inform her people in the back of her ship about the stowaway she turned on the radio. “We’re good so far. Landing in fifty-four seconds. Do me a favor, and when we land make sure we don’t have anymore unwanted passengers. Please.“ Freya said over her ship’s intercom.

“They got that close?” Monkeyman asked looking right at her through the camera in the back. Instead of answering, Freya turned on a screen in the back, and had it play what she recorded from just before she ship’s guns started firing, to her spinning the ship to throw her unwanted passenger off. She was too busy to watch, but from how quiet it was she guessed it was pretty close.

“So what's the plan, now?” Lurch asked after the feed ended.

“We make sure we don’t have any unwanted passengers, set up the defenses again, and wait for orders.” Cannon replied.

“Yeah, don’t think the civilians are on our mountain. No way we missed them.” Lurch told them.

“Agreed.” Cannon replied.

“Coming up on the LZ.” Frey told them as she got close to the coordinates she had picked.

She looked back to see everyone using the lockers to change into unstained armor. She smirked a bit at how clean they looked now. She counted them down as she landed. When she hit one, Monkeyman hit the button to lower the ramp and was the first one out. As he left the ship, Freya set up her guns and scanned the surrounding area. Nothing looked out of place, nor were there any signs of life besides the algae. She noted that Lurch got a new cloudforge because she saw a Federation drone flying around her ship scanning it. While it did so she noted that Monkeyman and Cannon were slowly circling her ship, their weapons pointing at her ship. She watched them and the drone until they gave the all clean and starting setting up the defensive.

She was getting ready to despawn, after shutting down her engines, when she was notified that she had an entire squad suddenly waiting to respawn. She checked the list and noted it was the rest of her squad. She wondered what had happened as she set it up so that Drake and the fireteam leaders spawned first then by the team numbers before she let herself despawn. Her last thought was questioning herself if she had deployed her ship too close to the mountain.

She opened her eyes in the pod and quickly got out knowing that there were a lot of people waiting to get respawned. She went to the locker and got dressed and pulled out her weapons before turning to leave her ship. She didn’t bother closing the ramp because the others in her squad would be out in a few minutes.

“Hey, guys. The rest of First squad is spawning.” Freya said over her armor’s loudspeakers as soon as she got to the end of the ramp and stepped off.

“They get Zeroed, or was it a mass order because of the constructs?” Monkeyman asked over his loudspeaker as well.

“No idea. They showed up all at once all of a sudden.” Freya replied as she spotted Lurch a few feet from the back of her ship setting up a Auto Turret. She looked around and spotted Monkeyman setting up mines with Cannon on either side of her ship.

Turning back to Lurch she asked, “You need help with that?” as she started walking towards him. He didn’t seem to be having trouble, but she didn’t know what else she could do to help her team.

“Nah, I got this one, but you can set up the next one on the starboard side of the dropship.” He replied. “You need a waypoint.” He joked as Freya went to the pile of Auto turrets to pick one up. She gave him the finger and picked a set up before walking towards the right hand side of the dropship to set it up.

While it was the first time she had set up an Auto Turret on a real sim mission she had done it once in training in the training facility while she had gone through small unit tactics. It wasn’t hard, but she still had to fiddle with it to get it right. Once she set it up, she made sure to run it through its diagnostics to make sure she did it right. She waited as the barrel of the gun spun left and right and rotated without problems then it cleared a round out and racked a new one making sure it wasn’t jammed. It did it itself without any input from her except when she hit the button to run its program.

She went back to the pile and noted that there was only one turret left. She looked around and spotted Lurch had already set up two turrets to her one. That was not including the one he had already set up. She mentally cursed him before she picked up the last one and moved towards the right side forwards part of her ship to set it up. Mentally giving Lurch the finger as she walked towards the starboard side of her ship again. As if reading her mind she saw Lurch finish another Turrest and turn to look at her. She fought down the urge to give him the finger and smiled at him instead. To her annoyance he smiled back.

“So where do you lie, Magic?” Monkeyman asked as she attached the leg of the turret and started screwing it into the main body of the gun.

“Hmm?” Freya asked as she let that screw self tighten, making sure it didn’t jump a thread and bind itself up.

“Whether the squad got taken out, or if it was an order to mass zero-out to avoid the enemy?” Lurch asked.

“It had to be an order. She said the entire squad was waiting on spawning. They were too spread out to take that many losses that fast.” Monkeyman said, sounding irritated.

“Not if it wasn’t some kind of WMD.” Lurch replied. “They could have some weapon that cleared the entire mountain as soon as they spotted us taking off. You don’t know.”

“It’s possible.” Cannon said from the other side of the ship from where Freya was standing putting the turret together.

“Yeah, so is Felicia not being a Karen, but that never happens.” Monkeyman replied. Freya wondered who Felicia and Karen were as she watched the last leg attach itself to the main body of the gun.

“Someone from their academy?” She wondered as she ran the turret through it’s diagnostics. She noted it passed as her two friends continued to argue.

“By Tom’s big toe Monkeyman, please speak standard!” Lurch replied, sounding irritated. “I hate it when you speak that way.”

“Hey now, prisoner speak is legitimate and recognized language.” Monkeyman said, sound to Freya like he was deliberately egging Lurch on. “Its the language of the revolution.”

“No it’s not.” Lurch replied, sounding tired. “It’s only a legitimate language on your planet. No one else speaks like that anywhere else. Everyone in human controlled space speaks Federation Standard.”

“Lurch…” Freya said ducking under her ship and walking towards her friends. “... He’s just winding you up.”

“Now look what you’ve done.” Lurch said pointing to Freya. “You got her speaking it.”

“Yeah, and poorly.” Monkeyman said smiling at Freya. “It’s winding, not winding.” He told her.

“No it's not.” Freya said, shaking her head as she cleared the bottom of her ship and kept walking towards them.

“Yes, it is.” Cannon corrected her, surprising everyone else on the team.

“You speak some Prisoner, Cannon?” Monkeyman asked, turning to look at their team leader.

“Work and talk. You don’t have broken legs.” Cannon said, waving her hands at them from her position at the edge of the dropship's active camo near the bow of the ship. “The rest of you, come get some mines and put them out.”

Freya walked over and accepted some mines from her as Cannon started to speak again. “First calling it Prisoner speak is classist. And to answer your question, yes I speak a little.” She told Monkeyman. “I liked a guy who spoke it.” She told Freya looking embarrassed.

“It’s not classism if your entire planet speaks it, unrelated to any social or economical status.” Monkeyman returned.

“I stand corrected, but still I feel calling it Prisoner speak is still wrong.” Cannon replied. “But I will bow to your experience.”

“Mighty Federation of you.” Monkeyman replied, sounding sarcastic.

Freya, feeling uncomfortable, ignored them as she set out to put down some mines. She felt a little irritated at Cannon and Lurch for the way they spoke to Monkeyman, but at the same time she felt irritated at Monkeyman for deliberately causing trouble with Lurch. It confused her to no end and she just wanted it to end. She set out and started placing the mines as the conversation grinded to a halt.