Freya smiled as she got into position. The plan to attack the Ketica outpost was simple. The hard part was getting away after they were done. The first part of the plan was for elements of First and Second Squads to get in position close to the outpost and wait. Two scout teams from the same squads were to set up directly in front of the outpost, but much further away. Then Third Squad was to leave the ship behind and make for the fall back position.

As soon as Third Squad reached the fall back position, or if the Ketica spotted First or Second Squads, Fred then would fire the artillery shells at the wall of the outpost. Once the wall was down First and Second Squads would enter the outpost. Their job was simple - find a Ketica officer and capture it. Once they had a Ketica in their possession, Fred then would fly the dropship in and collect everyone. The plan afterwards was for him to make for the fallback position where the PsyOps agent would read the captured enemy’s mind. After that they just had to hold out for two weeks for the invasion to start. Mother had several plans on how to do that, depending on how the enemy responded.

With that in mind, Mother had ordered drones out in the dozens to watch both the base and the surrounding area in case of an ambush and to see how the enemy reacted. They were also using the October’s spy satellites to keep the platoon informed on how the enemy reacted across the continent. Freya had her sensor drone out scanning the immediate area. Not that she thought it would achieve anything. There were just too many drones flying around for it to do any good. Her mini map showed a ton drones flying all over the outpost and beyond.

She adjusted her rifle a little bit to get a better angle on the outpost. She wasn’t using her main weapon because of what her targets were. There were four towers facing them, with eight more behind the main wall. Her and her fellow scout’s job was to take out those towers. The problem was that her ASO was a single-target weapon, and there were a lot of gun constructs in the towers.

Sure, she could take out the gun constructs in the towers with the ASO, but it would be slow, as she would have to fire a bunch of shots to kill them all. Her Irish Nester, with it’s explosive shots, would cause splash damage outside of her main target. Hopefully, the Nester would take out more than one gun construct, thus reducing the shots she had to take and letting her move on to another tower faster.

A countdown appeared on her HUD. It started at fifteen and slowly, at least to Freya, counted down to one. At five seconds, Drake came over the radio. “Round in-coming. Take cover.”

Freya stayed where she was. She was far enough out that any shrapnel would fall short of her position. The rest of her team was not so sure and ducked down, covering their heads. She ignored them and took aim at the gun constructs. She needed to aim at the thinnest part of the construct that would still be large enough to ensure a kill. She did that so that when the round exploded it would cause the largest splash damage per round, to reduce the time she had to fire on the tower. Any delay in killing the gun constructs would cause Marine deaths, because she was sure there had to be denial spheres hidden away in the outpost.

The gun constructs themselves were big, thick and wet-looking organic weapons. If she had to guess, they were about six feet long, but only maybe a foot wide. There was anywhere from three gun constructs to five of them in a single tower. The reason why everyone was calling them constructs, aside from the fact that they looked alive, was because they could get up and move. Even as she watched, one of the gross-looking things stood up and climbed on the wall with hundreds of tiny feet towards the ceiling where it settled, hanging upside down. It was fast too, as it got into position a second before the artillery shell hit.

Freya didn’t look at where the shell landed and fired on the hanging construct. There were only three constructs in the tower and the hanging one was dangling just above and to the left of another construct. She had aimed at just below, or in this case the top since it was hanging upside down, the barrel opening which was the thinnest part of the construct. As she did, she felt the thump of the shockwave, even through her armor, less than a second before she heard the thunder of the shell hitting the wall.

It took about a second or so before her round hit the construct and exploded. Freya knew the moment she fired the round it was going to hit. It wasn’t really a feeling, but just something in the back of her head telling her that it hit. She had already moved to her next target even before Lurch called it a hit. She knew that, even though he was ducking down and not looking at the tower, he was watching the tower through the feed from one of his drones. Or at least she hoped so.

She had to switch to a different setting on her scope as the small opening on the tower filled with smoke, obscuring her vision. Before she zoomed back in she saw that she had taken two constructs out with her first round. Only the first one was dead. The second one was still alive, but it wouldn’t be firing on her fellow marines. That was more than fine from her perspective. She fired on the lone construct that was still operational, even as Drake called out over the radio that a second round was incoming. Freya heard Lurch call out a hit a second time as she moved on to her next target in another tower.

Freya adjusted her rifle again without looking at where her round landed. She knew she had killed the target as soon as she pulled the trigger. When she looked through her scope once more she saw the damage from the artillery shell. She knew that Fred had used a ‘soft’ penetrator round to kill the wall. Everyone, including her instructors back in the training facility, called them soft rounds because those types of shells wouldn’t come anywhere near cracking a continental shelf. The real term was about three, big words long, but no one called it anything but a soft round or shell. It was simply much easier to say.

Most of the front wall and one of the towers were simply gone. The dome now had a huge hole in it. Freya skimmed over the damage as she once more adjusted her rifle, so that she could fire on the next tower. As she did so, the second round landed. This, Freya knew from the explosion, was another soft round. She felt the shockwave hit like someone punched her chest about a half a second before the boom of the round reached her. The shockwave wasn’t as intense as the first one, so she guessed that Fred had used an anti-personnel round or maybe a soft HE round. Either way the round landed just inside the wall. A huge chunk of some construct’s body part flew past her scope as she zoomed in on her next target. She absently guessed the body part had come from a warrior, based on the size of it.

She picked the second gun construct in the middle of four that were clustered together. The construct she picked was the second one to her left. She smiled a second before she pulled the trigger because they were freaking out. She had an image of a really old show in her head that she had watched as a kid. It was a show about puppets that acted like people. It was a really funny and absurd show for kids. The puppets almost always over-reacted to whatever was going on. The gun constructs were wildly spinning around looking for targets. Freya found the comparison funny.

Her shot hit her target slightly left of where she had aimed, but it didn’t matter, as it took out both constructs on either side of it. She was already pulling the trigger on the last construct even as Lurch called out a hit. The last construct started to move just as she sent a round downrange at it. It didn’t matter because the stupid construct turned sideways to move faster. The round hit it near the center of its body mass. It broke apart into two pieces with one piece falling out of the tower.

Freya heard Drake calling for the squads to attack. Freya felt a zing of fear, as there was one tower still up. The other scout team’s sniper had taken too long on his first tower. Freya quickly moved slightly forward, bringing her rifle around to face the only active tower. She quickly took aim and fired as fast as she could, aiming at the middle gun construct of the five that were clustered together. She angled upwards at one that was hanging upside down even as Lurch called out.

“Partial hit. Two targets down. The two to your right and the one that is hanging are active.” He told her.

She quickly fired, killing the one hanging down. To her disgust the one below it took damage, but still looked operational. She was moving to target it when it exploded. She guessed the other sniper got it, but didn’t spend time thinking about it because the last gun construct was firing at the team that was closest to it. She noted that it was a weapons squad full of heavy assaults as she took aim and fired.

“Hit. All towers down.” Lurch said a second later.

“Lurch, get me eyes-on inside the outpost. I’m getting requests for mortar fire.” Monkey suddenly said, as soon as Lurch stopped talking.

“Coordinates in-coming.” Lurch replied.

Freya moved her scope towards where the wall to the outpost used to be. Smoke was billowing out of it, but she hadn’t changed her vision setting on her scope so she could easily see what was happening. From what she could see, the assault had stalled just inside the fort, where the marines were fighting a group of warriors in front of a building that had gun constructs on it. She quietly cursed as she saw a marine go down.

She bit her lip as she targeted one of the gun constructs, but, before she could fire, it exploded from a mortar shell. It must have come from the other scout team because the coordinates that Lurch was spitting out were not for that position. She heard Monkeyman call, “Round out” as she moved her rifle towards the second gun construct. His shell landed less than a second after she found the construct in her scope.

She watched as it and most of the side of the building exploded. She absently hoped that there wasn’t any Ketica in that building because there was very little left of it after the two mortar shells had landed.She moved her scope back towards the warriors only to see them down and the squads advancing deeper into the outpost. She watched them disappear into the dome.

“I got no angle.” She called out as the last marine disappeared from her sight. She knew this was going to happen, but the squads still needed to know she couldn’t cover them anymore. The second scout team also reported the same not long after she did. Freya then switched over to her main rifle, the ASO.

Their orders were to remain on station for mortar support. Her orders were to kill any targets of opportunity. Basically, she was to shoot any constructs that she saw in or outside the outpost. So she kept on scanning both inside and outside the dome as every now and then Lurch gave Monkeyman new coordinates. She lost count of how many mortar rounds Monkeyman had fired as the operation progressed.

Every now and then a construct would run across the opening in the dome wall, and Freya took care of them. They were mostly lizards, but there were a few spy constructs that tried to set an ambush by burrowing into the sand in front of the broken wall. Freya was a little concerned at how intelligent they were acting.

“All units pull back to LZ. Objective in custody.” Unicorn suddenly said over the radio.

“They’ll be coming out fast. We move as soon as they get the objective aboard the ship.” Cannon said over the team's talk-around channel.

Cannon had set up behind Freya and was acting as their rear guard. It was standard practice in a spec ops team. She was there in case an enemy squad snuck up on them. Freya couldn't do it since she was focusing on the targets in her scope. Lurch couldn’t keep an eye out because he had all of his drones pointed inside the outpost to help Monkeyman target the enemy. Monkeyman couldn’t because he was busy aiming and firing his mortar.

That left Cannon the only heavy assault on their team to do it. While it was a really important job, it was also a very boring one. Freya was glad she was a sniper. She would hate to sit back and do nothing except watch in case the enemy snuck up on them while a battle was going on like the one before them. She knew they needed someone to watch their backs as they did their jobs, she was just very glad it wasn’t her.

Freya watched as a team pulled back to the end of the dome wall and took up covering positions. A second team did the same on the other side of the hole. Finally, the rest of the two squads came running. One of the teams was holding a small black bag. Each of the four members were carrying a corner of the bag as they ran. Freya guessed that was where the Ketica captive was.

Not that anyone knew what a Ketica looked like. There was no recording anywhere of the controllers of the bio constructs. Someone had come up with the idea that the Ketica were short in real life, but at the same time heavy and compact. Something to do with how the rest of the constructs were made. It didn’t make sense to Freya, but she wasn’t an expert in xenobiology.

She kept her gun scanning behind the retreating marines and was glad she did when she spotted several warriors behind them. Freya quickly zoomed in and looked for the kill area. According to what the war college had come up with in the past week, the kill area was hard but not impossible to spot. They instructed them to look for signs of extra covering over the exoskeleton site where the kill area was.

“Warriors in-coming. Thirty yards behind and to the left of our people.” Freya said over the command channel, as she looked for the kill area.

“I see them.” Came the reply from the scout in the other team.

She spotted a slightly raised area in the exoskeleton on the left-hand side of the warrior near its waist. She targeted that one, which was closest to the retreating Marines. She pulled the trigger on her ASO which was set for both energy and ballistic rounds. She felt the vibration from her gun as it fired, and the warrior stumbled before falling.

“Kill area is on the left side near the hip.” She called over the command channel, as she quickly changed targets, and fired again, bringing a second warrior down. As she was looking for another target, a third warrior that she had not targeted fell.

“Confirmed.” The scout in the other team replied.

“Round going out.” Monkeyman suddenly said, and about a second later it exploded right in the middle of the pack of warriors that had been chasing the retreating marines.

“Round good. Hold for further targets.” Lurch replied. Freya scanned the area, but Monkeyman had got them all with his well-placed mortar round.

“Dropship incoming. Five seconds.” Unicorn called out over the radio.

“Monkey, clean your station up. We go when they have the objective aboard.” Cannon told them.

“It’s Monkeyman.” Freya heard her friend say quietly over his armor’s speakers.

Freya was scanning the outpost when, out of nowhere, her dropship appeared on her mini map. She had less than a second to recognize that it was flying over her before it was past. According to her mini map it was flying extremely close to the ground at only fifty feet above her. Even so she didn’t feel anything as it passed over her. She smiled as she realized just how awesome the stealth systems on her ship were.

She resisted the urge to look up from her scope as the ship made a gentle turn to bleed off its speed before it landed smoothly. Only then did she look up from her scope. She could see the ship even though it was under active camo as it identified her as a friend on its IFF scanners. She felt a twinge of jealousy that someone beside her was flying her brand-new ship, but she quickly quashed the feeling.

“Move it.” Cannon said, as soon as the ramp on the back of the ship dropped.

Freya stood up and started running. She soon out-paced the others as she ran. It wasn’t because she was faster. She was actually the slowest on her team. No, she was in the lead because it was how her team moved. She led the way because she had the highest perception on her team. Monkeyman was second, running behind her and to her left. Lurch was third, slightly behind him and to the left. Cannon, with her big gun, took up the rear and to the right of Freya.

Freya watched as the rest of the squad quickly filed into the ship, bringing the captured Ketica in with them. The ship remained on the ground as her and the other scout team raced towards it. Thirty seconds later, Freya and her team ran up the ramp just ahead of the scout team from Second Squad. Freya really had to push the last fifty feet to beat them. She was not sure who had more strength, her or the other scout, but she did bask in the fact that she beat them. She remained by the ramp as the last team ran aboard. She smashed the red ramp button, and it slid soundlessly closed.

The ship was crowded with both squads in the bay. She had to remain standing since all the seats were taken. She could see Mother at her CC station talking to someone while looking at all the monitors in front of her. If Freya had to guess, then she would have guessed that, since everyone else was on board, she was talking to Third Squad, who should be at the fallback position now. The PsyOps agent, if everything had done according to plan, should be with them, waiting on the ship to bring the prisoner to him. He was with Third Squad because there was no room for him on the ship.

Freya felt the ship lift off. It felt odd to Freya to be in the back of her ship while it was in the air. There was a steady vibration as the maneuvering engines lifted the ship, but, to her surprise, there was very little noise aside from the marines talking to each other. She held onto the strap that was hanging down from the ceiling and looked around as everyone basked in the afterglow of the battle. It was surprisingly nice to Freya to see what happened on this side of the ship. Not that she wouldn’t rather be in the cockpit. She liked flying way too much for that to ever happen. Still it was nice to experience it at least once.

It only took them a couple of minutes to reach the fallback position where Third Squad was waiting for them. Freya was again surprised at how smooth her ship flew. She barely felt the acceleration or the deceleration of her ship. Which felt off to her, as she felt it much stronger in the cockpit when she flew. She wondered why, then shrugged it off as her imagination.

She had to give Fred his due as the ship landed smoothly. She hated to admit it, but he flew her ship almost as good as she did. Deep in her mind, she admitted he might be as good as she was, at least inside the atmosphere of a planetoid. The ramp lowered itself before she hit the button. She knew she didn’t have to hit the button at all because Fred could control it from the cockpit. It was stupid and maybe petty, but she was a little upset when he lowered the ramp.

They dragged the prisoner, who was still in the bag, out of the ship. There, four members of Third Squad took over bringing the bag towards the PsyOps agent. Both First and Second Squad remained on board in case they had to leave in a hurry. Third Squad fanned out to set up defenses and protect the ship.

Freya crouched down and looked out of the side of the ramp as the PsyOps agent walked up to the bag and took off his armored glove. He touched the bag and stood still for a few minutes. She couldn’t see him do anything except touch the black bag. He had his face shield darkened so she couldn’t see his expression, which made him seem more sinister to her. Then out of nowhere he pulled his hand back like the bag hit him.

“Objective complete.” The PsyOps agent said over the command channel, as he backed up.

“Roger.” Mother replied. “Dess, terminate the prisoner.”

“Copy that.” Dess, the team leader for the first fireteam in their squad, replied.

Freya watched as Dess stepped forward and pulled out her pistol. She casually raised it and fired a couple of times into the bag until the thing stopped moving. Freya pulled herself back away from the ramp and waited on orders. They still had more than a week left until the invasion would start, which would end the sim mission.