After a quick trip to my quarters inside of the Command Center, and a little adjustment I returned to Fernando who had the decency to maintain a stoic expression. The fact I have only ever seen him with that particular facial expression is beside the point.

“Fernando, did you find anyone with medical knowledge? We should have some Medic gear in the Command Centers armory.”

“I have, Sir. Ten Civilians with prior medical expertise have been sent there to be outfitted and go over the manuals detailing their gear use.”

Good, good. That meant we had a means to heal any of our injured boys. Staring at Fernando while we watched over the surprisingly quick construction of Shelter, I toyed with the idea of using the Elite Marine upgrade on him.

It had obvious advantages, and there was no telling what a minor Hero like him would gain from an upgrade like that. I decided to hold off for now though, mostly because I still had the Upgrade Card for Hero units. I’d use that on Nova later, see what it gave me. Though I personally wanted to do it after she managed to gain a level, assuming we had that chance prior to the Campaign Map then all the better.

Fernando suddenly raised his right hand to his helmet, and I heard the distinct static the signaled the internal radio keying up.

“Sir, the men found a Mineral deposit about half a mile to the North West of us, and a Vespene Geyser just a little more West of that location. No signs of local predators or wildlife yet, but they are still moving toward the mile marker we set.”

I nodded, thankful we got lucky enough to have ready access to more resources for construction. “Good, have one of the SCV Riggs get in the Command Center, I saw the factory line that produces the Riggs. Get him started on those, as many as can be made with the Minerals not being used for our Shelter and Barracks. We need to get those materials as fast as we can. You may also begin enlarging the Militia number. I know we have two-hundred Marine armors. I have a bad feeling we will need each of them in the days to come, but I leave it to your discretion.”

He nodded at me, momentarily distracted by pulling over an SCV Rigg, I was a little shocked to see a woman piloting it. Keeping in mind it wasn’t an actual game was proving more difficult than I would like to admit, given all the game like qualities.

“Sir, we can field at most one-hundred Militia. They can easily patrol the territory limits a Mile out, while maintaining a force at those Bunkers you want to be built. Any more will strain our food stores too much, at least until the first farms are manned and harvested.”

Ok, so Supply Depots were storage then, and we needed to grow our own food. Good to know. The fact Militia ate more was interesting, but not too shocking. More food, more strength, more training.

“Alright, get it done. I want a detail…”

Nova's clear voice suddenly rang out in my ear, startling me. I didn’t even know I had a com function!

“Sir, Nova reporting. I’ve gone past the mile marker directly South of your position. I’m seeing Hostile Terran, looks like a Kel-Morian slave crew. Orders?”

The fuck? How did she get there that fast? Shaking my head, I turned to Fernando, who was waiting patiently. “It’s Nova, she says she found what looks like a Kel-Morian slave crew. She’s on standby right now, suggestions?”

Apparently, his face could change from Stoic, because that uncommonly attractive bastard looked like he wanted to rip someone in two with his bare hands.

“We need to wipe them out, Sir. I recommend you have the Ghost start by scouting out their numbers. I’ll call the boys back and then we all hit them and take out the closest known threat.”

Well, now I knew not to piss off Fernando. Like I needed any more reasons not to. His suggestion made sense as well, but I was worried about taking to many men away from ensuring our general area was secured.

“Alright Fernando, but only call back ten at most. You and Nova should make up for the lack of numbers in terms of skill.” A crisp solute followed, then shouted orders into his com while he rushed to the Command Center.

Roughly three hours later, Fernando, myself and five Marines were outside the Kel-Morian patrol route. Nova had gone out scouting one more time after delivering information. There were thirty slavers, two of them had Marine armor, spikes apparently littered them in some savage attempt at looking cruel.

Our current location was an ambush point, one of five that Nova had found while observing the patrol routes while we made our way here. Each patrol only had four men involved and was about an hour apart.

Piss poor, in my mind, but they were pirates after all. I doubted discipline was all that high on their priorities. When the patrol did show up, Fernando leveled his Heavy Gauss Rifle at them and took aim. The five Militia with us lifted their own rifles and prepared to follow up.

I’d rather do this quiet, but the second the patrol went down, Nova would start her own operation killing the two leaders in Marine armor before moving to take out single targets throughout the camp.

“Fire” I said, and a noise that sounded more like a roaring turbine accompanied my order as Fernando fired his personal weapon, the big cannon taking the entire upper portion of one Pirate and turning it into goo.

A split second later the men started to fire, taking out the other three in a hail of bullets. Fernando got up quickly, shouting “Move, move, move!”

We got moving, running as quickly as we could toward the main base while Nova should already be doing her job. When we hit the outer portion of their camp, a single Pirate was running toward us, still strapping a belt on, only to take a bullet to the noggin from my own quick aim shot.

“Take them out boys, no Pirate leaves here alive!” I shouted, and then went temporarily deaf as Fernando fired that big fucking cannon he called a rifle again. The men joined in, firing at anything and everything that moved.

Putting a hand on my com, I contacted Nova. “Nova, target status?”

“Eliminated, moving to the secondary objective.” No nonsense indeed, a thoroughly trained Ghost was invaluable for missions like this. I made my way through the camp in a more orderly fashion, moving while cloaked to get a feel for it. The Tutorial Map had helped, but I was pretty much scared shitless there. This area was more my style, Human targets.

I killed another three men in silence as I made my way toward their central tent. The reason? I figured it would have something good and allow me to increase either my resources at the base, or add some sort of technology to assist us.

When I arrived at the tent, I deactivated my cloaking system and looked around. What was easily the most noticeable thing here were the two giant heaps of metal that had been the Pirate Leaders. Each one had a single shot through the visor section of their helmet and looked like they didn’t even know what hit them.

The second was a table with a map on it. I frowned, moving closer to it.

Completed map of the wastelands

The second I touched it, the text showed up and it flashed a bit before a green section showed up, judging by the change I had to assume I now had ownership and the bloody thing had actually updated itself to show my territory as it was. But more interesting was the fact there were six other red sections, each named. ‘Bloody EagleTraders’, ‘Rabid Wolves’ so on and so forth. Pirate affiliations? Camps, squads? I’d make Nova check it out later.

A quick perusal showed the map was the only thing of value, though I’d be taking those Marine armors. They would prove useful after I repaired the visors. When I finally left the tent, Fernando was just outside, holding his weapon in a relaxed manner, studiously ignoring the five men suffering the result of killing for the first time.

“Camps been cleared, Sir. The boys did a fine job.”

I nodded at him, eyeing the men hunched over, vomiting. “Good, follow me. I have something to show you.”

We entered the tent, only to see Nova already there, bent over and studying the map. I saw the bloodstains on her forearms and figured she got a little hands on in a few of her tasks. “Nova, good to see you here. That map shows other Pirate Camps. I’m not sure if they are all apart of the same crew, or if they are different factions within the Kel-Morian ranks. Regardless, we need to get rid of them, for the other Colonies on this planet, as well as our own.”

Nova moved her eyes to me slowly, before returning to the map. Fernando went to the table and began studying it as well. “Sir, some of these placements look like they would be heavily fortified. We’d need some ordinance to take them out. I’d recommend hitting this one first.”

He pointed to a location East of our main Base location. ‘Hallowed Ravine’ was the locations name, that seemed...well lacking but whatever. “I’ll take your word for it Fernando, Nova! I want you to start scouting the enemy Camps, starting with that one. Get any information you can, numbers, supplies, patrol routes. If you get the chance, pick off key people. More importantly, disable their communications. I want our presence so close to so many Pirates to stay a secret for as long as possible.”

Hefting her rifle, Nova nodded and flipped her Visor down, disappearing from few as she did so. Well, she wasted no time. “Fernando, get those men outside in here. I want those Marine armors, and this map brought back to the Command Center, I have a plan.”

Fernando saluted, then went about seeing my orders were done. I sighed, fighting back the sickening feeling that things were going to be a lot more difficult than this first base, a message that popped up shortly after all but proved it.

System Announcement!

Congratulations Player! You have successfully destroyed a Kel-Morian Pirate Camp. You have been awarded a complete map of your region on Mar Sara, the Wastelands. -WARNING- Difficulty modifier increased by one, new difficulty is Hell +1