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Mark managed to guide them away from another big cat. The stream with the weird fish they were able to step over.

Once, a sparkle of light caught his eye. He instantly froze. There was nothing there. Slowly he took a few steps towards it. There was nothing there. There was nobody and no besastie hiding close. Mark chose to ignore it and move on.

Maybe it was a land mine, he told himself, probably nothing. But it bugged him. He had guided the team away from it, but still.

The next time he saw a glint, he froze. There was nothing there except a couple of rocks. He walked around it at a distance. There was a whole lot of nothing out of the ordinary.

Carefully he crept closer. The glint was gone, but his eyes had fixed on the rocks. Was it something in the rock?

No. Something under the rock. He crouched down. With the muzzle of his rifle he moved the rock. A small depression and then a handle. Jackpot.

The kilometers were melting away. The plot point on the map was only another 4.27 klicks. Another hour, maybe two. XMAN235 was ranging about a kick ahead of the main group.

An hour ago she had suggested he rejoin. XMAN refused. Southaven said he was always like that. A real pain in the ass.

Joining the entire team up before they explored Mark’s find would have been preferable.

She wanted a chance to talk more with Southaven. Heck, she wanted to talk with Mark too. Angie knew Mike and Heather. Mike was always willing to give his “uh” advice. Heather was just, well, she was just Heather.

She matched her pace to Southaven’s. ”What happened with your team?”

His team had been split up on board the Antonio Lopez in the chaos that led them to this planet.

Southaven didn’t look at her as he andwered. “the squad leader messed up. The moron thought we could take on the TU’Cons. We killed a few, but when they counter attacked.” He paused and looked over at her. ”It was a mess.”

Angie nodded. ”How did the team meeting go during the programmed hold?”

Southaven laughed. ”It got tense

They had reached Mark and his find. I’ll follow up with Southaven later.

Mike had already reached Mark. “Uh, what do we have here?” He knelt down.

I have to remind him this is my team, not his. If he blows himself up, I wont have to worry about it. She watched as he slowly, carefully, brushed dirt away. Soon he had cleared enough to find the edges of the lid. Mike narrated his thoughts “15X15, too small for a person. I think. Now how do we open it...”

Southaven marched right up to Mike. He looked at the door. He looked at Mike. To everybody’s surprise and astonishment, he reached down, grabbed the handle and yanked. Mike jumped backwards. Nobody else really moved, flinching doesn’t count.

For a few seconds, nobody moved. “Not how I wold have done it,” Heather said dryly.

“Its done now.” Southaven knelt down to look. The lid revealed a cache of stuff. He reached down into the cache.

“Wait, wait!” Mike was yelling. Everybody, including Southaven looked at him. “You don’t know if its booby trapped.”

Southaven pulled out a box. Nothing exploded. “That wasn’t.” He started pulling more stuff out.

Mike sat up. “That’s not how we do things.”

Southaven flicked his head towards Angie. “The boss didn’t say no.”

“Uh, she should have.”

“I didn’t.” Angie chimed in. She nodded at Southaven, “What do we have?”

Her thoughts strayed. Southaven gave me an opening, with Mike. Why didn’t I take advantage? It would have been my chance to show Mike who’s boss.