Warren and Cecile lay on a mountaintop, buried in snow. They knew that this would be their posting in most missions, but it didn’t make it any less boring. Sure, there had been the occasional check-in to verify that both sides were still alive, but that was nothing like being in the midst of the action.

Not that he wanted to be in the action mind you, but laying in the snow as it slowly buried him was not his idea of a good time.

“How long do you think they’ll be in there?” He asked for the third time that hour.

“As long as it takes.” The sniper replied. “Instead of laying there with your thumb up your ass, how about sending out a drone or two and killing some of these invaders?”

“No thanks, you’re doing a wonderful job at that. If I joined in, you would lose out on the fun of putting a bullet through their skulls.”

And she truly was doing a fantastic job of picking off enemies. So far in their sojourn she’d killed at least twenty while still managing to keep their snipers nest hidden. Could the number he higher if his Vixen’s were out scouting targets? Probably, but right now his job was to make sure that Jack and the crew didn’t get any surprises from behind.

“Fine, how about sending out a drone to check on the status of the other squads?”

“Already done.” He chuckled, “I sent a few wasps to each site before we even left the ship. Sent them through the gate with each team.”

Breaking her almost statuesque position of cheek to rifle-stock, Cecile glared at him in a look that would shrivel the testicles of most men. He supposed he would be in that list too, if he swung that way.

“Fine, fine. I’ll send out a few Vixen’s and see what I can find.” He gave in, mentally interfacing with the three Vixen’s he’d brought on the mission.

If one were to watch from above, they would see small objects punch through the snow and fly off into the distance. Luckily for the two AHF soldiers, they had truly remained as inconspicuous as a lump of snow on a mountain could be.

“Alright, I’m taking them on a heading that will bring each one within about four-hundred feet of the supposedly secret entrance.” He said as the drones flew at incredible speeds to begin scouting. “Not terribly secret though, is it? I mean, obviously the factory workers had the information, but so did the AHF and now apparently the enemy. For a place that should be hard to find, it is damned near glowing on the map.”

“I hear ya’, but truth be told I’d rather be out here pushing our enviro controller to it’s max than be inside that deathtrap…. See anything?”

“I see a small camp of Raak off to the west. From the looks of it, they are coming to check on the super-secret entrance.”

“Heading?”

“Northwest, 312 degrees. Elevation minus 38. Wind speed is currently four miles per hour.”

“ETA?”

“At their speed I would say you have about five minutes before they arrive.”

She snorted, “Even they can last longer than the guy I brought back to the hotel last night.”

“Do tell sister!”

“Maybe later, right now we have to wait in the snow for five minutes.”

Warrens laughter died in his throat as he managed to get a better look at the leader of the group. “CC… it’s one of them.”

“Yeah, I know. We are fighting these rhino things.”

“No… One of THEM. The things that killed Diego.”

“Oh shit.” Fumbling through menus, she changed her comms back to squad level, “Jack, Jack! No be quiet, no time for formality. One of those black things is closing in on the entrance.”

“Can you distract it?”

“Do you remember what it did to the last human soldier that tried to stop it?”

“Yeah, we killed it.”

“Not without loosing Diego!” Warren shouted, “I don’t know how you are going to get out of there, but Jack you better get your ass out as fast as possible. This one has taken the form of a Raak’Shee and looks like it wants to kick some ass.”

“You have two mountain tops between you and the creature. If it sees you, run. Find somewhere to hide where you won’t be found. I wont let you die.” Jack promised.

“That’s a big promise from someone who isn’t here.” Warren said, closing in on the small group of enemies and highlighting them on Neilson’s HUD.

“I’ll pass through one of you if needed. But you have to keep that thing out of here by any means necessary… We’ve found… disturbing things.”

Switching off the squad level comm, Warren focused on the task at hand, “Ok CC, no more playtime. I’ve taken over your HUD and marked the enemies with numbers. We have six real Raak, and one of those things. I’m going to take one, two, and three. You take four, five, and six. Hopefully killing his entourage will make him leave us alone.”

“You really think that?”

“I sure as shit hope it.”

“Well then… let’s get to work.”

While waiting for the group to be in her sights, Cecile topped off the charges of three separate Light batteries. In order to take out three Raak’Shee quickly enough, she knew that the shots must be at least eighty percent of her maximum power. While this wasn’t as difficult as it was a year ago, it would still take quite a bit out of her.

Through her scope, she could see Warren’s drones finding the best position and angle possible. She had to give it to the guy, for as much as other soldiers poked fun at any soldier that found their place in the rear of battle, this man had taken his fighting to the next level. She knew that if she could see his face, not a single part of his consciousness would be here in his body.

“They are crossing the ridge in thirty seconds.” He said, “All three Vixens have their targets, and I am prepared to use every ounce of their power to take these things out.”

“We’ve got this. We can take out the guards, and if we think the creatures found us, we can move.”

Numbers floated over the alien’s heads as they crested the mountain in the far-off distance. The moment all seven figures were exposed, Cecile calmed he breathing and fell into the rhythm she used every time she fired.

Count the breath She thought to herself, Let it out slowly…. And hold.

With her target in her sights, she gently squeezed the trigger.

An incredibly dense explosive round shot out of her rifle at speeds that could only be dreamed of with a regular weapon. However, the sharpshooter didn’t have time to ponder her weapon or to even admire her handiwork. She simply had to know herself and her rifle, and trust that the enemy was dead.

Swinging the barrel to the next target and channeling the contents of the second battery into the chamber, she cursed as the creatures started to panic. Apparently, your buddy’s head being blown off tended to scare these creatures. Wimps.

She acted like she hated trying to catch a moving target, but secretly, she loved it. After so many years protecting a government mandated farm in the wastes, it was almost fun to be after targets that knew they were being stalked.

Forcing herself into a sniper’s breathing pattern once more, she squeezed the trigger and ended the life of a second Raak’Shee.

“How are yours looking?” Her voice had taken on a tone that she rarely allowed her squad mates to hear. The flat, dead tone that expressed no emotion about her task was something that she prided herself on personally but scared the shit out of those who hear it.

It was easier just to remain silent.

“I have one down, two to go. I missed with the Vixen and have to recharge the shots.”

Of course. The one thing she hated about this side of her was the complete lack of tolerance for failure. Again, it was the reason she tried not to speak while like this, but with seven targets that were incredibly resilient, sometimes it was necessary.

After this shot, she would have two more fully charged power cells, and about sixty percent of a charge on her third. She hated that so much Light had been consumed with those first two shots, but that was why they included five batteries in her kit, wasn’t it?

She wasn’t paying attention to the black shapeshifter as she killed her third opponent, however she did see it staring at their peak when she swung her barrel over toward Warren’s targets. They’d been seen, and while the creature may not have their exact location, it was only a matter of time before it found them.

Lining up a shot with one of Warren’s remaining two targets, she used a slightly weaker shot to finish it off. With all three drones free to eliminate the final threat, she pulled her cheek from the weapon stock and rerouted power into the pack of landmines she’d brought with her kit.

The quartermaster thought she was crazy when she requested them, stating many times that she was a sniper and that mines were the last thing she’d need. Turned out he was wrong.

“Keep those Vixens on the creature. Do not let it out of our sight.” She said, cracking through the layer of white power that had built up around them over the past ten hours. “We need one to find us a new place to lie low, the black thing saw us.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Set a trap.”

Minutes later the pair had shaken off the last of the snow, only for it to be in the process of being replaced again. Cecile had laid down four mines in total, each along different pathways to the original nest. For a second, she thought that it was a tad overkill, but one look into her memories told her that nothing would be too much when it came to fighting these creatures.

“There is a cave one and a half clicks out from where we are now.” Warren said dreamily, while he wasn’t as immersed in the machines as he was earlier, he wasn’t quite all here either.

“What about following our tracks? Surely this thing can follow marks in the snow.”

“With how far away those peaks are, it will be a few hours before it gets here. According to my predictions, the snow should have fallen enough to cover our trail.”

“Perfect.” She said cheerily. Now that the immediate fighting was over, it was time to pull away from the sniper’s mindset. Some people couldn’t figure out how to turn it off, but Cecile learned long ago that being too focused for too long could hurt much more than it could help. “How deep is this cave? Can we actually get away from the cold for a bit or is it basically a small hole in the ground?”

“From the looks of it, you can start your own hermit village. From the looks of it, there may be a small cave connected near another peak that we can even use as another nest.”

“Damn, I’ll take that.” Swapping over to the squad chatter for a moment, she gave Jack the rundown of what happened and where they were going. Hopefully, they wouldn’t be so deep in the ground that the Gate couldn’t grab them. “Lead on.”