“Got any ideas?” Rachel asks.

“I’m all close quarters, wide-eyes. Fighting in the woods ain’t my specialty.” Touch says, but Rachel can already see the gears turning in his head as he surveys the cluster of wooded hills.

“They’ll try to surround us. At least come at us from two different sides. So, our two options are to take that little one in the back. It’s got the thickest tree cover and foliage. Best concealment, best cover, and good visibility. Plus, we have room to retreat and adapt to their counter move.”

“That hill on the right is taller and wider.” Rachel interrupts. “We maintain the high ground no matter what, and we have more room to move around. She’s most likely to come from the right, too.”

“I don’t think that matters.” Touch says. “They’ll see us and take all the time they need to attack from whatever angle they choose. But the rest is solid. Arch?”

He points to the highest of the hills, the one with a broader top and an adequate amount of tree cover.

“—Yeah, there settling atop that hill.” Slip reports.

“Damn.” Shrikes smiles to herself. Not only was there no incentive to leave such a position, but now that they were dug in, coming back down would prove more dangerous than it was worth. They were stuck up there. The high ground will limit Slip’s range and target exposure considerably.

Shrike chose the clearing because if things went bad, they could always retreat and reposition. She wanted to stay flexible and pick them off little by little as she tested them. Rachel wasn’t playing around. This was it. All or nothing right away.

“Alright. Me and Jason will go around the back. Slip, do what you can to draw their fire, try to engage them from as far away as you can. We’ll close the distance. Once we got their attention, make your way up the hill.”

“Roger that.”

Rachel and Touch go around the perimeter of the wooded hilltop, exposing themselves at random intervals to get eyes on the enemy team. They never poked their head out longer than two seconds.

After about thirty minutes of this, a shot tears into a tree Rachel had been crouching next to, coming from the vague direction of the clearing. That was almost close. Like he aimed and shot after she had already popped her head back down.

“Slip’s here.” She says.

“Looks like he’s trying to get your attention.”

“You think that means Shrike and whoever else is on their way?”

“Probably. Don’t take the bait. Let’s keep an eye out for the others. Make him reposition.”

“What if they know we won’t take the bait, and Slip is covering their advance directly?”

“Stay there and listen for them coming up the hill. Poke your head and bait him just a little, but be careful.”

So, Rachel plays a game of peek-a-boo with Slip, spanning her entire side of the hill. Rachel needed all the room she could to wack-a-mole herself from unpredictable positions. Based on the sound of the shots and the few times she caught sight of Slip, he was spanning the base of the hill, switching up positions constantly as well.

This game went on for ten minutes, getting slower as Rachel pops out less, and Slip takes less and less shots at her.

“Got ‘em! Two!” Touch says from behind and to the left, facing the smaller hill in the back. He unleashes a controlled burst of fire before ducking back behind a tree. A volley of training rounds soon follow his retreat and he repositions.

“Arch!” Rachel says, “Stay hidden. Make sure Slip doesn’t sneak up on us.”

Rachel goes to cover the other side of Shrike’s advance. She looks at Touch and holds up three fingers. Three.

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She listens for footsteps as she puts one finger down. Two.

She hears the snapping of branches down below. One.

She makes a fist and they both move.

The two stalk their way to the next row of trees and overlook the path up the hill. Rachel sees a muzzle poke out behind a tree halfway down the hill, pointing toward Touch. She follows the eruption of mock gunfire to a sliver of Jason’s elbow and rifle barrel pointing around the side of another tree parallel to Shrike’s position. Both of them unleashing bursts of training rounds on Touch, forcing him behind his cover.

He crouches down low and pokes his gun out just enough to return a tighter spread of fire on Jason. Forcing him back into cover. Rachel keeps her gun trained on Shrike’s position as she stalks her way from tree to tree, trying to blindside her from the left. If Touch can keep them occupied, she can sneak around and deal with them both.

Slip works his way around and up the hill. He’s hoping to come out with everyone’s back to him, then it’ll be easy pickings. He just has to keep an eye out for Arch.

As soon as he breaks the crest of the hill, he sees half of Touch’s torso through the thinly wooded hilltop. Looks like they set up on the decline to fire down on Shrike and Jason. Not an impossible shot, but he’d like to get closer. These sim rounds were a pain in the ass at longer range. He sweeps his sights around for Rachel and Arch.

“Shit.” Slip’s shots go wide as Arch darts out from the bushes. He fires three shots, too close to use his scope. The closest shot kicks dirt up just behind the fox as he runs the path of a curveball, closing the distance.

Next thing he knows, Slip is collapsing to the ground. Stiff and convulsing. It feels like an army of bees crawled their way inside him and are stinging every inch under his skin. Just as quickly as it starts, his body relaxes, and Slip takes a moment to recover.

Aside from the splitting headache and every muscle in his body aching, he was fine. He looks up to see Arch standing triumphantly on his chest.

So that’s how it would be? If he moves, he’ll just get zapped again. At least with Arch keeping him prisoner, the fox was out of the fight. He’ll take the stalemate.

“All right, you win. I’m gonna to toss my guns, slowly.”

“Slip’s down!” Touch calls out on his radio.

He turns back around to see a blur fly straight at him, tripping him to the ground. He realizes too late that he let Jason get one of his bolas off on him. The space between the two of them was relatively rocky and sparse of trees. He should have seen it coming.

The ground knocks Touch’s rifle from his grip and as he tumbles from cover; he breaks out a pistol in each hand and opens fire as Jason raises his rifle.

Dual wielding pistols took a lot of training to do right. A steady two handed grip was almost always better. It took a lot of strength and experience to use a pistol accurately with one hand. Let alone two simultaneously. And even then, he could only do it with the lower calibers.

Jason and Touch exchange shots, Touch’s accidental prone position giving him a slight advantage. Combine that with Jason exposing over half his body to make that bolas shot, and not returning to cover before switching to his rifle, made it almost a fair exchange.

Touchstone aims one pistol at Jason and hits him twice in the chest, though he shot at least four times. While firing blindly at Shrike’s position with the other pistol. The two shots from Jason get close, but fall somewhere far behind Touch.

As soon as Jason throws up his hands in surrender, he fires another burst at Shrike, hoping to keep her head down and buy himself a precious second or two to re-sight.

She was having none of it, and nails him twice in his exposed back, as he aims and fires his own two shots.

His shots go wide, nailing the tree instead.

Touchstone drops both pistols and throws his own hands up. At least as far as he can in his compromised position.

“Hands up!” Rachel says, standing a healthy distance behind Shrike.

Rachel can hear Shrike let out a short bark of a laugh from under her protective mask as she raises her hands and her rifle into the air.

“Nice job.” Shrike says.

“Drop—“ Rachel starts, then Shrike dives behind the tree. If this was real, Rachel would have hesitated. But this was a game. So Rachel fires off two shots at Shrike’s back, keeping her gun up as she circles behind the tree, just to find Shrike with her hands up again.

“Ya got me.” Shrike says.

After Rachel confirms that Slip is still neutralized, she calls an end to the exercise.

Halloween ends, and people clear out over the next few days with no incidents. After receiving the rest of their payment on November fourth, Rachel and the rest of them head out with the last major escort, as planned.

“You two! Scouts!” The man with the clipboard points at Rachel and Touch.

Touch takes in a breath to say something, but little Anea speaks first.

“You guys go ahead. I’ll stick with Arch and Dill and my friends from the party. You two have some things to get off your chests, anyway.”