“Captain?” Sweeper looked up at Savage. “Are we seriously going to attack the UCNA again?”

“Why not? If they’re base ends up being in the way, we’ll be killing two birds with one bullet.”

“If we were going to attack, why didn’t we bring Guard? Wouldn’t she be helpful?”

“Yes…” Savage tried to think of a reason for why she had left the recruit behind. Saying that she didn’t want the base left unguarded wouldn’t fly as they have done that multiple times now. Thinking on it was hard so instead she thought that giving a simple and short answer would be fine. “She isn’t needed for my plan.”

“What’s the plan ma’am?” Dealer said in a monotone voice from the front seat.

“It’s on a need-to-know basis.”

“We are currently heading towards their base right now.” Dealer replied in a slightly more agitated tone.

“Well… you’ll know when we get there.”

With a defeated sigh, Dealer went back to focusing on driving. The sunny sky from this morning had been replaced with gray clouds in the evening. It seemed like it was about to rain at any moment which sucked for Dealer as she was on a dirt road.

“Hasn’t rained here for a while.” Reaper had opened the window on her side of the vehicle and stuck her hand out to feel for raindrops. “The mud will end up covering the tracks, we need to hurry.” The atmosphere had gotten a lot heavier as the clouds darken the landscape before them.

The third time. This was the third time Savage was leading the US troops into battle against the UCNA. She had read up on strategies and tactics through a guide book but she felt that they were a little outdated, many of its points were based on the idea that humans were supposed to be fighting on the battlefield. Of course there wouldn’t be anyone writing out present-time battle plans due to how much has changed in such a short time. The rebuilding and reorganizing of society also doesn’t help.

She was currently reading through a guide book on how to be a good boss, it’s applicable to all fields of work or at least the book says it is and books aren’t known to lie. It gave some helpful tips on the do’s and don’ts of being a team leader that she hopes to put into practice. One of the most important things was to find out how the people under you felt about working for you.

“I was wondering… have I been a good boss to you guys?”

“Wha? Where is this coming from?” Dealer was surprised that she had that much self-awareness to even ask that question.

“Well you see… I’ve been reading up on some stuff on how to be a good boss. And since I haven’t been physically violent with you guys… I just thought maybe… I’m a good boss?” Savage looked around to see the reactions of her troops, hoping someone would reply favourably.

“None of us are able to lead and if we were to be put in your shoes we wouldn’t have made it this far, so I’d say you’re good.” Sweeper smiled. She would’ve given a nod, but due to her paranoia of her spine exploding, opted not to.

“You know a good leader wouldn’t have gotten over 90% of her workers killed.” Dealer harshly stated. “But a death count that high means general incompetency from everyone involved so I’d say you’re… okay. At least in comparison to everything else.”

“Yeah you’re alright.” With one of her hands still being out of the window, Reaper turned and gave Savage a thumbs up.

“You’re making me blush here… ya know… if I was able to.”

The jeep came to a sudden halt causing everyone to crash forward on their seats.

“Hey Dealer! What’s going on?” Sweeper said as she desperately held onto Savage.

“The UCNA base is right there.” Dealer pointed out the window, to the south of them was a large, familiar building.

“Did you lose their trail Private Dealer?” Savage asked.

“What trail?”

“The trail of those guys we were following.”

“Oh…” For the next minute Dealer stayed silent. Raindrops can be heard hitting the jeep in a rhythmic pattern, the clouds were still holding on and had yet to give way to a downpour. “… I wasn’t following the trail.”

“Private Dealer, what the hell we’re you doing then?”

“Going east… I thought we were just going to the enemy base!” Dealer turned around, hoping that the Captain would understand her confusion.

“Well there goes that plan.” Sweeper, still clinging onto Savage, was annoyed that she couldn’t see what was happening outside of the vehicle. “Can we get out now, Captain?”

“I guess we have to kill one bird with one bullet then.” With that said she issued the command for them to get out of the jeep.

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Dealer looked at the enemy’s base in the distance. She didn’t noticed it before, due to them attacking it from the front, but looking at it from the side she could see that their base was much larger than the US base.

As she turned to complain about it she saw that Mirabelle was still clinging on to the top of the jeep. They had forgotten about her and would’ve probably left her out here in the rain, though it wasn’t like she could fit in the vehicle in the first place.

“Hey Mirabelle, you can get down now buddy.” She waved one hand at the droid to get her attention.

Once again, almost toppling the vehicle, Mirabelle got off of it. Reaper walked up to the two with her sniper in hand, her large cloak acting like a rain jacket.

“Shouldn’t we give her a weapon?” Reaper mentioned to Dealer, who just shrugged. She wasn’t the logistic officer so it can’t be helped if one of them was missing a weapon or some ammunition.

A voice called out to them from the back of the jeep. “Hey need a hand here taking out the secret weapon.”

The two girls looked at each other and Reaper carefully placed her sniper in the backseat before going to help.

Savage was struggling to get the pieces of the rocket launcher out of the trunk as they were trapped under other secret weapons that they forgot to throw out. The two reached in and looked for the pieces of it in the pile. They dragged out anything that looked remotely similar to parts of a rocket launcher

“Great, now all we have to do is put it together. Private Reaper, pass that part over there.” It took a while but the three managed to finally build the launcher.

Savage carried the thing over her shoulder, it was bigger than her but she was still able to lift it with ease.

“So that’s our secret plan? To blow up the UCNA?” Dealer shrugged the idea off, if beating the enemy was so simple they would’ve done it months ago.

A smile appeared on the Captain’s face. “Of course you wouldn’t be able to see it Private Dealer.” She walked forward from the group. “The enemy’s numbers have dwindled so drastically and we could see from the previous battles that they have no countermeasures for explosives. We can get them all in one blow.” Savage tapped on the ammo box of the launcher.

“Oh so what if they did have countermeasures, do you have plans for that?”

“Yes.”

“How many plans do you have Captain?” Sweeper, who was standing to the side, questioned.

“I have plans for almost all kinds of problems we would face on the battlefield.” Chuckled Savage.

The group was a little ways off from the base and it was starting to rain even heavier, this would work in their favour as they could slowly approach them without them noticing.

“Ladies, lets catch them by surprise! Plan B is now in motion!”

“I thought Plan B was blowing them up from a position of questionable safety?” Sweeper asked.

“No, it was blowing their base up.” Reaper didn’t sound so sure. “I think…”

“Whatever! Plan Just Kill Them Now!”

She motioned for the group to follow behind her as she headed towards their target. The ground was getting muddier, much to Dealer’s dismay, as the sound of raindrops hitting the grassy fields was all that could be heard throughout the area.

They ran into no resistance as they reached the entrance to the northern side of the UCNA base. They huddled together beside the wall, crouching under the windows, except for Sweeper and Mirabelle who stood to the side.

“That was too easy.” Sweeper said as she peered into the base. It looked empty from this side. “You think this is a trap?”

Savage got up and walked towards the door, she easily pushed it with her free hand.

“No alarms…” She looked down at Reaper and Dealer and motioned for them to go in. “I’ll follow behind you. Sweeper, Mirabelle you cover my back.”

The group quietly entered the building, their mud covered boots softened the sounds of their footsteps as they slowly made their way towards the lobby. The lights were off giving it a more eerie atmosphere.

They stopped before the doorway leading to the lobby. “You think this place is haunted?” Dealer joked.

“Shut it, Private Dealer.” Savage whispered.

Sweeper reached for her weapon. She pulled up nothing.

“Huh?” She once again reached for her weapon, nothing was there. She looked for it even harder but couldn’t seem to find it.

She tapped Reaper’s shoulder. “Uh… hey do you have your weapon?”

Reaper reached for her sniper only to grab air. Surprised, Reaper turned her head to see where it was, rain droplets sprayed off of her cloak.

“Oh…” Was the only thing the girl could mutter.

They left their weapons back in the jeep.

“Is this in any of your plans, Captain?” Dealer leaned back to ask Savage.

If she said it was she’d be lying. Her plan has gone awry as she was the only armed one here.

“Well we still have the secret weapon so all we need to do is have them group in one place.”

“Ah yes, ask them to line in an orderly fashion so we can explode them.” Dealer said in a sarcastic tone.

“Captain? Can you, uh, check to see if we loaded that thing?” Sweeper gestured to the ammo container of the weapon.

Savage carefully placed the weapon down and slowly reached for the box, she almost didn’t want to find out. She opened it.

“Shit…” Savage remembered that she loaded one in before she was called to help out with something else. She must have never gone back and finished.

“Should we head back to the jeep and get them?” Sweeper panicked. They made it into the enemy’s stronghold but they were almost unarmed.

“No.” The Captain sternly said with her eyes filled with determination. “We still have our other secret weapon.” She patted Mirabelle on the thighs, the girl continued to stand there emotionlessly.

Footsteps could be heard coming towards them. The group froze in place as they looked at the door leading to the lobby. It was getting louder now as it was assuredly heading towards that door now. Dealer looked at Reaper in hopes that she could do something, the girl in black noticed and reached for her knife. Luckily it was still there and she pulled it out.

The footsteps stopped as they reached the door, the handle began to turn as Reaper slowly approached the door. As the door flung open Reaper quickly grabbed whoever was behind it and placed the knife to their throat. To their surprise it was an oddly dressed man.

“H-hey I didn’t do anything!” The man shouted, he was going to say something else but Reaper quickly pressed her knife close to the man’s throat to stop him.

“Alright Private First Class Reaper! We got our hostage.” Savage approached the man, he struggled a bit when he noticed she was carrying a rocket launcher.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I-I’m Haven. Haven Thacher.” Said the young man with short brown hair. “I’m with Those at the Threshold… um we’re a religious group that stopped by this place, that’s all.”

“So you don’t have any affiliation with the UCNA?” Savage pressed further.

“No no no, we just got here.” The man pleaded.

Savage got up to his face as she stared into his eyes, Dealer couldn’t help but giggle when she noticed that she had to stand on her toes to even get close to eye level with the man.

“How many UCNA soldiers are stationed here?”

“I-I don’t know.” Seeing as that answer didn’t satisfy his interrogator, he continued. “I counted at least 5. They're in the gym right now.”

A sinister smile appeared on Savage’s face. “Good, you’ll take us there.”