Travis's senpai said yes, unfortunately. I begged Dylan to reenlist, but he refuses to play with me as long as Travis was there. I didn't take it personally, but it still meant that I had to deal with Travis alone. To make things worse, Travis refuses to use any traditional armaments, deeming firearms lazy and cowardly. Instead, he picked up a stick he called his "katana." He claims to honor his ancestors by only using traditional weapons. I wonder if his trench coat and sunglasses are part of that. Even if I could convince him to pick up a rifle, we would not have the firepower to take the main bad guy fortress by ourselves. I assigned him a recon mission to evaluate the bad guys defenses and potential evac routes. It would also help get him away from me.

The fortress was a well-defended structure of ladders and slides with bridges spanning four platforms. Despite Travis's bravado, I knew there was no way we could take it with just the two of us. Also, I wasn't comfortable sharing that kind of victory with him. He ran toward the fortress, bent forward with his arms extended behind him.

I kept eyes on him through my field binoculars. I didn't have a pair of real binoculars onhand, so I cupped my hands around my eyes. I called them my field binoculars. He stopped and crouched on top of one one the swings, posing like a cat ready to pounce on his prey. He then sneaked across the rubber tile to one of the ladders and began his ascent. Travis kept it cool as he infiltrated the compound, deftly avoiding the patrols. I have to admit, his restraint was impressive up to the point where he raised his katana and assassinated the decoy posing as the bad guy general. Idiot. Now we were compromised.

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He fought his way across the main platform over to the slide. I turned on my bluetooth speaker and set my phone to play "Run To The Hills" by Iron Maiden and sprung into action, laying down covering fire and preventing the bad guys' attempt at flanking Travis. I secured the bottom of the slide and called for Travis to take the escape route I cleared for him. He said no and that this was part of his training. Um, what? The only thing I've seen him do that passed for training was swing a laundry dowel in his backyard with a blindfold on.

I stayed behind as long as I could, but I knew I couldn't hold the position forever. Travis wasn't going to leave until he got bored. He said would consider following my orders if I "played something good and not that stupid old stuff." His idea of "something good" was probably some sort of pop song sung by a high-pitched girl in a foreign language. I'm not proud of myself, but I had to fall back. They tell us in basic to never leave a man behind, but never what to do when the man refuses to follow orders. Besides, I couldn't have a soldier speaking ill of Iron Maiden. I suppose I'll have to honor his sacrifice, but I didn't want to play with him anymore.