“Never the First Sergeant is looking for you.” A guy from her platoon called to her. She was in the armory again stripping down a fifty cal machine gun. She was grateful to the armory Sergeant who kept requesting her to work in the Armory. He also took her to lunch every day so she was eating three meals a day again. She looked up and nodded before putting the machine gun back together. Her task completed she made her way to First Sergeants Office.

“Emily, come on in. Have a seat.” The First Sergeant said after she knocked on his door. “We just got the request from security requesting that you get three more days of restriction.”

Emily signed and leaned back in her seat. “Here we go again.” She thought to herself.

“This went all the way up to the Colonel’s office but the consensus is that it's unreasonable for you to have your dress uniform ready after what happened. The Colonel himself denied the request and pull the request from your records. Do you have enough money for a new dress uniform?” He asked her.

“I borrowed some from Jan, one of the Second Platoon’s medic,” Emily said relieved.

“Ok, why don’t you and the Corporal put in a reimbursement form to get your money back.” The First Sergeant said smiling. “I am pretty sure the loss was work related.”

“Thanks, First Sergeant,” Emily said standing up.

“No problem Never. You're doing a good job despite what some jackholes are saying. Don’t let it get to you.” The First Sergeant said holding his hand out for her to shake. Smiling Emily shook his hand.

Emily made it to security muster that night for her restriction and was glad when the hard ass Security Sergeant was not there for inspection. She passed her inspection with flying colors before she was sent out for a work party. Emily was chipping paint and rust off the side of a metal building less than a week later when she was called to go TAD again.

Emily grabbed her stuff and made her way to the Ranger building. Inside the First Sergeants office was two scruffy Navy guys. She came to attention when she noticed that one of the Navy guys had what looked like captain bars on his collar. The other guy was a chief like David had been but with only one star on his anchor.

“Never, this is Lieutenant Roland and Chief Soto.” The First Sergeant said nodding to the two navy guys.

“Stupid Navy ranks why can’t they use the same ranks like everyone else.” Emily thought to herself looking at the officer in front of her.

“They are with the Seals from across the way. They need some help with their next mission. Gentlemen this is Never.” First Sergeant said waving his hand at Emily.

Captain or rather Lieutenant Roland smile and held his hand out. “I heard so much about you from Double T and from the rumor mill. I am sorry for your loss. The Senior chief was an amazing warrior. It was an honor to be his commanding officer.”

Emily blinked in surprise as she realized that these people were from his old company. She fought down the tide of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her and faked it. “Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“If you would follow us. We have very little time so we will have to brief you en route. Leave everything but your combat gear here” The Lieutenant said motion for Emily to follow as he turned to leave the office. Emily dropped her rucksack and grabbed a few things from it before following followed the two Navy guys out. A Humvee was waiting on them in front of the Ranger building. The Chief jumped into the driver's side while the Lieutenant jumped in the passenger side. Emily climbed in the back seat.

“About twelve hours ago we got some intel from a very reliable source that an old Soviet Mujahideen era Colonel turned gun runner has been seen in Afghanistan. He had a recent falling out with the OCS and was in the area to mend his ties to them. We know he is going to be in an OCS training compound about a hundred miles north of us in four hours. This guy is a gold mine of Intel and the brass really wants to get this guy.” The Lieutenant said while the Chief drove the Humvee.

“We need you because this guy is well known for having some mid to high-level super bodyguards. You will stick with the Chief and do what he says. We just need you for backup in case there is someone we can’t take care of. Otherwise, I need you to stay in the background. I was ordered not to use you unless we have no choice. You’re the last Main type Super in Afghanistan and no one wants to advertise your location. You read me?” The Lieutenant asked.

“Yes, Sir,” Emily said nodding. She hadn’t realized that she was now the only Main type super left in Afghanistan.

The Chief drove up to the small wooden shack and got out with the Lieutenant. Emily followed the two inside curious. She expected the famed Seal team four to have all the cool toys and the best things but she was left wondering why they were going into a wooden shack. The Rangers had a better building than they did. A huge homemade wooden table dominated the room with a large map of Afghanistan taking up most of it. On the walls surrounding the table were close up area maps of the various different areas of Afghanistan and at least one close up area of Pakistan. At the far end, there was a larger room with two large picnic tables with a bunch of soldiers stood around gearing up.

The Lieutenant turned and made a beeline to an old fashioned phone that was on a small table. The Chief pause then shouted to the men in the room. “Listen up. This is Never. Yes, that Never. You can get her autograph later.” None of the guys in the room stopped what they were doing but they did listen. Some even chuckled at the Chief’s joke.

“We got permission for her to go with us as muscle. She is also third up as an interpreter after Boots and Pop-up. She's with me on third chalk. If you run into any trouble call and we will send her in. Young-One your out. Sorry, she going in place of you.” The Chief said to a young-looking guy who looked down and swore.

“Yes, Chief.” The one called Young-One said pulling out his magazine from his rifle with a sad sigh.

“I am not sure you Rangers train in something like this but our mission is a snatch and grab. We snatch the target first then grab any intelligence that we can. If you see a computer grab the hard drive. If you see some papers grab them. Film anything of interest.” The Chief said in a much quieter voice to Emily. He handing her a small three by five picture of an older Afghan guy with salt and pepper hair and a top-down computer-generated map of a small compound. “None of my guys are anywhere on your level so if they do encounter anything they can’t handle they know to retreat and call you in.”

Emily nodded and looked at a computer generated picture of the compound. The compound had a fifteen-foot wall surrounding it. There was a large building in front and a few smaller buildings behind it. The large building ran from one side of the wall to the other blocking the smaller building behind it. The big building had a maze of hallways with several bigger rooms scattered throughout the building. The smaller buildings behind it each had two or three rooms with one big room right at the front.

“Chalk One and Four will repel from the chopper onto the big building and secure it. This is where our target is staying somewhere here in this big building. Chalk two will land about three miles out and make their way here to come over this wall here and take the small buildings in teams of two.”

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“You're with my Chalk. We are going in with Chalk two. We land with Chalk three and will go over the wall here on the opposite side of the compound of three. Once inside my Chalk will split up. You and I will head to this small building in the middle and clear it. We wait until the rest of the Chalk to finish. We then hand them all our prisoners and if needed we head to the roof and provide over-watch. The other two guys will clear this building here then provide security for all the prisoners from the rest of the Chalks. Once the target is in custody we pull out here and extraction is a half mile north of the compound here.” The Chief said pointed to the map on the table. “Questions?”

Emily looked over both maps for a few seconds before answering “No sir.”

“Its Chief. I work for a living.” The Chief said frowning. “Young-One get Never everything she needs. We leave as soon as the boss is done.”

Young-one smiled as he walked up to her. “Hi, I am Calvin. People call me Young-one because I am the newest guy here,” he said smiling.

“Hi, I am Emily people call me Never,” Emily said smiling at him sadly.

“Yea I know. Your kind of famous around here. You’re Double T’s girlfriend or was, I mean. You're the one who took out three main type supers at once and finally tagged the Butcher.” Young-One said in a rush.

“Young-One!” One of the clean-shaven Seals who was packing his rucksack growled at the Young Sailor. “Settle down!”

“Sorry,” Young-One said looking at the floor. He turned to Emily and said, “So what do you need?”

Young-One got everything Emily needed including some night vision goggles. She was trying them on when the Lieutenant got off the phone. “Ok people let's get going. Choppers will be ready for us in fifteen minutes.” He told the group.

The group got up and with a lot of fist bumping and testosterone flag waving before leaving the building. “They are worse than Army Rangers.” Emily thought with a smile.

There were three helicopters waiting on them on the flight line. Two smaller helicopters and on the large one. The group split up with the two five-man Chalks heading to the smaller helicopters. The Lieutenant’s Chalk was one of the ones who got in on one of the smaller helicopters. Emily followed the Chief into the larger one. She found a seat next to the Chief and buckled in.

Forty-five minutes later the smaller helicopters split off from the group and the large helicopter landed. They quickly got out and ran at half speed to their target. The compound was on a small rocky outcrop. They paused about a hundred yards away and radio in their location. The group on the ground split up and headed in. Emily ran behind the Chief in the middle of the five-person group.

“To think an hour or so ago I was scraping paint.” Emily thought to herself as the group made it to the wall. She could smell smoke and some exotic spices in the air. Her stomach grumbled. The guy in front of her turned to look at her and smiled. His teeth were really shiny in the green-black light of the night vision goggles.

The group paused and the Chief radio in that they were ready. He then motioned for Emily to boost the guys up the wall. Nodding Emily placed her back to the wall. She made a bridge with her fingers and boosted the shiny teeth guy and the rest of the team up over the wall. A quick hop and she reached the top of the wall with her fingers and climbed over to the other side.

They hid behind a small fence and waited.”Wait until the choppers draw the people out. Anyone with weapons, take them out. Anyone not armed we zip tie and bag them.” The Chief whispered to Emily handing her some zip ties and black hoodies. She slid the zip ties on her belt and stuffed the hoodies in her back pocket.

They hid for several minutes before Emily heard the sounds of a helicopter arriving. She looked over at the big building and watched as the helicopters came flying in. The Chief slapped her shoulder and pointed towards the small buildings. For a couple of second nothing happened then people started to come out a lot of them were armed. Emily raised her rifle only to have the Chief push it back down. He shook his head no as he raised his rifle towards the gathering people.

Frowning Emily wonder why until raised his left hand then let it drop. The group fired their silenced weapons dropping whoever came out of their building armed. Emily had had an ah-ha moment when she realized that her M9 rifle didn't have a silencer on it. It was not a weapon that could have one on it. The Seal’s weapons were not that quiet even with silencers on them but the M9 was really loud. Emily guessed they were trying to minimize the noise outside the compound for fear that someone would hear them and get reinforcements before the team could leave.

They fired for a couple of seconds before the Chief stood up. The rest of the group stood up with him and Emily quickly followed. They raced across the courtyard towards the assigned buildings. Emily pulled ahead of the Chief and caught a woman swinging a huge knife. She grabbed the knife and tapped the woman on the side of her jaw by her ear.

The woman dropping her to the ground unconscious. Emily reached down and checked the woman’s pulse and was relieved when she found it. She grabbed a surprised boy beside her and spun him around and zipped tied him. She paused to look around and saw a man on the ground far to still to be alive. She zipped tied his limp arms anyway.

She spun around again to find the Chief taking the position by the door. He looked at her and nodded. Emily kicked the door in taking it completely off its hinges and knocking it to the ground. She rushed in and found two little girls standing by a baby crib. They started to cry as soon as Emily entered the building.

“It's going to be alright but you need to come out,” Emily told them in Farsi.

The girls stepped back and Emily reached out and grabbed them. She pulled them outside leaving the baby inside. She handed them off to the Chief and went back inside to pull the crib outside with the others. She looked into the other rooms and didn’t see anyone else.

The Chief was on the radio talking to someone. Emily attention was pulled to the lady who was awake now and was crying over the dead guy. The little girls were standing off to the side crying. Emily blinked as she realized that the dead guy must be the father. She could not stop staring at the family that was hovering over the dead man.

The Chief punched her in the shoulder. “Not now.” He growled at her. He paused looking at the family. He keyed up on the radio. “Boss, something is wrong. This place is filled with woman and children. The buildings are not barracks like we thought. This is not a training facility its a family compound.”

The Lieutenant voice came over the radio. “I agree, Chief. We got the target but there is no one here but old men and boys. He has no bodyguards super or otherwise. They have a large OCS flag in the greeting room but no useful intel. Chief, leave the woman and children. Have doc take care of the wounded then let's get out of here.”

“Roger that sir.” The Chief said.

Emily followed the Chief as he got everything organized. The Seals did not have any wounded but there were some civilians who needed help. The Team’s medic went around and bandaged everyone up. The Lieutenant came out of the big building looking mad. The rest of the Seals followed him dragging a man in a black hood.

“What do you think Chief. Is this a propaganda job? Set it up to look like we killed a bunch of civilians?” The Lieutenant asked the Chief as he got close. Emily was pretty sure she was not meant to hear that but she was close enough to the Chief to hear everything.

“That only works if our target is dead. He knows too much. I don’t like this LT. This could be an ambush.” The Chief said looking around.

“Get everyone up. We're leaving now. Tell Doc to finish what he is working on and leave the rest.” The Lieutenant said looking around.

In less time than Emily expected the Team was ready and they made their way out of the compound. Emily kept looking around expecting an ambush at any second but she saw nothing. Several minutes later they made it to the extraction site. Emily settled down to secure the landing site really on edge. She kept expecting someone to start shooting any second but nothing happened. Soon she heard the sounds of helicopters. It wasn’t long before two large helicopters, different ones from before, land and the team quickly boarded.

The Lieutenant got on one helicopter and the Chief climb on the second one. Emily did as she was ordered to and followed the Chief. The target went on the Lieutenant’s helicopter. Once in the air, the Seal began to banter among each other. Emily leaned back and listen to them. In her mind, she kept seeing the woman kneeling by her husband crying with the kids hovering around them.

She was sitting by the Chief listing to the guys make fun of each other when there was a loud bang and something hit her in her back hard. Next thing she knew she was falling backward spinning wildly still strapped to her chair. Everything was spinning so fast she could not focus on anything. It was all a blur of dark colors. Emily grabbed her seat belt for dear life and held on.