Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, enroute to the Mezotis System
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
13:02 Ship Time
August 29, 2019

“Good afternoon, everyone. I’m happy to see that all five of you got your weapons in on time, though you were cutting it pretty close there, Mason,” Ryx said, holding his thumb and forefinger very close together, getting a laugh out of us. “Alright, as I mentioned yesterday, everyone will be running the course six times today. Three times with the stock pulse rifle, and three times with your customized version. We’ll be skipping the first part of our usual training since it would take all day to run the course thirty times, otherwise.”

“This is going to work like it does normally, so one of you will do a run, then the next person will go, and the next, et cetera. The difference will be that every time you go through the course, you will use the opposite weapon. We’ll be starting with the stock version as a warmup round, and then get move onto your customized version for the second run through.”

“Before that, we’re going to do a little show and tell, though. Each of you will come up and explain what you’ve done with your rifle. Who wants to go first?”

Mason immediately walked forward and picked his rifle off the table, it was largely the same, but he did change a few things.

“You just want me to move through the parts one by one?” Mason asked.

“And give your thought process as to why you selected that part,” Ryx nodded.

“Alright then. Jonathan was the only one who had seen my first build, so he probably noticed that I decided to go with a shorter barrel. I originally had the twenty-two inch barrel on, but the weight and the small variety of parts necessitated switching to a shorter one. I went with the eighteen inch barrel instead, which allowed me to get rid of the WA-22 buttstock. That thing is absolutely awful. Instead, I went with the WA-26, primarily for its comfort. It seems that Warvyn Arms realised how bad it was, but I’m amazed it took them four iterations.”

“For the pistol grip, I went with the BT-102. I would’ve liked to go with the WA Pulse 5 pistol grip, but it’s too small for my hand,” he said, holding his up. “Moving onto the handgrip, I went with the WA HEX 1-3, both for how light it is and for increased cooling. If I had gone with one of the handguards that completely surrounds the barrel then more heat would have been contained and it would take longer to cool down.”

“I put on the BT E2 foregrip for two reasons. The first is that it’s the only canted foregrip that was given to us. As you can see, it is on a forty-five degree angle that means that my hand is below the barrel and to the left, offering a little bit more control than a usual foregrip might provide. The second reason is that it allows me to more easily use my WA Eaphin 04 canted red dot sight mounted further forward on the barrel. If I had a regular handgrip on and wanted to rotate the gun so I could use a canted sight, then I would be required to hold my left hand at an awkward angle. I did try it both with the BT E2 and the more normal BT C3, but I didn’t like the latter.”

“Topping everything off, I mounted the WA Drenian 07 scope. It has a variable zoom with a range of two to six times magnification, which would allow me to engage targets at mid to long range. If I need to engage targets in close range, then I’ll switch to the canted red dot,” he finished, first aiming down the scope before rotating the gun and demonstrating the canted sight.”

“Nicely done. What were the final characteristics?” Ryx asked.

“Thirty-point-three inches long with a weight of four-point-eight-eight pounds.”

Ryx nodded. “Okay, who’s next?”

I stood up and walked over, retrieving my pulse rifle and then presenting it. “Both Mason and I are pretty big guys, so it’s likely that many of our parts will be the same. That said, I went through many different variations yesterday, but eventually went with the first setup I put together, though with two key changes. As you can see, I have both the BT E2 and the Eaphin 04 canted red dot sight, but no scope. I decided to go with this because I couldn’t settle on a scope and this setup allows me to get used to rotating the gun so I can look down the red dot. If I want to add a scope at a later date, then it should be a relatively seamless transition. Like Mason, I also found the regular foregrips to be awkward when using the canted sight, so the BT E2 was the only option.”

“Moving on, I’ve got the WA-26. I didn’t like the feel of the WA-22 at all, and while the WA-26B did feel pretty good, the WA-26 just felt a tiny bit better. For the pistol grip, I went with the BT-102, for the same reason as Mason. The others just felt way too small and awkward.”

“Where Mason and I differ is with the handguard. I went with the WA HEX Z6 instead of the WA HEX 1-3. It is a bit heavier and doesn’t offer as much airflow, but does offer more customization further down the road, if I end up using this design going forward. Aside from that, I also went with the eighteen inch barrel. I didn’t have the wiggle room to put on the twenty inch or twenty-two inch barrels even if I wanted to, but I liked the eighteen inch barrel better anyways. Though my pulse rifle will be less accurate at long range, the shorter barrel will offer me more maneuverability when working with tight spaces, like inside of a ship or a building.”

“Good reasoning. And the characteristics?”

“Thirty-point-three inches long, weighing five-point-two-six pounds.”

Ben ended up going next, followed by Sonja and ending with her sister. Ben’s pulse rifle looked similar to ours, though he elected to go with the two times scope I did when I did my first build. He didn’t have a canted sight or a canted grip, so it looked like he was going to stick with the single sight. The only big difference was that he went with the twenty-inch barrel rather than the eighteen inch like Mason and I had.

When we got to the girls, we found two pulse rifles that looked quite a bit different from Ben’s, Masons or my own. Both of them went with the twenty-two inch barrels, looking like they wanted to set up for long-range engagement, rather than mid-to-long range. That was emphasized by the fact that both had scopes on their rifles. They did use a different mount than Mason did, selecting one that actually had an additional mount on top. So when looking down the scope all they would need to do is raise their eye slightly and they would be looking through the red dot.

They also went with different scopes entirely. Anja went with the WA Drenian 07 like Mason did, but Sonja went with the WA Straross 01. The latter of the two was another variable zoom scope offering four times to twelve times magnification, so it was built with much longer ranges in mind. They could still use their guns in close range, but they wouldn’t need to rotate the entire gun to do so.

To fit the twenty-two inch barrel they did have to use the WA-22, but they actually preferred it over any of the other options. They were also smaller than the rest of us, with shorter arms, so it probably just fit them better. In terms of length and weight, the girls were very close to both limits. The length on both was thirty-five-point-eight inches, while the weight was five-point-seven-eight for Anja and five-point-nine-one for her sister.

“Good stuff. I like this exercise because it gives me a good idea of what each of you wants in a gun. With the limits in place, you need to get more creative and build a gun so it fits you,” he said, before pointing to the girls. “For example, the guns the two of you built are focused on taking targets out from a distance. I know Mason also has the WA Drenian 07, but his build uses the eighteen inch barrel which is better for close to mid range, while both of your builds are using the twenty-two inch barrels for greater accuracy. Sonja took that a little bit further by using the WA Straross 01, which is purely a long-range scope. It was a good idea to go with the WA 30mm B over the WA 30mm A, because that gives you a close range sight as well, without having to go the canted route.”

“Mason and Jonathan, on the other hand, built theirs for close-to-mid range. The WA Drenian 07 would allow Mason to engage targets at long range in a pinch, and Jonathan has kept his options open by not picking out a scope, just yet. It is also very true that the shorter overall length is much better for dealing with close quarters because they won’t have to move their guns as much when moving through doorways or turning.”

“Ben is somewhere in the middle. His is built for close-to-mid range as well, though he’ll just be a little bit better at firing down range and a little bit worse in close quarters. The BT Omite 22 two times scope is a solid scope though, and with practice will allow him to take medium to long range shots with decent accuracy.”

“Alright, now that we’re done with show and tell, we’ll get right into the testing. We’ll be starting with the stock pulse rifle and will go with the same order, so Mason, Jonathan, Ben, Sonja and Anja last.”

We all moved over to the table which now had a stock pulse rifle laid out on it. Sitting next to it was a barrel cleaning tool, as well as the practice power cell he would need for his run through. Sitting down, Mason lay both hands down on the table, palms down, and then waited for the whistle to sound. As soon as it did, he got to work.

The pulse rifle didn’t take any tools whatsoever to disassemble, making it take no time at all to take it apart, examine everything to make sure there are no faults, clean the barrel and then put it all back together. He started by rotating the handgrip counter-clockwise so he would be able to get at the barrel. Setting it off to the side, he immediately began unscrewing the barrel. Once it was out, he looked it over to make sure it wasn’t warped, and then ran the barrel cleaning tool through it. That only took a few seconds and then he finished up the rest.

Pulse rifles were rather simple weapons, not having any moving parts in the slightest, so he just made sure that the pistol grip and buttstock were tight and wouldn’t come loose. Not finding any issues, he screwed in the barrel, attached the handgrip and then slapped the button on the table, which would give the exact amount of time he took to disassemble it, clean it, and then put it back together. Standing up, he grabbed the practice power cell and loaded it into the gun as he ran. The rest of us turned our attention to the screens, following his progress as he made his way through.

The course was pretty extensive for how little room it took up, initially making me believe some enchanting shenanigans were going on, but it was just incredibly well designed. There were two main things that went into determining your score; your time and your accuracy. That wasn’t the only thing though. There were always fifty targets that appeared as you made through, though they changed every time. The bullseye on each target also changed from run to run, so no run was ever the same.

Along with regular bad guys, there were also bad guys using civilians as hostages that popped up, as well as regular civilians. If you hit a civilian one point would be deducted, and if you killed one then three points would be deducted. If you ignored a civilian, or killed the bad guy holding one hostage, then three points would be added. When killing a bad guy three points would be added for hitting the bullseye, while only one point would be added if you hit them elsewhere. If you missed a bad guy entirely, then you would lose three points.

With the system in place, you could get a maximum of one hundred fifty points and a minimum of negative one hundred fifty points. The score you got would add or subtract a maximum of twenty points from your total score. So if you finished with a rating of one hundred thirty-five out of one hundred fifty, or ninety percent, you would have eighteen points added to your score.

That was the primary reason why Ben, Anja, Sonja and I struggled for the first week. We would either not react fast enough and a bad guy disappeared or we would end up killing a civilian. Once we had done it more and more and got more confident, we slowly started getting higher and higher target scores. Ryx definitely put more emphasis on accuracy and time, as we weren’t training to be police officers or soldiers. It was more about self defense and preparing us for higher level dungeons, where anything we saw would be firing right back of us. Except for other adventurers, but it was incredibly easy to differentiate between them and a monster.

Mason seemed to really be feeling it today, knocking down targets left right and center while moving quickly. There were a few shots that weren’t quite as accurate as he would’ve liked, as well as a few misses, but he was doing very, very well. That was evidenced by the score screen that updated as soon as he exited the course.

“Fuck yeah!” he said upon seeing his score.

His time read two minutes and twenty-nine-point-eight-eight seconds, and his accuracy read ninety-four-point-four percent. That was good enough for a score of ninety-one. He would have scored higher, but he had a score of one hundred twenty-nine out of one hundred fifty for the target portion of the score, adding only seventeen-point-two points, out of a possible twenty.

To get a perfect score of one hundred, you had to have a time at or under two minutes and fifteen seconds, an accuracy of one hundred percent, and a target score of one hundred fifty. You could get a score over one hundred, based off of your speed, but that was rather difficult to do. Ryx and a few of the other instructors had achieved scores of about one hundred and five when demonstrating the course, but it would take my friends and I a long time to get that good. You needed to be very quick, have very good decision making, and have no small shortage of luck to get a score that high.

“That’s what I want to see!” Ryx said, giving Mason a high five. “Keep that up and you’ll get a score of one hundred in no time. For pulse rifles, at least.”

“You mean we’ll have to go through a similar course with different types of weapons?” Anja asked.

“Of course! We’ll be doing it in a rather weird order, but we’ll be switching to pistols once I’ve determined that the five of you have stagnated with the pulse rifles. Or you all reach a score of one hundred, whichever comes first. We’ve got seven more weapons systems to go through, and they’re not all like the pulse rifle. We’ll be dealing with plasma weapons, railguns and lasers in the future. Just something to look forward to. Ready, Jonathan?”

I nodded, sitting down as the pulse rifle was placed before me. The practice power cell was replaced by a new one, and the disassembly and reassembly timer was reset. When I was ready, I placed my hands down on the table and waited.

As soon as the whistle was blown, I raised my hands off the table slightly and the pulse rifle flew into them. In one motion, I twisted the handgrip off and set it off to the side. As my hand moved back over to the gun, the barrel was already unscrewing, almost as if it was moving on its own. It wasn’t actually moving on it’s own though. Barrels don’t do that.

*****

I had a breakthrough in my telekinesis while eating dinner a few days beforehand. While reaching for the pepper on the table, which was slightly out of my reach, it actually slid a few inches and into my hand. I hadn’t even noticed it, but my friends certainly had. It was Anja who drew my attention to it. I thought she was kidding at first, but she had me place it back before trying to move it again.

It turned out that telekinesis inside of Battlestate and in the real world worked differently, or Straesse minds and Scyftan minds are just wired differently. When practicing with Kiri, I had been trying to stop the orbs from moving, or deflect them so they couldn’t hit me, as I would inside of the game. When I tried to draw something towards me in real life, that’s when it fell under my control and I could move it with ease. Well, up to a point.

Initially, I could barely lift the weight of the pepper shaker, let alone the weight of a pulse rifle. Over the past two days, I had practiced with the orbs Kiri gave me, pushing myself to level it up. I had met up with her to let her know that I had succeeded, and she congratulated me while also warning me to stop immediately if I had any nosebleeds, wait a few hours, and then continue.

I had followed those directions and quickly worked my way up until I could lift seven pounds, which was on the upper end of the orbs that Kiri gave me. The orbs were much heavier than I was expecting them to be, but that was because they were made out of such a dense material. The baseball-sized orb was about ten pounds, while the fifteenth orb was seven and a half pounds. That was the one that I was working with at the moment. While the initial increase in my abilities was quite fast, Kiri said that it would begin to slow down once I got past the twentieth orb. That’s why there were only twenty in the case.

*****

Once the barrel was unscrewed, I lifted it into my hands and quickly looked it over, making sure that there were no cracks or deformities while Mason was using it. Satisfied that it was in perfect condition, I reached over for the cleaning tool, the handle of which flew into my hand, and proceeded to clean it out. Quite a bit of black soot-like dust had fallen out of the barrel as I worked, which was normal when dealing with energy weapons. The pulses of energy are so hot that they gradually eat away at the inner coating, similar to the way barbecues heat plates fall apart from repeatedly heating up and cooling down.

The second it was clear, I used my hand to get it started in the threads before using my telekinesis to finish the job. I hadn’t got precise enough to do that with telekinesis alone, but it would eventually get to the point where that wouldn’t be a problem. By the time the barrel was as tight as I could get it, I had finished examining the buttstock and the pistol grip, making sure they were nice and tight.

All that was left to do was put on the handgrip, which only took a second, before I hit the button to lock in my disassembly and reassembly time. Getting up, I began running over to course while the practice power cell floated beside me. Grabbing onto it, I slammed it in before getting started.

It wasn’t the best run I had ever done, but it was certainly up there. It was also pretty good for a warm up round. My speed increased by almost exactly two seconds, while my accuracy dipped by zero-point-two-six percent. My build time was now over five seconds faster than Mason's, which meant that my course time was a lot slower than his was.

“Nicely done,” Ryx said. “You’re better than you were yesterday with your telekinesis, which is helping you with the first part of the run, and your overall time, but it’s not helping your course time at all. That run was almost identical to your average run yesterday, though your accuracy did increase by a tiny bit. For your next stock run, try to go a little bit faster and see how you do.”

Nodding, I moved over to stand next to my friends, and Ben took my spot.

We each did our six runs, and, surprising no one, did much better with our customized pulse rifles than we did with the stock version. The timed score was adjusted because our weapons had more parts than the stock version, but the combination of modifying our weapons, and not having to use the iron sights meant that we performed quite a bit better.

Everyone’s time was a little bit slower on the first attempt, but as we got used to our new weapons, we got quite a bit faster. Fast enough that if you separated the disassembly and reassembly times, each of us was, on average, about seven and a half seconds faster. All of us were slightly more accurate as well. Mason had walked us through aligning our sights the night before, so they were bang on when we began shooting.

The person with the biggest increase in time and accuracy was actually Ben. He did have a slight increase in time and accuracy with the stock version, but it was night and day when he used his own modified version. Even with the two times scope, he had an easier time tracking targets and landing his shots, allowing him to move quicker as a result.

The girls were on the other end of the spectrum, while Mason and I were in the middle. The girls were pretty good already, but the combination of the long barrel length as well as the red dot on top of the scope made it a little bit harder for them. That isn’t to say they didn’t improve, because they were faster by about three seconds and their accuracy increased by one-point-two percent and one-point-six percent. The rest of us simply got a bigger bonus.

“Okay. Now that the day is over and your scores have been tallied, you have seen how your own customized version can help you, and you’ve probably learned some valuable information,” Ryk said. “Ladies, you’ve seen how much better the guys’ weapons are for close to mid range, which will allow you to make better decisions going forward. If you were in Scyftan navy you would probably have a large variety of weapons at your disposal, all in your dimensional storage, but it is a good idea to know which ‘tool’ is best for the job.”

“Now that you’ve got a taste, I’ve got some more homework for you, due next Monday. You’ll be leaving the modified weapons you used today, and a few more weapon boxes will be delivered to your rooms later this evening. The other ones will be picked up at the same time, so you don’t have to leave them in your rooms.”

“You’ll have a lot more parts available this time, so I want you to repeat the process. Build the best pulse rifle you can, that fits you, not this course. So ladies, don’t change anything if you like the longer barrels and the long-range scopes. This is about building a pulse rifle that you can take with you when you reach a high enough level to use firearms inside of a dungeon. Who knows, maybe you’ll hit level fifty before we leave Veria and you can see how combat and abilities change with firearms. You’ve got all weekend to fiddle around, but I want your finished rifles dropped off by noon on Monday. Dismissed.”

The scene repeated itself from the day before, but Mason didn’t go running off like a little kid who had a new toy to play with. We each made our way to our rooms to shower, before heading to the mess for dinner. When we were done, we went down to the VR pod room. It had been about sixteen days since we had played The Escape last, if you’re going by in-game time, or four days in real time. Mason did go in briefly to get the charge that Olnain made for us, but other than that we didn’t play much of anything, really.

Now that I had increased the amount of time it would take for Abi to initiate another growth, there was some wiggle room. I would still level up Precognition during the day, but there was at least some time for video games, between training, practicing and eating.

After logging in, Mason led us over to Olnain’s shop to pick up a few things, before heading back to our base.

“Here are the carbines you were looking at,” Olnain said, carrying three long but thin boxes out from the back.

He spread them out on the table and then removed the lids so we could see the weapons inside. They looked almost like hunting rifles, but there was no bolt, signifying that they were semi-automatic. They looked remarkably similar to the M1 carbine, including the wood furniture, from the second World War, though the barrel was quite a bit longer. Inside each case was also two different sights for the gun, each being of the dovetail variety.

Dovetail-mounted sights are ones that are mounted to the side of the gun rather than the top, though the sight would be in a very similar place. Some might be slightly off center, but others will be directly in line with the barrel. One of the sights was what looked like a four-times zoom scope, while the other was more similar to a red dot. Aside from the gun and the sights, there were four magazines that were currently empty.

“Very nice,” he said, turning to the rest of us. “Seeing as both Sonja and I have some medium-to-long range capability, I figured the rest of you should as well. Each of these is chambered in the exact same round that Sonja and I are currently using in our sniper rifles, so we’ll be able to carry plenty of ammo around. Before you ask, I went with these because they’re relatively cheap, meaning it won’t matter if you die and lose them, and they’re supposedly reliable weapons with good stopping power. You can choose whether you want to use the scope or the red dot, but you’ll probably want to mount those and make sure they’re zeroed before we leave the town.”

It wasn’t feasible to carry the boxes they came in, so Ben, Anja and I took our carbines out of the cases and stored the magazines and scopes inside of Ben’s duffle bag for now. There was a range in town where we would be able to try out the guns before we left, so there was no rush to get everything setup. We did end up finding an adjustable strap under each carbine when we picked them up, so we attached them to our new guns and swung them over our shoulders, keeping them out of the way, without needing to actually hold them.

After paying for the guns, magazines and the bullets, which came up to roughly one hundred forty credits, we left the store, heading over to the armorsmith next. He would be able to tell us of what quality my plate carrier was, which would give us the information to determine whether we wanted to keep it or sell it. Either way, all five of us would be getting a helmet and at least four of us would be upgrading out chest armor. The stuff Mason, Ben and the twins were using was class three armor, which wouldn’t stop more than pistol rounds, or really bad ammo, as Ben experienced.

“Ah, that’s the VV Alkey v7 plate carrier plus rig, made by Vugzat & Ved’us. Ancient stuff, by modern standards, and the company was taken over years ago, but it was good stuff back in its day,” Traruld said. “It’s in the middle of the pack in terms of the armor classes. It’s rated at class five, though that can be increased by replacing the plates with higher-rated materials. As it is now, it will reliably stop all but the largest pistols, as well as most low-velocity rounds. A shotgun firing slugs could get lucky and find a less armored spot to go through, but it should be pretty good against those as well.”

“All in all, it’s a good set of armor for a beginner. I sell them for forty credits each fully loaded with plates. In fact, I think I sold this one to a guy a few weeks ago.”

“If he had these, then I probably killed him,” Mason said, lifting up his new assault rifle and getting Sonja to turn and display her sniper rifle.

“Definitely looks like his stuff,” Traruld said. “I imagine you’re here looking for better armor than the stuff you currently have?”

“That’s right,” Mason said. “In fact, get us four more of those plate carriers. We also need helmets, so we’re open to suggestions when it comes to that.”

“Budget?”

“We want to keep it relatively cheap, for now. Do you have something in the class four or five range that would work for us?”

He nodded, leading us over to helmets that were displayed on the wall.

“This will be your best bet,” he said, picking up the matte black metal helmet and showing it to us. “Twenty credits, and it will stop most of the things that the Alkey plate carrier will, except for slugs being fired from shotguns. It’s made from armor steel, about twenty millimeters in thickness, except for the forehead here, which is twenty-five millimeters thick.”

The helmet looked like it would do the job alright. The issue was that it was pretty damn big. Too big to fit any of our heads. Mason touched on that.

“I’m assuming helmets shrink down to fit the wearer? It would certainly keep our heads safe at that size, but we wouldn’t be able to see.”

Traruld chuckled, nodding. “Helmets, chest armor, rigs and backpacks are the only things that will shrink or grow in size to fit properly. Everything else is as you see it, which means that if a weapon is too small for you to hold, or too big, then your best bet is to sell it. Try it on.”

Mason accepted it and began putting it on his head. It began shrinking as soon as he grabbed onto it, so when he put it on his head it was a perfect fit. There was a chin strap to secure it, so he did that up before moving the helmet around, seeing how much give it had.

“I think this is the best fitting helmet I’ve ever worn,” Mason said.

“That’s the way it is with modern technology,” he said. “Originally there were many different sizes of armor and helmets and such, but it was too hard to find equipment, and all people like me had time for was measuring people and crafting armor or helmets for them. The developers eventually caved under pressure, making it so one size fits all.”

“I can imagine the hassle. Alright, we’ll take five of these helmets, and four more of the Alkey rigs. I think that’s it.”

“That will be two hundred sixty credits, or two hundred two if you want to trade in your old rigs and vests. Will you be wanting any spare plates?”

Mason thought about it for a moment before responding, “I think we’ll keep our current rigs and vests, just so we’ll have a spare set of gear in case we die. How much are the plates?”

“Smart thinking,” he nodded. “One credit for every five class five plates.”

“We’ll take one hundred of those as well.”

“Okay. Put that back up there and I’ll get started on gathering everything.”

Mason hung the helmet back up and then the rest of us went over to the counter to wait. Traruld made a bunch of trips to the back before he finally had everything we wanted. Once Mason paid, we moved off to a corner of the room where there was a bench and Mason, Ben and the twins began unloading their current rig so they could take it off and replace it, and their vests, with the new ones. Much of the equipment went inside the backpack that I wore, while the rest went into Ben’s backpack, temporarily, at least.

Once we were done in the armor store, we had a few more stops to make, including one to the clothing store to grab some backpacks. So far only Ben and I had one, along with the duffle bag, but we wanted to sell off the latter and buy three new backpacks, just to balance out the load a little bit. Right now I was likely carrying eighty or ninety pounds on my back, but if Mason and the girls all had backpacks then I would only have to carry half the weight.

In the real world carrying this much equipment wouldn’t be an issue, because it could all be stored inside of dimensional storage. That wasn’t so, in-game. We would need to find out how much we could carry before losing too much mobility, otherwise we would be easy targets while we were moving. It isn’t easy to walk with ninety pounds on your back, let alone run.

Once everything was sorted we headed over to the firing range. Mason had purchased a box of cheap ammo, purely for the purposes of aligning our new sights and zeroing our weapons. We got started on that right away and finished up pretty quickly, having become pros over the last day or so. As soon as everything was the way we wanted it, we began loading our magazines with the good ammo and slid them into our rigs.

With nothing else to do, we headed for the southern entrance so we could leave the town. Like the last time we left, Mason climbed up onto the wall and took a look around, making sure no one was lying in wait. It would’ve been extremely easy if we had a thermal scope, but even Mason balked at the price. Three hundred sixty credits was way too much for something we could lose in an instant.

Both Sonja and I looked around as well, her through her scope while I used the monocular. We didn’t see anyone at all, so Mason swapped out his sniper rifle for his assault rifle, and led us out of the town. It was quite different holding a rifle while running such a far distance, and all of us were doing that just in case we came under fire. Those few seconds it took to react and unsling the weapon could end up getting us killed. As it was, our weapons were always at the ready.

We made it across without issue, and headed through the forest, taking a slightly different route than we did previously. Mason was in the lead, and he was constantly scanning the forest floor, making sure we didn’t walk into a trap. We hadn’t done it the last few times we walked through the forests, but there was a lot of vegetation on the forest floor that would make it extremely easy to hide all sorts of traps, from mines to pitfalls.

As we approached the edge of the forest, we slowed our speed by a ton while both Mason and Sonja crept forward, finding somewhere where each of them could see into the small suburb. We had run into people the last time we were here, so we were being extra cautious this time around. Not a person was in sight, so we made our way down and into one of the buildings that we were shot from over three weeks ago.

There were a few bullet holes in the walls, as well as a bit of blood on the floor, so it seemed like either Ben or Sonja had got lucky with one of their shots. They didn’t kill any of the people shooting at us, but they definitely wounded one. When the building was clear, we moved onto the next.

We were taking our time, working our way down the eastern side of the street before we moved over to the first building that we searched on our first time through. There were a few odds and ends that might be valuable, though we were hoping that the car battery we saw was still there. They were worth a decent bit, and could definitely be useful in our base. Since they’re so heavy, it was possible that no one wanted to deal with it.

We had stuck with non-verbal communication the entire way through the town, and it took us nearly an hour just to move through the fifteen buildings or so on our side of the street. Just as we were about to move to the other side, Mason held up his hand, making a fist. We immediately stopped and listened.

“…ing you man, they’re not coming back this way. We spooked them the first time they came through, and they got a big score since then.”

“They led our guys right to the front of their base, the idiots. They haven’t been back there since they walked in with those cases and left just as fast. They’ll be back sooner or later, quit yer bitchin’.”

“If you say so. I just want that bitch who shot me. I’m going to have some fun with her before I put a bullet in her head.”

“Hah, with that tiny thing between your legs? She won’t feel a thing.”

The two continued talking, unaware that we were directly below them. Sonja wanted to go up there and beat the shit out of them, but her sister, who was no less angry, stopped her. Mason motioned for us to stay quiet and follow him. We ended up going back the way we had come, stopping about three buildings away where they could no longer hear us. We could barely hear them, but their conversation continued. How we didn’t hear them on our approach is a mystery.

“Okay, so this is a problem,” Mason whispered. “Damn it! I should’ve got us some headsets and radios as well. We’ll have to do this quietly. I want you two to creep back to the building with those two goons, and position yourself so you can catch them unaware if they happen to come downstairs. I’m going to lead the girls back to the forest and look for a good vantage point that allows us to see into the town. Those aren’t the only two in the area, so we’ll need to find the others and take them out first. If we fuck this up, then we’ll be spending all night making it back to our base, if we get there at all.”

There wasn’t much else to add, because we didn’t have enough information. Mason added a few details to the plan, and then Ben and I silently made our way back to the building. Neither of the men had stopped speaking, so we returned right under their noses. I positioned myself by one of the front windows while Ben covered the back of the house. Both of us would be able to move to catch them when we heard them coming down the steps, but positioned as we were, both of us would be able to see or hear people before they got close. Be they friend or foe.

There were a few gaps in the boards, so I pulled out my monocular scope and began scanning the treeline. I could see a good portion of it from my position and it was a bright sunny day. If there was anyone in there with a scope, then I would definitely see the flash of a scope if they moved even slightly.

I made sure to scan the edge of the forest occasionally, but I didn’t spot a thing. One hour quickly became two, but the boredom set in even quicker. We also had to deal with the two idiots above us who would shut up for a while before the one Sonja shot would start talking again.

Seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ben wave me over. Putting away my scope, I walked over as silently as I could. He pointed to his right, where Anja was standing, her weapon at the ready. In her hands, was a note written on a piece of paper.

Nodding, I handed the piece of paper back to her and then directed her to stand at the doorway to the kitchen. Ben would stand adjacent to the stairs, completely invisible as they ran down the stairs, but easily able to either shoot them or hit them over the head with the butt of his rifle. I walked over to my original position, and continued to scan the forest. I could easily see the stairs from my location by spinning in place, so I wouldn’t need to move whatsoever.

My heart started beating faster, even before the first set of shots, and I knew it was the same for both Ben and Anja. We knew we would be in a fight momentarily, it would just be a matter of time. Time felt like it was moving slow while we were waiting, but it felt like time wasn’t moving at all once we knew it would kick off in four minutes or so.

Eventually, we heard the first crack in the distance.

“Fuck, that sounded close!” Idiot Number One said.

“Shut it!,” Idiot Number Two replied.

“Hey, didn’t we agree to check up on each other if we hear any shots?”

“What do you think I’m doing, idiot? Bhuld, do you read?”

Silence greeted him.

“Bhuld, Tuqa, you guys there?” he tried again.

“What’s going on, Zarvus?” a new voice said, this one coming over a radio.

“We heard a shot nearby and now Bhuld and Tuqa aren’t responding.”

“You think they were taken out?”

“What other reason could they have for not responding?”

“Alright, pack it up and get out of there. Use the tunnels and make your way to my position. We’re not splitting up anymore, we’ll wait for them here.”

“You got it boss,” Idiot Number Two, otherwise known as Zarvus, said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Move.”

We heard movement up above and there was another crack, followed by a crashing sound and then silence. We waited a good minute or two, not hearing a thing, before I decided to check if they were still alive. I signaled Ben and Anja to follow behind me, but Anja motioned for me to hold position. Grabbing the paper note, she turned it around and began writing on it.

I nodded upon reading it, and she began creeping up the stairs, with Ben and I right behind her. It took almost two minutes to get to the roof, but we were greeted by two dead idiots.