*ring ring*

Janet awoke from the nap she was taking at her desk with a yelp, an increasingly common occurrence; turns out three years studying Mercology doesn’t prepare you very well for actually running a Mercenary team.

*ring ring*

Janet snatched the phone from her pocket.

“Hello, you have reached Caedes Mercenary Team, please send your contract via email, or we can discuss the terms of your contract here,” Janet desperately held back a yawn.

“Hello ma’am, I’m from the Smithsonian Institution, I would like to discuss the terms of the contract right now; I’ve heard… interesting things about your group,”

“I’m glad, sir, tell me what the mission is, and then we can discuss pricing” Janet shook of her tiredness, and prepared for some price gouging; these guys are government anyway, so they’ve got infinite money.

“Well, our exhibit on Ancient Egypt has been… lacking as of late, and we need you to ‘get some new exhibits’ if you catch my drift,”

“You want us to rob an Ancient Egyptian tomb,” Janet deadpanned.

“Yes, we want you to grave rob,” The man sighed, guilty.

“We can do that, 20 million dollars, and you’ll have to provide the flights,”

“Ah, well, y’know, that does seem just a tad pricey, we could just send in some diplomats to do it, and call it a day,”

“That would cause an international incident, sir—those make me a lot of money,” Janet let out a small chuckle.

“Yes, well, er,” The man angrily sighed. “Is there anything we could provide for you to sweeten the deal?”

“3 Senators and 3 Representatives are part of your Board of Regents, paying taxes is… annoying to say the least, if you could work something out with that, I might be willing to bump my prices down just a touch,”

The man sighed again. “We’ll work out whatever we can,”

“Good, thank you for picking Caedes Mercenary Team, bye!” Vitra cheerfully said as she hung up the phone, and got up from her chair.

“Woooo, I am so fucking cool!” Janet cheered while she span around in her office chair, doing away with her businesslike persona. “Those three years of Mercology were worth it!”

Janet’s celebration only lasted a couple seconds before her head fell back down on the desk and she conked out.

---

ABOUT A WEEK LATER

---

“Hey, Tex,” Jenny called as she walked into the woman’s workshop, a messy workshop with scraps of metal, and various, highly illegal guns littering the floor. Sally, the aforementioned woman was tinkering with her sentry gun, trying to see if she could attach a rocket launcher on top of the assault rifle.

She lifted up her welding mask and looked at Jenny. “Heya Slim, whaddaya want?” She smiled.

“Not much, just wanted to ask ya somethin”

“Don’t keep me waitin’ pal, what is it?”

“You ever get this feelin’ that there’s this eh… guy just eternally watchin’ and judgin’ your every move?” Jenny waved her hands around.

“Nope, do you need an appointment with Doc or somethin?”

“Hell no, I ain’t crazy!” Jenny shouted, putting her hands up in a defensive position. “Besides, she’ll probably start talkin’ about somethin’ borin’ if I do see her,”

“I don’t think the not crazy scream about not bein’ crazy,” Sally chuckled. “And her stories ain’t that borin’”

“Ugh, screw you, Hardhat,” Jenny threw her hands up as she stomped out of the room while Sally continued to chuckle to herself.

While Jenny was stewing, she heard her phone ring; she put it up to her ear.

“Recon, Vitra here, come to the briefing room, I’ve got a job for you,”

The stewing instantly stopped as a smirk formed on Jenny’s face.

“Hell yeah, this is gonna be the easiest thing I’ve ever done, just you watch boss!”

Janet’s eyeroll could practically be heard from the other side of the phone. “Just come to the briefing room,”

---

Jenny flew through the door and into a seat as she entered the room, her other teammates in the room alongside her were: Sally, Johnson, Jimmy and Chirag.

“One person I tolerate, two I hate and some rando I keep forgettin’ exists, fantastic!” Jenny grumbled internally.

“Hello troops, I have some bad news and some good news,” Janet sighed. “Bad news, we’re doing government work,”

The audience of Mercs all groaned, except for Johnson, who had a big smile on his face.

“I know, I know,” Janet waved her hands. “Good news, if we do this mission well, we get quite the hefty tax break, that’ll give us a lot more financial leeway,” Janet finger gunned at her now slightly happier audience.

“Sounds good to me, Jannie, what’s the mission?” Sally asked, the most cheerful of all about not paying her taxes.

“Well, we’re breaking into an Ancient Egyptian tomb and stealing stuff to put in the Smithsonian,” Janet explained. “In short, we’re grave robbing thousand year old graves,”

“Close quarters combat, not my field of expertise,” Chirag commented, lightly lifting up his anti materiel rifle. “Why am I coming along?”

“Well uhhh…” Janet mumbled. “You’re uh… the only person here who speaks Arabic so…” She trailed off.

“Ah, makes sense,” Chirag nodded, causing Janet to let out a sigh of relief.

“Glad that’s understood, head outside to the nearest airport, your flight is in gate C and is headed towards Faiyum, fake IDs will be made for you so you can enter with little issue,”

“That settles it, let us take these rare artifacts for the glory for America!” Johnson saluted as he left the briefing room.

“Hey Boss, am I allowed to keep anythin’ I find?” Jimmy asked as he was walking out the door.

“Err… maybe, just don’t keep anything too valuable,” Janet shrugged. “Just try to stay focused on the job,”

“Sounds good, Boss chick!” Jimmy finger gunned, Janet rolled her eyes.

---

The five Mercs poured out of the plant after a long trip.

“Ughhhhh…” Jenny groaned as she held her head in pain.

“Well, the jet lag’s telling me that you’re there, there’s an apartment complex to your south. Go to Apartment 8-12, fake IDs will be made for you there,” Janet explained.

“C’mon Slim, we’ll get you some aspirin on the way there,” Sally chuckled as Jenny leaned on her for support.

“Do not waste time with it, we have a job to do,” Chirag calmly ordered as he walked over to the apartment complex, past the large urban sprawl of the city, the others followed him.

“Yes, the quicker we get the shinies, the quicker the glorious American Smithsonian can be restored to its truest glory!”

“I’m takin’ one of the mummies with me,” Jimmy chuckled evilly, earning looks from his teammates. “What? They look cool, I ain’t that much of a degenerate,”

“Sure ya ain’t,” Jenny’s jet lag wore off in reaction to a chance for an insult.

“You’re just jealous that I’m getting’ cool stuff and you ain’t,” Jimmy grumbled.

“Yeah well-”

“Recon, stay focused,” Janet interrupted.

“I’m gonna have to agree with the boss here, Stringbean,”

“Ugh, fine,” Jenny grumbled.

They eventually found the apartment complex, the outside was grey, and featureless like a soviet block house, and was about as lifeless too.

The lobby was only slightly less dead looking, with a nice carpet furnishing the floor, but not much else.

A woman wearing a hijab boredly stood behind the desk, only slightly looking up when the Mercs entered.

“هل أنتم سياح؟" (Are you tourists?) She asked, a look of boredom in her eyes.

"لا، هذه عائلتي، نحن في زيارة ابن عمي." (No, this is my family, we are visiting my cousin,) Chirag shook his head

“Uhh, yeah, what he said,” Jenny reassured in English as she gave a thumbs up.

“Shut up, Recon!” Janet ordered.

“ماذا قالت؟" (What did she say?) The receptionist might not buy the lie unless...

“لا شيء، هي لا تستطيع التحدث، وأنت تهلوس.” (Nothing, she cannot talk, and you are hallucinating,) Chirag quickly blurted out.

“حسنا إذا" (Okay then) The receptionist shrugged, believing the lie and let the Mercs into the elevator.

“Good gaslighting, Chirag,” Janet joked, to which Chirag only grunted.

“It could have been better, if only someone had been quiet,” Chirag squinted his eyes at Jenny.

“Hey, screw you, pal, you spend every damn job bein’ all mousy, it was one mistake,” Jenny argued.

“I’m just saying, be quiet,” Chirag had a sense of calm authority in his voice.

“Dude, I so wanna go back to five minutes ago when I kept forgettin’ that you existed,” Jenny snided.

“Fellas, calm down, let’s just get back to the mission,” Sally defused the situation.

“Or don’t, this is pretty entertainin” Jimmy chuckled, making everyone glare at him.

Chirag and Jenny ignored each other the best they could as they entered Apartment 8-12.

---

“Hello hello, you are the Caedes team yes?” An Arab man with a thin, black beard cheerfully greeted, shaking everyone’s hand on the way in.

“The one and only,” Jenny boasted.

“Good good, I have already been paid, pose in front of the blue screen and we will take the picture,”

Jenny did an egotistical point to herself, Johnson did a patriotic salute, Jimmy looked half drunk in his picture. The only normal ID pictures were Chirag and Sally’s, though Sally was smiling while Chirag had a blank expression.

“Beautiful, good luck on your mission, whatever it is,” The cheerful man waved the Mercs goodbye as they left for the Tomb.

---

The Mercs were in the City’s outskirts, wandering in the sweltering heat.

“Jeez, did we forget to pack water or somethin?” Jimmy and Jenny complained at the same time. “Hey!” They grumbled at each other, also at the same time.

Chirag rolled his eyes at the bickering. “Vitra, we have our Fake Identities, where is the tomb?”

“Fantastic, keep going south and you’ll find it eventually, you’ll have to pay off the guard,” Janet explained. “Recon, when Chirag is talking to the guard, do not speak,” She sternly warned her young subordinate.

“Jeez, I get it,” Jenny waved her hands.

“Good, after that, it should be easy, grab anything that looks old once you’re in,”

“Question!” Johnson blurted out, putting his hand up even though Janet couldn’t see him do so.

“What’s your question, Private?” Janet asked.

“I see British people, dressed in their little red dresses, makes me sick!”

He was right, there were British soldiers standing around the tomb, dressed up in their redcoats all holding archaic looking muskets.

“Wha what, how the-” Janet stumbled. “Uhh… ignore them, unless they try to stop you from entering,”

“Understood, I will show these Lime Eating Imperialist Fucks mercy… for now,”

“Pip, pip cheerio lads!” One of the redcoats greeted the Mercs.

“Hello, we are busy,” Chirag brushed past them, the rest of the team mumbled insults towards the British under their breath.

Chirag walked up to the Security guard at the entrance of the tomb, the only non Redcoat at the scene.

“نرجو أن ندخل القبر ، نحن في عمل رسمي للدولة" (May we enter the grave? We are on official state business) Chirag asked as she flashed his ID at the man.

The guard thought for a moment. “هناك ضريبة لذلك" (There’s a tax for that)” was his reply, Chirag handed him a wad of cash, and the guard ushered the Mercs inside.

---

The small Antechamber was the first room they entered, a small, cramped room with yellow sandstone walls dotted with occasional hieroglyphics and paintings.

“Alright, Recon, you scout up ahead, let us know if you find anything,” Janet ordered.

“You got it Miss. Vitra, I am gonna be the best freakin’ Scout on on the planet!” She boasted as she ran ahead of the group.

“Welp, I’m gonna go find the mummies,” Jimmy declared as he stumbled into the complex.

“Good thinking Spaghetti man, the mummies will be the most valuable thing to give to our Great Nation’s even Greater Museums!” Johnson shouted, and saluted as she ran after Jimmy.

“Yeah err… that’s why I was lookin’ for ‘em,”

“Heh, this is actually kinda pretty,” Sally smiled. “I expected somethin’ a little more… murder-ey,”

“We are here for a job, Tex, do not waste time,” Chirag said professionally.

“Jeez, at least try to a little fun on the job,” Sally suggested with a small smile on her face. “It’d probably make you and Slim get along a bit better,”

“Recon?” Chirag questioned. “She is… excessively immature, like a child on the battlefield,”

Sally’s smile fell. “Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before, but y’know? I probably wouldn’t be here if we were all super professional twenty four seven, it eats away at the soul, y’know?” Sally sighed as she looked at Chirag with a look of sincerity. “Just, give her a chance, she comes in handy more than you’d think,”

“I will… take your word on that,” Chirag mumbled. “Well, there is nothing valuable here, let’s find the others,”

“Sounds good, I-” A suspiciously New York accented screech could be heard from the other side of the tomb.

“Speakin’ o’ Slim, that’s definitely her,” Sally elected to sprint towards the scream instead of walk, Chirag looked at the blonde woman for a few moments before beginning to walk behind her.

---

“What, what’s wrong Slim?” Sally asked as she found the room Jenny was in, a similar room to the antechamber, just bigger and lined with the occasional skeleton, one of which had fallen in front of Jenny.

Jenny let out a small screech, “Uhh… nothin! I ain’t scared of nothin!” Jenny boasted.

“Coulda fooled me,” Sally chuckled.

“Recon, have you found anything? Besides the skeletons that is,” Janet asked.

“Ah, well… no. I was just takin’ a little rest, y’know, absolutely not scared!” Jenny argued.

“Riiiight, keep going through the cave, try not to take too many rests, m’kay?” Janet snided.

“Alright, yeah, I won’t!” Jenny smiled, not getting that Janet was insulting her. She ran further into the tomb, to which Sally trailed behind her.

---

“Private Calzone, do you know where we are going?” Johnson shouted as he and the Italian man wandered the long, yellow brick halls of the tomb.

“Ow, nah, I thought youse did,” He covered his ears as he mumbled, and then took a sip from a hip flask he pulled out of his suit pocket.

“Well I don’t, but if there’s one thing I know it’s that we should blindly move forward,” Johnson brazenly pointed ahead, Jimmy clapped only semi sarcastically. “Also, I packed tootsie rolls if you want any, can’t fight for America on an empty stomach!”

“Y’know what? I like you,” Jimmy smiled, stuffed his face with the tootsie rolls.

---

“So, uhh, Tex, where do you think the stuff we’re meant to steal is?” Jenny asked, an obvious look of mild fear on her face. “Not that I’m scared or anythin’, but I would like to get outta here,”

“Hold your horses, Recon, it’ll probably be in the centre—I paid attention in history class,”

“It ain’t my fault the teach made it so damn borin’, the stuff they did sounded so fun too, why not repeat it?” Jenny shrugged.

Sally chuckled, and shrugged. “Fair enough, Slim,”

The two kept walking forward for a bit, before finally coming across.

“The mummy,”

“Neato, a corpse,” Jenny commented.

“Nice you guys found it, I’ll get the rest of the team to your location as soon as possible,” Janet promised. “Just wait there,”

“You got it boss!” Jenny smiled, to which Sally looked at her with a look of mirth.

“What? Why’re ya lookin’ at me like that?”

“I swear, Vitra’s the only person who’s orders you actually follow,” She commented, innocuously enough.

“Whaddaya tryin’ to say? Cause it ain’t like that, not at all!” Jenny defensively waved her hands.

The blush on Jenny’s face let Sally know the truth, though. “I ain’t sayin’ anythin’, just noticed,”

“Better’ve,”

“Hello,” Chirag blankly greeted, causing Jenny to jump, and fall square on her back.

“Jeez, when the hell did you get here er… I can’t think of a nickname for you,”

“I walked in from the behind door while you were in the closet,” Chirag pointed to the other door behind the three

“What closet, this room literally only has this mummy in it,” Jenny looked confused as she leaned on said mummy.

“...nevermind,”

Johnson and Jimmy’s entrance was notably less quiet, they burst into the mummy room being followed by gunshots, a bullet whizzed past Jenny’s head.

“The British are coming, the British are coming!” Johnson yelled as Jimmy shot at the hallway with his tommy gun.

“Private, what the hell was that?” Janet asked with a tone of both sternness and panic.

“Those English fu-”

“Give us da Mummy yew little gobshite,” One of the British soldiers yelled from down the hall “Or we’ll fuck yew up like any normal chewsday!”

“Screw you, come catch these hands!” Jenny yelled.

“Defend the mummy at all costs, brace for impact,” Janet ordered.

Sally quickly set up a sentry gun, Chirag sat on the far end of the room aiming his rifle down the front hallway, the rest of the Mercs aimed their various guns at the doorway: Jenny aimed her dual pistols, Jimmy aimed his tommy gun, Sally and Johnson aimed their shotguns.

A group of redcoats holding a metal shield plastered with Union Jacks blocked the initial fire of the Mercs, then a couple dozen or so musketeers stood behind them and fired.

The Mercs took cover behind a statue in the middle of the room, and fired everything they had, only managing to kill a handful of the musketeers and even less of the shields, even then, the musketeers were quickly replaced with reinforcements. The only thing stopping a full on charge was Sally’s sentry gun, which kept the shielders busy with trying to block its shots, and the occasional shot from Chirag’s rifle, which was capable of piercing the shields and hitting the men behind them.

“My Sentry will overheat any minute now, any of y’all got a plan?” Sally asked.

Jenny glanced over to the door behind them and smirked. “I got one, keep these Limeys distracted!”

“You got it!” Johnson threw a grenade into the redcoats, while Jimmy took a large swig of his flask and fired into them.

Jenny ran into the backdoor and into a long hallway.

She encountered three Redcoats planning a flanking maneuver; surprised, the three redcoats charged Jenny with their bayonets.

Jenny ran to her side, and kicked the wall, sending her flying over the three soldiers; she bashed the middle one in the head with the bat which splattered blood on the wall. “Maybe look up next time you rotten toothed bastards!” She taunted

The left one swung his bayonet at her, which she blocked with her baseball bat, she then stabbed the bat into his stomach, knocked him backwards and then bashed his head in with the bat.

The right one aimed his musket at her and missed, Jenny dumped a quarter of her mag into the man and killed him.

“I make it look easy,” She boasted as she ran down the hallway.

---

Jenny eventually found herself in a new room, one directly in front of the mummy room.

She saw a lone redcoat in there, his snazzier uniform indicated his status as an officer.

“Hey Limey! If ya surrender I won’t kill ya,” Jenny called out, making the officer draw his fancy Gothic hilted sword.

“Have yew lost the plot yew little Slapper, ‘ave at you then!” He pointed his sword at her.

“I dunno what that means, but I’m offended!” She yelled as she drew her baseball bat.

---

The Officer charged at Jenny, she slid to the side as he stopped just short of a wall.

“Boo!” She taunted as she poked him in the back with the bat, she then went into a swing which was blocked by the sword, Jenny backstepped to avoid his swing.

“Get over ‘ere yew little shite!” The officer yelled as he charged towards her again, Jenny jumped up as he charged, she then jumped on the blunt side of his sword and slammed her bat into the back of his head, blood and chunks of his brain got on her varsity jacket.

“Man, I gotta find a cleaner way to kill these bastards,” She grumpily commented.

“Hey Jenny, good job on taking out their commander,” Vitra complimented.

“Oh well, it ain’t nothin’ could do it in my sleep,” Jenny boasted, her face turning a delicate shade of pink.

“It certainly looked easy, now flank ‘em,” Vitra ordered.

“Oh yeah right, my plan,” Jenny realised as she bolted down hallway while firing shots from her pistols into it.

---

Small calibre bullets took out many of the musketeers in the back, causing most of the Redcoats to turn around and notice the blonde woman running towards them.

Johnson used this distraction and rushed shovel first into the crowd, beheading one of the shielder’s heads with his shovel.

Jenny’s bullets rained down on the musketmen while they also tried to deal with The Patriot.

One of them swung their rifle at him, Johnson grabbed it, swung him around by it, and threw him into some soldiers to his right

Sally reloaded and repaired her sentry gun, which finished off the rest of the Redcoats efficently.

“Good job everyone, there should be a van parked outside the tomb, that’ll drive you to an airport which’ll get you a private flight back, get the mummy to our contracters, and give us a hefty tax break,” Janet clapped over the speaker. “The English should’ve retreated by now, but pick off any stragglers you find,”

“Yes Vitra,” Chirag nodded. “Now, we’re going to need to all carry this to…”

Johnson picked up the entire sarcophagus by the middle.

“…That works too, let’s go,”

---

Johnson dumped the sarcophagus on the sand as the Mercs left the tomb.

“Hello everyone, it’s good to see you again!” The cheerful Arab man from the hotel waved frantically from the front seat of the beat up van.

Johnson casually dumped the Sarcophagus into the back of the van.

“How did the mission go, Friends? Good I hope!” He cheered as he began to drive.

“Went good,” Chirag mumbled. “What is your name?”

“I am Khushnud, I will drive you all across the world,” He waved his hand to emphasise this. “As long as the world means countries that speak Arabic, or Persian... or a bit of Kurdish, but don’t tell anyone,”

He whispered that last part as if it was some big government secret.

“Lips are sealed, pal,” Sally made the motion of zipping her lips.

“Good, trip to airport shouldn’t take long,”

---

When they got back to the base, Chirag immediately retreated to the sniper tower outside of the base, which acted as his bedroom; it had everything he needed, which consisted of a sleeping bad, and a coffee maker.

He was practising his when he heard a creaking coming from the ladder below him, he aimed his gun at it as he waited for the presumed enemy to pop up.

“Woah, woah buddy, it’s just me,” Sally put her hand up as she reached the top, making Chirag lower his gun.

“I nearly shot you,” He said, more matter of factly than angrily. “Why are you here?”

“Welp,” Sally sat cross legged, opposite of the Sniper. “I noticed that you didn’t come to the bar after the job, don’tcha wanna celebrate?”

“I don’t drink, and I need to practice my skills,” Chirag said as he went back to aiming his gun.

“You’re already pretty good, why don’tcha let loose every once in awhile? You don’t even gotta drink if you don’t wanna,”

“...Maybe, I will consider it,”

“You better, I’ll leave ya to your aimin’ practice,” Sally began to climb down the ladder. “Bye now, Chi,”

“وداعا، تكساس"

“No idea what that means, but see ya,”