Sergeant Elyn helped Eva up from the mat, who was still a bit unsteady on her feet. A part of her felt a little guilty at having to knock her down a notch. But her worries subsided when she saw Eva's grin. "Thanks, sergeant," she said. "I learned quite a lot these past few seconds." Her throat was still sore from Elyn's strike, so her words came out a little strained. But her tone was filled with eagerness. "Yeah?" said Elyn. "Like what?" Eva straightened up, and rubbed her bruises a little. "Don't fuck around in a fight." Elyn laughed heartily, and nodded. That was her number-one rule in any conflict. Don't mess around. Find th

At the other end of the base, two incredibly tired cadets sat in a very dark and spacious room a hundred meters below the surface. Next to them was a mecha that looked substantially different from the training mecha elsewhere in the base. Its lines were curved, and every extremity ended in dangerous edges, including its fingers. It looked as though it was wholly designed to punch through the heaviest of defenses. They looked menacing and dangerous. One of the cadets tapped on their datapad, which displayed the schematics and stats for the mecha next to them. He then opened up a console and started to hack into the mecha's operating system while his female partner stood watch. It didn't take him much time to rewrite what

Eva and Chengli willingly went on the reconnaissance run, and even brought three cadets each. They didn't mind all that much that they were doing this, it was just that there were others who were more proficient at it. Although they were relatively well-versed in stealth and recon, Sunflower had practical military experience, and that was too valuable a resource to let sit. So they invited her to join them as a force multiplier. She quickly joined the team with three cadets of her own and offered her expertise whenever she could. The more they understood about the situation, the better their decisions could be, simple as that. The first thing they did was kick up a cloud of dust around themselves. They wanted to get a nice, thick layer of it to help keep them camouflaged. Whether or not this was helpful against d

Although everyone was on high alert, no other attacks happened after that. Everyone quickly regrouped and reorganized their defenses while Eva and Chengli's squadron stood down to repair and resupply. All the squad leaders headed into the command tent where Grizz and his lackeys were playing around with the holo-table. Their lackadaisical faces made it apparent that they didn't have a care in the world. Grizz watched the squad leaders as they came into the tent uninvited, and frowned deeply. One of the things he hated the most was to get interrupted while he was busy. His work was too important to set aside so casually! At least, that's what he loved to say. "What're all of you doing?" he asked. The squad leaders took th

After the infiltration was completed, both wings went back to the encampment so that Jackal could report on his wing's findings. He presented the data to the rest of the squad leaders unedited and unfiltered. He sent them all the raw information, from the recorded feed to their sensor readouts to their speculations. At the same time, he projected his raw feed on one of the walls to help them visualize what they were reviewing over their DIs. Eva watched their faces as they went through the intel. Their facial expressions grew from surprised to alarmed to afraid to depressed. Of course they would. Anyone who had seen the total number of enemy mecha would have done the exact same. The room sat in silence for some time. They all needed to process the information in front of them. No-one knew where to begin.