The sun rolled slowly down the western sky, shifting through the makeshift buildings.
"Danke." I was genuine, "You made me feel like home."
"My pleasure," He said, glancing at the clock, "You should get going."
"Should I?" I was kinda too engulfed in all of this to notice that I was fucking late to returning to base.
Kraig chuckled at my reaction.
"I imagine that you would find a rather dismayed commander," He commented, amusement dancing in his eyes, "C'mon, get going."
I hopped on my bike and raced back to the base, my mind fluttering with thoughts speculating what awaited me.
***
If I could hit the bed, I would have totally done so.
But no.
Because I have fucking adjutant duty... And also a very special appointment!
At least, according to the commander...
Time seemed to drag on as finish my combat report.
The clock chimes 22:30.
M4A1 enters.
So she's the one.
"Want something to drink?" I snapped upwards, and gestured towards the tray of paper cups.
She shook her head, "N-no, water is okay."
Lmao.
I smiled inwardly, knowing that that it didn't matter anyways; we were fucking broke and the commander had cut down on expenses.
Seemingly rather frugal, I'm more than convinced that M4 will be a welcome companion compared from the others. Her easy-going personality was a breath of fresh air compared to some orange haired logistics officer I fear to name.
Let alone Kryuger.
"My greetings to you, commander," She said softly while sitting herself down, "And felicitations to you, Miss G36, thanks for saving me."
I flash a curt smile.
"So what brings you here?" Queried the commander.
"I wish that you could, uh, assist me to recovering other members of Anti Rain."
"That would be something high up in our priorities. But we can't do that now due to our debts, y'know," Heiden geasuted weakly to his surroundings, "Our budget is on a shoestring. We have almost all of our personnel on part time jobs."
M4's brows wrinkle.
"That isn't very good for operations of the base, is it? Leaving it almost devoid of any capable fighters."
"Well..." The commander trailed off mid sentence.
"Well, commander, if the recovery operations are successful, I'll transfer our commanding rights of Anti Rain under your name; how does that sound?"
His glass cup shatters to the ground.
I cringe, resisting my temptation to fucking kneel don on the spot and clean the shards.
FUCK. BRO DROPPED IT. FUCK.
"Real?"
M4 nods.
"Then yes."
***
SOPMOD sighs loudly as she tosses the remnants of Sangvis weapons aside, not forgetting to claw it apart in frustration.
"None of them run 556 NATO qwq. What do we do, STAR?" SOPMOD said impatiently.
STAR seemed at a loss of words too. Through the course of the last few battles, all of them being incredibly demanding on ammo and resources, their supplies have run dangerously low.
She paused briefly, looking thoughtful, "Loot their pistols. We'll use it as secondaries."
Her companion seemed less than pleased with that idea.
"Cmoooon," SOPMOD wined, shoving a laser cannon up STAR's face, "These weapons are so going to be overkill!"
"We're not trained to handle weapons like this, SOPMOD, and you know it; So, no."
"Fine."
Silence fell as they shuffled through parts for resources.
"Fucking Sangvis are soOOOOOO annoying," SOPMOD commented moments later, "We've been playing cat and mouse for such a long time now. They've got electronic warefare shit to stop us from reaching HQ. There's nothing we can do."
STAR's eyebrows arch in response.
Despite SOPMOD's usual waywardness and... energetic personality, she rarely swore.
"Well, what do we do?"
STAR glanced at the disintegrated remnants of Sangvis dolls. At the motherboard. At the unscathed processors.
An idea arose.
"Whatcha doing?" SOPMOD questioned as STAR paced towards a body.
"Well," She looked thoughtfully at the still intact electronics, "Maybe we can do something with their processors and motherboards, y'know? If we can't reach Kryuger, then we'll try connecting to the Sangvis network instead; try tackle the problem from inside. Surely nothing could go wrong..."
Her words faded, as the doll shifted her attention to integrating the Sangvis chip.
"Mmm. Fair point. I don't see any harm."
...
"Commander, this is where the data centre is located," M4A1 gestured towards a point on the map laid out in front, "Thanks to your commanding and especially G36, we've neutralised the majority of Sangvis threats in our area."
I nodded curtly at her praise.
Outside, I was calm as fuck.
Inside, my emotions were wild as fuck.
Like holy fuck; Receiving praise from a quiet, cute and capable heroine made me kinda proud.
"However," Her tone rapidly shifted, from endorse to concern, "The operation has also scattered the members of my team, Anti rain. STAR-15, SOPMOD II and M16A1 still marked as missing."
The atmosphere within the room tenses.
"Despite all of this, recon has established that 15 and SOPMOD are in your sector, and that they are enduring fire from Sangvis support forces; thus, the inability to establish contacts. Out task is to extract them both."
I glanced at the clock to find the handle nearing midnight.
"When should we commence operations," I ask carefully, praying to not get thr response I dread.
"As soon as possible. Preferably right now. There is a rare window of opportunity."
Welp.
Time for nighttime operations.
Fuck.
