The day had really started bad. Fucking bad. Ala had dreamt of long gone times, friends and adventures, only to wake up and find herself in a fucking desert. On top of all she had to wake up her lazy team member, only to walk in on a sleeping Tucker. A completely naked sleeping Tucker. Well, laying on his tummy, butt towards the door, the girl couldn't resist. Silently taking out the pistol, she loaded a single bullet in the ammo, aimed for the butt of the black guy and unerringly hit the right butt cheek. In the same second, the black guy shot up with a loud howl, jumping about a meter above ground and holding his butt. Lucky for him the bullet was only a rubber one. But it would hurt him nonetheless.

Waiting until the howling, bickering and cursing cooled off a bit, the girl hear a mumbled "You bitch, that hurt!" But she pretended to not have heard him as she walked away, informing Tucker: "You better be fully armored on the parade ground in five minutes. Otherwise the chief will punish you again. The fourth time this week for coming too late." And the week had only four days until now – it was Thursday.

Standing on the parade ground the soldier with the midnight blue armor and white blue helmet, underarm and hip pads, waited for the morning assembly.

But before the commander was able to do that, a 'fump' was audible and soon after a fountain of blood, hair, brain and bones splashed out of the left side of the commanders head. Instead of running to the chief, he was dead anyway, the instincts of the former special troops training kicked in as Ala immediately crouched down and took her gun, now again normal bullets in it and searched for the enemy. But obviously the gunman had been a sniper, so he was far away. Another shot made sand and dirt fly into the air as it hit the ground where Ala was standing some moments before. Only her reaction made her jump away in time. The scientist of the group she had to guard weren't that lucmy. One after another fell in the hail of bullets, until only Ala was left.

Late as always and a bad feeling for the right moment, Tucker came out of the base. "Dude, what the fuck is going on here?" Asked the teal soldier confused as he saw the chief nd the scientists laying lifeless in the sand. The blood was soaked up by the dry ground before a blood puddle was able to form.

"We're under attack. Get down you idiot! Now!" Ordered the blue Spartan her comrade, who was more ducking because a bullet whistled past his head than because of the order. It was damn close. But at least Ala knew now where the sniper was. Quickly grabbing the still confused solder by the collar, she dragged him along to the wall of the base where they were out of the shooting angle of the sniper. But still were bullets hitting the ground. Obviously he wanted to be sure that they would stay in place.

"It's rare to hear from a chick to get down, ya don't seem…"

"Not the time for your horny jokes Tucker. Better use that little space in your head to find a way out and a hideout here."

"Aw come on!"

Ala ignored him while she was scanning the area. But instead of a hideout, she saw something else. "Oh fuck! The sniper is giving coverage to a group of aliens, better we move our asses out of here!"

"I would even move your pretty ass too."

"Tucker!"

"Okay, okay. Why don't we look for the shelter over there?" Almost chilled pointing over to the temple where they had been working on the last weeks. And why didn't he said that earlier. "Okay, you first, I occupy the sniper and the aliens."

"Count to three babe?"

"NOW!" Pushing Tucker in the back and make him stumble forward the teal Spartan finally moved his ass over to the temple. His teammate put away the gun and took out her two machine-guns from the holsters on her back, as she began to shoot on the two groups at the same time. While she was running halfway sideward to keep both enemies in check, she ran after Tucker, who shortly after her closed and locked the temple for good measure. They already had found out how this worked after the archaeologist locked it down some weeks ago and used three days to get the unlocking mechanism working.

As they finally were in and sure that the portal door would stand the attacks of the Aliens outside, Ala was able to relax a bit. Letting the empty ammo sliding out of the guns and replacing it with others, she held them some moments in her hands. The gun barrels were glowing slightly red because they ran hot during the full-automatic fire.

"Geeeh, that was fucking close." Exhaled Ala after she put the machine-guns back in the holster on her back. Now glancing over to Tucker. "Couldn't you have chosen another time to hit the rock bottom?!" Asked the white armored soldier the other one. Thinking of it. She hadn't been better earlier. They were bickering and discussing about nonsense while fighting an army of Special Forces.

"Guys, what's up here?" There was a voice from one of the dark tunnels behind them. Immediately pulling out her gun and pointing at the formless shadow, Ala narrowed her eyes to see something. But that darkness was thicker than a sandstorm. "Get out of there, and show your hands." As asked, two hands appeared, followed by a pink armor. "Gosh Donut! If you want to get killed keep on with that!" Ranted Tucker, also being highly alerted and his weapon in position to shoot.

"I- I'm sorry! I didn't meant to startle you! I was here to check if everything is okay! The chief sent me! And then suddenly I heard shooting and the door closing! I wanted to look what happened and you were here and the door locked and…"

"It's okay Donut." Interrupted Ala the obviously shocked soldier. "Just tell us next time when you are around. "How did you get in here anyway? I didn't see you go into the temple." Asked Ala curious, she had been outside since about two hours and hadn't seen Donut entering the temple ruin.

"There's a secret entry some kilometers away. The chief wanted me to check that also, so I decided to check it from the back to front."

"Where's this secret entry?"

Donut pointed to a point away from the banging and crashing on the door. "About five kilometers I guess."

Shortly Ala calculated the chances. "Okay, you will go when the nightfall comes. Go directly to the base you guys are. Tucker, you know where it is?"

"Valhalla, according to Caboose." The tone was cautious and a bit annoyed as you never knew what was true and what not of Cabooses narratives.

"Y'know where Valhalla is?" Now Tucker was talking to Donut. The pink soldier nodded. "Okay, then go. Tell the guys we hide ourselves in the temple at the base buried under the sands. We need their help against the Aliens. Now go!" That only the message 'Their buried under the sands' would come to the teams wasn't really to be seen then by the two remaining soldiers as Donut turned around and ran as if the devil was right at his heels.

Now the teal soldier dropped to the ground carefully, to not hit the hurt butt cheek and took off his helmet. "Gosh what a day to start."

"What you say…" Stated Ala, thinking of her start, seeing a naked tucker sleeping soundly.

"Hey why don't'cha come over here and sit down with me?"

"I'm observing the gate. Rather die in battle than during a nice chat."

"Aw come on! It's always nice to have a chick beside ya to talk to."

"Can't say the same."

"Ouch. That's unfair, ya have me, the love doctor in persona!"

Now Ala turned slightly around without letting the gate out of sight as she mustered the other soldier, sitting slightly to the left side to not burden his right side of the ass too much.

"Rock bottom the third, Tucker. How does it come that you didn't got a chick until now? Not even one with feathers?"

"Hey those are chickens, not chicks. And 'sides, how am I supposed to get a chick when you're the only one around?"

"Got a point, but no thanks anyway."

"Other way around I never see you with guys."

"Because there are none who are really of interest for me in personal way."

"And if ya could choose?"

"Rather stay alone. At least I know now what was meant with the annoying horny guy of blue team." She had beard about that. Tucker was famous all around for that.

Tucker monitored the soldier standing a bit away from him, observing the door who was quaking from the hits, but not wavering.

"What's your full name by the way?"

"Alaska."

Suddenly, the teal soldier didn't seem to be so keen on cuddling with her anymore. Ala was sure he was paling under his dark skin. Raising an eye ridge, because the situation was so weird, she couldn't help but grin. Suddenly this bigmouthed idiot gets totally silent.

"Somethings the matter?"

"I- uh- just had some bad experiences with Freelancers."

"Okay? And why does that bother me?"

"Because your name is Alaska, every soldier there has the name of an American State."

"I'm German by the way. And there Alaska is an officially accepted prename for a child. So that's why my parents named me that."

Tucker relaxed visibly. "Phew, I just thought you're one of those crazy guys too."

"Nope, but I know a lot about them. It occurred that I patched North and South back together as the Spaceship of them crashed. So they told me a lot."

"Yeah but still you're no real Freelancer."

"Maybe, but still a member of a special troops platoon. So I could kill you nonetheless in your sleep."

Again Tucker seemed to try to get some distance between them. Obviously he had made some bad experiences with Special Forces. Especially the ones called 'Freelancer'

But after some minutes, the teal guy again took the word. He seemed to have gotten over the first shock of being stuck with an ancient Special Forces platoon member in an old temple ruin.

"Then the nickname Ala is from your real name?"

"Exactly."

"So I really understand why you introduced yourself only as Ala."

"Bright spark, exactly. Don't really like to be called Alaska. Even though my armor color ironically is white with blue pads."

"Yeah? So why did you change the color?"

"To stay under the radar. I didn't want to be recognized as Ala from the Special Forces platoon 2. Keeps a lot of trouble away when I'm undercover."

There was again silence between the two where they only were listening to the occasional banging and crashing when someone again was trying to break the door just by force.

As it became silent, it must be around midnight, Ala also slowly cooled down a bit and finally sat down on the ground, but with enough space between her and Tucker. But the guy already had come closer again. Obviously he didn't see that of a danger in her as when she would be a Freelancer.

"Ya really don't want to get closer a bit?"

"I'm not cold. So I don't see why."

"Ya're frigid."

"You will know, love doctor…"

"Why don't we get a bit closer? Ya know, chances are high that we die in here, so why not having a bit fun? Bow chicka bow wow!"

"Rather die as a virgin. If you do it, not my problem."

"Hey from where…?! Uhm, never mind."

"You really are a virgin? Pretty bigmouthed when there's nothing behind it." Stated Ala with an amused smile, looking at her team mate from the corner of her eyes. It was visible now as she also had taken off her helmet and the braid of black hair fell down her back.

"Ahm, well, chicks are running after me, but that doesn't mean that the love doctor is taking every chick passing by. Bow chicka bow wow!"

"Again a rock bottom Tucker. You know you sound pretty desperate. Seems like you're not able to choose the right out of these 'masses' of chicks around?" She had Tucker clearly in a dead end. And she loved it to tease people a bit.

"Hey come on! How am I supposed to find a chick in the army?"

"I suppose you joined the army to be more interesting for the girls? Tze, tze, tze, looks like you got yourself into a scrape."

"Well, all the girls I met were already girlfriends of someone, like Tex, or just not my style, like Grifs sister. But ya would fit in my dating rules just perfect, so what do ya mean babe?"

"As said, rather die as a virgin. Or rather have something with the aliens out there."

"That's gross!"

"You will know…"

"I know it believe me. It's gross. Got knocked up by an alien."

"So? Then why don't you send your baby out there to make them stop."

"Junior's dead."

"You don't seem very sad about that."

"Well live goes on, so if I have chicks, I can get over such things fast."

"You're a bad dad."

"Well at least I'm not as fri- Wait a sec, now I get it! Ya already have a guy ready, haven't ya?"

"Maybe. And if you don't shut the fuck up immediately I'll shoot you a second asshole."

They bickered for some more hours. Ala didn't shoot him a second asshole during this time but she kicked the other butt cheek. So Tucker had only the option of laying on his belly, what meant to have his face in the sand or standing around. And it happened really often that the teal soldier crashed onto his nose because he just fell asleep still standing. It really looked pretty funny. And Ala didn't hold back with her laughter when Tucker again was laying on his nose and grumbling and cursing. Sure, she was the reason why his butt hurt, but he if he wouldn't be sleeping naked, he wouldn't have gotten shot by her.

Sometime after Donut left Tucker also tried to make a distress call again and again, but obviously the command didn't send help. Obviously it was because of his dumb 'Bow chicka bow wow!' he always used to exclaim after the distress call.

Really, who would think that the call was urgent and that they need help when the call was ended with such a phrase?