Francis was confused. Why would the Empire fortify this place? There was literally no reason for that. Sure, there were some supply-depots, but other supplybases he had inspected thus far weren´t as fortified as the one at the Marberry Shore. Francis sighed. It really made no sense. He turned around, looking at the ocean. The sun had begun to set, coulouring the water red. It was a breathtaking sight.
„It´s beautiful, isn´t it?" Francis looked behind him, to see who was speaking to him. „Oh, Lieutenant Delson,I´m sorry, I haven´t realized, that you were behind me, i will go back to…" The Lieutenant cut him short. „It´s ok Francis, enjoy the sunset while you can. Command sent us here to investigate and from my point of view, looking at the sun counts as „investigating". The longer the investigation takes, the longer we stay away from the frontline and that´s a good thing, don´t you think?" Francis grinned. This war was raging for a few months now and the Lieutenant hadn´t changed a bit. Always avoiding actual work and trying to convince his subordinates to do the same. „Yes Sir. I will now proceed with my investigation of the Imperial Base. Furthermore, I request your permission to interogate the prisoners and to talk to some of the soldiers of Squad 7." „Permission granted. As fort he latter, i will talk to Squad 7´s commander about that. I will let you know, as soon as i have an answer."
Francis saluted and made his way back tot he camp. While he was walking up the cliffs, he started to think to himself. „It´s good, that i haven´t been assigned to the frontline-units. I don´t get much action though. But thats ok. Here at Squad 76, everyone was nice and for most of the time, it was safe. Right now, we are just 3 men, but im sure we will get some new recruits soon. Maybe in few days..." As he entered the base, someone ran up to him, saluted and bean to shout. „Lieutnant Delson, i am Private Malley and I have been assigned to Squad 76 as an Engineer. I look forward to serve under your command. I will help you as good as i can to bring defeat upon this imperial bastards." „Slow down Private, im not the Lieutenant, im just his deputy. But if you look for him, you should head to the beach." „Thank you Sir.", the Private said and with that, he ran off, heading to the shoreline. Francis grinned. „Fresh meat", he thought. „But it´s good to see someone new, especially after half of the Squad left for Fouzen to help with the reconstruction, after the information about the tragedy was spread." Suddenly, he heard a voice from behind. „I give him 2 days before he requests a transfer to one of the fighting Squads." Francis turned around. It was Marvin, the only other person left in the Squad besides him and the Lieutenant and (probably) the laziest person in the whole Militia. Most of the time, he is either sleeping or cooking. Not that that was a bad thing, in fact, he was really good at cooking and he never seems to go out of ingridients. The Lieutenant suspects, that he nicks them from the headquarters supplies, whenever they get back to the, but nobody has any evidence for that thus far. „What do you mean by that?" „This guy probably thinks, that he is in one of those „super-cool-canonfodder-frontline-units". I kinda feel bad for him. There he is, enlisted to kick some ass and now he is in a unit, whos main purpose is to look around for some junk in recaptured places far away from actual combat. Not that i´m complaining, this is probably the chillest unit in the whole Militia. Yesterday, i literally slept through the whole day. Oh, by the way, you probably want look at this. I think, this base served a in crucial role for something much larger, than just supplying some soldiers and tanks…"
