The first couple of days of deployment were hard on everyone. There was always an adaptation period. They had already engaged a couple of times and some of the trained militants had been injured and killed and a few soldiers as well but luckily not lethally.

"How are things?" asked Emily as she was Skyping with Eric.

"We're hanging in there. We've only been here four days and it feels like a month has gone by."

"I can only imagine. It feels the same here."

"You look pale," said Eric, "are you resting enough?"

"Yes. I told you I was going to be careful. Besides, you've had Joey and Shawn a couple of times already."

Eric raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"I promise that when you do, I'm not in the background pretending to be home."

"Alright I trust you."

"How are the teams doing?"

"Good. I think the preparation we did was beneficial. You were right, it just needed some tweaking for it to be like clockwork. We're all happy you ended up stopping that day."

"Hey, don't do that."

"Do what?" he said as he looked puzzled.

"Diminish yourself. You would have thought of it too."

"Yeah, well you're quicker and have a better eye for detail, which is why you're Captain and I'm Commander."

"You said you didn't want to be Captain."

"I don't. I'm merely stating a fact about your skills."

She turned her head away from the screen and he could hear her talk to Joey. He saw her stand from her chair, she then bent over to look at Eric.

"Something is brewing, I'll call you back from the Command Ops." She said quickly before she cut the communication.

Just as she hurried with Joey to the Command Ops, Eric did the same after calling over Rick and Mark. The guys all looked at each other as they Commanders headed in.

"Ain't smelling too good, what do you reckon?" asked Sonny as he cleaned his rifle.

"I'm sure we'll know soon enough," answered Jason.

"And here I thought we'd be heading home," said Tim.

Sonny looked at him. "For crying out loud, would you stop sweating like a whore in church? This ain't your first rodeo."

Tim looked at Sonny incredulously. The others laughed.

Ray put his hand on Tim's shoulder. "This Texan basically translates to, stop being nervous, you are experienced and qualified."

A soldier arrived near them. "The Commanders are requesting your presence urgently at Command Ops."

Tim looked at Sonny. "Hope you still feel the same when the shit hits the fan. Because so far, what we've been facing is peanuts."