"My God, doesn't that thing ever run out of bullets?" Church asked with annoyance.

"You know, in hindsight we should have brought the tank," Tucker mused offhandedly.

"Hey, Tucker... what good is a tank gonna do us if nobody knows how to drive the damn thing?" asked Church curiously.

"Yeah, I can see how hiding behind a rock is a much better strategy," Tucker replied sarcastically.

"Well, yeah, but… oh, man," Church groaned. "I guess I gotta give that one to you."

"Hey, Church, if you give me your sniper rifle, maybe I can get a shot on one of those reds," I offered.

"Oh, don't you start!" Church barked hotly, turning towards me. "I'm not giving anyone my sniper rifle!"

"Well, yeah, but it seems like you're really bad at aiming with that thing," I replied in a sincere tone. "Wouldn't it be better in the hands of someone who actually knows how to use it?"

"Yeah, I agree with the rookie on this one," Tucker commented wryly.

"Both of you, shut up," Church growled angrily. "I don't care how many insults you make, I'm not giving anyone my sniper rifle."

"Ok… wait, do you hear something?" I asked, perking my head as if to listen to something.

"Um… no?" Tucker replied curiously.

"Exactly, there's no sound," I commented excitedly. "They've stopped shooting at us!"

"Oh, right," Tucker nodded, before turning to peek around the rock. "Wait, were did the Reds go?"

"What, the Reds are gone?" asked Church, who also peeked around the rock.

"Wow, yeah," I said, standing up to look over the rock. "Hey, why don't we go get the Jeep? We can use it to get back to base before they… do whatever they're doing."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Go for it," Tucker replied with a dubious tone.

"Me? By we I mean you… asshole," I replied with annoyance.

"White, don't be stupid, they're just trying to draw us out," Church replied cautiously.

"No, they're not!" I contended, pointing my gun at the Jeep. "Look, they left, there's no one around the Jeep."

"Well, I don't know about this," Church frowned, looking at the Jeep dubiously. "It seems pretty fishy, but... all right, screw it. Let's go get it."

"Ok then," I nodded, turning to Tucker. "Tucker, you can stay here and give us covering fire if we need it."

"Better you than me," Tucker remarked dubiously.

"Dick head," I muttered as we started running down the cliff, but when we got within 3 meters of the Jeep, it blew up.

"Son of a bitch!" Church and I both yelled, turning right around and running right back to the safety of the rock.

"Hey, guys! The Jeep blew up!" Tucker remarked loudly when we arrived.

"Yeah, no fucking shit, Tucker!" I deadpanned.

"No kidding! Thanks for the update, dumbass!" Church barked angrily, before walking pass tucker and up towards the edge of the cliff. "Hey, Tucker, White! Look at this, man! It's the other rookie, and he brought out the tank to scare off the Reds!"

"What?! No way!" Tucker exclaimed in shock.

"Maybe Caboose is smarter than we thought!" I commented loudly in a stage whisper.

"Yeah, I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that," Church remarked sarcastically, before shouting out across the box canyon. "Hey Rookie! Good Job, man! Why didn't you tell us you knew how to drive the tank!?"

Distantly, I heard a feminine voice that I identified at Sheila say: "New target acquired."

Then I heard Caboose say: "That's not a target, that's Church!"

Oh, right, this was the point where Church supposedly died, right?

I briefly considered saving him, before deciding against it. It would probably be a lot harder to prove that he was an AI if he was still in a biological body.

"Yeah, that's right!" Church yelled down to Caboose. "It's me, Church! What's going on, man?"

"Target locked." said Sheila robotically.

"What? No! Go back! Target unlock, unlock! Please help me, nice lady!" Caboose babbled with fear.

"Firing main cannon," said Sheila.

"What?" Church exclaimed with shock as he looked down the cannon on the tank. "Oh, son of a bi–"

Then Church blew up in a blaze of fire.

"Holy Fuck! Church, are you ok?" Tucker exclaimed with shock, peering down at Church's body. "Talk to me! Church."

"Yeah, I think he's dead, Tucker," I admitted apologetically.

"You killed Church, you team-killing fucktard!" Tucker shouted down at Caboose.

"Tucker," I heard Church say weakly a moment later. "Tucker..."

"Oh, he's alive," I responded bemusedly.

"Church! It's gonna be ok, man," Tucker replied with relief, bending down to poke at him.

"No… aah. I'm – I'm not gonna make it," Church replied painfully. "Tucker, there's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?" asked Tucker.

"I just want you to know… I always hated you. I always hated you the most." Church confessed softly.

"Yeah, I know you did," Tucker replied with aggravation. "Now hurry up and die, prick."

"Ok – Hurk… blah," and then Church was dead.

"Man, what an asshole," I commented, staring down at him.

While this had been happening, Sheila had locked on another target, and was now firing at Red Base.

Tucker was quiet for a moment after Church's final confession, before turning to me. "We should go help Caboose."

"You can go do that, I'm gonna head back to base," I replied, making to turn around.

"You're not coming with me?" asked Tucker with shock.

"Hey, I've only been here for like… what is it, three hours?" I checked my clock. "Yeah, three hours, and in the short time I've been here, we lost our flag, lost a teammate, oh, and now our crazy tank is running rampant. So yeah, I'm heading back to base. You can deal with Caboose and the crazy run-away tank."

"Wow, has it really only been three hours?" asked Tucker in a daze. "It's feels like it's been a day, at least."

"Yeah, that's how much shit we had to deal with," I replied testily as I turned away from him. "And if this is the kind of shit you have to deal with on a regular basis, I want to be prepared. Also, I kind of need to clean my armor. You know, after that whole debacle with Church forcing me through the teleporter at gunpoint."

"I guess that makes sense," said Tucker in an unsure tone. "See you later, then."

"Yeah, see you" I nodded, before making my way back to Blue Base.

The top two levels of Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha, otherwise known as blue base, was basically the roof were the teleporter was, and the flag room. Underneath the flag room was the four level complex where Blue team lived.

I descended to the barracks, and chose an unoccupied room for myself. Getting my armor off with an armor rack, I took a quick shower, then spent the next half hour cleaning the armor. I then went to the armory and outfitted myself with an assault rifle, a shotgun, and some grenades, along with extra clips. Strangely enough, there weren't any sniper rifles.

After all this was done, I decided to properly inspect the base, and see all the facilities available. I found the kitchen, a small cafeteria, a rec room, and a room full of dumbbells and exercise racks.

The kitchen was well stocked with food, and all of the water faucets work, pouring clean, fresh water, so that was good. I was careful to check the water storage tank, and it seemed pretty well stocked up. I made a mental note not to let Caboose anywhere near it.

I also found a machine repair room, which was obviously meant for repairing our weapons and armor, but I noticed that there was a thin layer of dust on everything, so nobody had visited for a while, it seemed. It was there that I found a Matter Fabricator(often shortened to MatFab). A matfab was like a really advanced 3D printer, and you could make anything with it, other than food(you needed a special matfab for that). I didn't really understand how matfabs worked, only that it had something to do with lasers.

I checked the matfab resource storage, and noticed that we had plenty, enough to produce two sniper rifles, some ammo, and a computer mod I wanted for my suit.

I set the matfab to produce the things I wanted, then I left. Production would last 15 minutes, and as I left I set a timer in my hud.

I didn't find anything else that was interesting in the base, other than a door that I couldn't open. The door required special codes that I didn't have, and I suspected that nobody other than Captain Flowers had them, and Captain Flowers was dead.

When the timer was up, I went and grabbed my things from the matfab, left the computer mod in my room, and headed up to the roof, to see that Tex was there. It seemed that I had missed a lot in the short time I had been in the base.

Tex was using Caboose as target practice, while Tucker was standing next to her, chatting her up.

"Hey, who's this guy?" I asked as I walked up to them.

Tex immediately reacted, turning around on a dime and pointing her gun in my face.

"Whoa, take it easy!" I responded, lifting my hands in placation.

"Its ok, Tex, this is White. He's a teammate." Tucker spoke up. Tex snorted and turned back to using Caboose as target practice.

I looked at Tucker. "Tex? When did he show up, and why?"

"Well, we lost Church, so I called Blue Command and asked for reinforcements," Tucker explained. "They sent him, he's a freelancer."

"I see," I replied, turning to look at Caboose. "Why did you let him use Caboose as target practice?"

"It was him or me and I didn't feel like eating a bullet sandwich," Tucker shuddered.

We walked up to Tex and stood on either side of her. Apparently Tucker had been explaining the situation in the canyon to her.

"...That's basically it, sir," Tucker concluded. "They have five guys over there... and a big jeep."

"And your flag," Tex grunted.

"Right, that too," Tucker nodded hesitantly.

Tex threw a grenade.

"Uh, hey, Tex?" Tucker inquired fearfully after it exploded. "I don't know what it's been like at your other bases, but we try not to use other Soldiers as target practice here."

"And you're causing damage to the base too," I added with a frown. "You do realize that we have to live here, right? It's not like we can wash off bullet holes."

I turned to look at Caboose, who had a bunch of bullet holes around his frame in the crenelation. Tex was scary accurate with her gun.

"I'm scared," said Caboose in a weak voice.

Tex ignored us, reloading her gun and turning around. Taking that as a hint that training was over, Caboose walked up to us from his spot next to the crenelation.

"So… you've got the Special Forces black armor, I see," Tucker commented. "Were you in the Special Forces at some point?"

Tex continued to ignore us. It seemed like she was preparing for something, as she was checking her guns and gear.

"Ok, so I guess..." Tucker began, but he stopped when Tex turned and ran off the base. "Oh ok, you gotta go? See you later!"

"I don't think he likes you," Caboose whispered to us.

"Thanks," we both replied sarcastically.

We all ran up to the edge of the roof.

"Where you going?" called Tucker.

Tex turned around. "Red Base. Kill everybody. Get the flag back."

After that terse statement, he turned and left.

"Oh, ok!" called Caboose. "We'll just stay here and guard the… transporter."

"Shut up, Caboose," I groaned.

We watched as Tex walked off, and as she got closer to Red Base, she turned on her invisibility thing.

"Hey, Tucker," I said, pulling one of the sniper rifles from my back, and passing it to him. "Here you go."

"Oh, neat!" he said, and I could hear the excitement in his voice. "Where did you find it?"

"There's a matfab in the machine room," I replied, pulling out my own sniper rifle and passing some ammo to him. "I made it."

"We have a machine room?" asked Tucker in confusion.

"Whats a matfab?" asked Caboose at the same time.

"Its short for Matter Fabricator," I said to Caboose, before turning to Tucker. "and dude, you've been living here longer than me, how could you not know you had a machine room?"

"I guess I never really thought of it," said Tucker as he loaded his sniper rifle with ammo.

Caboose also got out a sniper rifle, and as one, we lifted up our rifles to watch Tex beat up the Reds.