Utah Undisclosed Location

"Hey, Alpine! Slow down!" Bazooka called out in his slow, booming manner.

Alpine looked down from the top of the rope net. "You're still down there? Man, Stalker's not gonna be happy."

The large-framed man bent over, hands on his hips as a puddle formed from the sweat dripping from his usual football jersey. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Last time he caught me, I got 30 more minutes on the obstacle course. Alls I want to know is why are we all the way out here?"

Alpine rolled down the opposite side of the cargo net and looked at his buddy through the openings. "What do you mean?"

"It's been months since we've heard anything out of Cobra and I'm less than a year away from retiring from old Uncle Sam. I could be pushing papers somewhere in a nice air-conditioned room. I could be stationed somewhere with pizza delivery and not stationed on the side of a mountain in Utah."

Alpine's eyes grew wide and he slowly shook his head.

"Stalker's right behind me, isn't he?"

"Yes, Bazooka. Yes I am," the Ranger's voice said in an almost defeated tone. "Listen up, Bazooka. I get it. It can be really hard to get back in the game after what happened. You, Alpine, and Gung Ho almost paid the ultimate price due to a young hot shot's carelessness," Stalker said. "That big Cobra-La beast was more than we could have ever expected, but the three of you are all still breathing, and Falcon has somewhat redeemed himself in some people's eyes."

The man in the football jersey nodded his head slowly.

"I also know that it can be more difficult to almost lose your teammates. Times like that make you wonder if it might not just be easier to just take that desk job for Uncle Sam, wait for the calendar to flip over and over again, and collect that retirement." Stalker placed his hand on Bazooka's shoulder and spun him around. "However, what I know more than all that is that you are a G.I. Joe. We don't give up. We don't stop when things get tough. We do our best at all times because we don't know if or when Cobra is going to show back up, but it is up to us to stop them no matter what. Only us. Isn't that why you agreed to be a part of G.I. Joe in the first place?"

Bazooka snapped to attention; his dark mood suddenly lifted. "Yes sir!"

"That's what I thought," Stalker said calmly. "Now, I want you to get yourself over that cargo net. Do whatever it takes. After that, you're going to finish the course. Then, you're going to find your way to the range. You're going to pick up your missile launcher, and you're going to blast your way through as many dummy HISS tanks as you can before evening mess. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" Bazooka roared.

Stalker smirked. "Then get to it!"

Bazooka struggled at first, his knees buckling occasionally on his first few attempts to find a steady footing, but he eventually found his rhythm and landed on the other side by his buddy. "Come on, Alpine! Yo Joe!" Bazooka shouted as he jogged off and headed for the next obstacle.

Alpine walked over and looked at Stalker. "Thank you. He's been pretty down on himself since the attack."

"We all have, Alpine. I know he's a damn good soldier and I'm not just going to let him throw it all away because of a bad day. He's here for a reason. Now, you might want to catch up to him because I don't think he's going to stick the landing after swinging over the mud and he might need a little help crawling out."

Alpine laughed as he turned and sprinted to the second half of the course. "Yo Joe!"

"Will you look at that," Shipwreck said as he watched Bazooka jog by. "Looks like someone lit a spark under him." He picked his magazine back up, leaned back in his chair, and put his feet back on the table.

"Someone needs to do that to you," Cover Girl said as she pushed his feet off the table and grabbed a bundle of schematics before tossing them in his lap. "Can you please go double check that the VAMPs are in working order?"

Shipwreck fumbled with the schematics before gathering them in a cluttered pile. "I still don't see what this is all about. We beat Cobra, we finished off those creepy-crawlies they aligned with, and we got our big celebration. Now, we're being rewarded with getting a new base running with only a handful of us?"

Cross Country rolled out from under his HAVOC. "C'mon Shipwreck, you know it ain't that simple. How many times have we really thought we had them snakes beat?"

Shipwreck tilted his head to the side, readying a response, but said nothing.

"Exactly," the southerner continued. "Now, you think I like being out in this dry heat and dust? Not one bit. But if General Hawk thinks it's important for us to be out here, I think he's earned our trust."

"Alright, alright," Shipwreck relented. "I get your point. I just wish we were stationed somewhere with a coastline. I've done enough time in dusty mountains - I want sandy beaches again."

Cover Girl walked up to the sailor and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'll make you a deal. The three of us get this motor pool in working order - and I'm talking about tip top shape - I'll consider letting you show me those beaches you keep going on about."

Shipwreck's eyes grew wide. "You've got yourself a deal, ma'am!" He leaned against the over-sized tool chest and started pushing it across the open bay, dropping the schematics in the process. "Polly! Pick those up for me! We've got a job to do!"

Breaker's voice back came over the channel. "Not a single intrusion that I can see."

"Thanks for checking," Dial Tone replied. "Mainframe and I were sure that everything was fine, but Cobra can be sneaky, especially when they've gone silent for so long." He decided against mentioning the source of concern was due to Shipwreck's obliviousness.

Breaker was silent for a few beats. "That may not be the case any longer."

"Is that so?" Dial Tone asked.

"Sure sounds that way," Breaker answered. "Sounds like we're going to have some kind of action ramping up in the next few days. Hawk wants to have a joint meeting with both bases soon. Running through these system checks have at least helped us work out any kinks that might be present."

Dial Tone nodded his head. "Feels good to be working through all this and I know a lot of us are going a little stir-crazy waiting for something to happen. I just hope whatever happens isn't as wild as last time."

"You and me both, Dial Tone," Breaker said. "I'll be in touch again when I get any details about the meeting. Breaker out."

Dial Tone leaned back in his chair as the screen went black.

"I guess we're all about to get called back to action," Mainframe said from the next computer station.

"It sure sounds that way," Dial Tone said with a hint of nervousness in his voice.