Ten teenagers carrying various weapons and wearing brahmin hide armour with various phrases scrawled on the backs are sitting around, taking their meal at 2300. The one adult, obviously the leader, sat by himself in his combat armour.

"Man, what the hell is this stuff?" Gunner said as he tore open the plastic package holding his meal.

"Does it matter? It's not like you won't eat it, Gunner." Eyes said from beside him, cautiously poking her food with her knife.

"I think mine's rubber." Boomer said as he dug into his food like he hadn't eaten in days.

"You gonna eat it or poke it, Eyes?" Ratchet asked.

"Yeah, I'll take it if you don't want it." Gunner said jokingly.

"And go hungry? HELL no." she said defiantly taking a bite and swallowing hard.

"Atta girl." Gunner said in a patronizing voice and patted her on the back.

Eyes was the kind of girl that most of the troopers usually thought of as one of the guys. She never wore make-up or tight cloths. She dressed just like the others. She certainly wasn't delicate, she cursed worse than half the people in her squad, and she could definitely look out for herself. It was widely believed that she was man enough to get herself pregnant. Eyes never let anyone touch her; the penalty was usually very painful. The only person she allowed to have physical contact with her was Gunner. Everyone just assumed it was because they were such good friends. It never crossed their mind that it might be because she secretly wanted him to.

"Back off, Gunner." she said with a smile.

"So, you think we'll find those raider guys?" Mouse asked Gunner, who had taken the unofficial position of ASL.

"As expendable as we are, those raiders have been a pain in the ass of ART for months now. If they thought we had any chance at all of catching them, they woulda sent a real squad. We're just here to reassure the villagers and make it look like they care. Right sarge?" Gunner said, looking over at their sergeant.

"Lampright, we follow our orders. As always." he replied.

"Oh, I wasn't thinking of doing otherwise, sir. I was just saying it isn't likely."

"Yeah, you're right. But that doesn't mean you guys can slack off. There's still plenty of things out here that want a piece of you."

"Hu-ah. Tracker, take first watch. I'll take 0100 watch. Cooper, I'll wake ya at 0300."

"Roger that."

The night watch went by without problem, and the soldiers broke camp and moved on with the patrol for several hours. Suddenly the pointman dropped to prone, the others following his lead. Gunner crawled up and tapped him on his leg. Tracker turned stuck his arm behind his back and motioned 7, pointing to their positions at the bottom of the hill. Gunner passed the signal back as the sarge crawled up beside them.

"Raiders?" Gunner whispered to the sergeant, who was already looking through his binoculars at the personnel below.

The sergeant nodded.

Gunner turned around and motioned for the troops to spread from a file to a wedge and for Eyes to move up to the front. As soon as she arrived, he motioned for her to hit their heavy on his command. Gunner waited for the team to get in position. He looked at the sergeant, who nodded. Gunner pumped his fist and a single shot rang out from Eyes, dropping the raider holding an M-60. The troops charged down the hill in a fighting wedge, tearing into the middle of the raider's group. Machine guns, grenades and rifles echoed off both sides of the valley as the teenagers sprung their ambush. The engagement was over before they reached the foot of the hill. The twin elements of surprise and firepower had rendered the raiders dead.

"Fritz, Tracker, Eyes and Tank, take perimeter. Everyone else, search the bodies for anything useful." Gunner said.

They began to take turns with looting and perimeter. Their search yielded the usual assortment of useful items. A few coins, a couple of mags, some grenades. There were a few trophies taken, mainly by Fritz who wore a necklace of left ears taken from his kills.

"Fritz, there's something wrong with you." Gunner said as he rifled through the pockets of the one of the raiders.

"Eh, go sit on your thumb, Gunner." he said.

"Bingo!"

"Yeah, I though you'd like that idea."

"No, I just found a map in this guy's pocket. And they wrote on it. Check it out!"

Several of the teens and the sergeant gather around and begin ogling the map.

"Check it, a camp location. You wanna go for it Gunner?!" Boomer asked enthusiastically.

"Maybe, we'll need to recon it first. Eyes, Tracker, you're with me. Boomer, take over for me 'til I get back. Supervise the troops into ambush positions along the hilltops in case anyone comes by. Hu-ah?"

"Hu-ah."

"If we're not back in twenty-four hours, head home."

"I ain't leaving you behind, man. You know that."

"You have a responsibility to the squad. In that event, you will lead them home and not come looking for me. The sergeant will make sure you do it."

And so the three left to scout the enemy camp. They traveled for several hours, reaching the enemy encampment a few hours before sundown. As they took a position above the camp, Eyes began reconning through the scope on her Winchester Model 700. The first thing they noticed was that the raiders appeared to be celebrating, carrying-on drinking, and shooting-up on drugs. They spent more than six hours concealed, Eyes whispering information to Gunner, who wrote it down on a notepad as he drew a map of the camp and began marking points of interest. It started going bad as they prepared to fall back. As Tracker got up, he knocked a rock about the size of a fist down. The rock began to roll down the hill, knocking loose other rocks, and creating a rockslide, the noise echoing off the side of the hill. Sounds of yelling came from the camp below, and within seconds the trio was under fire, tracers streaking across the night sky.

"Gunner, I can hold it. You and Tracker make a run for it."

"You stay right behind us. That's an order." Gunner said.

"Yeah, yeah."

Tracker and Gunner took off, running several miles before stopping. They took a position in cover.

"Tracker, how far back is she?"

Tracker turned and looked behind them, his gaze masked by the NOD clipped to his helmet.

"I-I can't see her."

"What?"

"She.....must have fallen behind."

"You had the green-eye, why didn't you tell me?" Gunner asked angrily.

I-I thought maybe she was just outta range. She might still be."

Gunner bit his lip for a minute, obviously thinking hard.

"Gimme the green-eye. Go and link up with the rest of the squad. If we're not back in 4 hours, go home. DO NOT come looking for me. Hu-ah?"

"Hu-ah." Tracker said, clearly unhappy about the order.

"Go." Gunner said and turned around, beginning the slow and quiet search for Eyes.

Gunner scans the landscape for the hundredth time, looking for any sign of Eyes.

'What the hell?'

Gunner knelt to examine the tracks.

'Lemme see, shallow trough, only left footprints, blood? Someone got messed up.'

Gunner followed the tracks, before noticing they went into the shelter of a rock. Gunner slung his rifle on his back, and pulled out his pistol. He snuck around the side of the rock, and stuck the barrel of the pistol to the person's head.

"Eyes?"

"Gun-Gunner?"

"Eyes, you hit?" Gunner asked, as he moved into cover beside her.

"Yeah, yeah, just a-just a scratch." Eyes said in a drowsy voice.

Gunner looked her in the eyes. She was barely able to keep her eyes open.

"Stay with me. Don't you close your eyes, alright Eyes?

"Yeah, sure."

"How many stimpacks ya had Eyes?"

"None....broken."

"Alright, well, you're in luck. I got some." Gunner said as he dug around in his buttpack and removed out a hard plastic case, as well as pulling out a canteen.

"You feel alright to drink?"

She nodded.

"Alright, you've lost a lot of blood so you need the fluid. Drink it."

Gunner opened the canteen and handed it to her. He opened the case and pulled out a half dozen thin syringes.

"Where ya hit?"

"Right.....leg and...and.....left........arm."

"Alright, you may feel a slight pinch."

Gunner began cutting away the BDUs over the wounds to allow for treatment.

"Sorry, but this is the best I can do, the sarge may know more first aid, but they're gonna be long gone before we get back, so we'll have to make due." Gunner said as he pinched the skin with his left hand, pulled off the safety cap with his teeth, and injected the stimpack with his right hand. The process was repeated several times, on several locations. As he did so, Eyes began talking more coherently.

"Why did you come back for me?"

"No one gets left behind. You know that." Lampright said as he held a stimpack up to the moon to check for air bubbles.

"They should be at full effect in a few minutes. You feelin' better?"

"Yeah, a little." Eyes said, sounding more aware.

"Alright. What happened?"

"Power armour. Three of 'em in BIG POWER ARMOUR."

"The raiders have power armour?"

"No, the power armour guys, they raided the camp. Just three of'em, they destroyed the whole camp. They saw me, and they shot at me with a minigun, then there was an explosion.....they must have thought I was dead. Then, when they left, I dragged myself over here.

Eyes suddenly realized the importance of what she'd seen.

We gotta warn the base!" Eyes said jumping up, and immediately falling back down.

"Calm down, Eyes, looks like you at the very least fractured your leg. The stims won't fix that. We gotta get you to a real doctor. The sooner we get moving, the better, though. With you being slowed down, I wanna move mainly at night."

Gunner snuck around gathering materials for a splint and applying it to Eye's leg. They sat in silence for almost an hour while they waited for the stimpack to take complete effect.

"You feel ready to go?" Gunner said as he stood up.

She looked up into his eyes.

"Yeah, Gunner, I'm ready to go with you."

"Right."

Gunner put his arm under Eye's arm, then around her neck, then lifted her to her feet.

"Let's go."

"Gunner, my leg's broken, not amputated. I can walk fine."

"You sure?"

"YES. Let's go.'

"Alright. So, it's 12 miles to base, you've got a busted leg and there's three guys in BIG power armour runnin' around shootin' up stuff. Sounds like we got a good chance. Let's go."

"Yeah, no challenge."

"Easy as tap-dancin' in a minefield."

"God, you're so pessimistic."

"I prefer to think of it as realism."

It took the pair almost a day to cross the dozen miles to the base. Their first stop was the infirmary, where Gunner and the doctor spent several minutes yelling back and forth about whether or not Eyes should have been allowed to walk. Afterwards, Gunner reported to the barracks.

"Where's Robertson?" Sergeant Hernandez asked.

"Infirmary. But there's bigger news. She saw three guys in big power armour. Said they tore through the camp."

"That's bad. Alright, I'll send someone to debrief her ASAP. You take a rest, Lampright."

"Yes, sergeant." I said as I collapsed on my bunk, exhausted from the ordeal. I fell asleep there without even removing my armour.