I felt so anxious while I waited for the transport to arrive at the battlefield. I sat and wondered if Keystone was doing alright. I kept telling myself just a few minutes longer and I'll be there. I can help him. We can win this fight. If only I could see what was going on right now.

*Back on the battlefield* Keystone slashed for the enemy AC, but the strike was dodged and countered with SOL wave blade to the right hand of Keystone. This left him only with a blade and what few missiles he had left. The two ACs boosted in a figure eight pattern, both waiting for the perfect time to strike. Keystone dodged left and then quickly right, narrowly avoiding several oncoming rockets. Knowing that he would soon be down to his blade, Keystone took a rise and over boosted straight at the enemy AC and sliced off his blade. As he turned around he suffered several rockets to the core and legs. Right as he felt hope was lost, he heard the sound of a transport approaching.

The transport ship landed and I rushed out of it quickly. I had never felt this way before in my entire life. I was full of fear and adrenaline. I took a few seconds to gain my composure, and then gained a missile lock on the enemy AC. It may have only been the factor of surprise that allowed it, but both small missiles connected with the enemy. I followed up my first strike with some rifle fire and ran gained his attention. As he started to boost towards me I panicked and boosted of to the side, randomly firing my rifle in an attempt to escape his rage. Keystone took this brief escape from the enemy to line up a shot and destroy the enemy AC. Although he was down to only a sniper rifle, my armor would not withstand more than 2 or 3 rounds and my weapons seemed to have little effect on him.

"Don't worry about me Monkey! I can handle this guy. Get inside and destroy the main terminal. This should take the pressure off of us for a little and slow down the terrorist attacks until we can regroup and strategize. Hurry!" I followed his order and over boosted to the base as quickly as possible. It didn't seem very large, but there were quite a few rooms. I entered the first one and was greeted by two small MTs with blade arms. I boosted to the back corner of the rooms, fire two missiles at the first one, and several rifle rounds at the second. I then heard many loud pings and watched my AP (armor points) plummet. I noticed the chain guns mounted in the corners of the room and took them out with my rifle. As I opened the next door I was greeted with yet another pair of chain guns. My AP was already low and I needed a better way out. These doors were not as powerful as the main one so I over boosted and fired my rifle. Each door just barely exploded right before I entered the next rooms and I found myself at the final room of the hallway. I saw only two things, a terminal and a handgun.

I picked up the handgun first. I would inspect it later, but acquiring new weapons never hurts. I turned to the terminal and saw that is was connected to a large mainframe. I quickly downloaded what data I could get from it and backed up to the other side of the room. After a few shots it caught fire and I found cover. The explosion went off and it was followed by several more large explosions. I saw hole in the wall and used it to escape the base. It seemed like a better idea to me then rushing past all those chain guns and again and all of the MTs that were most likely headed towards me. I boosted straight up and landed on the building. When I got towards the main entrance I found a good position and began to fire at the AC that was still fighting with Keystone. A communication link opened up from the director of our group. "New Intel has arrived. A large combined force of ACs, MTs, and jets will arrive in this area in no more than 5 minutes. Please leave the mission area at once." The transport was taking off with or without us. I made my way towards it, still taking potshots at this mystery AC. I told Keystone to do the same and that there was no way we could handle those kinds of odds. Keystone knelt down and fired the last 30-40 rounds of chain gun that he had left at the AC moving quickly towards him. A few rounds it the head and must have damaged some sensors because the enemy turned and ran away. We didn't want to leave him still alive, even though is AC would be in no condition to fight. But there really was no other choice this time. Keystone joined me on the transport and we sat silently for a few minutes. He was the first one to speak. "I don't know why you came out here. You really shouldn't have done such a stupid thing. But I'm glad that you did. If it was not for you, this mission would have been a failure. What I'm really trying to say is…I wouldn't really mind if you tagged along on some future missions with me and honed your skills. Think about it ok?" I had no answer for him. I just sat silently and pondered in my head what I was about to get myself into. Once you break your normal routine, it is hard to return. I would have to make a decision.

We dismounted our ACs and I stumbled over to the bottle of water I had left sitting out and chugged it like I had just been in the desert for days without a drop to drink. The director chuckled and offered me her final words for the night. "I think you did well tonight. Whether you like it or not you are now a registered Raven. I can only hope that you will join us on later sorties. We will hire more mechanics to pick up the slack. What do you say Monkey? We could use someone like you." I erased my mind of the thousands of thoughts spiraling through my head and managed to spit out only three words. "I'll do it!" I didn't know why they thought I did so well tonight. I fought recklessly and awkward. Maybe they saw some potential in me that I couldn't figure out. I walked to the latrine and looked in the mirror. My brown eyes were surrounded by large purple bags from the fatigue. My medium faded brown hard was pushed down flat from wearing my helmet and would not do anything I wanted it to do. I scratched my beard, said to hell with sleep, and started working on my AC Junker. It had been registered to me when I was put in the Global Cortex system. I wanted it up and running for any mission that was to pop up. After a few hours I finally hit exhaustion. I put the finishing touches on AC Junker, grabbed a nice hot shower, and passed out hard in my bed. Maybe this is the start of a new life…