The signal arrived in the form of a bright shining beam of light piercing the sky. The blue of the
light contrasted the stark red of the hot planet, reaching up into the atmosphere it was bright enough
to light up the sky even in the day. The light reached up to the mother ship awaiting.
"Sir we have a beam of light coming from the oasis, could this be the missing Scout team"
"Have we confirmed it is our scout team?"
"No sir, we do not know the location of the scout team"
"I will evaluate the light beam personally"
"Yes General"
"Good work John"
...
Back down on the surface of the planet in the oasis.
The sand cascaded off the ship as it broke from the surface of the oasis.
The turrets began to fire up, the beta team took aim and fired a bolt into any Druin in close
proximity to the rising ship.
The sand floated into the air creating cascades of sand flowing off the ship, whipping at Seth and
Mongrel as it landed from the ship that had suspended itself above the oasis. The bottom of the ship
began to open up.
"Get on" yelled Harris, a beta team member standing with his arm outstretched from the cargo hold.
"Good to see ya, ya explosive personality I have missed" said Mongrel taking Harris's hand as he
laughed to himself.
"You really got us into something, didn't you?" replied Harris.
"na it was all Seth this time, as always" replied Mongrel.
Harris was normally apart of the demolition team with Mongrel.
"All on board take off" said Harris through his gauntlet.
The ship began to take off, heading towards the mother ship. As they drew away from the surface of
the planet a turret continued to fire even when the rest had grown silent.
"Who is still firing?" Seth asked Harris.
"Probably Esteve you know how he is" said Harris.
Seth pulled Maria up on his gauntlet "What is he doing?"
"I am on it" replied Maria who already knew the problem and obviously was running to fix it.
Maria's POV
"Esteve, stop firing, what are you doing?" yelled Maria as she opened the door to his cramped turret
room, not even big enough for her to stand inside.
Esteve, a rough looking man was cramped into the small turret room surrounded by buttons and
switches replied "Killing the Druin scum Ma'am" he said without stopping firing the turret or
looking from the screen.
"Stop firing NOW" said Maria
"Yes Ma'am" said Esteve before the turret he had been operating went quiet and the humming of the
bullets finally stopped.
'Finally I can hear myself think' thought Maria.
"Why did you continue to fire?" said Maria.
"It is out duty to kill all Druin scum for the good of the Federation" said Esteve
"Next time stop earlier. They were of no threat to our ship, it was beyond the scope of your job"
"Ma'am is that you command or his?"
"Does it matter?" replied Maria.
"Yes, that inhuman gets far too many privileges. I it him or you in command?"
"I am in command Esteve" Maria said with controlled venom in her voice.
"Are you? H does have command when active fire starts and seems to hold great sway over you"
"He has the command when it involves the safety of the squad in active combat, he is the Scout"
"Why? He is of no higher rank than you and he can surely do a worse job as he is not even human"
"The amount of resources the federation has put into him makes him a military asset of special
designation and affords him certain trusts. He will do what is best for the squad and for humanity"
"How does stopping me firing be included in that?"
"That was my order Esteve, not Seth's"
"Well i am sorry ma'am i find that hard to believe"
"You will believe what you are told Lance Corporal. You may be a leader of men in the general
army but here in this squad you are the lowest rank and are not qualified to question anyone's
orders" yelled Maria as she closed the distance to his face, thrusting her hand closer to his face.
"Yes Ma'am, sorry Ma'am" said Esteve while standing at attention with his legs bent to
accommodate the small space.
"Get out of here now, if you continue to be insubordinate I will boot your sorry ass down to private.
For your insubordination today you will be confined to quarters until further notice" yelled Maria as
she moved to the side to allow Esteve through.
"Yes Ma'am"
"Now Esteve" yelled Maria.
"Sorry Ma'am" said Esteve before almost running to his quarters.
Maria sighed watching his back disappear down the hall. She paused and made sure Esteve had
gone to his quarters only when she got a notification of his arrival at his quarters did she send a
message to Seth calling him to her quarters.
...
"Seth what are ya doing? He maybe a bit brash but he was doing his job" said Mongrel
"His job was to take down any Gunners or Elites we may have missed, not to kill civilians"
"Seth they are going to die anyway, why create trouble over some wasted bullets"
"They may die, but my team will not engage in wanton murder" said Seth.
"Seth, ya know he was not thinking of it as murder" said Mongrel.
"I know he was not thinking," said Seth before leaving the hanger to answer the summons on his
gauntlet from Maria.
"What happened out there?" asked Harris.
"I don't know maybe he was mad I stole his kill but that elite was a veteran, Scouts are not built to
fight one on one like that over and over again"
"Was he losing?" asked Harris in amazement.
"No, not losing. If it was not Seth I would say they were losing, any other Scout would have been"
"I thought a single Scouts could kill 10 elites with their bare hands"
"Maybe with adrenaline they could take out 3-5. The rest is propaganda from the army, don't get me
wrong they could kill dozens of Elites and Seth has, but not in one mission and not in a slug fest.
The Druin enhance their soldiers and thus curated how they advanced, they were made to match
Scouts"
"Wow, so was that Druin more skilled then a normal Elite"
"Yes even if Seth was at his peak it would have been hard to kill that one, he was clearly better then
the rest by alot"
"But an Elite still cannot match a Human Scout, does that not prove we are better than them" said
Harris with a proud smile on his face.
"No and wipe that smile of ya face boy, the Druin cannot measure up because they use technology
to enhance what is first off weaker. Ahh ya won't understand it even if I could explain it well
enough. Just know they are living weapons like Scouts" said Mongrel.