The ride back is longer, her driving less aggressive. About a half mile from the compound she pulls into an abrupt stop. Prophet nearly crashes into her.

“What is it?” She’s pulled out her binoculars and is scanning the compound and area around it.

“Something’s off. I think we’ve been over run.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t see anyone outside which is unusual to say the least.”

“So what should we do?” She sits back and sighs, thinking for a moment.

“They don’t put this in the training manuals, do they?”

“They don’t put much in the training manuals.”

“Right. So I guess we sneak in and take who ever it is by surprise and hope we don’t die or stabbed in the face in process.”

“That sounds like a great plan. How are we even supposed to sneak in there?” Dismounting the ATV, she pulls out some gear from the back trunk.

“Come on.” She starts to walk towards where the sun would be if it had not already set and he trails behind, perplexed.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s not far.” They walk for a couple minutes, Boots looking intently at her GPS. Eventually they reach a dip in the sand about five feet deep. Boots begins to swear.

“What is it?”

“He had one fucking job and he couldn’t even do that.”

“What?” She shoves the binoculars into his hands and grabs the shovel that’d been slung over shoulder.

“Just take a heat reading on the main building while I dig this out.”

“Um… Okay.” He lies in the sand and gets to work, fiddling with the knobs.

“I swear to god, when I get my hands on Kid I’m going to make boot leather out of his skin. I’m going to make me a new pair of boots and I’m going to use them to kick his ass. The little fucker.” Each word is punctuated by a shovel full of sand sent flying through the air. It’s only about a minute before a door starts to show through the sand. As soon as she finds the handle, she stops digging and pulls it open.

“What is this?”

“It’s an old bunker we found that heads into the compound. It’s got fallback supplies and ammo in case of emergencies.”

“How come I didn’t know about it?”

“Most of us don’t. I know about it because I’m the one that found it. Otherwise, the captain knows and so does Kid. I don’t know who else knows about it.” She hops down and Prophet follows. It is dark until he finds his flashlight.

“Why is this here?”

“Well the compound was here when we get here. It was a military installation. They were being practical.” She flicks a switch being him and dim red light bulbs flair up. The room is not very large, with crates stacked up in clusters around it. There is a tunnel that leads in the direction of the compound. It’s impossible to see the end of the tunnel with the barely there lighting. She grabs a bag and starts to load it up.

“Going in a bit heavy, aren’t we?”

”You saw the heat scan. I’m sure they’re guarding the Armoury.”

“Yeah but there aren’t that many extra bodies in there.”

“Relax. We won’t need to fire off a shot. We have the advantage of surprise and better training. They’re locals, I’m guessing so they will be intimidated already.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions there.” She shrugs.

“So where is everyone?”

“There are stragglers in the armoury, the kitchen and the barracks. Everyone else is holed up in the rec. room and the War room.”

“Okay. The tunnel comes up in the floor of the pantry in the kitchen so this should be easy enough.” Slinging a few flashbangs onto her belt, she gives him a wicked grin. “Let’s get on with it then.”

“You’re fucking insane, Boots.”

Two scrawny local boys were on the floor before they heard a sound. Half empty food containers lie on the steel table tops next to their scavenged weapons. Prophet looks over at them.

“I’d have assumed they stole these from us but we haven’t used guns like this in fifty years.”

“You can worry about that later, Mr. History-buff.” They move on quickly to approach the War Room. Pulling out a flashbang, she rolls it into the room. Five seconds later the loud bang goes off and they storm the room. More accustomed to the loud noises of boot camp, the kaki gorillas snap out of their stupor a second before the locals, giving them the time need to rush their captors. They give in easily, untrained and unsure of what they were doing than they should be. The bag of goodies slides across the floor, stopping at Scourge’s feet. A childish grin covers his tattooed face.

“I like you.” Scourge is the tank of their unit.

“You have to share.” His face falls a little at her words. “Where’s the Captain?”

“The leader of this little cluster fuck hauled him off somewhere to have a private chat.” Jawbreaker comes up to her, knowing she is already working a plan.

“Right. Get all these little dicks locked up and sweep the building. Prophet and I will go get the Captain.”

“Oh sure, hog all the glory for yourselves.”

“Hey, who fell asleep at the wheel and got taken over by ten untrained locals?”

“You aren’t going to let us live this down, are you?”

“Not a chance in hell. Now snap to.” He moved away, taking a boomboom stick off the largest of the locals and signals to a handful of others to follow him out.

“Jawbreaker!” She throws him the flashbangs to him. “Good luck.”

“Keep it.” He sticks his tongue out at her, making his exit.

Prophet is peering down the hallway that leads to the barracks. Boots comes up to him.

“How many did the heat scan show down there?”

“Just two.” For once, he has a serious look on his face, displeased with the situation.

“Relax, this is a cake walk.”

“Who ever is in there with the Captain has heard all the noise by now. He’s not a local, his strategy was too smart and the locals would never try something like this on their own.”

“The we’ll keep our eyes open. I’ve been through worse. He should know how to count. We out number him.”

“Why do I always follow you into these situations?”

“Come on, our guests awaits.” She walks slowly into the hall at a half crouch. He assumes his usual position following behind her. The corridor is no more than fifteen feet long. Prophet moves to kick it in.

“Wait!”

“What?” They crouch whispering.

“I want to kick the door down.”

“Aww come on. You always get to do the fun stuff.”

“Fine.” She takes up position to rush in once the doors are open. The doors have never been very sturdy to begin with and having been knocked off their hinges several times, it does not take much to get them open. She charges in, a little recklessly, getting the ringleader at gun point. He is a scruffy little man, underfed and slightly filthy.

“Drop your weapon!” It clatters to the ground and she lets her’s fall against its strap. She applies the heel of her hand to his face with considerable force causing him to crumple to the ground. Leaving Prophet to deal with him she walks over to where the Captain is kneeling tied up.

“You have to stop taking off like that.”

“If I had been here we’d still be up shit’s creak. There would just be a few more people on the floor right now.” She cuts the fisticuffs and pulls him to his feet.

“Who is hurt?”

“Just the locals.”

“Right. Well thank you for your usual belligerence. It seems to have saved the day.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiles beatifically at him and pats him on the head before going to lie back in her hammock. “I’ll leave you to deal with all your new prisoners and paper work and shit.”