The last thing I remembered before blacking out was shouting, but the first thing I remembered after waking up was that nothing made sense.

Through the fog and haze clouding literally every sense, I managed to gather that I was back at base, but for a long while that was all I knew. I wasn't restrained, yet my limbs felt too heavy to move. All I wanted to do was sleep, and while I knew I had slept more than possibly in total for a week before, my body had reached the limit to which it would permit me momentary lapses from the waking world.

I laid for what felt like hours, but which was probably only been twenty or thirty minutes, of staring at a vacant prefab steel wall and trying to make sense of the world swimming around me before something broke the silence.

“Oh, Kasimir? Kaz, you're awake?”

My eyes drifted with a mind of their own toward the voice, and I saw a griffoness with yellow plumage enter the room through an open doorway. “Guh?” My beak and tongue didn't seem to want to work right either.

She sat next to my bed and held up a claw, which she waved in front of my face a few times. She didn't say to do it, but I tried to keep focused on the moving object.

“Good. Good, good, it looks like you're coming to. It'll probably be a few minutes before you're fully awake. Do you know where you are?”

Kind of. At the base. I knew I knew who she was, but her name and occupation escaped me. “Base?”

She nodded quickly. “That's right. You're in the infirmary. Do you remember what happened?”

“No...”

“Your squad was sent off to locate a caravan. When you got there you were ambushed by a pack of hellhounds. Remember that?”

Yeah, now that was a little familiar now. “One hit me?”

“That's right.” She traced a claw down her abdomen. “You were comparatively lucky, getting hit in the first place notwithstanding. Its claw cut through the abdominal muscle and nicked your small intestine, but wasn't deep enough to really puncture anything else. Came close to your spleen though. If that happened you wouldn't have made it back.”

That's nice. I liked my spleen and wouldn't have been happy if it was punctured. Rapid and fatal exsanguination notwithstanding. “Oh.”

“Your squad mates flew you back here fast enough that I was able to get you patched up. Thankfully one of them knew how to administer a few potions on the flight back or you might have bled out anyway.” She grinned sheepishly. “But, sorry for being so morbid. You should be okay, but you'll be groggy for a little while. Sorry to say it, but I was worried you'd wake up when I wasn't around and pop a stitch, so I administered some of the tranquilizer we had in storage.” She tapped her beak and grinned again. “Guess we found a use for some of it after all.”

“Uh huh.” That explained why I was so tired then. But where was I again, and how did I get here? I was pretty sure the pretty yellow griffoness just explained that to me, but I was having a lot of trouble hanging on to anything she said.

Maybe in a few minutes, after I woke up some more, everything would start making more sense.

She stood and retrieved a clipboard from a side table near my bed before jotting something down. “Well, this is good anyway. You're definitely recovering. I'll be back in a few minutes, and if you've recovered enough voluntary muscle control I can remove your catheter.” She waved and headed out. “Back soon.”

Oh, okay. That sounded like it would be okay.

It wasn't really okay. Somehow, years of performing procedures like that on others hadn't fully prepared me to be on the receiving end. Nevertheless, it was a mercifully short procedure, after which I welcomed her changing the subject to getting something to eat.

Too bad the only option I had available was liquefied meals. Adelaide, whose name I finally remembered, was concerned that after my injury I might not be ready for solid foods again yet, so she presented me with a couple of cans of reconstituted meal replacement shakes. Judging by the impossibly brawny white pegasus stallion on the can of Bicep Bulker, I expected it to have a chalky, gritty flavor of nothingness like any good meathead's protein shake should. Judging by the provocatively posed earth pony mare with an impossibly large rump on the can of ThickFast! I expected it to also simultaneously be cloyingly sweet and fatty.

Surprisingly, when mixed together it wasn't bad at all. The strawberry flavor of the ThickFast got caught up in a pitched battle for my taste buds with the fake chocolately taste of the Bicep Bulker, but the two actually kind of managed to balance out.

Or maybe I was just starving after having apparently eaten nothing in two days of catatonia. Either way, I managed to get about half of the mix down before, true to Adelaide's fears, I started getting nauseated and had to put it away for the moment.

It was about that time that I received my first visitor. Another yellow griffoness, this time with red tipped crest feathers, waltzed in and mimed knocking at a door. “Ding dong. Err, knock knock. Surprise inspection, private Longtalons. Better be ready and presentable.”

My eyes danced over Lita's face while I searched for any sign of a joke, but she looked dead serious. “Huh?”

“Jeez, relax, Kaz. Does Ada have you on some hard meds or something?” She sat next to my bed, just as Serge entered, and grabbed the first thing within reach on the desk next to her. “ThickFast? I thought you had a cute little butt already, don't go changing that.”

Way, way too tired to even groan. “Doctor's orders.”

Serge opted to stay standing near the bed and ignored Lita's little joke. “How do you feel? Ada said you were recovering well.”

Mmhmm, better get ready to answer that question a dozen times. “Like a hellhound gutted me.”

Lita set the can down and held up a talon. “Technically, he didn't gut you. Just cut you pretty bad and made an unholy mess, is all.”

Serge gave her a hard nudge. “Either way, I'm glad to see you're recovering. We got you back here as fast as we possibly could, but it was still close. Isaac and Amalia and I had to trade off carrying you. Leigh gave you a couple of potions on the way back, which Ada says probably made the difference.”

“Hey, hey, I'd have offered to carry him too, but the gun...”

I held up a claw. “Don't worry about it. I'm just glad someone cared enough to drag my worthless ass back here.”

They exchanged looks. Serge told me, “Getting hurt is tough, Kaz, I know, but don't let it get you so down.”

Lita cocked a frown. “Yeah, shit happens. You've just got to get back up and keep going, you know?”

“I know, but it was my fault, wasn't it?” I rested my claw on my abdomen and winced. “I don't remember a lot of the details, but I do remember landing after you told me not to.”

They exchanged looks again. Serge once more answered first with, “They probably would have emerged and started shooting soon anyway. You did fall for the trap though, yes.”

Lita nodded. “Yeah, look, don't feel bad about it. Nadine would have done the same thing, I know it. She was always jumping in the way of trouble if she thought she was saving someone.”

And that's why she was dead, wasn't it? Well, whatever, I wasn't there to start a pity party and it was making them uncomfortable. I decided to jump to the point. “I disobeyed orders again. I'm in trouble, aren't I?”

Serge looked genuinely surprised. “What? No, hardly. It happened so fast I wouldn't blame you for it regardless of what happened. I mean, you should have waited until we assessed the situation and I do hope you'll learn from this, but I also hope you don't think I turned you in for insubordination over it.”

“Heidi's a real hardass but even she'd probably choke at punishing someone who was seriously wounded in combat,” Lita agreed.

“That's something I guess.” I wasn't sure what else to say, really, so an awkward silence arose.

Serge mercifully broke the silence by saying, “The others would have come with us, but they're all on duty at the moment. I, uh, I hate to cut and run so quickly, but we need to relieve Isaac and Leigh in a few minutes.”

“Yeah, gotta go. Try not to beat yourself up so much, Kaz. It kills me when you look so gloomy.”

“I'll try.”

The two turned to leave, but Serge stopped to say, “I'll be back tonight or in the morning to debrief you. Not a lot's changed, but maybe by then I'll have an idea of when you'll return to duty and how.”

“Thanks.” I weakly waved them off and shut my eyes to try to get some more sleep. That probably wasn't going to happen given how much I'd slept already, but there wasn't much else to do but stew in silence. At least I was reasonably hopeful that I'd be on light duty for a while. If radiation poisoning from the crater got me that much, then having a hellhound dig out my intestines probably would too.

As it turned out, I didn't have to wait for Serge before I had another visitor. Time was infuriatingly vague without a clock to watch, but I couldn't imagine more than an hour or two passed before the clack of talons on exposed metal flooring alerted me to someone entering the room. They didn't sound particularly big and heavy, but I expected it was Isaac and Leigh. Or maybe Amalia.

I was quite surprised to see that it was a jet black griffoness and her lavender assistant instead. Oh boy. Serge might not have officially filed insubordination charges, but here was Lieutenant Blackfeathers to grill me on the engagement and decide for herself.

Heidi fixed me with her golden eyes for a few achingly long seconds. She didn't look angry, but all the same I felt like I could read Zebrican better than her at that moment. “Good afternoon, private. How are you feeling?”

Huh? O-oh, the question I'd been preparing to answer a thousand times. “Much better. Than, uh, before. I mean.”

“Good. I'm glad to hear that. After I read Dr. Clawmarks' report I was concerned that you'd be incapacitated for a long time. Or we'd be forced to discharge you.”

As much as the dark little recesses of my mind wanted to, I couldn't really entertain the idea of being injured worse just to be free of Talon Company. For starters, being injured worse would probably have meant death. Or a colostomy bag, which would have been even worse.

“I, uh, I got lucky, ma'am.” If you discounted being attacked, anyway.

“I should say so. It's uncommon for someone to be wounded by hellhounds. Most that are don't survive.” She and Egon sat next to the bed. “But then, it's also rare for them to engage us at all. Stupid as the beasts are, they know that fighting griffons puts them at a grave disadvantage.”

Which made the whole affair all the more unusual. What were they hoping for? “I guess they were expecting more ponies to show up eventually. But as close as we were to base I would think they'd know better.”

“Quite. But, as I said, they are rather stupid, so they likely didn't think much about it in the first place.” She shrugged. “But that is related to why I came to see you. I was hoping you would be able to elaborate a little on what happened. Sergeant Swiftwing was very vague on the details, and I would rather we avoided incidents like this in the future.”

Oh boy. Here we go. I adjusted the collar on my hospital gown and cleared my throat. “I, uh, I'm not sure what else I could say that he didn't. It was-it was over so fast and the details are hazy...”

Heidi fixed me with her eyes and sighed just perceptibly. “Sergeant Swiftwing already told me you landed and that they attacked when you landed. He said you thought one of the ponies was still alive. Is that correct?”

“L-listen, lieutenant, I was just-I mean, yes, I thought the pony was alive and just badly wounded, and if I-if I-”

She pinched the tip of her beak and gave a much more pronounced sigh as she shut her eyes. “Private, relax. I believe I know why you think I'm here, but I'm not. You do remember what I told you before, don't you?”

“Uh...”

She opened her eyes again and let go of her beak. “I'm not here to grill or reprimand you. As much as Private Galeforce might think I get off on punishing the soldiers under me, I don't. I want you all to succeed, and that means...” She trailed off and held up a claw as if dismissing some thought. “Never mind it. Just, please, tell me what you can so we can prepare for ambushes like this in the future.”

O-okay. “Yes ma'am. I, uh, I really don't know what else I can say beyond that. One of the hellhounds was buried directly beneath the mare. He was moving her limbs, and I think-I think he was making moaning sounds. He was trying to lure us down to help her. He waited until I touched down and got close before he sprang up.”

Heidi nodded. “And there were more?”

By now I couldn't even remember how many exactly. “Yes ma'am. Two more I think. They emerged a few seconds later. One had a heavy gun of some kind, but didn't seem to really know how to use it.”

“Typical. They loot the weapons from caravans or other victims, but don't know much about them. I'm surprised they were able to keep a weapon like that functional at all after burrowing underground with it. Was there anything else?”

“Nothing I saw, ma'am. The caravan looked ransacked, but that's all I really saw.”

“Expected. Thank you private, that is useful information. In all likelihood that was merely a particularly bright hellhound, but in the off chance others decide to follow his example I'll inform the other squads to be on the watch for similar traps.”

I smiled nervously. “Glad to be of help.” And not in trouble.

Heidi waved for Egon to step forward and said, “Something else, while I'm here. You haven't been in a position to see and treat any serious combat wounds yet, but you'll find that I always make it a point to visit the wounded and stay up to date on their recoveries. It's also my duty to present those wounded in combat with this.” She took a small box from Egon, popped the lid open, and held out toward me. “The purple feather.”

Whoa, wait. A medal? I seriously earned a medal over a bad idea, snap judgment and having my guts rearranged? And wait, the purple feather? It wasn't Egon's feather was it? I reached into the box and retrieved the medal, which was made of metal, silver and not purple, and definitely not Egon's. This was going to take some explaining at some point.

I held the feather shaped pin in my claw for a few long seconds. “It-it's an honor. Thank you, ma'am.”

For a flicker of a second, I think she actually smiled a little. Then the universe noticed the abnormality and corrected itself. “Those aren't given out for minor injuries, and regardless of the circumstances, we recognize those that have sacrificed for Talon Company. Let it be a reminder to be more cautious next time.”

“I will. I mean, it will.”

She returned the box to Egon and stood. “Very good. Rest up. I'll be seeing you back on duty soon.”

“Yes ma'am, and thank you.”

She nodded one last time and turned to leave. Egon followed suit, but first said, “Get well soon, sir.”

“Thanks, I'll try.”

With the two of them gone, I held the little pin in my claws and replayed the conversation in my head. That went phenomenally better than I expected. I was expecting major trouble and got a medal instead? I mean, it's not like I got something for going above and beyond the call of duty, or for saving someone's life, but it was still something.

I set it on the table next to my still unfinished concoction of protein and weight gain shake and laid back again to follow orders and get some rest. Heh, for a second I considered rubbing the medal in Amalia's face. She was so mad at me “not taking my job seriously” and I got a medal.

No, fun as it was to think about it, I shouldn't antagonize her. From the sounds of things, I probably owed her quite a bit of gratitude for dragging me back here in the first place.

It came as no surprise that I was discharged not long after. Healing potions were literally magic, so another dose had me more or less well enough to get out of bed and move around. And if I could move around, I was well enough to get back to work in some fashion.

Adelaide did issue me a few extra syringes of Med-X on the way out. Both she and I were confident that I'd experience some pain for a while yet, healing potions or not, and since I was a trained medic she trusted me to administer it myself if it was needed. Suited me fine, and I had no intentions of abusing the painkillers. First of all, if I became addicted and started using some that I wasn't supposed to, that would probably mean a firing squad. Well, probably just serving on it instead of facing one, but the point is I had no intention of finding out. The second reason was that I'd seen one particularly strung out stallion that was addicted to Med-X whose tics were so bad he gnawed his forehooves almost down to the bone. Not going there. Ever. I'd writhe in the grip of agony first.

I wasn't extremely sure what to do once Adelaide discharged me though. Serge hadn't returned to collect me yet. She offered to just let me stay in the infirmary until he showed up, but I decided to be a little proactive for once and took the initiative to head back down to the barracks. It would give me a chance to stretch everything, and maybe I'd bump into him or someone else from our squad on the way.

No such luck. I decided on the way down that I probably shouldn't wander through the base where someone might get annoyed, and the path was pretty straight otherwise. I actually made it back without running into anyone, but I was pleased to find that I wouldn't be alone in our room.

Leigh peeked over her terminal as I entered, and Isaac rolled over in his cot with a gruff grunt. “Oh, Kaz? Convenient timing, we were planning to go visit you shortly. If Serge hadn't recovered you first, that is. Is he with you?”

“No, haven't seen him. The doctor let me go a little early. I wasn't sure what to do except come back here.”

She nodded once. “Just as well. As far as I know he intended to bring you straight back here anyway. How are you?”

The question again. “Much better, thank you. Although I don't really remember much of how I felt before I blacked out. I'm sure I'm better, anyway.”

“I'm certain.” She closed her terminal and latched it with a little click. “Not to sound morbid, but I was deeply concerned you wouldn't make it. It looked very bad.”

I eased into a chair across from her at the single table in the room. “You're telling me. I was concerned I wouldn't make it either.” I raked my claws through my feathers and said, “I think I owe everyone an apology for being an idiot, and a thank you for dragging me back here before I expired.”

Leigh smiled a tiny bit. “Don't mention it. You couldn't have known it would happen, and nobody ever leaves anyone behind. We all took turns carrying you back. Isaac did most of the heavy lifting.”

Said griffon grunted and nodded.

“Thanks. So, uh, where's Amy? Amalia, I mean. Is she on duty?”

“Probably. For a few hours yet, if I had to guess. It's only about 3 in the afternoon.”

Guess I'd have to catch up with her later then. “Alright. I feel like there's something else I should be doing. Should I go pick up my equipment or something?” She was the corporal and thus in charge until Serge got back, right?

Leigh puzzled for a moment. “No, don't worry about it. I haven't heard anything from the quartermaster, so they may not have even repaired your armor yet. Really, I'm sure you're still exhausted, so feel free to lay down for the time being, if you want.”

I never would have expected I'd need to turn down that offer, but after sleeping and laying in bed for so long in the infirmary, I genuinely didn't think I could. “Maybe later. But, actually, I do have a question for you. It's kind of random, but hang on a second.” I dug into the small bag Adelaide gave me and pulled out the little medal. “Lieutenant Blackfeathers gave this to me earlier today. I was wondering if you had any idea why it's called the Purple Feather when it's, well, not purple.”

Leigh raised both eyebrows, and Isaac grunted something else. “Oh, congratulations, Kaz. I didn't realize the lieutenant awarded that to you already. Actually, in truth, the possibility had slipped my mind entirely. Medals are normally handed out in ceremonies, but under the circumstances I guess it makes sense.” She took the small metal feather in a claw and said, “To answer your question though, from what I gather back before the war they actually were purple. Enameled, probably. I'm not sure what the significance of the color is, if there is any, but these days it's just too much hassle to enamel them I suppose.”

She handed it back to me and I turned it over in my claws. “Makes as much sense as anything, I guess. I feel kind of like a cheat here though. I mean, I was injured because I was an idiot and jumped into trouble instead of waiting on everyone else.”

The small griffoness shrugged a little. “Don't worry about it. It's company policy to award them for serious wounds, and in our squad both Isaac and I've earned it. Ida and Nadine had both earned it too. Somehow Serge and Lita have been lucky enough to avoid any serious injuries. You don't get it for cuts and scrapes.”

Well, that did make me feel a little better. I didn't need to ask how Isaac earned his given the scar on his throat, but Leigh I was curious about. “How'd you earn it, if you don't mind me asking?”

“I was shot by a turret in a stable.”

...wait. My eyes widened involuntarily. “You mean because of me? Like, that stable?”

Her expression was dead serious. Oh wow, thanks for the punch to the gut there. Like I needed another one! But then, that was my fault, not her-

“Just fooling with you,” she said, cracking a small smile again. “Sorry, Lita must be rubbing off on me. No, it wasn't because of that incident. That's not the first stable job our squad has had to clean up after, and we've run into robotic defense systems before. I don't remember the stable number, but I was trying to disarm a turret and I messed up. The turret disarmed for about thirty seconds, which was long enough for us to get in the room where there wasn't any cover, or warning.” She patted her hip. “It shot me six times in the left thigh. Kind of close to where the other one hit me, come to think of it. Anyway, four got through my armor before Isaac ripped the gun out of the ceiling. Even with potions I was out of action for days, and limped for two months. Still hurts sometimes.”

Isaac growled a little and balled up a fist. Yeah, I didn't doubt he was capable of doing that.

“Water under the bridge now, as the saying goes. You get unlucky sometimes, but you have to get back up and keep going. Just try not to dwell on it, and as I'm sure the lieutenant emphasized, don't let that go to your head.” She pointed at the metal feather.

I deposited it back in my bag. “She didn't, actually, but I understand. It's probably as routine as a medal can get. Guess it'll just have to be a reminder to be more careful. She did say that.”

Leigh nodded and stowed her terminal in a bag. “A good philosophy. I know what I said earlier, but if you're not sleepy I can take you to go check on your equipment, if you'd like.”

Sounded as good to me as anything else. “Sure, lead the way, corporal.”

The armory was a bit livelier than the last time I was there, with a couple of griffons I didn't know ahead of us in line to speak with the quartermaster. He was an older black griffon whose feathers had turned a charcoal shade of gray, but unlike Sam he didn't appear to have lost literally every fight he got in. The only evidence he'd even served was the fact that his lower beak had a slight curve that kept it from conforming correctly, which meant he'd probably broken his jaw a long time ago. Luckily that hadn't happened to me. Even with healing potions it probably meant at least a few days of having his jaw wired shut. Liquid meals for a while either way, I-

“Yes, soldier?”

“Huh?” I snapped out of the daydream and noticed that I was next in line. “Oh, sorry. I was here to pick up my equipment. Kasimir Longtalons?”

“Longtalons? You're the guy that tried to go toe-to-toe with a hellhound?” He backed away from the laminated glass window to look for my gear. “You're kind of like the three legged dog everyone calls Lucky. Can't tell if it's a misnomer or not.”

Didn't need a lecture, just needed my equipment. “It wasn't intentional, trust me.”

He made a raspy chuckle. “I hope not. It didn't help much with your kit, by the way. Want the good news or the bad news?”

I'd had a comparatively good day so far, so why spoil that? “Good news first, I guess.”

“The good news is that we were able to patch up your breastplate. It won't be as good as new, but it's close enough.” He dropped the stack of armor plates on a desk. “The bad news is that that dog's claws ripped the ballistic mesh to hell and back. There wasn't any fixing that, and we don't have any spares in your size. All we've got is some surplus fatigues, so that's what you're getting.”

“It'll have to do,” I grumbled. It wasn't like it helped at all with the hellhound, although I would like to think that ballistic mesh might actually stop a bullet. Or make it less than lethal. I flashed a glance to Leigh, who just frowned and shook her head.

“That's about the size of it.” He started loading the gear into a bin.

“I don't guess I'm being issued a new rifle yet, am I?”

He didn't even look up as he finished packing the box. “Sorry, son. What I got is all you're getting back. If you had a rifle it's still out in the middle of Hellhound Hell, and I can tell you ain't nobody going back to get it now. There was a handgun with your things, which we rebuilt for you. Had a lot of grit in the mechanism.”

I sighed audibly. “It'll have to do.”

Another raspy chuckle. “Spoken like a true Talon.” He placed the box in a secure receptacle on his side of the wall and hit a lever that exchanged it around to our side. As I stooped down to get it, he asked, “Anything for you, corporal?”

Leigh answered, “No, thank you. Just here with Kaz to pick up his things.”

“Alright. You two have a nice day then. Next?”

I heaved the box out of the way of a thin blue griffoness behind us so I could dig everything out. “Can I even get a new rifle?” I asked Leigh.

“I'm sure something's being done about it. Sometimes these things take time,” she answered vaguely.

Which sounded like coded speak for, 'I don't know, but you're probably not getting it back,' so I just dropped it. Heidi probably meant it when she said I wasn't getting another big boy gun. Whatever. I was just happy to get most of my armor back instead of having that taken away too. I held the breastplate up and traced a talon over the rivets on the new strip of metal that had been attached. A quick and dirty repair job, but they probably didn't have all of the facilities here to fully repair it. It'd have to do, wouldn't it?

“Corporal Dawnshower? Kasimir?”

“Hey, Amalia,” Leigh answered first. “We were picking up Kaz's equipment. What are you doing here? Is your shift over yet?”

“Yes ma'am. Change in patrol schedule, so I was relieved early. I went to check up on Kasimir, but Dr. Clawmarks said he'd been released already. Isaac told me you were here.”

Wait, Isaac told her? That must have been quite a trick. “Uh, yeah, she let me go a little early.”

Amy removed her helmet and shook her feathers free. “I'm glad to see you're feeling better. I, uh, I've been busy on patrol so I haven't had time to visit yet. Dr. Clawmarks wouldn't let us see you the first day. Sergeant Swiftwing said you were stable, but I'm still relieved to see you up and walking.”

She actually sounded sincere. Quite a change from the last time we talked. Pinfeathers, how petty must I have been as a person to think she'd still give me the grouchy treatment after watching me be eviscerated? “Thanks, me too.”

An awkward silence fell. Amy scratched her cheek. Leigh glanced over my new breastplate. Guess there wasn't much else to be said at this point.

“Hey, lovebirds,” the quartermaster called. “You're clogging up my armory. Break up the family reunion and get a move on.”

Oh, thank you, griffon whose name I still didn't know. That solved that issue. “Yes sir.”

We packed it up and silently made our way back to the barracks.

To my relief and pleasure, the next few days were uneventful. I didn't get a free pass to lay around in bed, but at least Serge was able to negotiate for me to work in the infirmary instead of having to go out on patrols like everyone else. By the third day I could tell that was starting to wear on Amy's nerves a little, particularly since I really was well enough to fly around the mountain and do nothing important. Nothing ever came close enough to the mountain for the patrols to really be needed, but I guess that was the point.

On the fourth day after my release from the infirmary, things finally changed. Serge called us together that morning to announce new deployment orders, which prompted a series of conflicting feelings on my part. I was starting to get a little stir crazy staying inside of the base all day, but wasn't quite to the point yet where I was craving a reason to leave.

Worse yet, I'd made something of a mistake. Adelaide issued me a number of extra Med-X syringes in case I had lingering pain, which I did. No surprise there. What was a surprise, was the subsequent feeling of intense grogginess and nausea I woke up with. I don't know if I read the dosage wrong or if it was mixed up too strongly, but I'd definitely given myself a stronger dose than intended. I wasn't having trouble breathing at least, so I wasn't worried about overdose, but it did make it awfully hard to concentrate on Serge's briefing.

“That's all of the intel we have. The group is working out of a small outpost they set up in the forest north of here. Numbers are sketchy but we think there's about ten of them.”

Lita held up a claw. “Okay, so, the six of us up against a bunch of trash raiders? Care to tell us what we're looking for when we get there? Did they insult Captain Stern and she wants us to drop a bomb on them? Did they reject her Hearth's Warming Eve invitation?”

“What we're looking for, is the raiders themselves. We're moving ahead of another team Red Eye is deploying. Our job is to disable the raiders so they can be captured.”

I blinked heavily and tried to replay that sentence in my head. Couldn't have been right. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”

“We're going to capture the raiders,” Serge repeated flatly. “We're all being issued tranquilizer rifles for this assignment. The details are left up to my discretion, so I don't have much more for you from command. We're going to take minimal risk. There's a storm system moving their way later today so we're going to use that as cover to hit them by surprise.”

Lita held up both claws. “Whoa, whoa. Just because we're shooting duds at them doesn't mean they're going to play fair. What happens when one of them pulls out a rocket launcher? And of course, I do have to ask what the hell this is about?”

Serge shrugged. “Sorry, I don't know why, just that we have to do it. And yes, you're right about the risk. You'll still bring your LMG for support fire in case the ambush goes poorly.”

She groaned and threw her claws up in the air. “Captain Stern's losing her marbles, but fine, whatever. Don't expect me to do anything but shoot to kill.”

“If it comes to that.” Serge looked over the rest of us. “Any other questions?”

I held up a claw. “Does that mean I'm getting a rifle too?”

Isaac smirked and Amy rubbed her temple amid a tiny sigh. Serge nodded. “Yes, everyone is being issued a rifle.”

I yawned a little. “Okay.” Huh. Something clicked in place. I wondered if this is what they decided to do with all of those extra tranquilizers that were delivered to medical. Guess it was something to do with them.

Nobody else spoke up, so Serge brought it all to a close. “If nobody else has anything, you're free to go. Head off to your assigned duties for the morning. We'll set out after lunch.”

I forced myself up and started getting ready for my last easy day in the infirmary. It looked like I was going to get a little excitement after all. And hey, I wouldn't even have to kill anybody.

Level Up - Level 9!

Flesh Wound - 'Tis only a flesh wound. Whenever an enemy scores a critical hit against you, you gain a bonus to your DT based on the armor you're wearing.