sorry I’m late people

He went over and looked and then backed out. “Seems like it has everything. If you need something, see Sergeant Krasny over at HQ. Try not to move around too much in the daytime, as they have drones up now and then and occasionally drop artillery on us. So far, they haven’t directly targeted the HQ, as they generally concentrate more on the front lines.”

“Thanks, sir. And where are the front lines?”

The Lieutenant motioned him to follow out into the field. He pointed at the raised line at the far end of the paddock.

“At the moment, the railway embankment is our front line, with the far side of the creek beyond there being their front line.”

“Is it all right if I go down and have a look?”

The Lieutenant studied him for a moment and then shrugged.

“It’s your funeral.”

“Sir. I’ll just check out the tent and see what’s what.”

Andrew saluted, and the Lieutenant returned the salute and walked away. The tent was well-ordered, and he saw four meal packs with relief. Nothing had been said about meals up to this point. As an added bonus, the tent came with a gun and five clips of ammo, which tended to indicate the previous fellow had been wounded when off duty. He grabbed the gun, checked it out, attached a couple of magazines to his webbing, and then headed toward the railway embankment. He sent his senses out ahead and picked up the troops dug in along the line of the railway.

About two-thirds of the way across the paddock, he realized how stupid he was simply walking across the open ground, but he couldn’t detect anything threatening him, so he kept walking and soon reached the scrub that grew on the beside of the embankment. He climbed up the bank and nodded to the three men in the small trench near the top who had been watching him.

“Pretty ballsy walking across the field like that.” One of them commented.

Andrew dropped down into the trench and shrugged. “Quickest way to get here. So, where are the Japs?”

One of the men pointed at the line of scrub about four hundred meters away.

“They’re dug in on the far side of the creek. We don’t catch sight of them very often. They don’t seem to have many snipers, but every so often, one of their snipers will turn up and take potshots at anyone who sticks his head up over the berm.”

“There’s never any warning. Just bang, and someone gets a hole in his head. Damn annoying, mate!”

“I can imagine.” Andrew concurred.

He moved up to the top of the rise.

“Hey, mate. Don’t go stickin’ ya head up. Ya never know when one of their snipers is about.”

“I’ll be right, mate.” He answered, pointing to the red circle with a red diagonal cross-bar patch on his shoulder.

He put up both a physical and energy shield in case a powered cyborg took a shot at him. During their basic training, the instructors warned them that the cyborgs would charge up their lasers in the rear areas and then save the charge until needed. The Cyborg lasers degraded rapidly in the atmosphere, but they were still deadly out to several hundred meters, they had been informed. Satisfied with his defensive measures stuck his head up over the rise so he could see the creek and the scrub that ran along it.