Elisa had taken public transport along with Eve to Scarnaso international airport.
As soon as the war had begun, restrictions had immediately been placed on Scarnaso international; flights going in and out of the Halcyon federation had been limited to their own allies only, and only through safe airspace, which unfortunately there weren't a lot of.
While the airport had been purely designed with civilian and commercial aircraft in mind, it wasn't uncommon now to see military aircraft flying in and out.
The two didn't bring anything; most of Eve's personal belongings were either left behind in her apartment or at TRACE's MOB 1. They arrived at the back gate of the airport ahead of time, where airforce special warfare MPs checked them over. They were already registered on the database and schedule, so fortunately they weren't held up too long. After going through several checks and verification, they were waved through and escorted down to tarmac, where a large transport aircraft was waiting.
Two medium fighter aircraft were sitting beside it with their cockpits open. They were already carrying armaments.
It'd honestly been a while since Eve had traveled commercially, and seeing how busy the airport still was surprised her. Her ears rang as they walked up to the transport. It was a larger variant of the mother geese series that looked particularly battletorn.
Eve boarded in civvies with a cloth mask, while Elisa wore her Seaward combats, her uniform rippling in the wind as they climbed into the aircraft and strapped in side by side. Soon, more operators filed aboard—some in the same Seaward dress as Elisa, others in civvies or different uniforms. Eve recognized Airborne and Royal Marines among them.
She gave a wave as her own squad entered while Elisa nodded respectfully. Seo was dressed casually with a sweater tucked into jeans with a cap, while Taeyeon's fragile frame was hidden in a hoodie. Vian showed up in a varsity jacket. All of them shot curious looks at Elisa sitting with Eve, but none said a word.
"How was it for you guys?" Eve reached out, offering Taeyeon a fist bump. "And congrats, by the way."
"Thanks," Taeyeon said, lightly tapping Eve's fist with her own.
They didn't speak of it openly, but Taeyeon had just been awarded a bronze sniper's badge during the conference—two rifles crossed in an 'X' with a single strike through the middle. It marked a sniper's first confirmed kill. There were higher tiers, of course, but for a designated markswoman like Taeyeon, this was her first and only chance to earn one. However many kills she'd tallied in the field before, they hadn't counted. For her to hold that honour now was monumental.
Seo flopped into the canvas seat across from Eve, Vian settling in beside her.
"So tired," Seo said.
So am I, Eve thought. For a whole different reason, though. She glanced at Elisa. Said reason is sitting beside me like nothing's wrong. I never knew she could even move like that in the first place…
Elisa met her eyes, and Eve turned away. Luckily no one's caught on… I think. Eve had never been more thankful for a mask in her life.
Eventually, the cargo bay doors closed as a TRACE handler took headcount. A few checks were made and then they were underway as the cargo aircraft was cleared for takeoff, soaring off into the clouds.
- - -
They touched down at a military airbase a couple ways out. Eve and her squad waved goodbye to Elisa and the rest of the Seaward PMCs before they walked over to a helipad and waited for a phantom hawk to arrive to take them back to TRACE MOB 1.
After boarding the heli, it took them under an hour in the air to arrive back at base, where Nia met them at the helipad.
"Hello ma'am," Seo greeted them, stepping off of the heli first.
"Hello, Tech Corporal. I hope you've all been well?" Nia waved to all of them as they hopped off of the helicopter. Eve noticed that Nia avoided her eyes.
Guess she still isn't over what happened back at the conference, Eve thought.
Nia turned and led them off of the helipad and back towards the main base. "How's your shoulder, Sergeant?" she asked.
It took Eve a bit to realize that Nia was talking to her. "Oh—sorry. My shoulder's fine, ma'am. Thanks for asking."
"How long till you can get those bandages off?"
"Tomorrow, ma'am. They did ask for me to drop by medical for a check-up, but I should be fine."
"That's good to hear." Nia halted them by a road as an armoured car drove by. She glanced both ways before beckoning them forward. "Also, I heard about the news, Taeyeon. Congratulations on the badge and your first sniper kill."
"Ah. Thank you, ma'am." When she wasn't behind a gun, Taeyeon was characteristically quiet and soft spoken. "I just did what I could."
Nia laughed. "You don't have to be so humble. I'm glad you took care of the threat before anyone else got hurt."
Taeyeon gazed at the floor, blushing slightly, embarrassed by the praise. She played with her brown and dirty blonde hair, her ponytail bouncing behind her with every step. She pushed up her thin glasses that had been slipping. They gave her a well-educated, intelligent, and elegant look.
"Speaking of getting hurt…" Taeyeon glanced at Eve. "Ma'am, do we know what happened to the marine that Sergeant Glen patched up?"
"He survived," Nia replied. "The shot was clean and didn't hit any vitals, nor did it go all the way through. He'll have to spend a bit in recuperation, but thanks to Sergeant Glen and the med team, he'll be right as rain."
Taeyeon brushed her bangs to hide her face. "If only I'd seen the sniper earlier, then no one would have gotten hurt at all," she muttered.
"It's not your fault, Taeyeon. You did great. There's no way you could have spotted him amongst that many windows. Besides; no one saw him until he started shooting." Eve gave Taeyeon a reassuring pat on the back.
Taeyeon looked a bit better, but Eve noted she still looked a bit downcast. I'll have to look out for Taeyeon, Eve thought. Hopefully she doesn't feel down for too long. Eve mentally noted to check up on Taeyeon later.
"How was it for you, Vian, Seo?" Nia asked.
"Well…"
- - -
They continued their walk, debriefing on the way. Eventually, they ended up back at their barracks, and Nia bid them goodbye for the night, telling them to ask the rest of their platoon for tomorrow's schedule.
It was already late; the after-mess recreation period was about to end. Eve took in the field and watched as TRACE operators took down a volleyball net and football goals. The sun began to set, painting the sky with bold strokes of gold, copper, violet, and indigo.
The day began to fade into night as Eve and the rest of her squad ducked back into their barracks. Eve hadn't been back in the barracks for a long time.
Her bed was still perfectly made, just like she'd left it.
Some of the platoon was still outside, so Eve took the opportunity to wash up and change. It didn't take long. Soon she was stretched out on the bottom bunk she shared with Seo, all warm and fuzzy from the shower.
Eve scrolled through videos while the rest of the platoon filed in. She slipped an earbud into her ear.
There were some greetings that were exchanged, followed by the rustling of changing and the door to the showers quietly squeaking open and closed. Towels were slid from rungs and clothes were thrown into laundry bags.
Eve said hi to a couple of people walking by but generally didn't pay them much mind.
She was much more interested in watching Undertaker clips.
While she didn't have much time to actually play the game anymore—nor was she allowed to, for security reasons—she was still very much passionate for the tactical shooter, and watched streamers and general players to cope. Undertaker had quite a big esports scene too, but that had been put on pause ever since the war broke out.
Eve scrolled for a while before she eventually landed on an over-edited clip dump of a player hitting flicks with an AWP. Watching it, every pore of her body dripped with judgement.
Not only was the music obnoxious, the gameplay was questionable as well. While the flicks themselves were solid, every single one was a reaction to a visual.
I could've hit almost all of these with a rifle just off of audio alone, Eve thought. Every flick is to an angle that they should already have been holding or at least been aware of.
She opened up the comments section, which were filled with compliments and praise. Eve frowned. You think that this person is actually good at the game? Aim and K/D aren't everything, you know. The person who'd posted the video even bragged that they had a higher K/D and better mechanics than an Operative that they'd played against.
Operative was the highest competitive rank achievable to players in Undertaker, with the highest tier, Operative One, consisting of the top 750 players globally.
While Eve had played, she was part of this top 750.
Seeing this video and reading the comments made her want to reach through the screen and strangle the person who'd posted it. So much attention just because they can hit flicks that look impressive, Eve thought. There are a ton of times where flicks are necessary, such as if you're holding multiple angles. But this guy just sucks…
She glared at her screen as she heard the content creator gloat in comms. If anything, this guy is just showing off the antithesis of his actual competitive skill. Flicks demonstrate your mechanics, yes, but if you're flicking, that means that you've either missed an enemy passing or you were unaware that the enemy's there in the first place.
In the video, it was the latter. The guy was completely and utterly clueless. He'd presumably edited out the embarrassing parts, but Eve could tell; his mechanics weren't bad, but his gamesense was practically nonexistent.
She checked the video description. 354k views, with over 57k likes. Eve checked his username and looked it up on Undertaker's official player statistics page.
He was ranked silver, the third lowest rank. Even with his flicks, his ACS and game record sucked. Eve was frankly disgusted, but she wouldn't be ragebaited.
"Don't… recommend… channel." she clicked on the three dots and selected an (x) from the popup.
Eve contemplated on checking her own psp[1], but she doubted anything had changed. She checked out of pure curiosity nonetheless. It'd been a while since she'd seen it, after all.
[RedLilyEnthusiast_]
[Rank: Operative I — Previously ranked #142 Global / #57 Region (inactive)]
[Aim: 82 — AK/D: 1.42]
[Utility: 84]
[Positioning: 78]
[Opening duels: +0.3]
[Clutching: +10.43]
[W/L: 67% — Above Average]
[Click to see more…]
Eve stared. Nothing had changed except for the (inactive) tag next to her rank. In Undertaker, players who go inactive keep their rank, but the slot is freed for someone else. If they returned to competitive, they had to play placement matches again with others near their old rank to regain it.
She sighed. Wonder when I'll be able to get back to it—
"What are you looking at, Sergeant?"
Eve jolted, impulsively switching off her phone. Seo had a curious expression on her face and was staring over her shoulder.
Seo backed off, raising both hands. "Sorry, I didn't mean to peek. It's just that you looked so into whatever it was."
Eve rolled over on the bed to see Seo. "Oh. Uhm… you don't play video games, do you?"
[1] Player Stat (Statistics) Page