I wake up in the morning, and struggle to open my eyes. The dust and dirt and sleep crust them shut, and I rub the back of my hand against my face to clear away what I can. The "lawhg" from last night - a waxy, cylindrical object that is a high efficiency, smokeless material meant to burn at a comfortable temperature for a long time - is still merrily chugging away at the center of the space we're all crowded around. Grabbing the lawhg from the supply cart and cracking into some MRE's was about the extent of "setting up camp" the night prior. There had been a quick scan of the ruins, to verify that they were safe, but beyond that, we'd pretty much all fell asleep right away in one of the rooms of the ruins.

  Well, everyone but me, since I had taken first shift for the night. At the time, I was fighting to keep my eyes open, but it meant that I could follow it up with an uninterrupted 8 hours after. "Or ten hours? Six hours?" It takes me a few seconds to run the numbers in my head, to confirm how much time I'd actually gotten the night prior. My gaze wanders as I think, and I lock eyes with Ko-lee, who had taken the last shift instead. "Morning," I say, my tongue the texture of sand. I smack my mouth a few times to try to generate some saliva. It's moderately successful, but grabbing some sort of liquid gets bumped up my internal ToDo list.

  "Morning, Ni," she tells me, a small smile on her face. I raise an eyebrow at the usage of the nickname. It's generally something she only breaks out in private, but a quick glance at the others shows that we're the only two awake. "Are you doing okay?" I ask her. A useless platitude, but I don't really know what else to say, how to cut to the heart of the matter. "Are you still angry at Caz? Will you be okay? How can I help you? Did you know that I love you?" All of that is packaged up, what I try to pass along with my question. She sighs. "Yeah," my girlfriend responds, after a moment. It's lossy encoding; her response is an amalgam answer of my amalgam question. In the attempt to reduce complexity, it loses everything meaningful, boiling down the complex human state of mind to a phatic response. It's unsatisfying, but no one wants to be dissected.

  I nod, and give her a soft smile, before sitting up to stretch. The room we're in is one of many apartments in the ruins, or what was likely apartment-like at one point. The only things that had stood the test of time are stone and metal; nothing organic, nothing comfortable. I, like everyone else, had slept on the ground. Our TEPA's are fantastic bits of tech, regulating our temperature throughout the night, but they didn't provide comfort. They couldn't do anything for the unyielding stone floor. My morning routine isn't silent, and by the time I actually make my way to my feet, the other three have woken as well. I busy myself with readying food for everyone. And by readying food, I really mean digging through the supply cart for the MRE's.

  Each cart contained a little bit of everything, likely in an attempt to avoid a sort of "eggs in one basket" problem. It meant that even though we'd only grabbed a single cart, we weren't hurting for supplies, although the full scope of what we had wouldn't be clear until we had the chance to go through it all. I push aside a few containers, and grab another foil wrapped package. "I guess MRE is an American military thing specifically," I think, as I dig through the supplies. "I don't actually remember what Scientia called them. But, I mean, if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and tastes like school cafeteria food..." The final bag obtained, I start handing them out, before finally sitting down against a wall and cracking open my own.

  Breakfast is some sort of preserved nutrient cube with fruit leather, and a small container of powdered juice. There's not a lot of chatter at first; just the sounds of drink mixing and bag crinkling as we all wake up to the new day. It's Caz who shatters the silence, his quiet voice amplified by the reverb from all of the exposed stone. "So, I think we need to talk about the Thumper in the room," he starts. We all look up at him, but no one does anything to interrupt, and so after a moment's pause, he continues. "We won't be able to return the way we came. For the same reason that the Grineer can't reach us, we can't reach them. We'd need to dig our way through the collapsed tunnel using equipment, and we don't have that equipment."

  "It was the right plan," says Ko-lee, with aggressive neutrality. "You're right, it was," he responds quickly, nodding his head. "I'm not arguing that. I know I'm stating the obvious here, but it needed to be said." He stops speaking, and closes his eyes, before sighing. "My start as squad leader was... rocky. But I want to do better. I'm trying to be better." He opens his eyes, and locks them on to Ko-lee, who is very explicitly showing no emotion on her face. "I'm sorry," he says. I'm caught off guard by the apology, but he continues before I get the chance to dissect it.

  "I froze, I'm willing to admit that. It was a tense, dangerous situation, and you... you had put your faith in me, in the chain of command. I can make excuses until I'm blue in the face, but it doesn't change what happened. I know I've been a bit... cavalier about things at times. But, from this point on, I'm going to fill that role in the way I should have from the start. If you'll let me." The silence roars, and I can hear the faintest sounds of scrabbling and squeaking from conits 50 feet or so above our heads. I'm torn on the apology, mainly because I'm not entirely sure that what had happened was Caz's fault. At the same time, I understand where he's coming from, and I get the impulse to take on responsibility for actions beyond your control.

  I don't entirely know if it's healthy, but the outcome, the resolve to try harder, to do better isn't a bad one. And ultimately, it's not really about me, it's about Caz and Ko-lee, so I keep my mouth shut, and wait for a response. "I want them dead," says Ko-lee, her expression granite, her tone ice. "I am sick of running from the Grineer. I am tired of them taking things from me, while I do nothing about it." It's not an acceptance of leadership, in so many words, but it seems to be interpreted as such, judging by Caz's nod. "I think making sure we don't starve in the caves is our highest priority right now," he says, "but I understand."

  "Well, I've actually had a glance at the supplies," I offer to the rest of the squad. "I don't think starving is really the problem, at least not for a bit. We've got enough food for the five of us for 2 weeks, longer if we ration." Caz gives me a smile, a ghost of that cocksure grin he'd had all the way back at the start of training. "Good. We really need to do a full inventory, but that can wait for now. Food for two weeks is likely plenty enough time for Strata to send someone after us. We're expected back in a day and a half, so if we don't arrive, and we don't get in touch to explain the delay, they'll know something's wrong. SOP is to send a squad to do recon, and then to send in a warframe. If we take in to account travel time, sorting out the heavy hitters, and so on, then the whole process would take about a week, maybe a week and a half." He looks around at the four of us, clearly gauging our impressions.

  "Technically," he says, drawing out the word, "we could just sit here and twiddle our thumbs for a bit, and wait to be rescued. Of course, that assumes that everything works out according to plan. That the Grineer don't tunnel in. That a warframe manages to find us. That they don't reinforce their position. That we don't starve, if all of that comes to pass." His eyes lock on mine, and I'm suddenly hyper aware of the expression on my face, a look of distaste at the idea. "Alternatively," he continues, "we could spend some time mapping out the tunnels and caves around us. If there's another exit, we might be able to find it, and maybe even kill some Grineer while we're at it. It's one thing for them to get the drop on us, but now that the playing field's been leveled a bit, we could turn this around on them."

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I catch a nod from Ko-lee out of the corner of my eye, a tacit agreement at what is barely the start of a plan. "I don't know man," says Rease, shaking his head. "I get wanting to stick it to the tuberats, but we do not have the kick to deal with them. A handful of Bratons could barely deal with the few we had in the tunnels; I don't think getting the drop on them would make that much of a difference. Plus, how many of them are there, really? All we know is the handful we saw, but they could be calling down more right now."

  "Well..." I say, cutting him off, "when I was firing at them, they couldn't fit down the tunnels more than two, side by side. I mean, if we were in the open, it'd be a totally different thing, but does it really matter how many they have if they can't get to us?" I'm hit with a few flashes of memories, of the yellow eyes and featureless round masks lit by strobing gunfire, but my training with De'Launda makes it easier to deal with the intrusion. "Can't we just wait?" asks Ella, her voice slightly strained. "Someone's already died! Why do we have to risk it?" Her words derail the conversation, and everyone glances over towards the tunnels we'd come from. Towards where the Sarge's body lay.

  I look around at the others in an attempt to read the room; concern, frustration, fear, anger. "Well, thank you for your inputs," says Caz, after a moment. Everyone's attention shifts back to him, and his shifts to Ella. "Mouse, you make a good point. Someone has lost their life already, and by attempting to leave, we're inviting more danger in." He takes a deep breath, which leads into a sigh, as though the weight of the choice he's making physically lays heavy. "That being said, I think we need to look for a way out of the caves. And, if given the opportunity, take the fight to the Grineer," he states. "Why?" asks Ella, with an expression of hurt.

  "Being a Tenno..." he starts, before stopping. I can't tell from his expression if what he's about to say is something he's already known, or something he's only recently figured out and is coming to terms with, or some combination of the two. "Being a Tenno means sometimes needing to take risks," he finally says. "We need to take action, not wait on other's to save us. I'm not saying that we go looking for a fight, but if an opportunity ends up presenting itself, then we should take it." Tendrils of adrenaline wrap around my muscles, and the memories of last night's firefight poke and prod. Even though I'm able to ignore them, it's as though my body is trying to prepare for me for some theoretical future conflict.

  It's too early though, and the excess energy is getting used up in random places; in a nervous leg bounce, in my turning stomach, in my overly tuned sensory awareness. "So, what are our orders?" I ask. I've no interest in being passive, but more immediately, I just want something to do, to burn off this nervous energy. "Well, we need to take stock of our resources. I want to know how much ammo everyone has for their weapons, and any grenades we didn't use. We also need to go through the supply cart to get a count of exactly what we have. After that, we'll start mapping the caves." Before he has the chance to assign roles, I jump to my feet and take a few quick steps over to the supply cart. He gives me a look of surprise, but quickly schools it, and I don't catch anything else as I start pulling stuff out of the cart and setting them down on the floor in piles.

  There's a brief pause, before I hear Caz divvy up the rest of the tasks to the others; Ella on explosives, Rease and Ko-lee on ammo. For his part, he helps me pull stuff out of the cart, which makes it easier for me to sort what we have. It only takes about 10 minutes to quantify everything, and it's all laid out in small, semi neat piles. The final tally is both more and less than I expected.

  Five frag grenades, nine stun grenades.

  199 MRE's, which can be split into 69 breakfast, 70 lunch, and 69 dinners.

  10 MRE wrappers.

  A weeks supplies of toiletries.

  Four bottles of high proof spirits.

  A single box of communication array replacement parts.

  Replacement water filters for an Aerostill, and an Aerostill, which had actually been running from the night prior, and had already seen use this morning. The Aerostill had been a snap decision by Ella, one I entirely missed during the chaos.

  Three lawhgs.

  Seventy one Braton/Burston magazines, twenty Furis magazines, ten Lato magazines, four Magnus magazines, and thirty Strun shells.

  One Magnus (which Caz claims), one Strun, and one Burston (which I claim).

  A holopad, with some light recreational reading on it, as well as updates from the previous squad.

  A metal box containing a dried flower, along with a slightly lewd love note to someone named Christen.

  Seventeen fosfor flares.

  Ten clotra.

  And finally, fifty unnamed spiky things. "They're Talons." says Ko-lee, in response to my confused expression at the pile of three pronged devices. "Yeah, I can kind of see that," I say, tilting my head. "No, I mean they're called Talons. They're remotely detonated explosives," she explains. I give her a look, then back down at what now appears to be a very unsettling pile of metal. Then, I take a second look into the supply cart, just to verify. "Are you sure?" I ask, after pulling my head back out. "I don't see a remote." She just shakes her head, pointing at her headset. "You sync them up with your eyes. You can trigger with a subvocalization, or by finger control, or in a pinch, by staring at them for thirty seconds."

  "Interesting," I say, taking a step away from the pile. "I've never heard of them." She raises an eyebrow at me, but I just give her a micro shrug; I had only reached mastery rank 22 before getting thrown into this shit show. They might've been a weapon in the game, but they aren't one I'm familiar with. "I was looking into what an arsenal could look like for a higher ranked Tenno," she explains. "Unfortunately, we probably won't be able to sync them as recruits." I look at the pile, this time a little more forlornly. "That's a bummer," I say. "Could we shoot them?" asks Rease.

  "Forty nine talons," I think, mentally revising my count while my ears ring from the blast. I had shot the target using my new Burston, taking the opportunity to get used to the new form factor. Unlike the red and white of the Braton, the Burston has the same design aesthetics of the Tenno. The sweeping curves, the grays and blues and silver metals form a gun that seems to be focused as much on aesthetics as it does practicality. Still, the adjustment period is minimal, and it only takes a second to hit the tiny target. I had been able to land my shot on the explosive on my second three round burst.

  The Talon's gripping feature luckily still functioned without needing to be able to sync. It meant that we weren't limited to a ground based deployment for whatever it was that we were going to end up using these for. "It'll be tricky," starts Caz, "since we'll need a long sight line to use these effectively." His gaze walks up the wall to where tiny blades of metal had embedded themselves in the rock face. "Alternatively, we could trigger a Talon with a grenade," says Rease, his expression thoughtful. "I feel like triggering an explosive with a slower explosive is sort of missing the point," I think. I don't get the chance to formulate a rebuttal, as Caz steps towards the squad and starts to speak.

  "Alright, everyone. I think it's time for us to move out. There's two exits out of here, so we'll split into two groups." His gaze flicks between the four of us before he continues. "Rease, Annie, you two can take the closer tunnel, just over there," he says, pointing across the cavern, "and me, mouse, and Ko-lee will take the other path." He looks towards me and Rease, who're already stood next to each other. "I want you to take it slow and steady, okay? Map out as far as you reasonably can, and keep in touch with us over shortwave. You run into anything, find anything noteworthy, just shoot a message." The two of us nod, and I give a thumbs up, before reaching out to touch Ko-lee on the shoulder. "See you guys in a bit," I say, before both groups make their way to separate tunnels.

  Discord.