“Unless you want your world to turn upside down, I wouldn’t take another step forward.”

The words came from a seated figure caked in mud and grime, a katana restting across her knees, positioned as if she was in deep meditation. She didn’t even turn around. Most of her commrades would say it was situational awareness. In truth, that was a small part of it. This was a training exercise, one in which she excelled. The lesson she was teaching here was that even though she was easily found by the end of the day, she wasn’t easily captured, as many of the soldiers in her team had thought.

“Commander Blade, you resemble a dryad more than a respectable Air Force Officer,” came the retort from an all too familiar voice. “You are a difficult officer to track down.”

“I was under the impression the goal of these training exercises was to elude capture, set up defenses to ensure that you are not capturd when you are in periods of rest and to return as victor of the war game,” her eyes opened, but she still didn’t turn around. “I will safely assume the men at the loosing camp informed you of their failures thus far. However, commander, I didn’t expect you to join us in this training mission. I do hope you don’t have a painful lesson in store….” She paused, “You really don’t want to do that. Two more steps and your world will be up side down.”

He put his foot down, eyes narrowing at the muddied woman just 10 feet away.

“They told me they would rather take a demotion than track you down to tell you I was here,” he shook his head. “I think I am starting to understand why.”

She finally rose to her feet, stretching, her back still to him before sheathing the katana and daichi that had been in her lap, nodding with a grin.

“You should join us on our next war game. It could prove to be very educational, Captain Applegate,” she answered. “Is there something I can do for you sir?”

...to be continued...