Raajith's condition stabilised the next day. The poor man had his left leg encased in plaster of Paris, and he didn't stop complaining about it. The fact that he suffered from a high fever the previous day didn't seem to affect his vitality, so it was safe to say that his prognosis was good.

The nurses gave me multiple pleading looks when the notorious teammates of alpha two overstayed their visiting hours. The fact that my ankle was punishing me for being careless didn't help. I was the only health worker in the building with a limp.

"How much long must I stay like this doc," Raajith complained.

"Till your bones set," I replied.

"How long does that take?"

"A few months."

"Huh!!!"

"This isn't the first time you have broken a bone."

The man groaned.

I almost felt like apologizing for causing him to be immmibilized. I decided that I might has we'll start my expressing my gratitude first.

"Thank you," I said, "for saving me."

"Huh?"

Fortunately, it was only the two of us in the room.

"What's what we do doc, no need to thank us."

"Yeah but... You wouldn't have ended hurt."

Raajith shrugged, "Shit happens doc. Besides, you saved me too in a way, so we are even."

The burden in my heart was released, but only for it to emerge upon seeing the infamous colonel Einze who stood leaning outside the door with his arms crossed. He had a dark expression.

"You could either stop being a burden or quit, doctor. As I said before, we don't need a babysitter," the man said before slauntering inside the room and slamming the door shut.

I felt my blood boil. The nerve of that man!

Lieutenant General Grey called me to his office afterwards.

"I can understand that being the team doctor of Alpha Two can be quite dangerous and inconvenient. I just was to inform that the decision for you to work with them or to transfer as a base physician is solely up to you_"

"I am sticking with those neanderthals!" I yelled as I smalled my palm on the Lieutenant General's table top.

"Wha_"

"Just watch Einze! A burden? I will show you what a true burden is!"

I won't quit until that annoying existence called Ryder Einze gobble up his words!

But first I needed to heal my ankle before anything.

It took a week for my ankle to heal. Within that time, the great annoyences of alpha two ( for some strange reason )didn't bother me too much. So I had enough time to study most of what Doctor Stone adviced me to study. He went as far as to spent some of his time teaching me of filariasis and malaria.

The moment I felt that my ankle was good as new, I set my alarm to five thirty a.m. and decided to go for a run at six in the morning around the running tracks of the facility.

My hope of a peaceful run was shattered the moment I saw the cadets running in circles and doing push ups with their screaming instructors who had already claimed the ground for their own.

I had forgotten that it was a military facility. Maybe I should wake up at four in the morning instead.

"Celia Ginger!" A loud voice bellowed.

Whoever Celia Ginger was, God bless her.

I was just about to leave the ground to find somewhere else to jog before the same voice yelled again, "And where do you think you are going Cedet!"

My feet froze. Something deep within by being told me that whoever was talking, was talking to me. I turned around, only to face a rather short muscly guy with a bald head and a whistle.

"You are late, and why aren't you in uniform?"

"I_"

"Fifty rounds around the ground for punishment! Go Go go!"

"But, Sir, I_"

"Did I stutter! GO! Extra cleaning duty for you today."

Someone pushed me into the running track. A whistle blowers loudly. My feet moved on its own.

Oh well, I did come to run.

It took minutes of heaving, aching muscles and breathlessness for me to remember that k was supposed to run for fifty rounds.

And at that time I had just finished two.

"What's slowing you cadets!"

The cadets around me sped up. I seemed like the only one running at a snail pace, looking as hypoxic as a patient with respiratory failure.

For a moment, I could understand how much pain a patient with respiratory failure faced.

"Miss Ginger! Who told you to slow down!"

"I_"

The whistle blowed again. I ran, for some demented reason.

Maybe coming out to run was a bad idea. A very very bad idea.

Then finally, finally I saw a ray of home.

Colonel Einze!

I ran up to him, clutching my knees as I heaved.

"Help_ wheeze_ me."

Colonel Einze looked down at me, amused.

"Miss Ginger! Get back on the track!"

"Einze_ wheeze_ tell him!"

"What ever are you asking me of cadet?"

The whistle blowed again.

I knew I couldn't rely on that, that... Man!

I was only released when the real Celia Ginger reported late to the grounds on the excuse of diarrhoea. She seemed rather fine for a person who had just had diarrhea though.

"If you are Ginger, then who is she?" The instructor bellowed, pointed at me.

Introductions happened. The instructor paled.

"Doctor?"

I nodded, breathing heavily. I pointed to Colonel Einze. "His_ wheeze_ team_ wheeze_ doctor_ wheeze."

"I asked her to train her endurance," the bastard colonel shamelessly said.

"Ah, I see, I see. I apologize for the rough handling, doctor. If we may preceed."

I shook my head, glaring at the girl called Celia Ginger even if the girl was innocent on her part.

"Tomorrow," I wheezed.

I went straight back to bed, cursing all army as I did. Ever since then, the hellish training with the military began. And to my outmost annoyance, it was personally supervised by your truly.

The hatred I held for the a certain colonel intensified tenfold over the next two weeks where I was forced to run around grounds, crawl on mud, carry sand bags and climb fake cliffs.

The rest of Alpha two took my training like personal entertainment. Even the bedridden Raajith didn't hesitate to come watch on a wheelchair.

But to be honest, the more I was forced to perform body torture, the more I found myself capable of performing more body torture. In a week, I lost four pounds and gained five.

Kayta explained that I was getting muscle mass.

The next mission came a month due after the first. A week before my second mission, Cullen asked me to follow him into a shooting range.

"I don't do guns," I explained, quite guessing what he was trying to teach me. Cullen gave me a look that said, "Don't be stupid."

But I shook my head. I took a freaking oath not to hurt a human life the day of my convocation. Holding a gun just seemed.... Wrong.

Cullen sighed. He pulled out a dagger and threw it at the mark board. It hit bullseye.

"At least learn this," he said.

I nodded my head vigorously. I had to admit, that was pretty cool. Maybe knowing some self defense might not be so bad.

And then it turns out that my luck with knifes are as bad as my luck with scalpels, one of the major reasons why no one wanted me in an operation theatre.

"Your aim is (insert curse word here)," Cullen said.

"At least it hit the board," I said.

And so Cullen made up his mind to at least make me skilled enough so that I might not stab a team mate while using the dagger. While long range dagger shooting didn't seem to work, he shifted I to close ranr combat, which also wasn't exactly my forte.

Especially since I was expected to tackle the guy. I did not want to touch someone so big and sweaty, and its not like I could tell him that.

But three days before our due date to find a rare possum? (No idea why), team alpha two was ordered to take on a recon mission.

And by the stern looks all of the hooligans had when they heard the news, I could tell that things were getting serious.

"A double A ranked mission," Colonel Einze said after the very quick briefing from the guy with the Hitler beard. "Stay vigilant. We move at night."

"Night?" I asked Kayta. I thought it was dangerous out in the wilderness at night.

"The mission cannot be delayed."

The recon mission was to rescue the team Delta Four and it seems that they were sent collect a rare specimen found around that should have been a metropolis a century ago (I guess the biggest job the rangers do is collect rare plants and animals for scientists). They lost contact with the base and had been missing for 24 hours. The base didn't want to take any chances regarding their survival, especially since the surface exploration missions had already had a bad name in the media. More soldier deaths would just add fuel to the fire.

Instead of my usual backpack of first aid supplies, I was given even a portable oxygen cannister to take along with me. I of course, used the somewhat available feminine charm I had and asked poor Jeremy to carry it for me. By charm I mean he sort of felt sorry after seeing me carrying a luggage twice as much as he did.

At seven in the evening, we got into a helicopter with the (Bastard) Colonel Einze, Katya and her husband. The rest got into the second helicopter. I was forcefully given a postol to which the annoying colonel said, "Shoot at anything that isn't my team."

I stuffed it into my backpack. Yet I did carry a military grade dagger on my new utility belt along with some balm-patches just in case. We were given what looked like a pair of magnetic earrings.

"A com-device," Cullen said before we left, "The wrist-com doesn't work out of range."

And so we took off.

I didn't enjoy the night ride on a helicopter. To make things worse, it rained for the first time ever since I got to the surface.

I honestly imagined rain to be like soft water drops falling of the sky, not a down-pour like the broken shower head in the orphanage back before some guy decided to donate a few thousand currency points. What I think was thunder rumbeld overhead, some even passing in front of the helicopter like veins of plasma as we flew into who knows where. It took my all to not just scream and beg the pilots to turn back.

It was decided that I was not a fan of the rain, even if for some reason the soundtrack of falling rain was the music to which I slept to when I felt insomniac.

On the other hand, the bastard colonel reveled in my terror.

What was probably like fifteen minutes felt like two hours. When the helicopter finally landed, its rotating blades giving out a flapping moan as it did, the rain was so bad it seemed as if the helicopter was somehow stuffed inside a carwash.

Colonel Einze pushed me out of the helicopter while the pilot gave the colonel a salute, "Try not to die, Colonel. Doctor. And you too sweetheart."

The last one was obviously directed to Katya. Brandon gave the pilot a look that could kill. The pilot put two and two together before shifting his gaze stiffly back ahead.

Katya got down from the helicopter like a boss and pulled out a suitcass followed by Brandon carrying a similar looking suitcase. Einze picked up my medical kit before throwing it at me. The helicopter lifted off the ground, drowning out the sound of the rain. When the helicopter left out of ear's range, the sound of rain and thunder took over. Kayta threw a garbage bag at me. It took me a while to realize that it was for insulation from the rain. It even had a hood. Lightning flashed around us. Something felt wrong about where we were standing. It felt too solid. Lightning flashed again.

"Oh," I felt myself mutter. We were on top of a building.

Colonel Einze opened one of the suitcases while Brandon held a torch to it.

"Doctor," Katya said, as she belt down over a suitcase. "Give a hand."

I knelt next to her as she pointed to the next suitcase. I clicked open the locks. Inside was what seemed like a round device. It looked more like a portable fan. Katya picked up the strange white thing, and clicked a botton on top. Blue light flashed around it as it floated off the ground and levitated two feet above the ground. I followed the same as she did.

Colonel Einze instead pulled out what seemed like a balloon. It inflated on it's own before it floated up to the sky.

"What is that?"

"A signal balloon," Katya replied.

"Won't the rain and the lightning... You know."

"It's made so that lightning won't be attracted to it. It does have problem with wind and rain, but I think the coats installed a flight stabiliser."

I didn't get most of that.

"What about the others?" I asked, leaving the two drones flying by themselves and both Kayta and I made out ways towards the men.

"Raajith, the balloon is up," Colonel Einze said thin air while touching his ear.

"Rodger that Colonel. The others landed 300 meters ahead to the northeast."

The drones stared to fly on their own and circled around the roof.

"I am getting a visual," Raajith's voice rang near my ear. It took me a while to realize that it was from the magnetic earring like com-device. "But it's just a visual of rain though. We should tell the coats to figure out something about it."

"If you are willing to be the person to inform them," Jeremy's voice erupted.

"Where are you,kid?" said the Colonel.

"No idea boss. But we are heading down."

"Good. Don't emit any light. Put on your night-glasses."

"Yes sir!"

It only took me second before Kayta handed me a pair of goggles. I put them on, my head slick with rain water as I tried to pry the elastic strap over my forehead. The moment I put it on, everything became green and surprisingly clear. The military sure did have alot of fancy gadgets the underground didn't offer to the public. I guess it was that way throughout history.