Liam was the first of the two Black Egrets to gain consciousness. He turned towards Scott, after rising off the ground, and shook him awake afterwards. "Whu- what happened? Did we win?" Scott said after lifting his head off the ground.

"No. I think we got our asses handed to us," Liam replied.

"Urg, come on man. How could we have lost? They were frickin' kids."

"Well, in our defense, they had parasites. And they outnumbered us."

Scott rose off the ground and brushed the dirt and grime off his uniform. "Hey, wait a minute. You called for backup didn't you? Where is everyone?"

Liam rubbed the back of his head as he thought back to right before he had the snot beaten out of him. "Yeah, I didn't finish the call, but they should have still arrived with the information I was able to give." Liam bent down to pick up some of the pieces of his shattered radio. "Oh," was his only response to his discovery.

"What? What's 'oh'?" Scott asked.

"Um, nothing. Just, uh, I might not have had the radio on," Liam replied.

"What!?"

Liam held up the piece of the radio that had previously been the 'on and off' switch, only for it to be set in the 'off' position. "Exactly what I said, man."

"Are you kidding me? You're saying, that had we run into an even more dangerous opponent, we would never had received support, because you forgot to turn the radio on?" Scott than slapped the back of Liam's head. "Idiot."

"Hey, I was trying to save batteries. So, uh, what do we do now?" Liam asked, rubbing the back of his head again now that Scott had made the pain return to that part of his body.

"No one back at base knows this happened. Let's keep it that way. I'd rather be chewed out for arriving at base late for duty, than be absolutely ridiculed for being beaten by kids," Scott replied.

"Alright. Let's head back now than. I want to get this over with as soon as possible."