"Well, one thing's for sure, we certainly have our work cut out for us now that these guys think we're just in it for the money and nothing else. You can thank that loud-mouth back there for that, as well as announcing the intentions of us not wanting to be entirely cooperative or maybe even being suspicious of their forces. We have a right to err on the side of caution, but you must know the enemy and yourself if you hope to win. They know us, and we don't even know ourselves that well. Just take a look at what happened today, for example. Aside from that outburst in the command room, we had one of our guys just go all gung-ho right into the enemy line. I don't expect people to come from military backgrounds, but we don't have a need for heroes in our line of work."

Sabrina, cold as she said it, wasn't wrong about the situation. She laid down on a crawler and skirted around to the underside of the foot she was working on.

"It's as much our fault, though. We need to try to reel them in. Make them better so that things like that don't happen. We'll need to if everyone's suspicions about the XCD are right. We don't know what they really want, but I smell ulterior motives. I've been in something like this before, and my sixth sense is telling me that something's not quite right with this whole thing. It stinks. That doesn't mean we need to go looking for trouble, though. There's a lot of thought put into this, and it'll weigh on the commander's head. Any slip-ups we make as a unit will just cause more stress. This opportunity is as I said: too good to be true and too good to pass up. This unit needed to get back on its feet badly, but we need to be more careful about how we conduct ourselves along with our business."

She stopped and looked Maxwell in the eyes.

"The XCD have no cause or reason to show us mercy should they decide they no longer require our services. Do not show them any unless you want to be spending your next years six feet under without a pulse anymore. After all, who's going to miss a ratty bunch of mercs just trying to make some blood money to live by in a world like this? We'll be put on the news maybe, with our names listed if we're lucky, but no one will truly care but any family we have left. So unless you're content to get a few extra holes in you courtesy of their rifles, watch yourself out there."

She went back to her work, feeling as though she had said enough on the matter.