[i]Another day, another set of out of touch idiots...[/i]

A shift in force awoke Shiva from her idle thoughts as the dropship slowed to their destination. All around her, her squad was in a similar state of mind. Hunched in their seats, lazily looking to the ship's door. Except the leader. Puffed up lieutenant Kherod stood between them all with one hand holding his slung plasma rifle and the other holding onto a rung on the dropship's ceiling. "We're half a minute out! The mechs have breached a hole in the wall for us to enter. Remember, search and destroy. These fools are armed and have fought our brothers in the sovereignty before. Give mercy only upon their surrender. When they do surrender, use the stunners. We are not here as executioners."

"Even with Suture-Bitch around, sir?" Bigmouth private Daiutan responded, "She can just heal them up to cover the evidence of us shooting them, right?"

Shiva looked up at Daiutan with as much distain as she could get away with. She had suffered her fair share of genuine arses in her life, but simply talking back would always make it worse when badly timed. At least this one was as competent on the field as his superiour rank suggested. It wasn't as if this was the worst nickname she had ever been given as well.

Gruff lieutenant Kherod paid no heed to Daiutan's words. "Unit! Am I understood!?"

"Yes sir!" They all responded, including Shiva. With a satisfied look, Kherod turned around slowly and steadied himself as the dropship slowed to a hover and let in the orange light of the planet's dawning sun.

For a while now, some tempu and masulu pirates had been holed up in a hidden bunker on this planet, staging raids on nearby colonies and ambushing freighters. Thanks to an informant, the location of the base was now known and Shiva's squad was one of three tasked in clearing out the interior.

In predetermined order, the entire squad leaped up and jogged down the ramp with their weapons raised and scanning their surroundings. The dropship's engines whined loudly as it hovered a few feet off the ground, then changed pitch to power up as it lifted away following the signal of the squad leader. To Shiva's left, a pair of medium mechs strode proudly, scanning the rocky surroundings for any signs of trouble. Their previous impact was evident in marks of smoking charred buildings and even a flaming light mech that had been painted with various pirate insignias. On the order of her leader, she ran with her squad towards one of the holes blasted out of the face of the main bunker. Another hole was made for the second squad, and the third squad hung back for cover and support, and to check for survivors from the initial attack.

The clearing operation proceeded like a well oiled machine. Soldiers took rooms, corridors and corners with such practiced precision that they almost looked like programmed machines. Most people they found were unarmed and surrendered immediately, earning a shock to the neck to render them unconscious. There were only three incidents of hiding gunmen, none of which were equipped to breach the squad's shields. They earned a quick death a burst of plasma fire.

Shiva liked this part of the mission. Not because it was exciting, or because of the killing. It was mostly because she didn't have to deal with her squadmates treating her like dirt. None of them wanted to die if they were injured here, and none of them wanted to be caught out of line during a mission. The danger remided them of that, and it was one of the few things that gave Shiva a little empowerment. Off the field, she had always been treasonous scum and always would be.

The real fight came when the squad reached the storage warehouse. In a last ditch at their priorities, the armed pirates had set up some makeshift fortifications from their crates of loot and were pinned down by the other entry squad approaching from the other end. Shiva's squad threw a smoke bomb between themselves and the fortification before they entered the warehouse to try and get to cover quickly, but they didn't count on the pirate leader sporting an illegal custom shifter rifle and black-market EM-detecting eye implants. Daiutan was the one to pay for it, with the first couple of shots supressed by his shield and the next three hitting his stomach and his leg. He limped to cover and shouted the one word that Shiva had been hoping to hear from him as soon as the words 'Suture-Bitch' had left his mouth on the drop ship.

"MEDIC!"

Shiva perked up and laid down some supressing fire in the general direction of the fortification, before running with a hunch to the pile of crates that Daiutan was leaning up against. "Well well well, lucky I'm not here as an executioner, right sir?" She said patronisingly as she opened up her surgeon's kit and evaluated the wounds.

"Shut up and patch me up, Tasthagk!"

"Oh? Where did 'Suture-Bitch' go? You seemed [i]awfully-[/i]" Daiutan convulsed as Shiva administered stinging antiseptic spray on his new burns, "-fond of that one, weren't you? Don't worry though, stay still and little miss Shkitliktuit will make you feel aaaall better." Shiva stopped with a motherly look to concentrate as the neutrium around Daiutan's wounds bent to her power. Daiutan felt uncomfortably itchy as his burnt flesh began to close over and repair itself. Daiutan would have not have suffered any less physically with Shiva's treatment if she had said nothing, but the chance to take Daiutan's pride down a notch was too much not to take. Once she was done, there only remained a few charred holes in Daiutan's armour. "There's a good boy, now let's finish this mission, shall we?" She patted him on the top of his helmet roughly and took her place in cover again.

---

"Reassignment again? Sir, I did not do anything wrong, it's not my fault Daiutan didn't like my medical treatment, it was to procedure!" Shiva protested to Kherod while she read the memo on her datapad with him in front of her. Funnily enough, in the barracks her antics didn't attract any attention. It was as if the rest of the squad had known beforehand and had been told to shut up. It's not as if they cared anyway, none of them especially liked Shiva.

Even though he betrayed nothing in his stony expression, Kherod was probably the one with the most distaste for Shiva's past. He had been looking for an excuse to get rid of her ever since she was assigned to him three years ago. This one seemed to fall into his lap. "Tasthagk, this was not about the mission. You performed as expected as a soldier of the sovereignty. This order is from Army Special Warfare. You will report to hangar bay seven with all of your belongings at 0630. It will be a long flight where you're going."

Confused, Shiva remained standing silently as Kherod turned and walked off. When he was out of sight, she sat down on her bunk and reread the memo. [i]What the hell does the ArmSpecWar want with me?[/i]