The next few days flew by quickly, Atlas had been doing his best to help around the small camp they had made. Amanda had woken up here in there with screams of pain, it made the Armor Squadron have a drop in their morale but Charlie would convince everyone that she would get better over time.
Today was the day that the reinforcements should arrive, people were getting more and more anxious that the enemy would find them but nights were always quiet.
Atlas hadn't seen nor had he heard about Adrian since that night when he found out that he had an Uncle, he had drawn a quick sketch of his face so he could try and remember him.
Atlas was looking at the maps that the other tank crew had to see how they were going to exit after completing their mission, they were going to all be traveling with a few extra tanks and would need to be ready for anything to happen.
"Hey Atlas, what do you think about wrapping the other half of the tanks around the town before we push in?" Julie asked Atlas, they had been getting along together well and he has been included in more conversations with her unlike when they were on the ship.
"Well I think it's a good idea but shouldn't we take a speaker roughly rather than stay on the main road, they already ambushed us here so it would be smart to change up our route" Atlas suggested.
Everyone glanced around at each other and seemed to agree with what Atlas was saying but back roads and trails would double their time.
"What roads should we go on then?" The second in command of the Armor Squadron asked.
"Here, see these roads that almost parallel the main road. These lead all the way to the edge of the town where we could set up and wait for the other group to go into position. And there is this trail that connects to the road which does wrap around the entire town" Atlas said while pointing to the map.
"I think he might be right, we don't have the time to follow the main road and end up getting ambushed again, and his plan seems to be flawless besides the fact it would take three days to get their with an additional five hours to wait for the other group" The second said while crossing his arms.
"Well I say we go for it ey" Charlie piped in as he came back from where the wounded needed their bandages changed.
"I agree as well" Julie nodded her head in agreement, the second in command sighed and looked back to where the troops were at.
"They aren't going to like this but alright but guess we have no choice anymore since the Gyrun forced our hand" The second sighed in disagreement.
With that everyone was starting to pack up when three tanks and four trucks drove up to their location and parked. Fendelian troops had started to set up security around the open field as medics loaded all the wounded up.
There weren't many that had been wounded, only six but the back of two trucks were filled because these men needed to lie down. Someone popped out of the top of the first tank with a cigarette in her mouth.
When Atlas locked eyes with this woman his own face grew bright with excitement, Samantha was there and seemed to be with them this time.
"When did the Ghost Squad ever need reinforcements?" She asked as she spit out the cigarette butt.
"Very funny, I'd rather keep these guys alive rather than having them die trying to keep up with us" Julie replied with her arms crossed.
Atlas watched how the two women gave each other a quick glare before making everyone gather around.
"This will be hard on you all, we have been ambushed by the Gyrun so don't expect things to go smoothly from here on out. I will be leading this operation along with everyone else in Ghost Squad so show respect!" Samantha ordered everyone, with a quick nod everyone seemed to be accepting this change in leadership.
"Atlas, can I talk to you for a second?" Julie asked Atlas who was in deep thought.
"Oh, uh yeah" He replied and they both walked away from everyone.
"What happened the night you were on guard duty, you've been spacing out like crazy?" Julie questioned, Atlas tensed up and became nervous.
Thoughts flew through his mind about how she found out but he did know that he wasn't acting completely normal, with this he let out a sigh.
"W-well I uh, actually… T-the thing is-" Atlas started to speak but stopped when Charlie came out and slung an arm over Atlas.
"Hey Amanda is awake and is asking for you, how about you pay her a visit ey?" Charlie said but when he saw Atlas' nervous face and Julie who seemed a bit serious he sighed.
"Can you guys stop fighting for once, he saved Amanda and that's that alright. Atlas let's go" Charlie scolded Julie and started to take Atlas away, Julie just stood there with a glare burning into the back of Charlie's head as they both walked away.
Atlas thanked his friend internally from saving him from getting chewed out and maybe lost his reputation with everyone. They approached the truck where Amanda was lying in a stretcher on the ground.
She was breathing heavily and had sweat dripping down her charred face, she had one eye open as the other one was tightly shut. She looked over when Atlas was at the back of the truck.
"M-my men, th-they told me abo…ut what happ…ened. Tha-thank you A...tlas for saving m-my life" Amanda's voice was shaky and filled with pain as she spoke, the heavy breathing and wheezing for air made it hard to speak already.
"Y-yeah, I couldn't leave someone to die so… so I guess my body just made me run back to you" Atlas admitted, Amanda tried to chuckle but it came out more like a cough.
"Th-those sol...ders they sa-said that y…ou killed t-them all in col…d blood" She said, tears were starting to fall now making Atlas feel more uncomfortable than before.
"Yeah I… I guess I did" He replied in a small voice Amanda coughed some more and closed her eyes.
"I-I'm Ju...st g-get some… sl-sleep now" She said and then rolled her head away from the Ghost, Charlie was leaning against the back of the truck while facing away from them.
"Let's go to Sammantha now" Atlas said and with a nod from his friend they both walked back to where the others were, she was next to the tanks smoking another cigarette while learning about their plan to move through the other roads and trails to their target.
"Who came up with this idea, this is some good thinking about moving around the main obstacles. I already planned to do this when I received the call but someone from the Armor Squad usually pushes through things with force" Samantha explained.
She was right after all, the Armor Squadron usually doesn't think about anything except getting to their mission objective. Their scouts were good marksmen so they never had to think about losing a tank very often so they would just push as far as they could until they were done.
"A-actually it was him" The second in command, who was informing Samantha replied while pointing to Atlas who had just arrived with Charlie.
"The Gyrun!?" Samantha said while being surprised, since Julie was a demolitions expert she wouldn't think about anything much besides leadership and blowing things up.
Charlie would just go around making sure everyone was not injured so he never had the time to think about plans very often so Atlas was the only person that she didn't know anything about, making her intrigued about what he was capable of.
She still didn't trust him because of his Gyrun side and could see the hatred in Julie's eyes were extinguished, Charlie looked more closely now than when she saw him at HQ. Before he was a bit anxious but now he was laughing and was walking side by side with him.
"Hey Samantha, Atlas thinks we should move out soon since he thinks the longer we wait here the sooner the Gyrun will send reinforcements because their ambush group didn't report back" Charlie said.
Samantha scoffed and glared at Atlas, she never liked him but she would always put up a fake face in front of the commander.
"What makes you think that Atlas?" She questioned with a raised brow.
"Well think about it, wouldn't we send troops to find out what happened with our ambush unit?" Atlas asked, Samantha internally agreed with him since this was true but she wouldn't let him slip by like this with her.
"You think I was going to wait, you're a foolish farm brat. I was going to move out when the medics are ready to leave, we are their protection for now" Samantha replied and flicked her cigarette butt at Atlas' feet.
"We will be leaving once the medics begin to fall back" Samantha ordered, the second in command just nodded and reported this to everyone.
Atlas knew that this woman wouldn't be easy to crack like the other Ghosts who seemed to have trusted him, he had to think about a way to get past her shield some time later, but now he had bigger things to think about.
***************************************
The medics were finishing up with checking everyone out and had now started to pack up and go back to the shore where they would treat everyone completely until a ship could send them back home.
Samantha had everyone get ready for their travels down to the city where they would finish their mission, Atlas was a bit nervous whenever Julie was near him, it wasn't like last time since this nervousness was different.
"Alright, we're going to be heading back now, good luck to you all" The medics all waved as they began to dive to the beach.
"Let's go men, we have some intel to destroy" Samantha yelled, everyone cheered and started their way to go deeper into enemy lines. They knew from this moment on that they wouldn't get anymore help so this was it.
Atlas had started to draw Charlie the best he could with the shaking tank moving around, he wanted to have some memory of his friends that he could use to send to his family back home.