As the western front scrambled to figure out the cause of the explosion, Thea kept scanning the horizon for targets.
After another twenty or so minutes, her vigilance paid off.
Once again, she spotted a lone man with low-tech binoculars.
This time he was farther out and closer to the eastern side.
“Private Thea here. I’ve spotted another scout, bearing one-five-three. Same getup as the previous one that got killed on the hill just twenty minutes ago. Low-tech binos, no visible weapons. Requesting confirmation,” she sent over comms.
She wasn’t sure if she was talking to the same squad leader as before, but she’d find out soon enough.
A few seconds passed after the confirmation ping.
“Nice to meet you, Private Thea. My scout doesn’t see anything over there from her position. You positive on the ID?” a new squad leader replied.
“Affirmative,” she answered. “Target is still in my sights. If it’s alright with you, I’ll take the shot. He’s about two-point-one klicks out, but that’s not an issue. If you could let command know the freaks are up to something, I’d appreciate it. This is the second scout like this I’ve spotted in the past hour.”
‘How in the void are their scouts not seeing these guys?’ she fumed silently. ‘They’re practically standing out in the open…!’
“Do it. Good hunting, Private,” came the reply.
With clearance given, she finally had her warm-up kill.
She settled into position and lined her sights up on the scout’s upper jaw.
She drew her focus inward—her body, the rifle, the distant figure—and synced her breathing. Between two breaths, she began to squeeze the trigger.
Then she felt a twinge inside her chest and stopped. Again.
‘What…? What is wrong with me? Is it because he looks real? That’s bullshit!I’ve fucking killed people before!Self-defence, sure—but still…It never messed with me like this.’
A cold fear crept in.
‘Don’t tell me I’ve got some kind of mental block.Not now. Not here…!’
She forced herself to reset. Slowed her breathing. Locked everything down.
‘Just take the shot, Thea. It’s simple.’
Right as she was about to fire, the scout’s head abruptly snapped back and his body collapsed lifelessly onto the hilltop.
“Fuck—what the fuck is this shit?!” she whisper-yelled in her foxhole, slamming her fist into the red-brown dirt at her sides.
How had she managed to lose two clean kills to other people?
Why was she suddenly unable to pull the trigger on easy targets?
Frustration boiled over.
She opened her comms and pinged the squad leader again.
“SL, someone else just took that scout. Can you figure out where they were? That was one hell of a shot.” If she knew where the other sniper was set up, she could judge whether they’d have a line of fire before calling in the next one.
“Sure. One sec,” came the brief reply.
While she waited, she brought her scope back up and swept the horizon again.
‘I need that warm-up kill.Everyone performs better after a warm-up.’
For a split second, something flicked across her scope.
A dark shape shooting straight up into the air.
By the time she tried to track it, it was already gone.
She shook her head and refocused on the hilltop.
‘I’m really fucking losing it.Get it together, Thea.You promised number one, and right now you’re just sitting here doing fuck-all.You haven’t even—’
Another massive explosion tore through the UHF fortifications, slamming her back down into the dirt of her foxhole.
She lay still and scanned the horizon for nearly three minutes, waiting for a follow-up attack.
Nothing came.
Then her comm pinged.
“Listen, Private. The guy who took your target? That explosion hit his position. Don’t think he made it. Figured you’d wanna know,” the squad leader said, his voice grim.
Irritation flared hot in her chest.
‘First he steals my kill, and now I can’t even beat his score? What kind of bullshit is this?’
Then she remembered; there was a second rival.
‘…Unless I still can.I lost two scouts, not one. The chance for both of them to have been taken out by the same guy is basically zero, so if I just—’
Then it hit her.
Everything snapped into place at once.
‘The scouts…! They weren’t gathering intel with those binoculars. They were the intel!’
A tight knot of panic climbed up her throat.
She dropped back down into her foxhole and forced herself to breathe slowly, deep and controlled, trying to keep her thoughts from spiralling out of control.
‘Before I make any wild accusations, calm down.I’m upset. I’m irritated.’
After about a minute, she managed to force herself back under control.
‘Alright. Let’s analyse this. What do I know:Two scouts. Two explosions. One explosion hit the exact location of the sniper who took one of the scouts.What don’t I know: Did the first explosion hit the first sniper too? And if so, how the fuck are they doing this?
‘Bottom line:I need more intel. And fast.’
“SL, priority request,” she sent over comms. “Which sector neutralised the first scout I reported around twenty, twenty-five minutes ago?”
She made sure to flag it properly.
‘If the Old Man wasn’t full of shit, this should work.’
The immediate confirmation ping proved him right once again.
There was no request for an explanation, not even a moment of hesitation.
The Old Man had explained it to her once: In the UHF, a “Priority Request” was basically a cheat code. It jumped straight to the front of the line, even above standing orders—perfect when time truly mattered.
Misuse it, though, and you’d be facing a court martial faster than almost anything else.
Even accidental friendly fire came with more leeway.
Privates weren’t taught about priority requests for obvious reasons.
Still, knowing about them and using them were two different things.
Nothing actually stopped a Private from using one—if they knew it existed. You just had to be ready to deal with the consequences if you misused it.
It took less than a minute for the reply to come back.
“Private, oddly enough, the sector of the sniper who took the first scout was hit by the first explosion. I have to ask—what’s with the priority request?”
‘Confirmed.’
She vaulted out of her foxhole and sprinted toward the trench to her right, where the squad leader was positioned. It only took a few seconds to reach him.
“Sir, I need you to take me to the nearest command staff. ASAP.”
He hesitated just briefly.
Even through her helmet, he could hear the urgency in her voice.
“Leave your weapons here, Private. Follow me.”
That made sense. ‘He doesn’t know me.Could think I’m a spy, so disarming me before taking me is a smart choice.’
She dropped her weapons without argument and took off after him as he jogged through the trenches at a hard pace.
She pushed herself quite a lot to keep up—and still fell slightly behind.
That caught her off guard. ‘I always thought I was fast…! Holy shit, how is this guy moving like that?He’s not even breathing hard?!’
The surprise cut through her anxiety for a moment, giving her mind something else to latch onto as they moved…
It only took them about three minutes to reach a well-hidden forward command bunker.
Thea had to admit she never would’ve found the place on her own without the squad leader’s help.
As they entered the rough hole-in-the-ground that served as the command bunker, the squad leader immediately stepped in front of her and snapped into a rigid salute.
“Squad Leader Kellerman reporting, sirs. Escorting Private Thea to deliver a report,” he announced, then stepped aside and motioned for her to move forward.
Thea returned the salute as cleanly as she could and looked at the three commanding officers inside.
All three were men, likely in their late fifties, with greying hair in various stages of thinning.
Two wore lieutenant insignia, while the man in the centre was clearly a captain, dressed in the same uniform style she had seen on Captain Sable earlier.
“Captain, I believe the explosions we’ve been hit with were caused by the Stellar Republic and—”
“By the Emperor, who let this idiot Private in here?” the lieutenant to the Captain’s left snapped with a sneer. “Of course it’s the Stellar Republic. Truly outstanding work, Private. Thanks for that, now cease interrupting our future planning for nonsense like that.”
“That’s enough, Lieutenant Ormir,” the Captain cut in sharply. “Let the Private finish her report. We can get back to planning afterward. Not like much is happening while everything’s at a damned standstill anyway.”
“…Thank you, Captain,” Thea said, steadying herself. “As I was trying to say, I believe the explosions are retaliation for our snipers taking out enemy scouts. I was the one who reported the last two scouts. Due to… bad timing, I wasn’t the one who fired either shot.
“The first scout was killed by a sniper positioned in the same sector where the first explosion occurred. Squad Leader Kellerman confirmed this for me just a few minutes ago, as part of a priority request from my end.”
As she spoke, the Captain’s expression darkened, while Lieutenant Ormir’s face slowly lost its smug edge.
“The second scout was taken out by a sniper in… uh—”
“Sector 14-B,” Squad Leader Kellerman supplied quickly. “I didn’t mention it earlier, Private. Didn’t think it’d matter.”
“Right. Sector 14-B,” Thea continued, after giving the Squad Leader a quick nod of thanks. “The second explosion happened in that exact same sector. Based on these two events, I believe the scouts aren’t gathering intel with their binoculars—but with their heads. As in quite literally. They’re bait. They’re drawing sniper fire so our sniper’s positions can be triangulated. I’m not sure how…”
She took a deliberate breath to interrupt her own uncertainty creeping in.
“Either way, I strongly recommend we halt all sniper activity against these scouts until we figure out what’s actually happening.”
After finishing her report, she needed some moments to recover, as she had spoken very quickly in order to get everything out before the annoying Lieutenant could interrupt her again.
“That is quite the report. Well done, Squad Leader Kellerman and Private Thea.”
The Captain gave them a brief nod before turning away.
“Lieutenant Ormir, issue an immediate cease-fire on all scouts fitting Private Thea’s description,” he ordered. “Until we understand what’s causing these explosions, we can’t afford to ignore the possibility that she’s right—even if the evidence is anecdotal at best. Get it done.”
Despite his earlier hostility, Lieutenant Ormir moved at once, working the command bunker’s communication system and sending orders out across Theta Outpost. From the looks of it, the message was being relayed to the central and eastern fronts as well.
‘At least he’s good at his job,’ Thea thought. ‘Even if he’s an asshole.’
“Private,” the Captain said, turning back to her, his expression serious. “Since you seem to be the only one who’s managed to connect these dots so far—assuming your theory holds—do you have anything else that might help us narrow this down? Any idea what could be causing these explosions?
“All we’ve found so far is evidence of some explosive compound. We have no clue how they’re getting it into position so quickly.”
Thea paused.
She’d already shared everything she could clearly confirm—the scouts, the snipers, the explosions.
‘There is one thing,’ she admitted to herself. ‘That shadow.Or whatever it was...’
Clearly sensing her hesitation, the Captain stepped closer and lowered his voice.
“Listen, Private. If you have something, say it. Even if it’s unclear or unconfirmed. Right now, we’re all guessing. A bad lead is better than standing around doing nothing while our people get blown up.”
That settled it.
With explicit permission to speculate, Thea immediately described what she thought she’d seen—the shadow that had shot straight up in an instant, and how it vanished the moment she tried to follow it.
“A shadow… moving vertically,” the Captain muttered, frowning as he thought it over.
“Not much to go on,” the third officer finally said, speaking up for the first time. “How big was this shadow you think you saw, Private?”
“I can’t be certain,” Thea replied, choosing her words carefully. “Based on the scout I was tracking at the time, I’d estimate about half his size. So… maybe eighty to ninety centimetres in length? It could’ve been much larger, though, if it was farther away from the hill than I thought.”
“Very well,” the Captain said with a nod. “Thank you for the report, Squad Leader Kellerman and Private Thea. If there’s nothing else, you’re dismissed. Return to your posts and keep up the good work. If you uncover anything further, report it immediately.”
With that, Thea and Kellerman exited the command bunker and set off at a brisk pace toward their respective positions.
“Well then,” Kellerman said with a short laugh, “didn’t expect a priority request from a Private to turn into this much of a situation. Good fucking work. I half-expected to file a court martial on you when that message came through, but I’m glad it was worth it.”
“Thanks for trusting me, SL,” Thea replied with a grin. “I’ll make sure nobody sneaks up on you and your squad. Call it payback.”
She found she genuinely liked Kellerman.
From what she’d seen so far, he was a good man.
‘Hope he makes it through this,’ she thought. ‘Simulation or not.’
There was a sense of realness to him that she wasn’t used to from games.
As they walked, she paid closer attention to the Marines around them.
None of them felt like background filler or simple AI routines.
Every single one moved, spoke, and reacted like a real person would in the same situation.
Once more, she was struck by the sheer quality of the Deep-Dive Simulation.
In any other game, soldiers like these would’ve been little more than extras, running on simple, relatively easy-to-spot flowcharts of actions they could and would take at any given moment.
Here however, every character she had met so far felt fully alive, as far as she could tell…
She made it back to her foxhole about ten minutes later.
She exchanged a few words with Kellerman’s squad, thanking them for keeping an eye on her weapons while she’d rushed off to the command bunker.
She liked the squad Kellerman ran.
‘Good people. If I can help it, I’ll keep them alive.’
She’d already picked up Kellerman’s comm details, so she could ping him directly if anything came up or the squad moved away from her position like the previous one evidently had.
Once she settled back into position, she brought her DMR up and started scanning the horizon again. This time, though, she carried a quiet hope that she wouldn’t find any Stellar Republic scouts at all.
Almost immediately however, she spotted another scout, nearly straight across from her position.
She swallowed a curse and activated her comms.
“SL, I’ve got another scout. Bearing zero-nine-zero, roughly one-point-two klicks out.”
“Copy that. Cease-fire’s still in effect,” Kellerman replied right away. “Continue observation. Let us know if the freaks do anything else, or if you spot more.”
As she kept the scout in her sights, a thought hit her hard.
‘Why didn’t I shoot the first two? If I had… I’d be dead now. Blown up like those snipers.’
A chill ran down her spine as the weight of that realization settled in.
She tried to put herself back into that moment—to remember what she’d felt, why her finger had frozen on the trigger.
Five minutes passed. Then more.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t recreate that state.
She felt like, short of almost pulling the trigger again, she wasn’t going to get an answer.
‘The simulation itself must have stopped me.’
That was the only explanation that made sense to her.
‘It’s protecting the players.Instant-killing you for doing your job would be bullshit, after all.’
With that thought, the knot in her chest finally loosened.
For now, at least, the mystery was solved.
She refocused on her surroundings and kept scanning the horizon.
‘I’ll dig into this with Thomas later.’
Right now, she had a score to earn and considering she couldn’t shoot any of the scouts to increase it, her only other option was being the first to report as many of them as possible...