Second Lieutenant Caswell politely knocked on the door frame to Special Officer Hawkins' office. "Sir?"

Hawkins looked up from a pile of reports scattered on his desk. "Yes, go ahead."

"We have a situation brewing in the eastern part of the town of Maple Valley, or as the locals call it, The Damn." Caswell reported while coming into the office. "Our Fly Drones monitoring the East River Militia and the Black Rats have picked up irregularities from their normal movements."

"Go on." Hawkins replied as he sat back in his office chair and folded his arms across his chest. Getting any kind of news out here in this lonely outpost was worth putting mundane work aside.

Caswell cleared his throat and continued, "The Black Rats, in mass, have started to march on towards the militia's main area of control. It looks like there is going to be a fight between them soon."

"Good. Keep an eye on the fight. If the Queen is among them, we can finally start tracking her movements. Have any of the other locations under surveillance had any luck yet?" Hawkins asked.

"No sir. Nothing of any significance. The previous skirmish between the two gangs, Skull and Mad Dogs, has reached a stalemate. No signs of the woman being near there. As for the Mad Dogs and Skulls headquarters, there have been no signs of her either." Caswell reported, then he cleared his throat and continued. "It's my speculation that she is either laying low in the unpopulated parts of town for now or that it was a random encounter with her. It's possible she's not even in the town anymore."

"Not possible." The Special Officer said waving his hand dismissively. "The radar would have picked up any signals from Hover Craft or other air transport vehicles. Additionally, the drones watching the river and roads would have noticed any odd moments by now. I still think that the Mad Dogs tried to double cross us and hired the Queen to do it. However, even I doubt this theory. Someone like her type wouldn't stoop so low to work under a gang boss."

"I agree Sir." Caswell replied giving a nod. "Any additional orders or continue as we are?"

"Maintain current surveillance but deploy more Fly Drones to monitor the west side of town. The forest would be an easy place to disappear into if she knew we were looking for her." Hawkins replied reaching for the report he was reading before.

"Understood Sir." Caswell said giving a salute. He was about to leave when Hawkins stopped him.

"Oh, one more thing, Second Lieutenant." Hawkins said. "Keep me updated on the battle with the militia. This post gets so boring being in the middle of nowhere."

"I will keep you up to date on the fight. May I also say that I agree, Sir. This area that we monitor is rather lax." Caswell said sounding much less formal than he usually did around the Special Officer.

"Excellent, dismissed." Hawkins said ignoring the comment and turning back to the reports on the desk.

…

The conflict between the East River Militia and the Black Rats may have seemed not all that significant to the AFR soldiers, but to them it was a very intensive battle.

Garret Trellis and his six lieutenants were halfway to their main destination, the ERM base, when they split up to attack their secondary objectives. Terry, Marco and Erin along with everyone under their command, were eager to hurry up and attack the surveying militia. Many of the gangs friends had been killed by the ERM and were itching for revenge.

Terry spat on the roadside with disgust. "Those freaking Militia goons are going to pay for what they did to my men. I lost nearly a dozen good men after we left the hotel."

"Same with me." Erin replied while he was double checking that his handgun was loaded and ready. "I had some close good friends get wasted by them."

"I'm going to make them suffer so much. They won't ever forget my name after what I plan to do to them for killing Ken!" Marco chimed in.

Of the three men, Marco was the angriest. Ken was his best friend growing up, and they had joined the gang many years ago. They were always together until the rioters chased them down as they were trying to flee south to the safe house. Ken tripped over something in the road when they were being chased, and the rioters beat him to death before Marco could save him. Even if he was a gangster and did some bad stuff in the past, dying in that manner was rather cruel.

The three lieutenants were heading up the main road towards the residential areas closest to the industrial area of the town. If the information was correct, there should be a large number of militia troops looting the area. One of the gangsters caught an unfortunate local that didn't escape from their sight on the road in time. They quickly got him to tell where any militia members were in the area.

He told the gangsters that there were five groups of militia personnel doing surveys of the area and looting any building that was unoccupied or not owned by someone. He then told them that each group was around twenty or so people each. Hearing this, the three lieutenants decided to split up and confront the closest groups individually. They were confident that they could easily beat them as each lieutenant was leading over fifty gangsters apiece.

After they split up, Erin and his crew were the first to find the militia. They were indeed doing as the local said. They were going down each side of the street checking every building for occupants. However, they were not carrying any loot and appeared to be on guard. Seeing this, Erin decided to play it safe first and do some reconnaissance.

The gangsters now were just hiding in several houses up the road from the militia. "Hey, you." Erin called to one of his men. The man came over and Erin continued. "Go ahead and walk casually in the middle of the road past them. I want you to check out what weapons they got, how many there actually are and if there are others further up the road."

"Got it, boss." The man said complying quickly.

"You only need to go two blocks past them. Once you do, come back here to report. But come back from the next street over, we don't want them getting suspicious." Erin added.

The man nodded and headed off.

"Now we wait." Erin said to the rest of the gang. "Looks like it will be awhile before they get any closer to us. So, make sure your weapons are ready. I don't want to see anyone holding clean weapons once were done with them!"

The rest of the gangsters chuckled enthusiastically. They were ready to fight long before coming here. Fortunately for them they didn’t need to wait long; after half an hour, the man had returned.

"Boss there are only twenty-five guys ahead and I didn't see their weapons. However, I didn't see any reinforcements either." The man quickly reported.

"Great job. Well, you heard him." Erin said to the gang. "Let's crush them." Erin turned to head right down the road confidently towards the militia. The eager gangsters following close behind, each gangster being sure that their weapons remined hidden.

...

Terry found himself in a similar situation as Erin. However, he didn't have the patience to wait for them to know the whole situation. As soon as he saw that the militia were in two groups on opposite sides of the road, he had an idea.

"Here's the plan guys." Terry said motioning for everyone to come closer to him. They were standing in an empty sandy lot only four houses from the militia. "We are going to climb over these fences in the backyards and get into the house that they are going to get to next. Once they go inside, we are going to ambush them and take them out. Once we do, the others across the street will be easy pickings."

The men nodded in silent agreement. It was simple and straightforward enough for them to understand.

"Alright, let's go!" Terry said turning towards the fence. He easily hopped over the low metal chain link fence and jogged across the yard to the next fence. The rest of the gang quickly followed close behind. If anyone living in those houses saw fifty men running in their backyards, they were sure to stay quiet. Nothing was going to stop the gangsters now.

Once they reached the indicated house, Terry took a quick peek around the edge of the house's wall at the militia. While he did this, the rest of the gang quietly busted open the back door of the house and filed inside. Terry was pleased to see that the militia appeared to be rapping up things at the next house and would soon be on their way over to them.

Terry smiled and thought to himself, "Oh ya. It's all coming together."

…

Marco didn't have any patience at all, like the other two did. As soon as he found the militia, he cocked his shotgun and turned towards his men.

"Let's make them wish they never messed with us!" He shouted. The men cheered and readied their weapons. "Let's go then." Marco said turning to walk right down the middle of the street towards the unsuspecting militia members.

Marco walked right up to the first Militia member, who was guarding the outside of one of the houses. The man was about to tell Marco to stop coming his way, when Marco casually lifted his gun. He took aim and fired a single powerful round into the unfortunate man's chest. The sound of the sudden gunfire alerted the militia inside.

They rushed towards the front door to see what happed. Everyone arrived only to find nearly fifty Black Rat gangsters charging at them all at once. Gunshots blasted, men screamed, and chaos filled the once quite street.

At first the militia were taken completely by surprise by the gangsters’ sudden upfront assault. The militia could only manage to barricade themselves into the houses and hold off the sudden attackers. Then something unexpected happened to the Marco and his gangsters, the militia opened fire with their own guns!

The gangsters were caught unprepared and exposed in the empty streets. With the militia personnel on both sides of the street the gangsters were caught in the crossfire and received heavy casualties. Immediately, Marco realized the danger they all were in and shouted the command to retreat and go back down the road to the next homes.

Erin’s forces faced a similar situation as Marco. The militia saw the suspicious group of men coming towards them and took up defensive positions. The ERM called out for them to halt, but Erin and his men in unison puled out their guns and the two sides broke out into a hail of gunfire. Being in the open street, Erin took a grazing bullet and several of the gangsters were shot down. The militia were in better positions and forced the gang to find cover.

Only Terry's group was lucky in their attack. The militia, as anticipated, came into the house and called out to see if there were any residents. The Black Rats had hidden in the back of the house waiting for Terry to give the signal. As soon as much of the militia had come inside, did he finally give the order. The entrance of the house became an instant blood bath as the gangsters opened fire with a barrage of bullets.

Only the militia lookout outside was able to flee to his companions on the other side of the street. The gangsters started to give chase but were immediately forced to run back inside when the militia returned fire.

Terry ducked behind the wall of the house in the living room. Then he yelled out in confusion to no one in particular, "How is it possible that they have guns?"