You never considered yourself a control freak but the anxiety of not knowing how the other team is doing creeps up as you crouch run across the open desert next to Legion shock troopers. If Boone could see you now…

As Marius pointed out, fires burn at stationary points along the depot’s fences perimeter, showing exactly where the infiltration force needs to hit.

If it wasn’t easy enough, the NCR patrols themselves have torches and other light sources that not only ruin their natural night vision, but also throw up a flashing sign on where to target.

The 20 of you stop under a slight rocky overhand just a few hundred yards from the outer fence and one of the strong points. You grab the fireteam leaders and point out targets.

Three squads move to hit a hardpoint and two patrols approach from opposite directions. All three targets need to be hit or else risk alerting the rest of the base. The last squad is hanging back preparing to provide support if everything goes tits up.

You watch in fascination as the legion troopers pull out a variety of blades, from throwing knives to a very long and thin curved blade, all painted black to avoid the moonlight reflecting on the steel. Even most of their gear is taped or tied down to prevent noise, stuff you take note of for your future SOCOM groups.

The two patrols consist of 8 soldiers each, though looking at their gear and the way they carry themselves, these are not the A-teams. It makes no difference to the Legion as they use the sparse desert cover to pounce upon the poor NCR conscripts, stabbing and slicing without a sound.

The last group approaches the squat sandbag bunker in a pincer formation. The pointmen on each pincer crawl along the sand before literally jumping over the lip of the sandbag wall and into the hard point, his companions following directly behind.

But no gunfire erupts and other than a cry that’s quickly silenced, the desert is dead quiet and the blood of NCR conscripts stain the sand.