The last two weeks was an odd time for Sam Richter, Corporal in the Earth Federation.  The first of thise weeks was spent simply trying to dig up any kind of action he could, as the boss worked with Isabel...  or, rather, tried to work with her.  The simple fact of the matter was, Sam couldn't tell of there had been any progress made with the girl, at all.  Of course, therre wasn't much effort on Sam's part to find out, but that just owed to the idea that Sam held, that she was better off as far away from him as she could be.  Sniper or no, Mobile Suit driver or not, she still gave Sam the creeps.<br/><br/>Sam wasn't fond of MS-simulators.  Simply put, the gyro-sunchronized pods were nowhere near what an actual suit felt like, and Sam hated the damned things with a passion.  He prefered to get his training in the actual article, and while the boss worked with Isabel, Sam spent the first of those two weeks filling gaps in the base's inner and outer perimeter patrols, shoring up what he could when he could.<br/><br/>The next week, though, that was the issue.  The boss, true to his word, decided to run the whole damned team through simulation after simulation, and by the end of the trainning run, Sam had felt about as deflated as a punctured balloon.  At the end of the training, one evening, he had to be physically assisted out of the pod.<br/><br/>Then, the bad news set in.<br/><br/>"Son of a bitch!"  Sam snarled, as he lowered himself into his bunk, gracelessly.  "She's got a nerve, sending us out after the week we've just had."<br/><br/>Finally, painfully and with a huge amount of soreness, Sam reclined back, and tried to relax.<br/><br/>"The price we pay for being the best, I suppose."