Freelancer Chronicles

Tennessee woke up abruptly with a hard thump on his helmet, and he was glad he had the helmet on otherwise the rookie would have pissed his pants at the glare Tennessee had given him. "Wake up sir, Director Church would like to speak with you." He shouldered his way past the soldier and walked into the conference room, the thick southern accent rolled out,

"Agent, might I ask you what you were thinking when you betrayed Agent Wyoming during training to assist Agents Alabama and Montana?"

Tennessee rolled his eyes and replied with thick sarcasm, "I don't know, I thought they were my teammates?"

"Sarcasm is unbecoming of an Agent of our program who wishes to succeed!"

"Agent York says otherwise."

"Why do you think Agent York is moved around the leaderboard so much?"

"He likes the variety?"

"Agent I will…"

The Counselor interjected, "What the Director is trying to say is if you want greater freedom or responsibility, please take things seriously and evaluate your actions."

"I was!" Tennessee spat, "They were inexperienced and to send Wyoming at them to welcome them in was ridiculous!"

"Would you rather it have been Agent Maine?"

"I would rather have it be someone with half a heart like North or York! For god's sake you sent in one of our best killers to say hi, if I hadn't been there you'd be washing blood out of their armor!"

"The bullets were non-lethal."

"His tactics weren't, he ran right in and kept hitting Montana until I pulled him off…after I had yelled stop three times!"

"I will not discuss methods with you Agent Tennessee, if you want to babysit the new ones fine, they will be added to your new squad along with two new Freelancers; Virginia and Delaware will report to you immediately. I will let you pick your last…you are dismissed."

Tennessee stormed out grabbing Alaska as he left, "Ow, easy what's your problem."

"You're helping me lead a squad."

"What? Is this more of the Director's bullshit!"

"Yeah…I stood up for Montana and Alabama and now I have two new one's called Virginia and Delaware."

"Wait did you say Virginia, dude she's hot! And her skill with a sniper rifle, man we are set; and I heard Delaware was from ONI you know how spooks are, no offense, we could use someone like that!"

Tennessee sighed, "For the last time I was special-forces not a spook…but yeah that could work to our advantage. What do you know about the others?"

Alaska produced two confidential personnel files, "Montana, ODST specialist and an ace-mechanic…home-world of Reach and a lot of criminal racing past…the guys good, but he was discharged for illegal weapons and vehicle modifications."

"I don't think that'll be a problem in our line of work, next?"

"Alabama, Marine…not much on him except, ah there it is…multiple cases of disorderly conduct a lot of fights sometimes over trivial things, and a lot…I mean a lot…of broken orders."

"We'll see about him…but if he wants to fight I think all we have to do is point him in the right direction."

Tennessee walked up to his new team and was a little disappointed with what he saw. Wearing a full suit of tan EVA armor was their vehicle specialist Montana, standing beside him checking the barrel of his shotgun was Alabama with his blue/ light blue EOD armor with a Mark V helmet. Leaning against his locker was Alaska in his blue and silver Hayabusa armor eyeing Virginia as she leaned over to pick up her helmet her blonde hair tied back in a short ponytail, "Eyes on the prize?"

"Always," Alaska replied, "so you want to round them up?"

"No, give me the low down on their armor and enhancements."

"Well I'm sure you noticed Alabama and Montana's already, but their enhancements are similar; Overshield for Alabama and Montana projects an energy field similar to hard armor lock."

"And the others?"

"Delaware sports a mix of Scout and Security armor with a prototype cloaking unit, while she prefers the classic Mark VI pink, with periwinkle secondary."

Tennessee looked at Alaska, "Dude you need a hobby, seriously we have work to do." Tennessee walked over to his locker and put on his CQB armor and turned to face his team, "Alright, I am Tennessee your team leader…"

"Who authorized that election?" Delaware asked peering skeptically at Tennessee with his hands held behind his back.

"Don't like the election, take it up with the Director!" Tennessee said each word dripped malice. "From this day forward, I rule over you…you do not shoot unless I give the order, you work as a team unless I say otherwise, and you will obey…any questions?"

Alabama raised his hand, "And if we have a problem with that arrangement?"

Tennessee got right up in his face, "Take it up with my suggestion box." With that he slammed his fist into Alabama's chest knocking the wind out of him even through the armor. He fell to the ground and every one fixed eyes on him, "Any questions?" They all shook their heads except Delaware and Alabama who glared at him with venom in their gaze. "Training room in ten minutes, I want to see what you're capable of."

They had all assembled before him; armor fully ready and he could sense the beat down coming. "Alaska, you sit this out and run analysis with F.I.L.S.S."

The kindly woman's voice played over the speakers, "Agent Tennessee, this is highly irregular in procedure. Agent Alaska should participate in this exercise."

"I am aware F.I.L.S.S. but I would like this to be a test of their ability, not ours. If you would please bring up the weapons stand." The weapon stand rose on either side of the arena. "Take what you use best and let's see what you're capable of. The rounds are stunning only no lethal takedowns." As he said this, he saw Delaware slip Montana and Alabama knives he had hidden in his armor storage compartment. He just grabbed a pistol and pressed the button to lower the stand. Delaware had chosen a Magnum with Alabama toting a shotgun. Montana chose two SMG's and Virginia had a sniper rifle. Tennessee braced himself and shook himself of his itch for combat trying to keep a stable mindset, prioritizing. He would've had longer to analyze if Alaska hadn't taken the P.A. system from F.I.L.S.S. "Good morning Vietnam! Today for your viewing pleasure is a Freelancer evaluation of Delaware, Virginia, Montana, and Alabama! Administered by none other than our own Agent Tennessee! Go NUTS!"

At the green light, Virginia went to kneeling leveling her rifle. Delaware and Alabama rushed him while Montana hung back to defend Virginia. He had to give it to them at lest they were smart. Alabama opened fire first, and Tennessee took off sprinting. The shotgun would be hard to dodge this close in, so he had to disable him first. He dodged in between the shells and grabbed the shotgun from him unloading the remaining ammo into Alabama, the paintballs locking his armor quickly. He wobbled trying to throw himself at Tennessee and Tennessee just threw him on top of Delaware. He looked up in time to see Virginia had zeroed in on him. He took off again, this time making a wide circle around her. Her first shot struck him in the leg and he fell over. Montana went in for the kill as Delaware shrugged off Alabama finally. As Montana got closer, Tennessee unloaded his pistol locking Montana up. He took Montana as a human shield and used his SMG's to keep Delaware and Virginia moving. Virginia wasn't so lucky as she was struck quite a few times and fell over. Delaware was harder to hit so he changed his options. He couldn't bend his left knee so he started hobbling to the center of the room and moved Virginia's still body to the left with his foot. Delaware ran in firing, and Tennessee fired as well until they were both out of ammo and had a few marks painted on them. Tennessee's right arm was disabled and half of his visibility was gone. Delaware had taken a few hits to the chest and arms. He somehow found a way to draw his knife, and charged in to kill Tennessee. Tennessee sidestepped and used the frozen arm to bash in Delaware's face and placed his left leg on his body so that if he tried to stab him it would hit nothing. "Test over F.I.L.S.S. I've seen all I want. There's something I can work with here."