Maine was pissed.
Pissed that someone he regarded as a friend would trick him so callously. Pissed that he let himself be tricked. Pissed that his team was fighting for their lives while he was fucking snoozing in medical.
Not that he had snoozed for long.
When he came around, the first thing he had done was push past the medics and escape medical bay to stuff himself into the closest orbital drop pod he could find. He didn't like heights. He didn't like drops. But he hated the idea of his team fighting without him.
Hated the idea of Wash fighting without him.
So he closed the pod door down before anyone could remember that he had been pumped full of bullets just a few weeks prior and tried to lock onto someone's coordinates, anyone's coordinates.
He couldn't. They were out of range.
The Mother of Invention had fucking left the battlefield. The whole goddamn fleet had. Maine could see that when he stormed up to the bridge to demand an explanation conveyed in nothing but an angry growl.
And the Director had the audacity to chide him for his rash behavior. Explained, as though to a child, that this strategy was for the best. That it drew the Covenant armada away from the planet and allowed some of the evacuation ships to clear the atmosphere.
Some.
He asked in a gravelly voice which ships were the biggest problems. There were three destroyers that were causing the most damage. There had been a forth, but it crashed into the Cov's own base after an apparent navigation failure. An inexplicable stroke of luck. The resulting confusion allowed the UNSC to pull away from the planet.
Three Covenant destroyers, then.
Maine requested three nukes.
Precision and subtlety had never been his strong suits, but complacency in letting his friends fight without him wasn't exactly in his repertoire either. The Director knew it. Knew there was little point in wasting a weapon.
They lost all contact with the ground team as Maine stuffed himself into a launch pod.
Three destroyed Covenant ships later, they still hadn't regained it.
And all the Director could tell him was that the team was probably alive. That they had locked themselves in some sort of Forerunner temple, and intercepted Covenant transmissions did not suggest the temple had been penetrated.
Maine didn't like 'probably.'
He didn't like it as the remaining Covenant ships retreated and the UNSC blasted the ground around Tyumen with MAC cannons. Continued to not like it as he climbed into the last Pelican with the few remaining soldiers and dropped planetside. Really didn't like it as they approached the remains of the temple, or the giant hole that had been blasted in the side of it. Still didn't like it when they slowly approached the blast site and realized that there were no Covenant on their trackers.
They entered the temple, and Maine was pissed.
Pissed at how few guns had been raised to greet them. Pissed at how Carolina's voice cracked with exhaustion and relief when she called out "friendlies" and the guns lowered. Pissed at how many of his teammates were collapsed uselessly on the floor or slumped over alien bodies or not moving. Pissed that he hadn't been there to change any of those things.
Wash was hurt. Alive, and joking, but hurt. Maine could tell just by glancing at him, HUD readings be damned. And Maine hadn't been there.
There wasn't a lot Maine could do until they could bring medics onto the scene, so he sat by Wash and held him up protectively and didn't give a damn what anyone wanted to say about that. Wash babbled, and Maine felt just a little bit less pissed and a little bit more relieved. He hadn't been there, but Wash was alive. And okay enough to be babbling. That was good.
And then Wyoming strolled by and Wash pointed to him and said "that's the fuck who ran me over with our own car" and Wyoming had hastily tried to placate them with a terrible knock-knock joke, and Maine thought that maybe things would be okay.
Until he realized there was no familiar blue armor following Wyoming. He looked at Wash, who understood his unspoken question even without being able to see his face. And Maine immediately knew from the tiny, almost imperceptible slump in Wash's shoulders that something was really wrong.
"We…lost track of some of the team," Wash told him quietly. "There was a problem with some civilians before the Covs broke through, and some of the team left with another squad to handle it, and all I know is that they haven't come back and Carolina won't say what's going on." He paused, shifting so he was leaning into Maine a little more. "There was a lot of gunfire," he said after a moment.
That wasn't good. If civilians and gunfire were both involved, then it was likely the civilians were the ones being fired at. But Maine had seen enough war to know that that didn't necessarily mean the soldiers doing the shooting were in the wrong. Civilians were people. There were good ones and bad ones. There were good ones who did bad things when desperate. Things that sometimes warranted being shot at. The human race was in danger. Sometimes, unpleasant things had to happen to accomplish the greater good. To survive.
While the UNSC understood this, they couldn't exactly advertise the fact. No one would rally behind an organization that taught their special ops teams when to kill unarmed, relatively defenseless members of their own species. If the incident didn't blow over or submerge beneath the overall disaster of New Harmony, they would have to find a scapegoat. Punish a few soldiers so the many could continue.
"Who?" Maine asked, and knew that Wash could hear the weight behind the question.
Wash shifted again. He fidgeted when he was uncomfortable, both physically and verbally. "I…um…so, see, it's a big temple, and, um, there could be – well, that is – no one has proof…"
Maine grabbed the top of Wash's helmet and turned it to face him. "Who?" he repeated.
Wash deflated. "South and C.T. were last seen on the lower levels of the temple," he said softly. "Georgia and North were around here when the Covs broke through, but we haven't seen them since. And, um…Florida and Arizona were with that other squad."
Arizona. The way Wash said her name let Maine know all he needed to know. The idea of Florida cracking and killing civilians wasn't necessarily a difficult one to imagine. Maine knew an ONI ghost agent when he saw one, even if Florida was now technically part of Project Freelancer. But Zo wouldn't do that.
Zo wouldn't. Agent Arizona might.
How bad had the battle down here gotten? How much could Maine have prevented?
He held onto Wash a little tighter, a tiny part of him glad that Wash was injured enough to give him the excuse. The rookie – his friend – was actually a really good soldier. Maine knew that. Others thought Wash was only good because he worked so well with Maine, but Maine knew, given the opportunity, Wash could probably outlast all of them.
Probably.
Maine didn't like 'probably.'
"For the millionth time, I'm fine," Washington insisted, barely glancing at Maine over the edge of his datapad to read Maine's unspoken question.
Maine crossed his arms and gave un unconvinced snort, but plopped down onto his own bunk without much of a fuss. That fact alone told Wash that it had been another rough day for the only uninjured Freelancer Agent.
Wash wished he could help. New Harmony left millions dead, hundreds of thousands wounded, and many more thousands missing. The Covenant never did procure whatever artifact they were after, but they had decimated half the planet. The only survivors of Tyumen had been in the temple, and even then, less than a third of the people who entered were alive in the end to leave it. Estimated. They still had to try to extract many of the supposed survivors.
It had been three days, and the UNSC was still sending down rescue parties to bring survivors back to their ships. According to the records and communications Wash was monitoring on his datapad (with proper clearance, of course – he was a special ops agent, he had access to nearly all encrypted communications) there were still several levels of the temple the rescue teams could not get down to. Knowing how close many of the trapped were to dehydration and starvation, they had been stuffing survival kits through whatever holes they could find and hoping the survivors found them.
Wash was fairly certain Maine hadn't actually slept in those three days. He had been constantly moving between the Mother of Invention and the planet, searching for survivors and helping carry the wounded to evac. And there were a lot of wounded. Military units were, for the most part, going to their own respective ships and a few of the other, larger ships were taking on the civilians. But even with only Freelancer personnel, the MoI didn't have nearly enough space or staff in the medical bay to tend to every injury, so only those with life-threatening injuries were actually treated by medical staff. Everyone else was gathered around the experimental healing units in the mess hall, waiting for their turn.
Wash was one of the first people to be operated on to reset his hip properly. Though he wasn't opposed to getting necessary medical attention, he was opposed to being wheeled in ahead of a soldier with a plasma blast through his gut. He told the doctor as much, insisting that he wasn't critical.
The doctor insisted he was.
And Wash didn't have the energy to fight back, so let the sedative do its work and woke up the next day in his own bed with a temporarily bandaged York snoozing in the chair beside him. Though they had the equipment to operate on his hip, they apparently didn't have the space to let him recover in medical bay. His lower half was still covered in armor, locked to act as a brace for his newly aligned hip.
Maine had arrived shortly thereafter and, after scaring away York and checking on Wash's wellbeing for approximately twelve straight hours (okay, so it was a couple minutes, but Maine sure made it feel like hours), filled him in on the state of the planet's surface.
The status, Wash had concluded from Maine's brief descriptions, remained 'pretty fucked.' A bomb had apparently gone off in the temple – how did I not notice that when we were fighting the Covenant? – and the blast had sunk a decent portion of the top level. Finding the remaining survivors was becoming more and more difficult.
As of now, assuming the information in the MoI's database was accurate, about a third of the deployed Freelancer soldiers were still missing, as well as several agents. C.T. and South had made radio contact, at least. They were alive and had found one of the survival kits, so they would remain alive, but they were trapped near the bottom of the temple and had to wait for a while for extraction. Niner had kindly informed them of her position and politely suggested that they provide her with a ship to start transporting people, then even more kindly reminded them that the integrity of their genitals may be at stake should they ignore her request. Wisconsin had also made brief radio contact; he was badly wounded, although Wash didn't know how badly. His file only read 'status – assumed critical.'
North, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona were missing. No radio contact, direct or indirect. No messages or status reports from other soldiers who had seen them. The best lead they had was on Georgia, who had been last seen fighting with a Spartan unit that was missing and not recovered. He was assumed to still be with them. There were reports from other soldiers of a purple-clad sniper in the middle levels of the temple, but the reports were hazy at best.
Florida and Arizona seemed to have truly disappeared. Wash had scrutinized all the reports that he could, determined to be useful despite being unable to move from his bed. He had pointed out some of the details that would (hopefully) help locate North and Georgia, and had helped narrow down where remaining survivors were likely holed up depending on where missing persons were last seen, but he couldn't find anything about the last two Agents.
That, combined with the fact that Carolina had refused to tell them anything back before rescue teams had first arrived, made Wash wonder if they were ever going to return.
He shifted as much as he could to look at Maine. "Rough day?"
Maine grunted, looking up at the ceiling. "Found Wisconsin."
Wash sat up a little straighter. "Yeah? It's not updated on his file yet, how –"
"Dead."
Fuck. "I'm sorry, bud," he said softly. He chewed on his lower lip, hesitantly, before pulling up Wisconsin's file. Status was still 'assumed critical.' Maybe Maine had made a mistake, or heard it from another soldier?
As if reading his mind, Maine rumbled, "Brought him back myself."
"Oh." Wash wasn't certain what to say to that. He and Wisconsin had never been terribly close, but he was part of their team. Wisconsin liked to sing, even though he wasn't very good at it. He would wake everyone up for morning drills by happily shouting out lyrics to the latest pop songs. He liked to cut his pancakes into squares before eating them. He tied a little orange ribbon around his wrist before every mission, though he never said why.
Wash's heart skipped a beat as the realization slowly sunk in. They would never again be woken by the booming, just off-key words of 'baby, baby, you make my heart race faster than any plasma blaster' or snatch the curved pancake edges off Wisconsin's plate. They would never know what the ribbon was for. Wash swallowed. "How…"
"Bled out," Maine answered, not needing any more clarification from Wash.
Bled out. And Wisconsin had contacted them hours after the Covenant attack ended. If he had survived for that long, that meant his death was slow. Wash tried to not think too hard about how Wisconsin must have realized, at some point, that help wasn't coming. Must have known that if he just had access to medical supplies, if he had just been able to find some biofoam or even just a roll of gauze and a coagulating agent, if he just…
No. There was no point in dwelling on it. Not right now, not when there were other living agents that still needed help. "I'm sorry, bud," Wash said. With anyone else, he might have felt the need for more words to accurately convey his actual sympathy. Not with Maine, though.
Maine shrugged, but didn't say anything. It happens.
Yeah. I guess it does. Wash frowned as he studied the datapad. New communications were coming through. Rescue teams had opened up a new section of the temple and found a group of survivors, being cared for by…
"Maine," Wash said suddenly. "I think they found North."
Arizona was aware that she should not have been aboard the Mother of Invention.
After what happened the in temple, after the explosion that she maybe sort of had a little bit to do with, after the Covs attacked and Alpha took over and kept fighting in her body, she should not have been alive to return.
And she certain shouldn't have been released by ONI, who of course managed to pick them up before any of the rescue teams could. ONI wasn't very happy about some of the decisions she and Florida had made, and people who pissed off ONI didn't tend to stick around for very long.
But Florida had requested a private audience with the lead investigator, and the next thing she knew they were back aboard their home ship, where the Director told them with some annoyance to go to Secondary Medical.
Secondary Medical was, apparently, the mess hall.
The problem was that medical bay only had a total of fourteen beds, and after the battle on New Harmony, there were a lot more than fourteen people injured. So, as Arizona found out from others on the ship, the medics were forced to do rush jobs, stabilizing the wounded and sending anyone who could still walk back to their own quarters until the soldiers who were aggressively dying could be patched up and rotated out. With plenty of supplies by limited space and even more limited medical personnel, it was the best they could do.
So the cooks had partnered with a handful of medics to turn half the mess hall into a makeshift infirmary. Everyone aboard the ship sent down spare blankets, pillows, even just piles of fatigues – anything to make the wounded a little bit more comfortable. The lounge was stripped of all its couches and recliners, armor processing sent in their padded carts, even the Director pushed his comfortable office chair through the doors and had roughly ordered all experimental healing units sent down.
It was probably the strongest show of comradery she had seen in Freelancer. Which is really kind of an insult to Freelancer, she thought as she sat under the green glow. There were four functioning healing units aboard, and all of them were whirring softly as they worked overtime to heal the crowd gathered beneath them. She didn't strictly need to be here (okay, well, according to the medics she did, but according to her stomach her Spartan healing enhancements were doing their job, and she could literally eat away her pain), but she had a mission which required her presence in the mess hall.
She stared blankly in the general direction of two soldiers playing a game on a datapad while Alpha honed in on every injured individual, checked their file to see if their injuries had been properly documented (he was weirdly obsessed with systems and protocols, but she supposed that was part of being an AI), and then proceeded to explain exactly why each and every one of them was a complete and utter fuck who deserved every little bump and bruise because none of this would have happened if he had been there and everyone was helpless on their own and Christ, he just had to do everything around here, didn't he?
She let him ramble, not pointing out the fact that she was also injured despite his presence. She made a point of not pointing it out, though, so he still got the hint, and kindly reminded her that all of her injuries were her fault for not listening to him. Because he was not an idiot, thank you very much.
It was true. He wasn't an idiot. She suspected that he was actually a hell of a lot more intelligent and calculating than he let on, because taking over a host body wasn't a laughable feat, and he had successfully taken over hers for nearly an hour when the Covenant broke through. She still wasn't entirely certain how she felt about that. On the one hand, it was disconcerting that an AI had been able to so completely control her, to the point where she wasn't even aware of her actions until after the fact. On the other, he had only done it to protect her. She hadn't been in any condition to fight.
She knew she should go to the Director, to let him know that the AI he had implanted could both jump from host to host and take over host bodies. But…it was Alpha. She trusted Alpha. And it wasn't like the Director could make copies of him or implant him into other hosts, not as long as he felt like keeping Arizona alive. So she kept her silence.
And accepted Alpha's insults as he pointed out her questionable mental capacities and her horribly unkempt brainspace. It was how he showed affection.
He scoffed at that. But he didn't exactly deny it, either. 'If you're finished accusing me of affection, your target has arrived.'
Arizona turned around to where the cooks were loading their fresh supply crates into the kitchens. She still had her helmet on – mostly because it made it easier for Alpha to access ship and personnel records, but a little but because wearing full armor hid exactly how swollen and purple her skin had become – so Alpha used her targeting system to highlight one of the crates on her HUD. 'In that one. It's just one crate, so you'll have to be fast.'
Got it. Thanks. She stood and approached the cooks, lifting one of the crates (not her target, she couldn't be too obvious) and carried it to the kitchen.
"Um…Agent? Ma'am?" One of the cooks was looking at her uncertainly. With her armor on, she was actually a little taller than him. "I, um, don't think you're supposed to be…um…exerting yourself. Ma'am." 'Holy crap, I think the dude is about to piss himself. Must be new, or he would know you're the least worrying Freelancer to be around.'
Hey. I take minor offense to that. Arizona shrugged at the cook, which was admittedly both difficult and painful with the extra weight of the crate in her arms. Her many fractured bones were still, in fact, fractured. "Not much else that little Christmas light can do for me," she said, nodding toward the closest healing unit, "and I'm bored out of my skull." When he continued to look uncertain, she started pouting. Self-respect be damned, this was too important a mission to fuck up. "Come on…three crates and I swear I'll go away. Promise."
The cook chewed uncertainly on his lip, but eventually shrugged in defeat. "Okay. Just…just don't tell anyone, okay?"
"Lips are sealed," she promised. She nodded toward the kitchens. "Do me a favor and keep your buddies from harassing me? You know how us bored Freelancers sometimes punch things on accident."
He sighed. "Right. Three crates. Then…I'm sorry, Ma'am, but you'll have to leave."
"It will be like I never showed up," she told him lightly, carrying the crate toward the kitchen as he muttered something under his breath and walked away. 'Real smooth.'
It worked, didn't it?
'That seems to be your standard for everything. You know, even when something technically works, that doesn't mean it works well. You could, you know, try being a little more self-aware. Or smart. Yeah, actually, let's just start with that one. Try being smart.'
Thought that's what you were here for, she told him as she approached her targeted crate and lifted it. She carried it toward the kitchen, keeping an eye on her motion trackers. When she reached a relatively secluded corner, she set it down and popped the lid off.
'Well, I mean, yeah. But that doesn't do us much good if you never listen, and you get all bitchy when I try to borrow your motor cortex.'
You're hijacking my own body! It's really unsettling! So yeah, I'm gonna be bitchy about it.
'Look, all I'm saying is we could make a great team if you would just…you know…scoot over and let me run the show. I mean, being in charge is what I'm designed to do. Company in five, by the way.'
Five what?
'Seconds. Four.'
She cursed and quickly grabbed her cargo, stuffing the contraband into her ammo pockets. This is why you aren't in charge.
'Do you ever use those pockets for ammo? And just duck behind the crate or something, you'll be fine.'
She did, waiting for Alpha to give her the all clear before standing up again. I use my pockets for whatever I need to carry, thank you very little, she scoffed at him as she left the kitchen and exited the mess hall, maintaining a casual cadence. Well, as casual as possible with half her skeletal structure still in shambles.
'Drama queen.'
Ignoring Alpha's commentary on her inner dialogue, she made her way to the barracks. She punched the passcode into a door panel and slipped quietly inside. The common room was only half-lit. She could hear soft snoring from the room on the left, and quiet conversation from the room on the right. Perfect. North and York first, then.
Their door was open, but both men were lying in bed, so Arizona knocked softly on the doorframe. York sat up first, while North rolled to his side just enough to peak at her past the covers. "Hey."
"Zo? You're back?" York said, surprised and a little hesitant. Most of the Freelancers who had seen her since her return acted in much the same way, and she supposed she couldn't blame them. After all, the last thing she had done in the public eye before New Harmony was rip a guy's heart out, and then she and Florida got taken in by ONI. She would be suspicious as well. After a moment, York frowned. "Wait, shouldn't you be in medical or something? Last I heard you broke, like, every bone in your body. And not as a figure of speech."
She snorted. "Not every bone. Medics told me to sit under a unit for an hour a day. Other than that, I'm just supposed to keep my armor on. Guess it doubles as a full-body cast. Who knew?"
North sat up a little straighter. "Don't think you're supposed to be walking around, though," he said, but he sounded almost like he was chuckling.
She cocked her head to the side. "Yeah, but I can't run supply acquisition by sitting around, can I?" she pointed out, waiting for his reaction.
'You're so mean.'
It's so easy to bait him, though!
'I know, and it's fucking hilarious. Just. You know. Kinda mean.'
"The Director has you going on missions?" North asked incredulously, his signature worry lines wrinkling his face. "That doesn't seem safe. Maybe I should go talk to Carolina…" He made to get out of bed. Arizona stopped him by nailing him in the face with a Jello cup. To his credit, he probably would have caught it if his arm weren't encumbered by bandages. "What the…"
"Results of the latest supply acquisition," she informed him, tossing York his allotted cup.
"How did you manage that?" York asked, successfully snatching his cup out of the air.
"Some of us infiltration specialists are actually good at infiltration."
York scowled. "Hey," he protested, but didn't bother to elaborate. 'You know York's lockpicking record is actually a lot better than yours,' Alpha pointed out.
Yeah, I know. So does he. "Anyway," she said aloud, "sorry for the whole…uh…thing with Dr. Murdock."
North tilted his head to the side a little as York broke into his loot. "Florida showed us the article about what he did," he said softly. "No one really blames you. It was just…a little unsettling."
"Yeah," she agreed. "I imagine so."
"Oh, speaking of Florida," North said. Oh shit, here it comes. "What happened to you guys in the temple?"
"Just got separated from the group when the Covs attacked," she said, completely circumventing the actual question. "Anyway," she said before North could clarify, "I have precious cargo to deliver, and I have to do so before Maine gets back. Pretty sure I'm on his kill list right now for keeping him out of the ground battle. Gotta get people in a good mood before he finds me. I want a stirring eulogy."
North rolled his eyes, but York put a hand over his heart and looked toward the ceiling. "Agent Arizona. She lived as she died – using blatant bribery to cover her many failures. Her delicious manipulations will never be forgotten. She was a true Freelancer – bitchy, underhanded, a complete pain in the ass…"
"Oh, stop it, York, I'm gonna cry," she responded dryly as York winked. She pointed at him. "Don't steal Wash's jello. I'll know."
His eyes widened in innocence. "I would never do such a thing."
"You always do stuff like that," North reminded him.
"I will set Maine on you if you so much think about it," Arizona warned him as she backed out. She paused. "Uh, Maine isn't…um…here, right?"
North grinned and shook his head. "Thanks, Zo," he said as she left and slipped quietly into Washington and Maine's room.
Wash was asleep on his bed, only a small tuft of hair visible. The rest of his body was hidden under covers. It took her a moment to realize that his bottom half must have still been in armor from the way the covers rose awkwardly halfway down his body. For his hip. Right.
She carefully picked her way toward the little stand next to Wash's bed and set several cups on it. Maine would steal it if she only left one. Actually, she was sort of planning on Maine stealing one. He deserved something nice for a change.
They all deserved something nice for a change.
