Okay, Petchricor asked me to write this one. I hope I'm doing her work justice. Enjoy!
The Freelancers step off of the transport, and we're greeted by the cool breeze of the forest moon. It's nice, considering that the warmth and humidity are absurd. We have a few days off while the Mother of Invention is docked and being upgraded, and we decided to spend it hiking and camping. North, South, CT, Wash, Maine, Wyoming, Florida, York, Carolina, Tex, Delaware, New Jersey, Colorado, Arizona, Alaska, and I (Nevada) begin walking into the forest.
"I thought forests were cool," whines South, "What was the point of bringing the warm clothes and the insulated tents and sleeping bags if it's so damn hot?"
"This place pretty much freezes at night," I say, "That's why."
"Are you sure it was a good idea to leave our armor on the ship?" Arizona asks nervously. "What if we run into a bear or something?"
"Ari," York says, nonchalant as ever, "We're a group of sixteen special forces soldiers with hunting knives, pistols, hunting rifles, and a bow that I have no idea how Tex got. I think we can handle a bear."
"What about two bears?" Wash asks.
"Wash," Delaware sighs, "If we ever run into two bears at once, they'll probably be too busy fighting each other to care about us."
"But-" Wash starts.
"And by the time one of them wins," Carolina cuts him off, "We'll already be long gone."
"Where should we go first?" CT asks, looking around.
Tex pulls out a map. "There's a big lake nearby. Looks like a good place to go swimming."
"Sounds good to me," North says, "Let's go."
We head to the lake, and Wyoming manages to take down some large birds with his hunting rifle. We congratulate him after each kill, and he responds with a simple bow.
"Where'd you learn to hunt?" Alaska asks at one point.
"I'm a member of several hunting lodges back on Earth," Wyoming replies, "I was actually considering starting one of my own when I get back."
"Nice," Florida says, "We could all work there. You could be the manager who runs the show, York could be the bartender that everyone likes to talk to, Nevada and Maine could be the heads of security, North and Colorado could be the instructors, Wash could be the guy that checks people in, Carolina, CT, Jersey, Delaware and South could be waitresses, Tex could play guitar for the customers, Arizona could play violin, Alaska could be room service, and I could be the cook."
Alaska, Carolina, Jersey, Delaware, CT and South glare at him, but York whistles appreciatively. "Why didn't you tell us you could cook?" he asks, "We could have your stuff instead of the processed shit we get at the mess hall."
"I don't have anything to work with," Florida counters, "If someone could get a kitchen set up in the rec room, then we could talk."
"Done," Wash says, "I'm sick of the mess hall food."
Everyone heartily voices their agreement, and just then we finally reach the lake. The guys and girls each head behind a separate group of bushes to change, then we all return to the beach.
"Alright," Tex says as we stand on a conveniently placed pier, "Who's going in first?"
Carolina looks as if she's about to move, but Maine suddenly rockets past her and cannonballs into the lake, drenching the remaining fifteen of us. Amid cries of protest and anguish, Maine resurfaces and gives us a broad grin. We all jump in behind him. We have fun just relaxing in the water, but then South launches some water at North, and a huge water fight ensues. It ends when I team up with Colorado and Tex to destroy the others.
Eventually we get out of the water and dry off, and we decide to make camp. Colorado, Maine and I decide to get some firewood while the others set up camp. At one point, we turn around and see a bear staring at us. I slowly signal to the others to get their knives, but the bear suddenly charges. I roll to the side, pull out my knife, and stick it in the creature's side, but only succeed in angering it. It swings a massive paw at me, but I duck and go for it's face. It knocks me down and is about to maul me, but then I hear several pistol shots, and see Maine reloading. The bear turns to him, only for Colorado to leap on it's back and plunge his knife into it's neck. The beast roars, falters, and collapses to the ground, dead.
"Thanks," I say, and look again at the bear. "That's one huge fucker!"
"Yeah," Maine says.
"I have an idea," Colorado says, "We skin it and put the fur on one of us, then we head back to camp and scare the crap out of the others."
Maine and I laugh and agree, and within a few minutes the bear is skinned. I don the massive fur coat, and Colorado and Maine head back to the camp. I wait just out of sight until I hear Colorado whistle the Spartan oly oly oxen free, then I lumber into the camp like a bear. Everyone screams and points hunting rifles and pistols at me, and Maine, Colorado and I start laughing as I shake the skin loose. Carolina, Delaware, and South then proceed to start hitting us with wet towels while the others join in on the laughter. I think Wash and Arizona might have started hitting us at one point. We run around the camp, yelling things like, "Ow! Ow! Ow! Stop! Ow!" and "Come on, you have to admit is was fun- OW! Stop it!"
Eventually the others decide our punishment is done, and we all settle down beside the fire, courtesy of Alaska.
"Hey," CT says, "How about some s'mores?"
Everyone cheers except Colorado and me.
"The hell are s'mores?" I ask.
Everyone stares at the two of us with a look of shock and horror.
"You don't know what s'mores are?!" Wash yells.
"Man," CT says, "We need to get you two educated."
At this, Colorado groans and puts his head in his hands. "Please, no more movie marathons!"
Everyone laughs, then North, York, and Tex start passing out graham crackers, chocolate bars, and marshmallows. Meanwhile I leave for a few moments to set up a sonic emitter to keep the wildlife away.
"What are you doing?" Carolina asks.
"Remember the bear skin I used to scare you?" I ask, receiving nods from everyone. "Well, that thing almost mauled me, so I'm setting up this sonic emitter to keep the wildlife away so I don't die in my sleep. Also, I learned during training that I seem to have mosquito bait built into my blood, so I have to be very careful so I don't get any diseases."
A chorus of "Ah" and "I see" sounds from the group, and I finish setting the emitter up and sit back down by the fire.
"See," York says, "You hold the marshmallow over the fire for a bit, then you use the graham crackers and the chocolate to make a sandwich. It's that easy."
I look around suspiciously. "I get the feeling this is going to turn into a prank somehow."
North looks at the package of marshmallows. "Extra sticky... shit."
We look over to see Maine look up, try to open his mouth, and fail miserably. South and Alaska break into laughter, but are soon cut off by a muffled growl from Maine.
"Okay," Alaska says, "No translation needed."
Arizona walks over to one of the tents. "Luckily," he says, "I saw something like this coming and brought some dissolver along. Bad thing is, it tastes like the soda in the mess hall." All of us except for me cringe at the comparison; I never liked soda anyways.
We eventually manage to unstick Maine's mouth and find the regular marshmallows that someone brought, and we settle back down by the fire. I take a bite of my first s'more, and about two minutes later I'm on my tenth.
"Dude," York says, "Save some for us, would you?"
Colorado, who is eating almost as fast as me, mumbles something like, "Can't talk, must eat."
"I told you you'd like them," CT says smugly.
"No," I say, "You kinda didn't."
"Sure I did!"
"You said 'we need to get you two educated,' then Colorado almost had a breakdown."
CT grumbles and kicks the ground a little. After a few more minutes, we decide to tell some stories, or jokes if we can't think of a story. I happen to get chosen first.
"Okay, so once during training, we were working with staffs, which I'm pretty good at, but not nearly so much as some others. So we're working, and all of a sudden I hear a loud crack and someone hitting the floor. I turn to see Nira standing over this other guy, Zach, with a broken staff, saying, 'Sorry, I meant to hit your shoulder!'" The others start laughing. "That's not it," I say, "So our head trainer, CPO Mendez, comes over and he's like, 'What just happened?' And Nira's like 'I hit him in the shoulder, but for some reason he moved his skull in the way!' Then our dear friend Colorado over there is like, 'Well, at least you didn't hit anything important.'" The others are dying at this point.
Then Colorado, insufferable bastard that he is, tries to one-up me. "Okay, so every time one of the Spartans had a birthday, Doctor Halsey would 'conveniently' bring in some cupcakes and 'accidentally' leave the door to her office unlocked. So one time, I think it was John's birthday, like, a few weeks after the augmentations, we went in and the lights were off. Someone goes to turn them on and CPO Mendez is sitting in a chair with a cigar, saying 'Spartans, what in the hell made you think you could be in here?' So we eventually explain and he says, 'Oh, you couldn't possibly mean those cupcakes I saw lying around earlier.' So, we're all standing there looking dejected, and he suddenly starts laughing and says, 'I thought you meant that cake over there.' So we turn around and see this MASSIVE cake being wheeled in. He told us that it's our reward for completing the training and the augmentations." Everyone laughs at how close of a call it was.
We spend the rest of the evening telling stories, and when it gets dark, we decide to roll die to decide who goes in which tent. I roll first, at the urging of the other Agents. I go into the tent arbitrarily labeled as number four, unroll my sleeping bag, and crawl inside. I hear the others joking around outside as they say goodnight, then several dark shapes crawl into the tent. I quickly fall asleep, my left arm draped over my stomach, the watch on my wrist slowly ticking the minutes away. Around midnight, I'm awakened by the sound of someone crawling over to me, and a feminine hand on my chest. As the hand moves lower, I decide to pretend I'm asleep to see how far they'll take it, but Leonidas has other plans.
Leonidas projects his hologram, an ancient Spartan warrior, and raises his holographic shield and spear. "Sorry," he says, "He's taken." The figure retracts her hand and leaves. I sleep once more.
The next morning, I wake up to the smell of roasting meat. I walk out of the tent and see Florida cooking some small creatures, and Colorado looking very pleased with himself. I look questioningly at the animals and Colorado says, "Caught them myself."
Eventually the others gather around the fire, and breakfast is served. Leonidas projects his image on the log next to me, his hologram sitting cross-legged with his shield, spear and sword laid out in front of him.
"I have an idea," North says, "Let's have a hunting contest. We meet back at the camp in an hour or two, and the person with the most, or biggest, kills wins."
We all agree, and soon each of us has a hunting rifle, a pistol, a hunting knife, a map, a compass, a radio, and some rope to tie up our kills. I head north first, and I almost immediately encounter a flock of birds. I manage to take down six of them, and I tie them to my belt and move on. I soon find deer, and I manage to take one down with a clean headshot. Before I can take another down, I hear a rifle crack and my mark falls. I then hear "Hell yeah, eye-shot!" over my radio.
"Really, Colorado?" I say, "Friggin' kill-stealer."
"Hey," he says, "I'm a sniper. It's my job."
I eventually take down several more birds, some rabbits, and even some raccoons. I turn south to head back, only to find a bear blocking my path. "Really? Again?" I say, disbelievingly. The bear charges, and I use my full Spartan strength to leap over it and land on its back; it's, thankfully, significantly smaller than the one I encountered earlier. I draw my knife and plunge it into the base of the beast's skull. It crumples, and I use my remaining rope to tie it up.
When I reach the camp, most of the others are already there. They all look disbelievingly as I stack up my kills near a sign with my name on it; a dozen birds, ten rabbits, three deer, two raccoons, and, of course, the bear.
"We're having a feast tonight, boys," Florida laughs. Most of the others join in, but South and Carolina look bitter.
Eventually the rest get back, and we tally up out scores; Colorado beats me by one deer.
Some of us cry our objections, and I say "Why do the kill-stealers always win?"
Colorado grins, "'Cause we don't let anyone else get any kills."
A moment later, Colorado's smile disappears; Wyoming has him beaten by ten birds and six rabbits.
"Why?!" Colorado cries. Wyoming simply laughs and gives him a mock salute.
An instant later we all freeze as the radio crackled to life, and Four Seven Niner comes on; the port where the Mother of Invention is docked is under attack, and we're to head back to the ship and gear up.
"No rest for the weary, eh?" I say as we immediately begin disassembling our camp. Half an hour later, we're on a Pelican, heading back to the ship. Our hunting kills are stacked in the spare cargo compartment. Within minutes we're on the ship, and ready to go back to work.