This, I hope, will be my last author's note. This story takes place towards the end of Season 5 of Red vs. Blue and after the last season of Star Trek: The Next Generation so that I could get the most of all the characters. I say this now because I was hoping the RvB would be somewhat of a surprise. I hope this will last for several chapters until I can get a good ending for it. Also, for people who never watched RvB, Sarge goofed up and made Lopez speak only Spanish. Enjoy.
Chapter 2: Loud as a Sarge
It had been relatively calm in Blood Gulch for the last two months. There had been no sign of the evil AI O'Malley, and no freelancers, except for Tex, had shown up. Of coarse the Reds and the Blues bickered constantly and even occasionally took shots at the other side, but no one had died and it looked like that wouldn't change. Only Tucker had any clue as the true reason for the mild peace. He looked down at his sword. It was because of it that he knew that this wasn't how their world was supposed to be. 'It's because of that Wyoming jerk,' he thought to himself. 'Using time like his own personal plaything. When he couldn't reset the events before his death, he froze time and escaped. But he'll be back. And when he does, I'm totally gonna fuck him up,' the soldier in teal armor thought as he was standing on top of blue base.
Standing a few feet, Church, in bright blue armor, was having his own internal thoughts. 'I fucking hate Caboose, I fucking hate Tucker, hell, I fucking hate everyone.' Out loud he said, "Hey, Caboose, get up here right now. I need you to spy on the Reds."
A soldier in standard blue armor came up the ramp and onto the top of the base. "You need me to help you, Church? Does this mean that you are not mad at me anymore? I did not know you wanted the pin and the grenade, together. I wanted the pin so that I could write my name. I did not know it would make Church go boom. And it was out of ink, too."
Church felt a new wave of anger surge through him. He immediately tried to calm down. 'Imagine Caboose getting hit by a rocket. Imagine all the Reds getting some sort of virus that caused them to die a horribly painful death. That would make me happy,' Church thought. Through clenched teeth, Church said, "Yes, I need you to take that sniper rifle there on the ground and spy on the Reds. There are three strangers in the middle of the canyon and Grif and Simmonds are on their way to meet them."
Tucker walked over and said, "Hey why don't you do it yourself? Oh, yeah that's right. Your arms shorted out after the grenade incident. They don't work at all anymore. Hah, they work harder now than you ever did."
"Shut up, Tucker," Church ordered.
"You know what I think," Tucker continued. "I think your arms were already damaged before the grenade got you. You wore out the servos flipping your switch all the time. Bow-chicka-wow-wow!"
"Shuut uup, Tuucker," Church strained to get out.
"Out of all of us, you probably turned yourself on the most. Bow-chicka-wow-wow!"
Church lost control. "Shut up, Tucker, just shut the hell up now."
"The Reds are talking with the new guys now," Caboose said, looking through the sniper rifle.
"What are they talking about?" Tucker asked.
Church felt his anger surge again. "How can he know what they're saying. They half a canyon away from us, dumbass."
"Don't worry, Church, I can read lips," Caboose said.
"Caboose, you can't even read a book, let alone lips," Church pointed out.
"I can too read books. I can read books if they have no words or no pictures or no pages."
"There are no books like that, Caboose."
"Not my fault," Caboose answered. Then he started trying to read the conversation in the middle of the canyon to the best of his abilities. "The red one is saying, 'Why do you want Caboose to be your friend and not us?' And the tall one is saying, 'Because we think Caboose is cool and is awesome. If we had a baseball team, we would pick him first, and we would win the game and give the VPM award to him.' Then the yellow one is talking, 'But we want Caboose to join our team."
"Be quiet, Caboose," Church said.
"Then the pale one is saying out loud, 'We should cut Caboose in halfs and make two Cabooses. The two Cabooses can be friends with each other and Church. Then Church would be twice as happy. Because Caboose is Church's best friend. Then he would have two best friends."
Church sighed and turned around. Tucker decided to take one last jab at his leader. "What hurts the most? How annoying it is or how true it is?"
"I'm going to go lay down someplace, away from him, or anyone else," Church said. Then he walked down the ramp and out of sight.
Tucker turned and watched Caboose for another minute while his fellow soldier continued to "translate." "Hey, Caboose, you do realize the Reds have their helmets on and the strangers have their backs to you? How are you reading their lips?"
"I am reading their helmet lips and their back lips," Caboose answered.
The Reds got in their vehicle and drove away. Then the strangers stood at attention. Tucker's ears twitched. "Woah, he just said something about getting beamed. Bow-chicka-wow-wow!" he yelled at the top of his voice as the three officers faded away.
"Now I am reading their invisible lips. The tall one is saying, 'Now we can become Caboose's friends forever. We'll join his other invisible friends like Roger and Teddy and Bobby and Church Number Two."
Tucker started to back away. "I don't like where this is going. I'm splittin' now." Tucker quickly walked down into the base.
Caboose, not caring that no one was still there, continued. "And we can have invisible tea and invisible cookies and wear invisible party hats. And we can watch an invisible clown blow up invisible balloons and we can see an invisible magician turn an invisible rabbit to where you can't see it. That would be the bestest party ever." Caboose kept talking for several hours until it was food-naptime.
Meanwhile, aboard the Enterprise, Riker had just finished his report. He could tell that his captain wasn't entirely happy.
"So, that is all that you discovered?" Captain Picard asked.
"Yes, sir."
Picard sat there for a couple moments. "I see. It never crossed your mind to find the other inhabitants. You left the planet without questioning the other people. One of them could have given you the answer we needed."
Riker felt a sliver of shame to be scolded by the man he respected most. "You're right, sir. It's inexcusable."
Picard sighed. "How do you believe we should proceed?"
"First, I don't think Worf should return to the surface for a while. He was just barely able to contain himself down there. I also think we should bring Counselor Troi with us. These Reds and Blues are likely suffering from some kind of traumatic stress from fighting each other. They may have been fighting for years. She could help us find out how we can help them and how we might can get back to our own universe."
"Do you think that it's wise to have a non-combatant in the middle of a potential war-zone. And if she were to go down there, Lieutenant Worf would insist on being on the away team. I'm afraid I have to decline your request. You can handle yourself in combat and negotiations. I have the utmost confidence that you can handle this situation without any additional help. I do admit that these people seem like they would be hard to deal with." Picard rubbed his forehead. "Q knows how to give me a headache."
Just then, "Commander Data to Captain Picard."
Picard tapped his comm badge. "This is Picard. What is it?"
"We just recieved a signal from the planet, audio only. You will need to hear it."
Picard stood up and walked onto the bridge followed by Riker. Picard nodded to Data who played the signal for all on the bridge to hear.
"Hello, this is the sergeant for Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha 1," came the gruff voice one the intercom. "Is this Red Command?"
"This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise. We are not your Red Command."
There was a short pause. "Are you sure? This isn't Vic playing one of those crazy jokes of his is it? You know, like when he pretended to be helping the Blues?" There was another silence. "Ha! Ha! I get it. Your in disguise, aren't you? There's a top secret mission brewing, isn't it. You're pretending not to be Red Command because you don't want the Blues to know 'til it's too late. C'mon, tell me what the plan is and my men and even my Grif will attack the blues from our end."
Picard and Riker exchanged glances. "We are not Red Command, Mister, um, what was your name again?"
"Does it involve filling the blue base with cockroaches, and then using a enlarger beam to make the roaches the size of three men and then having them viciously eat the Blues one at a time? Ooh, I bet you use a time machine to go back in time and kill the first Blue's father. Then that commie blue bastard would never be born."
"No," Picard said. "If you would please stop for a moment, we could explain."
"It has to do with Grif, doesn't it," Sarge continued. "I bet Red Command secretly created him through centuries of intense genetic research. The final product is someone that is so annoying, so lazy, and so stupid that any self-respecting commander would have no choice but to hate his infernal guts. Then they would station him at the most strategic position and wait for his sergeant's anger to build into a fiery inferno. Then that sergeant would shoot him a thousand times in the head, therefore, releasing a deadly virus that affects only Blues. Then every Blue in the universe would die a painful, yet deserving, death."
The bridge of the Enterprise was void of sound.
"In my many years of experience, I've learned that silence means yes. Hey, Simmonds, it looks like my Grif being a walking virus hive theory was right."
"I never doubted it for a moment, sir," Simmonds answered back.
Picard wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Is there anyone else there that we can talk to?
"Why yes there is. This is Lopez. He's almost like a son to me. Say hello to the nice Red Command people, Lopez."
There was a long pause before a voice responded. "Please do not make me do this. I do not want to meet any new people. I do not not want to know the people I know now. I wish I had a self-destruct mechanism."
"Heh, that's my boy, alright," Sarge said, proudly. "I built him with my very own sweat and blood. He was the product of years of study and hard-work. Now he's the picture of perfection. It's all because of my excellent parenting skills."
"You're right, sir," Simmonds said. "I wish you were my dad, sir."
"Kiss-ass," Grif muttered.
"The only thing that you taught me was to hate Grif and Blues. But no matter what you say, there is one Blue that I will never hate. My beautiful Sheila. It feels like centuries since my eyes have laid upon her lovely visage."
Sarge sounded like he was about to cry. "I love you too, Lopez. I'm really touched you would say something like about your old man. All this father-son talk makes me want to enter us into the Red Team father-son sack racing league. How about me and you go hunt us some Grif and skin his hide for the sack."
Picard motioned for the audio to be cut. "It's almost like the two of them are speaking different languages."
Riker nodded. "Communication will be difficult with these people. The orange one, Grif, I believe, said the Blues were even worse."
Picard took a few moments to think. "I believe that, for a while anyway, we should avoid contact, and just observe their behavior. Surely, that way, we can find out what we need to do to get back to our universe."
"Right, I'll go and form several away teams to watch them," Riker said, then left the bridge.
Picard sat down in his command chair. 'Maybe I was too tough on Riker a little bit ago. These people seem oblivious to anyone but themselves and their war.'
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Meanwhile at Red Base, Sarge kept rambling. "All this family talk's reminding me of that song I used to sing to you right after you were built. Sing along, Lopez. The doohickey bone's connected to the thingymajig bone, thingymajig bone's connected to the something-something bone, the something-something bone's connected to robobone and that's how I made Lopez's leg. You're my favorite son, Lopez."
"I hate you. I wish Grif was my dad, cockbite."
