A/N: Welcome to another installment of The Few. Thank you to you dedicated readers out there. If you have any complaints or concerns, don't be afraid to tell me, I accept ALL reviews. Anyways, you guys probably want me to shut the hell up and let you read the story of Zeta Squad, so… HERE YOU GO!

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Chapter 4: We're Finally Out…

Paris Blue Zone

Paris, France

Time: 0630 Hours (6:30 AM)

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, lets make this work and get those tired men out of that devastated city and back here for some R&R" said Lieutenant Farnes, loudly, addressing the rest of the Command Room.

"Air Group preparing to roll" reported one of the Lt's helping with the task,

"Satellite 06 almost in position, feed coming up right… about… now" Farnes looked at the big screen at one end of the room and, with a bit of static, the screen came to life. Farnes' jaw dropped at the scene of the chaos going on in the streets. They saw the blue dots representing Zeta and Charlie squads in the house and the other blue dots representing the Spec Ops group in the hospital just up the road and around the corner. However there were also multiple red dots, squares, and sporadic triangles on the screen showing hostile infantry, the dots, vehicles, squares, and the sporadic appearing triangles, aircraft, all hammering the two positions.

"Who the hell is monitoring the com channels?" Farnes shouted, while turning around, he saw them all standing up but he also noticed one guy lean over and hit a button on his console and all of a sudden the room was filled with voices coming over the intercom. The voices were all jumbled together because of all the use of the com system but they were able to pick out bits and pieces of information,

"…We have one man wounded and two more KIA at our position, command, we need to get the hell out of here over!" shouted Lopez over the radio. This new bit of information snapped Farnes back to reality as he started to shout commands to everyone in the room,

"Our plan has already gone to hell! Launch all close-air support aircraft to those positions!" already several officers were snapping to work on what they were told, "I want those Onyx's in the air ASAP! Someone get Space Com on the horn, we need some Zone Troopers in the region, now!" Farnes finished as he stared back at the screen. He muttered a quick prayer for the men and than activated his headset before he said,

"Zeta Squad, this is Lieutenant Farnes, we are deploying every asset we have to get you out of there. Just hold on for a couple more minutes." he than just stared at the screen thinking of how this might end. So far it didn't seem pretty.

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Portugal Yellow Zone

Lisbon, Portugal

Time: 0633 Hours (6:33 AM)

"…Just hold on for a couple more minutes" Lopez, surprised by what he heard, stopped firing and just sat there staring off into space. Noticing this Higgins, angered that his man wasn't laying down his fair share of hurt on the Nod bastards that surprised them just a couple minutes after they sent their 'last' transmission to command, he looked straight at him and yelled,

"Lopez, why the hell aren't you shooting? Did you reach command? Are they sending help?" Lopez only nodded and confused, Higgins ran close to him and asked,

"Lopez, pay attention, what are they sending?" Higgins asked, snapping Lopez back to reality before replying

"Everything" Higgins stared at him in shock and than shook himself back to reality. Before he could ask what he was thinking, Malcolm beat him to the punch,

"Everything? On just us? We're that important?"

"Guess so" replied Lopez as he got back to shooting out his window. This jolted Higgins back to reality. He looked back to the back of the building and saw Hernandez wounded in the shin with gauze over it and two more bodies covered with tarps and cloth found in the building. Higgins shook his head and rushed back to the window that he was shooting from on the bottom floor while Charlie Squad was right above them firing down on the hostiles trying to swarm their position and end their lives. Hearing screaming and insults he looked at the street and saw a bunch of militants charging towards his position as fast as they could. Angered, Higgins raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger with all his might sending GDI's love towards the assholes. One bullet struck a militant in the chest, dropping him, while another hit a militant in the arm, spinning him around, before another one hit him in the back sending him sprawling onto the ground face-first. As he was sending flaming shards of lead down range he heard the distant roar of aircraft. Expecting another Nod air strike he yelled out,

"Get down!" he than ducked down but when the bombs that were dropped landed on the militants and busted into flames, he looked up at the planes overhead and seeing them in the shape of Firehawks and seeing the GDI eagle he yelled,

"Friendly planes have arrived! Lopez get on the radio and start directing better air strikes!" Lopez muttered an affirmative as everyone else were cheering and screaming insults at the Nod soldiers. Higgins cheered as well but than he heard his com system beeping saying that someone was trying to contact him. He raised his left hand up and hit the button that would activate his long range transmitter.

"This is Higgins, loving the Firehawks, over" he heard a laugh at the other end and than Farnes replied,

"Yeah, I'm sure your are. Zone Troopers will be landing at your location, ETA, three minutes…"

"I'm sorry to interrupt sir, but, did you just say Zone Troopers?" Higgins asked in shock

"…yes, yes I did soldier. Once they land however I need you and Charlie Squad to haul ass to the hospital up and around the street while the Zone Troopers cover you, how copy?" Farnes finished and after awhile of staring into space, Higgins shook his head and than said,

"Hard copy command, can't wait to get out of this hellhole. See you on the other side sir" Higgins said. Farnes muttered an affirmative and than the com link closed leaving the Sergeant there thinking when Jonas came over their shared SquadNet and asked,

"Higgins, what's going on? Don't leave me out of the loop here" Higgins snapped back to reality. He laughed a little and replied,

"Command is sending some Zone Troopers to our position. Once they land, we have to move to a hospital down the street under the covering fire that the Zoners will supply. Once we get to the hospital I'm guessing we are going to be picked up and taken to command" after that Jonas muttered something about the KIA and than he cut the link. Higgins shook his head and than started mowing down any militants that got too close to their position in the house. What seemed like half a hour later he heard a distant sound that was like screaming and than he heard thrusters popping into action and than a massive oval shaped object with the GDI eagle on the side of the thrusters landed in the street with a thud. Seconds later the sections of metal in between the four thrusters came flying off, crashing into walls of structure and one even slammed into a couple of militants, splattering them into a wall. Zone Troopers came pouring out of the pod firing their Gauss Rifles at Nod militants, vehicles, and even one shot down a Venom that wandered too close to the powerful Zone Troopers. Higgins watched in amazement as they cleared out all the Nod combatants that were stupid enough not to retreat back around the corners of the block. Higgins stood up from the crouching position he was in and, reloading his rifle, said,

"Alright guys, gather your equipment, get ready to move"

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"This is Zeta Squad. We are Oscar Mike to the exfill point, how copy" said Lopez over the radio. Farnes lifted his finger and held down the button on the side of his headset and replied,

"Hard copy Zeta Squad, good luck" he lowered his hand and smiled to himself. 'I did it, these men are going to be brought home' he thought as he crossed his arms and stared at the screen. Zeta and Charlie Squad were in route to the hospital covered by the Zone Trooper drop team, a Onyx was on it's way to pick them up and bring them home, and this was accomplished with minor casualties. All in all, he thought he did pretty well, 'But there not out yet, stay alert' his brain told him, which was true, Nod could attack at any second and completely devastate the ground forces or shoot down the Onyx. He heard foot steps coming from behind them, the person stopped next to him but Farnes was just staring at the screen with a smile on his face,

"I guess you did it" he heard the person say. He looked over and, seeing that it was his friend Kimble, smiled even bigger,

"They're not out of that hole yet" he replied as he fully turned his head to look at her. She had her hands on her hips and a smile on her face. He couldn't help but notice how the uniform she wore showed her curves and how thin she was. As he was looking over his friend he heard,

"Ahem… Farnes, my eyes are up here" he real quickly snapped his eyes back up to look straight into hers,

"Sorry, I guess I zoned out" he said while turning his head back to the screen and started doing some mental calculations about what would happen and how he would retaliate if something were to go wrong now. He was snapped out of his predicting when he heard giggling, he looked back over at Kimble with a surprised look,

"Your too serious sometimes Farnes" she started running her finger on his back, making circles, and said, "You need to relax, see beyond the war" with that she lowered her hand, turned, and went back to her station. This left him with a lot to think about, 'Maybe I am too serious, so stuck on the job' he thought. He mentally shrugged, 'Oh well' than he went back to making sure the men made it out safe and sound. His eyes went wide, there were no more hostiles on the screen. They turned and ran from them.

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Higgins was sitting in the corner of the lobby that his, Jonas', and the Zoners' squad had to defend. He had his helmet off and was inspecting his equipment when he heard something heavy coming into contact with the floor multiple times, 'Just one of the Zoners walking around. Damn bastards make too much noise. But, why does the thudding keep getting closer?' than it hit him, one was walking towards him. He didn't have anything against Zone Troopers but when they arrived at the hospital and found out that there were no more Nod in the area he went to sit in a chair in the corner so he could be left alone. He'd let his men do the story telling and cracking jokes with them. He than heard the Trooper stop. Higgins looked up and, sure enough, there was a giant powered, humanoid shaped, tin can in front of him. The visor was raised showing a gruff man in his late thirties with a shaven head and face,

"Are you in the command of the men over there?" asked the Trooper as he waved one hand towards the rest of Zeta Squad. Higgins went back to cleaning his helmet and said,

"Yes I am, what about them?" he heard rotors screaming and than a thud that announced that the Trooper sat down in a chair. Higgins, happy with the work he's done, slipped his helmet back on and reactivated the HUD that saved his life more times than he could count.

"I was wondering about your man, Hernandez…" Higgins interrupted the man by saying,

"He won't take off his helmet no matter how dirty it is and no, I won't say why" Higgins was now giving his rifle a quick cleaning.

"Alright, how and you shouldn't clean your rifle in a battlefield" said the Zoner as he stood back up, rotors screaming,

"There's a reason why they give us a pistol and a knife" Higgins said as he finished cleaning his rifle and, after he re-assembled it, set it in the corner. He looked up and, seeing that the Trooper was walking away, sighed, 'Damn Zoners think their god… wait, what's that?' there was a slight light distortion. He thought for a few seconds and than it struck him. He looked around real quick and, seeing more, it confirmed the thought he didn't want to come true. Quickly he brought his rifle up and shot one of the figures in the chest with a burst sending him sprawling onto the floor with blood seeping out. As the active camo wore off Higgins saw the sure shape of the glider on his back. He kicked over a metal table while sending a burst into another form and shouted,

"Shadows!" he crouched down behind the table and shot another burst at a Shadow that was right behind a Zoner sending him flying sideways and a knife, that was in his hand, clattering to the floor. He quickly aimed at what seemed like the last one when he heard a Gauss Rifle scream and the figure just blew into a million pieces. The battle was over in just a couple seconds, though it seemed like minutes. He looked at the other GDI men in the lobby and saw that the Zoner who just talked to him had his barrel smoking he took a good guess that he fired the shot. He also noticed that everyone else weren't even standing up with rifles raised before the fight ended. His helmet beeped and Higgins raised his hand to his helmet and hit the switch as he scanned the lobby for more,

"This is command, the Onyx is pulling into the zone, we need you guys on the roof ASAP" Farnes said on the other end.

"Roger that command, we just defeated a Shadow Team. Please advise, over" Higgins heard a curse at the other end and than,

"Roger that, just head straight to the roof as fast, and as carefully as you can, out" the com went silent. Higgins stood and shouted,

"Command wants us to head to the roof for exfill! Lets move!" with that, not even caring if the Zoners followed, he knew his and Jonas' men would, he dashed up the stairwell two steps at a time. He heard thudding which represented that the Zoners were following him. The trip to the roof was highly uneventful, once they got there, they saw that the Onyx was already landed and the ramp down. The Spec Ops team that was there had already boarded the transport and were sitting down. Higgins bounded up the ramp and sat down next to a commando and strapped him self in. Seconds later everyone was on board and the Onyx took off heading towards the Paris Blue Zone. Than it hit him, 'I've never been to a blue zone before, went from living in Yellow Zones to camping in Forward Assault Bases in Yellow Zones. This is going to be fun' Higgins smiled as the transport screamed through the air towards safety, but it was also he beginning of something bigger than anything Higgins could imagine. War, what an awful thing.

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A/N: Sorry this update come in so late. I'm having some issues in my personal life. Anyways, hoped you enjoyed this chapter though I'm sure your screaming 'THEY'RE FINALLY OUT OF THERE, YAY!" Don't worry, they'll be sent right into a different hell. Anyways, stay tuned for the installment of The Few!

ΦThe RescuerΦ