Oh my gosh, chapter 9! :D Action picks up in this chapter, just like I promised!

Chapter 9

I woke up a few hours later in the interrogation room. The pain had subsided to a more tolerable level, but my head was killing me, and for some reason, everything was dark. No matter how much I blinked, I could not get used to the darkness. Figuring that the Innies had lost power or something like that, I felt out the walls, and tried to work my way back to the table. Damn Insurrectionists! They think they can take on Freelancer yet they can't even power their own fucking facilities. What a joke! At last I found the chair and sighed in relief. I sat into it and leaned back, waiting for power to be restored.

"Glad to see you awake, Colorado."

I jumped and whipped my head wildly around trying to pinpoint where the voice had come from. I could tell it was Arizona, but I had no clue where he was.

"You're lucky it's dark, Arizona, or I'd be beating you to a pulp right now for injecting that… that devil's liquid into me!"

"Stop being such a crybaby; I thought you were supposed to be tough. The great Agent Colorado never fails, am I right?

His voice held a dark reference in it, and I didn't need to guess to know what he was referring to.

"Christ, Arizona! Are you ever going to let Seras Prime go? We had a mission, we were compromised, and damn it, I was not going to die without fulfilling our objective!"

"If you had just stayed with me we could have beaten them back! You know we made a good team, Colorado, and you KNOW that we could've taken out twenty-five Innies together! Yet you ran away. Why? For the leader board, I'm guessing? A useless number that somehow meant more than friendship? You never even let me know what you were doing. One minute we're fighting side by side as it should have been, and the next I'm flanked by Innies and shot to hell!"

I leaned back in my chair at his tirade, detecting his voice closer to the door. Surprisingly, he sounded sad recalling that day. I had always thought of Arizona to be an emotionless bastard (during training I had only saw him smile maybe twice), and his sense of humor was severely lacking, but he may have kept the bad memories with him. He seemed to be controlled by them. Narrowing my eyes in thought, I tried to recall anything else that might have made Arizona so angry with me. Nothing came to mind right away, so silence enveloped the room like the air before a storm. As it turned out, that storm came in the form of a brilliant idea.

The only thing that had been preventing me from calling for help had been the jammer. With the power out, that had to mean that the jammer was out of commission. If I could get my helmet, I could radio the Mother of Invention and warn them about the presence of a traitor onboard the ship. However getting out of here was going to be a challenge. In theory I could fight Arizona and see if he had anything that would be valuable to locating my armor, however fighting without actually seeing would be tough. Although, both of us were on about equal ground now. Both of us were injured, and harassing his wound would give me quite an advantage. Although, Arizona was no fool; he'd probably draw the same conclusions that I had and go for my own wounds. We'd end up ripping each other apart, and no one would win there.

But I felt that I had to try. If North brought a team down here, I was almost positive that the Innies would be ready for them. I wouldn't risk North's safety for my own. With this thought in mind, and got out of the chair as quietly as possible and began maneuvering towards the door, and where I thought that Arizona was. Luckily for me, he wouldn't stop talking.

"I suppose I should thank you though, Colorado. You showed me exactly what makes Project Freelancer such a failure. The second an incentive to be the best is put into place, friends turn on one another, and bit by bit, the outcasts turn against the Director. I wish I had seen what kind of man the Director was sooner. The Insurrection may care more for themselves than anything, but they helped me get to you. Hell, I honestly expected for you to put up more of a fight, but I guess North means more to you than I originally thought. A pity General Gray released him. I bet you would've talked with him on the line. Oh well, I'm sure he'll be back sometime so-AH!"

Arizona found himself cut off as I bull-rushed into him and slammed him into the door. It was cast in metal, and was strong, but not strong enough to stand against two Freelancers. With a loud crash, the door slammed into the ground. Arizona and I couldn't see each other, but being without light didn't seem to matter. Both of us took turns landing punches and the occasional kick.

"Colorado, you're making a big mistake if you think you can escape from here! By now General Gray will be coming down here to check things-"

With a sharp crack, my head slammed into his and knocked him out cold.

"Next time if you're going to threaten me, make sure you have the skills to back them up!"

I rubbed my head to try and get rid of the stars from head butting Arizona without my helmet, and rapidly tried to check his pockets. The only things I found were a vial with brown liquid, a pistol with two extra clips, and a set of keys. The keys and gun were the most valuable things he had, but for all I knew, the vial could be a weapon. Pocketing everything, I clicked the safety off on the pistol, and decided to find the medical bay and see if Dr. Blanchard was in. She might be willing to help; after all she had quite an attitude, and had stood up to Arizona. I had to act quickly though; when the Innies turned the power back on I'd have no chance to contact the Mother of Invention unless I managed to escape completely. Even then they couldn't figure out that I had left before I got extracted, or else I wouldn't really be able to fight back effectively.

Feeling out the walls, I saw a door up ahead and light coming from the crack of it. Taking a deep breath, I walked up to it and stacked up on the left side of the doorframe. This is it, 'Rado! It's now or never! With a kick hat would've made Carolina proud, I smashed open the door and pointed my pistol around. Sure enough, there was Dr. Blanchard writing notes. At the sound of the door she turned around and gasped at my sudden presence.

"Agent Colorado! You aren't supposed to be in here! Just what do you think you're doing?!"

I sighed and brought the pistol down to my side.

"What does it look like? I'm trying to find my armor. Do you have any idea where it could be?"

She snorted in both exasperation and amusement.

"Well seemed to me like you were trying to escape what with the pointing a gun in my face and all. And no, I don't know where your armor is; that isn't my line of expertise. However if I had to guess, it would be in the tech lab. Good luck getting to it without a map or a light source though."

She shrugged and went back to taking notes. I sighed in annoyance and looked for necessary supplies. However I then remembered the vial that I had gotten off of Arizona. I brought it out and walked over to her.

"Hey, I'll be gone in a second, but can you maybe tell me what this is?"

The doctor sighed in irritation and took the vial, turning it over in her palm before handing it back to me.

"Beats me, but I can tell you that it looks unfriendly."

"Gee, thanks.

"What? I'm a doctor, not a biologist or toxicologist or whatever you need to identify that."

Shaking my head, I grabbed a pack to strap on my thigh and loaded in a can of the stinging biofoam and some bandages. I didn't know why the good doctor wasn't stopping me, but I supposed it was because she didn't have a gun and really didn't have much of a problem with me to begin with. Shrugging in resignation, I left back out into the darkness of the hallway, but not before catching site of another door. This one didn't have any light source, but I could hear voices coming from it. I crept up to the door and pressed my ear to it. One voice I immediately recognized as General Gray.

"Thank you, agent. If you catch wind of any more plans that our enemies have organized, contact me immediately."

"I always do, General. Be prepared. Agents Carolina, New York, North Dakota, and Washington are among the upper echelon of people that Project Freelancer has to offer. They want Colorado back, and they won't give up easily. Be on your guard."

"I always am when you call me. General Gray, out."

The call ended abruptly, and footsteps started coming towards the door. In haste, I backed away and crouched next to the door where the shadows swallowed me up. When the door opened, there was no hint that I had been there. He walked towards the interrogation room, and I could only imagine what would happen when he tripped over Arizona. In my hurry to get away, I had forgotten to stash him out of the way. When the general went out of view, I quietly went into the room he had left, hoping to find any leftover files. Unfortunately, the room was bare. If I had the proper equipment I could probably track the call back, but I had bigger problems to deal with.

Wandering through the halls I had a couple of close calls with some Innies, and once I had to snap someone's neck that was about to raise the alarm. Eventually I exited the facility, and was blinded by the increase in light momentarily. I blinked quickly and leapt into the closest alcove I could find. The structure I had exited was the central structure that I had seen up on top of the cliff. Across from me was the cave system the Innies had been moving equipment in. I narrowed my eyes. The Director had wanted all of the gear to be brought back to the Mother of Invention, but it was more dangerous to let it stay in Insurrectionist hands. Once I found my armor, I'd have to come back and deal with the weapons. In fact, it would make a fantastic distraction while I got out of there. Looking around, I could see the wannabe garage, and the building that Carolina and her team had taken cover in during the earlier operation. There was only one other building, and that was the one to my right. The tanks were still rolling around from what I could hear, and the next time it made a pass I made a break for what I thought was the tech building. Surprisingly, no one saw me, and I figured that their sentries must be slacking.

The door slid open before I could reach it, and I quickly ducked behind a rock to avoid being seen. Peeking around the rock, I saw what looked like two scientists walking out.

"So have you made the modifications to that Freelancer armor?"

"You could say that. The general wanted us to try installing some upgrades to it, and then have Arizona try it out."

"Oh ya? What did he have you install?"

"A thruster pack; hopefully it'll make evading enemies easier. If this works out, the general wants us to try and duplicate the suit. I don't know how he expects us to create such an advanced suit with our resources though."

Their talking continued as they walked away, and I gritted my teeth in irritation. Those jackasses were messing with MY armor! However… I did find myself curious about this thruster pack modification. If it could help me escape this hellhole, I'd be all over it. The door slid open for me as I walked towards it, and I couldn't help but notice how useless Arizona's keys turned out to be. This particular facility wasn't so large, and from what I could tell, the building only had 2 rooms: one for modifications and calculations, and the other for building projects. I figured my armor would be in the second room since the scientists made it sound like they had just finished the thruster pack addition. Again I stacked up on the door, but it slid open, and I cursed. Well, no sense in going in quietly. Pistol raised, I rushed in and swept my view around. Yet again, no one was there, and my armor had been left unguarded.

At first I had thought that only running into a few measly patrols had been dumb luck. Now that I was here staring at my armor, I thought it had to be something else. For whatever reason, only a minimum number of personnel were at their posts. Keeping this in mind, I quickly gathered my armor and equipped it, starting first with my helmet.

"This is Agent Colorado, do you read, Mother of Invention?"

"We read you, Agent Colorado. It is good to hear from you again!"

"FILSS? Never mind, I need to speak with the Director immediately. It is essential to the future security of Project Freelancer."

"I am sorry, Agent Colorado, but the Director is currently briefing Agents Oregon, Idaho, and Illinois about a new objective. Interrupting them would be against security protocol."

"I don't care if the other agents hear, FILSS! Put the Director on now before I'm compromised!"

"Agent Colorado! How did you manage to contact the Mother of Invention? I was under the impression that the Insurrectionists had a communication jammer in place."

"Director, Sir! The Innies had a power outage of some sort I believe; I managed to take down Arizona and get my armor back. However we have bigger issues, sir. Arizona is not the only traitor from Project Freelancer! I overheard a communication today from Insurrectionist General Gray to an unknown Freelancer. They know about the rescue, Director. Do NOT allow the chosen Freelancers to leave the ship. I can get out of here myself. I will radio for extraction once I'm clear. Director, I do not recommend-"

"Freeze, Colorado!"

"Son of a bitch! Agent Colorado, out!"

I spun around to face a dozen Insurrectionist soldiers with Battle Rifles and DMRs pointed at me. I glanced down at my pistol and at my newly equipped armor, and I smirked. This was an even fight that I could handle. Whipping my pistol around, I quickly fired off two shots and took cover behind an expensive looking drilling tool. Shots rang off of it and I quickly realized what a poor choice of cover it was. Looking to both sides, I spotted a heavy looking desk, but it was a good twenty feet away. I let out a growl of frustration, and remembered the thruster pack. Problem was, I had no clue how to activate it. Getting frantic, I looked at my helmet readout and saw a new symbol that looked like both instructions and a power meter. Well, here goes nothing! With that, I leapt out of cover and ran for the desk, a hail of bullets streaking towards me. Ten feet away from my goal, I adopted the pose that the readout had, and to my surprise. I felt myself thrust forward, but a bit too far. Shit! I engaged my gravity boots and immediately slammed to the floor behind the desk, nearly banging my head on the desk thanks to my sudden stop. Right. Well at least it works. I had solved one problem, only to still be under fire from eleven men. I lifted my arm up and fired four more shots and heard only one scream of pain, so I assumed I got another one. Ten men, and one extra clip left. Well shit.

The Director always said that ingenuity and adaptability were admiral qualities for agents in the field. Looks like I was going to go up close and personal with these knuckleheads. I took a deep breath and leapt over the desk, weaving behind desk and pieces of equipment, firing off a few potshots. By the end of the clip, I had managed to kill three more men, and that left seven more to go.

By now I had reached them, and started putting my hand-to-hand combat training to good use. Freelancers essentially danced when they fought. They knew right where to step when, and how to spin to avoid attacks. The higher you were on the board, the more effort they sunk into you to train you up. Carolina might have been the best at everything, but I was far from being incompetent. Soon enough, the Innies were either knocked out cold, or dead on the ground. I appropriated both a Battle Rifle and a DMR, and loaded myself up with as many extra clips as I could carry, which turned out to be only four for each. If the Innies knew I was out and about, I had a good bet placed that they had the place surrounded. It also looked like they had been authorized to use lethal force; looks like I had become more of a liability than anything. Regardless, power still seemed to be out since the lights weren't on, so I tried to hail the Mother of Invention again while there was a lull in enemy forces.

"Mother of Invention? I am currently in the clear, but I am expecting enemy forces to regroup and push on my position. I may need assistance sooner than expected; is there any support available?"

Once again, only silence prevailed. Frustrated, I slammed my hand into the nearest table. It looked like I was on my own, and I'd be damned before I got taken down again. Now I had the equipment and the strength to take all of these bastards out, and I was going to get out of here one way or another. For the moment, I pushed everything I could in front of the door, and made sure to check and double check my equipment. After that, it was a matter of using anything I had leftover to give myself some additional cover. I also retrieved all additional clips from the guys on the ground and piled them up in even increments around my cover. Unfortunately for the Innies that were either knocked out or bleeding, I couldn't allow them to live lest they give away information about my current status, and used a combat knife off of one of them to finish the job. I did feel mildly regretful, but hey, they had made a mistake in trying to stop me, and a whole other one when they tried to kill me. Although, I had to wonder who had set the alarm, and why they knew right where to find me. I figured that General Gray must have stumbled across Arizona, and maybe Dr. Blanchard told them where they might find me. If that was true, I had put too much trust into the good doctor. Well, at least I had a decent place to hold out.

While I waited for the next wave, I started practicing with the thruster pack. By the time I started to hear noises coming from outside, I had learned how to land with it so I wouldn't fall over, and how to strafe sideways with it. I felt more confident with the pack now, and found myself pretty impressed that the Innie eggheads had modified my armor so efficiently. I magnetized my DMR to my back and slung my Battle Rifle out, aiming for the newly barricaded door. Judging from the loud crashes, my barrier wasn't holding out as well as I'd hoped. When the desks and machinery finally came crashing down and the door slid open, I saw someone I wasn't expecting. Oh son of a bitch…

"Arizona?"

"Oh, surprised to see me up? Or is it the armor?"

"The armor, jackass. How did you get your old armor back?

Arizona's armor had been a tan with red highlights. He always said it reminded him of the deserts of Arizona, when the sunsets would set the desert on fire with the red color of the light. Now his armor still had hints of that tan and red, but it was charred in various places from when Recovery agents had gone to clean up the aftermath. That's the reason we had thought that Arizona was dead. There had been a body in the armor, and naturally we assumed it was Arizona.

Looking at him now, I could see that the electronics and other things hadn't been repaired, but the armor itself was still at the strength of any Freelancer's. I groaned in dismay at the realization that it would be Arizona and myself facing off yet again. This guy just wouldn't give up. However, I did get a brilliant idea. I set up a voice recording, and hoped I could get him to talk enough so I could essentially make myself a voice filter. If I switched armor with him, I could literally walk out of here.

"Well after you left me for dead like a bitch, I decided to ditch my armor and fool you all into thinking I was dead so I could plan a way to get back at you. An eye for an eye and all that, you know? Once the recovery team swept by and practically destroyed everything I had, I reclaimed it. The eggheads here fixed most everything up; I just need a new paint job and some helmet fixes. Other than that my armor is capable of running everything yours does."

"What makes you think your old, beat up armor can match my own? We've gotten some nice upgrades since you 'died.'"

"Oh ya? Like what?"

"Like a verbal spam filter. I'm surprised I can hear anything you say since most of it is bullshit."

"Very funny, Colorado. Now drop your weapons and surrender. The general is getting tired of your refusal to give us any information."

"Oh, you mean information none of you have actually asked for?"

He growled in irritation.

"Don't get smart with me, Colorado. I took you down once, and I can do it again."

"Congratulations, you took me down when I had ripped open my wounds and was weak. Do you want a fucking medal or something? Try it again now that I'm a bit stronger."

I figured I had enough samples of his voice to be able to disguise my own, and now I just wanted out. Arizona didn't seem to have a gun on him, and instead pulled out the hilt of an energy sword and flicked it on. The glowing blue blade came to life, and immediately he rushed me with a battle cry. I hadn't expected the sword, but did my best to maneuver away from him while trying to get shots off. This proved difficult, as Arizona seemed to also be getting back into top form. I managed to get a few potshots off, but never connected. With this is mind, I flipped my gun on my back and took out my combat knife. I knew for a fact that a knife wouldn't stop a Covenant energy sword, but it was good for getting up close and personal with Arizona. Once I nearly managed to jam the knife into his arm, but he expertly dodged away. I began hearing voices coming closer and knew that men were on the way to support their Freelancer pal. Why not cause them to become casualties? As they filtered in, I leapt into the middle of them and set to work with my combat knife, getting rid of as many as possible. Arizona tried to get at me with his energy sword, but usually ended up cutting up his own guys to my pleasure. I better get moved up on the leader board for this shit… I was assuming that I'd live since I had always been better than Arizona in some way, but he might catch me by surprise. Nevertheless, I shoved these thoughts out of my head and tried to focus as his energy sword came screaming by my neck. Time to get down to business, Colorado!

North's POV

For some reason, the Director had requested Carolina, York, Wash, and myself at eh bridge for an emergency briefing. All of us had been trying to rest up as much as possible in addition to combat exercises to keep us sharp, so this sudden meeting was both inconvenient and worrying. I met up with York halfway to the bridge, and fell into step besides him.

"What do you think is so important that he'd pull us away from combat training? We're supposed to go out and rescue 'Rado tomorrow; I hope he doesn't think we're going on another mission before that."

"Come on, North, no need to be all dramatic. If he does we'll just tell him to get another team; no big deal. No one is going to flake on you. Let's just get to the bridge and see what the Director wants."

Neither of us spoke after that, and just focused on getting to the bridge. When we arrived, Wash and Carolina were just getting to the door. Both of them seemed curious, but you couldn't really tell if Wash was since his helmet was on. All four of us stepped on the bridge and were immediately motioned to by the Director.

"Agents, we have just received a brief communication from Agent Colorado. The Insurrectionist base had a power outage, and she managed to escape and get to her armor to call the Mother of Invention. According to her, there is yet another traitor, but this one is onboard the ship, and making things worse is the fact that our enemies were prepared for your arrival. Her communications were cut off by the arrival of enemy forces at her position. I am sending the four of you down early to assist Agent Colorado."

He brought up a hologram of the facility, and I looked at it. Surrounding one particular building were several red dots, and two large ones that I assumed were vehicles or more heavy personnel.

"We believe that Agent Colorado is holed up in this building. Scans detect that someone else is in there with her, though I cannot say if it is a friend or a foe. The Pelican you will be leaving in has been equipped to take out heavy armor on the ground. While the Pelican takes out ground forces, you will infiltrate the facility to aid Agent Colorado. After you are extracted, we will blow up the structures from orbit. Any questions?"

"How much time will we have once we hit the ground, Director?"

"As much time as necessary for you to aid Colorado and extract from the area."

"What should we do about the general and Agent Arizona.?"

"Agent North, if you encounter either of them, kill them. We have no time for eliminating VIPs. You are all dismissed."

"Yes, Sir!"

With that, we gathered what gear we had in the armory waiting for us and made for our pelican. Looking out of the window into space, I found it hard to believe that it could be so calm out there when it was so hectic on the ground. Just hold on, Colorado…

Another chapter for you all :3 I sincerely enjoy writing this, and hope you all, as readers, enjoy it as well. I think there will be another two chapters, and then I'll be starting on the sequel. Oh! By the way, there will be no update tomorrow or sunday, as I'm going to a Rooster Teeth fan event on Saturday! *fangirl squeal*