Sorry this update took so long. I want to give a shout out to whoever reviewed (Doc manager wouldn't let me write the name for some reason) for my first ever review! Thanks and enjoy!
A week after the mission to Tokoran, Rob sat at a desk aboard the Dark of the Moon, looking over the video captured by Coyote Team's helmet cams. The Dark of the Moon was currently being repaired after sustaining heavy damage during the mission, and Rob and the others were scrambling to find things to keep them occupied. As Rob watched through his own eyes as he shot the Innsurectionist leader, he couldn't help but wonder if he should have kept the Innie alive. He could have been useful. However, in that critical moment Rob's anger at Barrett's cockiness and his absolute fury at the threatening of Captain Mowsen had caused his usually calm demeanor to boil over.
Suddenly Rob was jolted out of his reverie by Drew's voice.
"Hey Rob, come on down to the hangar bay," Drew said, "I've got something to show ya." Rob perked up a bit at that. For the past week Drew had been concealing something under a huge tarp in a corner of the hangar bay. He hadn't let anyone even come close to it. Rob was in the bay in a matter of minutes, soon joined by the rest of the squad in varying stages of alertness. Dan looked like he'd been run over by a Scorpion tank, Carl was yawning so much he could barely catch his breath, Grant was fiddling with a datachip like he couldn't keep busy enough, and Gwen was out of armor and sweating.
"All right, what's this about?" Gwen said, "I was trying to beat Carl's score on the hand-to-hand combat drills."
"You really wanna see?" Drew asked with a hint of mischief in his voice.
"Yes!" all five other squad members said in unison. Drew turned to the tarp and yanked it away with on pull. Behind it was a Pelican dropship with a snarling coyote head painted on its nose.
"What's this for?" Rob asked.
"Personalization," Drew replied, "I figured that if we have to do more narrow escapes like the one last night, we might as well have a fixed Pelican to you know, identify with."
"Why this one?" Rob asked.
"Duh, it's the one that we commandeered back on Tokoran," Drew replied, "I thought it would be lucky." Rob laughed.
"Makes sense to me," Dan said. As the other members of the squad examined the artwork, Drew pulled Rob aside.
"So, how do you think our first mission went?" Drew asked.
"Considering that our first CO turned out to be a traitor and our ship was nearly blown to kingdom come, I'd say pretty well," Rob replied. Drew chuckled.
"Yeah, me too," Drew said, "So, what's next?"
"Darned if I know," Rob replied, "We can't go anywhere while the Moon's being repaired. I guess training." So for the next week, Coyote Team trained, and trained, and trained. As they trained, the squad began to see more and more things about their personal combat styles. Dan discovered that he could disarm even the most complicated explosives and make a bomb out of anything. Cal learned that no one in the squad could match his speed and power at close quarters. Drew found that when he didn't want to be seen he was like a shadow, slipping through advanced security measures and taking out enemies without making a sound. Gwen placed herself securely in the position of squad sniper, taking out targets with deadly precision in any conditions. Grant relinquished the sniper spot with a good deal of grumbling, but easily found his niche as tech expert. And Rob became a small-unit tactician of unmatched creativity and skill.
Finally, two weeks after the Tokoran mission, Captain Mowsen called them to the bridge.
"You did a fine job with that hostage situation," she said, "Especially since it wasn't part of the original plan." The squad nodded together.
"Now we have a new mission," Mowsen said, a slight gleam in her eyes, "ONI wants us for a torch and burn op on Arcadia. An ONI facility is days away from being overrun and we are apparently the closest reinforcements."
"Isn't this kind of a waste of our skills?" Rob asked, "There are a half-dozen other SPARTAN teams that could handle this."
"That's just the thing," Mowsen said, "ONI doesn't want another SPARTAN team to handle it."
"Why not?" Drew asked.
"Darned if I know," Mowsen replied, "We just have to follow our orders and stay out of sight."
"Makes sense," Gwen said.
Within the space of an hour the Dark of the Moon had launched into slipspace. Most of the squad was in cryo, but Drew stayed awake. He was trying to make sense of his weird connections to Gwen. The two SPARTANS were so similar it was scary. The same blue eyes, light brown hair, and accent had that kind of effect. But it just didn't make any sense. If he did have any sort of connection to Gwen, wouldn't he remember it? He pondered the mystery for an entire day before finally giving up and heading for the cryo bay.
The squad awoke several days later just outside of Arcadia's orbit. The skies were mysteriously empty. Captain Mowsen told them they would be landing a day's march from the base to avoid detection. They would be deploying in the same fashion as the previous missions, except without all the extra frills. The deployment went off without a hitch and they were soon on the surface of Arcadia.
"What's our next move?" Dan asked when they had gathered their gear.
"We're going to camp here until nightfall and then move out towards the base," Rob replied.
"Great, more waiting," Drew said, "As if the week in cryo wasn't enough." Rob glared at him but said nothing.
The squad twiddled their thumbs for the rest of the day, anxiously waiting for night to fall. When it finally did, they packed up their gear and began their trip to the ONI facility. When they were about ten miles away daybreak forced them to stop. But Rob wasn't finished yet.
"Drew, I want you and Gwen to reconnoiter the ONI facility," he said. The two super-soldiers looked at each other, disgust showing in their expressions.
"Sure thing Rob," Drew replied before racing to catch up to his "partner".