Chapter Ten – Outgunned And Outnumbered

Explosion after explosion drove the Reds away from their base. Grif tried to send the invaders packing with his Brute Shot, but three of them had their own. And Simmons's rocket launcher couldn't compete with their missile pods. These guys were armed for dealing out overwhelming defeats. With each new attack, the four Reds were slowly forced to take cover behind their wrecked Warthogs.

"Oh God, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die!" Grif shouted. He was running low on ammo and took cover. "Donut, get off me!"

Donut's arms tightened around his waist. "I'm scared, Grif! I need emotional support!"

"Emotional support my ass!"

"Well, if you think it would help—"

"Just an expression, Donut!"

Sarge, meanwhile, was calling out insane battle-cries as he fired off shotgun rounds at the assault team. "Yeah! Come and get some, dirtbags! This here's the Red Team Store, and today we've got a sale on bullets in your face!"

"Ugh!" Simmons tossed his rocket launcher down and grabbed his battle rifle. "Stupid thing's jammed! Sir, call for the Blues!"

"And let them steal our glorious victory? Never!"

"We're losing, sir!"

"No, we're not!" Sarge managed to shoot one of the thugs in the shoulder—their first confirmed hit on the enemy. "We're making our stand, preparing for a glorious charge in the face of overwhelming odds!"

"Oh, really?" Grif groaned as he ducked away from a near-fatal missile attack. "Because it looks to me like we're about to die gruesomely."

"Marcus!" a strange voice called out from the top of the base. "We've got it!"

"Uh oh." Simmons took out his handheld computer. "I was afraid of that."

"Afraid of what?" Sarge called out over his shotgun blasts.

"They're after the interference field generator. The canyon's unprotected now."

"Samson's beard! That dirty Freelancer must've called in reinforcements!"

"We don't know that, sir!"

"Don't we, Simmons? Don't we?"

"Attention, assholes!" another voice called out on a loudspeaker. "We have you surrounded! Your field generator is now ours! Lay down your weapons and you'll be killed!"

"Wait a minute," Simmons called back. "Don't you mean 'Or you won't be killed'?"

The gunfire and missile attacks paused just long enough for the speaker to reply, "No, I don't."

Then the barrage started up again. Grif found himself praying for either a miracle or a swift and painless death—far away from Donut's eager touch.

On the edge of the forest, Cal came to a halt. "Sorry for the wait. I've got to check in again."

"Not a problem," said Carolina. "We'll be back here."

She turned and slid back through the trees while Church appeared in full-size alongside her.

"Talk to me," she whispered.

"So far, everything Cal has said checks out," he replied. "The Counselor's gotta be hiding at Sidewinder. I don't know how he's eluded the authorities this long, but that's what my gut is telling me."

"Since when do AI go with their gut?"

"Ok, I'm extrapolating from a data analysis. Whatever you wanna call it."

"But you have some reservations."

Church looked over at Cal, who was kneeling down and checking his equipment. Then he turned to Carolina. "Yeah, I do. I get how Wash was acting when he teamed up with the Meta to get me, but Cal's got something else going on. He was ready to kill the Reds for taking his teleporter. Now I get he's got some anger issues—and I know I'm hardly one to talk—but Cal seems less anxious about getting the Counselor and more obsessed with the tech involved."

"So you think he's gone rogue? Another postwar scavenger?"

"Why not? The Meta went after Freelancers for their armor enhancements and their AI. Take away the AI and the raging insanity, and what you've got left?"

"I think you might be jumping to conclusions, Church."

Then Carolina heard the click of a Magnum behind her head.

"Actually," Cal said smoothly, "he's not."

Carolina didn't waste any time. She slid her head to the side and tried to hook Cal's leg with her own. He twisted out of reach, firing for her center mass. She responded with a duck that turned into an uppercut to his chin. Then she grabbed his Magnum away and took out her own, training both guns onto his head.

"You always were a lousy shot," said Carolina. "Now what's all this about, Cal?"

The blue-armored Freelancer stood perfectly still with his hands at his side. "Just a little thing called retribution, Carolina. Taking back what's ours. We Freelancers earned all those spoils in battle. All the armor enhancements and alien tech. The Director might be gone, but I'll be damned if some bureaucrat gets to confiscate what's left of our legacy."

"It wasn't about the tech," Carolina insisted. "We were on the wrong side of the law, Cal. Our legacy is failure. We failed each other and the Director failed us. Who knows how many lives we risked in the war because we weren't better at our job?"

"Doesn't matter. We spilled too much blood to let a little thing like the law get in the way. The Freelancers were a team. We had a culture and we've gotta honor that culture every day." Cal tapped a module on his belt. "And that's exactly what my crew and I are gonna do."

Carolina took aim and fired, but it was too late. Cal disappeared in a green flash of light.

"Dammit!" She put her guns away and grabbed her plasma pistols. "We've got to get back to Blood Gulch!"

"Radio's jammed," said Church. "And we're five minutes away!"

"Not a problem," said Carolina. She reached down and activated her speed unit.

Then she and Church were just a faint green streak through the woods.