Al swallowed as their first mission hit its first snag. Team 3 had been captured which meant two things: one that two of them were being held prisoner by aliens who were just as likely to eat them as they were to torture them-horrible either way- and two that the element of surprise had been lost.
Either way, time for a change in plan.
He motioned to his team a single hand-gesture. A simple vertical slash in the air. But that simple slash had been drilled into them with intense training and experience from their previous tours of duty.
That slash stood for three words: Give Them Hell.
Acknowledgements filtered onto his helmet as he watched the units take the prisoners to the near center of the encampment. Wash was a moment slower than the rest but after two minutes, flashed the acknowledgement signal. He opened a private comm channel and told York to fill Wash on the team plan. Taking a chance, he opened his mike to North.
"North, do you copy?"
He saw North's head barely move in surprise before giving a casual nod of his head as if he was rolling his neck. "Al good to hear a friendly voice."
North's voice seemed steady and calm but Al didn't need his teammate's heartbeat monitor to tell that North was nervous. Al's mind raced, his gaze wandering over the possible locations around the camp even as his mouth went on auto-pilot.
"Don't worry, I doubt you'll be there long. We have a plan to free you guys," Al stated, trying to sound slightly calming. His eyes finally stopped on a cliff face overlooking the camp: slanted enough that it presented a direct line of sight to the whole camp but high enough that the face of the cliff could block any return rounds. He sprinted among the cover of the woods even as he spoke, "Hang tight. Be ready."
The acknowledgement signals flashed again; this time, they were signaling their ready status for the mission.
"For what?" North asked.
Al grinned before raising the second weapon that he had brought on the mission: the SRS99 Anti Material, the same powerful sniper rifle used by North and Wyoming. He laid down on his stomach and had the rifle's bipod lowered to stabilize its balance.
"Red Team, Execute."
He fired. A second later, the elite major fell to the ground as its head exploded into fragments of alien flesh and blood.
Maine fired two rockets, each aimed at the shade turrets; each exploded into fire and twisted metal. Al knew that his teammate was already moving to a different position to shoot from. Sure enough, four seconds later he saw a flash of white through the trees firing an assault rifle.
Bright flashes appeared in the woods as York and Washington fired bursts from their assault rifles; by the time the Covenant had spotted them, the two freelancers had already moved on from their original positions. Still to keep the attention off them...
Al emptied his clip, aiming and firing his rifle. Each shot was carefully aimed, killing an elite or a jackal with a shield. One sniper round blew a mandible off an elite and smacked a grunt in the head; a second hit a fuel rod gun being carried by a grunt, causing the gun to explode violently. The green explosion took out three jackals and two grunts. Another round and a jackal rallying a squad of its comrades to charge Al's hill fell to the ground. The jackals stared at the corpse, a bullet hole now where its eye once was.
After reaching his tenth and final round in the clip, he ejected the old clip before slamming a new one into place. As he pulled back on the bolt, he relayed a practiced order to York and Washington.
"Move in."
The two freelancers charged out from the trees even as Maine and Al opened fire from their sides of the clearing, acting as a distraction.
Also known as the freelancers' maneuver.
The remaining covenant soldiers were caught off guard and descended into panic. Before they could reorganize themselves, the freelancers quickly cut through them with sprays of gunfire.
As Al made his way down, York and Wash finished with executing the survivors and helped their teammates to their feet. Maine stood watch, standing carefully over them and alert for any sign of trouble. Once he reached the bottom, he jogged over to them.
"North!" He called over the radio before getting up close to his fellow team leader. "Do you want to tell me how exactly you two were caught with your pants down?"
Even in armor, North still look downtrodden. "I was staring down the sight of my rifle and checking on Blue Team while Wyoming was checking on Red. By the time I realized it was unnaturally quiet, they had already surrounded us."
Al glared at the two of them before stating coldly "If either of you make a rookie mistake like that again, I will put a bullet in both of your asses. Right now we have other problems."
Wyoming decided at this time to speak up "Apologies Alabama, but you don't have the right to be cheesed off at us."
Al turned to glare at him only to give up after a second. "Mission first. Also I can't really glare when I don't know what you said."
Turning away from the two teams, Al switched his comms to the whole Freelancer unit channel. "Mission compromised. All teams move to extraction. Blue Team, Virginia do you copy?"
Virginia was the one to respond. "Copy teams. Moving to extraction point in 5 minutes."
Al waited for Blue Team to respond. There was only silence. He tried again "Blue Team report!"
Silence.
"Carolina! CT! South! Nevada! Report your status!"
The worry began to grow into panic with every quiet second but he killed effectively with confirming known intel.
Fact 1: Blue Team was silent. Possibly dead.
Fact 2: Taking out the unit probably meant reinforcements would be coming in the form of a Covenant Cruiser or possibly even a fleet.
Fact 3: There was still a pair of Hunters still patrolling out there.
Al activated his comms. "Virginia, cancel rendezvous. Move ship to my current location to extract wounded personnel."
Wash's head perked up at that. "Who's injured?"
Al pointed at North's boots, coated with plasma burns and penny-sized holes. "North and Wyoming will get on the dropship and head back to the ship. By the time the dropship comes back, we should know what happened to Blue Team. Any questions?"
There was three shrugs and three head-shakes but no one piping up.
Al cleared his throat before motioning to the woods in the direction of the outpost. "Red Team move out!"
The four agents took off in unison for the outpost even as their ears began to pick out the sounds of dropship engines. Al kept his thermal vision on, carefully leading the team through the woods while jogging at a brisk pace.
He saw a fallen log across the path and leaped over it. Wash and York slid under the log and ran on after him. There was a loud smash through the woods as Maine ran through it, smashing it to pieces. With ten minutes, they had made it to the outer wall of the outpost. A wall that had a massive part of it smashed open, most likely by one of the Hunters. And on the side of the hole was CT checking on South's head.
The team picked up the pace upon seeing that and took positions with their weapons in all directions as Al kneeled next to their teammates and took off his helmet.
"What happened?" He spoke quietly.
CT looked up from South's blonde head. "Got too close to a Hunter and was hit by its shield. Fortunately, her armor took most of the blow. She still has a concussion though."
Al nodded and turned to Wash. For whatever reason, he was one of the few people who tried to get along with everyone including South. "Wash stay here and guard their backs."
Wash gave a nod before moving to a more comfortable position. Quietly, Al moved to the still remaining wall section and looked into the courtyard of the outpost.
The outpost itself was fairly simple: a concrete wall that served as a perimeter for the outpost and a four-story building in gray concrete.
As expected Blue Team was putting up one hell of a fight. Bad news: they had run straight into the Hunters.
Carolina was doing what she did best: engage an enemy at top-speed. She fired her rifle in short bursts when she could. She ran from cover to cover to avoid fusion blasts or shield-swings from the Hunters. At first, Al didn't see Nevada... until he looked up on the second balcony of the outpost where Nevada was firing her rifle full-auto at one of the Hunters. She was emptying her assault rifle into the exposed areas of the Hunter with surprising accuracy, especially at full-auto; the only time she stopped was to duck out of the way of the Hunter's cannon or to reload.
He pointed at York and Maine and pointed to the Hunter that Nevada was firing at. Attack.
Maine and York took up shooting positions behind large pieces of rubble before opening fire on the Hunter. As they joined in, Al moved cover next to them and targeted Carolina's Hunter. For the first five minutes at least.
He was not making progress. Carolina running circles around the Hunter (literally) and the Hunter's constant turning in an attempt to face Carolina made it difficult for him to get a clear shot off and avoid shooting Carolina.
Then his eyes fell on a nearby canister stacked against the side of the outpost, most likely by its last human occupants. Grey with a green chemical sign on it. Bingo.
Al gripped the canister by both ends and spoke over the comms, "Carolina get some distance between you and the Hunter!"
With that, he moved the canister on its side and pushed it towards the Hunter. It rolled noisily over to the Hunter over the concrete courtyard before stopping by its armored feet. The Hunter shielded itself, as if expecting an explosion. Wait for it.
Just as the Hunter moved its shield out of the way to get a better view, Al lifted his rifle up and fired at the canister.
It didn't explode into a violent fireball that enveloped the Hunter; instead it spewed greenish-black liquid all over it like an old geyser. The Hunter reflexively raised its shield.
This saved its life because the liquid was industrial-grade acid, used to help remove broken or damaged parts of injured naval vessels. All emergency outposts had a few gallons of it on hold in case a ship needed to remove a piece in order to save trapped crewmembers.
It didn't need to eat through the Hunter's shield: all it had to do was burn away some of the worms making up its body. The Hunter made a symphony of whale-like sounds as the acid burned through its arm, dropping its shield to the ground. The pain distracted it long-enough for Al to prime two grenades and roll them next to its feet; in the seconds it took the Hunter to move on from pain to anger, Al had already taken the time to empty the remainder of the clip into the Hunter's exposed chest.
The grenades exploded, blowing up the Hunter's legs and sending shrapnel into the rest of the body. It wailed one last time, reached out for him- he reflexively took a step back out of worry- before collapsing to the ground and lying still.
Al sighed in relief one last time before having a sudden terrifying thought, Where's its partner?
"Al look out!"
He saw a brief flash of moment below him and heard a slight buzzing sound. Slowly, he looked down at his chest...
And saw the shield arm of a Hunter, sticking through his midsection. Cutting through skin, bone, armor and himself in half.
Al couldn't breathe or even move. He was paralyzed in shock, fear and...- WHY COULD HE STILL FEEL HIS FEET?!
A familiar voice cut in. "Agent Al, are you still mentally satisfactory?"
He blinked out of shock and responded slowly, "Zeta, do I have you to thank for activating my gadget in time?"
"Correct."
"In that case, if I don't say it enough, I love you and will name my firstborn kids after you."
"That would be interesting for a human child to be named Zeta... Also, your gadget will deactivate in ten seconds ."
He swore but the Hunter's arm pulled out of him as it gave a warcry. As the gadget died, he rolled forwards and came up in a crouch with his rifle pointed and his finger on the trigger. Apparently he wasn't needed because the Hunter fell to the ground as the combined weapons of four Freelancer agents tore its fleshy worm colony to bits.
York ran over and gave him a hand to his feet. "Al, gotta say you sure as hell like to make life interesting."
Al was still trembling slightly and grabbed onto York's forearm for support but despite his anxiety, he was still able to recognize that York had sounded somewhat scared. Though to be fair, he wasn't the only one.
"Not like I try to. The universe just really hates me," Al managed to joke, still somewhat buzzing with adrenaline.
York laughed as well before looking over to the rest of the freelancers. Al now noticed that there was a young woman in olive armor with a unique visor designating her a pilot. Now, York's laughter died off quickly before stating, "Lone survivor of the outpost. Barely able to keep it together. Everyone else is dead or in pieces."
Al shivered a bit at the wording of York's words. The problem with facing a ruthless force like the Covenant was that sometimes the merciful thing to do was to die. He had only one time where he had seen the alterative to death.
It still manage to scare him at night.
The Freelancers began to move back into the outpost, quickly taking up defensive positions while Carolina and CT joined him.
"Status report?" He asked calmly, despite the feeling he REALLY didn't want to know.
"South still has a concussion while North and Wyoming still have plasma burns from when they were taken by surprise," CT spoke first. Al noticed that he wasn't laughing them off and winced. Plasma itself was dangerous and even their armor hadn't been considered 100% effective but stronger than the standard Marine's gear.
He nodded before looking at Carolina. "Any other findings from the outpost."
She shook her head no before adding, "All we found was the woman hiding in a closet with a few of the security tapes and sensor readings. May help with preparing for another attack."
"And the woman?" He asked, curious about her mindset as well as her physical well-being.
"Very scared but now also angry. She almost brained South when we kicked down the door," Carolina said, with a hint of humor.
Al shook his head as a familiar whine signaled the Pelican dropship's approach. It stopped over the outpost before landing in the open yard of the outpost before landing with a light thump.
A few of them winced painfully at the sound before the three leaders began to pull back the teams. First, Blue Team made their way into the dropship, with CT and Wash helping South into the dropship. North and Wyoming kept a watch from the bottom of the ramp, using their rifles to scan the area for incoming forces and snipers.
Red Team was last to leave with Al being the last one on board. Once inside, he looked around the passenger bay to count heads one last time. He walked over to where Virginia was beginning to take off and told her, "All Freelancers accounted for. Get us the hell out of here."
Virginia nodded and hit the gas. Al stumbled back as the Dropship rose from the ground and began to fly forward. The back of his knees hit a seat and he fell backwards, landing on the lap of the person sitting in the seat.
Maine.
Everyone stared as he awkwardly tried to get off Maine's lap. Then the seat harnesses fell into place, pinning him against Maine. He could still breathe but couldn't move until it was safe enough to remove the harnesses. He looked up to see the emotionless faces of his teammates but he could practically hear the amusement behind the helmets.
"Alright, just laugh. I know this looks bad," Al grumbled.
The dropship quickly began to break out into laughs and jibs at each other: first Al but then everyone else began to join in quickly.
"Note to self, avoid large teams for missions," Al though with a mix amount of grim humor as his cheeks began to heat up from some of the comments.