BIG Z: Next chapter! I've been working hard on this one gang, hope you enjoy it.

Church: I swear to you, if I die, I'm going to be pissed.

Tex: What're you going to do, yell a lot?

Church I'm going to possess someone and then kick their ass.

BIG Z: Shutup Church before I do decide to kill you.

Chapter 11

Agriculture SatellitePlentifulin orbit around Pluvia Silva Colony

6/9/2570

1500 Hours

Lieutenant June Athens

The domed garden did a lot to calm the mind and relax the body, June noticed as she continued walking slowly through the large structure filled with all the necessities that would be needed to support the platoon she was, unfortunately, in charge of. It was just what she needed to be honest, she was hardly able to contain her fury when she had realized that her "troops" had completely fucked up a simple assignment like inspecting a cruise ship for contraband.

The sun was shining down brilliantly through the glass which had pigmented itself to a natural light blue to give the plants the closest conditions that it could provide to nature. A light breeze flowed from the natural process of convection in the massive domed garden. The young Lieutenant had rid herself of her armor and now only had on a set of clean BDU's and a holster to hold onto her Magnum which was her most prized possession besides a picture of her family she still hadn't set up on her desk. The leaves the walnut trees she walked under rustled gently as she felt the coolness of the fresh air on her skin. The dirt path she was walking on was smooth and level with small lights on the borders separating the ST. Augustine grass that grew beneath the thick canopy. She had seen a few squirrels and chipmunks scurrying around on a few branches and on the ground, chattering away. Birds also zoomed by occasionally, chirping away at one another. The area was surprisingly well maintained considering who the current residents were at the moment. Not a branch or dead tree trunk was on the ground, and very few dead leaves littered the orchard grounds.

It is quite a nice place, she thought to herself, desperate to try and calm the still simmering rage she felt inside as she came to a fork in the path. One path branched off further into the orchards while the other would take her across a stream that flowed peacefully through the dome. June decided to just take the path to the left, and walked carefully across the steel bridge that spanned the ten yard wide stream. She stopped halfway when she heard a splash in the stream. Curiosity made her turn to see what it was and she was shocked by what she saw, a shimmering school of minnows swam in the clear waters, with several larger darker colored fish chasing after them. A self-sustaining environment, June observed idly, allowing her mind to wander. She just unconsciously decided to stay there and watch the dance of the fish beneath her as she leaned against the railing with her elbows on the rails and clasped her hands together. She'd rolled up her sleeves when she had taken her armored plates off just for the sake of it being too hot to have them rolled down. She saw the reflection of herself in the water among other things like the trees overhead, a low dropoff that held vines and grasses in the edges with a series of low bushes on it. Her platinum blonde hair stood out in the shimmering mirror that the blue water provided as June just sat there in thought. Her mind was relatively at peace, thanks in part to the lack of a radio in her ear.

But when the sound of a Warthog's engine became audible she groaned in frustration. She looked up to see the unmistakable shape of the all-terrain vehicle on the path headed her way. Probably the Reds coming to apologize, she surmised when she caught a glimpse of red in the back of the Warthog. But then she saw the gun was pointed right at her, and that they hadn't called out. Then the vehicle pulled off to the side, and several men in patterned red, orange, and brown camouflage jumped out shouldering Assault Rifles. June was forced to action when the first gunshot rang out and the ricochet barely missed her feet.

"It's a federal! Take her out!" one of them ordered as they all opened fire.

Bullets whipped and cracked past her as she turned and sprinted the opposite direction. She pulled out her Magnum and pulled the charging handle back and clicked off the safety. More bullets flew by, kicking up dirt as she slid in behind a tree on the left side of the road that was easily wide enough to offer her protection from the hail of 7.62 millimeter rounds. She heard the rounds stop as she guessed they were reloading and went on the attack. June grasped her pistol in both hands and aimed it right across the bridge and started firing. The heavy slugs impacted the Warthog as the men ducked down to avoid being hit. She stopped firing a moment to duck down to try and lure one into showing himself and providing a good target.

"Get on the fifty, keep her head down."

June made out the order and peaked back around to see that one was clambering into the trunk to fire off the Warthog's primary weapon, the triple barreled fifty. She aimed down the scoped sights that she pulled up and fired when she saw the man expose his full body to her. A plume of dust and red mist jetted out from the man's side when she pulled the trigger.

"Gotcha," she grinned when he collapsed from the back of the Warthog, and his buddies dragged him screaming behind the Warthog. But her small victory was short lived, as she saw another pair of Warthogs fly over the bridge towards her, cannons blazing hot lead.

So June did the only thing she thought she could, she turned and ran into the forest to avoid the dangerous vehicles. Leaves and shattered tree bark flew up in front of her when the heavy machine guns pulverized her only route of escape. She ducked down and turned to blindly fire back at her attackers when and got a look at least a half dozen men on foot coming after her.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" she yelled as she turned and continued running.

She desperately fired her pistol back at her pursuers who were now firing at her furiously. It didn't seem to make a difference at all as they continued to close in, firing at her close enough for her to duck behind a tree of bush to keep from being hit. As they advanced and got closer their fire became more accurate, and she paid for that. A single bullet struck her right calf, passing all the way through the flesh but didn't even touch the bone. To say it hurt was an understatement, it was Hell on Earth for her leg and she screamed when she tried to run again. Her knee buckled on reflex as she tried pulling herself up using a low branch on a tree she fell against. She could feel her right boot filling with blood and the wet sensation of her pants soaking with the red liquid. Sensing their prey's weakness the hostile soldiers closed in, weapons aimed, ready to fire the kill shot if necessary.

"Hands up federal!" one of them shouted aggressively, pointing his rifle at her from a few yards away. June heard the word 'federal' and immediately pieced together who these guys were: Insurrectionists.

"Fuck off Innie!" she hissed, holding her pistol up, switching between targets rapidly as she saw them close in, she had heard the rumors of what the Insurrectionists did to any prisoners they took, the pictures of what became of the crew of UNSC Frigate that was captured she'd been shown at the Academy had haunted her for several weeks after they were shown.

But when she was about to pull the trigger a loud series of gunshots emanated from her left. A pair of the enemy troops were hit in side and were lifted off their feet effortlessly and sprayed blood and gore across their fellows. The other enemy soldiers were stunned and were still easy targets as another consecutive pair of gun shots rang out and another Insurrectionist was killed while another had his leg ripped off. The last two, being helpless to fight back against the pair of snipers June now knew were out there, they started to flee. But a single blast of a shotgun rang out and killed one of them and then a burst of Assault Rifle fire downed the second one.

"Whoohoo we got 'em good!" a happy voice cried out from the side where the sniper shots had come from.

From the forest emerged Kate and Donut reloading their Sniper Rifles.

"Yeah, get pwned!" Donut called out.

The sounds of footsteps running towards her made June whirl her head around to see the dark blue armor of Rachel and further off, the Blue armor of Caboose.

"Did we win?" Caboose asked as Rachel slid next to the wounded Lieutenant.

"Lieutenant, you okay?" Kate asked as she and Donut walked up to her.

"I've been better, I took one on the leg," June growled as Rachel took out a strip of gauze from her chest plate storage compartment and started wrapping it around her injured leg.

"Oh I hate it when I get shot," Caboose said casually, "It hurts."

"Well it can't be as bad as a grenade to the head," Donut replied.

"Or being run over by a Warthog," Kate chirped. Rachel nodded, smiling behind her visor, she remembered that, she was the one driving, "And I'm still pissed off about that Rachel."

"Cut it out, we need…we need to get back to the others. There may be more where they came from," June said, gritting her teeth in pain.

"Oh yeah, come on, we know the way."

Blue Team

Outside Blue Base

The sounds of gunfire had heightened the alert level of the group of Blue soldiers as they prepared for battle once again. It had been rather easy to open up a large hatch that allowed the Blues to mass their three vehicles, a Scorpion(Sheila who was itching to fight), a regular default Warthog with its primary HMG still mounted, and a custom built rocket armed Warthog built by Rachel. They had contacted the Red who were already on their way towards the set rendezvous point.

"Church! It's Caboose!" all their radios screeched at once.

"God dammit Caboose keep your voice down, we hear you just fine," Church growled back.

"We have found the Lieutenant lady, Rachel is taking us to Doc to have him help her."

"What? Why? Hold on…Caboose you didn't kill her did you? Because I don't think she can just come back," Tucker replied.

"She was shot by these guys we're fighting against," Kate snapped.

"Yeah that could also mean Caboose Red," Lea groaned.

"The guys who just boarded us from behind and attacked our rear!" Donut answered.

"I think I see why you guys thought he was gay," Jenny observed.

"You just figured that out?" Sergey replied.

"Yeah I did," Jenny said defensively.

"You're not very observant are you?" Church asked.

"Yeah, it gets kinda embarrassing sometimes."

"You don't say."

"Caboose, how close are you guys to the med station?" Tex demanded.

"Not very far, we'll be there in a few minutes," Kate answered for him.

"Very well," Tex responded, turning to the rest of the Blues, pulling out a holo-projector on her wrist, "Okay, we've got about a hundred enemy troops inside the station right now, they've got a dozen Warthogs, and at least three Scorpion Tanks…"

"Oh goody," Shelia said happily.

"We are here," Tex said, pointing at a grouping of green dots on her projection, "The Zealots and Maine are forming a line here in the middle while the Reds are rushing to link up with them here," she pointed at a grouping of a green dots moving towards a line of yet more green dots, "Now the enemy is still consolidating their position, and haven't really advanced very far from their ship."

Tex pointed at the ship which was basically a big red rectangle on the screen. A large semi-circle was gradually spreading out with a few isolated pockets farther from the main group showing that they were scouting parties. But a small little grouping of green dots was between them and the mass of red hostiles. That was Donut, Kate, Rachel, and Caboose helping their injured Lieutenant.

"What about Vic and Four-Seven? Can't they arm the dropships and blow up that ship?" Lea asked.

"They could, but destroying the freighter would jeopardize the integrity of the satellite and possibly put us into a decaying orbit, we'd need to do it with all the hatches connected to the hanger shut," Washington replied.

"And the only one connected that's open is here," Tucker pointed.

"And we don't have control of that one."

"Fuck me," Sergey groaned.

"Already have," Sister replied happily, and as clueless as ever.

"What?!" the infuriated voice of Grif bellowed on the comm.

"Shut up and drive Grif, you can worry about how your sister is a slut later," Sarge replied.

"Up yours Sarge," Grif replied.

"Reds, are you in place?" Tex put her hand to her comm.

"Yeah, we're almost there," Carmen said back.

"Carmen, what are you doing out there, you're pregnant!" another voice called out.

"Trust me Doc, we know, before she left she grabbed an entire bag of potato chips and threatened to shoot anyone who tried to keep her from coming with us," Liz responded.

"Okay, Reds, we're on our way to link up with Maine and form a battle line just get set up, I don't know how much longer the enemy will wait until they advance," Washington said.

"Then hurry up!"

The Blues all mounted up into their vehicles and drove off at the fastest speed they could. But as they were about to start ascending a large hill all Hell broke loose. A loud whistle and then a loud bang breached the quiet and sent dirt and bits of plants and produce all over them. Soon several more explosions rocked the hillside as the Blues wildly drove their fastest to get out of the line of fire.

"Fuck this!" Tucker yelled, steering the Warthog erratically, barely staying on the road.

"Tucker, look out!" Lea screeched as another tank shell hit the ground right under their right front wheel, sending the entire Warthog's front end up into the air, but missing part of its front end. Washington was thrown from the turret to the ground and Tucker and Lea were rattled inside the Warthog as it flipped onto its left side. Lea fell to the ground, writhing in pain as she grabbed at her right arm which was glistening with a stream of blood flowing from a bad tear in the armor's black under suit. Tucker was pinned beneath the Warthog, trying extremely hard to pull himself free.

"Of all the places for you to crash Tucker!" Church yelled as he jumped out of the passenger seat of the next Warthog and ducked down behind the front end of the wrecked vehicle and started to try and free Tucker.

"Not my fault, it was a fucking tank! Huh, never really thought of what it feels like to be on the receiving end."

"What are you talking about?!" Church said, ducking down as another shell pummeled the area the Blues were now trying to fight from.

"The Reds, we always blew the shit out of their stuff, and now our first Warthog just got fucked up. This sucks, can't we just get another tank?" Tucker replied, finally managing to free himself.

"Are you finished talking about shit that doesn't matter or are you going to keep me from bleeding to death?!" Lea screamed, her voice betraying how much pain she was really in.

Tucker and Church crawled over to her and grabbed her by the shoulders and started pulling her behind the Warthog and safety as the other Blues began firing away. Sergey was on the turret, firing down the hill at a line of urban camouflaged soldiers that were advancing up the hill towards them. Sister, Jenny, and Washington were on the ground, staying behind the cover of the incline and a few trees while they fired away. But Tex however was nowhere to be seen. Heavy concussions blasted forth from Sheila's main cannon as her targeting systems pin pointed the range and elevation that the incoming tank rounds were coming from and immediately set about to destroying them. A single fire ball blasted into the sky as they all saw a single SABOT round strike an enemy tank off in the distance and promptly the tank fire stopped as the other enemy tanks scrambled to get out of the line of fire.

"Where's Tex?" Church yelled as they continued fighting the oncoming swarm of enemy troops.

"What makes you think I know?" Washington responded as he threw a grenade down the hill into a group of troops that were setting up a machine gun.

In that moment another batch of gunfire rose from their right along with whooping and cheering. The Zealots had just engaged the enemy. The unmistakable sounds of Maine's primary weapon echoed loudly as he led the charge somewhere in the lowlands of the garden. Tracers were visible crisscrossing the opposite side of the dome as the Reds in their vehicles began their own attack instead of waiting for the enemy to come to them.

Then an additional bout of gunfire and terrified screaming from behind the group of soldiers attacking the Blues informed them of where Tex was located.

"Oh my God this doesn't seem physically possible!" came one terrified cry in particular.

Wash and Church looked at each other, "There's Tex."

Tex had swung around the side using her cloaking device to mask her rapid movements and then easily climbed up into the thick canopy of trees that barely hung above the heads of a second wave of enemy troops. She was holding onto her BR which was on her back and held a pair of grenades in hand. She hopped from tree to tree with expert balance and landed over the lead elements of the enemy troops.

"Buenos dias cockbites, welcome to Hell," she grinned sadistically as she tapped the arming switch on the grenade and dropped it right down into their midst.

Before it went off she was gone, dropping the next one into another group. The screams they made succeeded in panicking the others as she dropped down to the grass and went to work, with her bare hands she started with fast quick punches, killing them with the sheer brunt force of the armored fists. To most of them it looked like their buddies were being slaughtered by a ghost and they all began firing wildly, half the time into one another, accounting for most of the kills she rapidly began to accumulate. But soon she was located and targeted. Rapid rifle fire began to pierce the air as another wave began to run up to help their helpless comrades. Several Warthogs began to fire away, ripping up the once tranquil gardens of orchards and vineyards.

"Well hello there," Tex grinned again as a tank rolled to a stop in front of her and fired up at the Blues, "don't mind if I do."

Tex leapt from her cover with machine guns blazing right at her. But this time she fought back. She drew her BR, holding it in one hand as she ducked and weaved firing with pinpoint precision that only she was truly capable of. A Warthog following her blasted from the shrubs as it attempted to ram her but didn't see its own tank swinging its main gun around to aim at Tex. Tex stood right in front of the tank and goaded the Warthog's driver into charging at her, unaware that a tank was getting ready to fire just beyond the hedge. With a thunderous report the tank fired as Tex dove to the side, rolling back to her feet. The shell struck the Warthog head on, catapulting it into the air and made it land right on top of the tank's turret. But then another shell blasted the Warthog's wreckage clear and launched the twisted hunk of metal and fire into a tree that pinned Tex behind it.

"Well fuck!" she groaned as the remaining twenty or so enemy soldiers began to surround her.

The tank aimed straight at her and leveled its gun as the soldiers began to close in on her. But then the tearing sound of a dozen rifles and machine guns ripped through the air from behind her. Just about all the enemy soldiers hit the ground dead and the enemy tank began to back up with the other remaining troops began to run for their lives. A single tank round struck it right on one of the treads, effectively disabling the whole vehicle, prompting the driver to run for the hills. But a single sniper round struck him as he was about to jump off the tank.

"Yes! I got him, did you see that what a shot! I am a God with this thing!" Church yelled triumphantly.

"Dude that was your first kill," Jenny groaned as the Blues ran up to where Tex was still pinned.

"Oh bullshit! I got at least five or six!"

"Shutup and secure the area," came the cold hard voice of Washington.

Sergey drove up with Sister and Jenny in the front while he rotated the turret, scanning for targets. Sheila rolled up behind them, firing another long range shot at the now retreating force of enemy troops. Gunfire still rang out occasionally on the other side where they could hear the Zealots cheering like they usually did in battle and the unmistakable sound of Tejano music blared in the far reaches of the area as the Reds were still heavily engaged with the enemy.

"Well, that was easy."

Red Team

"This is not easy!" Liz screamed as she barely managed to keep her Warthog from being rammed by another enemy Warthog in the middle of the largest section of the garden, the wheat fields. They were currently in a rather dangerous ballet with a half dozen Warthogs firing their machine guns at them from practically point blank range.

"Shutup and drive!" Carmen ordered from the passenger seat as she tried to fire a round from her Shotgun at the Warthog, but only managed to pound its smoking hood.

"Simmons on the right!" Sarge called out, pointing out at a tank that was withdrawing from the battle after being damaged earlier.

"On it sir!" Simmons replied as the warthog pulled to a halt and allowed Simmons a god shot.

With the pull of a trigger a baseball sized dart of tungsten went streaking at the tank, where it penetrated with a shower of sparks that cut clean through the entire vehicle, spitting out the projectile after it had tumbled through the body of the Scorpion, rendering it helpless and powerless.

"Good shot mate!" Monty said as he rolled forward aiming his cannon at a pair of Warthogs that had seen him and were now turning and running. He fired a single round hat hit the ground next to the lead Warthog, making it and its crew tumble down into a creek.

"Nice dude, my turn," Hawaii grinned, patting the tank as he took his Spartan Laser and charged it until the solid red beam struck out and sliced through the second Warthog's rear section, igniting the fuel mounted in spare cans on the bumper. Launching the Warthog into a flip end over end and landed with a fiery crash into the rather dry wheat fields, igniting them as well.

"Oh hippy have we ever told you how much we love you?" Lisa said as she watched the enemy Warthog explode.

"You could stand to say it more often, but hey, remember I'm engaged," Hawaii said as he continued his relaxed posture on top of Monty.

"Speaking of marriage where is Alaska?" Grif asked as he stopped next to the other Red Warthog.

"I don't know, haven't seen her since the fighting started," Simmons replied as he began to search the perimeter for Alaska's white and gray armor.

"Uh guys, we have our own problem," Lisa spouted as she looked around.

"What?!" Carmen growled.

"Fire."

All the Reds looked to see that they were surrounded by a wall of flames that had extended from where the Warthog that Hawaii had destroyed had crashed.

"Hippy if we get out of this I'm going to kill you," Liz yelled.

In that moment however the sky seemed to fill with dozens of silver flying machines spraying white streams of fire suppressant in a desperate attempt to save their crops. The Reds watched them all silently as the walls of flame were smothered by the walls of chemicals and steam began to rise from the extinguished flames as the robots now began chirping angrily at the Reds, claws clicking and spinning as they hovered around them.

"Yeah mates, they're pretty mad at us for sort of destroying the whole field, we might want to head out before they slash our tires, or poison our food," Monty said, "Oi that wasn't my fault you little pipsqueaks!" he yelled as one chirped directly at him.

"Let's move out Red Team, on to further victory!"

The Warthogs and Monty rolled out, following a path that was used by their enemy to get to the recent battleground they had just gotten through. Several Warthogs were overturned, bodies were spread out along the path, including one pinned to a tree by long serrated blades. And at the end of all the carnage was Alaska, standing on top of an intact Scorpion with at least a two dozen enemy soldiers with their hands on their heads as they trembled before her.

"What took ya?" she smirked as she twirled one of her knives over her fingers, feeling very pleased with herself.

"We've been looking everywhere for you baby, you okay?" Hawaii said, jumping down off of Monty and ran to his beloved and bear hugged her out of sheer joy.

"We were looking for her?" Grif asked, "I thought we were trying to get away from those robots before they poisoned us."

"Can it meat sack."

"Oh…good to see you too babe," Alaska grinned, as Hawaii put her down.

"Hey Reds! We beat the shit out of these guys you suck!" a voice out in the distance was heard.

"You didn't capture anything, we captured their ship!" another voice called out.

"Yeah but we didn't have Maine helping us, and we still kicked us, which means you suck!"

"No you suck!"

"You suck!"

"You suck!"

"No you!"

"All of you suck!" Church yelled over the comms.

"Jesus Christ Church!" Carmen yelled shaking the ringing from her ears, "you think you can say that a little louder, I don't think the people on the planet heard you."

"Uh guys, you might want to get over here, the Lieutenant is wounded and wants to see you," Doc called over the radio.

"Oh fuck I forgot," Liz groaned, putting her head on the wheel.

"Uh tell her we can't really come to see her right now, we uh…have prisoners we need to torture…I mean interrogate!" Carmen tried to stutter.

"Wait, did you say she's wounded?" Simmons asked.

"Yes I'm wounded, now stop sucking up and get over here."

Rebels

"Run!"

"Oh crap what is it?" another of their number yelled out desperately as the remaining three Rebel soldiers continued to flee in panic from something that had been picking them off one by one since they'd arrived in the Plentiful on a supposedly easy smash and grab.

"There it is!" one of their number screamed before he was yanked into the trees like a rag doll, screaming the whole way up until his cries stopped with a sickening crunch.

"Keep running."

"No!" the man in the back screamed as he fell to the ground and was yanked back under the bushes.

"Oh fuck!" his buddy yelled as he dove trying to grab for his hand but missed, seeing his pal get dragged out of sight as his screams ceased.

"Oh God…oh God…" he trembled as he spun around, pistol aimed and ready.

But when he felt a dark presence behind him he gulped down his fear when he heard a single noise.

"Blarg."

Church: Dude, that last part was fucked up.

BIG Z: I liked this chapter. Although there's something missing.

Tex: Like why a bunch of dudes just showed up out of the blue and attacked us? Don't get me wrong, I had a lot fun, just…why?

Church: Well him telling us is going to ruin the whole point of the next chapter.

BIG Z: And I reached my self-imposed word CAP for this chapter.

Next Chapter Preview: Time to torture…I mean interrogate the prisoners, and reap the spoils of war.