Chapter 20: Rally Cap

At the Freelancer Offsite Storage Facility, Caboose entered the control room to search for another chair for his fort when he saw FILSS flashing a warning on her screen.

"Alarm, incoming recovery beacon, level Zero!" FILSS announced, "Alarm, incoming recovery beacon, level Zero!"

Caboose looked at the info scrolling onto the screen and gasped in horror, "Oh no!"

XXX

Meanwhile, Washington, Doc and the Meta had acquired a Warthog and tore across the desert, following the coordinates of the recovery beacon. They soon left the desert, drove through a thick forest and finally reached the frozen wastes of Sidewinder.

After a while, Wash spotted a cobalt blue figure lying motionless on the snowy field, "There he is. Something doesn't seem right here. Stop the car."

Doc hit the brakes and stared at him confused, "Stop?"

"I don't like this," Wash muttered, getting out of the jeep, "How did he get hurt? Why isn't anyone else helping him?"

Behind the turret, the Meta growled and pointed at Epsilon. Wash looked round just as Epsilon rolled over and he could just see that the Blue's helmet had been removed and his mouth had been duct-taped shut.

"You're right, this is a trap," He looked up at the mountain nearby, "Those walls there, perfect for a sniper. We walk in to where he's hurt and suddenly we're boxed in, nowhere to go."

Doc glanced around nervously, "You think the Reds are tryin' to ambush us?"

"The Reds?" Wash burst out laughing and even the Meta let out a hissing snicker, "No. This is an actual military tactic. We drilled it all the time in training."

He took a cautious step forward, "No, whoever set this up is a Freelancer. Most likely, Rhode."

"Yeah," Doc muttered, "But if he set this up, wouldn't he know that you guys were Freelancers, and that you would recognize this as soon as you saw it?"

"What?" Wash cried, "No, you're overthinking it. That's just-"

Suddenly there was a loud beeping noise below them and Wash looked down... to see ten landmines lighting up around the jeep in a perfect circle, "Oh, come on."

"Told you so," Doc sighed just before the mines exploded.

XXX

Back at the Facility, Caboose ran into the storage room and rushed over to the 'Red Base' where Tucker was waiting and the Reds were sulking, "Sergeant, Sergeant!"

Sarge looked up from his seat in a parked Warthog, "What do you want, Blue?"

"I need your help!" Caboose cried.

On the crates, Simmons looked down in confusion, "Our help?"

"Yes," Caboose replied, "Church is hurt. They must have gotten to him, Rhode, and Tex."

Tucker gasped in horror but Grif just shrugged his shoulders, "They got Tex? Good, that just means she won't be able to beat the crap out of us anymore."

"No!" Caboose yelled, "We have to rescue them."

"Rescue them, are you nuts?" Grif scoffed, "No one told them to leave. They're on their own."

"But they'll die!" Caboose screamed, "Sergeant, please."

"Uh, hey dude," Grif spoke up, "I don't know if you've picked up on this yet, but if you wanna convince Sarge to do anything, I don't think the best argument is 'the Blues might die if we don't.'"

But Sarge proved him wrong by grabbing his shotgun, jumping out of the jeep and stepping up to the Blues, "Cowboy up, Caboose, I'm comin' with you."

Grif was so shocked that his jaw dropped through his helmet and bounced off his boots, "What?"

"I said I'm helping him," Sarge replied.

"Who, the Blue guy? Why on Earth would you ever help a Blue for no reason?"

Sarge ignored him, "We need weapons. How'd your equipment test go, Simmons?"

"About as well as you would expect," Simmons admitted.

"That's too bad," Sarge sighed.

Grif turned away and folded his arms, "Well, I'm not going, and you can't make me. You quit, remember? I don't take orders from you anymore. And besides, this whole Command structure thing was bullcrap anyway. We all know that now."

Sarge looked up and nodded at him, "I'm not tellin' you ta go. I'm not even askin'."

Grif spun round in shock, "You're not?"

"Nope," Sarge replied, "I'm goin'. That's it. You wanna come, come on. But I don't expect you to. Simmons will probably tell you that statistically, some of us will probably die."

"All of us," Simmons corrected.

"All of us will probably die. But that's not what's important," Sarge looked up at his two privates with a serious face, "Let me ask you two a question: You ever wonder why we're here?"

Grif swapped a puzzled look with Simmons then rubbed his chin in thought, "Um, it does seem to be one of life's greatest mysteries."

"No, I mean you!" Sarge yelled, "What are you doing here? You always act like you wanna quit, but come on, you could've left whenever you wanted. No one would have stopped ya. So why are you here? And you, Simmons."

Simmons looked round in confusion, "Me?"

"You say you wanna be in charge. They would have given you your own squad a dozen times over. You know it, and I know it. But you're still here," Sarge then turned to the Blues, "And you, Tucker. As much as I hate to admit it, you're actually good at being a soldier."

"I am?" Tucker gasped.

"I know you like to make your rude comments and pretend like it doesn't matter. But an entire alien race chose you to be their hero! So why are you here? And Caboose..." Sarge paused for a moment, "Uhhhh, it's good to see you."

"Thanks," Caboose let out a sniff, "I'm really enjoying the speech so far."

Sarge climbed onto the jeep's bonnet so he could address the whole room, "Maybe you're all here because this is the only place you fit in. Maybe you're here because you don't have anywhere else to go. Maybe you're all here because deep down, you want to be here. The reason doesn't matter. What matters is that you're here! For all we know, Tex, Rhode, and Church are dead. That means we're the only ones who know what's happening; the only ones who can prevent them from covering it up."

He narrowed his eyes and his voice became deadly serious, "So the way I figure it, these Freelancer guys wanna use us, take us away from our families and send us all over the dag gum Galaxy just to test if their agents are ready for the big fight? Well, I guess I'm interested in showing 'em exactly what a big fight is all about. Time to clean the slate. So I'm not ordering you to go. I ain't even askin'. You do what you gotta do, Private Grif."

Grif thought it over then bowed his head with a sigh, "I'll go get my car keys."

"Alright then," Sarge jumped off the bonnet, picked up his helmet and slipped it over his crew cut, "Let's move."

"I don't think a jeep will get us there soon enough," Simmons called, "But I think I know what we can use."

He led Sarge, Grif and the Blues out of the storage area and towards a room marked 'Garage'.

Once inside, he stepped aside and waved his hand towards one of the parked vehicles, "This."

Grif stared at it with wide eyes, "Man, who is gonna drive that?"

He then became of everyone staring at him, "Why is everyone looking at me?"

XXX

Why else Grif? Also, epic speech by Sarge! Till next time guys!