34 – UNLIKELY ALLIANCE
"You will surrender!" the first Blue shouted at them triumphantly. "We have you now-" He paused and took a second look at his audience. He shook his head, looked again. "Wait…you aren't the Reds!" he said finally.
"The Reds?" Ryan exclaimed. "The fucking hell are you talking about?"
Patton bellowed out a laugh. "You think we're the Reds? Are you blind?"
"High is more like it." Clair added, quiet enough that only Patton could hear. The Yellow commander nodded in agreement.
The Blue crossed his arms as if pouting. "They were supposed to come along this path! Where the hell are they?"
From the crowd surrounding the vehicles, another Blue shouted: "Well, I kept telling you that I thought I heard something go by when we were all on lunch break."
The first Blue tapped a finger to his head and mumbled: "So wait, you mean to tell me, based on the fact that we've been waiting here two and a half hours for the Reds and not intercepted them, that they must have gone by when we were all having lunch…"
The second Blue continued: "Well, I did suggest we leave someone to keep watch, but everyone was just so hungry, and you said there was no way that they'd pass us if we took a short break…"
The first Blue took a deep breath of realization before leaning back, raising his fists to the sky and shouting: "FUCK!"
While listening to the conversation, Kenny giggled to himself: "This might be a little sad if it weren't so hilarious. Every time we encounter the Blues, something like this goes on. Every time!"
Jess countered: "Well, maybe not every-"
"EVERY FREAKING TIME!" Kenny shouted, turning to glare at the COM specialist hard enough to make her flinch.
"So, now what?" Skope asked, looking around at the huge group of Blues around them and quickly checking the ammo count on his DMR's digital indicator.
Nome matter-of-factly answered: "Judging by the length of time the Blues have been waiting here, to no success, it would suggest that the Reds retreated to their base some time ago, perhaps when the Blues were having lunch, as was just suggested by the soldier who just spoke. Thus, we know they are now at their base. We will assault them just as we had originally planned."
Patton, having missed Nome's decision on account of being several meters away from him, called out to the Blues: "So, how the hell did you all figure out about Red Team? A bit successful for you guys, don't you think?"
The first Blue explained: "They attacked yet another one of our bases, and we managed to get footage of the attackers this time, thanks to Sergey's camera. Best picture ever! It's defiantly going on the fridge door!"
A third Blue, presumably Sergey, waved at the Yellows and Greens while flailing a digital camera in his other hand. "I knew this would come in handy some day!" He declared.
The first Blue continued: "We also sent scouts to track them. The scout team got sidetracked by squirrels for a few hours, but eventually they got back on the trail and we discovered where they were headed. But now that they passed us, it looks like we lost them!"
"Do not fear," Nome replied calmly. "The Reds attacked another Green base as well, and we tracked them far after they left. We know the location of their base. That is in fact where we are heading."
"No! Medic, don't encourage them!" Patton warned. "This is our assault! They'll just screw it up!"
At that remark, the Blues started whispering to each other. After some moments, the whispering quieted, and the crowd of Blues made way for a soldier with several plastic medals stuck to his chestplate with scotch tape. He was the commanding officer of this Blue platoon, a position confirmed by the large "# 1" painted on his shoulder. He held in his right hand a meat-and-cheese-filled microwave snack pastry, and spoke: "The Reds are clearly our common enemy. Our three teams should rid ourselves of them together." At that, he pushed his helmet up a bit and chomped down on a rather large bite of the pastry, splattering some of it on the Blues nearest him in the process.
Nome nodded at the Blue admirably. "Spoken like a Green…almost." He hesitated with the last word, realizing who he was complimenting. "Perhaps not." he corrected.
"Medic, now you're flattering them," Patton growled at Nome. He hesitated as well, thinking the last couple sentences over. "Well, sort of. Don't really think 'Green' is a compliment."
"Patton, the more forces we have on our side when we attack the greater our chances of success will be," Nome lectured to the Yellow commander. "Simple numerical superiority. Surely even you can understand that."
"Medic, you're ignoring one very important fact."
Nome crossed his arms challengingly. "Oh, am I?"
"They're Blues!" Patton shouted at the top of his lungs, slamming his fist on the side of his Warthog for emphasis. "They couldn't kill a fly if they had a fully armed platoon and all their lives depended on it!" At that remark, all of the Blue soldiers (except Brian, who was currently zoning out and staring at a rather fluffy collection of clouds) pointed their weapons at Patton. After doing a quick mental count of the number of firearms aimed at him and not liking the result one bit, Patton murmured: "I meant that in a non-offensive way, of course!" Reluctantly, the Blues lowered their weapons, but there were mumbles of resentment from some of the soldiers.
"Boss, I don't think the Blues are going to give us a choice," Ryan commented. "They're going to come with us if it's the last thing they do. We might as well make use of the extra firepower-"
"Hobar, I happen to know that this is just an excuse for you to get your hands on another salvo of rockets," Patton replied. "You've tried this before."
"But sir, he's right!" Clair exclaimed. "A force of thirty two is better than a force of nine. There's only four Reds, remember?"
"And we'll soon be getting reinforcements!" the Blue commander added.
"Reinforcements, yay!" Brian shouted.
"Brian?" the Blue commander exclaimed, apparently just noticing the captured Blue. "You're alive! We thought you died in the canyon fight! But…what're you doing with them?"
"Oh, I'm their prisoner," Brian explained, quite happily. "I've been having a great time-"
"You were captured?" The Blue commander asked.
"Yup!" Brian nodded enthusiastically. "It's awesome! I met Amber Stone!"
"Oh yeah, he's with us. Finders, keepers!" Patton explained.
"Anyways, I think we should fight alongside the other Blues," continued Brian.
"Oh, of course you do!" shouted Patton. "That's a given!"
"I want them to come to," said Amber. "That's four against one."
"Oh, so now we're being democratic about this, are we?" Patton asked with a vaguely annoyed tone. "Whatever happened to chain of command?"
"I agree with your weapons specialist," said Nome.
"As do I!" shouted Jess.
"And me!" said Kenny.
"And me too," replied Skope.
"Okay, fine!" Patton decided after a couple of seconds. "But just because I don't want to hear whining the rest of the way there!"
"Let's give a battle speech!" Brian suggested.
"GOD, can't we just go there and kill them already?" Patton exclaimed. "I wanna kill stuff!"
One of the Blue soldiers stood next to the Blue commander and took in a deep breath before saying loudly: "This ENEMY has wrecked NUMEROUS bases, and TAKEN countless lives, from ALL of our teams! We have been UNABLE to catch them until NOW, and so the time has come to DEAL with this…this...ENEMY!"
"Wow, what drug is he on?" Jess whispered to Skope. "Is he intending to scream every other word?"
The speech maker continued: "We must now DESTROY them before they do the same for US. Our very SURVIVAL depends-"
"Um, Lloyd, could you stop for a moment?" the Blue commander asked politely.
"WHAT, why?"
"I just need to say a few things. By the way, how much coffee did you have just before you started talking?"
"I'm trying to cut DOWN, sir. I only had about twelve at LUNCH. Caffeine is ALL you need! Sleeping is for LOSERS!"
The commander nodded half-understandingly. "Right, right. Well, I need to say a few things, so if you don't mind I'm going to take over from here."
The speech maker saluted. "SIR!" He promptly jumped down from his place next to the commander and started running around in a circle on the ground.
"Now then," the commander continued, ignoring the spinning Blue. "I will make the speech brief." All of a sudden, his COM chimed. "Um, excuse me, I have to take this." He opened a small device that turned out to be a cell phone; apparently, the Blue had removed his COM gear from his armor and put it into the body of the phone. "Yes, hello? Who is calling…no…no, I do not want a set of toothpicks on a stick…please do not call me again…good bye." He closed the phone and looked up. "Ah, telemarketers! It seems like that particular one always catches me right when I'm about to give some kind of speech. Now then, where was I? Oh, right, I hadn't even begun yet!"
"Oh for war's sake, just get it over with already!" Patton bellowed. "There are people here who want to do some actual fighting before we get discharged!"
The Blue commander continued: "What I am about to say is vitally important to the survival of everyone." He stopped. Everyone waited for a moment.
"Yes?" Skope asked.
"I was just giving dramatic pause," the commander explained.
"God, he's worse than the Avalanche commander," Patton mumbled to himself under his breath, pressing his hand against his visor. Clair patted his shoulder and told him to be patient.
The Blue commander took an almost unhealthily long breath and then continued: "Actually, that is the speech. Yup, told you it would be brief." He laughed.
Patton snorted in disgust and severe annoyance.
The Blue commander took one more step closer to the vehicles. "Right, but before we take our leave-"
"Oh, come on!" Patton shouted.
The Blue commander continued to approach Patton and Nome, eventually finding a space roughly equidistant between them. "I would like to make it clear that all of my men are fully willing to fight alongside both of your teams and give their lives to defeat the Reds."
"Wait, I don't want to!" said a shout from the crowd.
"Oh, right, there's one exception," elaborated the Blue commander. "But aside from him we're good."
"Gear UP!" the caffeinated speech maker shouted at everyone. "Let's MOVE!"
John yawned and checked the time on his HUD. Three in the afternoon. Good, his shift was almost over. Soon he could stop guarding the wall boundary of Red Base. A few more minutes, and he could go back to annoying the hell out of his three other team mates with his mass of Halo knowledge. Well, he didn't think he was annoying, but apparently the rest of the Reds disagreed. He didn't care; if they wouldn't listen, he'd just go read Ghosts of Onyx again. He looked back up to see the view of the giant bridge that used to belong to the Blues before his team came in and wiped them off it. Red Base was right next to it all this time, and none of those good for nothing heliumheads ever had any idea! He chuckled at the thought.
He decided a moment later to call it quits a few minutes early. There wasn't anything out here, and he doubted Steve would notice if he came in early. He turned to go in through the secret entrance, but stopped when he heard a sound coming from the direction of the late bridge base. Or rather, a lot of sounds. He felt it too; whatever was making it was big enough to make his bones rumble and send loose chunks of rock skittering across his watch point. He turned to see no less then twelve ground vehicles, piloted not just by Blues, but some also by Greens and Yellows, heading straight for him. The sounds of every single one of them shouting a battle cry at the top of their lungs, mixed with the roar of their vehicle's engines, echoed through the canyon, doubling and redoubling the sound till it was almost loud enough to hurt. John took an anxious breath. Instincts kicked in, bred from days spent playing every Halo game. Time to run!
Now it was his turn to shout something: "OH, SHIIIIIIII…"