Already, Cali didn't like the look of the strange freelancers.
For one, there were four of them. And if four more freelancers were needed to help solve their battles, either they were extremely incompetent, or it was a more severe situation than any of them thought.
As they exited the pelican as a group, two soldiers came to greet them. One golden-armoured, a sniper rifle strung over his back, the other a tawny colour just bright enough to stick out from the forest around them.
"Welcome to the ongoing war." The golden guy announced in a joking tone of voice. But Cali could hear the sincerity behind his words. "We'll get you caught up on the way to the base."
"Wellllll really," Cali drawled, "I thought you'd get us caught up after the actual battle!"
"W-w-well you throught- er, thought wrong." Goldie protested. Or tried to, stumbling over what he was saying several times.
"Braska, watch your wording." The lime green one said boredly, sighing as if Goldie stuttered more often than spoke properly. "These people won't be able to understand your gibberish ever if you keep that up."
Braska spluttered, throwing his arms out.
"Wow, you're useless." Cali snarked, "I thought this was an elite army. You can't even speak properly!" Something collided with the back of his head, and he turned around sharply, "What?"
"Behave." Hawaii ordered, nodding for Braska to continue.
"You're telling me to behave?" Cali pronounced slowly, earning himself a pat on the head. He crossed his arms, glaring, "Let it be known the only reason I'm shutting up is because I don't want to lose this job."
"If that was the case, you would have shut up by now." Braska said mischievously. Cali could almost hear his smirk.
"Fight me, bitch." Cali growled.
Mini looked from him to Braska excitedly, obviously expecting them to start brawling, "Oooo, I feel some sexual tension here!"
"Alright, enough." Tawny-guy ordered sharply. "Get it together. And stop insulting my teammates." He sighed, adding, "And you guys thought my team is bad," under his breath. Cali almost responded to it, stopping at the last moment.
"Bring us to your base." Hawaii spoke up, "We have a war to plan."
"Obviously." Cali muttered, "They should have done that already."
"This way." Braska said, pointedly ignoring Cali's comment. They all followed him, Mini and Utah bringing up the rear. "I'm Nebraska, by the way. And this is my captain, Agent Michigan."
"I'm Minnesota! It's good to meet you guys. Even if you don't know how to talk." Mini interjected, giggling as Braska heaved a heavy sigh.
"Hawaii." Hawaii spoke up softly, "These three are my squad."
"I'm Utah."
"California." Cali muttered reluctantly. "Can we get to planning the battle, like now?!"
Michigan nodded, "Right. Well, the Insurrectionists have a small base approximately four clicks away from here. It could hold, I dunno, maybe twenty men? The thing is, however many times we fight, they always seem to have the exact same amount of soldiers, no matter how many we kill. And it's often way more than twenty. Sometimes, they have even more. But our radars never pick up on any aircraft carrying reinforcements, so we don't know where it's coming from. We've brought the fight right up to their base, but there's no indication of an underground bunker, or a landing field for aircraft."
"So you're locked in a stalemate." Cali said, after translating what Michigan said into Italian for Hawaii, "How many soldiers have you lost?"
"Hundreds. You're the first freelancer reinforcements we've called for, though." Michigan admitted.
"Have you tried calling for a truce?" Mini interjected.
"Yes, but they always refuse."
"Why haven't they killed you yet?" Hawaii said suddenly. Cali could sense that she was thinking hard from her body language, how her fingers drummed against her thigh absent-mindedly every now and then, breaking her usual stillness. He had the exact same thought.
"No clue." Braska said, shrugging helplessly, "They're fine with killing the ODSTs, and they've had plenty of chances to massacre us, but I guess we're too amazing for them to take those chances."
"Yeah right." Cali drawled, "There's something odd going on here."
"Like the tension between you and Braska?" Mini replied, "You're obviously flirting. Just saying."
"You're not helping." Cali growled, turning back towards Michigan. But before he could speak up again, Braska swung open the door to the base, and they all stepped inside. It was almost ghostly inside, made entirely of concrete and metal with low ceilings and dim light. They came to a large room, with a wooden table in the center that somewhat copied the hologram table in the meeting room on the M.O.I.
"So." Utah said, brushing one hand over the table, "What's the game plan?"
Hawaii stepped around the table towards the other side, and almost instantly the room fell silent. The way she was holding herself had an air of authority like a commander addressing the soldiers underneath them, "We need a strategy."
"We storm the base." Michigan said simply, "Kill everyone, then investigate."
"As much as that sounds fun, I don't think storming the damn place will do us much good," Cali murmured.
"What else can we do? There are eight of us. If eight freelancers can't kill enough people and download secrets from whatever database they have, who can?" Mini said.
"And what other choice is there? Giving up?" Utah said, "The Director would be furious if we did that." Braska winced at this, and Cali looked at him sharply.
"Someone could go undercover, with that many soldiers it wouldn't be hard." Cali said, rotating his gaze to glaring at Mini. Hawaii nodded thoughtfully.
"You don't think we've already tried that?" Michigan said, "They have motion sensored security cameras everywhere. They'll easily pick up the distorted outlines of whatever invisibility unit you use. Those things are far from perfect."
"Cali, continue." Hawaii said, raising one hand to silence Michigan.
"The insurrectionists commonly have red and black armour, similar to my style. And I've done plenty of undercover work before, I can get in and get info, then we can figure out their motive from there." Cali stated "Of course that's just general planning,"
Hawaii nodded. "Maybe. But you're not going in alone. There's no point. It could be a trap. There could be hundreds of units of back-up there already. You going alone is useless. If we use a distraction, two of us can collect information as a team. Making sure one always gets out alive with the info. Then we kill everyone."
"Draw out the soldiers, and kill them! Sounds like something I can do." Braska said happily.
"Dunno. You sound pretty useless as it is." Cali muttered, earning himself a glare from the golden-armoured soldier.
"Shut it Cherry." Braska snickered, glaring at Cali.
"Wow, you can't even pronounce his name right!" Mini giggled. Hawaii snapped her fingers for the medic's attention again.
"Eh- what? It's a nickname! For redheads! You know!" Braska waved his hands in front of him and slouching as he spoke plaintively. Cali snickered.
"Cali, you and I can do the infiltration. It's what you're best at. And I can use my adaptive camouflage to change my armor." Hawaii continued, ignoring their side conversations. Cali saw Michigan twitch out of the corner of his eye. Was he not used to someone else giving orders? Or was Michigan not sure whether he could trust the new freelancers?
"I'm good with aim. I can take out the security cameras beforehand." Mini interjected helpfully.
"Me too, with my snifle-er-fuck! Sniper rifle." Braska added. Or tried to, fumbling his worlds yet again.
"We already have Mini for that job, useless." Cali muttered, crossing his arms.
"Yeah? So? I can help! Besides, how would you know how useless I am, shorty?" Braska shot back.
Cali's hands shifted to his hips, "Um, because you suck at every single thing you've shown us you can do so far?"
"Hey! Ya know what? Fuck you."
"Ew, no." Cali shuddered.
"Alright you two." Hawaii commanded suddenly, pointing to the exit, "Either shut up or go into the next room and make out."
Cali gaped at her, too stunned to snap back. "Excuse me?" He sassed finally, barely getting the words out due to his surprise.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh." Mini said quietly. "They liiiike each other." She raised her hands into the air, "You both have been excused!" She announced loudly. "Now go make out, like Hawaii said!"
"I mean, I wouldn't say no. Or- wait. I would. Would I?" Braska tried to say. Cali just growled at him.
"Continue." He jerked his head at Hawaii, flipping up his middle finger towards Braska. The golden-armoured freelancer choked on his breath.
"Everyone else can form the distraction." She finalized, her voice back to being patient, "This is kill-on-sight. Just don't kill your own teammates."
"Awww, fuck. This means I can't kill Useless over there." Cali grumbled mockingly, looking sideways to judge Braska's reaction.
"No killing my soldiers!" Michigan cried. "We've been over this!"
"Have we?" Mini asked innocently.
"I don't think so." Utah pondered, "But at least we know now. Speaking of, isn't there supposed to be four of you?"
"Alabama and Oklahoma are out patrolling the perimeter of the base." Michigan replied through gritted teeth, "So. Do we have a plan or not? Because I'd like to get them caught up."
"No, we've just been discussing the weather for the last ten minutes." Cali drawled.
"The plan. Agents Minnesota and Nebraska take out the security cameras. You guys cause a distraction, Cali and I will go around to the back so we can get into the actual base." Hawaii said in a tone of voice that indicated she thought what she said should be obvious.
"Do you guys plan to join the actual battle afterwards?" Mini asked
"It depends on how well you guys do on your part, especially with Useless on your team." Cali mused, "If you guys are winning, then no shit Sherlock, but if it's going badly, I suggest we call a retreat at that point. Which is most likely going to happen."
"Jeez, where's the faith in your team?" Braska chuckled, elbowing him humorously.
Cali stepped away before they could make actual physical contact. "I have faith in my team, I just don't have faith in you." He said bluntly.
Braska started to say something in defence, but then subsided after several attempts, "Yeah, I should have seen that coming." His arms drooped.
"Seen what coming?" Said a new voice. Cali tilted his head to see two more soldiers walking into the room- Alabama and Oklahoma, he guessed. Who else could it be?
"Oh, look." Hawaii said passively, "Where were you two?"
"They were patrolling, like I said." Michigan said at the same time as Alabama replied, "Lounging on the roof." Cali almost chuckled as Hawaii shot Michigan a look. He could almost sense how smug it was.
But Hawaii said nothing, instead gesturing for Michigan to explain the plan to them. Cali slid over closer to her, whispering under his breath in her native language, "What was that about."
"I spotted them lounging about while helping Agent Minnesota land the pelican." Hawaii whispered back, in fluent Italian, "I'm guessing Agent Michigan is really suspicious of us being close to the director, which is why he lied to us."
"Michigan does seem pretty protective of the others," Cali agreed, still in Italian, "Always jumping to Useless' defense. It does seem like something he would do, if anything to stop Alabama and Oklahoma from getting in any kind of trouble."
"I'm still tempted to make them run laps." Hawaii replied, before turning back to the others. Cali snickered, knowing she was joking only by her tone of voice. Hawaii switched to English as she announced, "It's settled. We attack tonight."'