A/N: Still here, but working full-time, part-time college coursework, and gaming have not always allowed me the time or energy for creative projects. Making minor adjustments to format for all stories to improve readiblity. (Original was lost when my hard drive crashed!) Also, actively working to fix the formatting errors on chapters 6 and 7!
"Alright, according to their computers, there's a separate portion of the cargo bay reserved for high security items just to our right," Epsilon began as Doc finished administering the sedative to the two guards they'd incapacitated moments earlier.
"Any more surprises?" Carolina asked she and Caboose (Doc and Donut were staying back to keep an eye on the guards) began making their way over to way point displayed on her HUD.
"Probably…however, I'm pretty sure I've figured out their encryption keys work here…whoever made their encryption key has a thing for palindromes."
"I like drones," Caboose interjected.
Epsilon and Carolina said nothing in reply, as they were used to Caboose's random statements. "So let's go over this again…what exactly do you think they have?"
"Not think," Epsilon answered as he brought up a display showing what looked like a heavy-security container a short distance away from them. Lines of text appeared, listing what looked like various armor enhancements. "Know…and after a little decryption work, I now know that this cargo bay contains the Meta's restored armor."
At this new information from Epsilon, Carolina stopped dead in her tracks at the realization of the last Freelancer who had equipped and ran all of the listed armor enhancements. "Maine? I thought the simulation troopers and Wash killed him?"
"Well, it was more the Reds attaching him to a Warthog that dragged him off a cliff..." Caboose chimed in.
Carolina's brows rose underneath her helmet. Wash had informed her that Maine had died at the hands of the simulation troopers, but it wasn't until now that she'd been told the exact details of her assailant's last hours alive. "A Warthog…"
"Yup. Almost took Grif with him, too," Doc added in the same nonchalant tone that he used when talking about any of the thousand antics regarding Blood Gulch Canyon-
-someone's approaching her. Probably Tex to finish the job, but she's in no state to fight back, so all she can do is attempt to pull herself away from her assailant.
She pulls herself up to a sitting position to see Maine making a beeline for her. He reaches down and lifts her up by her neck with one hand "What are you doing?!" she screams as he yanks off her helmet, drops it to the ground, and begins to grope at her AI insertion point. "No…no!" she screams as her AIs are forcibly ripped from her spine-
Damn, and I thought Wash's head was fucked up after they tried to stick me in him, Epsilon's voice began as his image popped into her mind.
Shit, Carolina swore integrally as she closed her eyes and forced herself to focus on a sense that would help bring her back to the present. When she opened her eyes, she saw Donut, Doc, and Caboose actively prying open one of the storage containers.
"Hey Church, we got it open!" Caboose announced gleefully.
"Awesome buddy, I knew you could do it!" Church replied. "Told them to go crack open the Meta's storage unit as soon as you entered that flashback," Epsilon added quietly without waiting for her to ask. "Probably for the best."
Carolina swallowed hard. "I'm…sorry you had to see that," she began just as quietly as she took a few steps towards the container.
"Don't worry about it," Epsilon replied. "And don't worry…his body is being held elsewhere."
Carolina relaxed a little as she allowed a smile to cross her face. "Good to know," she added as she leapt up next to Doc and Donut and peered into the interior of the container. As she did, Epsilon began running scans over the armor.
"Holy shit…they left most of the original armor enhancements in," Epsilon exclaimed.
"So…what do we do now?" Doc asked with a glance at Carolina.
We get this shit off him and figure out a way off this ship, Carolina thought as she activated her radio.
######
So far, so good, Wash thought to himself as he casually strolled by a group of armored soldiers working on what appeared to be a giant gray box. (Said armored soldiers had also been almost completely oblivious to him sneaking Sarge past them and into the maintenance room, as Grif had provided an excellent distraction in the form of cold, fizzy drinks.) As he walked, his eyes fell on a large bundle of wires that connected laying on the floor. That's a trip hazard…
"Wash, what's your location?" Carolina's voice over his internal radio channel.
"Just finished talking with ol' Sarge," Wash added casually, responding back on the same private channel. "You know him, just beavering away on one of his little projects," he added with a friendly nod at one of the the armored troopers, who was currently staring at him with what Wash suspected was a suspicious look. "Can I help you?" he asked as he left his mike open in hopes that Carolina would be able to figure out what he was currently dealing with.
The trooper who was squatting down spoke first. "Uh…what are you doing here?" he asked.
"Oh, you know, just stretching my legs…gets a bit cramped in our quarters," Wash answered as his eyes continued to trace the bundle back to what appeared be Simmons' location. I wonder…
"Well, we don't really care what what you do, but if our boss catches that orange guy with the soda in here again…" the other solider trailed off as he looked down the hall at Grif, who had just turned the corner.
"Say no more," Wash replied cheerfully as he opened a comm channel with Grif. "Grif, could I have word with you?"
"Whatever," Grif replied. Wash heard a loud slurp of soda both from down the hall and over his radio.
"Sorry about that, gentlemen," Wash apologized as he briskly walked over to Grif and the white-armored pair returned to their work. Wash turned his attention back to Carolina. "Status update?" he asked when he was a few steps away from Grif.
"Well, I've got bad news and worse news: they had Freelancer equipment, including" Carolina began.
"Had?" Wash asked, fairly confident that he already knew who the knew owners of the equipment were.
"Had," Carolina said. "Donut, Doc, and I grabbed what we could, but they've got more than just the equipment, Wash: they have Maine here, too."
"WHAT?" Grif exclaimed in a panic, nearly dropping his soda. "The Meta's here? I thought we killed him!"
"You probably did, as it's just his armor…God knows where his body went," Epsilon said. Grif relaxed slightly "Anywho, Carolina and I have both decided it's best that we 'blow this popsicle stand,' both literally and figuratively. We've located an escape pod that can hold all of us, but we're gonna need some help from you to make sure we're not caught by our hosts."
Wash looked at Grif as he quickly formulated his plan. "The Reds and I have you covered," he answered. "We'll see you in ten. Sync?"
"Sync," Wash and Carolina said in unison.
"Washing machine," Caboose added.
Oh, Caboose, Wash thought as he turned his attention back to Grif. "Grif, do you remember where that room full of servers was?"
"Yeah, it's a few doors back from here," Grif said, pointing back behind him with his partially full soda bottle.
"Correct…listen, I'm gonna need you to go there and be prepared to spill that-" he pointed to Grif's soda- "-all over it on my mark."
Grif looked at his soda. "Won't that fuck it up?" he asked as he took another slurp.
"With any luck, yes," he said as he gave the orange one a nudge. "Hurry, we don't have much time," he added.
Grif sighed. "What a waste of good soda," he muttered under his breath as he briskly began trotting towards the bridge. Wash switched on his radio again. "Sarge, status update on the engines?"
"Just finished the upgrade," Sarge answered. "Power's still disconnected…wouldn't want to shock myself now, would I?"
"Leave them disconnected until I contact you again, over?"
"Will do, Blue," Sarge answered.
Wash began heading back towards the the armored soldiers. "Simmons, report."
"Let's see, I've changed their navigation system, an extremely outdated graphics card, upgraded the motherboard and fan…" he rattled off, "-and I even added acrylic window panels! All I need to do now is restart their system and they'll be good as new."
Or not, Wash thought to himself. "Excellent job, Private," Wash said, remembering that Simmons would appreciate the praise. "When I contact you again, go ahead and restart the system…complete with those 'other' surprises."
"Will do, Wash," Simmons replied cheerfully.
"Carolina, status update?" Wash whispered as he quietly crept around the workers and positioned himself beside the large bundle of wires.
"Almost to the escape pods," she replied. "You got a plan?"
Wash switched to the comm channel reserved for the entire group. "Red Team…go."
"Restarting!" Simmons chirped.
"Engine reving as we speak," Sarge replied gleefully.
Silence from Grif. "Grif?"
"Oh my god, who spilled soda all over my instruments?" a high-pitched male voice squeaked over the radio. In the background, the faint sound of sparking wires buzzed.
"Oh my god, I spilled my soda?" Grif's voice broke in, louder than the first.
Here goes nothing, Wash said to himself as he dragged his foot over the bundle.
Halfway to their destination, Carolina, Donut, Caboose, Doc, and Epsilon were briefly startled by a sudden dimming of the lights that was followed by flashing emergency red lights and tones.
"I think Wash just killed the power," Epsilon said calmly.
"Good," Carolina replied. "Keep moving, all of you," she snapped back at the others as she broke out into a run at a pace that was comfortable for her, but would push the other three to their max.
######
This plan is shaky, C, Epsilon began as they bolted towards the escape pod.
We didn't have a lot of options, Epsilon, Carolina replied as she prepared to turn a corner. "Right," she said aloud as she did a hard right turn. I can't let this equipment fall into the wrong hands. Behind her, she could hear the heavy panting of Doc and Donut and Caboose singing to himself.
I get that, but you do realize that attempting to navigate that escape pod to that planet is one hell of a gamble, right? As he finished, the group approached the escape pod.
"I do," she replied out loud as they all stopped right in front of the console. As she did, Epsilon displayed the appropriate codes required to open the hatch. Carolina's fingers flew over the keys. Seconds later, the words "ACCESS GRANTED" displayed on the screen and Carolina punched in an additional code, which caused the hatch to open with a hiss. "You three, inside," she barked. Doc and Donut obeyed without a word, but Caboose stood in front
Caboose looked around at the flashing lights and blaring sirens. "What about Tucker?"
"Don't worry, little buddy…he'll be here soon," Epsilon reassured him.
"What…the…hell…did…you two…do?" Grif panted between breaths from behind Wash as the five of them turned another corner and headed down what Wash knew to be last corridor towards their escape route. (Wash had decided to proceed at "Freelancer punishment run speed" and considering the current physical conditioning of the simulation troopers, might have a bit too much for them.)
"Added a bit more 'oomf' to their engines," Sarge answered. Despite being much older than Grif, Simmons, and Tucker, Sarge appeared to be tolerating Wash' pace much better than the younger three, as evidenced by his ability to speak without gasping for air.
"Epsilon, status report," Wash shouted over his radio.
"Dude…it looks like the entire ship is trying to reboot itself," Epsilon replied as Wash came to abrupt stop at an intersection. Wash checked his HUD: Two hundred meters were all that was left between them and the others, and so far. It appeared that they had a clear path through to the escape pod-
"Sounds…about…right," Simmons gasped, clutching one side and leaning on Grif for support. Without warning, red dots flashed into view all around their HUD.
"Ah, fuckberries," Tucker swore as he reached for his sword.
"Wash, you've got company headed your way," Carolina informed him.
"I'm fully aware of that," he said as he pulled two remote charges from his belt and affixed them to opposite walls. "We're almost there, keep moving," he said as he began running again-
######
The ship lurched again, which threw everyone but Carolina to the ground…and she had only remained upright because of the constant barrage of ship status updates Epsilon had been sorting through, including the ship-wide "brace for impact" warning.
They've really done it this time, haven't they? Carolina thought as Caboose got to his feet first.
Yes, they have, Epsilon replied, To the point that most of this vessel will probably be destroyed upon entering that planet's atmosphere…throw in the solar storm from the red ball of fire, and we'll be able to escape with little to no chance of pursuit.
At the mention of said star Carolina looked out the window at the red giant that Wash had been staring at just over an hour ago. Solar storm?
Epsilon brought up what what appeared to solar weather reports. One of my subroutines has been keeping an eye on that star ever since we entered the system. It's been throwing out energized particles left and right, and it's apparently been causing problems with radio and satellite transmission in this system. As he finished, Carolina's radio crackled to life, but neither of them could make out anything besides static.
"Wash? That you?" Carolina asked as she poked her head out of the escape pod and scanned the hall for any sign of her fellow Freelancer.
The static continued for a few more seconds before a discernible voice broke through. "-trouble!" Wash's panicked tone broke through as an explosion broke out somewhere to her left
"WHERE ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE COMING FROM?" Tucker's voice echoed from somewhere down a hall.
"Tucker?" Caboose's voice asked from somewhere inside the escape pod. "Tucker, is that you?"
"C, on your right," Epsilon warned as Carolina's HUD lit up with a sea of red dots on the tail of a few blue ones. She reached back and grabbed both of her plasma rifles. As she looked down her sites, she saw three different-colored forms running for their lives towards her: Grif's orange, the regulation red of Sarge, and the slightly more maroon shade of Simmons being pursued by what looked like half the ship's crew, according to her HUD. Damn it, Wash, where are you?
"YOUR LEFT, YOUR LEFT!" Tucker shouted. Carolina snapped her head back to the right, and sure enough, Tucker's sea green and Wash yellow-on-blue were both making mad dashes towards them, with more members of the ship's security team hot on their heels. Tucker's sword was fully extended but fading fast. Carolina glanced at Wash and immediately noticed red streaks on his combat knife.
"Help the Reds!" Wash shouted over the radio. His traffic was immediately followed by a second ship-shaking explosion somewhere behind him and Tucker. Epsilon automatically stabilized Carolina via her mag boots, but the sound of Doc, Donut, and Caboose hitting the ground with a loud clunk told him that they needed to get the hell out of there, soon. He split his processing power between timing the pod launch and formulating which targets for Carolina to shoot. (As an AI, time seemed to slow to a crawl for him during events like this, but he was fully aware of Carolina's skyrocketing heart rate and elevated adrenaline levels.)
Alright… Epsilon began as he took stock of the white soldiers right on Grif's heels, if she hits that tall bastard in the hips, then takes out the guy behind him right after, there's a 90% chance that those two will cause a traffic jam, which should give the Reds enough of a lead…but even then, Wash and Tucker will still be closer to us, and I can't guarantee that she'll be able to hit anything if I have her aim her pulse rifles in opposite directions…shit. In slow motion, Tucker began turning to his left towards the escape pod while Wash began turning around while reaching for his rifle, a move that was going to cause him to trip and fall and take Tucker with him in the process. Well, that's gonna throw a wench in that plan. Epsilon quickly calculated the predicted paths of Sarge, Grif, and Simmons and arrived at the conclusion that they could probably reach Wash and Tucker quicker than they would be able to reach the escape pod. Wash is gonna hate me for this later, Epsilon thought to himself as he composed his plan.
"Church…" Carolina began as time re-accelerated for him. Carolina had aimed both her pulse rifles into the sea of white as Wash swung around and crashed into Tucker, which had caused both of them to hit the floor and skid a few feet closer to the Red.
Hit the highlighted guys and wait until everyone grabs Wash before you grapple-hook him in, Epsilon instructed he as he uploaded his plan to her HUD before switching to the group channel. "Reds and other blue asshole, grab onto Wash and make a chain."
"WHAT?" Wash screamed as he and Tucker struggled to get up. (Wash's left arm was caught under Tucker.)
"I call shotgun!" Sarge called out as he reached Wash first and dived onto Wash's left leg. "Grif, Simmons, grab on," Sarge added. In short order, Carolina fired off two quick shots that perfectly followed his predictions, with an added bonus of causing both of them to lose their weapons. As the two fell, Grif held onto Simmons as Simmons wrapped his arms around Sarge's ankle as Carolina quickly holstered her pulse rifles and grabbed her grappling hook.
"Ready…" Epsilon began as she aimed the business end of grappling hook at Wash's groin. As she did, Tucker quickly disentangled himself from Wash and seized onto Griff's ankle.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," Wash groaned as he looked over and realized what was about to happen to him (again.)
"Reds and Blues, this is your captain speaking," Epsilon cut in as Carolina squeezed the trigger and deployed the hook, which made a beeline for and connected with his groin. (Even though his armor absorbed the blow, he still flinched as the hooks sunk into the metal of his armor.) "Please maintain your hold on the asshole who stole my armor-"
"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET US OUT OF HERE!" Wash shrieked as he looked around wildly and saw that their pursers were still closing in on them.
"Aim…" Epsilon said as Carolina took a few steps back and activated her mag boots again, which rooted her to her spot.
"Fire," Carolina finished as she retracted the hook and a multicolored airborne train of screaming body armor came hurtling through the air and through the escape hatch door. With Epsilon's assistance, Carolina leapt into the pilot's chair and out of the way just before the five of them crashed into the front of the escape pod.
"Yay, Church!" Caboose said cheerfully as Doc punched the button to seal the hatch door. (He and Donut had quickly found their way to a seat after the second explosion.) "You made it!"
"Ow…my leg…" Wash muttered weakly from somewhere underneath Grif.
Get us out of here, Epsilon, Carolina said as she turned her full attention to the front and brought up the escape pod's controls.
Done and done, he replied as the engines ignited and began to propel them away from the ship. As it did, the unsecured mass of Grif, Simmons, Sarge, Tucker, and Wash slid a few feet backwards, complete with varying swear words and painful mutterings from the blue members.
Carolina exhaled and relaxed her shoulders as she twisted herself around to survey the scene behind her: Grif and Simmons had managed to untangle themselves first and had seated themselves to Donut's left. Sarge had taken the seat closest to the exit hatch on Donut's right, which was opposite of Doc. Tucker was still in the process of pulling himself up next to Caboose, who was currently fixated on one of the objects he'd picked up from the cargo bay. Which one did he get ahold of- she thought, but then she noticed that Wash's left and right legs appeared to be uneven-
"Soo…" Wash interjected grumpily as Doc examined his left leg, which appeared slightly shorter than his right, "Whose bright idea was it to use your grappling hook on my balls again?"
Epsilon projected himself on everyone's HUDs before he answered. "Hey, you were the one who led a ship full of space pirates right to our extraction point," he countered as he scanned Wash's vitals. In pain, but otherwise okay. "And honestly, you dislocating your hip would have been the least of your worries if I'd gone with another plan."
"How…lovely," Wash grumbled.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Grif's weight might have yanked your hip out of it's socket," Doc said as he turned off his tool. "Fortunately, I might be able to pop it back into place…however, it's probably gonna hurt like the dickens, and I'm gonna need to get him partially out of his armor."
Wash groaned again as he leaned back against the base of the chair, found the release to his left leg's armor, and engaged it.
Carolina glanced down at her utility belt and grabbed one of recovered healing units they'd stolen from the pirates. "This might help with the pain," she said as she tossed it back to him.
Wash caught it with both hands. "What's this?" he asked as he turned it over to examine it.
"New and improved healing unit," Epsilon answered, "that doesn't require me to run it." Mainly because I have to dedicate CPU power to getting us to a somewhat safe crash site now.
"Healing unit…" Wash looked back up at Carolina, his tone puzzled. "So they did have Freelancer tech…" he said as he gingerly inserted the unit into his AI slot. Within seconds, Wash's posture visibly relaxed as the unit augmented his natural painkillers.
"With emphasis on 'did'," Epsilon added, complete with air quotes as Doc positioned himself in preparation to execute the few quick movements required to fix Wash's hip.
"We grabbed as much as we carry-" Donut continued as he held up the newer versions of the speed boost and active camouflager.
"-and Donut's aim blew the rest the to hell," Epsilon finished, just as he realized that he might have wanted to phrase that entirely differently, as everyone's (with the exception of Donut's) gaze immediately turned towards him with what he could assume were the looks they usually reserved for Donut's double entendres. Fortunately, Doc chose that moment to quickly pop the head of Wash's femur back into it's proper place, which provided an excellent distraction in the form of Wash's pained screaming and him nearly punching a hole through the floor.
"There now, all better!" Doc said as he hopped back up to a standing position.
"I think you broke Agent Washington again," Caboose said as he patted Wash's shoulder.
"Oww…" Wash moaned again as he reached up to pull himself up by his arms into the seat next to Caboose. Whatever object Caboose been holding was now gone as
"You okay?" Carolina asked.
Wash gingerly placed a hand on his hip. "For the most part…that healing unit can only numb so much of the pain," Wash replied.
"I'd still recommend staying out of combat for awhile," Doc advised.
"Noted," Wash grunted as he leaned back in his seat and took a few deep breaths. As he did, a voice crackled over the escape pod's radio.
"Did you actually think you were going to get away with this?" an angry male voice snarled over the radio.
"Son of a bitch…" Epsilon muttered as he immediately turned his full attention back to the escape pod's controls, which had been disabled, along with all screens displaying "TRACKING BEACON ACTIVATED" in angry red letters and a video display that revealed the white space pirate addressing them.
"Yeah, that's right, all of our escape pods have tracking beacons…and remote kill switches, in case someone like you Freelancers tried to steal our stuff," their unnamed pirate continued as Carolina began pushing random buttons in an attempt to silence him.
Epsilon- Carolina began-
Working on it, C, Epsilon began as furiously began searching the operating system for a way to at least cut the live feed.
"We'll be sending a recovery team to retrieve all of you shortly…and when we get there, boy, do we have plans for you-"
"Ha, found it," Epsilon said as the video feed and radio fell silent. Carolina pushed away from the now-useless controls and towards Wash and the rest of the simulation troopers, who wore what she assumed to be a mix of worried and panicked expression underneath their helmets.
"So, we're pretty much fucked now?" Tucker asked.
"Looks like it," Sarge said. "Way to go, blue-tards,"
"I knew this wasn't going to end well," Griff muttered under his breath.
Wash looked over at Carolina. "I don't think we can fight our way out of this one, Carolina,"
Invisible to everyone except him, angry tears of frustration sprung to Carolina's eyes. We were so close… she thought, her hands curling into fists.
Epsilon's gaze fell on Caboose, who had begun playing with one of the items that he'd recovered from the cargo bay. "Hey Church, what's this one do?" Caboose asked as he held it closer to face…and as he did, he realized that Caboose was currently Agent Wyoming's original Temporal Distortion Unit.
An idea popped into his head. I think I can fix this, C, Epsilon said as he prepared himself for the jump from Carolina to Caboose's AI slot.
Epsilon…what are you do- Carolina's voice was cut short as Epsilon jumped from Carolina's AI slot and into Caboose's. In the nanoseconds it took to make that jump, Epsilon found himself once more in the…alternate reality…that was Caboose's mind.
Church? Caboose seemed utterly unperturbed by Epsilon's second intrusion into his mind and body.
Hey buddy…you mind if I play with your new toy here for a moment? Epsilon asked as he gained full control of Caboose's body again.
Okay, Church, Caboose answered as Epsilon began integrating his mind with tech and focused on the moment when Caboose first took possession of the unit.
Hey Church?
Yes, Caboose?
Are…are we gonna be okay?
A huge solar flare erupted from somewhere in the distance, filling the entire pod with a red light. Let's hope so, Epsilon answered as the old Freelancer tech sparked and crackled to life.