"This is the game plan. We take the jeep, go to the blues and scare them off. We don't do anything unless they do anything." I explained.
"First, who made you leader? Second, terrible plan: we're meant to be killing these guys so why aren't we just going to shoot straight away?" Grif said.
"Yeah, that was a fucking terrible plan, Friedrich." Simmons said.
"You idiots, if bullets are being are shot then at least one of those bullets has our name on it. All we're doing is getting Donut out of their and getting out. We're all gonna die one day, but today is not gonna be that day."
"I guess that makes sense, I'd like to put dying to at least next Tuesday." Grif said as he put his foot down on the gas pedal.
These two were just like me. Like most people, they didn't want to die, so it was easy to get them to listen.
As the car sped forward, I noticed just how new this all was to me. I never went out because Sarge always said that my "womanly ways would get me killed by the crafty blues" so it was Grif and Simmons who went out on patrols and 'missions' to spy on the blue base. I can't even remember the last time I used my pistol. I wasn't great at it, I'm pretty sure I failed gun handling in basic training.
While I had been taking in the scenery, I felt the car in the air. It took around a second of me taking my eyes off Grif and he absolutely fucked it. And to make it worse that annoying music was blaring so a "stealth" attack was ruled out.
"Grif, you useless piece of shit" I yelled as we traveled through the air.
"Don't bitch at me, Why are there six pedals if there are only four directions?" He shouted.
As we landed, I noticed Donut standing with the flag. There was a blue guy and a black guy? Since when did the Blues haves someone with black armour? Man he looks badass, I hope he doesn't kick our ass.
"Friedrich, your plan fucking sucked." Simmons said as he pulled the trigger to the turret, aimed straight at the blues.
I got out of the car with a ringing in my ears. These helmets really were useless. What's the point if they can't block out a few gunshots, no wonder Sarge shouted every time he spoke his hearing had been ruined by how many times he's fired a gun.
"Donut, what the hell have you done! How did you manage to fuck up this bad?" I snapped at him.
"I'm sorry, sir. I went to the store, and I got this flag, then they just started attacking me." He explained.
"Wait, you just bought the flag?" Grif asked.
"Well, I got it for free. Is that not supposed to work?"
"I don't know, we never even thought to try that." Grif answered.
"Just take the flag and get back to the base. Don't do anything stupid." I said.
"No, not until someone tells me what the fuck is goi-"
"There's no time to explain, just take the flag back to the base, I'll explain everything there." Grif ordered.
I turned around and let Grif deal with that. The blues had retreated to the cliffs, so we held all the cards here, but I didn't want them dead. If the blues died, that means we'd probably get transferred. We'd be in a stalemate this entire time, and all it took was one event to start this.
"Man, this thing is loud."
"What do we do now?" I heard Grif say from behind me.
"I don't know. I didn't plan this far ahead. If we leave and turn our backs they could snipe us from the cliffs."
"Some tactician you are. So we're just gonna stay here the entire night?" He asked.
"Well at least, Simmons is having fun."
"Yeah let me stop that right now. I'll show you how a true strategist leads his men." He banged on the side of the Warthog. "Simmons." He shouted.
It took a small time for the shooting to stop since Simmons brain was probably not functioning at all.
"WHAT?" He shouted.
"get down."
"OKAY."
Once Simmons got down, Grif lay out his simple plan.
"Let's sneak round the cliffs and get them. Nothing crazy, just sticking to basics." He laid out.
"Yeah, let's just hope this goes better than General Adolf over here." Simmons joked.
"Real funny." I hissed.
We started walking around the cliffs, which was a tense experience at least for me. Maybe because I was paranoid, but mostly because I didn't feel safe in the company of Grif and Simmons and they didn't feel safe in mine. It was a weird dynamic where none of us would risk our own lives for each other or even probably protect one another, but I guess that's just part of the charm we have. Though, the only person who I know who'd die for us is Sarge. He's always talking about how he'd like to die before us so he doesn't have to see his men die.
Once we reached the foot of the cliffs. We stopped. There was no way we'd get up to the cliff from here.
"Hey Simmons, what are the chances one of us dies?" I asked red teams certified mathematician.
"Well, I'd like to say there's a 33.3 chance one of us dies, recurring of course. But statistically my heart says there's a 100% chance we'll die, and seeing that Grif made this plan, it only doubles our chance of death." Simmons explained.
"Hey, this was just a small calculation." Grif muttered.
"The numbers don't lie Grif, they never lie."
The three of us turned around only to be met by a behemoth of a tank with its turret set straight on our faces.
"What in god's name is this thing?!" Grif cried out.
"What's my greatest strength, huh? Not sure, there's not much i'm good at and there's not anything I'm extremely bad at."
"That's interesting, Mr Friedrich. Could I call you William?" The interviewer asked.
"Yeah sure. I don't care for formalities anyway."
"You're the first person to not say anything good about yourself. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" He asked.
"That's a loaded question. Hopefully alive? I don't know, I'd much rather think of the now than the future." I explained.
"Why? You scared of the future?"
"Probably."
He wrote a few notes on his clipboard and then flipped the page.
"I wonder, why someone like you would join the military. You seem very lax and how do I say it um average." He said.
"Well, I am average. I probably joined as an escape. Boring life, boring friends and everything around me just went wrong. Maybe I joined to have some peace for once."
"You joined the military to have peace of mind?" The interviewer laughed at his words. "In all my years of doing this, you're probably the most interesting person I've met William."
"I'm just being honest. Nothing to it. I'm, as you said, average."
"What would you say is your biggest regret?" He asked.
"Hmm. Not learning how to play the violin. I passed up the chance, and it's always ripped me apart."
Sometimes it really was the small things that hurt you the most. I wasn't old enough to have too many regrets, but I wasn't young enough to have none. Maybe that's all just a part of growing apart.
"I agree with that. Learning an instrument is a mostly once in a lifetime chance."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
"I think this concludes our interview. You know William, I think you'll find what you're looking for, I know the perfect place for you."
"What in god's name is that thing?" Grif cried.
"Oh, son of a bitch."
That fucker, this was probably the last place I'd want to be.
Authors note:
That little part in between is an interview Friedrich and a certain someone before joining the red team which he's remembering. I hope I made it as clear as possible that this was a flashback.
Hope you enjoy the chapter.