Under the Maroon
Disclaimer: I don't own Red vs Blue.
(**)
„TURN AROUND!" Oregon yelled at the pilot.
"Sir?"
"What? Are you deaf?! Turn the damn thing around before they discover us!" Oregon ordered, referring to the Staff of Charon, which had opened fire on their ship.
"What about Agent New Mexico?"
"You wanna go in and get shot down, be my guest. But open the latch so I can jump off."
The pilot pondered that for a bit, then nodded and turned around. "Where to?"
"Home in on Rhode's position."
(**)
"Yes, launch the missiles! Fire the MAC cannons! Give 'em everything we got! Blow that Freelancer scum out of the sky!" Duke ordered in his destructive glee as he watched the enemy ship burn. It was easy. They'd used the mountains as a cover and caught them by surprise. Before they even knew what was going on, they had taken down their shields and were shooting holes into the hull.
The ship started turning towards them to return fire, but instead turned away again and tried retreating, but flew against a mountain, ripping it's hull apart. Duke watched as it fell towards the ground and sighed in happily.
Drake just shook his head. "You know, with the way you usually behave, I forget how excited you get during combat."
"It is incredibly satisfying to take down a UNSC ship, lad. You know that."
He did. While Drake didn't like the UNSC, Commander Duke downright hated them. He doesn't know why, he just knows that Duke has some sick obsession with the SPARTAN program.
"So, we can go get them now?"
"Aye, lad. This is Commander Duke, calling Roberts and Simmons. Come in."
"This is Roberts," Roberts spoke up over the radio.
"Status report!"
"Everything okay, sir. We're clear and ready for pick-up."
"Roger that. Any word from Simmons?"
"No, sir. Haven't heard from him since the drop."
"Understood. A pelican is on it's way to you." He switched off the radio.
(**)
Simmons ran out of the cave. "Thank god. I thought we would never make it. Feels like we've been in there forever."
Frowney sobbed.
"I know it's only been an hour. Still feels like forever."
Frowney sobbed.
Then Simmons heard something. "Get down!" he said, pushing Frowney down. They then sneaked towards a ledge and saw a patrol of UNSC soldiers. "They must have been deployed to look for us. Let's see, if we caught them by surprise..." he then felt that Frowney was too close to him. "Do you mind?"
Frowney then backed off with a sob.
"Alright. They're about to come up here. I'll take the ones in the back out with precision shots while you mow down the ones in the front. Got it?"
Frowney nodded with a sob.
They went into position, Simmons behind a rock and Frowney in front of the cave, and waited. The soldiers then came into sight and opened fire when they spotted Frowney, who returned fire and quickly took out the head of the group. Some went into cover while others tried to retreat. The latter ones were quickly dispatched by Simmons. The three remaining soldiers dove into a small trench and fired at Frowney. Frowney then suddenly stopped firing and fell on one knee. In the continued fire from the UNSC soldiers, a bullet pierced Frowney's right soldier, making Frowney fall.
"NO!" Simmons yelled, throwing a grenade into the trench. The soldiers panicked and tried to throw it back, but failed. Simmons heard the explosion as he ran back to Frowney. "Fuck! Frowney, I knew it! You should have rested!" Frowney sobbed. I have to bandage this!" He said, grabbing Frowney's arm, resulting in a pained sob. "Sorry." That brought him an accusing sob. "I don't what I'm doing here, I'm not a medic," Simmons frantically yelled. Frowney then started shaking and breathed quicker. "Are you hyperventilating? Oh crap. Listen, there's nothing to be afraid of. Just lay down." Frowney did. Simmons checked the shoulder. "Okay, the bullet went right through, so I just have to bandage it up." Frowney sobbed. "Don't worry. It's easy. I just need you to take off your armor."
Frowney shook it's head with a sob.
"Oh, so now you wanna get complicated?"
Frowney nodded.
"The way I see it, you have three options. Take off your armor, bleed to death or die of infection."
Frowney pondered that and sobbed. It then pulled off it's helmet to reveal a beautiful woman with pale skin, dark brown eyes and long ebony hair framing her face. "Happy now?"
"Uh, yeah, actually. Now, if you would please take off the rest." She looked at him. "Don't give me that look. Just take off your chest and shoulder piece." She obliged.
Simmons took another look at her shoulder-wound, then pulled out some bandages and bandaged it up. "That should suffice for now." They then heard something and looked up to see multiple UNSC pelicans flying towards their location. "Crap. The guys from before must have called them." Frowney immediately went for her turret, but Simmons stopped her. "No, your exhausted and wounded. You can't fight."
"You have got to be kidding me. You can't hold them all off by yourself. You need me."
"Perhaps, but you can't fight. C'mon, put on your armor and get up. I need to get you into the cave."
"Simmons..."
"Frowney! We don't have much time. Get in the cave!"
After a moment of thinking, she nodded and got up. Simmons helped her up and into the cave. He then came back out and took position.
Three pelicans landed, bringing in about fifty men plus Agents Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Oregon.
Simmons checked his equipment. He still had two rockets, one frag grenade, two plasma grenades, two spike grenades and two magazines for his battle rifle, which still had 24 rounds left in it.
He waited for them to come closer, then pulled out the frag grenade and tossed it. It exploded just as it landed and took out half a dozen soldiers. As the enemies regrouped, he pulled out his rocket launcher and fired. Each rocket took out about ten soldiers. Good. One half down, one to go. He went into cover as the remaining soldiers opened fire. Okay, at this rate, they should be reloading right about... The firing decreased. Simmons jumped out and fired, taking out three guys. He ran around, dodging their shots and returning fire, killing about half a dozen guys. He then grabbed a nearby soldier and used him as a shield while reloading. He stuck a plasma grenade onto his hostage and pushed him into a group of soldiers, killing another five guys. Only ten more. One of them through a grenade at him, so he jumped away. While rolling back onto his legs, he grabbed a handful of snow and threw it at the soldier. The snow stuck to his visor.
"Oh crap, I can't see," the soldier yelled. In his panic, he started firing. Simmons ducked under the bullets, ran up to the soldier and spun him around, making him shoot at his own men, killing three of them. Using the soldier as a shield, he took down the rest of the soldiers and then shot his hostage in the head.
As the body fell to the ground, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Oregon took up fighting stances.
One plasma grenade, two spike grenades, one magazine and six rounds left.
The three charged towards him. Rhode Island jumped up while the other two continued towards him. Oregon through a punch, but Simmons ducked under it, then grabbed the fist that Wisconsin threw at him and threw him into Oregon just in time to catch Rhode Island as she tried to jump-kick him, then slammed both of them against the ground.
Simmons quickly got up and blocked a kick by Wisconsin and dodged a punch by Oregon. He then kneed Oregon in the gut and threw him to the ground. After exchanging a few punches with Wisconsin, Simmons managed to punch him in the face and put him in Rhode Island's way, making her knock him to the ground.
Simmons and Rhode circled each other while Wisconsin and Oregon slowly got back up.
"Alright, buddy," Rhode started, "time to end this." With that, the three charged him and he jumped back. He then ran at them and punched Oregon in the visor, caught a punch from Rhode, twisted her arm and knocked her down with a punch in the back of the head.
He caught a kick by Wisconsin, flipped him over, stuck a spike grenade on his crotch and kicked him away. Wisconsin quickly scrambled to his feet and tried to pull it off, but it exploded and killed him.
Simmons started panting and looked back at Rhode and Oregon, who had gotten back up. "You bastard," Rhode said, angrily. "You won't be able to do that again."
"I don't know," Simmons said between breaths. "I'd say the odds aren't too bad."
That's when they heard another pelican approaching. They watched as it landed and twenty more UNSC soldiers came out, followed by a soldier in coral colored recon armor with mauve detail who walked over to the Freelancers. "Agent Rhode Island! Agent Oregon! Report!"
"Ma'am, we've caught this Insurrectionist," Oregon answered.
Agent New Mexico looked around at all the dead bodies. "This "one" Insurrectionist managed to kill 50 men and one Freelancer?"
"Ah, yes ma'am." Oregon said, looking down.
New Mexico walked up to Simmons. "You are gonna answer a few questions."
"I highly doubt that."
"Hey, listen, punk," Oregon spoke up, "if she says that you're gonna answer her questions, you'll be answering her..." He was interrupted by a sniper bullet going through his head. As his body fell to the ground, everybody looked up at the pelican flying backwards towards them. The latch was open, revealing Foster and Smiley aiming their weapons at them. Foster quickly unloaded the remaining three rounds, killing three guys. Smiley then opened fire and quickly cut down the remaining troops.
The rest of the Insurrectionists got out of the pelican as the Freelancers ran off to cover. Drake walked up to Simmons. "You alright? Where's Frowney?"
"Up there in the cave. She took a round to the shoulder. I'm fine. Just a little exhausted."
"That's alright. Go up to Frowney and let us handle this. Smiley, you go with him."
Smiley nodded with a giggle and followed Simmons.
The rest then focused on the boulder Rhode Island and New Mexico were hiding behind.
"Hey, assholes!" Drake yelled. "Surrender immediately and we might contemplate letting you live!"
As a response, the Freelancers tossed a grenade at them. Roberts jumped towards it, grabbed it and threw it back. It exploded in the air.
"Nice try!" Drake yelled. "Snyder! Roberts! Take 'em out!"
The two charged in. Snyder ran up the boulder and jumped over it while Roberts ran around it. Snyder pulled out her knives and started slashing at the two Freelancers. The two engaged her, but then Roberts came and fired his shotgun at Rhode, who ducked and engaged him instead. She grabbed his shotgun and pointed it upwards as he fired and then punched him in the stomach. He tried to fire his shotgun again, but she pointed it to the left, so he used it to knock her against the boulder instead and then headbutted her. He cocked his shotgun and aimed it at her, but was knocked down by New Mexico, who then went back to fighting Snyder.
Roberts slowly got up and shook his head. He then looked up to see Rhode pull out a grenade and throw it at him. He caught the grenade and threw it at her, hitting her head. She fell to the ground as the grenade flew straight up, then fell and landed on her. Roberts quickly dashed around the boulder to safety, as did New Mexico and Snyder. The explosion made the boulder shake. Snyder looked at the boulder and then turned to New Mexico. "You're all alone and out in the open. You've lost. Give up, bitch."
"Forget it. I would rather die than..." Before she could finish, Snyder pulled out a pistol and shot her in the head.
"Thanks for the suggestion," Snyder said as New Mexico's body fell to the ground.
"Good riddance to bad rubbish," Roberts said, walking up to Snyder.
Snyder laughed. "Yeah. So these were the infamous Freelancers. Not very impressive."
"That's because these were low-ranking Freelancers," Drake said. "According to Connie, this was Agent New Mexico. She was number 11 on their Leaderboard."
"That's nice," Snyder said sarcastically.
"Anyway, gather up the Freelancers! Their armor could be useful."
They did that. As they regrouped at the pelican, Simmons came with Frowney's left arm around him with Smiley following them. They climbed in last and Simmons carefully sat Frowney down and sat himself down next to her.
"Alright, all on board. Get us to the Charon," Drake told the pilot.
"Yes, sir," the pilot answered, starting up the pelican.
(**)
"Director. A message from the Chairman," FILSS said.
The Director sighed. "Put him through."
"Dear Director. I would like to discuss the outcome of the last mission. As you are aware, due to the importance of the mission, we granted you special resources. The UNSC cruiser "Heart of Gold" including a full crew of over 1000 UNSC staff. And according to your report, not only did you lose the loaned assets, but also four of your own agents. Not only did this catastrophe cost us millions, but may have even given our enemies an advantage. With the Covenant gaining ground, we cannot afford to lose ground to the Insurrection."
"I understand, Chairman."
"Good. Then you understand that you will be held responsible for this failure and any further failure that can be traced back to it. You are expected to retrieve the asset and take down the Insurrection. I'll be looking forward to it, dear Director."
With that, the connection was cut off.
The Director looked down. "This was a major setback," he told the Counselor. "We'll have to make up for it."
"Should we increase training intensity?"
"I doubt that will be sufficient. I think it's time to activate the Beta."
"Sir, are you sure?"
"Yes. Do it!"
"Understood."
(**)
"Excellent work, lads," Duke congratulated his men. "This is a major victory. It will bring us closer to taking down the UNSC. This is a cause for celebration. So feel free to take a few days off. That will be all." They started walking away. "Simmons. I need to talk to you."
"Of course, sir," Simmons said, walking back to him.
"Listen, Simmons. We haven't gotten much from the Freelancers yet, but what we did get is interesting."
"What did we get?"
"A possible way of infiltrating the Freelancer program. They have built up two forces of simulation soldiers in order to test their agents' abilities. These forces are made up of the worst soldiers of the UNSC. So, if we were to, I don't know, send someone in with a few fake test results and a fake record, I highly doubt they would go through the trouble of double-checking."
"So, you want me to infiltrate the program?"
"Aye, lad. Eventually, we'll have gathered enough information to get you in. And once we do, you'll have to pretend like you're completely incompetent. No combat abilities and only moderate intelligence."
"Can I at least act geeky?"
"If you want. But for now, just relax and enjoy the spoils of your work."
"Yes, sir," Simmons said, walking off.
Duke then turned around and walked up to a console. He activated it and called up the results of the Engineer analysis. He then slid it aside and called up the information he had gathered on the SPARTAN program. He clicked on a folder and a bunch of pictures and files of Dr. Halsey showed up on the screen.
Hatred and rage sparked in his eyes. "One day, you bitch. One day."
(**)
And there it is. Please R&R. Hope you enjoyed the read.