The first time Agent Washington is assigned to a Freelancer ground team, it's raining so hard he can barely see in front of him.
He and Maine are providing support and diversion for an infiltration team made up of Agent York, Agent Carolina, and the unsettlingly cheerful Agent Florida. Florida once visited Wash in the infirmary with a ridiculously huge bouquet of flowers and offered to give him knife-throwing lessons. Wash resolved, privately, to stay the hell away from anyone who described the ideal growing conditions for orchids on a spaceship in the same breath as he described the easiest way to slit a man's throat while he slept.
Now, with his rifle torn from his hands by a near-miss explosion, his sidearm jammed and gummed up with muddy debris, brawling inelegantly in a mess of Insurrectionist soldiers, Wash is seriously starting to regret not taking Florida up on that offer.
The infiltration team's already in position, gathering data of some sort—the Director hadn't briefed him on the details, and Wash hadn't asked. Maine is about five hundred meters to his left, according to his HUD. For all intents and purposes, Wash is alone.
One Innie soldier grabs him from behind. Another moves in to press the barrel of a Magnum under Wash's chin. She doesn't fire; she's shouting something that doesn't quite register over the constant rumble of thunder and crashing of rain and hail. Wash redistributes the power in his armor, adding a force to his kick that surprises even him, crumpling the chestplate of her armor like it's paper. He twists, squirming in the grip of the startled man behind him for an awkward moment before he realizes he hasn't restored full power to his arms yet. When he does, it's trivial to break the hold and whip back around, to grab the man's pistol and unload it into his gut. If he shouts, the wind carries the sound away.
Wash weaves back, keeping to the trees for cover, fires off two quick shots to pick off the next attackers, then staggers as something punches into his shoulder, bleeding away his shields. The second shot skips across his chestplate but doesn't penetrate his bodysuit, and by then he's close enough to pick off the sniper with his pistol.
He breathes hard, slumping against a tree in the sudden stillness, reassuring himself with probing fingers that neither of the shots broke the skin, then opens his text comm. You alive?
Maine's reply is delayed. Need help.
Wash sucks in a breath, reloads his pistol, and jogs through the mud, following the indicator on his HUD, belatedly setting up a sensor overlay to keep the strobing flares of lightning from tripping him up in the darkness. The thunder's so loud, so constant, that he almost stumbles into the fight before he hears the screaming.
Someone staggers past him, hand clutched over the blood fountaining from her throat, and then Wash sees Maine. His armor isn't clean anymore; even in the darkness Wash can make out the blood coating it. He's tearing through the Innie ranks with a knife in one hand and a shotgun in the other. He's actually wielding a shotgun one-handed.
There's also a hole in his helmet, cracks spiderwebbing out across the gold. Maine is staggering. His biocomm readouts have always looked kind of odd, but not... not like this.
"Fuck," Wash whispers, and stumbles into the fray in time to pick off the sniper already taking aim at Maine from behind. He reopens the text comm channel. These guys are dicks.
He feels Maine shrug in response behind him, figures okay, yeah, that means he's probably all right, and then they both flinch at a particularly bright bolt of lightning. Carolina's voice comes over the radio with the thunder, eerily calm and professional. "Ground team, report."
"We're here, boss," Wash says. "Maine's hurt. We can try to get to the rendezvous—"
"Negative," Carolina says, then pauses. "How bad's Maine?"
"Fine," Maine says, driving his ka-bar into an Insurrectionist's chest.
Carolina doesn't hesitate. "Okay. We got ambushed here—somebody tipped them off. York's down, I'm wounded. We need you to hold your position until we can find an alternative route to evac."
"Uh," says Wash, just as his pistol clicks empty. He wonders vaguely if he might be able to do some damage throwing it at somebody. "Yeah. Okay, we can do that."
"Hang in there," Carolina says. "Out."
Wash's HUD flickers with the next flash of lightning, and he stumbles back against Maine, disoriented. A strafing line of assault rifle fire stops just short of hitting him. I'm empty. You take out anyone with a rifle earlier?
In response, Maine throws up a marker on Wash's HUD. Wash holds his breath, counts out the reload time for the guy shooting at him, then throws himself forward into a tight roll, fumbling for the battle rifle along the way, gunfire raising spatters of mud behind him. He finishes his roll covered in mud, awkwardly sliding to his knees, but assault-rifle guy's out in the open and in the middle of reloading. Easy pickings. Only after he's down does Wash check the magazine of his new rifle—it's not empty, but near enough that he'll have to watch his shots. Okay. Nothing new there.
Okay.
A low rattling noise rumbles over the noise of the thunder. It takes Wash too long to separate the two sounds. It takes him too long, and for weeks he dreams about that sound. In his dreams, he always figures it out sooner.
The chaingun fire mows Maine down before he even realizes what's happening.
Wash staggers, stunned, watching bullets punch through Maine's chest, watching Maine go limp all at once. Watching Maine falling, and then lightning striking somewhere nearby, the roar of thunder drowning out the chaingun again.
Wash scrambles back, drags himself behind a tree, huddles down as the gunner swings around to fire at him. He's breathing way too fast.
"C'mon," he mutters. Chunks of bark are flying around him, and he can hear the groan of his makeshift cover starting to collapse. "C'mon."
When the first bullet pings off his armor, he drags himself from cover, fires off one three-shot burst from his rifle. Catches the gunner in the visor, takes him down.
He stumbles over a protruding tree root, fires blind at a flash of color somewhere to his left. Hears a gratifying scream. Gets back to his feet, keeps running.
Maine is lying still. His armor's systems, including biocomm, are offline. Swearing, Wash digs into his emergency pack, drags out a needle of biofoam, jams it into the first wound he sees. Digs into Maine's emergency pack for a second needle.
Someone takes a potshot at him. Wash half-turns, taking him down with two shots. Four left in the clip. It's not until he's injecting Maine that he realizes there's an ache low on his own shoulder that throbs in time with his heartbeat. His HUD is flashing a warning: armor integrity compromised. His own biocomm is setting off alarms: blood pressure, heartrate, respiration. He disables it.
He opens a channel. "Infiltration team, come in." His voice is hoarse, shaky.
"Not now," Carolina yells, so loud in his ears that he jumps. Gunfire echoes across the radio.
Wash is putting pressure on the remaining wounds, fumbling with clumsy hands. His fingers are cold inside his gloves. "Maine's down," he says. "We're dying out here."
He hears a little grunt from Carolina's comm, a wet-sounding gasp. She coughs, and for a moment Wash closes his eyes, focusing on his own ragged breathing. "Okay," she says. "Okay. We're going to try for the extraction point. We can swing back to pick you up."
Wash exhales. "Okay, boss. Good luck."
"You too."
The lightning's not nearly as intense now, the storm moving off. Wash slumps over Maine's body, listening for the rumbling of his breathing over the rumbling of thunder.
The whole thing feels eerily familiar. And, hell, he'd kind of liked the idea that Project Freelancer was a rescue for him, dragging him out of the muck and the mire. Maybe not. Maybe it was only ever a stay of execution. "We've gotta stop meeting like this," he mumbles into Maine's shoulder.
He hears motion, fires blind. Misses. Fires again, raising his head, and this time someone goes down. Two shots left.
His motion trackers pick up four more people incoming. Wash sighs, opens a text comm into the dead air. Think I can take 'em all down with two bullets? Saw a guy pull that off once. No reply. His HUD flashes a warning that his intended recipient does not have a functional communications system.
His HUD paints the incoming shapes as friendlies.
He doesn't believe it at first, staring blankly into space and refocusing on the display a few times to test his vision. Then a comm opens, and South's voice comes in, loud and strident. "You dipshits still alive?"
Wash laughs, sinking down again until his helmet's pressed against Maine's armor. "Over here," North calls. "I see them on trackers."
"I don't."
"You didn't set your goddamn trackers, South."
"Would you fuck off with that? You and Connie take these guys, me and Wyoming'll go after the others."
"Be careful."
South snorts. Moments later, North says, "Oh, hell," softly, and it's only then that Wash realizes he hasn't opened his comm line yet, that Maine's biocomm is offline and his own is disabled. He can't quite bring himself to care. They'll figure it out. Or they won't.
Someone moves up to him, hesitantly, and Wash raises his head, trying to focus. Brown armor, fancy helmet. Bomb-disposal, maybe. "They're alive," she says, then leans down, resting a hand on Wash's shoulder. "You're alive, right?"
Wash sways and her grip on his shoulder tightens, shifting to apply biofoam to the bullet wound in his back. "Uh," he says, when the pain-fogged haze finally starts to clear his vision. "Jury's still out. Maine... Maine needs help. Sounded like Carolina and York are hurt pretty bad. I don't know about Florida."
"Nobody ever really knows about Florida," she says, vaguely. "North?"
North is crouched over Maine, applying biofoam. "Yeah, Connie, these guys need to get back to the ship, quick. I don't know what the hell the Director was thinking, sending them into something like this."
"Someone tipped them off," Wash says. He keeps sinking forward and Connie keeps pulling him back. He's shaking, adrenaline-sick. "Is Maine—"
"He's still breathing," North says, reassuringly. "We get him up to the ship, he's got a good chance. Takes a lot to keep this guy down."
"Can you stand?" Connie asks, and it's such a ridiculous demand that Wash just sort of stares at her blankly. But she's already dragging his arm over her shoulders, and he's surprised to find a little strength in his legs yet, manages to push himself to his feet. "I'm gonna go drop this guy off at the Pelican, bring back help for Maine," she says.
"I think Maine's stable for now," North says. "Go ahead. Watch your sectors."
It's only about a klick to the dropship. Halfway there, South comes over the line, says, "Fuck. Carolina's pretty fucked up. Florida says York stopped breathing twice before we got here."
"He did start right up again after that." Florida's voice is jarringly cheerful. "They'll pull through. None of this negative thinking, my girl!"
"If you call me that again, I am going to burn everything you love."
"Now, there's some honest self-expression! Most important part of any human interaction, you know."
"Is my telling you to fuck yourself sideways an important part of human interaction, too?"
"Absolutely! I'm so glad we had this talk."
"Don't count us out yet," Carolina says. Her voice is strong, but there's an audible wheeze in her breathing. "And cut the chatter. There are still hostiles around."
Another voice comes over the line, unexpectedly and startlingly British. "North, Wyoming here. I'm inbound to your location to assist with Agent Maine."
"Copy that."
The long, slow stumble to the Pelican is another feature in Wash's future nightmares. Stumbling through the dark, Connie silent and patient at his side, rain falling hard against his helmet, drowning out the last faint rumbles of thunder. Listening to North and Wyoming murmur over the open comm, prepping Maine to be moved. Waiting for another bullet to the back that never comes.
By the time they stagger into the Pelican, Wash is shivering uncontrollably. A medic is waiting, and Wash makes a token effort to help unclasp his armor's chestpiece before he realizes his hands are shaking too badly.
The medic smiles at him, and he recognizes Saresh, a young man from the MoI's medical bay who'd been particularly lenient with jello distribution during Wash's stay. "Hey, it's okay. You're just a bit shocky. Let's get you lying down so we can take a look at that hole in your back."
Wash sways, blinking, and clumsily fumbles off his helmet. The voices on the comm line go blessedly quiet, but the rain and the wind outside are louder, amplified. Connie's helping Saresh pull off Wash's armor, calm and silent. Connie. Agent Connecticut, presumably. He can't remember seeing her name on the leaderboard, but then, his head's a little foggy. He's probably forgetting a lot of things.
Stripped down to his bodysuit, he sinks uncomfortably onto his stomach along a row of seats, wincing as Saresh starts excising the fabric near the wound.
The pilot picks that moment to swing into the passenger compartment. She pauses, regarding him critically. "Another rookie shot full of holes, huh?"
"Just the one hole," Saresh says. "New record."
"Hey, good job, kid," the pilot says, moving past him to go stare out the back of the Pelican. "Try not to bleed too much on the upholstery."
Saresh injects Wash with something that instantly makes his eyelids droop and his thrumming heartrate slow. "No," he mumbles, "No, wait. I want to... the others..."
"Should've thought of that before you got shot," Saresh says, and Wash begins to reconsider any jello-based feelings of good will he might've harbored toward the guy.
Wash sighs, pressing his face into his forearm, breathing in the smell of blood and rain and kevlar. He glances up once, sees Connie watching him with her helmet under one arm, her brow furrowed. Her steady gaze follows him into the dark, into choking, confused nightmares, into blood and pain and fear, into the remembered void of the text comm on his HUD, flashing empty and silent.
This time, when Wash wakes up, he's not the only one in Medical.
It's dark, ship's night, and the only sound is the steady beeping of monitors. He rolls onto his side, feeling a strange, tingling numbness in his back, and sees that three other beds are occupied.
Carolina's in the cot nearest him. He's seen her out of armor before, but never looking so strange and small and pale, her face slack and unnaturally relaxed. It makes his stomach clench, sends a jolt of urgency through him.
He sits up slowly, waits for the room to stop tilting. This time, there's no IV in his arm. Untethered, he pushes himself carefully to his feet, shuffles across the room with one arm drawn in toward his chest as though for support.
York's in the bed beside Carolina, almost unrecognizable with his gelled hair flattened down by bandages, but his sleep seems more restful, more normal, one arm dangling off the edge of the bed, the other wedged under the pillow behind him. He's even snoring a little.
Maine is at the end of the row, and Wash pauses. It's practically the first time he's seen the guy out of armor, and all he can focus on is the angry red welt on his shaved head, scored by a near-miss gunshot. Couple inches down, it would've gone through his brain.
Trying to convince himself his shivering is just the natural result of being stuck in flimsy hospital pajamas, Wash pulls up a chair beside Maine's cot, sits down gingerly and hugs his knees to his chest.
Maine's eyes open, focus on him, and Wash jumps.
"Whoa," he says. "You're awake."
Maine's mouth twitches into a smile; Wash notices that his hand moves, first, to signal it. "I heal fast."
"No kidding." Wash is grinning broadly, aware that he probably looks ridiculous but unable to help it. "You probably took more hits than the rest of us combined. I'm glad you're okay."
Maine shrugs. "Thanks to you."
"Hey, we're Project Freelancer. We're the cavalry, right?"
Maine smiles again. "Always." His smile wipes itself away pretty quickly, though, and he cranes his neck to look at the others.
"York seems okay," Wash says. "Carolina's kinda freaking me out. I can't tell if it's just that I've never seen her so relaxed before."
Maine shrugs, his lips pressed into a tight line, and rubs at the welt on his head. "She's strong."
"Yeah," says a new voice. "She really is."
Maine doesn't react, but Wash jumps again, startled, and turns in his chair to see someone standing in the doorway. Connie, his brain spits out, belatedly.
"Sorry," she says. "Couldn't sleep, wanted to check in on you guys." She looks absolutely exhausted, dark circles bruised under her eyes.
"How are they?" Wash asks, nodding toward the others.
She shrugs. "Carolina managed to make it all the way back to the Pelican under her own power with two bullets in her lung. They think she's gonna be okay. York was critical for a while, but once they got the shrapnel out of his chest he started bouncing back. And Maine, well."
Maine gives a wordless shrug as testimonial.
Wash rubs the back of his head, then drags his fingers through his hair, standing it on end. He needs a haircut, he thinks. "What the hell happened? Was our intel bad?"
Connie looks away, a scowl on her face. "Someone tipped them off. They knew we were coming, knew our extraction points. I guess they just didn't know how many of us the Director sent."
"Oh man," Wash says. "Internals is gonna have a field day with that."
"Tell me about it," Connie says. "Be prepared to answer some awkward questions once you're healed up. By the way, you were in pretty good shape, all things considered. Bullet was slowed down enough by your bodysuit that it only tore some muscle and lodged in your rib. It's gonna hurt while it heals, but it definitely could've been worse. And you absolutely saved Maine's life, the doctors say."
Wash shrugs. "Could've been worse," he echoes.
"Yeah," Connie says. "Glad you guys are okay, anyway."
"Thanks for the rescue," Wash says, and she pauses in the doorway. "We definitely would've died out there if you guys hadn't shown up when you did."
She glances back at him for a moment, her face shuttered, then shrugs and leaves the room.
"She's a little odd," Wash says, sinking back in his chair. "Guess it comes with the job." He gnaws on an uneven thumbnail, staring at the wall for a long moment, then says, "You think there's a mole on board or something?"
Maine makes a noncommittal noise, and Wash is inclined to agree. He's never had a good head for all this spy stuff. Probably best to let Internals handle it.
"Hey," he says, "You should probably get some sleep."
Maine looks up at him, then slowly raises an eyebrow.
Wash holds up a hand. "I will too, I promise. I just need to, you know. Be awake for a little while longer."
Maine shrugs, closes his eyes.
"Oh, and Maine? Remind me to steal York's jello when he wakes up."