Without hesitation, Lori chucked a grenade back at the offender, shouting: "SUCK IT, BLUE!" Simmons immediately started firing his pistol, more out of reflex than anything else.
"Sarge! Grif! Donut! We're under attack!" Simmons bellowed over the gunfire. Donut, ever the eager rookie, came running waving his pistol aloft. The offender, a soldier in cobalt blue armor, shot the firearm right out of his hand.
"Owww! You meanie, that hurt!" Donut whined, waving his injured hand in the air.
"Rookie, stop with the homosexual hand gestures and shoot him!" Grif yelled as he ran past.
"You mean he's not a girl?!" Church shouted incredulously.
"No, obviously," Donut replied indignantly.
"GUYS! STOP ARGUING! We're supposed to be fighting him! He's a Blue!" Lori roared, waving her arms.
"But he called me a girl," Donut countered, folding his arms.
"Well, now he knows you're not, so ignore it and shoot him," Grif put in.
"Yeah, he's got no back up either!" Simmons added.
Well, he didn't until Simmons was shot in the foot.
"Son of a BITCH!" he howled, hopping up and down on his uninjured foot.
"Tucker! Tucker! I did it! I shot a Red!" Caboose declared, veritably dancing with happiness, his blue armor glinting in the sunlight.
"Good, now do it again," Tucker replied from his post at the flag. There was no way he was going to let the Reds get their flag again… but he really wanted to be the one handling the sniper rifle, just once. He sighed, slumping down in his aqua armor at the foot of the flag, doodling in the dirt surrounding him. Guarding the flag was the most boring job in the world.
"Hey, Tucker! Church is heading for the Red base!" Caboose called. "He's going to rescue the princess, just like he said!"
Tucker stifled a laugh before replying. Feed a story like a trapped princess in the Red base to Caboose and he'd shoot anything. "Yup, that's right Caboose. Just like he said."
Grif supported Simmons while Lori looked around for the other Blues.
"Where the hell are they?" she muttered angrily, wishing she had Trixie with her. She had left her rifle back at the base. Donut, being the rookie, had not been assigned a duty, so he simply stood there.
"Hey, guys?" he said timidly after a second.
"What?!" the other three snapped.
"Uh… where'd the first blue guy go?"
The other three were silent for a moment.
"…Shit," they said together.
Meanwhile, atop the Red base…
"What in th' name o' Sam Hill?!" Sarge barked when he spotted Church running towards the base. "Lopez, git th' Warthog!"
"El Warthog no está funcionando," came the robotic Spanish reply.
"God damn it, private, I didn't ask fer you t' talk! Jus' stop that Blue feller!"
But before either of them could do anything to stop Church, Church had gotten within the base, taken the flag, and started running back to the Blue base.
"SIMMONS!" Sarge roared. "SHOOT THAT COCKBITE!"
"Yes, sir!" Simmons replied from the field, raising his gun. Unfortunately, Church just barreled right through him and Grif. Donut and Lori both moved to shoot him, but in stead wound up colliding with each other, falling to the ground in a heap and giving Church a clear path back to the Blue base.
"Son of a bitch!" Lori yelled as she clambered back to her feet. "Donut, you idiot! Watch where you're going!"
Donut was about to retort when a bullet narrowly missed his head. Grif spoke for all of them.
"Back to the base!"
They ran pell mell back to the safety of the Red base, but not before a bullet pierced Lori's armor, lodging itself just beneath the base of her rib cage on the right side. She stumbled and grunted but stayed upright, knowing that if she didn't get back to base, she'd get more than just one bullet wound.
As she reached the base, Lori fell through the doorway, gasping both in pain and in exhaustion. She was made for short sprints, not long-distance running with a bullet lodged in her spleen. Well… it wasn't in her spleen, but it still hurt like hell.
"MAN—er—WOMAN DOWN!" bellowed Donut, who had reached the base just behind Lori. He ran off to get Sarge and Grif, the other two that hadn't been injured and Lopez, though a robot stuck on the Spanish setting wouldn't help much. Lori could only lie there, flat on her stomach, struggling to stay conscious.
"M… medic," she managed to gurgle. Her vision swam and flickered, but she caught sight of a pair of orange boots before she blacked out.
The first thing Lori noticed when she woke was that she was cold—freezing actually, but her forehead was damp with sweat. Her lips trembled violently now that she was awake, the bright lights of the recovery room stinging her eyes. A thin pair of pants and a loose t-shirt covered her sweat drenched body. Her brain was foggy—she must have recently been under anesthesia. Her lower back throbbed with hot, sharp pain. With some difficulty she sat up, looking around the room.
Stainless steel cabinets were all that decorated the room besides the metal table that Lori had been placed on. To her left was a window that showed a room beyond it housing several monitors and other technical equipment. To her right was a large steel door, closed but probably not locked.
Wincing, Lori carefully slid off the table and hobbled towards the door. She grasped the handle as firmly as she could manage through the numbing effects of the anesthesia. Wiping sweat and a few limp strands of her hair from her face, she turned the handle. As she had suspected, the door was not locked and swung inward. She didn't know why she went down the hall towards her room, but she did know that she hated the recovery room and wanted to be away from it as quickly as possible. The only thing she liked being surgically clean was Trixie. Anything beyond that just creeped her out.
As she reached the corner of the hall of rooms and the medical wing, she leaned heavily against the wall, breathing laboriously and feeling dizzy. 'Maybe that wasn't such a great idea,' she thought to herself, sliding down the wall a little.
"Lori!" a concerned voice called out. She looked up to see Dexter Grif jogging towards her, worry etched on his rugged features.
"I'm fine," she mumbled as Grif moved to support her.
"You got shot, we have no medic, and you're walking around. You're not fine," Grif said firmly, slinging one of her arms over his broad shoulders. "It's a good thing I was coming to check on you—"
"You were the one that patched me up?" Lori interrupted suddenly, remembering his orange armor before she had blacked out earlier.
"I took a couple med classes back in college," Grif shrugged as he led her back to the recovery room. "I managed to get the bullet out and sorta stitch it up, but I'm not the best, and the anesthetic was kinda tricky—"
"You've never given someone anesthesia?" Lori asked.
"Well… strictly speaking… that is… no."
"So you could have killed me with an overdose?"
"Well… yeah, I guess."
If Lori hadn't been so shocked and disoriented, she would have hit him and called him an idiot. Instead, though, she decided to be nice. It took less energy.
"Well… I'm glad you didn't."
"Yeah, that would have sucked so badly."
They reached the recovery room and Grif helped Lori carefully back onto the table. He had her sit facing away from him so he could lift the back of her shirt and inspect the wound. Grif's makeshift stitches had indeed torn and bled through her shirt, the loss of blood making Lori dizzy. Lori looked back at him from over her shoulder.
"How bad is it?" she asked. Grif moved his fingers gently around the wound, examining it closely
Lori felt her skin tingle.
"Well, it's not bad, but you'll need to rest for a few days. Strict bed rest and all that."
"Damn… and now I have blood all over my shirt," she groaned.
Grif pulled his shirt off without hesitation and offered it to her. "Here, it's fresh from the laundry." Lori gaped like a fish out of water, slowly turning to face him. Until now, she had never noticed how attractive Grif was. He had a broad chest with similar sloping shoulders, very well defined muscles, a rugged and constant five o'clock shadow, dark, soft looking brown hair, and chocolate eyes. He had a tough square jaw and a rectangular visage, but his facial expression was soft.
"Uh… are you gonna take it or not?" he asked, his words stopping Lori from drooling.
"Oh! Er, yeah… thanks a lot, Grif."
He smiled. "No problem. Here, let me fix things up first," he said, pulling open a drawer and pulling out some bandages. He placed them gingerly over the wound and taped it up nicely, then handed her his shirt. Lori, having mastered the art of changing in public without exposing herself, quickly put on the shirt. It was warm and smelled clean, but it also smelled like some sort of spice. Either way, it made her think of Grif. It took everything she had not to smile like a schoolgirl with a crush. Then quite suddenly she remembered something.
"Grif… since you were the one that fixed me up… does that mean you…?" Grif shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat.
"I didn't look on purpose!" Lori gave him a steady look.
"Okay… then medical purposes aside, why did you?" She braced herself, knowing exactly what he was going to say.
"Well… I wanted to see if you really do have that little mole that Simmons was talking about." Lori groaned in exasperation.
'Men,' she thought in disgust.
I had to turn you over anyway to get to the wound," Grif pointed out. "Plus…" his voice softened. "It is cute." Lori paused, a warmth that was becoming increasingly familiar spreading across her face.
"Shut up, Grif," she said with a smile.
He saluted her and grinned. "Yes, ma'am."