A/N: Whoo! A chapter with action!

Chapter Three

By the time Cody got to the forward command post, there were already shots being fired. In the distance, sniper rifles cracked through the thick air, and suddenly, he heard the whirring blades of a Scorpion Gunship, then the launch of a surface-to-air missile, then a roaring explosion.

"Howdy y'all!" He exclaimed as he slid into the trench that was at a major choke point in the southern part of the swamp. It was intentionally misleading, for several kilometers, the marshes looked fairly open and navigable, but suddenly the path became closed off and blocked by sandbars.

"Cody! Good to have you here." Said Tyler Wilkins.

"Ty, where's Raul? He is the one who called me."

Some of the color left Tyler's face. "It was a sneak attack, an RDA .50 cal caught him in the left arm. He will probably lose it. It happened maybe 30 seconds after he called you. I don't know how they got so deep without tripping a mine, an alarm, something. There were five boats that hit us here, and seven at the east gate, and they were prepared, I mean, these bastards were packin' some heat."

"Well damn." He paused. "Sounds to me like we're kickin that ass though. How is east gate doin'?"

"They killed everybody in the boats, however they got this deep, they ain't seem to know 'bout the defense much deeper in, three of the boats landed in a minefield, two more landed right in the cross fire of the 50mm magnetic turrets. Here, we just hit 'em with rockets before they landed, 'cept that one that got up and caught Raul. Dirty thieves."

Cody's radio clicked on, "Alligator this is Bluebird 9, you got some industrialized thugs headin' y'all's way, and they look pissed. I count twelve boats, each with about diez tin-heads. I'm a pick some off, but get the big guns ready. I don't know how they got in, but shit, here they are."

"Loud and clear Bluebird 9. Today's just goin' to Hell in a hand basket ain't it? Oh well, the more thugs the Retards Doing Acid throw at us, the more money they lose!" Said Cody, using what was actually one of the tamer things the rebels had decided that RDA could also stand for.

Tyler called back towards the rear bunker, "Get 30 mil fire across this whole area, we got a lot of turds comin' to stink up the place!"

There was a rushing around and a clamoring of metals and bullets as the heavier weapons were set up, but then silence. It got so quiet for about thirty seconds, as if time had stopped, that when faint sniper rifle reports were heard, it was almost painful to their ears. The shots got closer and closer and time seemed to move slower and slower. Then, in an instant that felt like less than an nanosecond, there they were. Boats full of RDA mercenaries, each getting hazard pay and a bounty for each rebel they could capture. For them, money was all the motivation they needed to lay their lives on the line.

The rebels opened fire wildly and destructively. Cody leveled his M-14 and began shooting at anything with the RDA logo on it. He counted as RDA mercenaries fell. 'One, two, three down.' He thought.

"Look at 'em Ty; fallin' trailers in a tornado! We're kick-" Suddenly, as Cody turned to see his comrade, expecting to see jubilation in their success, he found himself looking down the barrel of a pistol. "Well damn."

"Indeed, Cody Wright, by the Authority of the RDA you are under arrest for treason, murder, and obstruction of economic activity." Tyler said this with the most grim look on his face.

"Buddy, are you OK? This ain't the time for jokes."

"Haha, no, its not, that's why I ain't jokin'. Drop your gun."

"Really? What did they give you for this? Money? A mansion? It doesn't matter, they lied to you. Just so you know. You might take me out today, but for the rest of your life, you will never be happy."

"Shut up!" Said Tyler, trying to push back the good memories he had with Cody, all the things he had done to keep his cover and how he had let himself bond with the rebels, it was everything he could do to keep his face steady and the gun from shaking. "Put the damn gun down, now!"

Suddenly, Tammie jumped into the trench where the standoff was occurring. Believing this was his salvation, Cody sighed, relieved and expecting he to suddenly realize the situation and take Tyler down and subdue him. But instead, she stood up and barked "Cody! Do whatever the hell he tells you." and pointed to Tyler.

"You too? fml." Said Cody without emotion on the surface, but inside he felt hurt, betrayed of course, but it was especially stinging because he had been completely naive to all this. He moved to set down his M-14 on the ground; then dropped prone and swung it like a club at Tyler's feet. He collapsed, firing his pistol in the air once. Before she could react, Cody had put two rounds into Tammie's side. She dropped with a yelp that nearly made him cry right there. He then turned his rifle on Tyler, he had fought dirty before, and this was low, but if he could not deal with betrayal, he would not have been alive to face this instance of it. Tyler and Tammie had suddenly just become more RDA agents in his mind. As he pulled the trigger, all he heard was a click; his magazine was empty.

Tyler lurched at him, his pale fist hit hard against Cody's dark-skinned face, causing both to bleed red. Cody swung back at him, landing a punch directly in the nose, sunning him just long enough for Cody to draw a weapon, an arrow that had fallen from his quiver in the fight. As Tyler went in for another blow, aiming at the rebel's throat this time, Cody jabbed the arrow into his betrayer's chest, right in between two ribs. Tyler stopped, almost as if in mid-air, and looked at Cody with eyes filled with respect, not hatred as he died. It was quick, the arrowhead was coated in water moccasin venom and went in right near his heart; Cody set his new enemy down gently beside him. He approached Tammie cautiously, with an arrow on the string of his bow, ready to release it and strike the final blow.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because," she began, then coughed up a small amount of blood, "we will never win. I, I just couldn't live knowing that."

"And, so, at least we where happy! At least we had some freedom! That's what will make us win! You thought you would be better off as an RDA slave? Thinking like that is the only thing that can stop us from winning."

"I, I don't know. No. Yes." She was losing grip on reality.

"To think, I almost let myself fall for you. You are just another greedy ass willing to destroy the world for a few dollars."

"No I am not!" She tried to convince herself, "I thought, maybe I could use the money to change things, maybe I could change them! I just wanted, I don't know what I wanted." She lamented. As Cody looked for more words, she grabbed the pistol Tyler had nearly used to kill Cody. As she brought it around, Cody almost released his arrow, but she instead brought the pistol to her own head and pulled the trigger.

"Well damn."