Things were going smoothly.

Normally, I would have been thrilled. However, our recovery just seemed… too easy. Soon, Sheila was up and running. The Puma was also fixed. However, we couldn't get the ship in which Wash and I arrived working again, no matter what Sarge and Simmons tried.

All in all, we were stranded on the planet (the AIs had messed with the portals as well) with only two working vehicles and minimal weapons. I didn't like our chances against the AIs, but the Reds and Blues thought this was a huge step forward.

The night we finished putting some last-minute enhancements on the Puma, the Blues came to the Red base for dinner so we could discuss our plan of action. Sarge was none too happy about the "enemies" eating a meal there, but I rolled my eyes and ignored him. His protests had recently turned from fits of anger to irritated grumblings; he knew that the AIs and Freelancers were still the biggest threats.

"We need to stay at least a few more days," I insisted as I cut into Donut's home-made meatloaf. We were all sitting in the Reds' kitchen. "We have to try fixing our weapons more. We only have a handful so far. We'll be no match for Meta and Tex in this state."

"Eleven, we've tried everything," Simmons replied. "The only things we've been able to fix so far are the land vehicles. That's all. According to my calculations, at the rate we're going, it will take us approximately 97.34 earth years to fix everything!"

"Then we're not going," I said stubbornly.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Church protested. "We have to go after them. We have to!"

"Dude, you just want to go to see your dead girlfriend," interrupted Tucker.

"She's not dead!"

"Fine then. I didn't know you were turned on by zombie ghost AIs. Kinky."

"Tucker, leave him alone," I groaned. "Not now, seriously."

"We should just go," Wash said. "We have all the equipment we've been able to fix. I say that we just head out and find them."

"What, just so you can steal the AIs, give them to Command, and leave us to deal with Tex and Meta?" Grif interrupted. "Yeah, man, way to be for the greater good."

"Jesus, this is my job too, don't forget!" I responded irritably. "I'm also supposed to be turning them in, but I don't think we should just go out there blindly!"

"Missy," Sarge grunted. "If we don't go after them now, they're just gonna get farther and farther away. Then they'll be impossible to find and defeat! What in Sam hill do you expect us to do then? If we don't go, we're just gonna be sitting here on our asses doing nothing!"

"Oh, I vote for that option," Grif said, perking up.

Sarge ignored him. "Eleven, if we don't go after them, we're just gonna sit here on our lazy-Grif-asses arguing all the damn time. I say we just find them."

I looked at each of them, and they all seemed to agree with Sarge—save for Caboose, who was busy pretending his knife and fork were ballroom dancing across the table like action figures.

I was outnumbered. "Okay, fine. Let's just say I agree to this crazy plan. How do you expect us to find them?"

Simmons opened his mouth to speak, but Donut cut him off, a piece of asparagus dangling dangerously on his fork as he waved it around. "Oh! I know! Wash can show us!"

I frowned. "Wash?"

"Yeah!" Donut continued excitedly to the perplexed-looking Freelancer. "Can't you pick up a trail? Like footprints?"

Wash rolled his eyes. "Footprints. We're in the middle of an inhabited canyon covered with footprints."

"Don't special agents have the ability to track their targets through any kind of terrain?" Donut persisted. "Follow broken tree branches?"

"Tree branches. In an inhabited canyon covered with broken tree branches."

"Fine," Donut continued unabashedly. "Maybe that's a bad example. Heat signatures? Like exhaust trails? I don't know!"

"Tell you what? Why don't you just stick with not understan—"

"The hell is wrong with that?" I asked shortly, cutting Wash off before he could complete his snarky remark. "We followed a trail of burnt trees and shit to the AIs last time!"

"Why don't we just use the AI trackers on the vehicles?" Simmons suggested quickly before the argument could escalate. "I think they're working again, so we just need to put them on the right setting, and they should lead us accurately to their location."

"Good idea," Wash said. "At least they don't work using a stupid idea like heat—"

"Um, actually," Simmons interrupted hesitantly. "They theoretically… do. Their technology is based on gas spectrometry and… resident heat signatures."

Wash was rather cranky for the rest of the evening as we made preparations to leave the next day. However, as much as the Freelancer was ornery, Church was elated. He seemed far too excited to be part of a team wandering into certain death. The rest of us seemed relatively serious—even Caboose paid attention when we said we needed his help in persuading Sheila to cooperate—but Church wasn't acting like himself. The possibility of seeing Tex again made him a little giddy, but he would have been mortified if he had known that we had noticed his unusually good mood. Tucker was about to comment on it a couple times, but I smacked him and told him to shut up under my breath. Keeping the Blue leader content was hard enough as it was, and working with him on this mission would be much easier if he were in a good mood—at least at the beginning.

When the Blues, Wash and I had finished packing back at Blue base, we stared at our pathetic pile of supplies. I really didn't know how we would make it out of this alive.

A handful of simulation soldiers, one CIA Agent, and one traitorous Freelancer against a conglomeration of powerful technology, another traitorous Freelancer, and a traitorous Freelancer who was a piece of powerful technology?

Bring it on.