Quick upload, but I wanted to get this out there to you guys. Lucky 13!

Chapter 13

Life had become very interesting on board the Mother of Invention and had caught many people's attention, most of them women. It was sociological fact that when something happened to one girl, especially involving another girl or boy, the news spread like wildfire in the forms of giggles and whispers behind hands. So when the word had gotten out that North and Delaware had kissed in the locker room (most likely from Wyoming to Carolina or South), the effect was instantaneous.

The most immediate and negative reaction came the next morning at breakfast, when South had approached Delaware when she came in and slapped her across the face. Delaware had caught the hand's backlash, twisted it around South's back, and pushed her to the floor. After a few harsh words exchanged with North, South had trudged off with a black cloud over her head. North had then taken a napkin and dabbed the reopened wound on Delaware's lip, then had gotten her breakfast. South had turned up later to training with complaints that her room's thermostat had malfunctioned and frost was accumulating in the corners of her room.

"What did I tell you, South?" York chided South as she threw her fists into a heavy bag in frustration. "Don't mess with the maintenance folk. They're vengeful people." Indeed they were, for South's repeated calls to maintenance in regards to her faulty thermostat were dutifully ignored until she went and apologized to Delaware for her physical outburst. When she next entered her bedroom, it was to find the air at a comfortable 72 degrees Fahrenheit.

The next largest reaction was the rift between Carolina and Texas. Carolina regarded Delaware as a threat for though she was the lowest ranked Freelancer on the board, her skills in fighting and her relationship with the team made Carolina uneasy. The combination of her performance on their botched mission, her knowledge of the Insurrectionist technology that was being wielded against them, and her unknown experiences quickly changed Carolina's former neutrality into an attitude of al alpha defending its title.

Unfortunately, the attempted alpha attitude from the new beta of the Freelancer pack had drawn on the attention of the true alpha, Tex. Tex' inexplicable curiosity and protective instinct towards Delaware had resulted increased negativity towards Carolina. It seemed that the team was being divided into two different camps: the side that accepted Delaware's presence and the side that didn't.

"You'd think that they had better ways to spend their energy," Delaware muttered as she leaned against one of the many pillows on her bed, fingering a piece of cloth and examining various colors of thread against the cream-colored weave. North sat beside her, watching as Theta played skip rope with Chi's long, whip-like tail. Delaware gave an affirmative hum as she held up a spool of forest green thread and one of corn yellow, nodded decisively, and threaded a needle to begin the outline of a design.

"What are you doing there?" North peered over at her work with interest as the outline of a coniferous tree came into being with accents of autumn yellow.

"I'm embroidering a gift for one of my sisters. She's getting married soon, so I figured that I'd send her something since I can't make it back in time," Delaware mumbled, holding the fabric up to the light. She set it down and pulled a picture from the wall behind her, holding a family portrait. She pointed to a pretty young woman with curly platinum blonde hair and bright green eyes. "Bianca's the youngest of my sisters, but she's so sweet," Delaware said softly, resetting the picture. "She's always looking after the kids at our school. Last I heard, she's started teaching there."

"Your sister sounds like a caring person," North hugged Delaware's shoulder, and she leaned her head to his.

"Yeah. Bianca wouldn't hurt a fly, and she's never had to see any fighting. I don't know how she fell for a former ONI person then."

"Someone from the Office of Naval Intelligence?"

"Yeah. Apparently, he was involved in some secret military project that left him crippled, so he did some strategy work for a bit before he was retired. He moved to Terra Beta with some of his family, met with my sister, and…they're getting married." She gave a small chuckle as she continued with the thread. "So, I'm making her a quilt block with a pine tree on it 'cause when she was little, Bianca LOVED to climb trees and I had to keep climbing up and bringing her down for dinner." The form of the tree continued to be filled in with a graceful mix of the dark green and bright yellow, forming a realistic image of a proud tree that had stood the test of time.

It came as a normal day when the Freelancers were all called to the training room and divided into three teams: Red, Blue, Black, and Gold Team.

Red

Agent North Dakota

Agent York

Blue

Agent Wyoming

Agent Maine

Agent Washington

Black Team

Agent Texas

Agent Delaware

Gold Team

Agent Carolina

Agent South Dakota

"What's the purpose of divvying us up, sir?" Carolina asked as she strapped on her chest armor.

"We are performing a combined paint gun activity to exercise your teamwork abilities," the Counselor replied smoothly as he inspected the ammunition for faults in the paint bullets.

"Hey, Carolina. Maybe we can knock those preening bitches off their perch," South cackled, elbowing Carolina in the side. Carolina returned the smirk before latching on her helmet. North said nothing, but watched as Texas cracked her knuckles and Delaware snapped on a gauntlet with angry force.

"They're not being very nice," Theta mumbled to North as the agent finished strapping on his helmet.

"There's nothing nice about a catfight, Theta. We just leave them to it," he sighed as he grabbed a sniper rifle, while York grabbed an automatic. Maine, Wyoming, and Wash were all out on the floor with either magnums or battle rifles. South and Texas both grabbed battle rifles, while Carolina and Delaware grabbed the last four magnums. The teams settled into their corners of the gym and awaited directions from the Director.

"Agents, your objective for this exercise is to measure your compatibility with each other team in the room for the paint training exercises. For six rounds, you will be randomly paired with another team to bring down the other combination. For six rounds after that, you will be working in only your respective teams."

"Doesn't sound too bad," York muttered, before the Director continued.

"No AIS will be used in this exercise."

"Or…not."

The AIs all appeared by their respective handlers before positioning themselves with the Director in the observation room above the gym. A screen flashed blue before it was shown that Red and Gold Team would be going up against Blue and Black team.

"Hey, North," South crowed as he and York went to join the girls. "Looks like you're going up against your girlfriend, huh?"

"Yeah," North said smoothly, priming his sniper rifle. "What's your point?"

"What we're saying is that South and I call Delaware and Texas," Carolina growled. "You and York get Blue Team."

"That's not fair! Why do we have to go up against the most people?" York complained. "Wyoming's going to be spouting off knock-knock jokes, Wash is a wimp, and Maine's just scary!"

"Life's not fair, York," Carolina responded coldly. "Deal with it. We're going after Black Team, you guys go against Blue team."

"Begin paint gun exercise in 5…"

York and North both holstered their weapons.

"4…"

Carolina and South exchanged eager glances.

"3…"

Wash, Wyoming, and Maine all fidgeted as they prepped to race into the forest of pillars that had popped up.

"2…"

Texas stood resolute against the rising tension in the room, her rifle at the ready in her hands.

"1…"

Delaware cocked her Magnums and put a finger on the trigger.

"Round begins."

The Freelancers all scattered throughout the maze of stone pillars throughout the room, diving out of the way as the first volleys of paint soared towards their heads. Wash was knocked out of the ring by a shot from Carolina, and York cursed as his hand, then his head, were plastered to the wall. The shots stopped as the remaining participants snuck through the stone.

North was extremely cautious as he rotated around with his rifle at the ready. "Carolina? What's your position?" he whispered into his comm. Piece.

"I've got Wyoming in my sights," came the breathed reply. A single shot blasted out, and Wyoming fell to the floor. "Never mind. South got him." The board above their heads showed that Blue/Black Team and Red/Gold team were tied at two points apiece.

"You stupid whore!" came a shout as South went flying, a paint cluster attached to her chest. She crashed into a pillar, and the points to Black team increased to three. Another set of shots, more rapid from the assault rifle, plastered her body. North gave the tiniest smirk as his sister was eliminated. He almost didn't notice when Maine crossed into his vision, before he poked out from behind his pillar and shot Maine in the back.

And so it went. For each round, each of the teams went at each other, blow for blow. The couples on the teams, when pitted against each other, had an unspoken claim on their partner as their target. South would attack Wyoming, and North would go after Delaware. It was some primal competition for dominance in the relationship, making the exercise even more vicious.

It was interesting when a team spontaneously decided on team kills, as was the case with the volatile combination of Black and Gold team. Before the buzzer had even gone off, Delaware and Texas had retreated into the stone columns, away from the shots of paint from Carolina and South. When the boy team had run in to check on the situation and pick off the survivors, they found South and Carolina plastered to the floor in a rather compromising position…and a blaze of paint shots from Texas and Delaware.

North had collapsed on the floor after a shot to the side paralyzed his lower body, and his helmet popped off and rolled away. Delaware walked over serenely, shooting Wash in the back when he tried to get up, and knelt down beside the blonde man. She took off her helmet for a moment. "Nice try, love," she had said before a kiss to the lips and another shot to the chest rendered him immobile.

The individual rounds had reduced the competition from an exercise to flat out war. They had spent the first hour and a half of the individual rounds trying to eliminate each other. Blue Team was going after Carolina and South, who were going after Delaware and Texas, who were going after North and York. No one seemed to be able to hit the other as globs of paint flew and plastered themselves to walls, columns, ceilings, and doorways, but not to pieces of armor.

"This is getting exhausting," North groaned as he took off his gloves to wipe the sweat off of them and to be able to better handle his weapon.

"I wish we could just head to dinner," York agreed, glancing up at the slightly lopsided score of Red, Black, and Gold team's ten points to Blue teams six. "It's already almost 2100!"

A shot of paint flew towards them, and they ducked as South advanced slowly with her rifle primed and ready. Then, North was grabbed from behind by a pair of aquamarine arms and hurled into a pillar. York made to complain when he was shot several times into chest and stomach, and he fell to the ground with a groan and a thud.

North attempted to stand up from the rubble of his obstacle when a heavily armored boot came down hard on his exposed hand. A gruesome crunch and a yell of pain was the signal that at least two fingers had been shattered on impact. A kick to the stomach was retaliation for his sign of weakness.

"You and her," Carolina snarled as she vented her frustrations on North through kicks and punches, landing blows on his torso and arms. "You think that you're the best of the best, but you're not! You're weak," one kick to the ribs, "sentimental," another kick to the stomach, "and an idiot," a punch to the chest. North flew wide and landed with a few hits to the floor, his helmet sliding off in the process. Carolina wasn't done as she grabbed him by the throat and lifted him up. North was choking as blood trickled down his face and flooded into his mouth.

"…Carolina," he gasped as Carolina brought her gun up to his face. He noticed that she no longer had paint bullets in her Magnum.

"North," Carolina responded coldly as she primed her weapon. A bullet readied itself to be fired.

"Carolina, please…" North could only whisper. Shouts were coming towards them, and burgundy approached from behind Carolina.

A shot from a Magnum rang out, and North's vision faded to black.

Gunshots rang out over the rumbling of thunder from the raging storm outside, and Bianca closed the rattling window with a sharp snap. A group of children huddled under blankets in the corner of the sparse classroom, and candles flickered weakly from the wind coming through cracks in the stone wall. Bianca pulled her hair back in her fingers and tied it off with a ribbon, readjusted her wool robe, and placed her hand to a candle to provide some warmth to her shivering fingers.

The rise of the Insurrectionists on Terra Beta had made life difficult for the past few months. It was dangerous now to even travel one mile outside of one of the Operator Compounds, let alone the ten or twenty mile journey to the school or tend to the herds, as many had to do. Their territory was shrinking rapidly as superior transportation technology kept falling into the hands of the enemy, and breaking through to the neighboring Operators on the nearby colonies- former colonies, Bianca reminded herself- was nearing impossibility. Food supply was shrinking in the approach of the winter months due to raids on harvesters and destruction of fields. How were they supposed to be able to make it through their coldest year yet when their food was being stolen in the unsafe nights and their herds depleted?

A knock at the door brought Bianca out of her reverie as she shuffled to the door and peaked through a crack in the wood. Breathing a sigh of relief, she unlocked it and allowed a heavily armored soldier in a visored helmet to enter her schoolroom.

"Kirk, thank goodness you are here," the blonde breathed as the soldier took off his helmet and shook out reddish-brown hair.

"It's madness out there, Bianca," the soldier confronted the woman gently. "What are you doing here today?"

"There wasn't any activity outside of Phoenix Compound today. What would you have me do, abandon the kids and not show those rebels that we're not afraid?"

"Sorry I asked," Kirk responded, rolling his eyes. The gunfire outside ceased as a flash of lightning lit up the room, illuminating the numerous scars along Kirk's face.

"Is there any news from Stallion Compound?" Bianca asked as she offered a water bottle to the protector while he shook his head.

"No, I haven't been able to get back. My route's been cut off completely now. I can't reach anyone on the other side," he answered in frustration, taking a deep swig of the freezing liquid.

"So that's it, then? We're not getting any help from Red Stallion?"

"Bianca, you know that Farjad would do anything to help you," Kirk responded neutrally to the woman, who folded her arms. "Not only because you're his fiancé, but also that he's an Operator. He made a vow to help the IAOC." Bianca mused for a moment.

"I know. I wish…" she stopped.

"What? You wish what?" Kirk asked.

"Nothing. Wishes don't make anything come true. Only actions achieve your goals," she responded, finishing her thought. "Do you happen to have access to the main Operator communication system?" Kirk handed her an electronic pad, and she began typing on it feverishly.

DISTRESS MESSAGE FROM IAOC SUB-OPERATOR BLACK SPARROW.

SENT TO IAOC OPERATOR BLACK PHOENIX:

Opposition is now utilizing force in rebellion against established IAOC government system of Operators. Requesting immediate return and aid in suppressing deadly force. Repeat, opposition is now utilizing deadly force in rebellion. Please respond and return.

Bianca sent the message and closed the tablet, handing it back to Kirk.

"Do you think she'll come back, Bianca? How do you know Phoenix won't just stay away?" Kirk asked respectfully as he put on his helmet to go into the raging storm again.

"If I know my sister," Bianca said as she started blowing out the candles, "she'll come back. All we have to do is ask."

Brownie points to the person who makes a guess as to the introduction of new characters. Chapter 14 is in the works.