(A/N) Hey guys, I'm sorry about the delay. This is Saturday's chapter, and the reason that it's going up so late will soon be made clear. Parabola was under a lot of constraints with exams and stuff, so I took this chapter off her hands (don't worry, she'll be writing the next Carolina chapter), but, because of work and family stuff, I have only been able to get it finished now. The normal Monday update will be up later tonight, and I think you're all going to enjoy it, and, hopefully, you'll all enjoy this chapter too!

For those still interested in applying for the sequel, please do so immediately, as I'm planning on announcing the selected authors on Thursday, as we won't have an update for the X-Ray and Vav fic this week. So please, wither get applying, or at least message me so I'll hold off on the announcement for a few days.

Anyway, as always, enjoy!


Chapter Sixty – Almost Compromised

Agent Carolina

Written by NicKenny


"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." - John C. Maxwell.


"Ok team, get ready because we'll be going in hot!" Carolina ordered from her co-pilot's seat on 479er's pelican, already counting off the seconds in her head before they would be forced to make a fast exit from the ship.

"Wait, what?" Georgia asked from the back, a note of confusion in his voice. "I thought the briefing said that all forces where located within the facility, with little to no security on the surface, in order to avoid detection from fly-by drones?"

Carolina nodded to herself, pleased that someone, at least, had read through the briefing notes during the flight. A much better scenario than the old days, when Penn and Alaska tended to dive in head first and ask questions later. Maybe this time round, they could avoid getting any of their teammates shot.

"Exactly, does that not strike you as a little odd? I mean, this is a vital facility for the Insurrection, why risk everything on the off chance that if you keep everyone below ground, no one will find you. Whatever can be said about them, they're not idiots."

A slight pause in the passenger bay, then Maine tentatively broke in, to the surprise of all. "So, it's a trap?"

Carolina nodded again, although she knew that the others wouldn't be able to see this gesture. "It's a trap. They could have anything waiting for us, from pressure sensors to automated turrets to mines. Make no mistake, this isn't going to be a walk in the park."

California took this moment to speak up, his cocky tone clearly betraying his excitement. "What happens if they really are that stupid, and there's nothing waiting for us until we break in?"

She sighed and exchanged a knowing glance with 479er, whose body language clearly asked 'Is this guy for real?' "It's never that easy Cal, trust me on this. And hey, if I'm wrong, it's better to be safe than sorry. But I won't be."

479er turned back to her again. "I'd go get your team prepped, Carolina, we'll be reaching our E.T.A. in five. I'll be dropping you off and high-tailing it out of there to the nearest safe zone, so you guys will be on your own until the mission's complete."

Carolina nodded back to her. "Understood, I'll radio you when we've planted the explosives. You fly safe, you hear?"

479er just chuckled and waved a hand directing her towards the back of the pelican. Carolina disengaged the co-pilot system, and hopped out of her chair, entering the passenger bay of the ship where her team were waiting expectantly.

"Ok, we all know the plan, right? Maine, Florida and Georgia will move the bomb into position, with Cal and I dealing with any Insurrectionist resistance. We place the bomb in the main chamber, next to the MAC prototype, then get the hell out of there, before detonating the explosives. With luck, the blast should be big enough to either collapse the facility in on itself, or to detonate some of the MAC rounds in the adjacent rooms, causing a chain reaction that should destroy the rest of the facility. Sync?"

"Sync," the four other agents chorused, even Maine, with his deep, rumbling voice. At that moment the pelican began to slow down and 479er yelled back at them, just as the doorway ramp began to lower.

"Ok, you're clear for drop-off. Now your asses off my ship!"

Carolina glanced back with a half-smile, hidden beneath her helmet. She turned back to her team and nodded towards the now open doorway. "Well?" she asked, waiting for them to move.

Georgia looked at it, gulped, then turned back to her. "We're like three thousand feet up in the air!"

The other agents appeared to concur with the statement, Maine in particular, who was avoiding even looking at the opened exit. "Too high," he grumbled, not meeting Carolina's gaze.

She sighed in exasperation, placed her boot firmly against the bomb and pushed, the heavy metal device rolling across the floor on its sled, falling out the opened doorway. The agents' gaze followed its fall, and, using this distraction, Carolina shot forward and tackled Maine out the doorway, and the two were suddenly free falling in the open air. Maine let out what could only be described as a squeal, clawing towards the ship above him.

"Oh grow up, you big baby," Carolina muttered, holding on firmly to his torso despite his attempts to knock her off, her eyes firmly locked on the bomb falling rapidly beneath them. She pulled her body upwards, forcing Maine into a similar position, decreasing their wind resistance and increasing their general speed, and the bomb was quickly with touching distance.

Carolina stretched out her hand and triumphantly grabbed the handrail to the bomb's affixed sled, pulling both herself and Maine onto its surface. Maine was gripping the edge with a worrying intensity, trembling slightly as the ground beneath them continued to get closer and closer. Carolina rolled her eyes from beneath her helmet and reach over to the sled's side, grasping the handle that she knew would be there and pulling it back with a sudden finality, just as she felt three heavy thumps rock the bomb. Four parachutes shot out of the sled, one at each corner, and Carolina was forced to cling onto the edge of the sled to prevent herself from falling off as they rapidly decreased in speed.

She turned back to Maine, only to see Florida, Cal and Georgia lying on him in various positions of discomfort, the bigger agent lying winded beneath them. Just because he was impervious to pain didn't mean that he couldn't have the air knocked out of his lungs, and Carolina had to supress a laugh at the image in front of her.

A few seconds later the sled made contact with the ground beneath it, and the parachutes were sucked back into their hatches, ready for redeployment if necessary. At the point of contact with the earth, Georgia shot off his rather tentative position, perched on top of Maine's round helmet, landed on the ground a few feet below them with a groan.

The others hopped off promptly, Florida offering the agent in green and pink a hand up, while Maine dusted himself off as he got his breath back, grumbling unintelligibly to himself.

"Everyone ok?" Carolina asked wryly, and, sure enough, all four agents' heads snapped in her direction, and she didn't have to see their faces to know that they were glaring at her. "I'll take that as a yes then."

She drew her twin magnums and nodded towards the bomb. "You three, start pushing. Cal, I want you next to me. You say you know all there is to know about these guys, I want you to prove it."

The three agents on bomb pushing duty groaned, and turned away. Cal stepped forward and drew his battle rifle, leaving the twin SMGs by his side for the time being. "Got it, boss," he replied, stepping forward eagerly.

Carolina glanced behind her and saw Florida and Georgia using leather straps to harness Maine to the sled, much to the bigger agent's rage, and turned back to Cal. "It's going to take them a few minutes to get the bomb to the facility. Guess we should try to clear out any security first."


The first patrol never saw her coming. Cal had stepped on a pressure plate, alerting the guards to his position, and a moment later a group of five Insurrectionists appeared, guns raised, scouting the area for whoever had set the plate off, as Cal had, by this point, disappeared. The security cameras had already been removed from the equation after Georgia had taken a small metallic device from one of the various pouches attached to his armour, telling her to push the big red button when they were within a hundred feet of the complex, telling her that it would hack into the camera's feed and establish a continuous loop within the system, showing nothing out of the ordinary to those watching. Something that he and Ark had thrown together in their spare time, apparently.

"Everything runs on wifi these days," he had informed her, grinning from ear to ear.

When the guards neared the treeline at the edge of the complex, Carolina struck, appearing from above them on the branches of one of the tallest trees, landing on top of one soldier before springing off of him and snap-kicking the second into the third, just as Cal appeared on the scene, knife in hand, swiping it across the throat of the fourth guard before kicking the fifth into Carolina's path, who took him down with a mean right hook.

Ignoring the now either unconscious or dead guards around them, Carolina nodded to the open metal door which the guards had exited the complex through, and smiled. "Looks like we've got our way in," she murmured, as Cal leant down to wipe the guard's blood off of his knife, replacing it into its sheath and drawing his battle rifle once more.

He looked back over at her, and then over to the door. "Then let's do this thing," he replied, as Carolina radioed the others to alert them of their position.


The facility was eerily devoid of human life as the five freelancers made their way through the winding underground corridors, all too aware that, at any moment, alarms would start to sound as the incapacitated guards were either missed or discovered, and the breach in the Innies' security realised. Indeed, Carolina was somewhat surprised that it hadn't happened already. It had been almost ten minutes since she and Cal had taken down the guards. If this facility was really as important to the Insurrectionist's as the Director believed, their security teams should have picked up on their intrusion at this stage.

Navigating the bomb and its sled down the flights of stairs had been an absolute bitch, and it had been all she could do to make sure that they didn't create too much noise, but Maine and Georgia weren't exactly experts at stealth, and there had been one or two close calls when Insurrectionist patrols had passed by and they were forced to hide, or else risk alerting the whole facility. The closest they had come to blowing their cover had been when the bomb had slipped out of Maine's grasp, and Florida and Georgia were forced to use all of the strength that they had to prevent it from falling down the stairs on top of them and crushing them, while the giant in white regained his footing and pulled the bomb back.

But other than that, everything was progressing as planned, the route to the main chamber memorised within her head, and, despite the maze of tunnels that they had found themselves in, she was confident that they were heading in the right direction.

Sure enough, within a few minutes the tunnel that they were traveling in began to widen, and soon opened up into a huge room, lit up at all sides, filled with men in standard Insurrectionist uniform, and, here and there, wearing the new steel grey suits that they had created as a bastardised version of the freelancers' armour, and their own technology. Carolina raised her hand and felt her team come to a standstill behind her, Maine's laboured breathing echoing throughout the tunnel as he fought to regain his breath, still harnessed to the bomb.

"Georgia, you know what to do," Carolina murmured, turning to him and feeling him light up at her words, delighted at the chance to test out his technology in the field, something that he hadn't been able to do up until now.

'Just like Florida and his explosives,' she thought wryly, as Georgia pulled out a data-pad identical to the one that the Counselor carried with him at all times, his fingers flying across its surface with a dexterity that she could only wonder at, his entire body vibrating with enthusiasm. A moment later, alarms began to scream throughout the complex, and the lights quickly changes from a reassuring white to a harsh pulsating red. The soldiers began to yell to one another and file out into the dozens of tunnels that surrounded the room, but, as planned, none of them entered the tunnel that the freelancers currently occupied, proving that the Director's intel had been sound.

Georgia looked up, and Carolina knew that beneath his helmet he would be beaming from ear to ear. "It worked!" he exclaimed in a hushed whisper. "Ark is going to be so happy when I tell him. We spent weeks trying to get the program to work. It's like I said, everything runs on wifi these days."

She ignored his rants and gestured for Maine, Georgia and Florida to get moving, slowly emerging from the tunnel with them, Cal taking up the rear, her eyes scanning the room and the walkways above them for any sign of a threat as they approached the prototype Magnetic Accelerator Cannon that dominated the huge cavern of a room.

Up close it truly was awe-inspiring. She could feel Georgia twitching next to her, his fingers drumming against the frame of the bomb. She glanced at him, only to see him staring at her mournfully, his head shaking slowly from side to side. "Are you sure we have to blow it up," he asked, his voice filled with sadness. "There's no way that we could take it with us?"

Carolina just stared at him in confusion. "Georgia, it's a cannon that fires six-hundred ton rounds. How the hell would we be able to take it anywhere?"

"Can we at least fire it? Just once?"

"Georgia, we're in the middle of a concrete bunker, half a kilometre from the surface. What would we even fire it at?"

He paused for a moment, clearly putting some thought into his answer. "How about the Insurrectionist base?"

Carolina looked away, glancing over to Florida and Cal, who were both clearly trying very hard not to laugh. "We're in the Insurrectionist base, Georgia. This might be a flaw that you have failed to grasp in your plan of action, but using the MAC on the building that we are currently in is not really an option at this point."

Georgia fell silent, occasionally murmuring an odd word under his breath, but Carolina paid little notice to the green-clad agent. "Maine, push the bomb over as close as you can to the prototype. Florida, have you got everything good to go?"

The agent in blue nodded enthusiastically. "Everything's rigged up and ready to blow up, Carolina. I'm just waiting on Maine here to finish movin' it before I set the timer."

She turned away, nodding slowly. "Good. Tell me when you're done."

Looking around, she couldn't help but smile confidently beneath her helmet. Everything was going according to plan. She felt more than slightly smug when she wondered how Penn's team were getting on, confident that her own would surpass them. 'Looks like Penn is just going to have to get used to second best,' she thought smugly.

Florida and Maine walked up to her, the smaller freelancer pulling off a smart and cheery salute. "Bomb's timer is set, we've got ten minutes to get out of here."

She felt Cal shift uneasily next to her. "But it took us almost ten minutes to get down here! Aren't we going to be cutting it a little close?"

Carolina snorted, glancing at him for a moment. "We were pushing a several ton bomb along with us, slowing us down. We should be out and on our way home by the time this place goes up in smoke."

Maine turned away, grumbling quietly. "You weren't pushing the bomb."

She ignored him, gesturing them to follow as she made her way towards the tunnel that they had entered the prototype's hanger through, but just as they reached it they picked up voices coming down that same tunnel, and her motion receptor began to blink, indicating that at least five targets were making their way down the tunnel.

"Move back. Hide!" she whispered harshly to her team, motioning for them to find cover until the group of Insurrectionists had passed. They couldn't afford to alert the Insurrectionists of their presence, not at this point. If they sounded the alarm and brought the whole base down on them, there would be no way that they could make it out of here before the explosives detonated.

She crouched behind a forklift, hoping that the bright orange wouldn't show up her armour. Florida and Georgia hid behind some spare parts for the MAC in the far corner of the room, Cal was crouched next to some oil barrels only a few feet away from her, and Maine had…disappeared. Carolina hoped he'd turn up sooner than later, when they were able to move. Maine was…unpredictable at times.

Five soldiers made their way out of the tunnel that the freelancers had entered through, all clad in the steel grey armour that Penn's team were, at this moment, destroying the facility that produced it. However, the soldier leading the group's armour had dark red accents, no doubt marking him out as the leader of the group. She caught a few strands of their conversation, and realised, with a slight sense of dread, that they were talking about them.

"They entered through here," the leader murmured, scanning the room through his grey visor. "They must have been the ones to sound the alarm too, in order to clear out this room. What were they up to…"

He reached up to his helmet, released the latches, and removed it, tucking it underneath his arm. Carolina felt Cal freeze as he did so, and she took a second look at the leader, immediately recognising him from the Director's briefing on the previous mission.

Lieutenant Ian Harper, the second-highest ranking member of the Insurrection that they were aware of. His tousled blond hair, bright green eyes and tanned skin gave him the look of the perfect poster boy for the Insurrection. Tall, but not too tall. Strong, athletic and, from the information that the Director had on him, utterly, utterly ruthless.

Cal began to shake next to her, and she glanced over at him, her brow furrowed, confused, before she remembered Cal's original reaction to the information that Harper had been sighted the mission before, and how he had stormed out, getting into a fight with Ark which had ended with Cal shooting him, after he had been told that he wouldn't be involved.

This was not good.

"Cal," she whispered urgently. "Don't do anything stupid. Just wait for them to leave, the mission is too important to compromise."

He turned and looked at her for a moment, and paused to consider her words. "Fuck the mission," he replied, already moving. "I'm going after Harper."

He charged out, moving behind the group of Insurrectionists, and drew his SMGs, shouting "HARPER!" and Carolina could tell that he was grinning as the Innies spun around, raising their own weapons.

Harper was the only one of the five who appeared unruffled by California's sudden appearance, grinning widely from ear to ear, and that was the moment were Carolina saw it. He was insane. Not just bloodthirsty, like Penn, emotionless, like Maine, or mental, like Alaska, but genuinely, utterly insane.

"I recognise that voice," he murmured slowly, pushing past his men, his head cocked slightly. "Tell me, you couldn't be little –"

"I'm called California now, Harper," Cal spat, his SMGs trained directly on Harper, ignoring the other Innies, who were slowly moving out to surround Cal. Carolina glanced over at Georgia and Florida, and nodded to them, then nodded to the Insurrectionists. The two agents seemed to understand her gestures, slowly moving away into better vantage points, their weapons drawn.

Harper just chuckled throatily, and slowly put his helmet back on, his manic grin now hidden behind the dull grey visor. "Well, ain't that sweet. But you'll always be that little kid to me, Cal, screaming while he watched his –"

"ENOUGH!" Cal screamed, his SMGs wobbling slightly. "It's over, Harper. This ends here, between me and you."

Harper cocked his head and laughed, not even bothering to try and draw his own weapon. "Then what are you waiting for?"

At that moment, Cal let loose, squeezing the triggers of his twin SMGs, emptying the full clips of both into Harper's body, then paused in shock as Harper remained standing, unflinching, as bullet casing dropped to the ground all around him.

The Insurrectionist lieutenant strode forward cockily, still unarmed, and laughed once more. "You see, Cal, we are superior to you in every way. You just. Can't. Win."

Cal screamed wordlessly and charged forward, throwing a punch at Harper, who neatly sidestepped it, attempting to sweep Cal's legs out from underneath him but Cal was expecting this, already vaulting back as Harper sprung out from the sweep, throwing a right hook which Cal expertly blocked, grabbing Harper by the chest-plate of his armour, and the two grappled for a moment, before Harper managed to break free, kicking Cal in the gut to propel himself away.

Carolina remained motionless for a moment, noticing how the two remained perfectly matched throughout the fight, each punch returned, each kick evaded or used against the attacker. She was only broken out of this trance when the first of Harper's Innies interfered, throwing a punch at the back of Cal's head which sent him plummeting to the floor. She opened up her radio communications and ordered the rest of her team into the fight.

"Now. Now. Now!"

She sprang out over the forklift, her magnums already firing, but their bullets also bounced harmlessly off of the Innies' armour, and she reattached them to her sides with a slight curse. Still falling through the air after leaping out from the forklift, she landed heavily on the nearest Innie, who collapsed to the ground beneath her.

So while bullets had no effect on them, brute force did.

Where the hell was Maine when you needed him?

Georgia and Florida immediately launched their own offensive, already avoiding using their weapons after Cal and Carolina's own weapons proved ineffective. The two agents worked together seamlessly, and while neither could be called Project Freelancer's finest at close combat, the two Insurrectionists that were currently punching at thin air as the agents bobbed and weaved around them wouldn't have been able to tell.

Carolina picked up Cal, and threw herself forward as Harper and the other Insurrectionist decided to finally use their own weapons, two shotguns bursts exploding in the area that she had previously occupied. The two agents spun around as Harper and his teammate aimed for a second shot, and that was when Maine decided to make an appearance.

Apparently, he had spent this entire time scaling the prototype MAC, and Carolina's eyes widened when she caught sight of him, perched against the edge, overlooking both herself and Cal, and their attackers. The Insurrectionist next to Harper must have sensed that something was up, because he looked up at the same time as Maine landed on him, slamming him into the floor.

Harper laughed in amusement and ducked as Maine through a heavy-handed punch his way, slowly retreating away from them, closely followed by the groggy agent who Carolina had landed on. "Guys!" Florida shouted from the far side of the room. "We've got about three minutes to get out of here."

Carolina glanced away from the retreating form of Harper and his teammate over to Florida, who was brandishing his assault rifle while loading his underslung grenade launcher. One Insurrectionist was only down, groaning, and Carolina wondered what Georgia and Florida had done to him, and the other was being distracted by Georgia. With a sudden "NOW!" Georgia threw himself away from the Innie, and Florida fired a grenade straight into the chest of the Innie, which promptly detonated, sending him flying into the next wall.

Carolina grabbed Cal, trying drag him away from the retreating form of Harper, but Cal was having none of it. "Get off of me!" he snarled, struggling in her grasp, causing Carolina to abruptly let go, and Cal staggered backwards into Maine, he wrapped his arms around him and lifted him bodily up into the air, ignoring his protests.

"Everyone, it's time to leave. Now!" she ordered, already making her way to the tunnel that they had originally entered through, ignoring the wounded Innies that they had left in their wake. She led her team through the winding corridors and stairways, Florida counting the timer off over the radio as they exited the facility, and they finally burst out into daylight with thirty seconds to go. By this stage, all of the base's alarms were sounding, and there were Insurrectionists waiting for them at the surface, but the freelancers just increased their speed, determined to get out of the blast radius before the bomb went off, barely noticing the bullets that flew past them.

"This is Agent Carolina, requesting an immediate extraction," she yelled over her radio, still sprinting with the rest of her team behind her as they burst into the forest that surrounded the bunker.

"Agent Carolina, this is Extraction," 479er answered in reply. "We read you loud and clear, and –"

The rest of her words were cut off as the bomb detonated, the blast echoing through the forest and throwing the freelancers several feet into the air. Carolina landed on her feet, next to Florida and Cal, but Maine and Cal weren't so lucky, the big freelancer in white still holding the other agents in a tight bear hug. They flew up into the air, crashing into a tree, then slamming into the ground hard, throwing up dirt as they landed.

Carolina made her way over to them, lifted Cal up by the shoulder and nodding to Maine, who was dusting himself off. "You two okay?" she asked, and Maine grumbled what sounded like an affirmative in reply, and Cal just grunted.

She just turned and walked away, knowing that the others would follow, making for the clearing that they had agreed to use as their rendezvous point with 479er, unsurprised to see the pelican already waiting for them.

"Everything go ok?" the pilot asked as Carolina made her way back into the co-pilot seat, causing Carolina to snort angrily.

"The objective was completed, no thanks to Cal. He better get knocked down the leaderboard after this, because he could have compromised the entire mission."

479er whistled between her teeth. "Huh, that bad?"

"Don't even get me started," Carolina replied, looking away. "Just take us home."