7. Before the Storm
One day later
A few of the Freelancers were hanging out in one of the lounges on the Mother of Invention; York, Wash, and Wyoming were playing cards, Florida and Georgia were shooting pool, Maine was lifting weights, and Rhode Island sat in a chair reading a book; they all were in normal clothes instead of their usual armor.
Rhode Island tuned the other agents, only paying attention to her book. She did notice however when a certain blonde walked in and for once wearing normal clothes as well; a plain yellow t-shirt and black pants, along with a long grey glove on her arm which Rhode Island knew was to hide her scars. Arizona spotted her and walked over to her, taking a seat across from her.
"Good morning," Rhode Island said to her. Arizona simply nodded back at her.
"Now, could you tell me where the rest are?"
Arizona looked at her, her brow raised.
"Don't give me that look, I know how loyal your spirits are to you, they all wouldn't leave you even if you no longer had magic," Rhode Island explained.
Arizona looked around; making sure no one was listening, then leaned in.
"Fine. Along with Loke, my other spirits became a AI, all sharing one slot," she pulled her hair back to show a grey circle implant with a golden star and Z in its center. "After being attacked by Fairy Tail, the Spirit King banished the zodiac spirits from the spirit world for not protecting me from them, while my silver spirits left on their own accord. They came to me in the hospital, thinking they were just going to say once last good bye before they died, but I wouldn't give up on them, not then, not ever, so I figured out how to make them into a single AI and they've been helping me with multiple tasks."
Rhode Island nodded at the information given to her.
"I must ask, what happened to you?" Arizona asked her.
Rhode Island just twisted her hair behind her ear, making her cybernetic eye more visible. "Same thing as you more or less, just with different scars in different places," she simply said.
The two then sat in silence. CT walked past the door way at that time waved at Arizona. Arizona waved back as she walked away.
"You know I'm glad you finally found people you can trust and love again."
Arizona lightly smiled as a blush formed on her cheeks. "Yeah, I'll admit it was unexpected but I'm glad I found them. How about you, anyone interest you?"
"No yet, I trust my team but don't have any interest in any of them that way," she replied, going back to her book.
"Somethings never change," Arizona said, getting up and heading to the door.
"Yes, but sometimes a little change is needed," Rhode Island replied as Arizona left the room and she went back to reading.
Carolina and South were hanging in their room, Carolina looking over a report while South was just looking over a magazine. Last night they had Arizona moved into their room since they had a extra bunk, having the four girls be together at night.
"So who's going on the mission?" South then asked Carolina, looking up from her magazine.
"The Director has me, Arizona, CT, Maine, Wash, and York on one team and North, Florida, Wyoming, Rhode Island and her team on the second team. Though he didn't explain our objection yet," she told her.
"Ugh, there's going to be no one here to hang with while you're gone," South sighed.
"You could talk to Utah or Georgia?" Carolina pointed out.
"Yeah, I know," South said, grabbing another magazine. "What about Texas?"
"I don't know, I guess she's not assigned to this mission."
"Seems weird that she's not going yet Rhode Island and Arizona are and she's been here a bit longer."
"Yeah, I guess." Carolina then got a message on her pad, telling her she has a meeting with the Director. "I'll be right back," she said, getting up and leaving the room. She walked along the halls and stopped in front of one door before knocking on it. A faint 'Come in' could be heard on the other side and she walked in, revealing the room to be the Director's office. It was pretty simple, only having a desk and chair with a bunch of papers around.
"You wanted to see me da-sir," Carolina corrected herself.
"A few questions have come to my attention," he said, leaning onto his desk and looking at her. "Why has Arizona moved into your room?"
"She just wanted to be with us instead of being alone."
He nodded with his eyes. "How has it been with her?"
"She's a good soldier, and has been loyal."
"Has she told you about her past?"
"Yes sir."
He was taken back a bit by that answer but he didn't let her see it. "Has anything, happened between you and Arizona?"
Now Carolina was taken back. "N-no sir, nothing has happened." He of course noticed this.
"Don't forget we have work to be done, we can't have any distractions."
'Yet Texas is here,' Carolina thought.
"Continue to work hard, soon this will be over," he said, giving her a signal she's dismissed.
"Of course," she said, starting to leave the room. "father."
The next day
Carolina, Arizona, CT, Wash, North, Wyoming, York, Florida, Maine, and Rhode Island stood around the holographic table in the debriefing room, waiting for the Director and Counselor to give them their instructions.
"Wonder what's taking him so long," Wyoming said aloud.
"He's probably just making sure our window for the mission is good; wouldn't want to send us down there if it looked like we'd fail," Rhode replied, working on something on her pad.
"I'll get him, we need to start heading out," Carolina said, walking up to where he was.
"So, any idea what we're after," Wash asked.
"Hard to tell, but it's definitely something important. Could be a weapon or even a vehicle of some sort," North suggested.
"We'll find out soon," Arizona said. 'Of course, they'll never be told what it truly is.'
At that time Carolina walked back down with the Director and Counselor, Carolina taking her place back next to Arizona.
"Agents! Your mission today is by far the most important you have undertaken to date. As our Number One, Carolina will be leading from the field," the Director told them, nodding to her to begin.
"Okay, here's what we have. As you may have heard, there is suspected Insurrection activity in this area," she started as she pushed some buttons and a hologram started to form. "Our intel says that members of the UNSC loyal to the Insurrection have acquired a high-level asset and are holding it in this secure location." The hologram formed into a city and in the center stood one taller then the rest. "It's a hundred and ten-story building in the middle of an urban environment."
"What does security look like?" Wyoming asked.
"They have enough troops to fill a hundred and ten story building," Carolina simply replied.
"So, that's a lot of security."
"To be exact, they should have around a hundred men per floor, so I'd say about eleven thousand, give or take any one sick today or special troops being there today," Rhode added.
"Wow, that's not just a lot, that's over kill," York stated.
"We can handle it," Arizona simply put.
"Our job is to infiltrate the building, work our way up to the floor where the Sarcophagus is being held, and secure it," Carolina continued.
North looked at her confused. "The Sarcophagus?"
"That would be the primary objective agent North," the Counselor told him.
"But since this is a high-level asset, we need to access two key codes to open the Sarcophagus."
"I'm guessing they don't keep them just taped to the side," Wash said aloud. He was then smacked outside the head by Maine.
"We've already acquired one and we just have to find the second one. It's held by an official of the program who will be moving in a vehicle along the freeway between inspections. That's when we'll hit the facility," Carolina told them as the hologram displayed a highway along with cars moving across it, one glowed red and a man's face was shown next to it. "This is the man holding the access codes. We need to acquire targets within minutes of each other. We fail that, the remaining target will enter lockdown and we miss our window."
"We will not have another chance at this," the Director firmly stated. All of the Freelancers knew what he meant by that.
"We'll be forming two teams. Team A will consist of me, Wash, Arizona, CT, York, and Maine. We will work infiltration on the Package's storage facility. Team B will be North, Rhode, Wyoming, and Florida, will act as recon along with Rhode's team for Team A, and once we enter the building, you will disengage to attack the target on the freeway. North will lead the team."
"What about Texas, will she be joining us?" CT asked.
"That's enough questions, Connecticut," the Director said, clearly angry.
"Of course you wouldn't answer that," Arizona said.
"Team B should be simple. Stop the vehicle and grab the case. Team A? You have more of a challenge. Mainly because the Sarcophagus is an unknown," Carolina brought up.
"How unknown are we talking?" Wash asked, a bit worried.
"Unknown in that we don't know its size, or its weight, or its dimensions. We just know it will have these markings somewhere on the exterior," she replied as she put a red insignia up for them.
"I saw those same markings on the oil platform," North replied.
"Same at other base," CT added.
"Correct. That facility created the primary objective and that base created the two keys for it," the Director explained to them.
"Do we know what's inside it?" Wash asked.
"Yes, we know."
"How do we know what's in it, but not how big it is?" CT asked.
The Director turned to her and just gave her a glare. "Sorry, sir," she spat out.
'I'll tell her sometime when we get back,' Arizona thought.
"We have a job to do, people. Let's do it right and come home safe," Carolina ordered.
"That is all. You are dismissed!"
The Freelancers brought their selves to stand at attention. "Yes sir." The group then walked out of the room and headed for the hanger. As they approached the hanger they saw South in her wheelchair at the entry way, giving a small wave to CT, Arizona, and Carolina.
"We'll join you in a sec," Carolina told the rest. They nodded and left the four to talk.
"Hey, we thought you'd still be in bed," Arizona told her.
"Yeah, but just wanted to see you off before you left," she replied.
"You're worried about us aren't you?" Carolina asked.
"A little bit."
"Don't worry about us, we have these two here plus Maine will be with us," CT pointed out.
"Doesn't mean I can't be worried."
Arizona smiled under her helmet and patted South's shoulder. "I'll have Rhode make sure North makes it home."
"Thank you, you better get going." The three nodded and started to walk to their pelican.
"Hey." The three turned back to her. "Make sure you all get back."
"Will do."
"Of course."
"Like they'll be able to take us out."
The Freelancers all got onto their pelicans and started to fly towards the planet below.
Sorry I took so long since I last posted but I have other things I also have to do.
But now we're starting to get back into the series, so most of the lines follow the episodes dialog
With summer coming up I'll try to put more chapters up, along with a few more stories up, so be patient and ready.