Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or its associated characters. The characters in this writing so far are mostly original characters, but I make no claim over the existing characters.
Chapter 12
FRIL
"What's your landing strategy?" Sergeant Green shouted at me over the sound of wind whipping past us. The door of our Bullhead was open, exposing us to the cloudy night sky as we flew gently over Argus.
"What?" I shouted back.
"Your landing strategy!" he shouted again. The green jump light came on, and Captain Stone from the back of the Bullhead started shouting, moving us out the door.
"Let's find out!" Sergeant Green shouted, then shoved me out the door. I fell quickly, feeling the cold wind whipping against my face, drying my eyes almost immediately. I ripped my helmet off of its clip on my belt and slammed it on my head, activating the seals and regaining my sense of awareness.
I spread my limbs out wide to catch the air and slow my fall. Sergeant Green shot past me as I slowed down, he was pointing himself almost straight down, making only minor adjustments as he fell from over thirty thousand feet up. He was wearing what looked like a black wetsuit over his gear, with only his head exposed to the cold air. Lieutenant Rivers passed me next, his equipment strapped into a tight bundle on his back to keep it from being caught by the wind.
I continued falling, now regaining my sense of control as I passed into the upper end of the cloud layer and adjusted my trajectory to stay relatively near the rest of my team.
Wheeeeeeeeee! LIWI shouted as I fell. I love flying!
Captain Stone's hammer shot past me, then course corrected and flew back up. She caught it, slowing her momentum on both the throw and the catch to maintain a smooth and controlled fall. We passed through the clouds in a blur. My visor fogged up and my entire armor was sprinkled with rain drops. I held out my wrist to check my altimeter, noting that I was passing below ten thousand feet when the cloud layer parted beneath me to reveal the landscape I was rapidly approaching.
The dark sky barely illuminated a forest of trees below me with a small lake near our landing zone at the base of a mountain. Sergeant Green peeled off towards the water, orienting his body to allow him to make a swimmers deep dive, feet first and toes pointed straight down. While he wore a small reserve parachute, he chose not to activate it as he plummeted towards the water. I activated the feather fall system in my armor's back panels, praying that LIWI's non detection spell could conceal the burst of magic from any sensors Gary had deployed.
Sergeant Green entered the water with a remarkably small splash, landing feet first with his arms crossed. His aura flashed a light yellow as it protected him from the impact with the water, and he disappeared beneath the surface of the small lake. Lieutenant Rivers fired his grappling hook towards one of the larger trees as he fell downwards, angling the shot at an angle so that he acted like a pendulum, converting much of his downward momentum into forward velocity. The tree he selected bent and snapped silently as his swing completed its arc, sending him rocketing through the forest at impressive speed. He tucked and rolled, then came up into a series of bounding leaps, gradually burning off his momentum until he came to a complete stop.
Captain Stone continued using her strategy of throwing and catching her hammer, her semblance only allowing her to give it one order per throw instead of simply using the weapon to fly. She crashed heavily into the top of a redwood, branches snapping as she fell through them hammer first to slam into the soft forest floor with a muffled *thump.*
That was super cool! Why do we have to take the slow way down? LIWI asked.
"Because I don't want to break every bone in my body" I replied quietly, deactivating the magic as I cleared the last few feet to the forest floor. I landed as softly as the bulk of my armor allowed, then unslung my weapon and moved to group up with Evelynn. I found her brushing sticks and small green needles out of her dark blue combat armor. She had her normally bright white hair concealed by a dark hood to facilitate her stealth, but her gold colored eyes still flashed brightly in the dim moonlight.
"Report." she ordered, collapsing her warhammer's haft and slinging it on her back for quick movement.
"All down safe" I reported. "Green went in the water, I'll see if he needs to be fished out."
She nodded her head.
"He knows how deep it is, he should be fine, but let's check all the same." We jogged quickly through the underbrush, me needing to ask LIWI to accelerate my speed to keep up with the captain's aura extended stride. She moved surprisingly fast given her short stature, more taking small leaps than steps with each stride.
We came up on the lake to see Green and Rivers standing on the shoreline, Green was stepping out of his wetsuit to reveal his normal dark blue night uniform beneath. He balled up the wetsuit and tossed it into the water, where it slowly sank beneath the surface.
"How did you know the water would be deep enough?" I asked.
He pointed a finger at his temple.
"Precognitive, remember?" Lieutenant Rivers made a face; then flashed a series of signs to me.
"He looks at the geological surveys beforehand, he just likes pulling it off so he has a story." Green just grinned, not having seen the Lieutenant's response. spreading his arms out wide.
"What can I say?" He asked. "I'm just that good." I rolled my eyes, a pointless gesture with a full helmet on, then turned to follow Captain Stone to the rendezvous point.
-/-
Twenty minutes later we arrived to see team FRIL already gathered at the meeting point. They leveled weapons at us as we entered the small clearing they were holding, then lowered them after identifying us. Major Fin strode over to speak to Captain Stone, and the two had a short discussion in hushed whispers. I crouched down next to where Lieutenant Lord was kneeling with his weapon up, crosshairs trained on the surrounding wilderness, searching for targets.
"Smooth landing?" I asked softly. He grinned.
"Just fine, thanks for asking. How was yours?"
"Oh, not too bad" I replied. "Sergeant Green did a free dive into a lake." This time he turned to look at me, cocking an eyebrow.
"How did he know it was deep enough?" I shrugged in response.
"He's precognitive, I guess he's just that good."
Lord looked like he was about to reply when the team commanders returned to the rest of the group, and Major Fin addressed the assembled huntsmen.
"Lieutenant Rivers and Captain Ripley will provide overwatch while we assault the garrison below." The major began. He pronounced Lieutenant like 'left tenant.' "The rest of us will attack quickly and quietly. Remember, we need to secure ground transport, so don't blow anything up. Once we have the vehicles we will meet the snipers along the dirt road to the south of the enemy camp. Questions?" The team members nodded their understanding.
I looked towards where Rivers sat near Captain Jade Ripley, just far enough away that his cone of silence did not affect her. The captain was notably the only Faunus member of either team, her yellow slit eyes and emphasized canine teeth giving her some of the features of a coyote. She grinned at hearing her assignment, flashing her sharp teeth and leaning into Rivers' cone of silence to give him a fist bump, then we stepped off towards the first base on our list of potential targets.
-/-
Our snipers set up on a rocky outcropping where they had a clear line of sight to the enemy encampment below. Once they were in place the rest of us began running quietly down the gentle slope towards the enemy encampment. It was a simple camp built along one of the only passable roads in the region. The soldiers had packed a dirt barrier dug up from a deep moat surrounding the border of the camp.
The barrier gave troops inside the camp cover to fire from, and preventing any vehicles from easily entering the camp. The area around the camp had been cleared of trees, leaving the stumps as another natural barrier and using the logs to form large stakes in the dirt barrier to discourage any heavy vehicles from attempting to cross the moat and climb the eight foot barrier wall.
The six of us sprinted across the broken terrain, still managing to hit speeds of upwards of thirty miles an hour as aura and magically enhanced legs and arms pumped rhythmically and propelled us towards our objective.
"Time to go to work" I whispered to LIWI between breaths.
You got it boss, sensory and physical enhancements coming up, I've got healing on stand by. Try not to get shot though okay?
"Will do'' I grunted. I felt the magic flow into me, speeding my reflexes and focusing my senses. I heard an almost imperceptible whiz as a silent sniper round flew over our heads and dropped one of the sentries on guard. The dark night seemed to brighten for me as my pupils opened wide, the magic feeding my optic nerve more information that it normally could handle at once. I saw the spurt of blood from over a hundred feet away as a second guard called out to the first, then caught a bullet in the neck for his trouble.
"They know" I called out softly to Captain Stone on my right. She grunted in reply, then redoubled her speed to accelerate to the front of the pack of huntsmen. In a straight line her leaping running gate made her our fastest runner, so she easily took the lead in our stealthy charge. As she ran she withdrew her hammer from her back, the long handle telescoping outwards as it dropped into her hand.
Two more silent shots whizzed out to impact two more night guards with meaty smacks and soft cries of pain, but the snipers had been too late to stop the second guard from sounding the alarm.
Captain Stone reached the moat a few seconds before the rest of us, flinging her hammer into the sky and leaping up to follow it. As she reached the pinnacle of her arc she pointed a finger towards something in the camp I couldn't see and her hammer shot downwards, the sound of crushed armor and broken bones followed shortly after.
The rest of us reached the moat and leapt upwards to join her as she fell downwards and crashed into a pair of soldiers that had just emerged from a tent. She tumbled with them into the tent, and I heard a series of quick short impacts followed by one one of the soldiers crying out in pain.
I landed next roughly to Lieutenant Lord, who held out a hand to form a small rainbow hued energy shield as one of the soldiers who had awoken during the commotion brought his weapon to bear. The soldier fired, but the kinetic energy of his rounds was harmlessly absorbed by the shield and they dropped to ground with a soft clatter.
The noise of his automatic fire awoke the rest of the camp, and an alarm blared to life. I slid to a stop next to Lord's energy shield and he formed a small hole in it to allow me to fire. I brought my rifle up and snapped off two rounds, catching the soldier first in the chest and second in the throat. I had an uncomfortable flashback for a quick moment to when Gary had used the exact same shot pattern against me, then shook my head to clear my thoughts and resumed firing as more soldiers poured out of the tent.
Major Fin and Sergeant Green dashed towards the vehicle depot as the rest of us overwhelmed the unprepared defenders. Sergeant Green's blade flicked side to side to deflect shots that came their way, and Major Fin threw a dagger made of pure light into a soldier who had emerged from a tent with a pistol drawn. The dagger pierced his chest, then beams of light lanced out to strike nearby soldiers, each one scorching and burning them in the same place as the first soldier the weapon impacted.
I grimaced, uncomfortable at the wholesale slaughter we were performing, then turned to fire a round into the shin of a soldier, hoping he would be able to tourniquet it and survive. He screamed as he fell, dropping his weapon and clutching at his now useless leg as it bled.
Behind you!
LIWI shouted a warning, but I turned too slowly to react to a burly man wearing black combat pants and a red t-shirt tackling me. He knocked me off my feet, landing on top of me as I hit the ground with a thud. He tried to wrestle my gun out of my hands, but with my strength enhanced by both my armor and LIWIs magic it was almost casually easy to keep hold of it. I twisted partially out from under him, enough to get a leg between us. I kicked, shoving him away from me to go skidding through the dirt.
He rose to his feet, eyes locked on me and bared his teeth, preparing to charge back in as a knife appeared in his hand from a sheath. A battle axe from his left swung into his gut, slashing a massive wound into his stomach. He stumbled backwards, reaching his hands down in a feeble attempt to push his intestines back into his body. His eyes shot towards me, the aggression replaced with only fear. Lieutenant Lord withdrew his axe, swinging it up and transforming it back into a shotgun. He fired a blast into another soldier then motioned with his head for me to follow.
"Come on sergeant!" He shouted over the din of battle. "Time to go!" He took off at a sprint, firing shotgun blasts into enemy soldiers as he ran. I scrambled over to the soldier who had tackled me, some morbid sense compelling me to check on his condition.
His breath raced and blood spurted from his wound in rapid spurts. He wheezed as he inhaled, his eyes locking onto the emotionless visor of my helmet.
"LIWI?" I asked. "Can you do anything?"
I could spend some of my reserves to heal him, do you want me to boss? He would probably be okay.
LIWI responded in a matter of fact tone, oblivious to my own pounding heart and the adrenaline fueled panic that was threatening to overtake me.
"Do it" I said, holding out a hand to the man's wounds. A golden energy flowed out from my palm, and his stomach re-knit itself in front of my eyes. The skin closed smoothly over the wound, the blood ceasing to flow. The man looked at me, confusion evident on his face. I held his stare for a long moment. He looked down at his healed stomach, then back up to me.
"Why?" He asked in a gruff voice that sounded like he was trying to choke back tears.
"I don't know" I replied truthfully "I just couldn't watch you die." His face narrowed in anger.
"You killed dozens of us! I watched you practically execute my men as they were barely even awake!" He reached up and grabbed a hold of the armored plating of the neck of my armor. "Why do that but save me? It doesn't make sense!" I slapped his arm away easily, then stood up.
"I told you, I don't know.'' I replied angrily. "It didn't feel right." I turned and sprinted away, LIWI magically enhancing my stride to catch up with the rest of the group.
-/-
I dashed to the vehicle Sergeant Green had acquired, leaping into the back and manning the turret. It was a remarkably similar design to our Puma fighting vehicles, though with a few changes. Notably these vehicles had armor plating surrounding the gunners position, correcting a design flaw I had seen in the Atlesian Puma.
"Captain Stone!" Green shouted to where she still fought in the center of the encampment. "All aboard ma'am! Time to leave!"
Stone kicked a rock into the air, her semblance sending it careening through the air to crush a soldier's skull, knocking his hastily donned helmet flying off of his head. I winced inwardly as the soldier fell. Evelynn turned towards us and started running, but suddenly tripped, her boot seemingly stuck in place as she fell to the ground.
"What's wrong?" Green called out to her. She made to rise, but now both her right boot and left forearm were stuck in place. Green turned to me, pointing towards the captain.
"Go get her!" He shouted, and I nodded in acknowledgment. I sprinted back towards her, grabbing her under one arm and hauling her away. Or at least I tried to, what actually happened was I pulled on her and she went nowhere.
"What the hell?" I asked no one in particular, examining where her boot was held in place. A tall woman with black hair streaked with gray emerged from behind a tent, unfurling some sort of metallic whip. I raised my rifle and fired, seeing the armor piercing rounds deflected off the woman's silver aura.
"Shit" I cursed again, snapping my rifle into its sword form and positioning myself over Captain Stone in an attempt to block incoming strikes.
The woman's whip arced out at me, trailing a fiery red plasma similar to Sergeant Green's sword. I blocked the strike partially, but the very edge of the whip still flung burning hot dust onto the surface of my armor, singeing the paint as the main body wrapped around the blade of my sword. The huntress yanked on the whip, and we fought for a moment to maintain our grips on our weapons. After a moment her left hand shot out, imbuing her whip with some sort of silver energy that flowed down to my sword. My grip came loose all of a sudden, and the sword shot away from me to go scattering across the ground.
What was that? LIWI asked, Don't just let go!
"I didn't" I growled, "It must be her semblance." I looked down, realizing that Captain Stone's foot was trapped in some sort of inky black energy, similar to the silver energy that had just ripped the sword from my hands. "I've got an idea" I told him quietly, reaching down and touching the ground where the energy was pooling.
"What are you doing?" Stone demanded, "Now you're stuck too!" The huntress laughed. "Is this your new teammate Evelynn?" She asked, "Not the brightest is he?" She asked. She held a finger up to her lips, pursing them as if trying to puzzle something out. "Tell me," She continued in a taunting tone. "Is he supposed to be replacing Christine or David?"
Captain Stone punched the ground in anger, then flicked her hand to the side, sending her hammer and a small scattering of loose rocks flying towards the huntress and forcing her to retreat slightly.
"I got this." I said to Captain Stone, then to LIWI under my breath I whispered "Disintegrate the ground here, but try not to catch her in the blast."
You got it!
He replied cheerfully, and a moment later I felt a small surge, followed by both the ground and the inky darkness covering it disintegrating into a small pile of ash. Now free, Captain Stone and I stood back up, summoning our respective weapons back to her hands. The huntress was still up, now angrily twirling her weapon as she prepared to strike.
"Captain!" Sergeant Green called from the vehicle, frantically deflecting bullets as more and more enemies rallied to the camp's defense. "We need to go!"
Captain Stone paused for a moment, considering her options. She looked eager to take the fight to the enemy huntress, but then saw the amount of soldiers approaching. Having made a decision, she nodded with an angry grunt and took off towards the vehicles, half dragging me along. We leapt aboard the Not Puma and Green gunned the engine.
The tires sprayed loose dirt and pebbles as we took off down the dirt road, following tightly behind team FRIL's vehicle. Shots rang out behind us as the camp's defenders rallied, a dozen or more rifles letting loose shots as the hundreds of soldiers still in the camp finally figured out what was going on. Lieutenant Lord and I let loose with the heavy caliber turrets, suppressing the majority of the shots that came our way.
We blasted along the dirt road, putting distance between us and the camp behind us as we moved to meet with our sniper teams. Sergeant Green went around a corner at high speed, drifting the vehicle through the turn as a dark figure shot out of the treeline. Lieutenant Rivers silently flew through the air to collide heavily with our vehicle, grabbing onto one of the structural beams the armor plates were attached to and pulling himself down into a crouch in the back of the Not Puma as it rocked from the impact. Sound fell away as he entered the vehicle, so I focused my attention on the other team's car. Captain Ripley looked pissed as she clipped her harness into their vehicle, having completed a similar maneuver as Lieutenant Rivers.
Now having regrouped without noticeably slowing the convoy, we drove through the forest in search of our primary targets. As we drove away into the darkness a red flare went up in the sky, illuminating the area in a harsh red glare. The further away we got, the more trees and distance we put between us and the camp, until the glow did nothing more than cast strange elongated shadows around us as we drove. Green pulled directly behind the lead vehicle as the road narrowed, and I was able to take my attention away from them long enough to have a short conversation with Evelynn and Eugene.
I signed to Eugene, asking him how he had missed the guard who had sounded the initial alarm. He shook his head emphatically, then signed a response.
"I was covering the other half of the camp, I don't know why Captain Ripley didn't hit that shot." Evelynn made a face of annoyance.
"That's what we can expect from Team FRIL I guess" she signed to me. "Don't rely on them if you don't have to. In my experience they'll let you down at the earliest opportunity."
I sat back in my seat, moving the conversation in a different direction.
"I think the Wings of Freedom still have communications. Even with the towers down and the radio jamming from both sides I'm pretty sure Hyperion has something to allow them to communicate." Captain Stone cocked an eyebrow towards me.
"Something from your classified projects?" She signed.
"Something like that," I replied. "If he made communication devices like that then he would have only given them to the people he trusted most. That's probably why that flare went up, if one of them is in the area then the rest will know we're coming. That huntress is probably leading the camp, and they'll definitely be getting a report to The Pantheon as soon as possible."
Captain Stone shifted in her seat, her face a mask of mixed emotions. She clearly knew that huntress, but if she didn't want to talk about it then I wasn't going to ask.
-/-
We continued our drive in silence for almost an hour, gently jostling over the dirt road. Up in front of us I could see Major Fin giving Captain Ripley the dressing down of a lifetime. Presumably he was no more thrilled about her missed shot than our team was. I couldn't hear anything from within Rivers' cone of silence, but from their body language I could tell that Major Fin wasn't being the most tactful about making his corrections.
Captain Ripley had sunk down into her seat and was barely even looking at the major, meanwhile Fin was listing off points on his fingers like he was giving a presentation in front of a particularly idiotic class. In the driver's seat their close quarters specialist, Captain Indigo Hill, held up a hand and mimed a person's mouth yapping behind Major Fin's back. I could see Lieutenant Lord on the turret struggling mightily to keep his own mouth shut.
Indigo was a curious case when it came to his weapons and equipment. The man appeared to be of some sort of Spanish heritage, or the equivalent for Remnant. I hadn't noticed anything particularly extravagant during our battle in the Wings of Freedom camp, he mostly seemed to prefer to get his killing over and done with efficiently.
His weapon of choice intrigued me. He wore a rapier on his hip, with a slightly thicker blade than a traditional European rapier. But as far as I could see it didn't transform into a ranged weapon like most operative and huntsman weapons did. He also carried a pair of old patterned double action revolvers, much like my backup weapon. But his appeared to be loaded in a more traditional large pistol caliber, as opposed to the shotgun shells I had loaded in mine. His loadout was similar to Sergeant Green, but he seemed to put more of an emphasis on classical dueling, rather than Green's more elaborate and athletic approach.
-/-
We arrived at our next target just after midnight. Ideally we would be long gone before the sunrise, but I had been learning lately that no good plan went exactly as expected. We dismounted at the bottom of a small cliff, abandoning the vehicles for now so we could approach our objective quietly. With the alarm having been raised by the previous camp we could pretty much guarantee that we wouldn't have the element of surprise, but we still didn't want to announce our presence if we didn't have to.
According to the intelligence the Atlesian Fleet had been able to put together, the top of the cliff was the most likely position for Hephaestus, aka Logan Portman, to have holed up. The top of the cliff side provided an excellent view of the surrounding area, allowing him to gain line of sight to any flying aircraft in the area that weren't able to fly at dangerously low altitudes. Evidently the fleet had lost a few bullheads scouting the areas to triangulate which particular vantage point he had set up on, and had decided that this was the most likely position.
The teams met for a quick hushed discussion between the team leaders before we started scaling to the top of the cliff. I nodded to Eugene and Randall then jogged over to meet up with Lieutenant Lord and Captain Hill over where team FRIL was set up. As I arrived, Lieutenant Lord greeted me with a quick nod.
"What's up, Phoenix?" He asked. I nodded my head to the side where Captain Stone and Major Fin were engaged in a quiet but angry discussion.
"The team leads don't seem happy, are you guys doing alright?" I asked. He shrugged.
"We'll get our jobs done if that's what you're worried about. But I wouldn't anticipate a warm hug and a pat on the back when we get back to base you know?" Captain Hill, a touch shorter than myself and Lieutenant Lord, joined the conversation.
"Morale is what you make of it." He offered. He spoke with just a hint of a Spanish accent, and internally I was curious about where he had come from. He continued as I puzzled over his accent. "We cannot change the tides of fate, or what has been, but we can still make the best of what will come."
"So" I asked "Shut up and do your job?" He flashed a somewhat charming smile.
"Indeed, now you are beginning to understand." He said cheerfully. "But now I am afraid I am called away to make the best of our teammate's morale." He gave a half bow with a flourishing hand wave. "I bid you gentlemen the best." With that he strode away to speak with Captain Ripley. I turned back to Lieutenant Lord.
"Is he always like that?" I asked. Lord shrugged.
"You get used to it surprisingly fast. My best guess is he was some sort of minor nobility before he joined up." I was about to ask where, seeing as Atlas didn't have traditional nobility, when the commanders returned, indicating that we should huddle up to discuss strategy.
"Listen up," Captain Stone started. "The plan's changed, Captain Ripley is on frontal assault duty with the rest of the team. Rivers, you're going to be on your own for long range duty, can you handle that?" Rivers nodded stoically, and patted his rifle affectionately. Captain Ripley sulked, and looked to be on the verge of demanding to be allowed to return to her original position. Major Fin shot her a look, and she visibly calmed herself.
The major picked up where Captain Stone had left off.
"The teams will still be operating under a pincer movement strategy. We do not know where in camp the target will be, but it is safe to assume they will be in the largest and most well put together structure." I personally disagreed with his assumption. In my opinion Major Fin was basing what an enemy commander would do off of his own behaviors, but from what I remembered of Logan he was unlikely to be demanding special luxuries in the field. Especially if Gary or one of his subordinates had done an operational security check to ensure that important details like where the camp's leadership slept was obfuscated.
Major Fin continued speaking, gesturing to a map of the camp that the scouting bullheads had managed to put together.
"With that in mind, I anticipate that Hephaestus will be in one of these three tents." He pointed to the three largest tents of the camp. One on the west side, one in the center of camp, and one on the east side of camp. The middle one was the largest of the three, able to fit several dozen of the camp's hundred or so soldiers at once if they were sitting. I cleared my throat.
"Sir, that's probably the kitchen and dining facility." The major looked up sharply, his prepared speech interrupted.
"What was that sergeant?" He asked in an irritated tone. I pointed to the central tent.
"It's probably the kitchen, it's centrally located, it fits the largest number of people at once, it would be wasteful to give all that space to one guy." The major paused, then looked at the map on his scroll again.
"Alright, that seems… likely." He trailed off in the middle of his sentence, clearly unhappy that I had poked a hole in his theory. "Fine, then it is likely one of these two tents on the side. Team FRIL will assault the western side here." Evelynn looked at me with a raised eyebrow as he pointed at another tent. This one was cleared away from the other tents, with a berm of dirt separating it from the rest of camp, and placed as close to the edge of the cliff as it could be without being in danger of having the ground collapse from under it. I met Evelynn's look and mouthed 'ammo storage.' She nodded wisely, but motioned for me to remain silent. Major Fin continued obliviously onward.
"Meanwhile Team SGGE will attack here, on the eastern side." He pointed to a tent that I couldn't positively identify. It was near the edge of camp without being on the edge, and was definitely larger than the average infantry sleeping tent we had seen the Wings of Freedom deploy.
"Lieutenant Rivers will be positioned at the top of this rise here." Major Fin indicated the most elevated position in the area, a rise about fifteen feet higher than the surrounding area. It was about eighty feet away from the edge of the camp, and had a partial line of sight over their surrounding defensive entrenchments. It wasn't ideal as far as sniping positions went, but I had confidence Rivers could make it work. Major Fin looked around the gathered group, but no one raised any further objection.
"Right" He spoke in his upper crust accent. "In that case, I believe we have a plan. Remember to stay together, and as soon as someone locates the target, fire off your flares. We don't want to let him slip through our fingers. Run your equipment checks, we step off in two minutes."
-/-
LIWI and I ran through checks on my equipment, finding that I was fully prepared. Sergeant Green and Lieutenant Rivers checked each other over, each ensuring the other's climbing gear was ready to scale the sheer cliff above us. As I was approaching the wall of stone, Evelynn stopped me to talk. She pulled me aside quietly where the others were unlikely to hear.
"What's up ma'am?" I asked, curious. She grimaced.
"I don't like leaving Eugene out there by himself I want you to be ready to fall back and support him if he needs it. So keep an eye out for his flare, if you see it I want you to drop everything and get back to him." I shrugged, it made sense.
"You got it captain, anything else?" I asked. She shot a look back towards where Eugene and Randall were preparing their grappling guns to ascend the cliff side. It was about a hundred feet straight up, not bad with the equipment we brought, but it would be a pain to climb it unaided.
"Yes, one more thing." Captain Stone said quietly. "My grappling gun is broken." She held up one half of the grappling gun, the other part conspicuously snapped off and missing. "I think I accidentally crushed it against something or someone when I tackled those soldiers in the initial assault."
"Huh" I said, examining it. "I can't fix that, what's your plan?" She made a pained expression.
"Someone's going to have to carry me up there and I don't want to ask Eugene or Randall." She said in a rush.
"Huh" I said again, rather uncreatively. "Okay, I understand not wanting to be carried by Green, he's probably not the best choice, but why ask me? Wouldn't you be more comfortable with Lieutenant Rivers? You guys have known each other for a while, you must be comfortable with each other by now." She looked away awkwardly, not making eye contact, and I had a sudden moment of clarity as I pieced together something that I probably should have figured out a while ago.
"Ohhh hang on" I said slowly, finally catching on. "You don't want Rivers carrying you because you're nervous around him!" She turned back to me with a sharp glare.
"It's not any of your business, Sergeant." She said coldly. "Keep out of it."
I held up my hands in mock surrender.
"Hey you won't find me judging." I replied. "I mean have you seen his Atlasgram page?" I asked teasingly. There was a long pause while she worked her jaw back and forth, trying to figure out what to say.
"It's unprofessional." She finally responded bitterly. "I'm his commander, it's inappropriate, and I should be over it." I shrugged in response.
"True," I replied. "But you guys won't always be on the same team. For now I guess just don't do anything to screw up your friendship."
I'm lost here, what's going on? LIWI asked.
"I'll tell you when you're older" I replied quietly, keeping my helmet speakers off so Captain Stone couldn't hear me.
I feel like you've said that before, but you never did explain.
"That's because you're still not old enough."
Evelynn looked me in the eye and spoke firmly. "Regardless of my personal feelings, you're the one giving me a lift to the top. And keep what you know to yourself." She said menacingly. "If you breathe a word about it to anybody I'll break every bone in your body."
I gingerly took a step back out of her reach.
"Aaaaaalrighty then." I replied, "You got yourself a deal. Up the cliff, no hazing."