Agent South Dakota
Artificial Intelligence: N/A
The T-intersection corridor was eerily silent, despite the fact that the next team was only 25m or so away. South shifted uncomfortably, hating the quiet when she was expecting a fight.
With FILSS shut down for safety, the Mother of Invention’s crew had had to shift to running the ship by themselves. While this was happening, the infection was allowed to spread before anyone could make a plan. On the ‘bright’ side, they had enough fodder to distract them from spreading very far.
It hadn’t taken too long to shift to manual, but the minutes wasted cost at least a few dozen people their lives.
Next to South, Nevada tried to pick at her nails before realising that she had her armour on. The green-and-grey agent crouched next to the wall, carefully below North’s likely field of fire. South had done the same with Illinois, the quiet tall guy, but as a further precaution gave him a glare that told him precisely what would happen if a bullet from him so much as grazed her. The narrow hallway wasn’t the best place for a four-man team shooting in the same direction, although it was better than being ridiculously outnumbered by the Flood.
The Flood. The Director had given them a name or found out their name or something.
The bridge bunnies had mapped out the likely spread of the Flood, and the Freelancers now formed a blockade in front of any possible exit from that area. So far, there’d been nothing. No attacks or attempts to get past. Not a blip from the motion tracker.
They’d been sent to defend the rest of the Mother of Invention from those things, but so far, there wasn’t much to defend against.
“Please, nobody say something like ‘it’s too quiet’ or ‘looks like there’s nothing here’,” Nevada whispered. South wasn’t entirely sure whether she was joking or not. It didn’t sound like Nevada was sure, either. “You’ll jinx it.”
“You just said both,” North pointed out.
“Doesn’t count!”
North and Nevada continued their hushed argument, filling the time. Theta and Kappa chimed in occasionally, defending their host’s view. South and Illinois –and Zeta, Illinois’s AI –remained quiet. They weren’t in the mood to humour either of them. Hell, Illinois seemed to be taking a few steps away from the others.
South hated the waiting. She’d been prepped for a fight and there was none. She felt damn cheated.
“Alarm,”Theta’s high-pitched voice announced. Everyone jumped, except for Illinois who just prepared to shoot at the next available target. “Incoming hostiles. Two slow, about a dozen fast, coming from the right.”
“Thirteen fast,” Kappa confirmed a moment later. South and Nevada hunkered down a bit more, getting as far out of the other two’s way as possible. Illinois moved closer to get a better angle.
South’s motion trackers were coloured red with dots, and she smirked. About time.
The first of the appropriately nicknamed Beach-Balls leaped around the corner of the next intersection, scurrying towards the Freelancers as fast as their tentacle-legs would carry them.
Three assault rifles emptied their magazines into the mass of creatures, popping them like balloons. When the two infected… technicians rounded the corner, two shotgun blasts from North took them out.
With the exception of Illinois, the team all had exactly the same satisfied look on their faces. South was on the verge of saying ‘too easy’ but decided Nevada wouldn’t be too happy about her tempting fate… and that she really wasn’t too eager to push it, either.
“This is Team D reporting, group of hostiles down. Over,” North announced over the radio.
“Nice work, Team D,” Tex said distractedly.
Her excuse for disappearing earlier was simply that she had gone on some stupid solo mission and no one had been told. In light of Project Freelancer’s most recent shitstorm, she was called back. The first thing she did upon returning to the Mother of Invention was reprimand York, the highest-rated Freelancer at hand, for letting them out in the first place.
Five agonisingly slow minutes passed without incident, and once again South began to feel impatient. The swift skirmish hadn’t done much to satisfy her need for a fight.
They heard York broadcast Team B’s easy win over a small group of buggas and a Flood Marine, and then later Louisiana reported Team H’s win… with one casualty. Agent Vermont had been killed and the surviving infected personnel dragged him off as they retreated. Team H had been attacked by a group far larger than either previous attempt.
“How many do you think there are?” Nevada asked quietly after Louisiana had finished his tale.
“A few dozen,” North told her. “Mostly troopers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s just the big ones,” South added. “The little guys are everywhere.”
Nevada was quiet for a moment, then asked, “How long are we gonna be here for?”Apparently South wasn’t the only one getting sick of waiting.
“However long we’re told to be here for,” South muttered, silently lamenting their distinct lack of overtime.
Nevada looked like she was about to continue, but North interrupted her.
“Got something on trackers,” he said. Illinois nodded.
There were four small blips on South’s motion trackers. The numbers were small, but South shrugged, willing to take what she could get. They looked to be just around the left corner, as far as the trackers’ range went. The team tensed in anticipation, training their weapons towards their soon-to-be targets.
Nothing happened.
“What if we made a noise?” Nevada whispered. “Draw them out?”
North whistled. The dots moved slightly, and South could swear she glimpsed one of the Beach-Balls peeking out, but nothing else. They didn’t attack or come into sight.
South scowled. “I say we just go up there and shoot ‘em. There are four of the little guys. It will take two seconds.” She straightened up and made to move forward.
“There are four that we know of. There could be many more outside of tracker range –entirely possible, given that our trackers’ range is limited to just around the corners. With our current objective being to prevent the spread of the Flood infection rather than eradicate it, I believe it would be more prudent to remain here.”
North, South and Nevada stared at Illinois. They’d never heard him speak so much since he’d been given Zeta. Illinois merely met their gaze coolly and with no further comment.
“We’ll just wait here for now,” North said. He didn’t sound too sure, and South was certain that if she pushed she could get her way. But she didn’t. Illinois–someone she’d only ever really known as silent and apathetic –had been willing to use three sentences to talk her out of it. With the option of running and shooting temporarily gone, staying the hell away was looking like an attractive plan B. So she went back to crouching quietly.
After another tense, frustrating and confusing five minutes, the four dots disappeared altogether.
Nevada was the first to breathe a sigh of relief, but she wasn’t the last. South relaxed a little, shifting slightly to lean more against the wall. Of course, because it just seemed to be that sort of day, the relief was as short-lived as the twins’ childhood Sea Monkeys.
The COM crackled to life and over it were many yells, loud gunfire, and excessive use of certain four-letter-words. South noticed that the sounds weren’t just coming from the COM –she could hear them live from around the next corner to her right.
“This is Team H,” Louisiana spat out. “We’ve got a problem. Too many of these bastards –request immediate reinforcements.” Louisiana let the radio run for a second more, letting everyone hear the sounds of a big fight, before cutting it off completely.
“…South, Minnesota, go help them,” Tex ordered. South frowned and shifted anxiously. It was Tex’s voice. She sounded… not frightened, exactly, but angry and unfocused. Anger wasn’t unusual for her, but being distracted in the middle of a life-or-death mission was. There was no way this was a good sign.
South shook it off, barked a ‘yes, ma’am’ over the radio that was echoed by Sota a moment later, and left her team.
“South, be careful,” North yelled after her. She rolled her eyes, but waved behind her to let him know she heard.
Tex had taken one person from each of the two closest teams to go help Team H. That way, no team would have to halve its strength. However, South thought that maybe more than two people would be needed. She hated to think she couldn’t handle it, but from the noises getting louder as she neared the corner…
“Um, Tex?” Sota mumbled, having beat South to Team H. Sota’s voice was a mix of terror of the sight in front of him and fear of pissing Tex off. “I think we’ll need some more help.”
South rounded the corner ready to fire, coming face to face with an infected Marine. It roared and raised its mutated arm, aiming to crash it down across her helmet. She ducked to the side and fired her Magnum –once, twice, three times. The thing staggered, then collapsed.
One down. But South’s victorious smirk was wiped from her face as she took in the scene before her. Team H, already down to three from the loss of Vermont, was now down one more member. Agent Oregon was being dragged away down the corridor by a Flood-turned medic.
Louisiana and Montana were struggling with at least a dozen Flood in the tiny corridor, with Sota scrambling to cause some damage. And all through this, the Beach-Balls scurried around their feet, attempting to jump on any of the Freelancers.
“Tex, get some more people over here!” South snapped over the radio. She didn’t bother to wait for a response before she barrelled down the corridor.
Two former Marines turned their attention towards her. They lumbered forward, a small wave of the Beach-Balls preceding them.
South quickly switched to her assault rifle and took out the smaller threat. She swapped back to her pistol and focused her attention on the infected.
“Agent South Dakota,” a voice said from her radio. “It is wise to shoot them in the shoulder, chest area –where the antennae are. Drops them quicker.”
It took her a while to identify it as Heta, Lou’s AI. She grunted a terse ‘thanks’before following his advice.
Two down, God only knew how many more to go.
More Flood poured in. The four Freelancers were horribly outnumbered. Where the hell is backup, damn it?!
South stayed away from the thick of the fight, knowing there was no room for her there. Lou and Montana would have to handle it themselves.
As she shot down an infected Freelancer –Utah? Vermont? Oregon? She didn’t pause to identify –South grimaced as she remembered her wish for a fight from earlier. Maybe little Nevada was onto something with that whole ‘tempting fate’deal.
While one more infected Marine fell at her feet, something batted her arms down –her Magnum flew from her grip and bounced off the wall. The large Flood raised its arms with frightening speed, crashing them down before she could rip the assault rifle from her back.
South felt the hit right through her armour, the thing’s weight pushing her against the wall and forcing the breath from her lungs. It rushed forward and she fumbled desperately, finally able to grasp her rifle. She aimed her shots at its legs –the thing stumbled, but kept coming.
South raised the rifle in defence, shielding her face from the inevitable hit. But then shots were fired, not from Lou, Montana or Sota, and she glimpsed the large Flood as it collapsed on the ground.
Illinois stood above her, taking out anything that got too close while she recovered.
South searched for her Magnum, heart sinking as she finally saw it. It had slid all the way into the thick of the fight, and she didn’t particularly want to run in and get it.
Illinois grunted, a wordless sign of impatience. He wanted South up and back in the fight. South scowled, but complied.
“Tex!”someone snarled into the radio. South wasn’t sure who –it sounded male, and could well have been Lou. “We could really use some help here, sweethea–”
“Don’t you dare,” Tex snarled back. “And they’re on their way. Quit your–”
South assumed that the last word in that sentence would’ve been ‘bitching’ or something along those general lines. Of course, she never actually heard it, because by then things had gone from bad to total shitstorm.
She heard Montana cry out –short, sharp and full of pain –and South and Illinois watched as she fell. The little bastards were on her in seconds.
With no one to watch his back, Lou took a hit –and another, and another.
“Help him,” Illinois snapped at South. “Use your pistol!”
South decided to save her scathing remark for later. She aimed carefully with her rifle, her pistol still halfway across the hall, picking off two ex-Marines and giving Lou a tiny bit of breathing space. Sota soon widened that gap from his end. Illinois made sure South stayed safe while she fired, taking out anything–Beach-Ball or infected –that came their way. South knew someone was doing the same for Sota, but she couldn’t see who.
Lou stumbled out of the thick of the fight, battered but nowhere near down. He found South’s Magnum and kicked it to her. He fired at anything that was in his sights, clearing a path to South and Illinois.
South stopped firing for a second to scoop up the pistol. The Flood poured from the corridor, and completely blocked off the other side. South could no longer see Sota or whoever had been helping him.
She would never say it out loud, but she hoped they were alive.
“You were saying about that backup, Agent Texas?” Lou laughed bitterly. South could see he was exhausted. Spending a lot of your time in armour, you get to learn body language very well. And Lou looked like he was gonna collapse.
“We have our own problems at the moment,” Tex replied. Her voice didn’t have as much bite as before –she was distracted. “Teams B, C and F have been attacked. I would suggest you fall back to D."
Since they had already been forced back to the corner, getting to Team D should be easy. When South glanced away from the enemies in front of her, she saw Nevada crouching next to a wall and fiddling with… something. North caught her eye and gestured to the open door next to them.
The armoury. It was easy to lock. They could hide in there.
Hiding?
The thought did a number on South’s pride. But one more look at the flood of Flood heading her way made her swallow it.
The three Freelancers backed down the hallway, now back around the corner South had raced past earlier. Lou was leaning against the wall as he backed up, favouring his right side heavily. Illinois made sure to keep him as well covered as he could.
“Hold them there, please,” the calm, light voice of Nevada sounded through the radio. The Flood and gunfire made it impossible to hear her through anything else, even if they were less than ten metres away by this point. “I need a little more time.”
Glancing back, South saw what Nevada was fiddling with. Mines. LOTUS anti-tank mines, attached to the walls several metres up from entrance to the armoury. North had his sniper rifle and was now picking off whichever infected Marines, medics and engineers Lou, Illinois and South missed.
“How long’s this gonna take, kid?” Lou demanded, spraying bullets across the ground in front of him, bursting several Beach-Balls as he did.
“A few more seconds, please.”
South took her words at face value, and prepared to run as soon as she emptied her magazine.
“Done.”
South whirled around and sprinted for the armoury, passing Nevada without a second thought. She turned back as she reached the door, firing at anything that got too close to the three retreating agents –Lou, jogging backwards and barely giving accuracy a thought as he fired; Nevada, fiddling with a datapad and cursing as her speed made her clumsy; and Illinois, glancing back every now and then while keeping a guiding hand on Nevada’s arm.
They arrived and ducked into the armoury as the twins held the Flood off. Once they were safely inside, South followed, with North slamming the door behind them. For a while there was no sound except for the heavy breathing of the Freelancers, then North said,
“Nevada, I’m not hearing any explosions.”
“Wait, please.” The smaller agent seemed to have withdrawn into herself, leaving an endlessly polite front in her place. The room was once again silent as Nevada tilted her head to the side, focusing on something.
She tapped a button on her datapad, and one, two, three, four blasts rocked the hallway. She nodded, satisfied.
“That should have taken out at least a dozen of them big guys –I saw them coming around the corner as I was working, all together.” South was almost certain there was a bright smile behind that visor, and she tried hard not to be disturbed by it. North she could see felt much the same.
Lou, on the other hand, nodded in approval. “Good girl.”
Something began to bang on the armoury’s door –and then several somethings joined in. South instinctively raised her rifle and levelled it at the door as Nevada, so calm before, squeaked and jumped back.
“Cool it, sweetheart,” Lou drawled, a Southern accent suddenly very much in evidence,“they’re not getting through.”
Logically, South knew he was right. There was no way anything could beat their way through those walls –hell, the mines probably hadn’t done much more than scuff them up. The Director made sure that his ship could take a hell of a lot of damage should fighting happen inside it.
“Maybe they’ll lose interest, soon,” Nevada offered hopefully.
“In any case,” North said, having collected his thoughts and taking the role of being practical, “we’re not going anywhere any time soon. So, what should we do?”
Illinois shrugged and took a seat next to a couple of rocket launchers. Nevada copied him, sitting a little ways off.
Lou answered. “Can’t do much but wait, really,” he observed. He walked over to a rack and began inspecting various weapons. “We’ll grab what we can while we’re here, and wait for orders or help. Fifty bucks says the former comes first.”
South didn’t particularly like the predicament she was in: trapped in a small room with three people she barely knew and her brother. And, of course, their AI.
‘Theta, can you give us some idea of what’s happening outside?” North asked. Theta appeared in front of his helmet, looking thoughtful.
“Several cameras were destroyed or damaged in the LOTUS blast,” he noted, taking that aren’t-you-proud-of-me tone South hated so much, “so I can’t give you anything really accurate. But…um… judging by the noise, a lot of Flood are trying to get in.”
“I agree with Theta,” a small voice piped in, and Kappa appeared, sitting on Nevada’s shoulder.
“Thank you. That’s very helpful,” South snapped. Theta turned to North to avoid the other twin’s biting remarks, while Kappa wilted a little, hiding behind Nevada.
“However,” Theta continued, right back into that aren’t-you-proud-of-me tone, “motion trackers indicate there are twelve infected personnel and sixteen –what did you call them?– ‘Beach-Balls’actively attempting to enter the armoury. Several others are in the hallway, just walking by. If we were to go outside now, we’d be overrun.”
“So…we’re stuck.” Lou sighed, taking his dark orange helmet and running a hand through his hair. South knew he was one of the older Freelancers, although it didn’t show. Years in armour had protected him from a lot of the scars one normally collects in this line of work. “Well, might as well make the best of a bad situation,” and so the drawl returned, “I’m getting some shut-eye.”
“Really?”Nevada looked at him doubtfully. “Now?”
“Kid, they can’t get in and we can’t get out. It’s being opportunistic. Wake me up if we’re about to die or be saved,” Lou muttered, getting as comfortable as one could while wearing full body armour and preparing to sleep on a steel floor. Nevada looked from him to North, in a very not-subtle question.
“Go ahead,” North waved the question away. “Theta and I can stay up.”
Nevada nodded and lay down, curling into a little ball.
South glanced at Illinois, who was either already asleep or being creepily still. She shrugged, deciding she didn’t care as long as he stayed there, and tried to get comfortable. She had a feeling it was going to be a long time before she had this opportunity again.
Artificial Intelligence: N/A
The T-intersection corridor was eerily silent, despite the fact that the next team was only 25m or so away. South shifted uncomfortably, hating the quiet when she was expecting a fight.
With FILSS shut down for safety, the Mother of Invention’s crew had had to shift to running the ship by themselves. While this was happening, the infection was allowed to spread before anyone could make a plan. On the ‘bright’ side, they had enough fodder to distract them from spreading very far.
It hadn’t taken too long to shift to manual, but the minutes wasted cost at least a few dozen people their lives.
Next to South, Nevada tried to pick at her nails before realising that she had her armour on. The green-and-grey agent crouched next to the wall, carefully below North’s likely field of fire. South had done the same with Illinois, the quiet tall guy, but as a further precaution gave him a glare that told him precisely what would happen if a bullet from him so much as grazed her. The narrow hallway wasn’t the best place for a four-man team shooting in the same direction, although it was better than being ridiculously outnumbered by the Flood.
The Flood. The Director had given them a name or found out their name or something.
The bridge bunnies had mapped out the likely spread of the Flood, and the Freelancers now formed a blockade in front of any possible exit from that area. So far, there’d been nothing. No attacks or attempts to get past. Not a blip from the motion tracker.
They’d been sent to defend the rest of the Mother of Invention from those things, but so far, there wasn’t much to defend against.
“Please, nobody say something like ‘it’s too quiet’ or ‘looks like there’s nothing here’,” Nevada whispered. South wasn’t entirely sure whether she was joking or not. It didn’t sound like Nevada was sure, either. “You’ll jinx it.”
“You just said both,” North pointed out.
“Doesn’t count!”
North and Nevada continued their hushed argument, filling the time. Theta and Kappa chimed in occasionally, defending their host’s view. South and Illinois –and Zeta, Illinois’s AI –remained quiet. They weren’t in the mood to humour either of them. Hell, Illinois seemed to be taking a few steps away from the others.
South hated the waiting. She’d been prepped for a fight and there was none. She felt damn cheated.
“Alarm,”Theta’s high-pitched voice announced. Everyone jumped, except for Illinois who just prepared to shoot at the next available target. “Incoming hostiles. Two slow, about a dozen fast, coming from the right.”
“Thirteen fast,” Kappa confirmed a moment later. South and Nevada hunkered down a bit more, getting as far out of the other two’s way as possible. Illinois moved closer to get a better angle.
South’s motion trackers were coloured red with dots, and she smirked. About time.
The first of the appropriately nicknamed Beach-Balls leaped around the corner of the next intersection, scurrying towards the Freelancers as fast as their tentacle-legs would carry them.
Three assault rifles emptied their magazines into the mass of creatures, popping them like balloons. When the two infected… technicians rounded the corner, two shotgun blasts from North took them out.
With the exception of Illinois, the team all had exactly the same satisfied look on their faces. South was on the verge of saying ‘too easy’ but decided Nevada wouldn’t be too happy about her tempting fate… and that she really wasn’t too eager to push it, either.
“This is Team D reporting, group of hostiles down. Over,” North announced over the radio.
“Nice work, Team D,” Tex said distractedly.
Her excuse for disappearing earlier was simply that she had gone on some stupid solo mission and no one had been told. In light of Project Freelancer’s most recent shitstorm, she was called back. The first thing she did upon returning to the Mother of Invention was reprimand York, the highest-rated Freelancer at hand, for letting them out in the first place.
Five agonisingly slow minutes passed without incident, and once again South began to feel impatient. The swift skirmish hadn’t done much to satisfy her need for a fight.
They heard York broadcast Team B’s easy win over a small group of buggas and a Flood Marine, and then later Louisiana reported Team H’s win… with one casualty. Agent Vermont had been killed and the surviving infected personnel dragged him off as they retreated. Team H had been attacked by a group far larger than either previous attempt.
“How many do you think there are?” Nevada asked quietly after Louisiana had finished his tale.
“A few dozen,” North told her. “Mostly troopers caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s just the big ones,” South added. “The little guys are everywhere.”
Nevada was quiet for a moment, then asked, “How long are we gonna be here for?”Apparently South wasn’t the only one getting sick of waiting.
“However long we’re told to be here for,” South muttered, silently lamenting their distinct lack of overtime.
Nevada looked like she was about to continue, but North interrupted her.
“Got something on trackers,” he said. Illinois nodded.
There were four small blips on South’s motion trackers. The numbers were small, but South shrugged, willing to take what she could get. They looked to be just around the left corner, as far as the trackers’ range went. The team tensed in anticipation, training their weapons towards their soon-to-be targets.
Nothing happened.
“What if we made a noise?” Nevada whispered. “Draw them out?”
North whistled. The dots moved slightly, and South could swear she glimpsed one of the Beach-Balls peeking out, but nothing else. They didn’t attack or come into sight.
South scowled. “I say we just go up there and shoot ‘em. There are four of the little guys. It will take two seconds.” She straightened up and made to move forward.
“There are four that we know of. There could be many more outside of tracker range –entirely possible, given that our trackers’ range is limited to just around the corners. With our current objective being to prevent the spread of the Flood infection rather than eradicate it, I believe it would be more prudent to remain here.”
North, South and Nevada stared at Illinois. They’d never heard him speak so much since he’d been given Zeta. Illinois merely met their gaze coolly and with no further comment.
“We’ll just wait here for now,” North said. He didn’t sound too sure, and South was certain that if she pushed she could get her way. But she didn’t. Illinois–someone she’d only ever really known as silent and apathetic –had been willing to use three sentences to talk her out of it. With the option of running and shooting temporarily gone, staying the hell away was looking like an attractive plan B. So she went back to crouching quietly.
After another tense, frustrating and confusing five minutes, the four dots disappeared altogether.
Nevada was the first to breathe a sigh of relief, but she wasn’t the last. South relaxed a little, shifting slightly to lean more against the wall. Of course, because it just seemed to be that sort of day, the relief was as short-lived as the twins’ childhood Sea Monkeys.
The COM crackled to life and over it were many yells, loud gunfire, and excessive use of certain four-letter-words. South noticed that the sounds weren’t just coming from the COM –she could hear them live from around the next corner to her right.
“This is Team H,” Louisiana spat out. “We’ve got a problem. Too many of these bastards –request immediate reinforcements.” Louisiana let the radio run for a second more, letting everyone hear the sounds of a big fight, before cutting it off completely.
“…South, Minnesota, go help them,” Tex ordered. South frowned and shifted anxiously. It was Tex’s voice. She sounded… not frightened, exactly, but angry and unfocused. Anger wasn’t unusual for her, but being distracted in the middle of a life-or-death mission was. There was no way this was a good sign.
South shook it off, barked a ‘yes, ma’am’ over the radio that was echoed by Sota a moment later, and left her team.
“South, be careful,” North yelled after her. She rolled her eyes, but waved behind her to let him know she heard.
Tex had taken one person from each of the two closest teams to go help Team H. That way, no team would have to halve its strength. However, South thought that maybe more than two people would be needed. She hated to think she couldn’t handle it, but from the noises getting louder as she neared the corner…
“Um, Tex?” Sota mumbled, having beat South to Team H. Sota’s voice was a mix of terror of the sight in front of him and fear of pissing Tex off. “I think we’ll need some more help.”
South rounded the corner ready to fire, coming face to face with an infected Marine. It roared and raised its mutated arm, aiming to crash it down across her helmet. She ducked to the side and fired her Magnum –once, twice, three times. The thing staggered, then collapsed.
One down. But South’s victorious smirk was wiped from her face as she took in the scene before her. Team H, already down to three from the loss of Vermont, was now down one more member. Agent Oregon was being dragged away down the corridor by a Flood-turned medic.
Louisiana and Montana were struggling with at least a dozen Flood in the tiny corridor, with Sota scrambling to cause some damage. And all through this, the Beach-Balls scurried around their feet, attempting to jump on any of the Freelancers.
“Tex, get some more people over here!” South snapped over the radio. She didn’t bother to wait for a response before she barrelled down the corridor.
Two former Marines turned their attention towards her. They lumbered forward, a small wave of the Beach-Balls preceding them.
South quickly switched to her assault rifle and took out the smaller threat. She swapped back to her pistol and focused her attention on the infected.
“Agent South Dakota,” a voice said from her radio. “It is wise to shoot them in the shoulder, chest area –where the antennae are. Drops them quicker.”
It took her a while to identify it as Heta, Lou’s AI. She grunted a terse ‘thanks’before following his advice.
Two down, God only knew how many more to go.
More Flood poured in. The four Freelancers were horribly outnumbered. Where the hell is backup, damn it?!
South stayed away from the thick of the fight, knowing there was no room for her there. Lou and Montana would have to handle it themselves.
As she shot down an infected Freelancer –Utah? Vermont? Oregon? She didn’t pause to identify –South grimaced as she remembered her wish for a fight from earlier. Maybe little Nevada was onto something with that whole ‘tempting fate’deal.
While one more infected Marine fell at her feet, something batted her arms down –her Magnum flew from her grip and bounced off the wall. The large Flood raised its arms with frightening speed, crashing them down before she could rip the assault rifle from her back.
South felt the hit right through her armour, the thing’s weight pushing her against the wall and forcing the breath from her lungs. It rushed forward and she fumbled desperately, finally able to grasp her rifle. She aimed her shots at its legs –the thing stumbled, but kept coming.
South raised the rifle in defence, shielding her face from the inevitable hit. But then shots were fired, not from Lou, Montana or Sota, and she glimpsed the large Flood as it collapsed on the ground.
Illinois stood above her, taking out anything that got too close while she recovered.
South searched for her Magnum, heart sinking as she finally saw it. It had slid all the way into the thick of the fight, and she didn’t particularly want to run in and get it.
Illinois grunted, a wordless sign of impatience. He wanted South up and back in the fight. South scowled, but complied.
“Tex!”someone snarled into the radio. South wasn’t sure who –it sounded male, and could well have been Lou. “We could really use some help here, sweethea–”
“Don’t you dare,” Tex snarled back. “And they’re on their way. Quit your–”
South assumed that the last word in that sentence would’ve been ‘bitching’ or something along those general lines. Of course, she never actually heard it, because by then things had gone from bad to total shitstorm.
She heard Montana cry out –short, sharp and full of pain –and South and Illinois watched as she fell. The little bastards were on her in seconds.
With no one to watch his back, Lou took a hit –and another, and another.
“Help him,” Illinois snapped at South. “Use your pistol!”
South decided to save her scathing remark for later. She aimed carefully with her rifle, her pistol still halfway across the hall, picking off two ex-Marines and giving Lou a tiny bit of breathing space. Sota soon widened that gap from his end. Illinois made sure South stayed safe while she fired, taking out anything–Beach-Ball or infected –that came their way. South knew someone was doing the same for Sota, but she couldn’t see who.
Lou stumbled out of the thick of the fight, battered but nowhere near down. He found South’s Magnum and kicked it to her. He fired at anything that was in his sights, clearing a path to South and Illinois.
South stopped firing for a second to scoop up the pistol. The Flood poured from the corridor, and completely blocked off the other side. South could no longer see Sota or whoever had been helping him.
She would never say it out loud, but she hoped they were alive.
“You were saying about that backup, Agent Texas?” Lou laughed bitterly. South could see he was exhausted. Spending a lot of your time in armour, you get to learn body language very well. And Lou looked like he was gonna collapse.
“We have our own problems at the moment,” Tex replied. Her voice didn’t have as much bite as before –she was distracted. “Teams B, C and F have been attacked. I would suggest you fall back to D."
Since they had already been forced back to the corner, getting to Team D should be easy. When South glanced away from the enemies in front of her, she saw Nevada crouching next to a wall and fiddling with… something. North caught her eye and gestured to the open door next to them.
The armoury. It was easy to lock. They could hide in there.
Hiding?
The thought did a number on South’s pride. But one more look at the flood of Flood heading her way made her swallow it.
The three Freelancers backed down the hallway, now back around the corner South had raced past earlier. Lou was leaning against the wall as he backed up, favouring his right side heavily. Illinois made sure to keep him as well covered as he could.
“Hold them there, please,” the calm, light voice of Nevada sounded through the radio. The Flood and gunfire made it impossible to hear her through anything else, even if they were less than ten metres away by this point. “I need a little more time.”
Glancing back, South saw what Nevada was fiddling with. Mines. LOTUS anti-tank mines, attached to the walls several metres up from entrance to the armoury. North had his sniper rifle and was now picking off whichever infected Marines, medics and engineers Lou, Illinois and South missed.
“How long’s this gonna take, kid?” Lou demanded, spraying bullets across the ground in front of him, bursting several Beach-Balls as he did.
“A few more seconds, please.”
South took her words at face value, and prepared to run as soon as she emptied her magazine.
“Done.”
South whirled around and sprinted for the armoury, passing Nevada without a second thought. She turned back as she reached the door, firing at anything that got too close to the three retreating agents –Lou, jogging backwards and barely giving accuracy a thought as he fired; Nevada, fiddling with a datapad and cursing as her speed made her clumsy; and Illinois, glancing back every now and then while keeping a guiding hand on Nevada’s arm.
They arrived and ducked into the armoury as the twins held the Flood off. Once they were safely inside, South followed, with North slamming the door behind them. For a while there was no sound except for the heavy breathing of the Freelancers, then North said,
“Nevada, I’m not hearing any explosions.”
“Wait, please.” The smaller agent seemed to have withdrawn into herself, leaving an endlessly polite front in her place. The room was once again silent as Nevada tilted her head to the side, focusing on something.
She tapped a button on her datapad, and one, two, three, four blasts rocked the hallway. She nodded, satisfied.
“That should have taken out at least a dozen of them big guys –I saw them coming around the corner as I was working, all together.” South was almost certain there was a bright smile behind that visor, and she tried hard not to be disturbed by it. North she could see felt much the same.
Lou, on the other hand, nodded in approval. “Good girl.”
Something began to bang on the armoury’s door –and then several somethings joined in. South instinctively raised her rifle and levelled it at the door as Nevada, so calm before, squeaked and jumped back.
“Cool it, sweetheart,” Lou drawled, a Southern accent suddenly very much in evidence,“they’re not getting through.”
Logically, South knew he was right. There was no way anything could beat their way through those walls –hell, the mines probably hadn’t done much more than scuff them up. The Director made sure that his ship could take a hell of a lot of damage should fighting happen inside it.
“Maybe they’ll lose interest, soon,” Nevada offered hopefully.
“In any case,” North said, having collected his thoughts and taking the role of being practical, “we’re not going anywhere any time soon. So, what should we do?”
Illinois shrugged and took a seat next to a couple of rocket launchers. Nevada copied him, sitting a little ways off.
Lou answered. “Can’t do much but wait, really,” he observed. He walked over to a rack and began inspecting various weapons. “We’ll grab what we can while we’re here, and wait for orders or help. Fifty bucks says the former comes first.”
South didn’t particularly like the predicament she was in: trapped in a small room with three people she barely knew and her brother. And, of course, their AI.
‘Theta, can you give us some idea of what’s happening outside?” North asked. Theta appeared in front of his helmet, looking thoughtful.
“Several cameras were destroyed or damaged in the LOTUS blast,” he noted, taking that aren’t-you-proud-of-me tone South hated so much, “so I can’t give you anything really accurate. But…um… judging by the noise, a lot of Flood are trying to get in.”
“I agree with Theta,” a small voice piped in, and Kappa appeared, sitting on Nevada’s shoulder.
“Thank you. That’s very helpful,” South snapped. Theta turned to North to avoid the other twin’s biting remarks, while Kappa wilted a little, hiding behind Nevada.
“However,” Theta continued, right back into that aren’t-you-proud-of-me tone, “motion trackers indicate there are twelve infected personnel and sixteen –what did you call them?– ‘Beach-Balls’actively attempting to enter the armoury. Several others are in the hallway, just walking by. If we were to go outside now, we’d be overrun.”
“So…we’re stuck.” Lou sighed, taking his dark orange helmet and running a hand through his hair. South knew he was one of the older Freelancers, although it didn’t show. Years in armour had protected him from a lot of the scars one normally collects in this line of work. “Well, might as well make the best of a bad situation,” and so the drawl returned, “I’m getting some shut-eye.”
“Really?”Nevada looked at him doubtfully. “Now?”
“Kid, they can’t get in and we can’t get out. It’s being opportunistic. Wake me up if we’re about to die or be saved,” Lou muttered, getting as comfortable as one could while wearing full body armour and preparing to sleep on a steel floor. Nevada looked from him to North, in a very not-subtle question.
“Go ahead,” North waved the question away. “Theta and I can stay up.”
Nevada nodded and lay down, curling into a little ball.
South glanced at Illinois, who was either already asleep or being creepily still. She shrugged, deciding she didn’t care as long as he stayed there, and tried to get comfortable. She had a feeling it was going to be a long time before she had this opportunity again.