Chapter Two
“You think it’s Forerunner?” South asked, to the surprise of the rest of the group. After all, it was a rather… astute observation.
Again, the only person unaffected (did anything affect her?) was Carolina. “It looks like it, and from the way the Covenant are keeping watch, I’d say it’s a good bet.”
Louisiana exchanged a Look with Oregon, then choked back her shock and jumped in. “Did you see enough to figure out any kind of patterns—security shifts changing, or who they’re guarding from even?”
Carolina shook her head in response. “For all I know, they’re guarding against us.”
They stood at a narrow section of the rock face, just wide enough for two people to walk side by side, which opened up into a small canyon. The opening had been merely a few meters from where the Freelancers had waited for Carolina to return, but the foliage had been so dense that one might have walked right past it and never have known.
The diversely-colored group of agents took turns peering through the scope of Oregon’s sniper rifle as they discussed what lay before them in the canyon, marking positions of Elites in their minds and examining the apparently-Forerunner structures.
Louisiana wasn’t sure if it was technically a canyon—though the left half was boxed in by a high wall of rock—as the right half was a sheer drop off a cliff. But she was positive that those buildings were Forerunner, based on the images she’d seen.
Not that she was expecting to find Forerunner artifacts on Arcadia, mind you. The young soldier had only known that the Covenant were still on Arcadia, not why.
“Well, maybe they are. They certainly look worried,” Louisiana murmured. Then she glanced over at York and grinned. “Maybe we should give them a reason to be.”
She heard a low chuckle from her right, and looked over. Oregon was standing with his arms crossed loosely, his shoulders shaking slightly with suppressed laughter.
Louisiana smiled softly at Staff Sergeant Daniel O’Hara’s half-brother, and offered him back the sniper. She knew the grudge that the O’Hara brothers had against the Covies—Oregon’s abuelita and aunt’s family had lived on Harvest; their father and Dan’s mother had been on Emerald Cove; Dan’s baby sister had been studying a natural phenomenon on Bounty.
There was a lot of death in that family that could easily be traced back to the Covenant. When Harvest had been taken, Oregon had just been a little boy, but Emerald Cove and Bounty were recent enough that the wounds were still fresh. As far as Louisiana knew, those events had been what drove the two men to get into contact with one another and join the fight against the Covies.
Which was the reason she’d personally asked him to come along—nothing like a crack-shot sniper with a personal vendetta against your enemy to make you feel warm and fuzzy before a firefight.
Oregon took the proffered rifle and peered through the scope, while the others discussed strategy and called dibs on targets in low voices.
After abut twenty minutes, Oregon spoke up. “Yo, guys! I think there’s more to this compound than meets the eye. They’ve got it extending underground.”
It was always a bit of a shock to Louisiana when she heard Oregon speak. Not just because he was so quiet but because, despite his obviously Hispanic features, she expected Dan’s brother to share in his stark Irish accent.
Not that she was racist or anything, but the contrast had thrown the silver Freelancer for a loop the first time they’d been introduced and it never really wore off. (The brother of an Irishman being introduced to a woman who spoke fluent Hungarian, and greeting her in Spanish? Louisiana was certain that there was a joke in there if she looked hard enough.)
When Louisiana and the other Freelancers paused and turned to their soft-spoken fellow, he shrugged and looked back through the scope. Then, after a moment, he handed it to Louisiana.
She peered through the sniper as he indicated. “What am I s’posed to be looking at here, ‘Regano?”
Usually, Louisiana earned at least a light chuckle when she used her… spicy nicknames for Oregon—her preferred was the obvious “Oregano”—but he simply directed her to look at the little one-room building between their group and the central monolith, surrounded by a miniature maze of walls.
“In roughly thirty seconds”—his low voice came from right next to her ear, his slight Spanish accent slipping into his voice and making her shiver—“two orange Grunts, a red one, and two Jackals with shields will exit that li’l building right there.”
Louisiana waited doubtfully, then blinked when the exact Covies he’d described left the tiny structure and made their way up one of the ramps of the main building. She lowered the sniper and tilted her head questioningly at her orange-armored colleague.
Oregon just shrugged and took back his rifle. “While you were all tryin’ to riddle out patterns, I decided to just wait an’ watch,” he murmured by way of explanation.
Any other day, Louisiana might have puffed up and started hissing the way Mississippi and South did, but today she was simply impressed. Instead of getting drawn into easy speculation with the others, Oregon had simple watched and waited.
It was one of the very first combat strategies that Louisiana had learned--Watch and Wait—and even she had gotten sucked into making jokes and calling dibs.
He really did take his job seriously.
“South! Missi! Pipe down,” Carolina barked before turning her attention to Oregon. “What else did you notice?”
He shrugged easily and handed their Glorious Leader his sniper rifle. “Every couple’a minutes, at least one Grunt—maybe two—is accompanied by a couple’a Jackal guards down below, then resurface about two minutes later. Then they head back and report to that Elite on the far side of the monolith. The one in gold armor. The Elite’ll wait for a minute, then send down another unit—sometimes the same one, sometimes not—and repeat the cycle when they come back… All in all, he seems pretty agitated. Always barkin’ orders at the Grunts; yellin’ at the Jackals; takin’ out his sword, fiddlin’ with it, and putting back before activating it. Then doing everything over again.”
“Wash, rinse, repeat” a smirking Louisiana quipped.
“He seems pretty worried,” York remarked, chuckling at the comment. “Any particular reason why?”
“Not a clue,” Oregon answered, shrugging again as everyone in the group took turns peering through the rifle scope at the Covenant again. If Louisiana communicated in sighs, then he spoke volumes with each shrug. Granted, the message was usually something akin to Why are you asking me?, or perhaps Yeah, sure, I don’t really mind, but still… “If I could get down below and take a look at what they’re down there for, I might be able to find out.”
Carolina nodded decisively. “Alright, that’s your job then. Missi, you go with him and watch his back.”
The yellow-armored woman nodded, but Oregon jumped in quickly. “Actually, don’t ya think Mississippi’d be more suited to infantry-work? Presumably, I’m just gonna be sifting through terabytes of data and searching computers. Not really somethin’ that a soldier-y soldier would be interested in. We’re gonna need to focus more on stealth an’ silence than anything…”
He then turned to Louisiana and shot her what she imagined to be a pleading Look. Her cue, it seemed, and she jumped in with an Oh, Fine!-sigh.
“I’ll go with Rosemary, here,” she offered, reluctance in every fiber of her being. “I’ve gotten into tougher places than this.”
“Name one,” South and Missi challenged at once, spiteful and disbelieving, respectively.
“The Department of Motor Vehicles” was the silver Freelancer’s muttered reply.
“That’s a difficult place to get through, not in,” York protested good-naturedly, while Oregon pointed a finger at him to emphasize the man’s point.
Louisiana mulled this over for a fraction of a second, before conceding his point. “This is true,” she allowed, before trying again. “Mr. Gold’s shop?”
“Which branch?” Oregon asked curiously.
“The one in Maine,” the diminutive agent clarified.
York jumped in then, shaking his head. “But that one’s been broken into all the time. Everyone just ignores the closed sign and it’s not like he ever locks it.”
Louisiana was vaguely aware of the confused, three-way look that the other women shared, but ignored it to argue her case.
“Yeah, maybe so, but that’s Mr. Gold’s primary location—he’s always there,” she said, smirking fondly at the memories. “Besides, there—like here—the more pressing issue is getting out, not in.
“I mean, have you ever seen that man angry?” Louisiana asked pointedly, looking from one man to the other and back.
York opened his mouth to reply, or so his body language indicated, when their Glorious Leader asserted herself. “Okay, it’s decided—Oregon will go down below, with Louisiana guarding his six; South and Missi, you two will flank left and head for that grav-lift on the far side of the canyon; and York and I will flank right and head up that ramp to clear your arrival point.”
Seeing the potential tragedy that lay in that direction, the silver agent spoke up once again. “All due respect and all, O Glorious Leader,” she said carefully. “But are you quite sure that’s the most… efficient course of action?”
Louisiana had a feeling that Carolina was arching an eyebrow when she turned.
Regardless, she plowed ahead, seeing the potential tragedy that lay in this direction but choosing to ignore it. “I just mean, South and Mississippi have so many similarities fighting-wise”--And stupidity-wise, Louisiana added in her head—“that them together would just make the teams uneven. I know you’d like to be paired with your Love Muffin, here”--Sorry York, she apologized silently—“but he should be there to… um, balance out Missi. And you should be there to back up South.”
Please go for this. Please go for this. Please go for this, Louisiana thought fervently, crossing her fingers discreetly.
After a moment, Carolina nodded resignedly. “You’re right, Louisiana—”
“Wait, what? Does anybody have a camera? Please tell me somebody recorded that for posterity,” the silver-clad Freelancer begged.
“—it wouldn’t be fair to pair the two best fighters in the squad together,” Carolina finished, ignoring Louisiana’s outburst.
Louisiana narrowed her eyes at the woman in turquoise. “… You rotten whore.”
Their Glorious Leader ignored that, too—verbally, anyway, because her body language said she was entirely too pleased with herself—and turned to everyone else. “Take a few minutes to track the patrols near your area and move out when you’re ready. There’s probably a squad or two patrolling outside the canyon as well, so don’t engage unless you’re ready to have them come down on you, hard.”
Louisiana grinned victoriously at the opportunity and opened her mouth, then closed it when her eyes strayed to Oregon, just in time to see him give a tiny shake of the head. He lifted his hand discreetly and activated his one-to-one radio. “Too easy,” he warned under his breath.
“Louisiana!”
The agent in question jumped when she realized that Carolina had almost shouted her name. “Yessir,” she answered automatically.
Their Glorious Leader crossed her arms skeptically and glared. (Louisiana assumed as much, anyway. Carolina’s helmet pretty much made it look like she was always glaring.)
“You and Oregon will have to go first, so you’ll have more time to look around before they find out we’re here. Wait until the next group of Grunts leave the building right there, before making a break for it.”
She and Oregon mumbled quiet acknowledgements and moved to the far edge of the group, closer to the opening of the canyon, while Carolina began to give the others their orders.
The two Freelancers watched in silence for a few minutes as the latest group of Covies entered the structure before them. When they exited, Louisiana waved jauntily at Carolina then followed Oregon down the hill, mindful of the Elite lookout on the main building.
She clicked on her radio when they reached the wall between them and their intended point of entrance belowground. “So,” Louisiana began casually, as they skirted the wall. “Why didn’t you want Missi to come with?”
Oregon held up a closed fist, and they waited for a breath before dashing around the wall and stopped at the door. It was locked. Of fucking course.
The orange agent knelt down so the control pad was at eye level and began to fiddle around with it. “Because she’s a bad shot and only hits her targets when she uses an assault rifle,” he answered blandly as the door slid open with a little hiss.
When they entered the little room and the second door that actually led down below failed to open, he turned the questions back on her.
“Why didn’t you want her with South?” Oregon asked, before muttering “Maybe we should’ve gone in groups of threes so York could open this damn door” when the door remained stubbornly shut, despite his intense fiddlings.
Louisiana smirked at that. “With his track record, we probably would have been attacked before he finally got it open. And Missi and South together—by themselves—responsible for their own decisions? What—do you want them to alert the Covenant two minutes in?”
Her valid point earned a snort of amusement from the Hispanic agent in burnt orange, which turned into barely stifle roars of laughter when they heard two people grinding their teeth over the radio and York’s voice saying, “You guys realize that you’re broadcasting on an open channel, right? We can all hear you.”
The silver Freelancer choked back her near-hysterical giggles to apologize for bad-mouthing his infiltration skills, hearing the well-disguised hurt in his voice, but the door suddenly opened.
“Sorry, gotta go,” she stage-whispered. “The show’s about to start.”
Grinning, the two agents started down the ramp that led belowground.
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Agent Louisiana wouldn’t necessarily describe herself as much of anything akin to “macho”, or as a particularly cocky individual. But it would still take either large quantities of hard liquor or a moment of profound, introspective clarity to ever get her to admit to the rather high-pitched, girlish “Eek!” she gave when she and Agent Oregon entered the underground room.
In her defense, however, it was rather jarring to open a door to a room that was supposed to be empty, only to come face-to-face with an equally startled Grunt.
The little guy (who was, technically, taller that Louisiana when she was out of armor) quaked in fear for a split-second before throwing up his arms, giving his own frightened squeal, and attempting to run off.
Reacting on the pervasive instinct of self-preservation, the silver Freelancer lunged forward, placing one hand on either side of the Grunt’s head and giving it a vicious twist. The small(ish) Covenant soldier(ish) crumpled to the ground silently, his neck quite effectively snapped, and his head at an odd, unnatural angle.
“You can come out now,” Louisiana murmured over her shoulder, after she’d verified that the immediate contained no more surprise guests, casting an amused expression at her companion.
“Right,” Oregon answered, his voice low, trying for indifference to the scene that had occurred before him and just missing. “I’ll admit—that was not what I was expecting.”
Louisiana grunted in response as she pulled her DMR from its place on her back and her colleague removed his M6G pistol from the holster on his thigh.
“I thought you said this place was empty,” she said in a low voice, casting around for any other signs of life before she dragged the Grunt’s body up the incline and into the room aboveground.
Oregon huffed his approximation of indignation, before protesting mildly, “I never said anything of the kind. All I said was that groups of Covenant were coming down here—I never claimed to know why, or if someone else was already down here.”
The shorter of the two Freelancers sighed, aware that she’d been beat, before rolling her shoulders and gripping her gun with renewed vigor.
“Well, who knows? Could be fun,” she said putting as much chipper into her voice as she could physically manage. Her orange-armored companion was doubtful of the veracity of that statement—when things diverged from the plan within the first ten minutes, it usually wasn’t a good sign—however, he followed her dutifully back down.
Again, the only person unaffected (did anything affect her?) was Carolina. “It looks like it, and from the way the Covenant are keeping watch, I’d say it’s a good bet.”
Louisiana exchanged a Look with Oregon, then choked back her shock and jumped in. “Did you see enough to figure out any kind of patterns—security shifts changing, or who they’re guarding from even?”
Carolina shook her head in response. “For all I know, they’re guarding against us.”
They stood at a narrow section of the rock face, just wide enough for two people to walk side by side, which opened up into a small canyon. The opening had been merely a few meters from where the Freelancers had waited for Carolina to return, but the foliage had been so dense that one might have walked right past it and never have known.
The diversely-colored group of agents took turns peering through the scope of Oregon’s sniper rifle as they discussed what lay before them in the canyon, marking positions of Elites in their minds and examining the apparently-Forerunner structures.
Louisiana wasn’t sure if it was technically a canyon—though the left half was boxed in by a high wall of rock—as the right half was a sheer drop off a cliff. But she was positive that those buildings were Forerunner, based on the images she’d seen.
Not that she was expecting to find Forerunner artifacts on Arcadia, mind you. The young soldier had only known that the Covenant were still on Arcadia, not why.
“Well, maybe they are. They certainly look worried,” Louisiana murmured. Then she glanced over at York and grinned. “Maybe we should give them a reason to be.”
She heard a low chuckle from her right, and looked over. Oregon was standing with his arms crossed loosely, his shoulders shaking slightly with suppressed laughter.
Louisiana smiled softly at Staff Sergeant Daniel O’Hara’s half-brother, and offered him back the sniper. She knew the grudge that the O’Hara brothers had against the Covies—Oregon’s abuelita and aunt’s family had lived on Harvest; their father and Dan’s mother had been on Emerald Cove; Dan’s baby sister had been studying a natural phenomenon on Bounty.
There was a lot of death in that family that could easily be traced back to the Covenant. When Harvest had been taken, Oregon had just been a little boy, but Emerald Cove and Bounty were recent enough that the wounds were still fresh. As far as Louisiana knew, those events had been what drove the two men to get into contact with one another and join the fight against the Covies.
Which was the reason she’d personally asked him to come along—nothing like a crack-shot sniper with a personal vendetta against your enemy to make you feel warm and fuzzy before a firefight.
Oregon took the proffered rifle and peered through the scope, while the others discussed strategy and called dibs on targets in low voices.
After abut twenty minutes, Oregon spoke up. “Yo, guys! I think there’s more to this compound than meets the eye. They’ve got it extending underground.”
It was always a bit of a shock to Louisiana when she heard Oregon speak. Not just because he was so quiet but because, despite his obviously Hispanic features, she expected Dan’s brother to share in his stark Irish accent.
Not that she was racist or anything, but the contrast had thrown the silver Freelancer for a loop the first time they’d been introduced and it never really wore off. (The brother of an Irishman being introduced to a woman who spoke fluent Hungarian, and greeting her in Spanish? Louisiana was certain that there was a joke in there if she looked hard enough.)
When Louisiana and the other Freelancers paused and turned to their soft-spoken fellow, he shrugged and looked back through the scope. Then, after a moment, he handed it to Louisiana.
She peered through the sniper as he indicated. “What am I s’posed to be looking at here, ‘Regano?”
Usually, Louisiana earned at least a light chuckle when she used her… spicy nicknames for Oregon—her preferred was the obvious “Oregano”—but he simply directed her to look at the little one-room building between their group and the central monolith, surrounded by a miniature maze of walls.
“In roughly thirty seconds”—his low voice came from right next to her ear, his slight Spanish accent slipping into his voice and making her shiver—“two orange Grunts, a red one, and two Jackals with shields will exit that li’l building right there.”
Louisiana waited doubtfully, then blinked when the exact Covies he’d described left the tiny structure and made their way up one of the ramps of the main building. She lowered the sniper and tilted her head questioningly at her orange-armored colleague.
Oregon just shrugged and took back his rifle. “While you were all tryin’ to riddle out patterns, I decided to just wait an’ watch,” he murmured by way of explanation.
Any other day, Louisiana might have puffed up and started hissing the way Mississippi and South did, but today she was simply impressed. Instead of getting drawn into easy speculation with the others, Oregon had simple watched and waited.
It was one of the very first combat strategies that Louisiana had learned--Watch and Wait—and even she had gotten sucked into making jokes and calling dibs.
He really did take his job seriously.
“South! Missi! Pipe down,” Carolina barked before turning her attention to Oregon. “What else did you notice?”
He shrugged easily and handed their Glorious Leader his sniper rifle. “Every couple’a minutes, at least one Grunt—maybe two—is accompanied by a couple’a Jackal guards down below, then resurface about two minutes later. Then they head back and report to that Elite on the far side of the monolith. The one in gold armor. The Elite’ll wait for a minute, then send down another unit—sometimes the same one, sometimes not—and repeat the cycle when they come back… All in all, he seems pretty agitated. Always barkin’ orders at the Grunts; yellin’ at the Jackals; takin’ out his sword, fiddlin’ with it, and putting back before activating it. Then doing everything over again.”
“Wash, rinse, repeat” a smirking Louisiana quipped.
“He seems pretty worried,” York remarked, chuckling at the comment. “Any particular reason why?”
“Not a clue,” Oregon answered, shrugging again as everyone in the group took turns peering through the rifle scope at the Covenant again. If Louisiana communicated in sighs, then he spoke volumes with each shrug. Granted, the message was usually something akin to Why are you asking me?, or perhaps Yeah, sure, I don’t really mind, but still… “If I could get down below and take a look at what they’re down there for, I might be able to find out.”
Carolina nodded decisively. “Alright, that’s your job then. Missi, you go with him and watch his back.”
The yellow-armored woman nodded, but Oregon jumped in quickly. “Actually, don’t ya think Mississippi’d be more suited to infantry-work? Presumably, I’m just gonna be sifting through terabytes of data and searching computers. Not really somethin’ that a soldier-y soldier would be interested in. We’re gonna need to focus more on stealth an’ silence than anything…”
He then turned to Louisiana and shot her what she imagined to be a pleading Look. Her cue, it seemed, and she jumped in with an Oh, Fine!-sigh.
“I’ll go with Rosemary, here,” she offered, reluctance in every fiber of her being. “I’ve gotten into tougher places than this.”
“Name one,” South and Missi challenged at once, spiteful and disbelieving, respectively.
“The Department of Motor Vehicles” was the silver Freelancer’s muttered reply.
“That’s a difficult place to get through, not in,” York protested good-naturedly, while Oregon pointed a finger at him to emphasize the man’s point.
Louisiana mulled this over for a fraction of a second, before conceding his point. “This is true,” she allowed, before trying again. “Mr. Gold’s shop?”
“Which branch?” Oregon asked curiously.
“The one in Maine,” the diminutive agent clarified.
York jumped in then, shaking his head. “But that one’s been broken into all the time. Everyone just ignores the closed sign and it’s not like he ever locks it.”
Louisiana was vaguely aware of the confused, three-way look that the other women shared, but ignored it to argue her case.
“Yeah, maybe so, but that’s Mr. Gold’s primary location—he’s always there,” she said, smirking fondly at the memories. “Besides, there—like here—the more pressing issue is getting out, not in.
“I mean, have you ever seen that man angry?” Louisiana asked pointedly, looking from one man to the other and back.
York opened his mouth to reply, or so his body language indicated, when their Glorious Leader asserted herself. “Okay, it’s decided—Oregon will go down below, with Louisiana guarding his six; South and Missi, you two will flank left and head for that grav-lift on the far side of the canyon; and York and I will flank right and head up that ramp to clear your arrival point.”
Seeing the potential tragedy that lay in that direction, the silver agent spoke up once again. “All due respect and all, O Glorious Leader,” she said carefully. “But are you quite sure that’s the most… efficient course of action?”
Louisiana had a feeling that Carolina was arching an eyebrow when she turned.
Regardless, she plowed ahead, seeing the potential tragedy that lay in this direction but choosing to ignore it. “I just mean, South and Mississippi have so many similarities fighting-wise”--And stupidity-wise, Louisiana added in her head—“that them together would just make the teams uneven. I know you’d like to be paired with your Love Muffin, here”--Sorry York, she apologized silently—“but he should be there to… um, balance out Missi. And you should be there to back up South.”
Please go for this. Please go for this. Please go for this, Louisiana thought fervently, crossing her fingers discreetly.
After a moment, Carolina nodded resignedly. “You’re right, Louisiana—”
“Wait, what? Does anybody have a camera? Please tell me somebody recorded that for posterity,” the silver-clad Freelancer begged.
“—it wouldn’t be fair to pair the two best fighters in the squad together,” Carolina finished, ignoring Louisiana’s outburst.
Louisiana narrowed her eyes at the woman in turquoise. “… You rotten whore.”
Their Glorious Leader ignored that, too—verbally, anyway, because her body language said she was entirely too pleased with herself—and turned to everyone else. “Take a few minutes to track the patrols near your area and move out when you’re ready. There’s probably a squad or two patrolling outside the canyon as well, so don’t engage unless you’re ready to have them come down on you, hard.”
Louisiana grinned victoriously at the opportunity and opened her mouth, then closed it when her eyes strayed to Oregon, just in time to see him give a tiny shake of the head. He lifted his hand discreetly and activated his one-to-one radio. “Too easy,” he warned under his breath.
“Louisiana!”
The agent in question jumped when she realized that Carolina had almost shouted her name. “Yessir,” she answered automatically.
Their Glorious Leader crossed her arms skeptically and glared. (Louisiana assumed as much, anyway. Carolina’s helmet pretty much made it look like she was always glaring.)
“You and Oregon will have to go first, so you’ll have more time to look around before they find out we’re here. Wait until the next group of Grunts leave the building right there, before making a break for it.”
She and Oregon mumbled quiet acknowledgements and moved to the far edge of the group, closer to the opening of the canyon, while Carolina began to give the others their orders.
The two Freelancers watched in silence for a few minutes as the latest group of Covies entered the structure before them. When they exited, Louisiana waved jauntily at Carolina then followed Oregon down the hill, mindful of the Elite lookout on the main building.
She clicked on her radio when they reached the wall between them and their intended point of entrance belowground. “So,” Louisiana began casually, as they skirted the wall. “Why didn’t you want Missi to come with?”
Oregon held up a closed fist, and they waited for a breath before dashing around the wall and stopped at the door. It was locked. Of fucking course.
The orange agent knelt down so the control pad was at eye level and began to fiddle around with it. “Because she’s a bad shot and only hits her targets when she uses an assault rifle,” he answered blandly as the door slid open with a little hiss.
When they entered the little room and the second door that actually led down below failed to open, he turned the questions back on her.
“Why didn’t you want her with South?” Oregon asked, before muttering “Maybe we should’ve gone in groups of threes so York could open this damn door” when the door remained stubbornly shut, despite his intense fiddlings.
Louisiana smirked at that. “With his track record, we probably would have been attacked before he finally got it open. And Missi and South together—by themselves—responsible for their own decisions? What—do you want them to alert the Covenant two minutes in?”
Her valid point earned a snort of amusement from the Hispanic agent in burnt orange, which turned into barely stifle roars of laughter when they heard two people grinding their teeth over the radio and York’s voice saying, “You guys realize that you’re broadcasting on an open channel, right? We can all hear you.”
The silver Freelancer choked back her near-hysterical giggles to apologize for bad-mouthing his infiltration skills, hearing the well-disguised hurt in his voice, but the door suddenly opened.
“Sorry, gotta go,” she stage-whispered. “The show’s about to start.”
Grinning, the two agents started down the ramp that led belowground.
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Agent Louisiana wouldn’t necessarily describe herself as much of anything akin to “macho”, or as a particularly cocky individual. But it would still take either large quantities of hard liquor or a moment of profound, introspective clarity to ever get her to admit to the rather high-pitched, girlish “Eek!” she gave when she and Agent Oregon entered the underground room.
In her defense, however, it was rather jarring to open a door to a room that was supposed to be empty, only to come face-to-face with an equally startled Grunt.
The little guy (who was, technically, taller that Louisiana when she was out of armor) quaked in fear for a split-second before throwing up his arms, giving his own frightened squeal, and attempting to run off.
Reacting on the pervasive instinct of self-preservation, the silver Freelancer lunged forward, placing one hand on either side of the Grunt’s head and giving it a vicious twist. The small(ish) Covenant soldier(ish) crumpled to the ground silently, his neck quite effectively snapped, and his head at an odd, unnatural angle.
“You can come out now,” Louisiana murmured over her shoulder, after she’d verified that the immediate contained no more surprise guests, casting an amused expression at her companion.
“Right,” Oregon answered, his voice low, trying for indifference to the scene that had occurred before him and just missing. “I’ll admit—that was not what I was expecting.”
Louisiana grunted in response as she pulled her DMR from its place on her back and her colleague removed his M6G pistol from the holster on his thigh.
“I thought you said this place was empty,” she said in a low voice, casting around for any other signs of life before she dragged the Grunt’s body up the incline and into the room aboveground.
Oregon huffed his approximation of indignation, before protesting mildly, “I never said anything of the kind. All I said was that groups of Covenant were coming down here—I never claimed to know why, or if someone else was already down here.”
The shorter of the two Freelancers sighed, aware that she’d been beat, before rolling her shoulders and gripping her gun with renewed vigor.
“Well, who knows? Could be fun,” she said putting as much chipper into her voice as she could physically manage. Her orange-armored companion was doubtful of the veracity of that statement—when things diverged from the plan within the first ten minutes, it usually wasn’t a good sign—however, he followed her dutifully back down.