Enemy of my Enemy

A New Mission

Charles's POV

"General? You wanted to see me?" I asked, entering his office.
     "Ah, yes Charlie, come in," he said, looking up from his papers.
     I took a step inside and closed the door behind me. He gestured for me to sit in the chair by his desk.
     Galeforce slid me a file, I picked it up, "Info on the toppat clan?" I asked, starting to look through it.
     "As you may know, the toppat  orbital station project was never executed for unknown reasons." General Galeforce explained. "That means, we still have a chance to take them down." He then looked at me as I closed the toppat file.
     "A mission?" I asked.
     "I need you to fly a select group of government soldiers to their base, kidnap Henry Stickmin, then return for interrogation. Ok?"
"You want me to fly them there?"
"Yes," he handed me another file, this time with the details an instructions of the mission. "You'll be taking Victoria Grit, Rupert Price, and the Bukowski twins."
"Am I just flying them?" I asked, checking the file
"What are you getting at Charlie?" The General asked.
I sighed, "Well," I explained, "I'm always just flying soldiers out to the missions and never really participating."
"You're our best pilot, the best, we can't lose you in the line of fire."
"This is a stealth mission-"
"Things don't always go as planned. You will be flying them to the toppat base, then patrolling until the leave with Stickmin. Ok?"
"...Yes sir."
"Thank you. You're dismissed."
I stood up and left the room with the file containing the mission details, it'd be going into action tomorrow morning.

Time skippzzz

"Remember men, we don't leave without Henry Stickmin," Victoria Grit instructed as we approached the toppat base.
"Yes Captain," the other three soldiers said.
I stayed silent as I flew the helicopter near the base and let the ladder drop. And they were off.
I patrolled the surrounding areas for hours, growing more worried by the second, not seeing any of the soldiers leaving the toppat base.
Eventually, I decided to radio the General. "Hello? General Galeforce Sir?"
"Yes Charlie, what do you need?"
"How long is the operation supposed to take?" I asked, looking at the base from a distance.
"The toppat base isn't that big, shouldn't take that long to find Henry and bring him back. Why? Are you still out?"
"Yes sir, I've been surveying the area for hours, no sign of the soldiers or Henry Stickmin."
"...Shit. Kee-p surv-ying th- ............ bac- up."
"General? You're breaking up, what was that?"
"Jus- .......... sendi-g b- ..................."
"General? General?"
There was only static on the other end. This wasn't good. The signal was clear before. What happened?
I continued flying circles around the base, but my mind was elsewhere. What happened to Victoria, Rupert, Calvin, and Konrad? Why couldn't I get through to the General? Why-
There was a loud boom and I was knocked out of my seat. I looked in panic at the back of the helicopter, there was a large flaming hole. I was being fired at!
I stumbled to my feet and grabbed a parachute from the wall as the helicopter fell through the sky. I quickly jumped out and pulled the parachute cord, jolting to a slow decent.
What the hell was that.
     I soon landed on the ground and untangled myself from the parachute, looking around at my surroundings. I was closer to the toppat base than I would have liked to be, but I could deal with this.
     "Hands in the air kid." A voice demanded.
     My head turned to see a man with a blue top hat, with a gun trained on me.
     I raised my hands in a panic, "Please don't shoot!" I said, sounding more scared than I thought I'd be.
      He came closer and cuffed my hands behind and my back, still pointing the gun at me. "You're coming with me. Our leader doesn't like it when the government tries to mess with things they have no part in."