Assault (Red vs Blue)

19: Behind Enemy Lines

19: Behind Enemy Lines

Present Day: Crash Site Alpha (The planet Chorus)

Things had kicked off rather quickly as soon as the group approached Alpha. At first, there were only a small amount of Charon's soldiers present. They had started attacking immediately, pushing back against the Federal Army and New Republic soldiers with alarming force. And at some point — though North couldn't exactly pinpoint when — more soldiers had appeared. The amount of space pirates just seemed to keep multiplying by the minute. He couldn't figure out where they were all coming from, either. It was almost as if they were appearing out of thin air.

North stood alongside Kimball and one of the New Republic's soldiers. CT, Florida, and a few Federal Army soldiers were nearby, but they were pinned down. He'd completely lost track of the others, though; a revelation that was slightly terrifying considering one of them was his sister. He'd lost sight of South a while ago and hadn't been able to find her since.

As he kept his focus fighting beside the New Republic's general, the sound of odd music started reaching his ears. It almost sounded like Tejano or polka music, and it was getting louder at a pretty fast rate. Looking over, the freelancer quickly identified the source. The Reds came barreling toward the front lines in a warthog — music blaring — and ran right through a group of Charon's troops. The enemy soldiers were immediately crushed from the impact. North had to hand it to them, it was a pretty creative way to go about eliminating the pirates.

"Ya see, men?!" the Red leader — North suddenly remembered his name was Sarge — could be heard yelling. "I told you the front lines are where all the best action is! Ha, ha! This is great!"

"Are you kidding me?!" the maroon one exclaimed. "That's exactly why all of us didn't want to be here!"

"Nonsense, Simmons! Of course you wanted to be hear!" Sarge turned on his radio then, allowing his voice to be heard more clearly. "This is Colonel Sarge! Red Team has engaged the enemy! We're in for a short courtship of blood!"

"Copy that, Sarge," Kimball radioed back. "Keep up the good work."

North kept firing, but glanced over at Kimball while he did so. "Did anything about that last part make any sense to you? Or am I the only confused one?"

Kimball shook her head. "Absolutely not. I didn't understand, either. But at this point, I quit trying to question things with any of them."

"That seems to be a running theme with these guys," North observed, reloading his rifle and continuing to fire.

"Yeah, you're not wrong." Kimball ducked down for a moment, switching her comms over to the open channel. "Attention all units! You need to remember your sectors! We've got multiple towers we need to take down and there are numerous —"

Suddenly, Kimball trailed off and turned her gaze to the sky. A large shadow seemed to be overtaking the entire battlefield. North looked up as well and almost couldn't believe what he was seeing. A large carrier vessel was emerging from the clouds, casting the ground below into darkness. There was a name on the side of the ship, but North couldn't read it from the ground. It looked familiar, but he couldn't seem to figure it out.

"Well, fuck us, apparently," he heard the orange clad soldier mutter.

"Theta! I need some information, buddy!" North said, firing at a couple more pirates.

"Right! I'm here to help!" the childlike A.I. exclaimed, materializing next to the freelancer's head. "What do you need?"

"There's a name on the ship that just rolled in, but I can't read it from here. Search the U.N.S.C. database and see if you can find it," North told the A.I. as he shot yet another one of Charon's soldiers.