Assault (Red vs Blue)

41: Aftermath

41: Aftermath

Present Day: The Staff of Charon (Just above the planet Chorus)

When the Pelican landed in the hangar and the bay door opened, they were immediately met with gunfire. Carolina, Tex, Wash, and York had all hopped into the ship to go rescue the Reds and Blues. The group had gone radio silent after calling for evac, and that made Carolina nervous. Anything could have happened between that call and now; the cyan clad soldier just hoped they weren't going to be met with the worst possible outcome.

"Move, move, move!" Tex ordered as the group quickly exited the Pelican.

"Spread out! Make yourself harder to hit!" Carolina yelled as she fired at a couple soldiers.

York was in closer quarters with a bigger soldier, but made quick work of him with his shotgun. "We need to find a way to get inside!"

Carolina checked her H.U.D. It was then that she noticed Omicron's indicator light was gone. "Guys, check your H.U.D.s! Check for your A.I.s!"

"What?" Wash shot at a soldier that was charging him. "Wait, something's not right. Epsilon's gone."

"So is Delta," York said.

"And Omega," Tex added.

Carolina shot a bigger soldier that had appeared to her left. "I don't have Omicron anymore, either. This can't be a coincidence; something took them out."

Wash fired at a soldier just before they could pull the grenade off their belt, sending them to the floor and effectively clearing the hangar. "Do you think everyone else's A.I.s are gone, too?"

"I don't know. But that's not our top priority right now," Carolina told him. "We need to find a way in so we can get to the guys."

"Spread out. Search the walls," Tex instructed. "There's gotta be a door in here somewhere."

The four soldiers fanned out and cautiously began looking along the walls for a door. It didn't take long before Wash was saying he'd found a way in. The other three joined him quickly and they wasted no time going inside.

Once they were in, it immediately became clear to Carolina that the Reds and Blues had faced some heavy opposition when they'd first gotten on the ship. There was a broken blast door at the end of the hall; that alone was enough to make her heart sink to her stomach. But the guys had to have made it past whatever happened here — in order to shut everything down, they would have had to find a control room of sorts.

As they headed down a hall, Carolina noticed a panel on the wall with a familiar matrix of swirling blue lines. She stopped and looked at the screen. "F.I.L.S.S.?"

"Hello, Agent Carolina!" the A.I. greeted. "It is great to see you and some of your teammates again. You just missed the Director; he came this way with a group of simulation troopers not that long ago."

"The Director? But I thought he said he wasn't gonna be able to assist us at all?" York asked.

"She's gotta be talking about Church," Carolina said. "F.I.L.S.S., where are the guys now?"

"In the hallway just ahead of you," F.I.L.S.S. stated.

Without hesitation, the four freelancers took off running down the hall. It didn't take long to find the Reds and Blues; they were just down the hall and around the corner. Carolina ignored the various bodies of U.N.S.C. soldiers that laid on the ground — as far as she was concerned, if they were loyal to the Chairman, they were traitors anyway. However, when she looked at the guys, her heart sank.