0-SA (The Last Ship Series)

Chapter Forty: Aid

"Oh you're so fucked when they wake up, Sage. What the hell is Jacques going to say?" William sat in the cell, leaned back against the wall now. A few hours had passed, and neither of them had woke yet, "How could you trust that, that thing?! It tried to kill you the first time we met it!"

Sage just sat in front of the cage, "Jacques should wake up first." She rolled her head to the side and looked at William, "Bruno got a little extra, just for kick." She turned her attention back towards the door Osa had left out of. As if he was going to walk back in. The woman sneered her lip, "Something you wouldn't understand, William." She held her own stomach, "He is trying to save Raven and his unborn child." She glanced over at him, "I'm sure as hell not going to let you get in the way of that." The woman leaned back, "Have you never wondered why he wasn't infected?" She scoffed, "I feel like an idiot for allowing it to take me this long to realize that maybe we've been the bad guys all along. Instead of trying to talk to him, we go in with fucking guns blazing. He pointed that gun at me because I pointed it at him first." She laughed sadly, "Who would want to communicate with us? How..How many do you think we've actually killed, that could have helped us William?"

William slammed his fist against the wall, "I don't give a damn how many we've killed, Sage! They brought this on themselves when they brought this shit here with them. How do we know it wasn't on purpose?!"

"And how do we know it wasn't a fucking accident, William!? When have you ever heard of someone actually talking to one of them? And not blowing their brains out!?" Sage clenched her fists, "I'm tired of helping the Faction, and I'm tired of chasing someone who is only trying to survive like the rest of us."

"Sage, what did you do..?"

The woman tensed as she looked up at Jacques , who was clearly very groggy, but he seemed to had heard quite a bit, "Jacques.."

He held up his hand before looking at William, then back at Sage. The man could see how upset his wife was, how scared. He crouched down next to her, before speaking deeply, "You're tired of the Faction, Sage?"

The woman's eyes swelled with tears as she turned her eyes from her husband's view. The woman choked up, terrified. Jacques was the last person who would go against the faction, and what Sage just did was considered a felony crime.

She gasped softly as she felt his hand on her leg. Sage looked at Jacques, his expression was softened, even concerned, "J-Jacques?"

"Get your stuff together. We're leaving." Jacques looked towards William, who seemed to be just as shocked as Sage, "I think I'm tired of this bullshit too."

Sage felt her heart jump in her chest. The woman hugged her husband quickly before standing up. She hurriedly pulled out another tranquilizer from her bag as Jacques got ready himself. The woman stuck it in Bruno's neck before injecting it. She walked over before dropping the keys several feet away from William, "Bruno should wake up by this evening, hopefully the two of you enjoy your walk."

"Jacques you can't seriously be listening to her? What the fuck are you two doing!?" William stood, even grabbing the bars as they began to pack their bags and put on their equipment, "You can't seriously believe this shit?"

Jacques looked at William, "William, she's my wife." The man said in a rather stern tone, "One thing I learned from being married to this woman, is that when I see her upset like this, what she's feeling isn't 'shit' William. I'm sorry, but she comes before the Faction, and your stupid ticket." With that, he pulled the mask over his face. Sage was already at the door, waiting for Jacques.

William clenched his fingers around the bars, "You can't just leave us here like this!"

Sage tilted her head to the side, her eyes stabbing daggers into William, "You have your guns when Bruno wakes up, but," She held up the case with the Reverberation Rifle inside, "I'm taking this. I hope you understand." The woman walked out of the pod with Jacques saluting before following behind her.

"Jacques! Sage! Come back! You're making a mistake! Stop!" William shook the bars violently, even slamming his head into them before screaming out. He couldn't believe what had just happened. Osa was right there, in their hands after chasing him all this time, only for Sage to let him go, "What the fuck is wrong with you people!?"

Sage had pulled the gun out of its case and threw the case on her back. The woman and Jacques were running down the street, knowing that the sun wouldn't be up for at least two more hours.

As they ran, Jacques glanced over at Sage, who was trying to figure out the weapon, "You really drugged me last night?"

Sage was breathing heavily as they ran, still a bit upset from their escapade, "Y-Yes. I knew that if you didn't go to sleep, I wasn't going to get my chance to talk to him, but William did it for me."

Jacques laughed a bit, truthfully not surprised by his wife's actions, "Alright, now what?"

She panted, pointing ahead, "We catch up to him, remove those bombs, and we get him where he needs to be."

"You want to help it?" Jacques seemed surprised, "Why Sage?"

"You ever get that feeling that you've just been trapped in a bubble for a decade and you feel like you want to fight toward a cause worth something? Well, that's how I'm feeling now, and if he really is trying to save the world, I want to help him. I want to help all of us."

Jacques laughed behind his mask as she said this. The man rolled his shoulders as the ran, "Alright, but I highly doubt we're going to catch up to it."

Sage nodded, "Not on foot no, but I think I saw a truck with some keys in it near that gas station a few blocks down. It's a long shot but if we can get it started we might be able to help him get there faster."

"What makes you think he'll trust us?" Jacques seemed concerned when he asked this, "We've been hunting him for months now."

"I..I don't know, but what I do know, is it's like he knows what I'm thinking. He, he knew that I didn't drug his water. He wasn't going to take it. Not only that, if Raven is pregnant, if they are running out of oxygen, it's hard to tell how far behind we put him getting home." The woman felt, bad. It was a rare feeling but it was there. She had been encased in such a hard shell for so long, hearing Osa break over Raven and his baby, it woke something up.

Jacques grunted as he ran, neither of them faltering, "I hope you're right for the sake of all of us."