Red team

Price does matter

There I was, my carbon fibered suit glistened in the cool blue sun, or suns I should say. I was on some bullshit planet in the outskirts of some mining nebula. This heavy glistening suit was more for show then anything else, considering we hadn't even taken our guns off safety once since we left the ship. Which just meant another boring "routine" job. Get the package, or protect the package, or turn on the power. Blah blah blah. I normally didn't read the mission details unless it had a threat level of at least 3.
The way these missions work is simple, a threat level 1 means that there should be no danger, level 2 means potentially danger, level 3 means moderate chance of danger, and so on. The highest level of threat is 7 which means high risk of death. Usually we steer clear of anything above 4 or 5. But I hate Godamn level ones, or "freebies" as I called them. We've never had any trouble, not a single time, on a level one job. But that doesn't mean there always easy. One of our first jobs was a level one, and we had to scale a mountain compound and turn off the shield generator.
    Anyway, back to the point. It'd been about an hour since we left the ship to...to...ugh. I never ended up asking. Turning on my helmet radio I waited until it was quiet.
"What do you mean you don't think they'll win! They've got a great win/loss record this year!" I could hear Kriskovich yelling again.
"I just don't think they're as good as they act, they're too fluffed up on their easy wins." Maxim was at it again, always had to get on somebody's nerves.
"Shut up you two! Your like a couple of children sometimes, I swear!" And there goes Sapphire, settling the argument like always.
"Hey, let's stay on focus here." I interjected
"What, uh, what was that again?" I asked knowing full well I'd get a scolding again from sapphire.
"To get to the research station and escort the scientists to their new lab a few clicks down the ravine." That precise and immediate response brought to you by Jax.
    She was the ships tech, not really known for much else, she and the medical droid we usually left on the ship. The droid was appropriately named B.O.B, an acronym actually, Bucket Of Bolts. It wasn't exactly a lousy unit, or even a scrappy one. BOB just didn't have any feelings, cause he's a robot. It allowed the team some comic relief, and it was a suitable name too.
    Anyway, back to the point, we were apparently on our way to escort some nerds to their new toys. We were now in visual range of the lab when we saw something out of the ordinary.
"Multiple hostiles, armed, don't look very armored." That was Saphire, looking through her already self adjusting rifle scope. The thing looked like a bolt rifle on steroids, but it definitely didn't sound like one, and it sure as hell hit harder. And then she started to sparkle, and simply vanished into thin air. That shit always bothered me, I kept forgetting her armor did that.
"Give me 15 seconds to warm up Titan" Kriskovich replied, slowly taking off the large Vulcan rapid fire cannon of his back. That was one badass piece of equipment, it was a literal cruiser weapon, used on small fast moving ships. Looked like it weighed as much as me, and that beast of a man just held it tightly in one fist as he activated the blast shield on his armor. Kriskovich's armor was unique, like him it was thick and hard to get through. But it had a feature that doubled its strength, making it a bit less mobile, about as agile as a fucking truck trying to.
"Don't take too long, I've been itching to try out the new blade Jax made me." Un sheathing from his back the large serrated hyper blade. It was a laser sword, but he hated when I called it that. Maxim's suit fit his combat style, it allows for lighting fast reflexes, without sacrificing the ability to take a beating, but it's shields didn't charge at the normal rate, meaning he couldn't stay in the fight if it was too prolonged.

"Finally, I was getting an itchy trigger finger." I said, maybe a little too enthusiastically. Flipping my machine gun off safety and onto auto. My personalized weapons of choice were one heavy duty sub machine gun, using armor piercing rounds, firing at 1000 rounds per minute. And two large caliber pistols, firing 18mm rounds, they packed quiet the punch.
As we all spread out and began moving up on the hostiles I could see on my heartbeat sensor that there were about 6 of them, fairly close together, near the entrance to the lab.
"We don't know what these guys might have or who they are, let's go for quick and clean." Saphire said from the safety of her tall treetop position. "Once I open fire, let's keep this a one way shootout."
"Don't you worry about us little lady, we know what we're doing." Kriskovich said, his cannons 3 barrels spinning at a ridiculous speed.
Actually I'd only fought with this group once before, and it had been a relatively quick firefight, it's actually the reason they asked me to join. They had bitten off a little more then they could chew, taking a 4 borderline 5 job, which it had not been advertised as. Our employer hadn't told us there would be some local militia, only a dozen or so, but still. The fight was over before I got a chance to do much, Red Team was efficient, I definitely wouldn't wanna be on the receiving end.
The loud snapping crackle sound of Saphires rifle zipping to its first target, and I snapped to attention. The closest of the men to the lab fell with a sharp thud, a fist sized hole taken out of his head. Almost instantly after I could see the hail of metal decimating the rest of them, Kriskovich didn't waste time. By this point only 2 were still standing, and Maxim made it a point to end that quickly. Within seconds the two dropped to the floor one clutching his chest, the other falling in half.
"CLEAR" Saphire confirmed, as if it wasn't obvious no one had survived that.
"Not worth the bullets..." Kriskovich mumbled, a bit annoyed.
"Gotta be faster next time if u want to be part of the action." Maxim teased me, punching my shoulder.
"Hahaha, your hilarious." Even through the suit I felt that punch, for a quick guy he sure wasn't scrawny.
"Leave him alone, can't blame him for us being so experienced. Besides he's only here for emergencies." I liked Saphire, too bad she treated me like a kid.
"You guys act like I don't do anything." Holstering my machine gun, maybe sounding a bit annoyed.
"Maybe cause you-" started Kriskovich, his blasters barrels still steaming red.
"EH, she's right, be nice" maxim intervened.
"Give him time, I'll sure he'll grow on ya." Patting my shoulder he walked off.
Ok, so maybe they treated me like I was some kid, but in all fairness they were all a lot more experienced, this is the first real team I've ever been on. Besides, Maxim was the one who came up to me when they recruited me, and Saphire has always been friendly. It wasn't hard for me to tell that Kriskovich wasn't a big fan, hell I don't think he's said anything that wasn't insulting me.
"What's the deal with the big guy?-" i tried to ask Saphire, forgetting that my mic was still on.
"It's that he can hear you, Pudroc!" Kriskovich oh so kindly decided to input on the conversation.
"He's got a point." Saphire chuckled a bit, I could tell she knew something I didn't.
"Alright alright, I'll stop talking." If that guy wasn't so damn big I mighta taken a swing at him, but I felt like he was just messing around.
"Somebody go talk to the scientists, see what this is all about." Saphire got back to her job as team leader, "And let's see if these guys had a ship." She and Kriskovich began walkin