Assault (Red vs Blue)

8: Ideas

8: Ideas

Present Day: Military Complex (Downtown Armonia; the planet Chorus)

Washington had been going through recovered data with the other freelancers when Church got the transmission from Tucker. Shortly after, Tex, Church, Carolina, and York all headed out to see exactly what was going on at the temple. Wash had volunteered to stay behind; Carolina had asked him to tag along, but he figured he'd be more useful in the Capital. She'd tried to convince him to come, but in the end she'd been unsuccessful. Tucker would probably be slightly upset with him, but that was nothing new lately. He'd get over it. But Wash's presence was needed more to keep Kimball and Doyle in check.

Which was exactly what he was trying to do currently. The two generals — as well as Wash, the rest of the freelancers, and the other Reds and Blues — were all standing around in the war room. They were waiting on a video transmission from their guys in the field, and everyone was getting antsy. Not so much on the freelancers' end; Doyle and Kimball on the other hand were starting to make off-hand comments toward each other.

"I just don't understand why we couldn't have sent a bigger team to help them investigate," Doyle was saying. "I have plenty of other scientists that are itching for the chance to get into the field."

"So do I. But sending too big of a team runs the chance of drawing attention to what we're doing," Kimball countered. "Just letting the smaller group of freelancers go was the better choice."

"Yes, yes. You've made that point very clear. But what about after our people leave that particular temple?" Doyle asked.

"I'm still saying no. What if Charon's men were to come back? No matter what security measures we send with them, they'd be overrun if they were attacked," Kimball argued, starting to sound very annoyed.

Wash cleared his throat, interrupting them before things could really escalate. "That's enough. Doyle, your scientists will have their chance to go to the temple. As will Kimball's. But for right now, Kimball has the better point. We can't risk drawing more attention to ourselves, and we certainly can't risk an ambush where we're outnumbered and outgunned."

Doyle looked at him, then sighed. "You're right, Agent Washington. As always. I just wish there was more my people could do in between fights."

"Same goes for me. Are you sure keeping most of our people sidelined right now is a good idea?" Kimball asked. "You guys have been running almost all the missions; on top of training the soldiers, playing moderators, and doing your own work. Aren't you guys a bit overloaded?"

"Don't worry about us. We're used to this," South assured her. "We operated under a lot more stressful conditions back in the early days of the Project. This is nothing compared to some of that."

Before anyone could say anything else, the screen in the front of the room lit up. When Wash looked, he saw the whole group at the temple looking back. They all seemed . . . excited? Was that the word he was looking for? He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen any of his freelancer teammates genuinely excited about anything. It'd been a really damn long time, that was for sure. Grey, on the other hand — she was usually always excited about something.

It didn't take long after she realized the video feed was live for Grey to start chattering about what they'd found and what had happened. She was talking so fast that no one else could get a word in. They'd been listening to the doctor rapidly explain everything for almost ten minutes before Doyle decided he couldn't take it anymore. At least he was actually attempting to control one of his personnel members. He hadn't been too good at doing anything of the sort lately due to spending so much time bickering with Kimball.