Red vs Blue: Heavy 'META'L

Chapter 1

Chairman: To the Director of Project Freelancer, from the Oversight Sub-committee Chairman. Dear Director, I want to thank you in advance for your openness in response to our Sub-committee's request for more information. We were... disappointed that your Recovery force reported a total loss at Outpost 17-B. We had hoped there would be at least one soldier left, that could shed some light on the situation. I know that your agency has enjoyed a high degree of freedom with very little scrutiny in the past few years. It is not our intention to disrupt such a... progressive military program; but instead to find a way we can work together, in a manner that befits all our responsibilities. I am certain that you will agree. And we look forward to making this review process as painless as we possibly can.

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A red soldier is brought to a room with several large view screens with various displays on them, Counselor Price appears on the screen in the center of them.

Counselor: Thank you gentlemen, would you please excuse us?

The two soldiers walk away, leaving the red soldier in the room.

Counselor: You are Private Walter Henderson, correct?

Henderson: Yes, sir!

Counselor: You can dispense with the formalities, Walter. Please feel comfortable to speak as candidly as you wish. Can you tell us what happened at your outpost, Walter?

Henderson: Yes, sir-ah, yes. I had been there about six months. Everything was pretty much like normal and one day this... ship... crashed.

Counselor: I see. Is this the ship to which you are referring?

A holographic representation of the downed transport ship appears.

Henderson: Yeah. Yeah that's it.

Counselor: Please, tell me what was on the ship, Walter.

Henderson: I don't know. The Blues got there first. They fought us off while they cleared it out. Took the stuff back to Base. By the time we got a hold of it, it just seemed like a regular old transport. Our engineer said some of the wiring had been messed with but he didn't seem, you know, worried about it or nothing like that.

Counselor: I see. Thank you for that.

Henderson: But whatever was on the ship, must have been what started the whole thing.

Counselor: Please, Walter, define "thing."

Henderson: The infection. The Blues just stopped fighting us. Some of them set up camp outside their base and trapped the rest of their team inside; blew up their comm tower for some reason. Their own comm tower... Then they blew up ours. That's why we couldn't radio for help, we couldn't figure out why they would do that. After that, nothing. No word from them at all. The CO sent a squad over... all the Blues were dead. They had killed each other.

Counselor: Why do you think they did that?

Henderson: I don't know. They had torn the radios out of their helmets and dismantled their computers. The CO said they were trying to build something... but I saw all the stuff, no way! They were trying to break it. And there was another body in there too. Not a Blue, somebody else. Actually, she looked like them.

Henderson looks over to two soldiers. One soldier being gray with yellow accents and the other being black with red accents and a skull on his visor.

Counselor: Don't worry about them for now, Walter. Please, continue.

Henderson: We brought all the equipment back to base and brought it online. And that's when the infection started for us.