Project Freelancer: The Next Generation

Two months have passed since the Tragedy - the Crash - of Sidewinder.

People were stunned into a trance throughout the duration of the recovery phase. Time slowed to a crawl as the truth no one had expected had sunk into everyone's minds: Almost every single top Freelancer had died. Six of them in total, only Agent Washington and Agent Utah remaining alive in Project Freelancer. And no one really knew where Agent Florida had run off to, nor believed it when the Director claimed he had also died. Agent Texas also disappeared in a similar way.

All main objectives were gone out of the window. All missions paused. Even the Director shut himself into his quarters to grieve, though not for very long. In the end, the truth of what had occurred reached every single soldier, medic, and pilot in the Mother of Invention.

After what happened, many of the remaining Freelancers went on their own paths. Some - Illinois, Arizona, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and more - went off on smaller side missions, never to return. Others outright quit the project, preferring to work for the UNSC or wanting to leave the battlefield altogether. In the time span of two weeks, Project Freelancer was down to less than half of its original soldiers. But another two weeks was all it took for the Project to grow strong once again. The Mother of Invention was rebuilt, and all the A.Is (excluding Sigma and Gamma, who were... eradicated) were paired with new soldiers. A new generation of Freelancers stepped forth to replace the empty slots on the leaderboard. Another month later, it appeared as if the Tragedy of Sidewinder had never happened.