Chapter Text
The sun is glaring down at full force, and the boss is out of the base, which means Kai can finally get her sunbathing time in. She's positioned on the roof, so she can claim to be watching the horizon for Reds if Carolina comes home early. Down on the ground, Niner's driving around with Sheila again, doing their weird pilot/tank thing. Kai's learned not to get in their way when they do the rounds; one robot arm is enough. Doctor Grey and Jensen have been after her for ages to go full upgrade, but she's not gonna give them an excuse any time soon.
"Are they seriously having another fucking peace talk?" South's voice crackles through her comm. Kaikaina takes a long swig from her lemonade before answering.
"I'unno. 'Lina said something about guarding the base while she went out. I kinda zoned out when she was talking; too busy puking. I think I'm still hungover." Another sip of lemonade should help sort that out. Vitamin C or something, she doesn't know, whatever.
"South! You know what Kimball said about fraternizing with the enemy!" comes Jensen's worried lisp though the comm channel.
"Ooh, Kimball wants to fraternize? Hot," Kai says, grinning. Crushing her empty plastic cup in her metal hand, she tosses it down off the roof. Sheila shoots it out of the air and she whoops in response.
"Better not let Carolina hear you say that," South says slyly. "You know how she feels about competition."
Kai pshaws, turning over onto her stomach. "She doesn't have to worry. Grifs are all about sharing."
"Didn't you say your brother once licked an entire ice cream cake so he wouldn't have to split it with you?" Volley asks. If she squints, Kai can kind of see her doing exercises on the Red base lawn.
"Yeah, that's food. This is a totally different situation. Unless we're talking about the Kimball filling in a Blue sandwich, 'cause I can get-"
"Ladies, I think we better end this conversation here," C.T. cuts in, sounding amused despite herself. "I can see them shaking hands and heading back. Kaikaina, put on the rest of your armor. Also, I wanna tell you again it's really bizarre that you sunbathe with your helmet on."
"I don't wanna miss out on the gossip!" Kai explains, waving from her spot. C.T.'s sure to see her through the scope of her rifle from the Red base roof. But C.T.'s right, Carolina is approaching, and Kai doesn't want to miss Blue Team breakfast, so she scrambles up to put her gear on. Can't be late for 'Lina's waffle extravaganza.
--
When Kimball returns home, it's to the suspicious sight of all her soldiers looking emphatically busy. Jensen is vigorously tightening a bolt on the warthog with her wrench, while South spars against Volley. C.T. is still stationed firmly by the flag. Kimball frowns, walking around to examine the warthog herself. It looks fine, as far as she can tell.
"So, trying the whole diplomacy thing again, huh?" South says, suddenly at her side. A quick glance to the right shows that Volley is laying flat on her back, winded. Kimball doesn't startle - it's been two years, she's long since trained herself out of that response. People don't expect South to be capable of stealth, given her temper and cockiness; Kimball had finally realized that it manifested as a sign of South being comfortable around her. That South trusted and liked her well enough that she didn't feel the constant pressure to announce her existence, to bid for attention. Which meant instead that she snuck around like a cat, slipping in and out of Kimball's space silently, casually.
Kimball smiles at her, placing a hand on her shoulder, guiding both of them toward the base. "Yes, but before I update you, why don't you tell me about your rendezvous with Private Grif last week?"
South falters for a nanosecond, before asking smoothly, "What, when I tied her to her own tank? Not much to say about it." But Kimball can see that Jensen's frozen in the middle of sorting through tools and Volley's slowly sliding away on her back.
"Oh, no, not that, Corporal. I meant this," and she pulls up the video Carolina had given her. It starts where she'd left off watching it, with Grif shirtlessly arm wrestling South, who has Volley in her lap and a bottle in the other hand. Niner's slurred voice can be heard in the background, explaining rotational energy to someone.
"Aw, fuck," South mutters, and up from the roof, C.T.'s laugh drifts down. "Shut up, you were there too!" she yells up, but she's met with more laughter.
"Was I? I'll take whatever punishment Sergeant Kimball has for me if she finds me on that video," C.T. taunts. South flips her off, as Jensen drives onscreen in the warthog, almost crashing into the others.
"What I want to know is, did you really think you could win against the bionic arm?" Kimball asks gently, leading South toward the building again. South gives into the inevitable and grabs the vacuum off the wall.
"Couldn't pass up the challenge," she sighs, starting up the machine. It'll take at least half an hour to finish the whole base.
--
Niner tosses the bottle of syrup to Kai, who liberally douses her stack while Carolina mans the iron.
"I've discussed our current state of affairs with Kimball, and she's agreed to ignore our foiled kidnapping of Jensen, if we pretend they never tried to reprogram Sheila yesterday," Carolina tells them as she forks the newest waffle onto a free plate. "So we're at a temporary truce again, until the end of the week. Hostilities will resume at 0700 on Monday; until then, can you please try to resist throwing a rave?" She pokes Kaikaina in the cheek with her spatula pointedly. It leaves a smear of grease behind.
"Okay, I'm not saying I already invited everyone to Blue base for a sleepover, but actually, yeah that's kinda what I'm saying?" Kai responds through her mouthful.
Carolina groans, stabbing her breakfast with more force than necessary. "How many times have I told you? We're not here to make friends. We'll avoid killing the Reds if possible, but don't forget, we're still enemies."
It's hard for Kai to keep from flapping her mouth, but C.T.'s voice in her head telling her it's not a good time prevents her from blurting out 'Sooo what's up with you and Kimball then?'.
Luckily, Niner distracts her from those thoughts with something much more dramatic. "Yeah, I don't know how long that truce is gonna last. I might have fucked it up by accident," she says, cutting a neat triangle out of her waffle.
"It literally just started twenty minutes ago. What could you possibly have done?" Carolina looks sort of impressed.
"Well, I wasn't feeling too charitable after they made Sheila try to blast a hole through the wall, so I called for reinforcements." At Carolina's completely affronted glare, she continues, "Hey, I know you're equal to like three people, but we've been outnumbered since Girlie joined those stupid terrorists, and I was pissed. So I called in and Command said they'd send us someone." Niner shrugs and starts eating her triangle.
Carolina takes a deep breath, chugs half her cup of coffee, then puts it down on the table with a composed stillness. "Alright. I'll go inform the Reds after daily training. Do you know when they'll get here?"
"I called last night, and Command said they'd arrive sometime today."
"Today? That seems pretty fast. Normally it takes a week or two for new soldiers to be shipped all the way out here."
Niner shakes her head slowly, waving her buttery knife. "No, it's not a Blue. They're getting us a Freelancer. Said her name was Tex, I think."
The strength of Carolina's screech is enough to rattle the scalpel in Doctor Grey's tray all the way out in her cavern abode. "Sounds like someone is overdue for a checkup!" she says cheerily to herself, packing up her kit. Time to catch up with her friends!
Chapter Text
The straw dummy stands tall and unmarked, casting a long shadow over the sun bleached grass.
C.T. shoots. Misses. South, kicking her legs back and forth off the edge of the roof, says, "Knife."
C.T. fires again in response. The bullet embeds itself in the ground to the near left of the dummy. South twitches, trying to keep her cool, but as four more bullets go zinging by, each one finding their way wildly off course, the urge to comment becomes unstoppable.
"Use."
Miss.
"Your."
Miss, veering dangerously close to Jensen's toolbox.
"Fucking."
Hit! On one of the poles of Volley's makeshift net. The whole thing collapses.
"KNIFE."
C.T. releases a beleaguered sigh, and turns to her, resting her rifle on the ground. "South, the point of training is to improve on things we're not good at. Which is apparently why you've been assigned to providing moral support."
"That would be applicable if you were actually getting better at sniping, but seeing as your aim has gotten worse in the last three minutes, maybe you could put the dummy out of its misery so we can move on with our lives! Also, fuck you, I'm an encouragement wizard; I am a literal pillar of compassion."
With a flick, C.T. raises the visor of her helmet, for the sole purpose of making her skepticism obvious to South. "I don't know, I think you've created an environment of hostility that is not very conducive to my personal development. If there's any support, I'm not feeling it." She ties the whole presentation together with a pout, her pretty mouth folding into a moue of disappointment.
South flushes angrily, slamming her fist down on the roof. "You're fantastic. You have great hair. You're really good at throwing pointy things."
"I'm pretty sure you were just fishing with that last one, but I might as well prove you right," C.T. says, a deceptively benign expression settling on her face. Without looking away from South, she pulls the knife from her sheath and whips it downward, straight into the dummy's painted straw face. It tips over onto the ground, finally laid to rest. South closes her eyes and silently rejoices.
With the toe of her boot, C.T. nudges her, while strapping the rifle to her back. "Come on, you lug, let's go inside and watch some of those surfboarding dog videos you like so much."
South jumps up, holding her hands apart to demonstrate length. "Connie, no, you gotta see the one where this corgi, she's only this big, right, and there's a wooden plank like it's from the fucking Titanic or something, and..."
--
There's a sound like a fork scraping against porcelain, and Kai can imagine she sees the little particles of enamel flying away as Carolina grinds her teeth.
"Alrighty, sweetheart, we've just got to take a look at your leg and we'll be all set!" Doctor Grey crouches down to root around in her bag and Carolina grits harder.
Kaikaina pulls her lollipop out of her mouth with a pop, savoring the taste of cherry on her tongue. She waggles it in Carolina's direction. "I don't get you. Check-ups are awesome." She begins ticking off reasons on her fingers. "X-rays. Morphine. Hot doctors - chyeah, I'm lookin' at you, Doc! Showing the gynecologist that trick where I put my legs over my head. Free rides on the gurney."
Carolina stops destroying her beautiful teeth for a second to narrow her eyes at Kai, eyebrows drawn together. "Has no one told you yet that none of those things are normal?"
Kai shrugs. "Whatever, it's like, I got a robot arm, right? So, robot medicine is different from people medicine. That's probably why you don't like going to the doctor! People doctors suck."
Doctor Grey, beginning her examination on the healing muscles on Carolina's leg adds, "You know, this will be a perfectly serviceable leg once you let it recover, buuuuut...have you considered a cybernetic enhancement?"
"Yeah! We can match." Kai bops up and down in excitement on the couch.
"I'll pass." Carolina says drily, but she's quit the grinding and she's letting Doc Grey touch her without comment, so Kaikaina will consider this one a victory.
"Well, all told you're healing up nicely, so please don't exert more energy than necessary with that leg," Grey says, drawing back. "Or I will be coming back with my bonesaw," she threatens, as bubbly as ever. Outside, Sheila can be heard rolling in, so Doctor Grey takes it as her cue to go. Carolina begins to don her armor while Kai walks Doctor Grey out, but not even a minute later, she hears her calling from the doorway.
"Uh. Boss? I think you should come out here."
--
"Okay, so the first three pedals are for going forward..." Jensen recites doubtfully, trying to steer Sheila straight. Niner clamps her hand down on the lever as they begin backing up over a molehill.
"Yeah, so why are you using the fifth one?" She reaches down and pokes at Jensen's leg until she switches pedals, changing their course to a sort of diagonally forward direction. "Not bad, but I'm still afraid we're gonna get a repeat of the Kai incident. There's nobody nearby outside, is there?"
"Pilot Four Seven Niner, would you like me to reactivate the tutorial program?" Sheila inquires, voice pleasant and serene even as they run over a clump of short cacti.
"Negative, Sheila. No training treads on this tank. Go big or go home, right?" Niner slaps Jensen on the back which activates a coughing fit, propelling Jensen into a button that causes a plume of steam to release in the back of the hull. Hastily, Niner pushes it back into position. "Damn, kiddo, you really have a knack for putting things out of whack, don't you?"
"I should've brought my inhaler," Jensen moans. "And my oxygen mask."
"We're almost done for today. You can pack it up once we get back to Blue base. Better go the long way home though; I heard you got a scolding last time you came out with me." They whir along, crushing vegetation and small rock formations as they make their way down the slope toward the base. Jensen glares in concentration out the periscope, her grip so clenched her knuckles are starting to hurt. Some thirty yards or so down the line, she lets herself relax slightly. They're almost back. She just has to remember how to stop. Wait. Are there brakes on a tank? ...is it a pedal?
"Holy shit, why are you accelerating?" Niner yells when they lurch faster toward the base wall. She dives over to pull down hard on the brake lever, halting them in their tracks. Jensen's litany of sorrys begin immediately, so with a groan, Niner releases the hatch to let them out. Better escape before anymore damage can be done.
Exiting first, she reaches down to give Jensen a hand. They sit atop Sheila quietly, stretching out legs that have been cramped in a small space for far too long. Jensen pops off her helmet so she can wipe her glasses clean. but one persistent speck remains, so she puts the lens up close to her eyes so that she can examine the dirt. She's about to scratch the speck away with her nail when she notices an odd shape in the distance. With her glasses back on, she can see that it's a person, standing on the hill behind Blue base. But even from this far away, she can tell she's never seen that black armor before.
"Niner? Is that your team's new hire?" she asks, directing her companion's attention to the stranger stalking closer. The soldier moves with knife-precise motions; dangerously.
Instead of answering, Niner sighs, long and sorrowful. Forget the truce. War has come to Blue base.
"Jensen, you're about to see something good. And by good, I mean terrifying, so you'd best get back inside Sheila for now. When the coast is clear, I'll let you know. Remember, the code word is mangosteen."
littleoctopushead on Chapter 1 Sat 09 May 2015 04:45PM UTC
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Car (Guest) on Chapter 1 Fri 26 Jun 2015 10:20PM UTC
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MagnetarBeam (IveGivenThisALotOfThought) on Chapter 1 Mon 21 Feb 2022 03:18AM UTC
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vase on Chapter 1 Fri 07 Apr 2023 06:53AM UTC
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vase on Chapter 2 Fri 07 Apr 2023 06:54AM UTC
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