Enter Freelancers

The bells continued to squall their urgent message at the loudest volume possible as Seth raced to his post. His Sergeant was already there when Seth made it. Only two other members of his squad had managed to get there before him, and they had been there only because they had drawn the short straws for the night watch. Explosions rocked the building as the rest of his squad filed in behind him. When all ten members were present, the Sergeant spoke.

"This is it men. This is the real deal. Our base is under attack. Word is..." He hesitated before continuing, "Word is, its Freelancers."

One of the senior members in the squad spoke up. "What do you mean? Freelancers can't seriously be attacking our base! What could they want with this little outpost in the middle of uninhabited space?!"

"It was those b******s, the Confederates that hired them. They want this planet so bad that they're willing to make a deal with the devil to get it. Be prepared to take lives today, men. The Freelancers fight to the last man, and they won't stop until we're all dead. Surrender is not an option." The Sergeant's face wasn't visible through the tinted plate of his LPBA, but his voice set the mood. It was going to be a battle to the death. Some of them were not going to see tomorrow.

Seth was having trouble breathing. There were Freelancers coming to kill him. Never in his wildest nightmares had he imagined actual FREELANCERS attacking his base! Did God really hate him that much? He was going to die before he'd been in the army a full two months!

The Sergeant was briefing them on the positions they were to take when his head exploded. The whole squad was splattered with fragments of brain matter, skull, and pieces of the commanding officer's helmet. They were too stunned to react as a grenade was tossed into their midst. It actually bounced off of Seth's chest plate.

That was what saved him from sharing the same grisly fate that befell half of his squad. When the grenade bounced off his chest, it had been knocked behind a few of his squad mates. Seth and half of his team were shielded from the blast by the bodies of those unlucky few.

In his rush to reach his post, Seth had forgotten to seal his helmet. That wasn't a lethal mistake, it could be quickly sealed if he went outside. Unfortunately, when the grenade went off, it knocked him and his squad backwards. He landed on his shoulders and upper back. The impact of his landing caused his head to smack against the ground. Seth's helmet bounced off and rolled away, leaving it's wearer lying dazed on the ground.

The Freelancer strode into view and started firing his large battle rifle at the remaining UIF soldiers. The large weapon was on full auto. He had his back turned to Seth as he methodically put a bullet in the head of each soldier that was on the ground. A few of his squad mates had regained their feet and started firing on the lone Freelancer.

The enemy soldier quickly turned and returned fire. His armor was of much better quality than the standard issue UIF model. The bullets simply ricocheted off of the plates. His bullets had no trouble penetrating the armor of Seth's teammates.

While the Freelancer was occupied with the rest of the Squad, Seth picked himself up and grabbed his gun. He had the weapon trained on the enemy unit just as he turned to face him. He... She?!

The chest plate of the armor was curved to allow for a body type no man could ever posses. Her helmet was polarized, not tinted. Seth couldn't even see the shape of her head behind the faceplate. That was horribly unnerving. She might as well not have had a face at all. The soldier was an imposing and demoralizing figure. Seth froze up.

He expected to feel bullets tear through his stomach any second. In a moment, he'd hear the bark of the battle rifle she carried, and his life would end. Yes, any second now.

The shots he was expecting didn't come. The enemy soldier simply stood and examined him. When she spoke, the feminine voice was very out of place coming from the hulking armored figure.

"Drop your weapon!" She sounded like a teenage girl. Of course, most teenage girls didn't carry large, menacing battle rifles that were pointed at your unprotected face. Seth dropped his gun.

"Put your hands behind your head." That was something he hadn't expected. Freelancers weren't supposed to take prisoners. At least, thats what the stories said. All they did, was round up the survivors from the first attack, interrogate them, then douse them in one grisly way or another. Why was this one taking him prisoner?

The Freelancer lunged forward and thumped the butt of her weapon firmly against the armor plate covering Seth's stomach. It hurt even through the thin covering of protection. "I said put your hands behind your head!" Seth obeyed as he doubled over gasping for breath. As he laced his fingers firmly behind his head, she tore the pack from his back. Literally, tore it off.

She tucked the pack under one arm, then rammed the gun into his back. "Move." Once again, Seth did as he was told. He walked forward.

There was one uneasy moment when he heard a scraping sound behind him. Was she going to stab him in the back as he walked?! Seth turned and saw her picking up his helmet. She handed it to him and said, "If you don't want to die, put this on." Again, he obeyed.

Once his helmet was sealed, he received another insistent prod in the back from her rifle. The message was clear: Get moving.

Seth walked forward and she followed along behind, prodding him occasionally with her rifle when she deemed him to be moving too slow. They were heading towards the landing pad, a large open space surrounded by the rest of the complex. Why were they going there?

His question was answered when they stepped out of the large hanger doors that lead to the landing pad. The doors had been blasted open by some powerful explosive. One of them had been blown clean off. There was a small landing ship near one end of the pad. The Freelancers had attacked his base from the inside. They'd had enough balls to land on an enemy landing pad without any support. Seth gave them credit for guts.

A gunshot rang out on the landing pad. Seth flinched, expecting to feel a bullet tear through his armor. The bullet didn't come. What he did receive was an impatient prod in the back from his captor's rifle. When he'd flinched, he'd stopped moving forward. She got him back on track.

As they moved closer to the center of the pad, another gunshot rang out, this time followed by the faint thud of a body hitting the ground. Seth saw a ring of enemy soldiers, identifiable by their larger suits of armor, standing around a group of people that were kneeling on the ground. There was another enemy soldier standing inside the ring formed buy his five allies. That soldier was standing in front of one of the kneeling people, prisoners, with a gun against his head. Seth heard a calm, deep, slightly rasping voice ask something. Then a slightly panicked voice followed by a shake of the prisoner's head. The Freelancer with the gun against the prisoner's head pulled the trigger. Another shot rang out followed by the thump of another body hitting the ground. The Freelancer with the gun moved on to the next prisoner. He pointed the gun directly at the kneeling man's faceplate.

When Seth and his captor were close enough to hear what was being asked the next prisoner, his captor slammed her gun into his back hard enough to knock him into a sitting position. He blacked out for a moment. When his vision cleared, he heard the Freelancer's voice clearly for the first time. "So, do you know any more than your friend over there?" His voice was cold and deep with an accent Seth had never heard before. There was no emotion what so ever. He acted as if he did this every day. Maybe he did.

The prisoner raised his head in defiance and said, "I'll never tell you a damn thing." It was the base commandant, the highest ranking officer on the premises. That man had won fame and glory by killing over twenty enemy soldiers, while unarmed, with no support.

The Freelancer with the gun nodded as if what he said made sense. Then, he pulled the trigger. The gun was bigger than a normal pistol, but still made a noise far too large for its size.

Once again, the Freelancer moved on to the next prisoner as if he hadn't just killed a man. To the next prisoner he said, "And you? What do you know?"

This prisoner looked down, then shook his head. Another shot rang out. The Freelancer moved on to the next prisoner. "How 'bout you? Know anything?"

This one said, "No, you'll have to kill me, too."

"Fair enough." Another shot.

It went on like that until there were only three prisoners left. One was an engineer, one of the people hired to maintain the atmospheric equipment. They had body suits, not body armor, so the faceplate wasn't tinted. Seth recognized the face beneath the helmet. It was James, he'd told Seth to call him Jimmy, the man who had taken it upon himself to eat lunch with the friendly new guy. They'd actually gotten kind of close.

The gun was pointed in the face of the man to Jimmy's left, a regular infantry soldier. When asked what he knew about the movements and plans of the UIF, he spilled his guts. He babbled on about everything he knew. The other soldier hung his head and Jimmy had a disgusted look on his face. He kicked out at the chatty traitor, cutting him off in mid sentence.

He was blasted in the stomach for his loyalty. "Hey! You'll wait your turn like everyone else." How heartless was that Freelancer?!

Jimmy didn't have any armor on, so his organs and bits of his spine and ribs were sprayed behind him. The remaining soldier was coated in his blood. Seth couldn't see his face, but he could tell just from body language that the remaining soldier was horrified.

"Please continue." The talkative soldier was all the more interested in telling all he knew after seeing his interrogator use Jimmy's organs as paint for the landing pad.

When the soldier finally stopped talking, the Freelancer nodded, then said, "Well, you sure did know a lot didn't you? Unfortunately, I already knew everything you said. Pity." Another shot rang out.

The Freelancer turned towards the final prisoner. "I hope you know more than your comrade."

The brave soul turned his head up to look the Freelancer in the face. "I would never betray my nation. Kill me now and get it over with."

"Gladly." One final shot.

After killing the last prisoner, the Freelancer turned towards Seth. The poor boy's blood ran cold. The big man, he hadn't seemed this big when he was across the landing pad, walked toward him. Seth closed his eyes, expecting a question of some sort. He wasn't brave enough to stare his own death in the face. He'd just ignore the man's question, then die.

The question never came. He looked up at the Freelancer. The big man was no longer alone. The woman that had captured him was standing in front of Seth, she was standing so close he could only see the backs of her knees. All of the other Freelancers were gathered around, as if they were watching something entertaining. The big Freelancer's helmet was bobbing up and down, angrily. They were talking on a private channel on a different frequency, they'd probably been talking for a while.

The big Freelancer stopped talking and waited. Seth looked up at the woman in front of him. She had her hands on her hips, and her helmet was moving with less feeling than the big man's. She finished her reply and waited for the other Freelancer to speak again. He didn't.

Instead of answering her, he strode around her. He stopped behind Seth and put the barrel of his gun against the young soldier's helmet. Seth heard the metal of the gun tap lightly against his helmet. He closed his eyes waiting for a shot he probably wouldn't have time to hear.

Reviews

[syrus]

nice job keep it up