//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Entanglement 
// by ArguingPizza 
//------------------------------//

Beowulf team sprinted through the underbrush of the Everfree Forest as fast as their feet could carry their equipment-laden bodies. Running was made even more difficult as they awkwardly juggled their rifles and surveillance equipment, which they'd been forced to grab in their haste to run from the ponies that they were definitely not supposed to have been in contact with.

Providing motivation for their escape were a half dozen golden-armored ponies running and flying after them. The armored horses had apparently been just behind the six that had discovered them.

“Nice idea with the flashbang,” Moose commented without breaking stride as he hurdled over a fallen tree and continued running. 

“Thanks, boss,” Lowball replied as he juggled the heavy sniper rifle and the EveDrop recorder. Clumsy fired a burst into the air to delay their pursuers, but the horses had apparently realized they weren't in danger after a half dozen bursts and no longer stopped at gunfire. 

“Looks like they found some balls!” Clumsy yelled. 

“Then stop shooting! If it's not scaring them it's just wasting ammo!” Moose shouted. 

After nearly two miles of all out sprinting, Moose realized they weren't going to loose their pursuers in a foot chase. They might have been the some of the most physically fit soldiers in the world, or their own world at any rate, but they couldn't beat horses in a footrace. 

“Clumsy, Chainsaw, in a hundred meters I want you both to pop smoke. Twenty yards after that everyone stops and empties their magazines in the air. Hopefully our pair of fifties will scare them enough to give us time to shag ass out of here.” 

A few seconds later both Chainsaw and Clumsy pulled smoke grenades from their vests, yanked the pins and hurled them as far forward as their arms could throw. Two twin clouds of smoke burst from the grenades and grew to encompass a large section of woods. Beowulf team bounded through the smoke and ran another ten steps before stopping, turning, and raising their weapons. 

Deep booming reports of the fifty caliber rifles combined with the furious staccato of automatic assault rifles to fill the forest with a terrifying symphony. When their pursuers didn't come charging through the smoke screen, Beowulf bolted again. 

“Riptide Riptide Riptide, this is Beowulf! Come in, over!” Moose struggled to maintain a calm voice in the radio as he continued to run on burning legs. 

“Beowulf, this is Riptide. I copy. Send your traffic. Over.” 

“Riptide, Beowulf! I send 'Columbus.' Over!” Columbus was the emergency code for all the teams involved in observation of the aliens' cities. It meant a team had been compromised and was in danger of imminent capture. 

A long pause on the radio told Beowulf the C2 team was scrambling to overcome their surprise and formulate a response. 

“....Copy that, Beowulf. Have you been forced to engage? Over.” 

“Negative. Be advised we have fired warning shots to facilitate egress, no casualties. Over.” 

“Copy, Beowulf. Under no circumstances are you to engage alien forces. Break contact and proceed to RV Butterscotch. Support will be waiting. How copy?” 

Moose resisted the urge to roll his eyes. A moment later he scolded himself. The C2 team couldn't actually do anything for him; they were almost thirty miles away. He shouldn't have expected much help in the first place. 

“Copy, out.” Moose's mind scrambled for a plan. They couldn't simply keep running. They might have lost their pursuers for the moment, but it wouldn't take them long to catch up. After that, it wouldn't be another mile or two before they ran them to ground and Beowulf would be forced to either fight or surrender. Neither option held much appeal.

After going through every scenario, his mind settled on one possibility. He didn't like it, but it was their only option; Beowulf was going to have to split up. 

“Lowball!” he shouted. In a flash Lowball was running by his side. “Take Chainsaw and head east until you come to the river, then cross and head another mile or until you're comfortable you're not being followed. I'll take Clumsy and head west until we hit the ridge that leads around the northern edge of the forest. Meet back up at RV Butterscotch in six hours, got it?” he asked, almost rhetorically. 

“Got it. Chain! With me!” He shouted and veered off into a dense patch of brush, Chainsaw close on his heels. Clumsy likewise followed Moose when he darted to the left, towards the west. 

After another two miles of running in the new direction, Moose held up a hand for them to stop. Both soldiers slowed to a walk and took sips from their CamelBaks. Their legs throbbed from the exertion and their lugs screamed for air, but they had lost the horse soldiers.

After a short rest, Moose stood up from the tree he had been sitting against and resumed the long walk west. The ridge line they were headed towards loomed in the distance and promised an agonizing climb. Moose and Clumsy's poor leg muscles whimpered at the prospect. 





“Bravo 1-2, this is 1-1. Come in. Over.” Moose and Clumsy laid hidden in the dense scrub around the clearing that was Rendezvous Point Butterscotch. They had been there for nearly an hour and there was still no sign of Lowball or Chainsaw. Also running late was the team that was supposed to meet them, but at least they had been able to make radio contact with that team, callsign Richmond. One of the guys on Richmond had fallen and broken his leg on the way and the team had been forced to turn back. How the soldier in question had managed to fuck up so badly on what amounted to a nature hike hadn't been passed along.

However, Lowball and Chainsaw weren't answering their radios. That could mean one of three things; they had been forced to travel even farther to avoid capture which might have put them out of radio range, their radios were malfunctioning, or they had made hostile contact with the locals. 

Without radios, Moose and Clumsy had no choice but to wait. The failing light meant that it would become more and more difficult for Lowball and Chainsaw to find their way back to Butterscotch. On the positive side, if they were still being hunted their NODs, or Night Optical Devices, would give them an edge over the horses. At least, that's what Moose told himself. 

“Bravo 1-2, this is 1-1. Come in. Over.” Silence. Moose sighed. “This has turned into one big clusterfuck.”

Clumsy nodded and glanced at his watch. “They're ninety minutes overdue. What do you wanna do?” he asked.

“We wait. If they're on their way and just lost comms, they might show up while we're out looking for them. Without Richmond here, we wouldn't know if they walked in thirty seconds after we left. So....we wait.”

Clumsy took a sip from his CamelBak and summed the situation up nicely.

“Fuck.”