Chapter 227: Rebel
Ranger
Chapter 227: Rebel
By Wanderer D
Sweetie looked at Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. The latter looked calm, but then again, she wasn't very expressive ever since she had her brain transferred into a robotic body. Scootaloo looked… at peace. It was strange.
She didn't know how she felt, however. She liked her soft-armor/on-the-field-reporter look, but she wouldn't be performing for a camera this time. She glanced at her brand new, yet oddly battered-looking GREMLIN, courtesy of Lily Shen. It would certainly be useful for her radio show, but right now, she was afraid she would break it.
Shen looked… not at ease, but certainly confident, which was good. And then there was Ember and her team. The experienced XCOM soldiers had taken over the rest of the room and were casually waiting for Central to come in. They were still staying on their side of their room, however.
Even though XCOM had been generally welcoming, engineers and soldiers didn't seem to mix much, even if Dragon team could be argued to be the closest thing they had to a middle point, and even though they were part of the crew now, they didn't see each other often. Sweetie herself was arguably the one that met the most with the crew in general. Scootaloo chose to mostly stay quiet and Apple Bloom… made people nervous.
"So what's this about, Shen?" Ember asked, drawing everyone's attention to them. "The last time we were in a joint mission, there was a city-wide war against the rise of the robots." She crossed her arms. "And this coming so soon after watching Stardust's last mission, I can't help but think that there's a lot more going on that you haven't told us."
Shen shook her head. "We should probably wait for Central, but yeah, they're related. We believe that the Ghost was responsible for that transmission reaching the whole ship. Sweetie Belle and I managed to track the source to a specific location, and—"
The door slid open and Central walked in. After saluting, he nodded at Shen. "If you don't mind, Shen, I'll take it from here."
He turned to face them. "As Shen was saying, the signal was tracked to a location near Siberia. It's far away from any inhabited cities and the weather is extreme enough to keep just about anyone from getting close."
Several pictures of a frozen wasteland appeared on the wall behind him. "As you can see there is not much in the way of structures around. The terrain is inhospitable, cold and perfect for a secret location. We couldn't get any images from any satellites, so we have very little information of the place."
He nodded to Shen, who stood up to face them. "The only thing we know, is that there is a massive source of power there. We don't know if it's some sort of base, or something completely new that the Elders threw there. Somehow, Ghost is able to hack the ADVENT Network and even our systems, which suggests that it's not completely cut off from communications."
"Given that Dragon team is composed of mostly specialists, you will join Shen's team on this. Your objective is to protect them and help secure the asset." Bradford added.
"Sir?" Security asked, raising his hand. "What does the asset look like?"
"We don't know." Bradford grimaced, "Annette will be joining Shen's team for this reason. She's the only one who knows what Adagio actually looks like."
"Great," Security muttered.
"Well, it at least makes me feel better about our odds," Ember said. "I noticed that Wolf went out earlier, are they—"
"No, they have their own mission," Bradford interrupted. "Equally important. We'll fly you as close as we can to your objective, but you'll be taking ground vehicles to reach it."
"So no evac for us."
"Not with Skyranger, no," Bradford said. "But we do have a nearby resistance group taking you there. We'll land the Avenger close to their location and their leader will meet us there, then drive you to the mission AO. They'll remain in the area at the ready to help you escape if needed.
"Well, ideally I'd rather not get found out at all," Shen said.
"Aw, don't worry Lily," Ember smirked, "I'll protect you."
"...I feel safer already."
Sweetie giggled, and for a moment she thought she heard Apple Bloom chuckle as well. "I never knew meetings were like this."
"Back in the day..." Central said gruffly, then trailed off at the amused looks from Ember and Shen and coughed. "We try to be professional, Miss Belle."
"In any case," Shen spoke up. "I want to prepare a kit for the ground vehicles to keep going while we're on the mission. Ember, Apple Bloom… do you mind helping?"
"Sure." Ember shrugged and stood up.
"What type of equipment?" Apple Bloom asked, standing up to follow them. Shen's reply was lost to the others as the doors hissed closed behind them.
"For now, you are dismissed," Bradford said. "I would suggest you get to know each other a bit better since you'll be working in the field as a team." With that, he also left the room.
Sweetie and Scootaloo blinked at each other then turned to face the rest of Dragon. They were somewhat familiar with them from the last mission, but they hadn't really talked much.
"So…" after a few minutes of awkward silence, Security stood up and sat down across from Sweetie . "Are you single?"
This was really more what Scootaloo had expected her XCOM experience to be like, back when she had evacuated with the others: a small military-like camp with plenty of boxes covered in nets and camouflaged tarps; jeeps, armored vehicles with guns on top, dubious looking, heavily armed people walking by and a dingy bar.
Granted, when it turned out to be an actual spaceship, she hadn't been complaining. It was just that she hadn't anticipated that.
Bradford strolled down ahead of both teams to meet with the leader, who was wearing camouflaged, warm-looking body armor and helmet, she had a grey-gold bandanna with a stylized eagle's beak on it around her mouth. She was tall and muscular, with golden irises that widened a little when they met Scootaloo's eyes, before she returned her attention to Bradford.
"Thank you for doing this," Central was saying, "we hadn't anticipated such a quick response to our request for aid."
"Ah, don't worry about it," the woman waved her hand dismissively, "we've heard of all the good you've done for the Settlements down south. We can't cover that wide of an area, but you're looking after the families of my men and women here. It's the least we could do."
Bradford nodded. "We'd like to set up an antenna array here as well, if that's possible. It would definitely facilitate us coming to your aid if necessary."
The woman chuckled. "That'd be nice, but not necessary. It's that time of the year where this place becomes unbearable.. We're not planning to stay here too long after this mission."
Scootaloo frowned, there was something familiar about this person, but it was probably just her imagination. She didn't know anyone from Russia anyway, and outside of ADVENT, her acquaintances were limited to her coworkers and neighbors, most of which were dead.
She busied herself with helping prepare the equipment Apple Bloom and Shen had put together. It was a hefty piece of tech, but she soon found herself in her element, ensuring the heavy machinery was set up properly, efficiently and securely.
"Looks good, Scootaloo," Shen said when they were done. "Apple Bloom and I will calibrate this thing." She gave her a look. "Are you sure you don't want a GREMLIN? You're an engineer in the field, after all."
Scootaloo shook her head. "Nah… I don't know how long I'll stay, remember? Plus, I'm not going out in the field as often as the others. There's no point in wasting equipment."
Shen gave her a look but ended up shrugging and nodding. "Alright then. Let me know if you change your mind."
Scootaloo shrugged. "Sure."
She shifted a little, rubbing her arms and walked away. Even though it was freezing, it was nice to be outside. It was funny, ever since she had studied Aerospace Engineering, she'd wanted to work on one of the alien ships, and when she had the chance… she had basically done little but work on a couple of small assignments out of her own negativity for all XCOM represented in her life.
All it did to people she liked.
Like Jane. Or Rainbow Dash. Or Applejack.
"I thought it was you, squirt."
The voice shook her off of her thoughts and she turned to blink at the leader of the resistance camp, who was standing there, arms akimbo, looking at her. "Um… do I know you?"
The woman blinked in surprise, then chuckled, taking off her helmet and revealing white hair that graded into a very light purple. She was grinning ear to ear. "Recognize me now? Or do you not remember your old buddy—" she was interrupted by Scootaloo's surprise hug, which she returned soon after. "Nice to see you too, squirt."
o.0.o End Chapter 227 o.0.o
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Gilda, huh? I wonder if Dash ever met her after the end, too.
Okay, those two know each other ... interesting
there need to be quotation marks here
Miss Belle
more of a preference, but i'd spell that 'military-like'
Hello human Gilda.
So human Gilda is still alive, that's nice. And funny to see her in Siberia, cause I saw stories giving her Russian origin.
"wearing a camouflaged, warm-looking body armor, and helmet, she had"
"wearing camouflaged, warm-looking body armor and a helmet; she also had"?
"an engineer on the field"
"an engineer in the field"?
"out on the field as often"
"out in the field as often"?
Hehe, priorities, Security!
9496240 9496099 Fixed! Thank you!
Ahh, Gilda. Nice to see her alive.
Could someone remind me who Security is? Trying to decide if I should put on a pair of shipping goggles or not.
Oh joy, a quadruple-escort mission. Fun.
In any case, the presence of human Gilda is certainly interesting. Scootaloo might have found her dropoff point, assuming she never pulls her head out of her rear with regards to XCOM.
Ohhh, ideaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~!
9496495
You're welcome. :)
9496974
I love it! You're hired!
What a surprise to see Gilda
9496534
Not sure who Security is. SOOOO many chapters to wade through.
Though the one I would personally love to see return is Greg aka Trojan (who, now that I think about it, was a part of Ember's team... I think?). Mostly because I wanna see the sniper once again go up against Sonata. But also because I definitely want to hear folks continue to tease the poor dude about making sure NOT to hit on Angel lol.
9497998
A fair point. Edited.
Read from chapter 60 something to here in one day.
Time well spent.
Oh no I’m caught up.
I really should read this sometime.
9500099
I know. Watched the trailer and compared notes. But I already own Enemy Unknown from years ago, and I'll be entirely honest: I don't think this is a game series for me. So unless I get to the end of Enemy Unknown and find myself wanting more, I'll probably never get the sequel.
Silverspoon? She always had silver/gray hair..
Gilder and Dash... Time for the returns of the Valkerys?