"Close the damn curtain!" Carter ordered.
A transport truck was driving by as Sasha quickly pulled the curtains over the window. The group of four struggled to catch their breath as stress and adrenaline ran through their bodies.
"How you holding up, Mav?" Emily asked, reaching out and inspecting his shoulder briefly.
"Just a graze, I-I'm okay." He got out before coughing up a small storm.
Sasha threw over a small bandage wrap at Maverick's feet before Carter began to search the rest of the house. While Maverick tended to himself, Sasha peeked out the window slightly as another truck passed by, then another, then another.
"We're safe for now, but when they begin searching buildings... Нам хана. (We're fucked)" Sasha said, closing the curtain once again then collapsing with her back against the wall.
Soon Emily followed suit taking a seat on the couch accidentally crushing Maverick's tail.
"Hey! What gives?!" Maverick yelped, causing Emily to jump back to her feet.
"Shit, sorry." She quickly turned and apologized.
The three were alone in a room for a few minutes before Carter returned planting his bag in the center of the room where everyone was recovering. The time passed impossibly slowly as Carter waited for the noise outside to settle before digging into the bag.
"This isn't right, Carter. What the hell are we doing?" Emily questioned.
Carter ignored her as he kept digging through the bag, Sasha and Maverick both had their eyes glued to the siblings.
"We just escaped military custody, shot our way out of a friendly occupied facility, killed at least twenty soldiers, the least you could do is tell us what the fuck is going on!" Emily spoke increasingly angrier by the second.
"Blackburn bought her off." Carter stated matter-of-factly.
"What makes you so sure?" Emily questioned, arms crossed.
"One; who is crazy enough to ignore direct government orders? And two; who the fuck else has humans locked up as expendable resources?" Carter answered while pulling out a large laptop.
"It still doesn't add up. Why would Jones double-cross us?" Maverick cut in. "She's been loyal to the N.A.A.C. since its foundation."
"Loyalty can switch with the snap of a finger. Hell, she might not have even been bought off; she could've faked her loyalty her entire career." Carter answered, approaching him with the computer. He held out the device, offering it to him. "Use it."
"For?"
"We need intel. I take it you can find us Blackburn's personal filing cabinet with a little human tech."
Maverick took and inspected the beat up computer, shaking his head multiple times as he looked it over. "This piece of shit might do its part but I'll need time to get an encrypted connection to just about anything."
"How long do you need?" Carter questioned, trying to avoid unnecessary conversation.
"With one of ours I could've had this encrypted and secured in fifteen minutes, with this I'll need an hour or so roughly."
"Make it happen." Carter ordered, coldness lining his voice.
"You got it, boss!" Maverick gave a mock salute, powering up the device while turning the salute to all but one special finger as soon as his back turned.
Sasha went back to watching the window while Emily approached Carter from his right.
"Paint the big picture for me here, Carter."
"Get a location on Blackburn's records. Files, receipts, paper-trails, any and all dirt connected to human containment." Carter answered, turning his head in her direction. "Then expose him for breaching the treaty terms."
"Alone?" Emily questioned dragging both Maverick's and Sasha's attention again. "And who do you intend to give the evidence to? Can't give it to the military on the assumption that someone else could have misplaced loyalty."
Emily struggled to keep a straight face upon seeing Carter snap his head to her, his signature scowl practically carved into his face. Her struggle was not successful.
"Do you have any friends willing to help, Em? Last I checked everyone we remotely knew just tried shoving bullets up our ass." Carter was sarcastic at first, turning serious.
"No, but my point still stands that we can't do this alone. A four man army, unlike the name, isn't an army."
"Nobody else is pitching in, Emily. War's over. It's time to sit back, relax, and enjoy watching it all fade into forgotten history."
"Will you two give it a fucking break?!" Sasha interrupted. "I didn't shoot my way out of hell itself to listen to the both of you bitch about everything."
"Same here." Maverick chimed in, grinning to himself.
"You don't get to talk until that thing's done encrypting." Carter spoke, pointing at him.
"Fine, if you join me in this silence I'll happily shut the fuck up."
A truck passes by loud enough for the whole group to stop their conversation. Sasha peaked out of the window just to catch the rear of the truck disappearing from sight.
"Clear." She says breaking the short tame moment they all had.
The group didn't continue in their discussion as they waited patiently for the computer to do its work. Emily positioned herself at the foot of the couch and dozed off while Sasha followed suit against the wall with the window.
Carter walked over to Sasha and repositioned a bag of spare clothes next to her before laying her down more comfortably on the bag. It wasn't a pillow, but it's better than sleeping with a hunched neck.
"It's done." Maverick whispered.
Carter finished setting Sasha's legs out before walking over to Maverick and the computer. "Check what we can access."
Maverick clicked around the available commands and readouts before accessing a map of Europe. Maverick continued to explore the device as the map slowly added more information onto the screen.
"What is all this?" Carter questioned as pictures of trucks and facilities appeared on screen.
"Old operations. Missions." Maverick answered as a picture of Jones' base appeared
Maverick couldn't help but smile as that picture was now a little out of date. "Old intel on bases and fortifications."
"What do they have on Blackburn?" Carter's impatience grew.
"There's tons of stuff here." Maverick protested wanting to see more intel on the humans operations.
It only took a moment for all of Maverick's exaggerated swagger to vanish. Carter took notice immediately as Maverick's clicking of the computer faltered.
"What's the matter?"
"Remember our last deployment?" There was no humor in Maverick's voice.
"It wasn't that long ago, of course I do."
"Remember this guy?" Maverick questioned, showing a picture of a human in uniform wearing a blue mask with a white X across the front covering.
"No."
"How about him?" Another picture showed on screen of another masked soldier wearing a winter digital camo uniform with a similar pattern on his mask.
"No! What are you getting at?" Carter said, almost waking Emily.
Maverick clicked one more time as the final picture showed up on screen. The soldier's portrait was outlined in red, K.I.A stamped at the bottom in an offensive red.
Carter tilted his head, this one he remembered very well as it was the last human he remembered interacting with.
"Well, looky here." He said with a half grin. "Yeah I remember you."
Maverick sighed as Carter slowly took in the moment. Maverick marked the files to look at later and moved on to the next. Around eight more minutes of looking through random photos and soldier data Maverick finally found something relevant to what Carter wanted.
"Here you go." Maverick spoke offering the computer to Carter. "My turn to get some shut eye. Don't fuck up the encryption."
"Got it. See you in a few hours Mav." Carter said, walking over to the next room with the computer in hand.
Setting the device on a countertop. Carter started to look through the list of locations and facilities that were operated by their current target.
Blackburn's presence was everywhere. Germany, Africa, Rome, Egypt and more facilities all eastward. Carter groaned as going through each location was going to take time and energy to thoroughly memorize most of the data.
He probably could just hand off the task to Maverick but he and the others had been through a long enough day already and had earned the rest.
"Damn it." He whispered to himself rubbing both his eyes with one hand while the other closed the screen. He could look at the data later but for now he decided to do something regarding a more pressing matter.
Leaving the laptop on the counter, Carter returned to the main room where the others were steadily asleep. He knelt down to a medium sized gray duffel bag and unzipped the main pouch pulling out its contents while organizing as he went.
More vehicles drove past all of which seemed to be owned by regular citizens all returning home from a long day's work.
'If they only knew what a day some of us have.' He thought while removing the magazine from one of the rifles.
With the bag now empty, before Carter laid a small variety of weapons. One rifle and a small machine gun were placed on his left while a shotgun and two pistols laid on his right.
Also before him was all the ammunition they had left from Nora's base. It wasn't a lot compared to what they usually deploy with. Only a handful of rounds for the pistols while the rifles had a mag each. The small machine gun had roughly twenty bullets in the last magazine and the shotgun had two shells both of which were already loaded in the gun.
'This is FUBAR.' Carter thought to himself, running both his hands through the top of his head folding back his ears as he sighed softly.
They had no means of winning a firefight, and going outside during the night was just as risky going out during the day with the patrols out looking for them.
"We'll have to do some shopping then, да?"
Carter froze as still as the air while a chill ran up his spine. He wasn't expecting anyone to be awake as he hardly made any noise moving the guns around, but apparently whatever noise he did make was enough to wake the wolf.
"Good god!" He whispered quite loudly. "Don't do that shit."
"Any louder and you'll wake your sister, dumbass." Sasha responded, lifting a hand to her head in disappointment.
Carter got up and carefully walked past the carpet now covered with arms and munitions. He took a seat to where the wolf was once resting and rested his back up against the wall.
"What did you find?"
"That computer has more info than we need, too much even..." He answered grimly enough for Sasha to catch easily.
Having spent the most amount of time in the squad socially she knew how to read everyone's emotions as easily as a book.
"Too much, how?"
Carter lifted his left leg up allowing his arm to rest upon it. Sasha's eyes narrowed as she figured he didn't want to ask the question.
"Our last operation; that kid's info is on there." Carter answered
"I do not see how this is conflicting with you, Carter. We have more pressing problems and priorities: yet it's now apparent you have some sort of issue regarding that human."
Sasha leaned in closer to Carter. The leopard noticed the moment and looked in her direction as a response. "Why?"
"He shouldn't have been there, Sasha. No kid, human or not, should be in combat situations or held prisoner."
Sasha shook her head. His response was stupid. It's war after all. Things like that were bound to happen at some point, especially since humans are known to use every means necessary.
"That's not it, Carter. Don't play me for a fool." She replied with bitterness. Carter hesitated and thought quickly on how to respond. He was about to give another lie when Sasha cut him off. "And don't think of the next lie to tell me, tell me the truth."
Carter rubbed his eyes with his available hand and sighed again softly. Sasha was growing impatient as she wanted to return to her sleep, but she needed to hear this.
"It's all my fault Sasha, had I just followed fucking orders we wouldn't be here. Hell we'd probably be on a nice vacation to France or something by now."
Sasha was confused at first. What did he mean by his fault? After a brief moment of trial and error of putting the piece together she knew what he was going on about.
"You think that if you didn't lose your head back in that cell, we wouldn't be in this situation?" She questioned.
Carter reluctantly nodded and turned to his sister sleeping in front of the couch Maverick was snoring on.
"She wouldn't be in this mess, neither would you or Mav. Because of me, we're convicted soldiers running amok with a giant P.M.C. company painting targets on our heads."
Sasha processed the information, it was somewhat true but also had he not done that they wouldn't have discovered the corruption inside the military. Jones would have easily been able to sweep the whole mission under the rug and they all would just move on.
"And we'd still be following orders from a crook, not to mention doing special errands like securing data for Blackburn." She added.
Carter turned his gaze back to her own as her reaction was not at all what he had expected. He expected Sasha to be blunt which wasn't far from the expectation. but also to agree with him fully that everything was indeed his fault. Not for her to disagree and throw dirt on the other guy.
"I'd rather be out here hiding from a bastard in a suit than a soldier fighting for another's gain." Sasha continued laying back down on the duffel bag. "And thank you."
"For what?"
"The bag." Sasha answered before shutting her eyes once more.
Carter was once again alone in a room surrounded by his unconscious squad. Looking back at the ammo on the floor and the window Carter decided that he'd have first watch. He leaned forward and grabbed the nearest pistol and one mag. Loading the magazine into the pistol Carter pulled the slide back knocking a round into the chamber. After loading the gun he took a second to inspect the others attire before just peeking out the curtain.
'Yeah, we will do some shopping.'