Chapter Text
Before
“Dude, it’s just a recon mission,” Tucker said, putting his armor on. He could, technically, get his armor on and off really quickly, but before a big mission, he prefered to take his time. There was something calming about the snap-hiss of the armor fastening, even after literal years of putting it on every morning.
“Felix was spotted last week, Tucker,” Wash scowled, crossing his arms. Wash was still tense and upset because of the fight at the Communication Tower. Which, okay, had been rough and hadn’t exactly gone according to plan, but Tucker had saved the day and gotten a badass looking scar to show for it, and so he was counting it as a “win”.
Wash, however, didn’t seem to see it that way.
“Yeah, well, there’s no one else, and those energy readings Church picked up look like some seriously fucked up alien shit,” Tucker grabbed his helmet and put it on. “And shouldn’t you be going? I thought you were going to Bravo?”
That was one of the suckier parts of this whole clusterfuck. Even though the teams were together again, they kept getting separated for missions. Doyle cited morale reasons. Kimball talked a good game about needing all the good leaders they could get.
Church, however, had another answer. “They don’t want all of you guys to die on them at once,” he’d told Tucker when Tucker had been bitching about it the other day.
Tucker had snorted. “Dude, that’s fucked up.”
“Yeah, well, you guys do like to charge head first into danger a lot,” Epsilon had said. “Maybe looking after other people will make you more careful. Not everyone’s as lucky as you guys.”
Tucker and Wash hadn’t gone on a single mission together since they’d managed to prove the bad guys were... well, bad guys. It was bullshit. He and Wash had barely had time to even see each other this whole time. Which... Tucker honestly wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much. Wash was safe and not captive of the evil empire. He shouldn’t worry any more. It was fine.
“We leave in ten minutes,” Wash said, pulling Tucker out of his thoughts. “Tucker, I just...” He broke off before he finished what he was saying.
Tucker stared at him, curious. “Yeah, dude?”
Wash looked away, avoiding looking at him. Whatever he had been about to say, he’d changed his mind. “Watch your left side,” he said, his voice quiet, and a lot less pitchy than it had been a moment ago. “You’re still overcompensating.”
Tucker rolled his eyes. “Don’t be such a mom,” he complained, elbowing Wash in the side. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
“Captain Tucker,” Kimball knocked on the door, even though it was open, which was how Wash had ended up in his room, sitting on his bed. Wash got flustered when Tucker had offered to close to door to give them privacy, which had made the bow-chicka-bow-wow all the sweeter. “The lieutenants are ready.”
“Coming,” Tucker said, grabbing his sword from his bedside and attaching it to the magnetic grip at his side.
“Tucker, remember, this is recon only,” Kimball said to him as they walked side by side through the base. “If you see Felix, get out of there right away. We can’t afford to lose anyone right now.”
The losses at the attack on Armonia hadn’t been as bad as they could have been, but it was still high. Good people had died. And Tucker knew Kimball blamed herself for every last one of them. Finding out the war had been a gigantic lie had been pretty hard on her.
“Not a problem,” Tucker said, deciding to sidestep the issue. It was pretty clear Kimball wasn’t in the mood for talking about her feelings. That’s why they had Doctor Grey around. “We’re pretty good at running away. But usually the Reds are there too, but hey. I’ll figure something out.”
Kimball sighed. But Tucker was pretty sure it was a fond sigh, so he rolled with it.
“Kimball,” Carolina called. Caboose was behind her, and as she drew up to them, Church made himself known.
“Agent Carolina,” Kimball said with a nod. “Epsilon. Captain Caboose.”
“We’ve punched the numbers,” Church said, waving his hands. “Which, was super complicated and impressive, thank you very much. And yeah, something is definitely up at Bravo. There’s some troop movement. I guess there might have been supplies there that they still want, if they’re risking moving so openly.”
“What kind of equipment would we be talking about?” Kimball asked, taking the datapad from Carolina and starting to scroll through it.
“Looking at the manifest, there’s a lot of stuff,” Church said with a shrug. “Armor, more alien tech...”
“Like Freckles!” Caboose said.
“Caboose, Freckles was a military-grade assault robot, not alien tech!” Church said, sounding like he’s had this argument at least three times today.
“Or it could be a trap,” Carolina pointed out, ignoring Church and Caboose. “We might need to send more troops with Wash, just in case.”
Kimball sighed. “Tucker, keep going to the docking bay. I need to consult Doyle on this. The squad is waiting for you.”
“Sure thing,” Tucker said easily.
“Bye Tucker!” Caboose said, waving at him.
“See ya, Caboose,” Tucker replied, not waving back.
The Reds were in the docking bay. Grif and Simmons were having another argument about whatever show of theirs they loved so much. Grif had made Tucker watch an episode once, back during one of their quiet periods at Blood Gulch. Tucker hadn’t really got what was happening, but the chick in the red dress had been hot, even if her spine did glow. Freaky.
“Tucker!” Donut ran up to him, beaming widely. “Just the man I was hoping for!”
“Hell yeah I am! Bow chicka bow wow!”
Donut nodded approvingly. “Anyways, I was wondering if you’ve seen Doc? I’ve been meaning to talk to him, but everything’s just been so busy! Keeping the armory in top shape is a lot of work, you know!”
Tucker frowned. “Don’t think I’ve seen him dude, sorry.”
Donut’s shoulders slumped slightly. “No one has,” he complained. “Our anniversary’s next week, and I wanted to be sure he was fine with the plans I’ve made!”
“Don’t worry,” Tucker said, clapping Donut on the shoulder. “I’m sure he’ll turn up sooner or later.”
“I hope so,” Donut sighed.
“Idiota, date prisa. Doc se pierde en el vacío del espacio y del tiempo gracias a su incompetencia y ya se hace tarde.”
“You’re right, Lopez! I think Sarge is scaring the kids!”
“Los niños, como se les llama, son de mayor rango que eres.”
“Better get going, Tucker!” Donut went right towards Grif and Simmons, doubtlessly planning to interrupt their flirting. Or fighting. Tucker honestly wasn’t sure which one was which anymore. If there had ever been a difference in the first place.
“Alright,” Tucker said, turning to the four lieutenants, who all looked slightly relieved to be rescued from Sarge’s lecture about proper vehicle maintenance. “Let’s get going.”
The flight was short, and they all exited quickly, heading in. None of them wanted to be here any longer than they had to be.
The location was some sort of concrete bunker thing. Church had told them it had probably been some sort of classified UNSC laboratory studying the alien technology before they’d pulled out like the assholes they were.
“Alright,” Tucker said, pulling out his sword and turning it on with the familiar flick of his wrist. The blade hummed to life and he grinned to himself. Even after all this time, it was still really fucking cool. “Let’s see if we can figure out whatever it is.”
“Do you think it’s dangerous?” Palomo whispered, looking around him like a twitchy squirrel.
“Shut up Palomo,” Tucker ordered. At this point, the words were pretty much automatic. “It’s probably nothing. Just some weird fancy alien shit that really just makes fireworks or something. I saw it all the time when I was in the diplomatic corps. People would get all worked up about the latest alien shit but then it turns out to be the lawn mower and no one has the keys.”
“Do lawn mowers even have keys?” Palomo asked, sounding curious.
“Have you ever even seen a lawn in your life?” Bitters said.
“No,” Palomo muttered, now sullen. The sad part was, Tucker was pretty sure none of these kids had even seen a lawn.
“Focus,” Andersmith said. “Captain, where should we check first?”
“Uh, right,” Tucker said. God, being in charge was so fucking weird. “Well, let’s go left first, and then we’ll make our way through it. Jensen, you’ve got that radiation detector thing, right?”
“Yes sir!” Jensen said, waving the device that Simmons and Grey had managed to whip up. Tucker was pretty sure it had once been some sort of video game console.
“Great, let’s find this thing and go home.”
The bunker was really fucking creepy. The ceilings were really short in places, forcing Andersmith to duck whenever they went through a doorway. The lights weren’t working, so Tucker’s sword was their only source. And the sword, while awesome and badass, wasn’t exactly meant to be a glowstick. So it was pretty fucking dark, and when there wasn’t darkness, the shadows were moving all the time, making it all feel like the start to some shitty horror movie.
“We’re getting closer, sir,” Jensen whispered, staring at the screen. Tucker couldn’t make sense of any of the dials or waves, but he figured Grey had briefed Jensen on how to use it, so he wasn’t too worried about it.
“Why the fuck are you whispering, Jensen?” Tucker asked. “No one’s here but us.”
“But Felix might be here!” Palomo said, also in a whisper.
“Yeah, a week ago. He’s long gone now,” Tucker said.
They got to the end of a corridor, with three doors branching off it.
“It should be around here,” Jensen said, no longer whispering.
“Alright,” Tucker said. “Jensen, Palomo, you two take the left door. Bitters, Andersmith, you take the right. I’ll go straight ahead. Don’t go too far down, just check to see where it leads and then come right back.”
“Yes, sir!” They all chorused, saluting. Except Bitters, who shrugged and muttered, “Sure.”
Tucker waited until they were all inside their respective rooms, because his was the only one that was locked. He had to cut the lock off his door with his sword, and then he pushed it open.
He took three steps in, and then stopped dead in his tracks.
The room, in contrast to the rest of the bunker, was filled with light. The walls were white, and the ceiling lights were on full-blast, almost making everything painful to look at. And in the center of the room was some sort of alien pillar made out of eerie looking blue stone, pulsing with a bright light.
The room didn’t look like a laboratory; there was no safety equipment, no tables, no glass walls separating the object from the rest of the room. It was just... there. Looking terrifying and ominous and dangerous as hell.
“Holy shit,” Tucker breathed, lowering his sword.
“And Locus said you guys wouldn’t find anything!” Tucker spun around, recognizing the voice instantly.
Felix was there, his gun pointed right at Tucker. He looked just like he had a few weeks ago at the Tower, but this time Tucker didn’t have a plan, or Freelancers as backup. Instead, he just had the lieutenants, and if Felix had followed them... “Locked your kids in their rooms,” Felix taunted. “Didn’t think they’d want to see this.” At least they weren’t dead, Tucker thought, trying to think of a way out of this one.
“You fuck.” Tucker took a step backwards as he tried to strategize.
That was a mistake.
The pillar let out a high pitched scream that sounded like Donut when he saw a spider, and then the pillar glowed a bright and brilliant white for a single moment. It was as if all the other light in the room was being drawn towards the pillar, the lights going out as the pillar grew brighter and brighter, before it too, suddenly, went out and the room was plunged into total darkness.
For a moment, Tucker felt weightless, and then he felt nothing at all.
Everything went black.
Now
It probably said something about Lavernius Tucker’s life that when he woke up to the smell of smoke and the feeling of something sharp and uncomfortable digging into his back his first reaction was this.
“What was it this time?”
He was in his armor at least. And he was armed; gun, pistol, sword at his hip. His HUD said he wasn’t injured. Good. He rolled onto his side and tried to stand up, but it was harder than he’d thought it would be, given that he appeared to be in some sort of dump and the ground beneath his feet was actually made up of pieces of junk, which did not make for a steady foothold.
He looked around him, expecting to see the others. There was no way he’d woken up before Wash.
But he couldn’t see anyone.
He was definitely in a dump; some sort of military dump too, he figured. Most of the things were old crates that were completely empty but broken, but there were parts of banged-up armor and ship scraps. Tucker noticed that anything useful or salvageable seemed to be gone, which made sense. Chorus couldn't really afford to be wasteful. Pretty much everything was used until it was literally falling apart.
Which really begged the question of why he was there.
“Guys!” Tucker yelled. “Where the fuck are you?”
He stumbled down the hill of garbage that he’d been lying on, listening and looking for a hint of red or blue armor.
His memories were jumbled and confusing--he couldn’t remember where he’d been before waking up in the middle of nowhere. Which was pretty worrying, given that there was still no sign of the others--not even Kimball or Palomo. Everything seemed to be deserted.
He finally gave up, and reached for his radio. “Guys?” He called, first broadcasting to the Blue’s channel, then the one they shared with the Reds.
There was nothing but static.
Tucker tried not to panic. It was probably nothing. He probably was just out of range or something. Or the Pirates were blocking the signal. Yeah. That was totally it. Nothing was wrong. Just the pirates being dicks. As usual.
He kicked the nearest piece of junk out of frustration, sending it flying.
“Ow!”
The voice was small. Tucker rushed forward, reaching for his sword, in case it was an enemy.
The piece of trash he had kicked had been a gauntlet of sorts--some sort of fancy armor that Tucker didn’t recognize. But he did recognize the thing it had collided with.
A storage unit for AI. But it looked different than the one that Wash and the Meta had trapped Church in, ages ago. It looked sleeker. Newer. Modified. And it was glowing with a pale red light.
“What the fuck?” Tucker muttered to himself, not touching the unit. But it was enough to alert whatever it was to his presence. The light flashed brighter, and the voice came back.
“Who’s there? Are you a friend?”
“I’m Tucker,” he said, squinting at the small projection that emerged from the unit. It was wearing armor, like all the other AI Tucker had seen before. But it looked... smaller, somehow. And it sounded young. Like a kid.
“I’m Hope!” The AI said. “Nice to meet you, Tucker!”
“What the fuck are you doing in a junkyard?” Tucker asked, looking around. There was nothing around him that gave any sort of hint.
“The Chairman said I was useless,” Hope muttered, looking down at his feet. “I couldn’t help.”
Tucker stared, trying to make sense of what the young AI had said. “The Chairman? As in Hargrove?”
Hope nodded. “He’s not very nice,” he whispered, as if confiding some huge secret to Tucker instead of just stating one of the fundamental facts of the universe.
“No,” Tucker said. “He’s not. He’s kind of an asshole.” He finally picked up the unit, straightening up as he cradled it in his hands. Even the unit was smaller than Epsilon’s had been. Tucker wondered if that was because it was a newer model, or because of how small Hope was. “Want to help stop him?” An AI was an AI, Tucker figured. They could use all the help they could get. And Tucker could also really use backup, given that he had no clue where his friends were, or where he was. He couldn’t think of any junkyards nearby.
He still couldn’t remember where he’d been before this. Or what he’d been doing. He hoped he remembered soon.
Even if Hope wasn't a combat assist AI, or whatever Hargrove had been hoping for, Hope would probably still be useful.
Hope seemed to hesitate for a moment. His light got dim, and he seemed to shrink slightly. “Can I help?”
Jeeze, he really sounded like a kid. Tucker missed Junior for a moment, which was stupid, because Junior didn’t speak English. And he also was a hell of a lot safer at boarding school than he would be if he was with Tucker on Chorus.
“Well, you probably can’t hurt, since we’re generally pretty fucked,” Tucker said with a shrug as he forced himself to focus again.
Hope paused again. “Yes,” he finally said. “I want to help.”
“Awesome!” Tucker said, grinning. “Think you can help me figure a way out of this dump?”
“Yeah!” Hope said, flashing brighter for a moment. He was bigger again, too. Tucker wondered if this was a normal thing. Church only had ever changed sizes when he was in the Reds’ freaky holographic projection chamber. The rest of the time he just stayed tiny.
“Alright, which way?” Hope pointed, and Tucker started walking.
The junk yard was a maze. As he went further in, Tucker spotted things that were less military in manner. There were some cars that didn’t look like they had ever had a gun attached to them. There were broken window frames. There were what appeared to be flower pots .
Tucker stepped on something surprisingly soft. He looked down, expecting to be really grossed out.
Instead, he realized with a start that he was standing on a doll . A cloth, rag doll with yarn for hair and a little blue dress.
He looked around again, and his stomach plummeted as he came to a realization.
This part of the dump was a town. Ripped up, completely bulldozed over, and thrown here to rot. Entire houses, cars, street signs too.
It didn’t make sense. The New Republic and the Feds wouldn't do something like that. There wasn’t any point! Some of the cars probably still had parts that could be used, and the houses might have had supplies in them.
Tucker had known that this had to be a Merc dumpsite, but when had they had the time to bulldoze entire settlements? Shouldn’t they be focused on the war?
Tucker needed to tell Kimball about this.
“Left turn here,” Hope said to him.
“Right,” Tucker said, dropping the doll. He hoped the kid it had belonged to was okay.
Looking around, he couldn’t help but doubt it.
The dump was surrounded by a chain-link fence, but Tucker cut through it with his sword easily, and grinned. “Great job!” He said to Hope. “We’re out of there!”
“Now where do we go?”
“Well, first I need to figure out where we are,” Tucker said.
“Oh!” Hope said, flickering brighter again. His avatar bounced slightly, as if jumping up and down with excitement. “I know! I know!”
“Yeah?” Tucker said, grinning. “Where are we?” He hoped it wasn’t too far. He wanted to find the others, and fast.
“We’re nearly at Armonia! That’s the capital!” Hope said proudly.
Tucker froze. “Where’s Armonia, kid?” He asked, quietly. His heart was racing. Something was very wrong.
“Right in front of you!” Hope said, pointing.
Tucker turned his attention back to the horizon.
Armonia had never been a nice city in Tucker’s experience. Colony cities rarely were, and Chorus had been at war for fucking ever, so making things look nice was far from the priority list. Armonia was held together by duct tape and prayers, but it was sturdy at heart. It had survived years of war. It was safe .
He wanted to puke, seeing it like this.
He had smelled smoke earlier. Now he knew where it was coming from.
There was a huge cloud of ash hanging over the city. Smoke filled the air, and the fire was burning so bright and large that Tucker’s HUD automatically dimmed itself to compensate.
He looked around, trying to make sense of everything. His heart seemed to only speed up as he took it all in. He hadn’t looked around before. He’d only focused on what was right in front of him.
Gigantic ships filled the air, all of them military vessels with a gigantic familiar symbol stamped on them.
They all bore the logo Charon Industries, emblazoned clearly for everyone to see.
Tucker stumbled backwards, his back colliding with the fence. “No,” he whispered. Because he remembered now.
The spooky laboratory not far from Armonia.
The alien pillar.
The lieutenants.
Felix.
And the others. All of them had been in Armonia. They were still there.
The flames seemed to rise up high enough to lick at the sky, flickering ominously as they burned everything they touched. Entire buildings were collapsing. This was no ordinary fire. Tucker wondered how they set it.
The grass beneath him was dead and withered and brown. Everywhere he looked, everything was dead. The trees, the grass, the bushes. Even the sky looked different, although the fire might have something to do with that.
Tucker dropped his sword.
He had been wrong.
Hope couldn’t help them.
Because the war was already over.