Chapter 39: The Long Ride Home

Liquid was looking with mixed feelings at her partner. Both anger and annoyance. Roach was breathing heavily and absolutely covered in grime, blood and whatever else a bio-weapon was made of.

He had fought alone until no more B.O.W, were left. The last one had been a Tyrant prototype and it was Sky who took care of it by hitting it from the side with her rocket launcher. By that time, Roach was out of ammo and using his body and tomahawk to survive.

“Got… Anything… to eat?”

His question took Liquid aback. She didn’t know if he was joking or if he was really hungry. After everything he just went through, she would bet on the latter. Regardless of her thoughts or feelings, she picked a high sugar bar from a pocket of her tactical vest and tossed it at him in silence.

Roach caught it and immediately shredded the wrapping paper. “Thanks.”

“We don’t have time for you to take five, Roach,” Sky chimed in.

“Yeah, yeah, I have to transfer the data and all.” He grumbled as he walked past the ladies and up the stairs. “It would have been nice if you had helped.”

Sky’s defence was logical and she knew he would agree with it. “It was the best opportunity to evaluate the extent of your battle efficiency.”

Liquid thought it had been excessive, especially in the middle of a mission even though she partially understood why their Captain had forbidden her to act. She followed Roach back to the command room where he transferred everything from the computers there into the hard drive. Sky picked up the multiple compact dick neatly stowed on a small shelf, not forgetting the one in the computer. Especially this one since it held Roach’s fight or so Liquid supposed.

“Huh, the nuke button is here.” He remarked, leaning forward to the computer screen.

“Nuke button?”

Sky translated for Liquid. “Self-destruction of the complex.”

Roach spoke more. “Yeah. It’s set on a ten minute timer. Can’t change it.”

“How long until the completion of the transfer?”

“Twenty five minutes, ma’am.”

The captain thought for a moment about what to do. They were pressed by time, the rest of her team and Team Beta were waiting on standby and had orders to act if she wasn’t out at a certain time. Looking at her watch, she made a choice.

“I’ll go to the surface to delay Team Beta’s order. Roach I want you to loot as much stuff as you can the armory. It’s good equipment, no need to let it go to waste.”

“Roger that.”

“Liquid, I want you to find anything you can on those men and the mercenaries in the Main Hall.” Sky pointed at the two mercenaries belonging to the third party. “I don't have much hope but we can’t overlook it.”

Orders given, she turned around and left the control room. Her departure let place to a very tense silence between her two subordinates.

“I wanted to tell you—”

“Don’t.” Liquid cut Roach off. “We’re finishing this mission, we’re getting back to base and then you’re going to tell me all about the shit you pulled and why you didn’t tell me before. You’re my fucking partner and I expect… expected a modicum of trust.”

“And you have it. That’s why I was going to tell you before you saw for yourself. For the record, the only other person I told without being pressured to do so was my ex. And seeing how our relationship turned out and ended, I wasn’t very enthusiastic at the prospect of sharing even though I knew I needed to.”

Liquid stared at him for a moment, then simply chose to ignore everything for the order she got. She walked toward one of the dead men and crouched down to inspect their gear.

Roach didn’t tarry when she moved. He had a task to deal with and he would acquit himself of it. Fast. Instead of walking leisurely to the armory he sprinted. It wasn’t difficult for him to find the room, it was at the end of the long corridor.

Inside were rack upon rack of weapons. Most of them were obsolete, the unit having far better on base. From the gun to sub-machine guns nothing was worth taking with the exception of the four revolver magnums. Opening an empty crate from a pile of them in a corner of the room, he stored away all the grenades, hand grenades and ammo boxes lying around along the four .44 caliber.

While he was opening another crate and Liquid was stripping down the mercs to their undies, Sky was exiting the secret elevator back to the surface. After trying her radio she was able to get into contact with the rest of her team and Team Beta.

“This is Sky. Liquid, Roach and I found what we were looking for but have been delayed. We’re back on track now but we need,” she looked at her watch and counted. “Thirty more minutes to be done.”

“Queen, here. Roger that, Sky. Should we pull out?”

“Yes. Return to the evac point. Roach is going to blow up the whole complex sky high and we’d need to be out of there as quickly as possible. Crow, you too, leave the humvee behind.”

“Roger that ma’am.”

“I’m going back down, Sky over.”

She cut off the communication and went back down to the hidden area. Instead of going right and regrouping with her subordinates, she went left and entered the lab area. Each room was searched meticulously until she found what she thought might be there.

The T-virus and its anti viral agent.

It wasn’t the objective of the mission but if she could find either or both it might help fight the bio-weapon or prevent another Racoon City from happening.

As Sky was going through each freezer one by one, Roach was done hoarding as much gear as he could. He had tied another rocket launcher box onto his back and strapped around two crates that he put around his neck. He looked absolutely ridiculous, like a mule that had been given too much merchandise to carry and wouldn’t be able to take a single step. For Roach, however, it wasn’t a problem.

Making his way back to the control room, he encountered Liquid. She was finishing investigating the two men she had killed earlier.

“Found anything?” He asked her.

“Almost nothing. Just,” She looked up from the body and froze when she saw Roach’s appearance. It was as if her brain was having a bug of some sort and couldn’t process what she was seeing. In the end it chose to ignore it. “H.C.F. that’s all I could find out.”

“That’s… I think it’s a private military organization working for a rival company of Umbrella. Wesker was at their head when they attacked Rockfort Island last December.”

Liquid nodded and got up from her knees. “ A flimsy lead but better than nothing. Do… You need help with…” She waved at the load he was carrying.

Roach shrugged. “Not really but, since you offer.” He handed her one of the crates and she nearly dropped it from the heavy weight she hadn’t expected.

“What the fuck.” She whispered. Glancing at Roach, words nearly left her mouth but she held them back.

“2102 lbs.” He took the crate back. “That’s the max I can bench press. Although it’s just one lift. Won’t see me run with that much weight ever.”

Liquid opened her mouth slowly only to close it without making a single sound. What could she say to that? Nothing. She was still struggling with accepting what her partner could do despite having watched him defy common sense for fifteen minutes straight.

“Come on. The sooner we’re done the sooner we’re back to the base and the sooner I can tell you all about it. A few things are pretty, a few things are not.”

She simply nodded and followed him. Back in the control room, the transfer was now complete. Immediately he contacted Sky.

“Ma’am, transfer is over. Liquid and I are done with our orders.”

“Roger. Launch the auto-destruction, we’ll meet at the elevator. Don’t tarry.”

“Understood.”

Roach disconnected the hard drive and handed it to his teammate from safe keeping. The truth was, he didn’t have any space left to carry it. After bringing up the window containing the self-destruct command he activated it. Liquid was already going out the door in a small run and he followed her. Despite the weight on him he could keep up without any problem.

From his calculation, they reached the elevator in one minute and waited one more, for Sky to join them, small case in hand. It took three minutes to reach the surface and one more to get to the entrance of the building.

Liquid took point and gunned down the few guards on their way out not missing a single one of them. Once outside they didn’t stop running, Roach going through the fenced gate like a ram on legs fueled on nitro. Sky took a sprint and reached the Humvee first, taking the driver seat. From her position she opened the trunk and Liquid helped Roach unload everything. They just made it inside when the building began to explode. Stepping on the gas, Sky drove out of the area as fast as she could, dodging some debris falling down.

“This is Sky. We’re out. On our way to evac point. ETA… Twenty minutes.”

“Roger that, Sky. We just arrived five minutes ago. Chaser is parking the humvee deep for you to directly drive in. Queen and Snake are in the cockpit starting the engine.”

“I want the plane to take off the moment we’re in.”

At her side, Liquid had removed her mask. Her long blonde hair had fallen over her shoulders, a big lock of hair covering one of her eyes. Yet it was enough for Roach to know that he was in deep trouble if he didn’t present the answers she wanted in a good manner.

Inwardly sighing, the youngest member of the unit felt like taking a nap. He couldn’t however and held the stare of his partner silently.

When they arrived at the abandoned airport, Sky didn’t slow down until the vehicle was twenty feet from the plane’s ramp. Once inside, she turned the engine off and the plane began moving; Crow closed the ramp behind them.

With a five hours flight to get back to Washington DC, Roach chose to catch some shut eye. His battle in the arena had been exhausting. Adding to that the look Liquid was giving him and how hungry he was, he chose to ignore it all and let tomorrow Roach deal with everything.