Chapter 42: Terms of Survival

Four years had passed since that fateful outing in Fredericksburg. Rick and Rachel had become closer than ever from this change in their relationship. Both had kept their word. If Rachel didn’t wake him up with his cock in her mouth, she was simply riding him. Rick for his part was dragged everywhere every time the need took her to scratch an itch and always delivered. The only exception being when on mission.

They may have been going at it like rabbits but they were still professional first and foremost.

During those four years, many things had changed. The biggest of them all was the slight repurpose of their Unit. After the fall of the World Trade Center in 2001 caused by terrorists hijacking planes, the War on Terror began. The unit were given regular targets that weren’t related to bio-terrorism and mainly acted in the Middle East.

That wasn’t to say they didn’t deal with bio-weapons anymore. It just meant their area of action had been broadened. The search and information gathering on HCF had brought little. The few times they had a confrontation, the para military organization was attacking a rival complex to their employers. Usually successful in folding their plans, the Unit was unfortunately reactive only without proper leads.

It had also been active in dealing with outbreaks from other sources. The first real one was in India in 2002. A general, leader of his militaristic country, had been in contact with a company in the US selling the T-virus. Around five hundred people had been infected and had to be put down. The Unit had been dispatched quickly by the US Government to resolve the mess quietly and get information on the seller.

It took three days to clean everything up. Thanks to the anti-viral Sky had recovered from their mission in Mexico, a vaccine for the T-virus had been tested. Rick didn’t know much about the results, it wasn't his place to know. All he knew was that the US had charged WP corporation to create said vaccine and that it hasn’t been quite a success. There was a part about a scandal with the company afterward but he didn’t care.

In the end both governments agreed to cover everything. The general who had only been interested in B.O.W to make his small country stronger ended up disavowing them when the risk was too big for his own population.

At the time, Rick didn’t know if should have been furious for the cover up or hilarious to know a military dictator cared about his people.

The same year at a later date, the Unit got wind of a big case. While publicly Umbrella was struggling with the Raccoon City trials which had been started by Jill, Chris and other survivors of the outbreak, they were still doing very well in the black market.

Part of team Alpha found itself infiltrating a cruiser ship, the Spencer Rain, to shut down the latest Bio-weaponry auction. It had been a carnage. A former Umbrella employee had created a terrorist organisation and had taken over the ship, releasing all the B.O.W. held in the cargo. The celebrities, politicians and business people on the ship had been infected. Rick and Rachel’s mission went from arresting everyone to survival very fast. Alone, at sea and with little in terms of weapons they had done their very best to kill everything on board and contact the rest of the team who had been on standby.

The hardest part had been to deal with the terrorists until their leader simply infected them too. No matter how powerful the bio-weapons were, with their lack of intelligence, the pair had better odds. It all ended with the death of the leader who had injected himself with a T+G virus. It had been a very difficult fight and the only reason they made it out alive was because Umbrella had loaded onto the ship a new weapon prototype able to destroy flesh at a molecular level.

Rachel had been absolutely overjoyed with the particle rifle, right until it broke down after three shots. Still, it had been enough for them to come out of it in relatively one piece.

The information they got from the belongings of the passengers had helped greatly the Unit. They got the locations of multiple black sites and laboratories they took down as fast as they could.

It all led them to the current mission in Greenland.

Or rather, the clusterfuck that it was.

“Let me see.” Roach ordered and Liquid batted his hand away. “Liquid.” he called out her code name in an authoritative voice.

“Worm…” She said out of breath. “Take care… of…”

Roach didn’t even bother to look at their teammate leaning down against the wall on the opposite side of the room. “He’s going to turn soon.”

He grabbed Liquid’s face forcefully and had a look at the wound going from slightly above her brow to the beginning of her cheek right below the eye. There was lots of blood coming from the vertical line.

“How.. do you—”

“He got bitten close to the neck.” Roach was still looking at the lesion and opened his medical pouch. “I took him with us so I could collect his dog tags and his gear.”

“You’re…” She didn’t have enough air to finish her sentence.

Roach wondered if some of her ribs weren’t cracked or broken. It had been such a sudden mess and he wasn’t able to divert his attention to his teammates. Not when he was fighting for his own life. The result was what it was. They had to retreat in a hurry and find a safe area. His friend, Worm, had been bitten along the way and Rick carried him while dealing with any other B.O.W. coming his and Liquid’s way. He could have left his teammate behind since he was condemned but he didn’t want to come back to search for his dog tags and his equipment. It wasn’t like Worm’s weight meant anything to him.

“Cold? A bastard?”

Liquid grunted in pain when he sprayed anti-septic on her wound. “Argh!”

With a clean compress, he began to clean the damaged area. With less blood in the way he was able to determine how bad it was. “Okay, I don’t think the eye had been hit. You’re lucky.” He put pressure to stop the bleeding.

“I’m disfigured, yay~” Liquid’s tone was weak and didn’t match the enthusiasm of her words. Her left eye looked deep into his. There was pain and fear in it. Roach’s were emotionless. He didn’t have time for emotion. His partner needed medical attention and he needed to set everything else aside but the goal at hand.

“First off. Scar or not you’re gorgeous. Second. It doesn’t matter. With how big your tits are, it’s not your face men are looking at.”

Liquid began to laugh then quickly groaned in pain, her hand going right under her right breasts. “Please… Don’t… Don’t make me… laugh.”

“I wasn’t trying to. I was just telling the truth. The men you usually go after are more interested in your tits than your face.”

That was true and she knew it. Liquid didn’t do relationships. Not even short term. She found a guy she liked and fucked him once, maybe once in a blue moon twice but never more. The only one she had sex more was Roach. He was her partner, her best friend, they lived together and were in agreement about what they shared. Intimity but not romantic love. A boundary they were more than happy with. Especially when Roach was out of base and Liquid wanted to scratch an itch. She simply went to a bar in Fredericksburg and spent the night with a Tom, John or Harry who were more interested in ramming her pussy and playing with her tits than looking in her eyes.

“Bastard.” She complained but there was no heat in her insult.

“Probably. I never knew if my parents were married or not. Always assumed they were but daddy dearest was scum so perhaps not.”

A guttural moan came from the other side of the room. Without looking, Roach grabbed his tomahawk with his free hand and threw it in the direction of the noise. A loud thud sound mixed with something splashing was heard and silence returned.

Liquid’s lone eye was still fixed on Roach. “You didn’t even… hesitate.”

“I didn’t have a reason to, my friend died.” He removed the compress a bit to see the state of the bleeding. It had slowed down considerably but hadn’t stopped yet. “You’d have done the same.”

“Yeah… but not that fast. Will… you be as fast for me?”

Roach’s answer was immediate. “I won’t.”

She gave him a tired smile. “You should.”

“I won’t because you won’t be infected. I’ll save your fat ass before that happens.”

The matter of factly tone he had amused her. It wasn’t the first time he said things like this to her. Had it been anyone else, she wouldn’t have believed those words. But he had told her the same thing on the Spencer Rain almost two years ago. He had gotten hurt plenty of times and badly for her. Were it not for his healing factor he would have died at least four times trying to save her life during that particularly hellish mission.

“My ass is not fat!”

“The fuck it isn’t.” He frowned. “It jiggles when I slap it, and it’s twice as big as my hands.”

Liquid still felt offended. “It’s just… big.”

“Damn right it is. Especially when you're sitting in my lap and lean forward to bounce on my cock. Pure perfection.”

Once again she began to laugh and stop abruptly from the pain in her chest. “Fucker… I told you to not… make me laugh.”

“Again, I’m not trying to. It’s just your sense of humor that’s fucked up.”

Roach looked again and this time no blood was flowing from the wound. He discarded the compress and took a new one. He applied another round of anti-septic spray and covered the eye. “Hold it there. I’m going to bandage you.”

This time, he removed his medical pouch from his belt and laid it to the side on the ground. He picked up some adhesive bandage and put it on the compress and her skin so everything would hold alone. Then he took the normal bandage roll and began to wrap it around Liquid’s head, making sure the vision of her left eye wouldn’t be impaired.

“Fucking Hunter.” She whispered.

Another strip of adhesive letter and everything was tightly tied up. Roach rummaged through his pouch and found the injector pen he was looking for.

“It might have been a sweeper so I’m injecting you with the antidote just in case. This is going to burn for a bit.”

He showed what he had in hand and searched for the vein in her neck. Liquid grunted but gave him a nod of acknowledgment. She gritted her teeth in preparation from the prick of the needle and the burning feeling the antidote had. It lasted less than ten seconds but it was very uncomfortable.

“I knew that mission was… going to be shit.”

Roach began to unstrap her tactical vest. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I felt the same as the Spencer Rain.” She muffled a scream of pain when she had to raise her right arm to allow Roach to remove the vest.

“Well… That’s a terrifying intuition you got but we made it didn’t we? We will make it today too.”

He began to unbutton her uniform mechanically while paying attention to not be too rough. The sight of her voluptuous breasts clad in a skin tight sports bra didn’t arouse him a single bit for the first time since they started to have sex together. They were still big, shapely and perky, absolutely perfect but none of that crossed his mind. Roach was focused on analyzing any wound his partner had and nothing else mattered.

“I don’t think we will. They knew we… We were coming. Their reaction time… had been way too fast. It was a trap.” She winced when he gently propped the one part of her chest that hurt.

What Liquid was saying made sense. Roach had thought of it too. Their mission had been leaked somehow. His first suspect was someone who knew about the Unit and very, very few people knew about them and even less about what they did. He didn’t have a name or a face though. His second suspect was that someone in the team betrayed them. Worm was out since he was dead. Had he been the one to sell them he would have made precaution to survive. Everyone else was possibly the traitor. He doubted Liquid was the one though. He had no proof of it but he trusted her more than anyone.

Roach stopped palping her body, relieved that only a few ribs were bruised. “I agree. Everyone is a suspect.”

“Even… me?” She batted her eyes innocently, trying to be humorous despite the nightmare they were in.

“Not you, no.” He picked up the paracetamol gel and poured some on the hurt area.

“HoOOoo. Cold!” Liquid exclaimed, then winced again when she felt Roach hand spreading the gel gently on her skin. “Why not me? Why can’t I be a traitor? Maybe I botched the plan and got hurt.”

“You couldn’t be. There is no way you’d betray me, you love my cock too much.” Roach answered in his usual cold and matter of factly tone.

She snorted and grunted loudly. It took great effort for her to contain her urge to chuckle. “Touché. I’d miss it way too much.”

Roach applied another compress to act as a barrier for the gel. It wouldn’t do if it entered into contact with the bandage. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but your tits are a nuisance. I need you to lift them up so I can bandage you properly.”

“Sheesh. You really know how to talk to a lady.” Despite her words of complaint she grabbed her chest and pushed it up.

His answer was straight flat. “No lady sucks cocks like it's the greatest thing in the world.” He unfurled the whole bandage roll and began to wrap it around her. “Nor do they ask to have their ass fuck so hard they can’t ever walk again.”

Liquid bit her lips to not snort again. “It’s only for you and you loved every letter of my dirty talk.”

“Guilty as charged.” He finished a third turn and made sure everything was tight. “Are we using the radio to contact the others?”

She took a moment to answer. With a possible traitor it was a dangerous gambit. “Yeah. I think we should but I also think we should hide that I’m still alive, just in case.” With Roach being done she released her breasts who lowered themselves to take back their normal position.

“I’m the most likely to survive the ordeal.”

He nodded and tidied up his medical pouch. Liquid straightened up and began to dress back up. Using her right arm was still painful and complicated but she endured the pain.

Roach picked up his radio on his chest and gave her a look. Once he got a nod from Liquid he activated it.

“This is Roach. Is anyone there?” He released the talk button and waited for a bit. When no one answered he tried again. “This is Roach. Is any—”

“This is… Sky. I hear you… Roach.” The voice that came from the radio was the one of their team leader and Captain. Of that there was no doubt. It sounded strained.

He exchanged a look with Liquid. “Worm and Liquid didn’t make it. Your side?”

Team Alpha and Beta were supposed to infiltrate the complex from two different locations. When they were deep inside and that explosion was heard and felt, the corridor Team Alpha was in collapsed on top of it. Sky and Crow were separated from Roach, Liquid and Worm. The second group encountered a massive number of zombies and hunters when they tried to find another way to regroup with the two others. With all the commotion and fighting they didn’t have the time to use the radio. Considering Sky didn’t either and from her tired voice she and Crow may have gone through the same experience.

“Crow’s… gone. She was… hit on the head… by falling debris.”

“Team Beta?” Roach frowned at the news of his teammate’s death and Liquid looked saddened. She liked the woman.

“No contact… since their last. I fear it’s only… us two left.”

“I need a bit of rest but I’m uninjured. I can meet—”

“No. Get out of here… Save…. Yourself.”

“Not happening. You’re still alive, ma’am and we have a mission to finish.” He answered with a scowl.

“I’m done for, Roach. I've found… A hiding place but I’m… surrounded. I don’t know how… How long it will take for them to… To… find me in the chaos…. Been hit by a bullet and left a trail of… blood.”

“Ma’am, listen and listen well. First off, Fuck you, I’m not leaving you behind. Second, I’m not leaving without completing the mission. Third, I will kill any and every son of a whore on my way. It’s for a reason like this that the Major recruited me. So treat that wound, sit tight and wait for me.”

“Roach… It’s a trap. We’ve been betrayed. Do not trust anyone.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, ma’am. I’m the survival expert. Now where the fuck are you?”

Sky’s answer took some time to come. For a moment he and Liquid thought she had just croaked. “I continued the… mission and went West… Went down a level. B5.”

Roach stood up and went to Worm’s body to pry his axe from the skull it was buried into. “I’ll be there soon, ma’am. Roach out.”

He turned around and saw Liquid standing on her feet.

“Let’s take stock of our gear,” She simply said.

Silently, he crouched down and began to loot his dead teammate's body. They had very little time to waste and they needed all the resources they could get.