[psl] Tex & Connie Espionage AU

[a_shadow]

Timeline • Tex finds Connie's dog tags in her locker • Scrapyard mission • Connie approaches Wash

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[a_shadow]

Tex has deployed in a Pelican, separately from the rest of the troops, as usual. All there is to do is wait for the Director's orders to call her in. She paces the back of the bird for a while, but the longer she waits, the more she's starting to realize that if said orders didn't come soon, she'd miss her rendezvous with Connie.

"Open the hatch," she calls forward to the pilot.

"What? You don't have orders to deploy yet," the pilot says.

Tex stomps forward to the cockpit door. "Open. the. hatch."

"All right, geez," the pilot says, opening it.

Tex launches herself from the back of the Pelican, aiming for the outside of the ship near the rendezvous point. She finds the entrance point and slips inside.

[liesdontfindyou]

The artificial gravity of the scrapped ship still works in places and Connie's grav boots don't have to do much to keep her upright as she paces in the hallway beneath the entrance point, waiting.

Her contact is waiting, too, on what remains of the ship's bridge, but she refuses to go ahead until Texas arrives. So, she paces, until finally she hears movement at the entrance and turns to greet Tex.

Her shoulders slump noticeably in relief when she sees her. "You made it."

[a_shadow]

"Seems like they were too busy on the bridge to think about me," she says with a little half-shrug. Hopefully her little move of deploying herself wouldn't cause her any trouble.

[liesdontfindyou]

"Good," Connie says, nodding slowly. "The fighting should keep them occupied long enough for us to slip in and out."

She reaches into her ammo storage and pulls out a standard project data drive with a sigh.

"My contact is up on the bridge. I just need to hand this over to him and tell him I'm going back. With you there, he hopefully won't argue about it."

Hopefully.

[a_shadow]

Tex nods, then draws to Connie's side as they start making their way to the bridge. Stealth is important in this instance, so Tex doesn't try to make conversation. She wants to know more about what's going on, and how it all came to be, but this isn't the right time to ask.

[liesdontfindyou]

It's... strange, in a way, to be doing this with someone at her side. There's no sense of discomfort, quite the opposite; Connie isn't used to feeling as safe as she does walking through the long-abandoned halls of the ship with Tex beside her. Not after everything.

She can't help but glance at her out of the corner of her eye every now and again, though she does her best to hide it.

She holds up a closed fist when they come up on the bridge's entrance. The doors aren't open and muffled voices can be heard on the other side, but Connie stops before they reach it.

Instead, she gestures at a hole in the roof and signals Texas for a boost up. Over a private channel, she talks in a hushed voice: "I'm going to drop in on them. Can you trigger the door on my cue?"

[a_shadow]

"Roger," Tex says, putting her hands together to boost her. It seems unnecessary, but they're Freelancers. Unnecessary dramatics are what they do.

She stands back and out of the way afterwards, preparing to trigger the door.

[liesdontfindyou]

Another Connie appears in front of her a second later, repeating a short motion of drawing her weapon on the door. Up in the ceiling, Connie prepares to drop in and signals Tex with a sweet and simple flash of an acknowledgement light on her HUD.

The hologram freezes the second the doors are open, gun aimed into the room, until its destroyed by a burst of frantic gunfire.

She doesn't let more than a beat of silence go by before dropping in on the leader and his guards, disarming them with ease.

"Your security is still shoddy," she says, tossing the leader the rifle she'd taken. "We crept up on you easily, someone else could have to."

The leader huffs.

"I hardly think that— wait, we?"

[a_shadow]

"Yes, we," Tex says, stepping out of the shadows.

[liesdontfindyou]

The two guards automatically go for sidearms they're no longer in possession of and the leader raises his newly acquired rifle.

Another hologram appears in front of him, faster than Connie could move, and it makes his aim falter long enough for Connie to wrench it back out of his hands.

"Who is this?" the leader snaps, as Connie steps up to stand between him and Tex herself. Her steps seem a little shakier. "You're bringing other Freelancers here now?"

"Yes, I am," Connie says. She pulls out the data and tosses it over; he barely catches it. "She's an ally. You remember me telling you about Texas?"

"...the AI woman?"

Connie stares at him. "Really? What if she hadn't already known, Jarret?"

[a_shadow]

Tex does know, of course. She knows it more than she knows anything else in life, at this point. So that comment shouldn't bother her.

It does, though.

She steps into the room with Connie and draws up to her side.

"Be careful what you say about other people," she says. "But yes, she showed me. I know."

[liesdontfindyou]

Jarret looks between them, his expression lost under his visor. After a long moment of silence, he settles his gaze on Connie.

"How do you know you can trust her?"

"She came to me. You have to trust me to have made the right judgement call. If she was anything but trustworthy, I'd probably be dead right now," Connie says, frankly.

She's come close enough times lately, so she'd be lying if she said that the possibility of the tags on Tex's locker backfiring hadn't crossed her mind before Tex approached her.

"We're not here to argue with you. I'm here to hand over the data to you and then, once you've checked it, we're leaving."

That piques his interest. "You think you can go back safely after disobeying direct orders and abandoning your squad?"

[a_shadow]

"We'll come up with some story," Tex says dismissively. "From what I'm hearing on the radios, everything out there is utter chaos anyway. It won't be hard to believe we got separated from the rest."

[liesdontfindyou]

"Maybe, maybe not," Jarret says with a shrug. His next question is directed towards Tex: "Did she tell you she almost got caught barely a month ago? She's on thin ice."

Connie's jaw tightens. "That's part of why Tex is here. If I'm with her, it doesn't look like I just took off on my own."

"I wasn't talking to you, Connie."

[a_shadow]

"She didn't, but she didn't need to," Tex says, insistent on keeping a unified front for now. They can discuss that privately later. "Either way, we need to get back quick here."

[liesdontfindyou]

"Check the drive and then we'll leave," Connie says, rubbing her kevlar-clad fingers against her palm. There's no scar to pick through it, but the friction is soothing.

Maybe this was a mistake, after all.

Jarret shakes his head and turns to the still functioning terminals that line the wall of the bridge and inserts the drive.

"What's new?" Jarret asks.

"They're speeding up production. The new AI was split off earlier than he usually would be. Otherwise... the biggest development is Tex."

"Alright." He scans over the data in silence before ejecting it. "This is the last chance we might have to bail you out, Connie. Think about your options."

He holds out a hand to her.

Connie straightens her back and stands her ground. "I'm going back. This isn't negotiable."

[a_shadow]

"Come on," Tex urges. She's checked into the Freelancer radios again. They've launched into space using their jet packs. "They're coming."

[liesdontfindyou]

Jarret continues to hold out his hand, but Connie ignores it and nods at Tex, turning to leave with her. She wants out of here, now.

That's when he grabs her around the wrist with force and tugs her back to face him.

"You're making a mistake, Connie, and you know it."

[a_shadow]

Tex whips out her pistol.

"Let go of her before I make you regret it."

[liesdontfindyou]

Jarret stares at her, down the barrel of the gun, for a straight second before he actually lets go, but he does. He drops her arm and stands back, not holding up his hands but surrendering nonetheless.

Connie retreats quickly behind Tex, though she almost stumbles over her own feet. Her head is spinning and she can smell iron beneath her nose.

Maybe using her unit twice in an unfamiliar environment wasn't her best choice.

[a_shadow]

Tex backs out of the bridge, still holding her weapon on the leader, until she reaches the door. At that point she turns to follow Connie back.

[liesdontfindyou]

Thankfully, he has the sense to stay where he is.

Connie strides just ahead of Tex until one of her knees gives out under her and she has to brace herself against one of the ship's walls and fully engage her grav boots to stop herself falling, her head spinning faster and faster.

If she was in atmosphere, she'd be wrenching off her helmet, but unfortunately the ship has no air to speak of and whilst exposing herself to the vacuum of space would certainly still her mind, it wouldn't be in any way she'd appreciate.

[a_shadow]

Tex puts a hand on Connie's shoulder.

"You okay?"

She's obviously not, but at this point they can't take much time for Connie to be sick.

[liesdontfindyou]

"I'm fine," she lies. "This happens sometimes. Unit use, no AI, my brain's not really built for it. I just need a second."

She forces it to only be a second, steeling herself and swallowing down the brewing nausea. The hand on her shoulder is grounding.

Her wrist throbs, slightly, even though Jarret's grip wasn't strong enough to hurt.

"Thanks for the help back there," she says when she stands straight again. She's ready to move, or at least as ready as she's going to be.

[a_shadow]

Tex can see through the lie, but she doesn't say anything. That can come later. After Connie straightens she lowers her hands to her side.

"Yeah, no problem," she says in response to the thanks. "Guy seemed to think he was in charge of you."

They're back to the airlock where she had slipped in and she climbs into it, preparing her jetpack.