Zone approaches Tucker, who is sitting down rubbing his hand through his hair. 

"Well, I'm patched up. Grey really hounded me on the whole "sacrificial" thing. You know, I don't think I've ever seen a civilian lecture me like that before. It was...pretty entertaining, actually." Zone chuckled. 

"Hey Zone, uh, you got a sec?" Tucker asks. 

"Dude I swear, if you want me to look at another rash, I won't hesitate to kick you into next week." 

"No, it's just...it feels like every choice I make is the worst." 

"Oh holy smokes, you're being serious." 

"Back at the canyon, you told me to try to be better, and ever since then, that's all people keep telling me! "Try this," "try that." Well I'm freaking trying, and so far all that happens is that I either get people killed or I ruin the mission! I mean, how are you supposed to know if you're making the right call?" 

"To be honest Tucker, there's never really a right or wrong answer. You just have to stick with what you think is best." Zone explains. 

"But what if what I think it's best totally sucks?" 

"Then you learn from it and you try again." 

"Oh my god. It's like you people are a freaking loop." Tucker groans. 

"Tucker, I know you're frustrated but you have to realize that making mistakes is just part of the deal. Back in the War I was the leader of my Spartan team, believe me I had made numerous mistakes because I went with what my gut told me. Nobody is infallible. Even with everything you've screwed up, look at how far you made it. You're not the same person you were back at Blood Gulch." 

"(Sigh) Is it bad that I kinda wish I was?" Tucker asks. 

"Yes! You were a terrible excuse for a human being." Zone replies bluntly. 

"Hey!" 

"I'm kidding." Zone chuckles, 

"Screw you, dude! I'm over here spilling my guts and crap, and you're cracking jokes?! That's messed up!" 

"Now who's being the melodramatic one?" 

"Man, I should've just left you with the Feds." 

Simmons approaches the two. "Hey Zone, can we borrow you for a second?" 

"Everything okay?" 

"Ever since that pirate guy regained consciousness, Carolina's been trying to get info out of him...but so far nothing is working." 

"So you need help with the interrogation?" 

"Actually...we were hoping you could calm down Carolina." Simmons states. Suddenly they hear a gunshot and breaking glass. 

"Why won't he talk?!" Carolina yells. 

"She's a liiittle frustrated." 

"(Sigh) Give me a minute." Zone then leaves. Tucker and Simmons walk up to the Reds and Caboose as they watch Zone try to calm down Carolina from outside the base. 

"Look Carolina, would you please-" Zone get knocked back by a giant can that Carolina threw out of base. He pushes it off his stomach and shakes his head. 

"Well she definitely takes after her mother." Xi states as she and Epsilon appear. 

"Was her mother some sort of silverback gorilla on steroids?" Sarge asks. 

"Yeah you better be happy her mother is not around to hear you say that!" Epsilon retorts. 

"How's it going?" Wash asks walking up. 

"Oh you know..terrible." Grif shrugs. 

"You still got the manifest?" Tucker asks the AI. 

"Yes actually, no thanks to you. The Reds did manage to bring back a completely intact drive with the ship's records and manifest." Epsilon scowls. 

"Yeah you know, suck it, Blue." Simmons scoffs. 

"And thanks to the Reds, those documents are currently locked!" Xi adds. 

"Oh...wait, yeah." Simmons sighs. 

"What?" Wash questions. 

"Yes apparently they accessed the ship's records the last time they were on board, but since they didn't have the proper clearance, the files are now in security lockdown." Xi explains. 

"Aren't you guys like part of the Matrix now? Why don't you just hack it?" Tucker asks. 

"Oh, why don't we just hack it? Oh while I'm at it, why don't I just download the mainframe and cross reference the data base, huh? Don't talk to us about technical crap. This is hard, okay? It's just making me a little..." 

"Frustrated?" Donut put in. 

"I was gonna say completely filled with rage, but yeah, frustrated." Epsilon agrees. 

Carolina walks over to the group. "Talking about me?" 

"Actually, no." Church replies. 

"I don't get it. He's not giving up anything." 

Dr. Grey walks over to the group. "Excuse me, I've been washing Arizona's blood off my armor so I'm a little late to the conversation. Did you say the prisoner is awake?" 

"For now, but I've got five bucks that says Carolina rips his spine out within the hour." Grif states. 

"I'll take those odds." Simmons grins. 

"I see. If you don't mind, do you think I could have a few minutes alone with him?" Dr. Grey. 

"Ha, you gonna give him a band aid for every beating he gets?" Sarge laughs. 

"Well if you recall, he and his partners turned every one of my friends at outpost 37 into piles of ash. Anyone sick enough to do something like that would almost certainly benefit from a uh...checkup." 

Zone and Carolina look at each other in confusion. Dr. Grey entered the base where she sees the Space Pirate restrained to a chair. 

"Ooh, Whats the matter? Did the big, bad Freelancer get all tuckered out?" The Pirate snickers. 

"Do you know where we are?" Dr. Grey asks. 

"Huh?" 

"This is a remote research facility designed to study the surrounding wildlife. I volunteered at one just like it at grad school. Its got a laboratory, an incinerator and oodles of state of the art surgical equipment. Would you like to see them?" Grey grins wickedly. 

Outside the base the Reds and Blues listen to the Pirate's screams of torture as Dr. grey sings opera. 

"Sarge...I'm scared." Simmons mutters nervously. 

"Simmons, we're all scared...except for me." Sarge breathes. Dr. Grey then emerges from the base. 

"His name's Zachary Miller, he's ex-military, and he was kind enough to hand over the coordinates to a nearby radio jamming tower." 

"You're kidding." Zone says monotone. 

"No silly, I'm Doctor Grey! Ha! Dad joke." 

Zone and Carolina look at each other unsure. "Alright, think hes in a position to answer a few more questions?" Carolina asks. 

"Oh absolutely! Lemme just go put him back together..." Grey then leads Zone, Wash and Carolina into the base. 

"You'll find his belongings on the crate over there and that his tone is much more positive." Grey leans close and gives him another sinister grin. "Isn't that right Zachary?" 

"For the love of God, get this psychopath away from me!" Zachary yells. 

"He's all yours!" Dr. Grey leaves the room.

"Hey Carolina, me and Xi are gonna go dark for a little bit, focus on this manifest. You got this?" Epsilon asks. 

"Oh yeah." Carolina laughs. "The radio jammers. Talk." 

"I already told your friend about the nearest one okay?" 

"We want to know about all of them." Zone says crossing his arms. 

"I don't know all of them! I swear! Look, if you take out the jammer at the coast, you'll at least be able to make contact with the capitol. That helps right? Now will you let me go?" Zachary begs. 

"There seems to be a misunderstanding compadre." Zone steps up and grabs the soldier by his collar. He lifts him high up, still tied to the chair. "Your options are either A, staying here forever or B, the incinerator directly behind you." Zone places him down and shows him the incinerator. 

"Ha, uh, good point. Well what else do you want?" He asks nervously. 

"The giant tower at Crash Site Alpha. What is it doing?" Carolina demands. 

"What? The tractor beams? That's why your ship crashed here in the first place. They're some of the only alien relics we've managed to activate. Ships come by, we pull them down and then kill everyone aboard. After that, the mercs sell the supplies to the armies. Would have worked on you too but something went wrong. It was like the ship tried to jump to slip-space, change course and power down all at the same time. It didn't make any sense. Instead of pulling you down, the ship got ripped apart." 

Zone and Carolina look at Wash. 

"I'm...gonna go ahead and claim partial responsibility for that." Wash says rubbing his helmet. 

"How many of you are there on Chorus?" Zone asks. 

"Ha, enough to get the job done." 

"Give me numbers or I give you back to the Doctor." Carolina threatens. 

"Whoa, let's not get hasty. Ah, there's a few dozen of us, alright?" 

"A few dozen?" Wash says shocked. 

"Quality over quantity. You Freelancers should know something about that. I worked for the mercs on another job along time ago. Guess I did good cause they came back, and they had the offer of a lifetime." 

"Wiping out an entire planet?" Zone questions. 

"You call it genocide, I call it one heck of a paycheck." Zachary shrugs. 

 "And who exactly is paying for all of this?" Carolina asks. 

"Beats me. The client sends us supplies and scientists to run the weapons manufacturing, but Locus and Felix are the only ones that talk with them. We'll get the occasional direct order if things are getting dicey but other than that, we're kept in the dark. I can tell you this though, who ever it is, has invested a lot of time and a lot of money into this project. If you think they're just gonna sit back and let you throw it all away, (laughing) then you've got another thing comi-" Zachary is hit by a sniper and incinerates into ash.

"Dang it!" Carolina yelled. Carolina looks over to see a soldier standing on a large bolder behind them. The three begin to shoot at the soldier, killing him.

"Again?!" Wash shouts reloading his rifle. 

"Epsilon! Xi!" The two AI appear. 

"We're here. Uh there's three more closing in on the guys." Xi states. 

"Tucker, Sarge, more Pirates incoming." Wash says on the radio. 

"What? Men, battle stations!" Sarge declares. 

"Get to the lab as soon as you can! We can hold them off from here!" Zone adds. 

"Got it!" Tucker responds. 

"We've got more hostiles inbound." Epsilon states. 

"What?!" 

The Reds and Blues and Grey charge into the lab shouting.

"What the heck's going on?!" 

"We're being surrounded!" Xi replied. 

"How do they keep finding us?!" Carolina says reloading. 

"I don't know. What is it, is there an informant? A tracking device?" Epsilon asks. 

Zone lowers his rifle, and remembers Locus handing him Freckles' storage unit from before. He looks at Caboose. "Oh no..." Zone notices Zach's two teleportation grenades behind him.

"Everyone get ready!" Xi orders. 

Sarge cocks his shotgun and runs outside. "Today is a good day to-" A teleportation grenade explodes and the group is teleported to the desert refueling station "-sit down for a minute and just have a rest, cause' think I'm gonna throw up." Sarge says falling on his knee. 

"Ugh, we're back at the gas station?" Simmons says looking around wearily. 

"Good! I think I need a bathroom." Donut clutches his stomach. 

"I would not recommend it." Grif says covering his mouth. 

"How did we get here?" Tucker asks coughing. 

"It's Freckles." Zone states. "Freckles is the tracking device." Everyone looks at Caboose who pulls out Freckle's storage unit.