Oracle breathed a sigh of relief when she was inside the ship, finally giving in to the pain and fatigue. She felt like she could collapse, and all she wanted to do was sleep for hours.

"What did you manage to do?" Asked Mirage, looking at her arm.

"I got shoved off a ship, fought a Peacekeeper, fell off the top of the cruise ship, crashed into a table, basically got a gigantic splinter, ran into Reclaimer and jumped through a window."

Mirage gave her a really? look and she shrugged.

"It's not like I chose to fall of a ship. Or jump through the window. I had to, or things were going to get way worse than they already were. I'd rather not have to do any of that again." She said as Desertfox came over to her.

"So you had to fall off the ship?" Asked Mirage.

Oracle glared at him and he smiled.

"Did you pull the wood out?" Desertfox asked, looking at the bloody bandages.

"Yeah." She answered.

"Was I not supposed to?"

"No." Answered Desertfox.

"Not until you were somewhere where it could be properly done and looked at. It could be infected, and you lost way more blood than you should have."

"I had to get it out because it was impairing my arm movement, and I couldn't have my dominate arm not be functional, so I pulled it out." Said Oracle, trying to justify why she had done it.

Desertfox rolled his eyes.

"You could have caused more damage."

"And it would have caused more damage if I didn't pull it out. Like me dying."

Desertfox sighed and asked if she had any other injuries.

"My shoulder hurts like hell, and I was shocked by one of the Peacekeeper's staffs but other than that I'm fine."

"Maybe that Peacekeeper shocked some sense into you." Mirage commented, grinning.

Oracle glared at him again.

"You are not being helpful." She growled.

"Am I supposed to be?"

Oracle sighed in annoyance and Mirage celebrated his victory, his smirk turning to a grin.

"You'll have to wait until we get to Archangel to get your shoulder looked at." Said Desertfox, turning Oracle's attention back to him.

"For now get some rest."

Oracle looked at Desertfox for a few moments longer, realizing just how young he was. He looked as though he was only 19 or 20, and was definitely the youngest one here. Oracle wondered how he had come to be a Bounty Hunter, and eventually a Rogue and where he had learned to be a medic.

Oracle was pulled from her thoughts as she realized something.

"Who's piloting my ship?" Asked Oracle, looking from Mirage to Desertfox.

"Sentinel took over for me." Answered Mirage.

"He better not break anything or I'll have some choice words for him." She said, sitting and leaning back against the side of the ship.

"He won't, trust me." Said Mirage.

Oracle crossed her arms over her chest which made her wince, and decided against it. Instead she settled them by her sides and quickly fell asleep.

Oracle woke to feel someone gently shaking her shoulder.

"Wake up sleepy head." She heard Mirage say.

"Go away."

"Come on." Said Mirage, holding out a hand.

"Fine." She sighed, taking Mirage's hand and letting him pull her to her feet.

"You can sleep later."

"But I want to sleep now."

"You sound like a child." He said, grinning.

"Shut up." Snapped Oracle, shoving him playfully.

Oracle looked at where they were, and tried to take it in. Huge cliffs surrounded them on all sides, tall pine trees hiding the ships on the landing strip from view.

The base itself was carved into the rock wall, a hangar bay containing several interceptors and smaller gunships set into the stone. Oracle guessed that the base itself was in the cliff side, hidden from view.

"Wow." Said Oracle.

"How did they manage to build this? The rock would have been so unstable, you would have to reinforce the crap out of the cliff side to make it work..." Oracle trailed off as they emerged from the tree line to find soldier training along the river.

The beach was made of small rocks, the hills leading up to the base of the cliff littered with large stones. Captains were drilling their squads, groups of soldiers running the length of the of the beach in the early morning light.

"Are you part of Basilisk's group from Maklava?" Asked a man in black armor.

"Yes." Said Mirage.

"Follow me. We're putting all of you in the empty Southern Wing as you come in."

"Has Basilisk come back yet?" Asked Mirage.

"We need a leader."

"We haven't seen her, she hasn't shown up yet. Some say the worst has happened, but we're still holding out hope. She's come out alive from situations like this before."

"I hope she managed to get out of this one. We need her. The men respect her. If we have to replace her during the preparations for war, things could get... ugly."

"Agreed." Said a rough voice.

Oracle turned to see a man in worn camouflage armor come over to them. A scar marked is left eye and he held his helmet under his arm. The early morning sun made his tan skin look darker than it was, and his short buzz cut hair looked black in the light.

"Hey Redaxe." Said Mirage, going over and shaking his hand.

"Long time no see." He said, shaking the other man's hand.

"How have you been holding up?"

"Good. Gotten back into the swing of things. I've been training men but won't ever lead them again."

"Still haven't recovered fully." Said Mirage.

"No," said Redaxe, shaking his head "losing all of men on that mission scarred me. I can't bare to lose men like that again. I'll stick to being ordered around and training men for now."

Mirage nodded, turning to Oracle.

"You know the others, but this is the new addition. I've known Oracle for a long time, but she just defected not that long ago."

"Welcome to the team." Said Redaxe, holding out a hand.

Oracle reached out and shook it with her good arm, trying to hide her wound from him.

"Anyone hurt?" He asked, looking at them all.

"She is." Said Mirage, pointing to Oracle.

"The rest of you go to the barracks, unpack your stuff, train a little bit. Oracle, follow me."

Oracle looked at Mirage and he gave her a slight nod. She followed Redaxe up the path leading to a side entrance into the base. Mirage and the others followed close behind.

Redaxe put his arm up to the scanner on the door and it chirped at him once and turned green. The metal door slid aside with a quiet hiss and they entered Archangel.

The hallways were metal, the floors lined with a soft white padding so your footsteps didn't echo. Lights cast a white glow over the silver metal, making to sparkle.

Bounty Hunters walked through the hallways, some accompanied by officers, set apart by their grey or black uniforms. As they walked further Oracle could see rooms where technicians monitored radar arrays, cameras and other computers and screens.

In one room the people sitting at the computers had mics, and were talking to teams out in the field. Mirage and the others split off and went down the hallway further when Oracle and Redaxe reached the staircase.

"Our medical facilities are up on the third floor, away from the hangar. We need it to be as quiet as possible so they can recover."

Oracle winced as her shoulder throbbed, reminding her of the ship incident. They climbed another flight of stairs and passed several officers and medics.

The medical wing contained several rooms, the first section containing rooms for quick check-ups and minor injuries, the next contained rooms for surgeries or getting casts put on broken bones.

The third section Oracle guessed were the recovery rooms for patients. Redaxe led her to one of the checkup rooms where he had her sit in one of the chairs.

"I'll go get one of the droids and a medic to check you out." He said, leaving the room.

A couple minutes later a droid rolled into the room followed by the medic. Oracle stood and the droid removed her armor, a technician coming in a couple minutes after the medic to take it to get cleaned.

When she was left in only the bodysuit the medic walked forward and examined the puncture wound. Blood was smeared across her arm, and the skin around the wound was red and puckered. It had finally stopped bleeding, and was smaller than Oracle had expected.

"I'll need to clean it, but it doesn't appear to be infected. You didn't hit any arteries either, and it doesn't go straight to the bone, or too deep into the muscle. You got lucky. Very lucky."

"Yeah well I seem to have a lucky streak at the moment." Said Oracle, thinking back to how many times she could have died or been captured.

One that's about to break. She finished in her head.

She knew that it couldn't carry on for much longer.

The medic exited the room and came back a moment later, getting out the things she needed to clean the wound. Oracle winced as she began to clean it, the pain shooting all the way up into her neck. Once the wound was cleaned and wrapped in new bandages the pain subsided.

"XG-739 I need you in here." Said the medic, turning to the doorway.

At the sound of its name being called a small white and red orb-like droid floated into the room and came to rest above the doctor's shoulder.

"Yes Doctor Ambrose?" Asked the droid, it's voice higher pitched and watery sounding.

"Do a scan. I need to know what other injuries she might have sustained."

"Commencing scan now." Said the droid, coming g to rest in front of Oracle's face.

Oracle felt the sudden urge to flick it across the room, but had to resist the sudden impulse. Having a droid in her face was the last thing she wanted. She winced as a sheet of blue light emitted from the droid and slowly ran down her body.

When the droid was done it returned to the doctor.

"Scan complete. Patient has a torn rotator cuff and bruised wrist. There is light bruising along their ribs."

The small droid turned back to the medic.

"Do you-"

"Thank you." Said the doctor, cutting the droid off mid sentence.

She turned to Oracle.

"The torn rotator cuff will require surgery, and the recovery time is four to six days. Full motion won't be achieved until you've rested for ten."

Oracle almost sighed in frustration.

"Let me guess, I don't have a choice on wether I get the surgery or not."

The medic shook her head and Oracle sighed.

"Fine." She said.

"I'll get you prepped for surgery."

The medic gave Oracle some more comfortable clothes to change into. Fifteen minutes later she was lying on a bed, two surgeons looking down at her with Mirage to her right.

He squeezed her hand as she looked up at him, and smiled reassuringly.

"I never thought that I'd be the one here." Said Oracle, trying to calm her pounding heart.

"I knew you'd eventually end up here. It was just a matter of time." Said Mirage.

"We all do. It's part of the job."

Oracle nodded.

The surgeon turned to Mirage and asked him to leave, which he kindly obliged to and left with one last look at Oracle. One of the surgeons then have her the anesthesia and Oracle fell into a world of silent darkness.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That was a time crunch. Literally finished this chapter at 10:59 last night. I had major writer's block for like three days in a row. Anyway, how do you like the chapter? Feedback, as always, is welcome! Hope you keep reading!

~~Nightfury107