The radio receiver rang and rang, echoing through the little pocket cave decorated like a bare basic little living room. The sign above the door read, 'No candles allowed, this means you Donut.' shook a little as someone walked by and flipped a switch on the radio.

"Hello, Red and Blue hotline. You've reached Simmons, how may i be of assistance?"

~"Oh cut that out Simmons, It's a freakin private channel for a reason. Not like anyone important is going to call it."

Simmons rolled his eyes, "Need i remind you that President Kimball has access to this and all backup channels registered to us. If she or someone she's authorized calls i think they would appreciate some professional courtesy."

~"Unless a lady calls, then you're in trouble."

Simmons flinched at that, "Hey! I've talked to plenty of women."

~"Moms dont count dude." Griff slurred, ~"And that goes for sisters too. Like mine… she there? I need to tell her something."

Simmons took a moment before answering, "No. She left before you did. She was reasigned by the UNSC. remember?"

Griff belched, ~"she did? She still seeing that guy? Then i guess i dont have to worry about you… getting close to her."

Simmons took another moment, "Griff, did you eat something? Specifically stranger than normal food?"

~"Uh, did you have to ask?"

"Something that looked like food but possibly wasnt and therefore shouldn't have been consumed but you did it anyway.? ...Recently?"

~"... Dont touch my sister you meathead." a click announced he had hung up. Simmons squeezed the clipboard in his hands tightly.

"That… Did he forget those are my organs he's using? Fetching idiot."

"Hey Simmons."

Another man in red armor walked in with a shotgun in hand, right up to look simmons in the eyes. Being used to this particular behavior, Simmons didn't so much as flinch. In fact he gave a frustrated sigh expecting to be sent on another ridiculous vendetta.

"I was just passing through when I overheard Griff, so i thought i'd come down and give him a few punches to relieve my insidious boredom when i heard the most underwhelming thing i've heard since… what time is it?"

Simmons sighed, "Hang on Sarge. Lemme guess. You're upset that griff isn't here."

"What? Not here? Dang it. I had plans and now they're gonna have to wait on the back burner, where they'll most likely wait to fade away slowly in a smoldering flame and nobody will know because someone forgot to light the fire and I was too busy with more important things to do it myself."

"Was there a point to…"

"But that's not the worst thing. What's this i hear about you being unable to talk to women?"

Simmons froze unsure of how to respond to this, "Come again?"

"Simmons there are two highly important things a man needs to be able to do in this world. First of all being to be able to vanquish his enemies without hesitation or fear of them coming back to haunt you. Cause all that haunting nonsense is just crazy talk. And of course being able to spot a fine piece of machinery from a mile away so he can plan a way to sneak behind enemy lines and steal it so he can use it for himself and the glory of the red army!"

"...uh, sir?"

"And right under that in a footnote is being able to talk to any female that comes your way be it as a superior officer or a means of survival cause she may or may not be a half shark cybernetic supersoldier who can hand your rear end to you on a silver platter or just a pretty face that knows her way around a shotgun and gives you goosebumps that looks a lot like bullet wounds."

Simmons turned towards the door, "And on that note, I've got other things to do."

Sarge however was remarkably quick as he grabbed simmons at the back of his armored collar, "Nonsense, as the leader of the reds in this unit and your superior officer promoted officially by proper authority…"

"If your talking about that super colonel thing, being promoted by another sims unit who chose to take out vengeance on the freelancers and the UNSC doesn't officially count as they were technically lower ranked than we were at the time. Not to mention we were technically retired..." simmons groaned, obviously missing the idea of not having to do anything.

Sarge didn't seem to notice as he started dragging simmons away, "Irrelevant. Now let's see about getting you some training in dealing with women. Cause you never know when you need to talk to them."

"Yay." Simmons said sarcastically.

**8**

Simmons sat outside a small field gasping for breath, "Why did we have to run so far? Feels like we went half way around the planet."

"Actually you only went a quarter of the way around, so that's a thing."

Simmons looked up, seeing a blue armored man in a g5 regulation helmet. He groaned, "Caboose? You know that because…?"

"Know what?"

"Never mind." Simmons briefly glanced skywards, "What are you doing out here?"

"I told you, we are going to get you up to speed on talking to the lady folk." Sarge boomed as he shoved boulder aside to reveal a crate full of odds and ends. Simons watched in utter confusion as his CO grabbed a few things and stuck an improvised scarecrow with a volleyball head and yarn hair into the ground next to him, and a second one that had an orange helmet painted on it.

"Oh hey look it's Grif. When did he get here?" Caboose leaned in close to the volleyball, "No… No wait.. That's not Grif…and your not his cousin Sister. Who are you and how do you stay so thin?"

"Dagnabbit Blue" Sage bellowed, "Kinda in the middle of something. So step back and stop trying to sabotage my special training with simmons."

Caboose stepped back up, "Oh right. Cause you were going to help Simmons be able to talk to ladies better. Other than Miss Kimball, Private Jenson, that scary doctor Grey lady, Agent Carolina, Agent Texas…"

"All female, therefore women, who i've had an exchange of words in some shape or form." Simmons said quickly as he turned to leave, "So as you can see, this is totally unnecessary. And i have other things to do…"

"Nope." Sarge grabbed Simmons by the back of his armor again, dragging him in front of the yarn haired scarecrow, "True you've talked to girls before. All of which were part robot, and possibly part Leopard that was trained to rip you apart so much as look at you. When most normal women are more like unicorns, prancing pretty while stabbing at your heart with a twisted horn growing out of her head, only it's more metaphorical than a real thing. Especially when you find one in a bar who knows a good shot of beer when she finds it."

Simmons looked to the ground, "Sarge? That made no sense... At all."

"You have a unicorn?" Caboose laughed, "That's impossible, everyone knows they like water with lots of ice. And we have a large lack of it. I've checked."

Sarge ignored the blue armored loon and turned to his fellow red, "the point is Simmons, you dont think of those girls as GIRLS. Texas? Kept handing your rear to you over and over again until you were a shivering pile of putty. Carolina? Same thing with less but kick. President Kimball. You don't talk to her, you give her useless paperwork, that's going nowhere. Jenson, you're a blubbering moron everytime you remember she's a female. Griff's sister…she...well you...she went….you two… Hmmm."

A full five seconds after Sarge trailed off Caboose answered for him, "Yeah, she… She makes a lot of us uncomfortable. A lot."

"She's a Grif what do you expect?" Sarge sighed.

"No I'm pretty sure.. She's an alien."

"Can we get this over with?" Simmons groaned, "I really do have other things to do today."

"Simmons.. Talk to the girl." Sarge pointed to the volleyball only to receive silence. Simmons glanced between Sarge, the volleyball scarecrows and Caboose.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

CAboose shrugged, "Don't look at me, this is your problem. I'm just here for comic relief."

"...What?"

"What?"

"SIMMONS!" Sarge was suddenly a lot closer to Simmons, his voice low and growling, "Talk. to. The. girl."

"I think he means the new guy over there." caboose whispered.

Simmons sighed in defeat and approached the ball, speaking ina bored drone, "Hello ma'am. How are you?"

"No, no, no. Simmons your doing it wrong." Sarge grumbled.

Simmons sighed, "This is about me talking to women, i'm talking to….this thing."

"The point is to imagine its a real girl. Ergo you're talking to a real girl."

"Sarge, it's a ball on a stick."

"Oh don't worry about what he says miss ball lady." Caboose put in, "I think you look very nice. And are therefore probably a nice person in comparison. And hopefully not related to agent carolina. Because she is scary."

"See how pathetic you are now simmons?" Sarge shouted.

Said 'pathetic' person simply stood there looking bored as ever, "What?"

"Caboose is better at talking to women than you are, and he not only managed to bring up several key subjects that could be carried into an actual conversation, he's a low dirty no good blue. Do you know what that makes you look like? Less than blue! Dare i say less than, Baby blue!"

At this point simmons stepped back and gestured to the stickball, his tone so obviously sarcastic that any proper commander would probably have brought down a hammer on him. But Sarge was sadly no such thing, he was just Sarge, "Then please oh wondrous red leader, why don't you show me how it's done? Say this is a girl you just met in the club, and she's a single platinum blonde bisexual who was recently at her best friend's wedding and looking for a date."

Caboose gasped, "Oh my gosh, you lied! You do have a unicorn!"

Sarge glanced to the blue armored man-child with a shake of his head, "I'm not even gonna ask. But i do like a challenge. I think i would start with… Hey there. You ever noticed the difference between a warthog and a puma? For some reason they look very similar."

"Or the difference between a robot and an android, cause theres is an obvious difference. But only after you ask them what cheese is."

"Dang it Blue quit stealing my thunder, now she's won't even look at me. Quick Simmons, Say something to stop her anything!" Sarge screamed turning on his heal. Simmons stood there a moment. Sarge reiterated with a more angry tone, "Simmons, Just go with it."

Simmons sighed turning to the 'girl' and trying to picture something other than that ridiculous painted volleyball Wilson face, "Uh, So I bet your the prettiest girl in town. And I… bet you like war stories. HAve you met my commanding officer, Sarge? He's great. Hey why dont you tell her about the time you crashed in slow motion."

"Ha, now that was a montage worth recounting. Now little lady you might be asking yourself, how does one crash in slow motion, but i can only start by saying, life finds a way…." As Sarge began ranting on about that and other exlpoits, neither him nor Caboose noticed that simmons had snuck away.

About an hour later he finally mad it back to the radio room.

"How i ever put up with him i don't think i'll ever know anymore."

He paused as he noticed a blinking light on the console, he set his gun down and sat in a chair by the computer, "Huh, encrypted call with no address, could be important… accept that light's rigged to respond to public lines… hmm. Oh maybe it's a fan. After that stickball lady gag i could use a distraction."

He tapped out a few buttons, the audio through the radio hummed statically at first, then faded in far away voice who sounded a little like they were sad.

"Hello? Hang on. Let me try clearing up the signal." Simmons tapped a few more keys until the sound cleared up into someone singing, "Hello. Can you hear me ok?"

The voice halted, seemingly surprised, Yeah, I hear you. I've been on this signal for a while now. I wasn't sure anyone could hear me.

Simmons fidgeted as he realized the voice was female, a pretty sounding female, "Uh…did you need assistance? Or… anything?"

The voice hesitated, No...well… actually. I was hoping to talk to someone. Unless.. You're busy right now."

"Oh, no, no, no, no, i can talk. Like right now. Cause… i can talk… if you want to."

The voice laughed, your funny. Who are you?

"R-Richard D. S-s-Simmons."

Can i call you Richard?

"Uh... Sure."