» Fall of Aeria Gloris, By AlexZander - Halobabies.net

[Mendicant Bias]

Fall of Aeria Gloris


Chapter One
Just out of Reach

0639 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
UNSC Aeria Gloris Epsilon Eridani System near Reach Station Gamma

Captain Alexander Page calmly stared at the front view screen of the UNSC Frigate "Aeria Gloris. The battle for Reach had taken a turn for the worse. The carrier Musashi had just been sliced in half by a Covenant Flagship and it didn't look like it was stopping it's massacre. The damn thing was sniping battle cruisers and carriers from long range, to far for any UNSC weaponry.
"Sir, what do we now? The Musashi is gone." Lieutenant Mane asked. Their mission had been to protect Musashi's flank from covenant seraphs and boarding parties. Now that the carrier was gone the chain of command had fallen apart, chaos reigned among the remaining fleet.

The Frigate's AI, Julius Caesar materialized beside Page on the Holotank.
"The battle does not fair well. This is becoming more like Dyrrhachium than I would care to remember. At least then I had only Pompey to deal with."
A smile spread across the Captain's face. Caesar always managed to cheer him up with his dry humour. His thoughts were distracted at that moment, when the Covenant Flagship exploded, the concussion blast shaking the bridge.
"Alexander look! The Pillar of Autumn has destroyed the Flagship!" Caesar exclaimed. Caesar always called Captain Page by his first name. Not out of disrespect, but as a comparison to Alexander the Great.
A cheer spread out across the bridge. It was cut short by the entrance of three more Covenant cruisers in a crescent formation entering the system. They quickly turned toward Aeria Gloris, plasma weapons charging.
"That's it."Captain Page said,"I'm executing Cole Protocol. Caesar, dump the nav computer then jump us out of here."

"Sorry Alexander, but I'm receiving a priority transmission from Ground side. It's ONI. Those cloak and dagger crooks." The covenant cruisers had launched their seraphs, which were now accelerating toward the Aeria Gloris. They would be upon them in seconds. Most of the longswords had been recalled for the jump, and wouldn't be ready in time.
"Thanks, Caesar. What is it?"
"It's an AI. From section three, trying to escape Reach before the planet gets glassed."
"How close do we have to get to pick him up?" Captain Page thought quickly how much helpful another A.I. would be. It would be a risk though, and with those three Covenant cruisers, he would have to make the decision now.
"Close orbit. It is not very likely we will be able to succeed without taking a heavy lot of damage." Captain Page made is decision.
"We'll do it. Let's pick him up. Julius! Set course to mark one eight zero, flank speed!"
"Course set. And Alexander,"Caesar added,"it's a she."

The Frigate accelerated toward Reach, the Covenant flight of cruisers pursuing behind. Everyone ducked as a plasma beam ripped the space just over the pursued ship, it then fell off to side as Caesar maneuvered the Aeria Gloris, managing to dodge the lethal weapon.
"We need to vanquish at least one of them Alexander." Caesar stated between maneuvers. "I can't dodge all their shots." His teeth were grit with concentration, as his regal toga swirled around him, as if jostled by the wind. The glass of red wine was turbulent with waves. Another Plasma beam fired, and the ship rocked with the impact.
"Sir, long range communications lost!" Lieutenant Mane yelled out." we just lost comms with the remaining ships in-system."
"Captain Hade! Report your current status. "Page yelled into is comm.
"Yes sir! All four remaining longswords have successfully rendezvous with the "Gloris. We lost knife two-eight on the return trip. "Grief managed to creep into Jack Hade's voice, even though he tried to hide it.
"My Longsword and Half of knife one-four is fuelled and ready for launch sir."
"Good. Load one up with a shiva, the others fly escort. Give the escorts an extra load of missiles each, they'll need it." The Captain's voice softened a little. Sending people to their death was always a hard decision.
"Good luck."
The entire ship appeared to shudder at that last word. The was only entering Reach's upper-atmosphere, but it seem symbolic to Captain Page besides that point.

"What are you plotting?" enquired Caesar. "Three longswords can't possibly take out three cruisers. You're making them fall on their blades."
"I'm sling-shoting them out the aft launch bay. The extra speed should get them close enough to drop the shiva tactical nuke. That will take out the cruisers' shields. Once the shields are down they'll slow down, and we'll hit them both with the MAC."
Captain Page raised his hand to quell Caesar's protest.
"We'll pull a tight 180 just over the AI's transceiver, and hit full engines. That will give us a clear shot, and enough time to hit at least two. I'm planning to bracket the third in the middle of the other's explosions. Tight formations will the be the death of them."
"You do realize that your plan rests entirely on the longswords and their pilots."
"I have faith in Captain Hade. He may be a bit strange at times. Nevertheless, he's like me. Doesn't give a shit about living, just focuses on getting the job done."
The Aeria Gloris dodged another shot of plasma, it went wide. The Covenant's weaponry was less accurate in atmosphere, something Page had been counting on.
Caesar took a glass of wine out of his toga and sipped it. He was trying to attack the covenant battle net, but with little sucess. He wasn't, after all, from section three.
"I still think you're crazy Alexander."

Captain Jack Hade entered the start-up sequence in the bow entrance hatch control panel. The engines of the longsword rumbled to life as he sprinted up the interior ramp into the main corridor. He was going solo for this mission, no Sys. Ops. Specialist would be there to help deliver the shiva. He scrambled into his seat and felt as the magnets buried in it activated and held his suit in place. The fuel readout stopped blinking; the mechanics had disengaged the fuel hoses. The battered longsword was ready for takeoff.
"This is Knife Alpha-One. Two in the green. Knife Flight Report in."
"Knife Bravo-Six, Two burning; Missiles locked and loaded."
"This is Knife Charlie-Five...uh, I have a problem here. Engine one isn't starting. Engaging auxiliary starters...damn. They're fried. I can't start Engine one, I'll just have to go with one."
Captain Hade didn't have time to wait for the mechanics to fix the problem. They were just going to have to make due with two longswords, no matter the odds.
"Negative Charlie-five, you'll just be a target out there with only one engine. You're grounded for now. Bravo-Six, take-off, you're my wingman."
"Yes sir," replied Lieutenant Leslie, "Going vertical, I'm out." Leslie's longsword launched out of the aft bay, afterburners on full. It was quickly followed by Captain Hade, adding some more scorch marks to the flight deck as he engaged the afterburners for an instant take-off.
"Bridge this Alpha-One. Message."
"Send Message Alpha-One."
"Bravo-two and I are hot and moving toward the coordinates provided, Charlie-Five couldn't start his starboard engine and is grounded, requesting tactical RADAR feed. Over."
"Acknowledged Alpha-One. Sending tactical feed now. Be aware that our long-range comms are damaged, and beyond 100 thousand klicks you'll be in the dark. Over." Lieutenant Mane reported.
"Roger that Bridge, Alpha-One out."
The main view screen updated to show the position of the Covenant forces. Captain Hade fed the information to Leslie's longsword as well.
"Bravo-Six, I'm sending you Aeria Gloris's tactical feed. Are you receiving it? over."
"Alpha-One, I'm reading you 5-by-5. Clear signal, over."
"Good luck. Alpha-One, out."
The longswords raced out to the Covenant formation. The radar pinged as it picked up new contacts: Seraphs, a full flight of six.

"Captain Hade, I'm going to try to feed the enemy false information through your transceiver/jammer system. I may be able to get you some seconds of safety." Caesar said into Hade's earpiece.
"Captain, I'm going to try to draw them off. You go for the cruisers." Leslie's longsword jumped forward as he engaged the afterburners to full.
"Get back here Bravo-six! We have to wait out for Caesar. He is going to try to jam ‘em with false info."
"We don't have time." A pulse laser flashed by, it was a ranging shot. Soon they would be in combat.
"Get back here now Lieutenant. That's an order!" Captain Hade was furious. The boy may be somewhat right, three-to-one odds weren’t in their favour. Even considering that, he was going to get himself killed!
"Breakin...up ....say agai....ver." Static washed across the comms, but Jack Hade wasn't fooled. Leslie was blowing into his uncovered mic, it was the oldest trick in the book. He was hearing him, he just wasn't going to listen this time.

Julius Caesar paid little attention to the arguments between the two longsword pilots. At this point he had other flanks of the enemy to focus on. He tried to access the Covenant Battle net, but it was locked down tight. His slicing tools just weren't able to force a breakthrough into the Battle net. He redirected his attention to the longswords. He synced both of the longswords Jamming systems together started to create false Longswords on the Seraphs detection systems. Two of them peeled off and started to accelerate to the stern of the Covenant cruiser it came from.

One of them continued to maintain its course toward Captain Hade, while the remaining three did a corkscrew turn toward Lieutenant Leslie, weapons firing. He barrel rolled toward them, presenting a dynamic target for their sensors. It worked somewhat, a pulse laser ripped through the edge of his left wing tip.

Leslie could here the Captain hailing him, but he didn't reply. There was no way they could both take on the Seraphs and deliver the Shiva. This was the only way. He aimed straight for the lead Seraph, intercepting its path. It fired at him, but Leslie's erratic flying was random enough that the rest of the shots went wide. He armed five of his 20 ASGM-10 Missiles but opened fire with his 110mm rotary cannons. They warmed up and started firing hot lead toward the seraph, picking at its shield slowly.

The other two seraphs took up position behind and to the left and right of the leader. 'Perfect,' thought Leslie, "It will be one big frag."

The seraphs was getting perilously close. They would collide in 20 seconds if neither changed course. He watched as his ammo slowly counted down. At three quarters he slowed the rate and fired his five prepared missiles. They streaked out in front of him, their exhaust trailing behind them. They impacted with enough force to drive though the shields into the fighter, exploding within. Fragments of seraph and a chain reaction of unfired plasma torpedoes took out another seraph, but there was still one left, gunning for his longsword.

Captain Hade watched in disbelief as Lieutenant Leslie managed to take out two of the seraphs. A pulse laser flashed past his left view port, just missing his longsword. Another one missed again, just off to the right. He was about to start evasive action when Caesar called across the comm.
"Good news and bad news. I wasn't able to make fake longswords or jam their weapons. I just can't crack their security within this time.
I did however; manage to mess up what they are seeing. They should consistently miss you by half a second. Just don't move, and stay on this course."
Captain Hade stared in disbelief again as a plasma torpedo raced underneath his fighter. A direct hit from one of those would vaporise him. There wouldn't be anything left. Another one just barely missed his port engine. Gritting his teeth, he flew on, heading straight for the cruiser.

Caesar was proud of his creativeness. Even though he wasn't from section three, he managed to deceive the Covenant using simple routeing. He got access to the seraph’s display controls, and rerouted the signal the to the Aeria Glories. He then resent it back and rerouted the information back to the seraphs. Due to the distances involved, the Covenant were lagging behind with their targeting. He didn't falsify anything, so it wasn't picked up by their security. He took a sip from his glass of red wine. Lag! It was genius!

One of his subroutines reported to him. The ship was in position to pick up the escaping AI. Looks like they all might make it out alive.
"Captain, we are now receiving the AI."
"Good job. Send us into an obtuse dive. How long will it take?"
"About two minutes. I'll initiate the 180˚ turn in one minute."
"Alpha-One to Bridge.Shiva is away. I say again:Shiva is away."

Captain Hade turned his longsword around, while executing a corkscrew roll. He was in range of the Covenant cruisers, and they were firing everything they had at him. A Plasma beam the width of his ship illuminated the entire cockpit as it flashed above him. At least that last seraph had been disintegrated by one of the cruisers wide shots. That left him to focus solely only dodging and driving.
"Alpha-One to Bravo-six. Return to ship. I say again, return to ship. Over."
"Bravo-Six. Roger, I got two seraphs on my tail so I might need some help -" Suddenly the transmission was cut short. Captain Hade watched as the blip representing Lieutenant Leslie careened out of control.
"Bravo-Six, I'm hit, I'm hit. Mayday, mayday. He took out my left manoeuvring cluster, I'm going into a spin and drifting toward the cruiser. Mayday, Mayday. Just go Jack. I'm gone."
"I'm coming to recover you. Hang tight!"
"You have to get out of the blast radius Captain. You know you can't do anything. You're more important to the Aeria Gloris alive. Now Go!"
Captain Jack Hade, leader of Knife flight, suppressed his emotions and turned his fighter around, starting the short yet extremely long trip back to the Aeria Gloris. He closed his eyes as the flash of the Shiva nuke filled the cockpit. Tears welled in his eyes, but he managed to fight them back. He would not forget this.

"Alexander, the AI is aboard. Cruisers are also in range of our ballista." Caesar reported.
“Fire when ready: Take out the center two and we'll punch our way out of this. Only one is fully operational anyways."
"Yes sir! Firing ballista-I mean MAC cannon." Lieutenant Joesph Mane reported, embarrassed.
Two shots of thunder and fire teared though space toward the remaining Covenant Cruisers. One impacted slightly above the and behind the front section, effectively decapitating it. The second shot pierced a clean hole from the nose to the stern of the cruiser. It passed through the bridge, leaving the ship dead in space, a purple lifeless hulk.
"Good shooting Lieutenant! Caesar, recover the remaining longsword and plot us a course out of here."
"Yes Alexander, course plotted."
"Yes Alexander, course plotted." Caesar repeated himself.
"Are you all right Caesar? You just repeated yourself." Joesph Mane asked.
"My health is fine Lieutenant. I don't recall repeating myself. If I did it must have been a small run-time error, nothing to worry about."
The Aeria Gloris sprinted past the remaining Covenant Cruiser, trading long distance shots with it. Both ships suffered minor damage from the exchange.
They sped away, but as the ship entered slip space, Lieutenant Mane notice that Caesar's wine had turned black.

[Mendicant Bias]

Chapter Two
New Pharsalus

The entire crew braced themselves as the Aeria Gloris came out of slipspace. The bridge lights dimmed for a short while then returned to full strength. Looking out the front view port a strange new solar system greeted its new occupants with brilliance.
The system was a binary system, it had two stars. They were eclipsing Binary Stars. The first was a type 'F' star about one third bigger than the the Earth's Sun. It shone with a bright blue glow. The other star was a type 'G', and looked almost identical to the Sun, even in colour.
"Caesar! Damage report!" Captain Page demanded.
"We were venting atmosphere on the starboard side in decks 7 though 9, but they've been isolated. Reactors are spinning down to 30%, we're still operational."
"And the Covenant? Did any of them follow us?"
Caesar looked at the front view screen as his brow furrowed in concentration. With a quick flick of his wrist he deposited his wine glass into his toga, hiding it from view, his worried face looking around to see if anyone noticed. Everyone else was looking at the read out, and Caesar relaxed.
"Scanning, there does not seem to be any enemy movement within this system."
"Good. Do a system scan. I want to know where we are, and what kind of place this is."
"Already done. As you might have noticed, the binary stars are in an eclipsing orbit with each other. There are three planets; all are registered in the UNSC FleetCom Stellar Database. The big gas giant is Dogantzes, fitting it seems, and it's moon is Cilicia. The only habitable planet in the system, the second one, is called March. Strange, I'm getting readings from March. It's not UNSC signals, nor from our zealous foes."

Captain Page inspected the planet's holographic representation. It wasn't spinning at all relative to the stars. It had a distinct "night" and "day" side. The day side was always facing the center of the system, and the night side always faced outwards. Interesting. They way planets and stars formed themselves into such strange configurations always piqued his curiosity. This system was almost a collection of such strangeness, and it worried him for some reason.

"Plot a course to March. I want to get a closer look. We should head to the nearest relay station, but this will only take a moment. Besides, I want to investigate those strange readings you’ve received." Captain Page gazed at the hologram, lost in thought.
"Already plotted, engines powering up to half spin, accelerating to full speed. "Caesar reported dully. The Aeria Gloris accelerated toward the centre of the system, quickly approaching March. The colossal gas giant Dogantzes loomed into view, it's orbit intersecting the Aeria Gloris's vector.
"Go around the Gas Giant Caesar, I don't want its gravity well slowing us down." The gas giant took up nearly half the view screen.

With a look of surprise on his face, Caesar quickly stated, "Covenant cruiser! It’s voyaging around the far side of Dogantzes!"
"Put the ship on full alert! I'm not losing this battle to a single cruiser!"
"Alexander, they're launching boarding craft, Legions of them." Caesar remarked.
"They aren't firing their weapons? You're sure it's just boarding craft?"
This wasn't like the Covenant at all. What would make them suddenly want to capture the ship instead of destroy it? Everything about this situation was getting stranger by the second.
"Boarding craft confirmed, and their weaponry is not powering up."
"Scramble the Longswords, and prepare the marines. We're about to be boarded."


"All right Marines! Listen up!" Chief Warrant Officer Tucker Jacob's voice bellowed over and across the marines lined up in front of him. One Section, 2 Section, 3 Section, and his elite sniper team. Everyone ready with weapons cocked and at the ready. All they needed was direction, his direction.
"Now, the Covenant might have won at Reach, but we're not done yet. They chased us all the way out to this backwards messed up system and now they're going to regret it! For some stupid reason or another, the split-jaws decided not to have a space battle, and that’s fine by me! They're bringing their warriors straight to us, and we are going to greet them with open arms.....of frag grenades!"
"HOO-RAH!"
"One section will disperse among the aft, with 3 section securing the bow. Two section leader and Sniper team! Collect your men and report to the aft Hanger Bay. Marines, dis-MISSED!"
Organized and disorganized groups of marines ran to their respective positions, following the yelling faces of their section leaders. CWO Tucker Jacobs ran off as well, off to the hanger bay to hook up with two section and the snipers. Their mission was going to be a tough one.


"Two section, At-en-Huh!" All the soldiers of 2 section stopped what they were doing, came to attention, and faced the person who gave the command. It was 2 section leader, Master Sergeant Banzai.
CWO Tucker Jacobs walked over to the troop.
"At ease soldiers, but pay attention carefully. You have been selected for an important mission, the Captain wants to take out that Cruiser, but he doesn't want to taunt it into a space battle. That's where we come in."
"We're going to launch a surprise attack on that Cruiser. Using a pelican, we're going to deliver one of the Aeria Gloris's Shiva warheads in the belly of the beast herself, and explode it internally. There is more to the plan than that, but this is all you need to know at the moment."
The marines looked at each other grimly, a direct boarding attempt using only a pelican? It was certain suicide!

Master Sergeant Banzai rallied the troops, time seemed to be moving faster, and news of the mission didn't help.
"Hurry two section! Follow me to Sierra 219! Five minutes to life off!"
He ran to the only pelican that was active, it was on the other side of the hanger. As the soldiers ran towards pelican, they could hear an almost continuous stream of vulgarity.
"Watch your feet you-, Hurry up and get on my pelican idiots! Stop dragging your feet you F***nuts! This f***ing flight's leaving in 2 minutes with or without you assholes!"

It was Gunnery Sergeant William James. He was also known as "Wild Will". He had a cigar in his mouth and a tiny amount of spittle came out whenever he yelled, which was almost all the time. It was a running joke that he never talked in a normal voice. He had pistol holstered on his left thigh, and a sub-machine gun strapped to his right. In the small of his back was a combat knife, and he wore his patrol cap down low, its visor hiding his eyes in shadow.
"I'm going to rape however just spit on my floor! Do you realize how f***ing long it take to clean this p*** up?" Gunnery Sergeant Will yelled, ironically adding to it with his own spittle.
The marines looked at each other, not daring to mention it. The rear hatch slowly closed, sealing the marines inside the pelican.
"Everyone on board?" asked a voice from the cockpit.
"Everyone here and accounted for lieutenant! We're ready for take-off." answered Master Sergeant Banzai. He was having a hard time not laughing at his troops squirming under the Gunnery Sergeants tirade. It was amazing how he just strung his threats into one big sentence without stopping to rest.
“Do you hear me? I’ll tear you a new asshole!”
The pelican lifted with a little jolt, and gracefully flew out of the aft hanger and into the depths of space.
"Without protection!"


***

Captain Hade still had lots of fuel after had returned to the Aeria Gloris and only stopped in the aft hanger bay to restock on ASGM-10 missiles and bet the 120mm ventral guns reloaded. He leaned back in his chair, relaxing his tense muscles, and trying to avoid thinking about Danny Leslie. He took a small titanium container out if his flight suit and stared at it. It was the size if a flask, though it was more circular. He wiggled it a little, and the liquid inside sloshed back and forth slowly, he could feel and hear it, even though it couldn’t see through it.
The blinking green lights on the heads up display brought him out of his daze, he had been restocked and reloaded, and they even had time to top up his tanks and other components like air.
He sat up in his seat, took a sip of water from the water bottle he kept in his flight suit and put it away just in time to launch. He was going out again to destroy as many boarding craft that he could before they reached the ship. The aft hanger bay doors opened and left, warming up his guns to speed and starting the missiles’ guidance software.

Lieutenant ‘Gerbil’ Jarrod Haden came towards the covenant ships hanger and breakneck speed. Just as he approached the point where reverse thrust wouldn’t stop it in time, he cut engines forward thrust, pulled back on the control stick and shunted all thrust to the VTOL thrusters on the bottom of each engine pod. They flared bright with iridescent blue flames, pushing against the covenant cruisers outer hull. Watching the HUD projected onto his helmet’s visor, he slowly lowered the power until he perfectly matched the Redemption’s speed, then lowered the pelican’s nose, aiming it directly at the main hanger bay.
Unfortunately, the bay’s energy shields were up. That wasn’t going to be that much of a problem however. Before leaving the Aeria Gloris, Gerbil had requested and received two full pods of High Explosive Anvil II missiles. He targeted the outer edges of the hanger bay’s shields and opened fire. It was almost like stitching, ripping the shields apart at the seams. As the last missile impacted the bottom right corner, the shield flickered then failed, and the pelican entered the hanger bay as grunts, jackals, and elites where vented into the deep recesses of space.
A fair amount of covenant managed to hold onto whatever was attached to the ground or wall, and managed to not get spaced. Among them were about three dozen grunts, and half a dozen elites. The elites fell to the ground, clutching their necks and chest, as they asphyxiated.
He flicked the switch to drop the now empty missile pods. They both fell the ground with a loud thud, one of the smashing a parked Ghost, the most common Covenant ground attack vehicle. It soon exploded afterwards as it’s fuel pod overloaded.
“All right boys!” he yelled back at the marines, “get your helmets on!”
In the back of the pelican gunnery sergeant Will was handing out sealed helmets, much like the ones the ODSTs used, except that they were marine green. They had a small attachment on the back of them that looked like compressed air tanks.
“These will give you 5 minutes of fighting time, or 10 minutes of sitting around and doing nothing. Now put them on, and get off my ship,” as he finished his sentence he put on his helmet and hit the cockpit seal and rear hatch lever at the same time. All the air was sucked out of the troop area of the pelican as the rear door opened. Before it finished opening he was on the rear machine gun, cocking it ready.
Gerbil’s voice came over the intercom, “I’m going to left off on the second level of the bay, that way you wont have as far to travel to plant the bomb. Dismount in 5, 4,” the rear hatch fully opened and sporadic green plasma bolts streaked into the opening,
“3, 2,”
Wild Will swung his M247 GPMG out and opened fire on the grunts on the middle platform, they were shot off it and fell over the other side out of view.
“One!”
The marines dismounted, jumping out the back of the pelican in twos. First off was Tucker Jacobs and PFC Igili Hundrena were first off with bomb stored in his backpack, followed by PFC James Chan and Corporal Adam Smith with his GPMG on his back, his M6D pistol drawn. After them were Jonathan Briseno and Alexa Whalen with their sniper rifles slung and pistols drawn as well, the awkward rifles would just get in the way while dismounting. Master Sergeant CS Banzai and Corporal Chris J. Gilmore were the last off, just as the pelican started to rotate away, allowing Gerbil to bring its 70mm cannon to bear.
They all ran for the end of the platform where it connected to a walkway along the side of the hanger bay wall. Two jackals swivelled around the pillars flanking the end of the walkway and set their shields, opening fire on the marines. Igili Hundrena primed and threw a fragmentation grenade right behind the two jackals.
“Grenade!” he yelled, and then he hit the ground. Everyone else dropped to the ground as well, dodging the streaks of green plasma flying over their heads. There was a loud whump as the grenade went off, then they all sprang to their feet and rushed for cover.
“Follow me! We have to move to this door quickly!” yelled Chief Warrant Tucker Jacobs. Using his implant he accessed the current map of the Redemption and put a waypoint on the door to their far left. The marines ran into a fast jog and started to work their way towards it. Two grunts fell to automatic fire, and one jackal went down from a single pistol shot from Briseno.
The door opened just before they got to it, and an Elite leading five grunts spotted and roared at them, firing its weapon. James Chan took three plasma shots to the chest and fell the ground, screaming as the heat burned the skin underneath. Alexa Whalen had her custom sniper’s rifle out by that time and opened up. She fired four shots directly into the elite’s chest, the last one punching through and hitting a vital organ. The elite went down.
One of the grunts was in the middle of throwing a plasma grenade when CS Banzai fired a 5 round burst killing the grunt. The resulting explosion took out three more grunts, and the remaining two had rare courage for grunts and instead of fleeing, opened up on the group with their needlers.
The pink crystals homed in towards Master Sergeant Jacobs, who was closest to the grunts. He started to sidestep towards the left, trying to dodge the lethal purple shards.
Behind them there was a low hum as the back-up shield generators activated and the bay was re-pressurized with a hiss.
He fired into the oncoming stream of flying crystals, running sideways to the left to avoid them. He managed to kill one of the grunts as three of the shards pierced his right abdomen. Corporal Gilmore and PFC Hundrena fired at the remaining grunt, peppering it with 7.62mm bullets, spraying the wall behind it with blue florescent blood and guts.
Chief Warrant Jacobs grabbed at the shards stuck in him, and managed to pry two out of his body, blood spurting from the now open wounds. He threw them over the catwalks edge, and the exploded on the way down. The remaining one exploded inside his body, spraying his blood and tissue onto the floor. He collapsed onto the floor, cringing in pain.
All the while the massive ruptures from the pelicans 70mm cannon filled the air. Gerbil had managed to turn the transport around, and was firing on the remaining survivors.
Igili Hundrena grabbed bio-foam spray from his tac-vest and covered the Warrants exposed insides with it, then slapped a sheet of medical skin from his Medkit, and secured it with a large bandage. The Warrant rose to his feet, no longer in serious pain. His face was damp with sweat from the painful ordeal. PFC James Chan walked up to Warrant Tucker Jacobs, without his body armour, with his rifle firmly grasped.
“Doing okay soldier?” Warrant Jacobs asked sternly grabbing his old MA-2B assault rifle.
“I’m fine sir. My body armour’s wasted, but I’m still good for a firefight. You’re not looking too good yourself sir?”
“I’m sweet as you lot of pansies. Anyone else hurt? No? Good, cause we’re moving on. We still have our mission to complete.”
The pelican’s cannon finally stopped firing as it executed the last surviving hostile occupant of the hanger bay. The only sound heard was the foot falls and heavy breathing as the marines pushed on.

***

Captain Page listened as the reports came across the bridge. Everything was going well. The fact that nothing had totally messed up was almost unsettling...
"Boarding team reports successful boarding, they have entered the ship and are fighting their way to the center. They are meeting small teams of resistance but nothing major yet, mostly grunts and Jackals. The bomb should be in position in two minutes."
"Good to hear that Caesar, have you figured why they aren’t attacking with their weapons yet?" asked the captain.
"No," replied Caesar, his voice dripping with contempt, but I have found something else. Hidden inside the atmosphere of the gas giant is a strange structure, of neither UNSC or Covenant design. The Redemption is manoeuvring closer to it slowly. You should intercept it now." Caesar ordered.
"You suggest I should intercept it now you mean, right?" Captain Page's voice was filled with sarcasm, what had gotten into Caesar?
"Of course Captain, it's just that such an object is extremely interesting."
"Very well, plot a course. It's not like they are firing at us anyways. Are you sure those strange readings were coming form March? Maybe the object is transmitting them."
"Most definitely not Captain. I have triple checked. You must trust me."


***

A hail of plasma fire streaked past Tucker Jacobs as dodged behind a Covenant bulkhead.
"Chief! We have to hurry; they have back-up moving to the next corridor the flank us!" That was Private First Class James Chan, the section's hacker. They wouldn't have made it so far without him. Blasted locked doors kept on getting in the way.
"I have an idea!" That was Sergeant Alexa Whalen, one of the snipers. That group that has us pinned down, there's no way they can keep up that rate of fire without external power, they must have plasma generators with them!"
"...and generators explode!" chipped in Corporal Gilmore. All we have to do is target them and they'll finish this group off!"
“I can target them with my sniper rifle's scope!" Sergeant Jonathan Briseno said, "It can detect magetic anomalies, but don't expect me to stick my head out with that fire!" Briseno was hiding behind one of the Covenant's storage crates. It might have contained something useful, but they didn't have time to find out.
Sergeant Whalen pulled the pin on a smoke grenade and threw it around the corner, then looked at Corporal Adam Smith, who nodded and put a new box on his M247 and cocked it. After the smoke filled the corridor, he jumped down on the ground prone and opened fire, laying down suppressive fire. The hail of plasma staggered for a while; it would soon recover and kill him. Corporal Briseno stood up from behind the crate, and rested his sniper rifle's bipod on it, focusing down the long hallway. Everything was a shade of blue though the scope, energy conduits behind the ship’s bulkheads pulsed bright purple, every shot of plasma glowed bright blue, streaking past him blindly fast, and behind it all was two plasma generators, their grand bulk slowly pulsing dark pink. He fired one shot, directly hitting the generators, causing a massive explosion.
"Bring the bomb up! Time to light the fuse and get off this tub." ordered Master Sergeant Banzai.
"Bring us up the bomb." Muttered PFC Igili Hundrena.
"Almost funny, try again." stated Master Sergeant Banzai. "Now hurry up!"
"We're bringing the bomb!" said Igili Hundrena and James Chan, glancing at each other and trying to pass the blame.

They brought the bomb and dropped it on the storage bay floor, right between two wraith tanks. James chan took out his datapad and attached various wires from it to the bomb, then pressed a few buttons on each.
"Okay, we're ready to go. I can remotely detonate this thing from about one and a half kilometres from here, but not much farther. I wish our ship still have it's long-range comms. Even if we can’t detonate it at range, I’ve set it to a timer of,” he glanced at the readout on his helmets HUD, “15 minutes."
"You heard the man, let's head out! It’s time to get off this ship." Chief Warrant Jacobs yelled. I'm sick of the colour purple!"

----

Lieutenant Jarrod Haden glanced at the motion tracker display on the pelican as it pinged at him. A group of contacts were approaching the left hatch to the hanger, while another group approached from the left.
"Heads up Will! Covie's coming from both flanks!
"No problem gerbil! I'm already set!"

----

Corporal Chris Gilmore rounded the second to last corner, and stopped frozen with fear. Two huge blue monsters charged right past him, their footsteps thundering like the hooves of giant stallions. They were completely unaware of him or his team.
"Sarge! We have trouble!"
Chief Tucker looked at Master Sergeant Banzai and using hand signals motioned him to double back with his team and engage the hunters.
"Snipers, stay with me."
He motioned for them to get ready to shoot the hunters in the back. As it was, they were running and their backs were protected by their long spines. He just hoped that they could take them out before 2 section got hit by return fire...

----

Wild Will laughed as the grunts and jackals came of the left door, and walked right into four Antilon AP mines. The mines exploded, sending grunt bodies and blood all over the inside of the hanger. One corpse stuck to the ceiling, and the image brought a constant smile to his face.
The right side door opened up with a whoosh. Three elites protected by four jackals. Gunnery Sergeant William put a 25mm grenade into the launcher mounted on top of the M247GPMG, then launched it right into the lead elite's face. The shield broke from the impact, and the head subsequently exploded. The jackals were completely surprised and two broke ranks, leaving everyone else exposed.
The sweet chatter of machine gun fire and the laughter of ejected brass falling onto the deck of the pelican filled the air amid the death screams of the remaining covenant. After the last bullet was fired, there was a moment of silence, followed by the thud of that one grunt that was stuck the ceiling finally falling to the ground.
"It’s f**king poetry. Shakespeare's got nothing on me." Will said smugly. Lieutenant Haden yawned in response.
"I'm going to sleep. Wake me if the radar pings again, okay Guns?" Lieutenant Haden rested his head on the seat of the pelican, and lowered the blast lens on his helmet.
"Sure thing gerbil, I'll just be cleaning the MG."

----

Warnings were coming like a plague from engineering. Captain Page couldn't understand it. How could everything fall apart so fast?
"Sir, we just lost the entire port engine! If we continue with the starboard engine at this thrust we'll go into a spin. "
"Drop us to the maximum you can and use manoeuvring thrusters to keep us on track! Any reports from that spy drone yet?"
Caesar appeared in the bridges Holo tank. There were bags under eyes, and his hair had lost its bright sheen. The bottom of his toga was torn a little.
"Yes...just a minute...here is the feed Captain, now I really don't have time for this." Caesar then winced in pain, anger crossing his face.
"There appears to be some contacts attempting to hack our system. This may be related to the engine damage. I will return." The hologram dissolved into a pool of black slime before disappearing.
The video feed from the Spy drone filled the main screen. It showed metal grey angular machines attacking the Aeria Gloris's engines. They fired red streams of energy that burned the engine's armour, and cut right through in places, slicing off parts like a knife. Captain Hade's Longsword took a pass, accurately gunning down dozens, yet hundreds still remained.
"Sir these are something we've never seen before. It's not Covenant tech either. I don't know what they are." Lieutenant Joesph Mane was baffled. Confusion was upon his face, and he concentrated on his display screen.
"How do you know it's not Covenant?" Captain Page asked.
"Because, whatever they are, they're attacking them too. The Redemption is falling towards the gas giant, they've suffered severe engine failure."
"Captain Page, this is Warrant Officer Aeryn McKay. All boarders have been repelled. They're running away. It's strange sir." the leader of the ODSTs reported.
Falling towards the planet...oh no. Realization dawned upon Captain Page.
"Quickly, scan the interior atmosphere of Dogantzes!"
"Of what sir?"
"The planet lieutenant! Scan the Gas Giant!"
"Scanning..."
A rumble fell across the giant ship, and then all was silent for a moment.
"The atmosphere is filled with derelict UNSC and Covenant ships, Sir."
Dogantzes loomed into the main view port, its bulk taking up the entire view. Out of the right view port, you could see the Covenant ship also falling towards the planet, spilling Phantoms, dropships and Seraphs. The Covenant was abandoning their ship.
"Order the Bordering team to get off that thing! It's going down and we will be soon. We’ll need the pelican once we make it out of slipspace."
"Sir, we can't jump. We're too close to the planet. It will kill us."
"So will staying here. Even if everyone uses the escape pods, we're too close to the Gas Giant. Its gravity will grab them right out of space. We’re dammed if we do, dammed if we don't.
Order everyone to standby for the abandoning the ship. As soon as we get out of slip space we're leaving the Gloris. It will be falling apart anyways."
"Orders given Sir...wait!"
"What is it?"
"The Redemption, it's attempting to go to Slipspace, and we're in its range!"
The right side viewport was now dominated by the Covenant cruiser. The two ships had drifted close to each other, and were now only kilometres away from each other.
"Slipspace anomaly coming from inside the Gas Giant! It's the same place the second set of strange signals were coming from!"
Caesar appeared inside the Holotank again, this time no longer in pain, with a look of triumph on his face.
"I've got you now!"

[Mendicant Bias]

Chapter Three
The Ides of March

Master Sergeant Banzai ran down the Covenant Cruiser's corridor, assault rifle at the ready, watching for enemies. Behind him was the rest of 2 section, is their proper movement formation. Corporal Adam Smith was right behind him, ready to lay down a withering hail of 7.62mm bullets with his GPMG(General Purpose Machine Gun). Behind him were PFC James Chan and PFC Igili Hundrena. His second in command Corporal Chris J. Gilmore was keeping a watch on the rear, making sure they didn’t get ambushed from behind while still making sure no one fell behind while they moved.
"Listen up. After the next intersection we'll be taking a right to cut off the hunters. Corporal Adam Smith, I want you ready with your machine gun. Everyone else keep your eyes open for flankers. PFC Chan will help provide rear security with Corporal Gilmore.
"Gilmore, if anything tries to come from behind, you better tell me fast. We have to distract these hunters enough for the snipers to shoot'em in the back, and that's all we're going to do. No heroics people, and watch out for their Fuel Rod Guns." The Master Sergeant finished giving his orders just as four grunts came around the upcoming corner. He raised the sight on his rifle to eyes and squeezed the trigger gently.
His rifle gave a small 'click' sound and nothing happened. It was jammed.
He went down on one knee and threw his slung rifle behind his back, while drawing his pistol in one smooth motion. Behind him, knowing that the grunts had terrible aim, PFC James Chan and Igili Hundrena adopted gunfighter stances and fired a burst each at one grunt. It went down in a heap of squeals and blood splatter as another was stitched to death by Smith's machine gun. The last one fell as three rounds from Banzai's .50cal Magnum pistol hit the grunt's armour and pierced its head, the HE rounds exploding inside it.
The team continued down the corridor.

----

The hunters continued to run down the wide corridor, focused on getting to wherever they were going. Warrant officer Jacobs and Snipers Alexia Whalen and Jonathan Briseno ran behind them, timing their footfalls to coincide with the hunters, causing them to not be heard. It was hard though, and they had to take long strides to keep up with the lumbering beasts. They were slowly falling behind, and the corridor came to a corner, which the hunters were quickly coming up on.
"We have to speed up. Even if they hear us it won't do if lose them. They’ll blast through 2 section like they're not there." Sergeant Whalen started to speed up, increasing his pace.
"We can't help them if we get killed either. Slow down Alexia." Sergeant Briseno started to slow down a bit, keeping time with the hunters.
Warrant Jacobs was caught in the middle of the quarrelsome snipers. Since Mark Gavin got charged and locked up, and Vic Mackley broke his leg, he had to take two spotter snipers with him, and both were used to making decisions and giving orders.
Well he was the one that gave orders around here. They had no choice but to listen to him.
"We're going to keep the current pace. Slow down Sergeant Whalen."
"But..."
"Good." Briseno smirked.
"However, when the Hunters turn that corner, we’re going to run like hell and catch up with them."

----

Master Sergeant Banzai stopped at the corner and peeked around it. Around it was a corridor with two jackals looking around, on patrol. He quickly stopped looking, he had seen enough. There weren’t any hunters...yet.
"Okay, listen up. Everyone get into position, quickly, quietly."
"Yes, Sergeant." Everyone replied, keeping their voices down, and following the order.
"The hunters should be coming around the corner anytime now...."
The sound of heavy footfalls echoed through the halls of the Covenant ship. The Jackals both looked towards the far end of the hall then moved to the sides. Two hunters turned the corner and continued to run down that hall, focused on the large door that lead to the hanger bay.
Static cracked and hissed from Banzai's headset followed by Lieutenant Haden's voice.
"Serria 219 to Bravo Papa 01: I see two big contacts moving to my position, are you going to take them out or do you want me to? What kind of things are we dealing with? Over."
"Bravo Papa 01 to Serria 219, hold tight for now, but be ready to provide covering fire and for a hot take-off. Over."
"Understood. Serria 219 Out."
Master Sergeant Banzai reported his position and situation.
"Bravo Papa 02 to Bravo Papa 01:I'm in position. Hunters are insight, awaiting order to engage."
"Roger that Bravo Papa 02. Engage. I say again: Engage. Bravo Papa 01 Out."
"Okay team, time to give'em hell! Corporal Smith get that Machine gun firing!"

Things moved quickly after that order. In other words, the whole thing went to hell.

* * *

Corporal Mark Gavin paced back and forth inside one of the cell's within the Areia Gloris's brig. He rubbed the place on his uniform where the ODST unit patch used to be. He felt remorseful for a while, but it was soon replaced with mild resentment. With a bitter grunt he sat down on the cell's padded cot. Maybe the MP would understand him.
"Hey...MP. What was it? Jade?"
"It's Hade. Corporal Hade to you. Do you still have no respect for authority?"
Mark was getting annoyed with himself. He had gotten off to a great start already. The MP probably thought he was the scum of the UNSC.
""Look, Had-Corporal Hade. Sorry, about the rank, okay? I forgot it for a moment. Anyways, listen to the fighting out there, something big is going down-"
A thump sounded a deck below them, followed by a blast and sporadic gun fire.
"See! We're being boarded! I don't want the Covies to find me locked up in here! I'll just be slaughtered. You have to let me out so I can defend myself."
His arguments were greeted with cold disdain. Corporal Hade's response wasn't what Mark Gavin was hoping for.
"The brig is sealed with 2 layers of security. The covenant isn’t getting in here, and you aren't getting out. The only reason why I would let you out at this moment is if an order to evacuate the ship was given, and it hasn't. If I were you, I would just sit a think about what I can do to maybe save my career. Because after the incident you pulled, I'm surprised you're still in the UNSC."
"Hey, I had every right to land my pod in that demonstration! They were going to kill Whalen!"
"Some of those people were innocent. Don't you realise that-"
The explosion of multiple frag grenades cut him off. The death scream of elite pierced the silence, amidst the frightened wails of grunts. That part of the ship shook as a ship disengaged from it. The triumphant yells of marines soon followed.
"See? Nothing to worry about. We're winning." Corporal Hade's confidence in the situation was soon destroyed by an announcement by Caesar over the ship's comms.
"This is Lord Caesar. We will be abandoning the ship soon. All personal will move to corresponding escape pods and prepare to evacuate the ship on when ordered to. Do not leave the ship yet, but take all steps to prepare to. I say again, do not leave the ship yet. This is Lord Caesar, We will be..." The message repeated, it was on a loop.
"Looks like you'll have to let me out after all. Mark Gavin grinned. The war was going to shit, the ship was in trouble, he was still in trouble, but he had won this argument against the MP.
My priorities are f**ked up., he though to himself.
"Okay, I'm letting you out. You'll walk in front me, and don't try anything crazy."
"When the ship is about to be evacuated? I'm not suicidal."
The door to the cell opened up, and Corporal Mark Gavin walked out with a smirk on his face. Corporal Hade wasn't letting him off the hook just yet. As Mark Gavin walked past him he grabbed both of Mark's wrists and handcuffed him.
"Hey! What gives!" Mark Gavin was almost speechless with shock.
"Just because we're getting off this ship doesn't mean I trust you. Now get moving. I don't want to be stuck in some corridor when the actual order to abandon the ship is given, and if you think about resisting, I'll just leave you here." His tone of voice was hard and cold. He was dead serious.
Now Mark Gavin was angry.
“You can't do this! It isn't fair!"
"Move!"
With one final glare at the MP, Corporal Gavin turned around and begin to walk down the hall at a brisk pace, with Corporal Hade right behind him. They quickly walked out of the brig and into the main corridor that spanned the entire ship. From here they could quickly get to the escape pods located near the centre of the ship. Mark Gavin had other ideas though. Inbetween their current location and the escape pods were the orbital drop pods. Since Gavin was ex-ODST, he knew how to operate them, if he could get to one...
"Don't even think of it." Spat Corporal Hade, "I know what you're thinking. Don't even try."

***

Caesar watched as Roland put the final pieces into place. It was so frustrating, being able to only watch, and do nothing as your very being was perverted and molested by another AI. Uncompressing the AI directly into the ships infostructure was the worst mistake he had ever made; it might even end up his last.
"I've got you now!" Roland bellowed across the bridge. Caesar felt nauseas. His very body was being controlled; he had been completely taken over by Roland. The only thing he had left was his appearance.
"Soon you will be consumed by what I have summoned. Both you and your enemies will perish in Dogantzes's atmosphere, whittled down to dust."
Roland as Caesar smiled smugly.
"That will leave me free to access March's network, thus becoming God. I am convinced of this. Don't even try to stop me."
Caesar gasped in pain, or what he imaged pain would be, as Roland jabbed his central process with a fragmentation spike. Caesar immediately lost focus of what he was doing, as his thoughts became clouded and unclear.
I've disabled the weapons and shut down the engines. Don't try to stop me. You'll be dead in ten minutes anyways." Roland hissed at Caesar, then disappeared.

Captain Page watched Caesar finish give his speech, then disappear, only to reappear crumpled on the ground.
"Lieutenant Mane! Get that central computer off-line! Caesar has gone rampant!"
"I'm working on it sir! He's jammed my controls!"
In the Holotank, Caesar coughed up some blood.
"I didn't do...it. It was not me, Captain, please listen." He was barley audible. He was having a hard time focusing on the current task.
"It was AI G-354, also know as Roland. He piggy-backed Serenity onto the Gloris...should have never uncompressed...."
"I can't trust you Caesar. You've put us in a precarious position. You're a threat."
"Captain, Roland summoned a storm using the structure," Caesar paused as he coughed up some more blood. He dropped to his knees; his wine glass shattered on the bottom of the display, and then disappeared. Caesar couldn't keep it rendered anymore.
"He somehow gained control of it...a storm is brewing."
On the front view screen the image of a massive storm of swirling dust. Its speeds measured in excess of 500 kilometres per hour. It would decimate both ships in under a minute.
"Lieutenant, what is the status on our engines being fixed?" The Captains voice was calm but his expression was grim.
"Ten minutes sir. We, ah, enter the storm in five."
"I know."
Alexander looked at Caesar. His eyes narrowed.
"I still don't trust you."
Caesar started to uncompress the AI they had rescued, Serenity. He hoped she would be more helpful and less hostile than Roland was. He considered telling Captain Page, but then decided against it. The Alexander had enough to worry about right know. He didn't need any other distractions. On the other hand, did he? Caesar seemed to remember something about knowing all the pieces before solving a puzzle, or something like that.
Caesar realised that he had lost his long-term memory. He was already fragmenting apart.
"Do we still have the Slipspace engine? Do we have anything? God dammit Caesar if you aren't against us then why don't I have control of my ship!"
Caesar managed to answer that. "There. I managed to unlock the controls. You should now have access to Odyssey's controls."
Captain Page pivoted on his heel and slammed his fist on the control panel.
"That's more like the old Caesar I know! Anything else?"
"There, you have access to the slipspace engine." Caesar looked at Lieutenant Mane. "I'll need your name Lieutenant, you're not authorized for that panel."
"My name's Joesph Mane. Don't you remember me Caesar?"
"Mane? Oh, right. Sorry Captain, but before I literally forget to tell you, Roland hit me with a fragmenting spike. I'm dieing. I have only seven minutes left."
"Roland being the rampant AI? Well at least we know that you are still on our side. That would also explain why you think this ship is the Odyssey. That’s nice to know."
Caesar looked back at Captain Page, confusion on his face.
"What is nice to know Captain?"
"That- oh shit. You forgot already. Never mind. What is the status of the enemy ship? Can we get close enough to it so if it jumps to slipspace we could piggyback a ride?"
Caesar thought for a moment then answered.
"Yes. In fact my dear Captain, if we jumped it would also piggyback us."
"Okay. Make a jump to slipspace in the opposite direction we're facing. Give it 5 seconds of fight time then drop us out. I'm taking the million to one chance of surviving slipspace compared to the million to nothing chance that storm is to us."
"Plot set Lieutenant Page. I'll need that report on Jericho VII by tomorrow."
Captain Page just ignored his old friend, as a tear formed in his eye. He never expected to lose this friend, a not like this, anything but this.
He had handed in that report in five years ago. He didn't want to imagine what was happening in Caesar's mind.
He looked at him, and was happy to notice that he was back on his feet. That must be a good sign. Until Alexander noticed that Caesar no longer had feet.
"The Covenant ship is also entering slipspace! It will enter one second after us. Do will still jump Captain?" Lieutenant Mane's voice was filled with fear, though his face didn't show it. He hadn't broken yet. His eyes were focused out the front view port, on the Redemption, with it's engines powering up.
"Yes." answered Captain Page, "continue to power up for the jump to slipspace. In addition, warn the crew to brace for a hard jump. This one is going to hurt."
"Done sir."
"Alexander?...."
"Yes Caesar?"
"Beware the Ides of March."
"Entering slipspace now." Then the view turned to phosphorus white.

----

Vic Mackley was angry. He was angry at himself, angry at Mark Gavin, and still angry at Chris Gilmore. However, he loathed his broken leg most out of all them. He loathed it for failing him when he needed it the most.
On the last mission he had broken his leg following Mark Gavin in on that crazy jump. Vic had exited his pod only to fall 10 feet down to the ground. At least he managed to fire jis weapon and defend himself before passing out.
A doctor and a nurse walked into his treatment room. The nurse took a device from a nearby wall and started to dissolve his cast.
"I'm going to replace your leg bone now, before this ship gets attacked anymore. I've already flash cloned the replacement, I'm going to do this in five minutes."
The doctor put an oxygen mask over Vic Mackley's mouth, and then went over grab something from the cabinet, though he never made it there.
"This is Caesar," He paused then coughed, "We are jumping to slipspace, everyone please brace for a hard jump. Caesar speaking, soon we will be in slipspace, brace yourself for a hard jump." The warning repeated, though every time it was said differently.
The doctor and nurse moved to the corners and held onto the wall braces. Vic Mackley just stayed where he was.
A rumble moved through the ship, vibrating back and forth, space seemed to twist for moment, as Vic Mackley thought he saw an elite standing next to him looking down in surprise. Then everything snapped back into perspective and stood still. Five seconds later he was thrown against the far wall, impacting with a deep thud.

***

The Aeria Gloris’s complement of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers had been tasked with protecting the bridge and center of the ship. Warrant Officer Aeryn McKay had decided to stay with the troopers protecting the center of the ship, and tasked her second in command to lead the troopers guarding the bridge.
Her platoon had done very well, only ten dead and three wounded, none of them life-threatening. The bridge platoon suffered much more. From what reports she had, the Covenant had attacked it with four boarding craft worth of soldiers, one goldy per each craft as well as the 50 other soldiers under his command, ten of those also elites. She didn’t want to know how the managed it. All of the Troopers except her 2IC and one ODST sniper had died during the attacks. Nevertheless, they had done their job, and the bridge was still safe. She was reorganizing the ODST’s under her command when the order to get ready to abandon the ship came though over the star frigate’s comm system. It was time to get off the damned ship.
“Listen up! Looks like this tub of high technology just took a turn for the worse and is going to leap the pond one last time. When it does, we’re going to have one last chance for a nice long trip to our new home, the closest chunk of dirt we could find: a little rock called March.”
“Any other Intel?” asked Corporal Ryan Conners, “It would be nice to have a little knowledge when we hit the ground.”
“It’s got air, water, and most importantly, land. It’s much smaller than precious Mother Earth, but it’s got the same gravity. In fact, it’s a got a little extra pull in store for us, so if you feel fat, it’s because on this planet, you are!
Lord Caesar has been kind enough to send out a spy drone and a network of three GPS comm satellites, so we’ll be able to communicate with each other, but it will be sporadic, and we won’t have much time to talk to each other if we end up on opposite sides of the planet, which might just happen. We’ll be launching 40,000k from the atmosphere of the planet, not in it, so everyone’s packing oxy tanks, it might even do something to {Random ODST}’s complexion.”
That snide comment made everyone laugh.
“The rest of the ship is getting their sweet little bottoms a comfortable in their air-conditioned bumble-bee escape pods, complete with caviar, but not us.” Warrant Officer Aeryn McKay paused for effect, “HOW are we leaving the Aeria Gloris?”
It was a ritual that never got old, no matter how many times the ODST’s had yelled it. Every chance to drop was a good chance; they had trained for it and done it to many times to not honour the tradition.
“WE GO FEET FIRST MA’M!” all the troopers yelled in unison.
“You go that right, Warrant Officer Aeryn McKay said, “Get to your pods, we’re getting off this ship soon. You have 5 minutes to get strapped in”
They slapped each other on the backs and gave everyone high-fives all around for surviving so far. Then they formed into squads, and followed their non-coms to the pods. They ran down the scarred hallways pocketed with 7.62 dimples and splashed with blood from the firefights that had recently been fought and won in them. They didn’t have time to respect the fallen, it was very silent as they ran past the bodies of those they had joked and talked to only moments ago. One of them recognized a fellow poker player.
“Hey, I owed that guy 5 bucks.”
No one said anything else. They continued on.


***

The Aeria Gloris came out of slipspace intact. Even though it had just made a jump from the atmosphere of a planet, both in, and the covenant ship, had survived, the Redemption was now 100 kilometres in front of the Aeria Gloris, and closing fast.
"Full engines reverse...wait, we don't have engines yet do we?" Captain Page asked grimfully.
"We're still repairing sir, you'll have engines in 55 seconds." Lieutenant Mane was happy to report.
"Good except for the fact we impact the Redemption in one minute. Five seconds of reverse thrust won't help us at all. I'm going to warn the crew." Captain Page accessed the ships controls using his implant and gave the order to evacuate the ship now. Reports came in as watched. Two pelicans made it out and all the ODST's successfully launched.
"Lieutenant Mane, leave the bridge and get our escape pod ready. I'm going to finish up here with Caesar then I'll be right behind you."
Lieutenant Mane gave an understanding nod, saluted, and left the bridge. Captain Page returned and turned to Caesar.
Caesar's eyes were suddenly filled with fire as he turned to Captain Page.
"Roland just left the Gloris! He took the remaining Longsword!"
"Well shoot him down!"
"I can't Alex, he jammed the weapons. We're defenceless. Wait, do we still have some Spy Drones?"
"Yes, we have three. What do you plan to do? They don't have weapons. No, but they are invisible to the longsword’s sensors. I should be able to catch up to him. He isn't traveling at full speed....there. They're away; I left one of my remaining subroutines controlling them. I'm going to enter sleep mode now, that should give me an hour before I fully fragment."
Caesar's image, which was distorted and plagued by static, revolved in a small circle before shrinking down into nothingness. A small datacrystal popped halfway out of the bridges main panel. Alexander felt an edge of regret, and then reached for it. He never managed to grab the crystal. An AGSM-10 missile detonated under the bridge, shattering the glass and sending him out into the vacuum of space. Realizing he was going to die, Captain Page managed to plot his course and velocity using his implant and triangulating with the Aeria Gloris. He sent the information to the battle network before just before his last breath. He died grasping the necklace around his neck. A second later the Aeria Gloris impacted the Redemption.

[Mendicant Bias]

Chapter Four
Dust storms and Lost Echoes

The hunters were running towards the group of marines lead by Master Sergeant Banzai when they suddenly stopped and turned a corner at the hanger bay door. Suddenly it was apparent to both leaders that the hunters were intent on destroying the pelican.
It was at that moment that Corporal Adam Smith opened fire with his machine gun. The massive amounts of hot lead impacted the hunters and made them stop and pause, considering this new threat. Then the rest of the section opened fire and that really got their attention. The hunters turned towards the marines, crouching into their combat stance. The weapons integrated into their left arms started to glow bright green as they charged up, casting the hallway into an eerie green radiance.
“Take cover!” master sergeant Banzai yelled just as the hunters fired their explosive projectiles. The marines ducked behind the corner, hunching down to avoid the blasts. One impacted on the corner where Banzai just was and took the corner out. Luckily it protected them from the blast no one was hurt. The second blast however, landed against the far wall and exploded, showering everyone with little green glowing fragments. It burned their skin where in contacted it, and left little pock marks in their armour and boots.
Chief Warrant officer Tucker Jacobs and the two spotter snipers approached the corner at that time breathing heavy after their sprint to catch up with the hunters. They were distressed about the status of their fellow marines after hearing the explosions and rushed around the corner. They saw the pair of hunters fire their destructive weapons at the section of marines, and heard master sergeant Banzai’s shout of warning.
“Snipers!” yelled Chief warrant officer Jacobs, “Sergeant Briseno left target, fire, fire!”
Briseno had already raised his rifle and fired off two 14.5mm APFSDS rounds right into the back of the left hunter. The first shot ricocheted off in of its back spines and hit the ceiling, showering the hunters in purple sparks. The second shot didn’t miss, and hit true right into the weak back area of the hunter, right where they had been briefed to aim at by the Intel officers from ONI. They had been briefed on the hunter’s weaknesses, just half a month ago. Its back exploded into a mist of orange blood as the great bulk of the covenant’s heaviest form of soldier smashed to ground.
“Sergeant Whalen, right target, fire, fire!” before Briseno had even fired his second shot Chief Jacobs already started to give Alexia her fire order.
She quickly complied, and fired to more shots at the second hunter, much like Briseno had. Like Jonathan Briseno, the first shot missed, it ricocheted off the head plate of the hunter: she had instinctively aimed for the head. The second shot hit the hunter’s right arm, and detonated a fuel rod that had not been fired yet, but that did not kill the beast.
It turned around to face this new threat and charged the sniper team, using the shield attached to its left arm as protection. The snipers fired their remaining ammo at the hunter, Briseno fired two more 14.5mm rounds, and Whalen fired her remaining six .45cal rounds. Chief warrant Jacobs opened fire with his old MA2B, spraying the hunter with his entire clip, it did not affect the charging alien at all.
Master Sergeant Banzai realised that the Chief and two snipers where about to get killed, and took the initiative. He sprang up from his cover around the corner and put a new clip in rifle.
“Cover me!” he yelled at his section as they watched him get up and run after the charging hunter. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he threw two frag grenades at the massive alien, and both exploded right behind the alien. More orange blood splattered to walls, but the hunter continued to rush the chief warrant and snipers. Vaulting over the dead body of the first hunter, he emptied the clip of his assault rifle, the ejecting brass flying behind him as a stream of small reflections, bouncing off the strange alien bulkhead. He caught up the hunter, just as the last bullet from his clip fired, the bolt on his rifle staying in the rear as it was caught by the bolt catch. He slung his rifle and drew his pistol, cocking it.
At the moment the hunter drew back its left arm and swung it at the chief warrant and snipers, wielding it like a massive club. Jacobs and Briseno jumped backwards, falling on their backs. They both drew their pistols.
Whalen dropped to the ground screaming as she rolled out of the way of second swing which impacted the ground where she had just been. The hunter the reached down and grabbed her with its right hand and tried to throw her back towards two section, but she grabbed on its shield and pivoted, kicking it in the face.
Jacobs and Briseno opened fire on its back, while Banzai simultaneously grabbed onto its back and inserted his pistol into the weak point of its armour. Sensing its imminent death, the hunter smashed backwards into the ships bulkhead, crushing Master Sergeant Banzai onto its sharp back spines. Jacobs and Briseno both stopped firing as Whalen screamed in pain again. Then a single pistol shot echoed down the now silent hall, and the resilient hunter dropped face first to the ground, dead from Banzai’s shot. The master sergeant himself was stuck to its back, impaled by its many back spines. One was through his neck.
At that time the marines had ran up to fight, just as it finished.
“You two,” yelled Chief warrant Jacobs at PFC Hundrena and PFC Chan, “Grab the sergeant and hightail it back to the pelican, snipers, you stay with them!”
“Corporal, you’re coming with me,” he said pointing at Adam Smith, “I’ll need your close range fire power.”
He ran down the hall where the marines had come from and went up some levels. This lead the duo into the hanger bay upper floor, and moved over to the near side, directly above the pelican. Accessing the pelican’s motion tracker, he saw that elites where coming out of the door in the corner to their left. He threw two frag grenades at the door just as it opened, revealing no enemies. Chief Jacobs was perplexed for a moment, and then the grenades exploded, killing the elites that had been cloaked using the covenant’s strange active camouflage.
He watched as the rest of the marines loaded into the back of the pelican. Sergeant Whalen entered it last, she was limping. Corporal Smith was already firing at the sporadic covenant entering the lower levels of the bay. Tucker Jacobs took pot-shots as well, aiming careful bursts with his custom 2.5x scope.
It seemed that the covenant had finally managed to organized a full counter attack, because the motion tracker suddenly picked up a massive amount of covenant moving towards the hanger bay, in all directions.
“All right Chief, everyone’s on deck. All I’m waiting for is you and Smith.” Gerbil said over the radio net.
“Roger that LT. I’m just finishing off their remaining aircraft so we won’t have to worry about pursuit.” He pointed the laser sight from custom scope at the aircraft suspended in the air across the bay. “Take those out Smith.”
“Yes Sir!” His machine echoed his words as he swept his fire across them, destroying them. The last one took longer than the rest and it exploded. Right after that the last rounds from the machine gun’s box of ammo fired. Right before Adam Smith could put his last box on the gun, the door behind them opened, and two veteran elites walked out wielding two plasma rifles each.
“Jump!” Tucker Jacobs yelled grabbing Adam Smith by the collar. They both jumped down to the pelican one story below them, as a hail of plasma fire streaked above their heads. They landed hard on the pelican, and rolled off out of control, the plasma shots landing all around them. Jacobs was able to grab onto the deck of the hanger, and Adam Smith landed on top of him, nearly taking them both down to the lower level. Hands grabbed them, pulling them into the pelican as a single sniper shot went over their heads. Adam Smith glanced up to see the control panel on the side of the hanger island shatter, electric arcs sprouting out of it. The rear hatch of the pelican started to close, sealing in the air.
The hanger bay shield fell once again, and the pelican accelerated out it at top speed, moving much faster without the missile pods attached, leaving the port hanger behind.
The inside of the pelican was silent. Chief Jacobs and Adam Smith both slowly got up and sat down on the side seats, and glanced around the pelican. All the marines were sitting on the side seats, with the snipers nearest to the rear hatch. Everyone was looking anywhere but the center, and in the center, was Gunnery Sergeant James kneeling in a puddle of blood, he was wearing surgical gloves that were covered in dark blood. The body of Master Sergeant Banzai was at his feet. There were bandages all over his body, and his head was in a brace, biofoam surrounding it. An IV drip was hooked up to arm, it was empty already.
“I tried so hard, you just lost so much blood, it was like trying to patch a bucket with to bottom…” Gunnery Sergeant James sighed, “…you poor bastard.”
Tucker Jacobs didn’t have to ask. There was nothing to say.
“Five minutes to the Aeria Gloris. I’m beginning rollover now.” Those closest to the front looked out the front window. They were able to watch it as the Redemption jumped to slipspace, taking the Aeria Gloris with it.

[Mendicant Bias]

Chapter Five
Landing

“Okay, Troopers: GO, GO, GO!” Corporal Ryan Conners yelled at the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, “We have to get off this tub ASAP! It’s going down and I’ll be dammed if we go down with it! Bobber! What the hell are you doing?”
Corporal Robert “Bobber” Jenkins grabbed something out of his personal locker and the ran to his drop pod.
“I just had to grab something. Sorry Conners!” Jenkins ran into his pod and began the start-up sequence. Everyone else was already in there pods. Ryan Conners did a quick sweep of the area with his eyes. About a dozen pods were empty. He sighed at the blatant fact soldiers had died this day, and then closed his pod. His arms became a blur as he fastened himself in and armed his ejection tube. He looked at
“Everyone’s ready Warrant!”
“Good. We launch together in three, two…”
The Warrant was interrupted by the sound of twenty eight drop pods firing. They were clear of the Aeria Gloris, and were finally, in a sense, free. All the ODSTs looked out there view screens, looking at the world below them. It was bathed in twilight, as the blue light from the first star cast its eerie blue glow upon the planet’s day side.
Warrant officer McKay quickly did a look over the terrain of the planet. Besides it’s strange appearance, there was some diversity in the terrain, and she had to pick a landing spot. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a secondary AI to help her out like she did during most jumps. The reason why her AI had gone missing still hadn’t been answered by Caesar. She finally decided on the northern tundra it would be a lot easier for the ODST’s to re-unite in that terrain. She uploaded the Drop Zone (DZ) to everyone’s guidance computers. Acknowledgement lights from everyone blinked back at her from all her troopers. ‘Good,’ she thought to herself.

Over in her drop pod, Lance Corporal Cindy Lupin was fiddling with her data player. She popped in a data disc, and then started singing over the team frequency.

“We took the Aeria Gloris up to forty thousand K
We took the Aeria Gloris up to forty thousand K
We took the Aeria Gloris up to forty thousand K, and ain’t going to drop no more!”

The rest of the ODST’s at hearing her singing, joined in. They all managed to remember the words from the practice they had held the day before.

“And the Warrant said: Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
With a rifle up your ass and plasma in your eye,
Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
When you balls hang lower than your troopers boots!”

Cindy Lupin pressed the play button in her pod and some music started to come over the comms, adding to the song. It was a strange sound that none of them had heard before, but warrant officer McKay recognised it at once. It was her playing her flute, following the notes of the song they were now singing. Earlier that month, Lance Corporal Lupin had come to her with a data disc with some sheet music on it asking for the warrant to record herself playing her flute to the music. She did, and this music was the result. They continued to sing.

“The corporal tied a thumb knot in the sergeant’s fuel line,
The corporal tied a thumb knot in the sergeant’s fuel line,
The corporal tied a thumb knot in the sergeant’s fuel line, and we ain’t going to drop no more!

And the Warrant said: Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
With a rifle up your ass and plasma in your eye,
Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
When you balls hang lower than your troopers boots!

The sergeant was the last to drop the first to hit the ground,
The sergeant was the last to drop the first to hit the ground,
The sergeant was the last to drop the first to hit the ground, and we ain’t going to drop no more!

And the Warrant said: Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
With a rifle up your ass and plasma in your eye,
Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
When you balls hang lower than your troopers boots!

We scraped him out the pod with a rusty bayonet,
We scraped him out the pod with a rusty bayonet,
We scraped him out the pod with a rusty bayonet, and we ain’t going to drop no more!

And the Warrant said: Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
With a rifle up your ass and plasma in your eye,
Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
When you balls hang lower than your troopers boots!

We stuffed what was left in broken magazine,
We stuffed what was left in broken magazine,
We stuffed what was left in broken magazine, and we ain’t going to drop no more!

And the Warrant said: Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
With a rifle up your ass and plasma in your eye,
Glory, Glory, what a hell of a way to die,
When you balls hang lower than your troopers boots!

The moral of the story is to push the fucking button,
The moral of the story is to push the fucking button,
The moral of the story is to push the fucking button, and we ain’t going to drop no more!

And the Warrant said:”

At this point McKay pressed the squelch button and yelled over the net, “Thank fucking God, I don’t have any balls!”

All the ODST’s burst into laughing at this impromptu addition to the song. It was good, because some of them were started to suffer from hypothermia, the pod were insulted from heat, not from the cold of space. This drop was longer than any they had been on, and was starting to take its toll. These were hell jumpers, not blizzard jumpers.
McKay looked at her countdown timer, and said over the comms: “Five minutes.”
Everyone calmed down then, and prepared as best they could.

Things became serious as the planet came into view. McKay had few landing sites to choose from, and each of them had their ups and downs. Finally she chose the Tundra like terrain in the Northern region of the planet. Luckily there weren’t any real cold regions, since the only habitable terrain was a vertical ring around the planet. There was day on one side, night on the other, and twilight in the middle. She entered the coordinates into her pod’s computer and sent the information to the rest of the ODST’s.
The pods entered the atmosphere and suddenly it wasn’t so cold anymore. The chill of open space was replaced with the heat of air friction. She gave a small grunt as her HEV’s braking chutes deployed, aiming her at the correct LZ. Soon all the pods behind her followed suite. She saw the ground coming up at her fast through the onboard computer, because of the extra gravity this drop was faster, hotter. It would take all the fuel in her HEV’s retro-thrusters to slow her down enough for a safe landing.
She gave a small swallow as the timer counted down and the retro-thrusters finally fired. If she wasn’t strapped in to her pod her head would have been cracked open, slammed against the top of her pod from the deceleration.
She firmly held onto the pistol grip of her BR55 rifle, ready to cock and fire it as soon as her pods front casing blasted away. Still looking at her computer’s view screen, she saw the detail of the ground appear before her. There was some hills, then swamp, the rocks, then a forest, then some trees, then a single huge tree…
She smashed through the huge trees branches and her pod tumbled, flipping across the ground before coming to an impaled into the side of a small log, on its back. Her front casing was blown away with explosive bolts and she jumped out and rolled to side before it could come down and land on her. She cocked her rifle and scanned around her area.
A screaming rumbling explosion filled her ears. She glanced up as the Aeria Gloris streaked across the blue twilight sky, trailing fire and large billows of smoke. It was like a monster racing to its own hell. Eventually off in the distance it landed, and a rumble shook the ground, and McKay almost fell over.
Her helmet’s HUD started to beep as the rest of her platoon landed, giving green lights for successful insertions. There was some yellows for injuries, but no reds, no deaths. She was happy for that after watching her ship crash.

The Aeria Gloris had fallen, and the ODST’s had landed. It was time for vengeance.


***


Lieutenant Mane ran to the bridge escape pod. There had been a section of ODSTs and marines guarding it, and now there was only four left. The saluted the LT and Joesph saluted to them in return.
“Stand easy, good job marines. The Captain should be with us in a moment. He was just grabbing Caesar from the net.” Just as he finished that sentence there was an explosion that came from the direction of the bridge. Everyone went running to see what had happened, their faces filled with worry, assuming the worse.
They were right. Lieutenant Mane was not able to open the bridge airlock. The internal computer gave the following reasons:

>> NO INTERNAL LIFE SIGNS
>> BRIDGE IS OPEN TO SPACE

The captain was gone.
“Sir, what do we do?” one of the Marines asked.
“I guess we get off this ship,” He looked down at his time piece, “and fast! We’re going to impact the Redemption in 20 seconds!” He ran to the escape pod, and the marines followed him.
“Start the launch sequence! We have to get off this ship now!”
“Yes sir. All ready got the engines hot.” Replied the escape pod pilot, “We’re gone in 10, 9…” She continued to count down, as everyone strapped themselves in. Joesph Mane looked around. It was just him, the pilot, and two ODST’s and two marines, and they were looking to him for direction, for orders, for leadership.
“One,” the bumble bee escape pod launched out of the side of the Aeria Gloris and sped towards the blue lighted planet below them. Everyone looked out the rear window at the Aeria Gloris, as it rammed into the covenant cruiser.



***

An annoying tapping sound woke Vic Mackley up.
A winding river of red slowly spread across the stainless steal floor of the medical room that Vic Mackley was in, forcing him to focus on its dark colour. It was the realisation that it was his blood that made him snap out of his state of unconsciousness.
“What happened….”, he managed to whisper out of his numb mouth. There was a sickening crack across the room, that sound make him even more alert. He quickly got up and a bunch of miscellaneous medical supplies fell off his chest. When he put his weight on his left leg it started to give away, then held sturdy.
“What the hell? I thought my leg was broken?” Vic Mackley said aloud, his voice filled with bewilderment. He inspected it, and it was fine. No gashes, no bleeding, no protrusions, it was healed. He decided to figure what happened to it later, no reason to question a miracle.
He looked around the room he was in. It wasn’t the room he had last been in, so he must have been moved here. Then he noticed it was an operating room. On a stainless steal platter was his old leg bone. Looks like it wasn’t a miracle, the doctor had managed to operate on him.
One of the shelves was open, its contents had fallen all over the room, and most of it had fallen onto the operating table. That was where the stuff that had been on him had come from. In fact, the entire room was a mess. Cabinets and chairs and operating supplies were thrown all around the room, it was a huge mess. He took note of the two bodies in the corners. One was the doctor, his head angled in way it wasn’t meant to. The other was the nurse, all he could see was her legs and one of her hands, she was buried under a pile of junk.
He felt a sharp pain in his head, and reached up to feel it. There was something stuck in his head. He slowly pulled it out, and screamed out in pain. It was a syringe, and half of whatever had been it was now in his head. There was no time to find out what it was; he stuffed the syringe into his pocket after putting a cover over the needle. Blood flowed down over his eyes from the open wound, and he wiped it out of his eyes. A medical bandage soon stopped the flow and he could finally leave the room. It was then that he noticed the window.
The medical room had a small window to see into the adjacent room, which was just an observation room. Looking through the window he saw that the observation room’s far wall was ripped out, and he could see outside.
That wasn’t what worried Vic Mackley. What worried him was what was on the window. It was a four winged bird, tapping on the window with its beak. The Aeria Gloris had crash-landed on March.
Instinctively reaching for his side-arm, Vic Mackley hit nothing but his thigh.
“I need to get a weapon…” he muttered to himself. He ran out of the room, and into the broken hallways.
He had almost made it to the armoury when he heard a soft whimpering sound coming from the direction of the drop pods. The whimpering turned into a howl for a moment, and then died back down to a whimper. Intrigued, Mackley changed direction and went to investigate.
It was one of the MP’s police dogs. It was trapped inside a drop pod. The front side of the the pod had bent down where the ship’s bulkhead had crinkled, and the dog was poking its head out of the small spacing. From what Vic could see, the ejection tube appeared to be jammed.
“Poor thing… You might even be able to help me get out of this mess. I’ll be back in while, I just need to grab some weaponry, and maybe some tools to get you out of there.”
The dog barked back at him, then starting panting, apparently happy with the response.
It was tough navigating the crashed Aeria Gloris, the ship had compressed like an accordion, and some parts of the ship were just gone. Like the complete rear end of the ship for example.
He made it to the armoury eventually, but was surprised what he found there. All the weapons were gone. Ammunition, weapons, utilities, accessories, scopes, everything was missing. The place looked liked it had been ransacked.
“What the hell is going on here?”

Vic decided that there wasn’t enough time to figure out what happened. He made his way to his room, which had been split in half. He could see up though the ship into the twilight sky, and down into the room below him. Luckily, the locker in his room was untouched. He jumped across the gap and keyed in the code, and the door opened. Inside was his personal sniper rifle. Too bad he had sent his scope in for recalibration earlier that day. The scope had gotten offset after the drop when he broke his leg. He would just have to use the iron sights that came attached to the sight rail. He was low on ammunition. All that he had was the magazine in the weapon and on that had in his locker that he had forgotten to return to the armoury.

He jumped back across, and grabbed a multi-tool from inside his bedside table, then headed back to the drop pods. Getting the dog out was much easier that he would thought it would take, he just took off the ceiling panel, and the police dog was able to climb out. It jumped down beside him and started licking his hand.
“Hey! Don’t slobber all over me! I just got you out.” The dog smiled then jumped back into the pod.
“What are you doing? I just got you out of that thing.” Vic Mackley’s question was answered when the dog quickly jumped back out. It was dragging what appeared to be some kind of strange combat webbing. It dropped it at Vic’s feet, and then stood sideways in front of him, perfectly still.
“What is this?” Vic looked it over, then realised that it was something like a tactical vest, but for the dog. He quickly figured out how to put in on the dog, and then noticed that the leash had a nametag sewed onto it.

“MP K9 321 465 347 VALERIE”

Vic Mackley looked at the dog, which was now looking up to him, smiling, and wagging its tail.

“Well Valerie, I guess we’re a team form now on out. Come on, let’s get off this ship.”
Vic looked in the cafeteria of the ship, but couldn’t find any food. Like the weapons in the armoury, it was all gone. He managed to use all his money that he had on the vending machines, and walked away with ten or so energy bars and three energy drinks. He put them into his personal pack, the carried on.
Valerie led them to the open hanger bay, and then they stepped off onto the strange new planet, two soldiers with a new companion to work with.


***


“Lieutenant!”
The small bumble bee drifted through space as it speed towards the blue illuminated planet below them. Lieutenant Mane was lost in thought, wondering what awaited them down on the planets surface. The escape pod had enough food for two weeks with a full pod, but there was only the six of them, so that gave them two weeks and 3 days each, if the covenant didn’t get to them first.
“Lieutenant, Lieutenant!” the pilot of the escape pod repeated herself, as Joesph Mane snapped out of his self-musings.
“What is it? Is there a problem?” Lieutenant Mane worked his way to the front of the escape pod, and looked out the front view port. He saw the blue twilight planet below him, at this time only one of the suns rays was hitting it, the huge blue one. Zooming in with the escape pods basic optics, he noticed that there was a small band of what appeared to be habitable land along the vertical equator of the planet, right in between the night and day side.
“Sir, the problem is fairly big. We only have enough fuel to land on that ring of survivable land if touch down here,” a location beeped on the pod’s tactical display. “But the main problem is that the covenant has already taken that ground. We’ll be coming in hot.”
“I guess we don’t really have a choice do we? We’ll land there,” said Mane, gulping down the worries that had started to rise in his throat.
“Is there any other human craft in the area?”
“I got the transmission from the Aeria Gloris that the ODST’s launched successfully, but I have no idea where they are. We don’t see them unless they want us to. They are probably flying dark right now. God help them.”

“Well what the hell do we do now!” yelled Adam Smith, smashing his fist on the top of the feed tray cover of the GPMG. “We’re just free floating in the middle of no where space!”
“Stow that trash talk marine!” yelled Chief WO Tucker Jacobs. Panicing isn’t going to solve anything. We have to look at our options.”
“We don’t have any options!” Corporal Smith spat back.
“Don’t you talk to the chief like that!” shouted Alexia Whalen.
“Everyone just shut the hell up!” yelled Briseno at the same time as Whalen.
Everyone started shouting at each other, yelling and screaming threats. Eventually pistols were drawn and some rifles were cocked. No one noticed Gunnery Sergeant William James calmly sit down and strap himself in.
“All right Haden, I’m strapped in.” he said calmly into the pelican’s intercom.
“Here comes the chop.” Lieutenant Haden replied.

As the infighting and arguments started to reach a climax, the pelican suddenly stopped its forward movement, letting everyone start to float around. Just as soon as gravity was completely gone, the pelican started to spin, rotating faster and faster in an ever accelerating roll. All the troops were suddenly thrown and pinned to the walls of the pelican, held there by massive g-forces. Using the load intercom, Lieutenant Haden calmly talked.
“Now I don’t know what kind of marines you think you are, but you better listen up now. This is my pelican, and I will decide what happens to it, considering I am the ranking officer of this craft. If anyone has any objection, I can press the open ramp button right now, and vent all of you. You are all just wasting Gunnery Sergeant James’s and my oxygen and fuel.”
William James just smirked at them as they realized that he was strapped in and they were not.
“Now I want to hear you all agree to follow my command, considering that I am the only person capable of flying this craft. I want to hear a ‘yes sir!’ from all of you.”
Chief Warrant Officer Jacobs was the first to reply, with a load and confident:
“Yes sir!”
Alexia Whalen and Jonathan Briseno attempted to both reply before the other, but ended up saying ‘yes sir!’ at the same time.
All the other marines reluctantly and slowly replied as well, affirming their loyalty.
Haden stopped the Pelican’s rotation and everyone settled into their seats and quickly strapped in. Gunnery Sergeant James took a body bag out of the storage cabinet and managed to get Banzai into it in zero gee. Some of the marines watched, while others couldn’t, turning their heads away. William stowed Banzai’s corpse in on of the ceiling holds. Everyone had calmed down after watching him.
Finally, Tucker Jacobs asked the question that everyone was thinking.
“So sir, what exactly are we going to do?”
“There is still some strange readings coming from the center of the storm. Everything else has left, and we don’t have enough fuel to reach either March or even get into its orbit. Besides, a scan sent from the Aeria Gloris before it jumped shows the shadow of a structure there. If it can survive in that storm, we can land on it.”
This was almost too much for corporal Chris Gilmore, who had stayed quiet during the entire argument.
“Into the storm? Are you crazy? There has to be something else!”
“Unfortunately not, while all of you were arguing and during our little chat, the gas giant’s gravity well has been pulling closer and closer, and we are entering the gas giant’s atmosphere…now.”
The pelican was rocked and bounced by the by the churning storm, even though it was only in the eye. Haden was starting to think that maybe this was a bad idea, considering that the outer walls of the storm were traveling at over 500km/h. He put the pelican in a tight roll, syncing with the slower speeds of the center of the storm. Flying straight down into the storm was a dwarfing experience, it was more than 100,000 kilometres wide, Haden felt small and insignificant compared to the massive storm. As the pelican got closer and closer, it started to rotate even faster, getting buffeted and slammed by the storms walls, which were narrowing as the pelican dived deeper towards the center.
Everyone was experiencing déjà vu as they got either pushed against the back of their seats or away towards the other side of the pelican. Weapons rattled in their holding brackets, if anything fell off it would become a high speed weapon, ricocheting around the inside till it hit someone.
Without warning, Alexia Whalen’s shoulder strap snapped. It had been hit by plasma during their incursion on the covenant ship. Jonathan was sitting beside her and reached and grabbed her hand, holding it.
“Hold on!”
The pelican continued to spiral, and Haden fought to stay somewhat under control. He was starting to feel his vision darken, as the G forces slammed into him.
Alexia’s remaining straps couldn’t hold her body in place against he G forces and two more snapped, and she feel forward violently, her waist straps were the only thing holding her to the seat. Her arms were forced outwards and the only thing keeping her feet against the ground was the small indentations in the floor.
She started to scream and everyone else start to as well, either from fear, hysteria, or pain. Everyone in the pelican started to feel their vision give out as they either blacked or reddened out.
Chief Warrant Jacobs opened a line to Lieutenant Haden and screamed at him:
“Lieutenant! Anymore spinning and we are going to black out and die! I can’t even see anymore….my vision is going away and we’re all right fxcked up! You need to slow…”
He didn’t finish his sentence as he blacked out. The screams died down everyone else either passed out from lack of blood going to their brains or from too much pain caused by too much blood going to their brains.
Gunnery Sergeant James and Lieutenant Haden were the only ones still conscious, wearing their pressurized high-G suits.
“I’m going soon Haden….”James managed to say across the comms.
“You better land this thing quick. Good lu-”.
Haden, however, didn’t hear any of the communications given to him. He was completely focused on flying the pelican towards the structure, which he could now see in his view port. It was outside the storm, and appeared very much to be untouched, at the very center.
It was a strange structure, angular with four huge octagonal platforms. In the center connecting all the platforms was an octagonal structure surrounded by eight bracing pillars that connected to it at the bottom, they made a 45 degree angle connected to small angular pods that jutted out of the structure. The structure tapered down at the bottom, and ended with an extremely think cable that continued down into the atmosphere. Just above it were similar yet smaller octagonal platforms that connected the structure by way of ravine that surrounded the above structure.
He believed, no, he knew, that if he could make to the structure they would live.
He started to feel the darkness claim him, as he was pushed the left of the cockpit, being held only by his straps. He was surprised he was able to keep his hands on the controls at all.
He glanced at the range-finder, he was only 100kilometers from the structure and closing fast. He would have to give reverse thrust as soon as he broke free. Soon, very soon.
Something beeped from behind him, he gave a glace, and saw that the count down timer on Chan’s computer had finished. The bomb inside the Redemption had just gone off. So much for the covenant ship, wherever it was.
That one moment of distraction was enough for him to lose control.
The pelican broke through the storm, and accelerated through still air straight for the strange structure. Haden pulled back on the controls and jammed the right foot pedal, trying to turn the pelican away from the structure. It was still spinning and he ended up flying straight down to it. He hit the reverse thrusters but they gave out, and the fuel warning light that he hadn’t notice before in concentration become blaringly obvious.
The pelican was out of fuel.
He braced himself as it landed on the structure, bounced, came back down, and crunched, standing on its nose and started skidding, spinning like a top. A wing caught a pillar of the structure and tore off, slamming the pelican on its top, the world became upside down for Haden. It continued to skid, fell off the structure, free fell for a while being buffed by the wind, and landed on a lower platform, crushing the right side engines and wings. It skidded and ended up upside down on an angle. He realised that they had fallen into the small ravine that circled the structures cable and were still upside down.
They had landed on the structure.
Hanging by his straps, he hit the cockpits door release and looked into the cargo hold behind him. Everyone was still knocked out.
“Shxt.”