Geez, it was over ninety days ago that I first published this story. I would like to thank you all for your reviews, especially the ones that gave me things that needed fixing. All of your feedback has inspired me to fix up my story, cut the rough gem into a miraculous stone. I hope you guys like this version better than my original. Anyways, disclaimer time! I do not own the Halo universe, although I really want to own it. That, however, is Microsoft and 343 Industries' jobs. Yet again, the Foe hammer to Master Chief dialogue came from Halo: The Flood by William C. Dietz. Now, I'm sure you're tired of this author-speak, so have fun reading, and please remember to review!
The cabin of the D77-TC Pelican-Class dropship shook as another radioactive fuel rod blast landed its mark.
"Crap!" shouted Flight officer Captain Carol Rawley, the Pilot of said Pelican. "Frye, how are we back there?"
"This is bad, Carol, that last blast messed up the rear left reactor, it's going to overload soon!"
"Shut it down, boost power on the right."
"On it." The cabin shook again causing Carol to swear loudly. She engaged evasive maneuvers, pulling her evac craft into a barrel roll. She pulled up right as the craft was about to hit a cliff face, causing two of the Covenant Banshee's to crash into the wall.
"Hooah!" Carol and Frye both cheered at the same time.
"Carol, comm. Coming from the Pillar, it's Chief and Cortana. Patching them through to your set now."
"Cortana to Echo four nineteen! Requesting extraction now! On the double!"
"Affirmative Cortana!" Carol thrust her bird as fast as it could go. Another fuel rod blast hit the ship, and lurched it to the portside. Carol heard a beeping sound, and swore as she tried to regain control of her aircraft. The rear left engine was completely destroyed, throwing the ship out of control. "Frye, find a way to keep us stable." There was no response. "Frye! Frye, I need you man!" Carol pulled up the biomoniter display. Frye was gone. Her best friend for all those years, dead. And she was near her expire date too. There was no way she could save the Chief now.
"Pull up! Pull up!" Carol recognized the gruff voice of the Master Chief Petty Officer, John 117. She was losing altitude fast, and flew right under the service corridor. Her ship was leaning towards the wall, Carol screamed into her mike, and prepared for the end. She felt no pain, only peace.
(Several years earlier, new Miramar, Eradinus II)
Carol was awakened by a loud trumpet call. Carol tried to go back to sleep, but was quickly woken back up by a middle-aged, stern faced woman.
"Get up, boot! Now!" Carol let out a soft, inaudible groan, and got out of her bunk. The woman, who just so happened to be Drill Sergeant Amelia Williams of the UNSC Naval Air Training Academy walked over to torture the next poor soul that tried to sleep in. After pulling on her work-out gear, Carol walked outside to the cool, morning air.
Carol grew up on Eradinus II, never even left her parents' farm before coming to the Academy. Practically from the crib, Carol knew she wanted to be a pilot for the UNSC. At age fifteen, she got her first pilot's license, and would take her father's antique Cessna 362 single-seat aircraft for joyrides. Her leg still acted up sometimes; still damaged from the time one of thee pistons blew in the old plane, causing it to crash. A metal bar drove right through her leg, deeply wounding the tissue and muscle beneath. The injuries from that crash led to her having to miss registration for the Academy for two long years. Carol, now twenty-one, was finally living out her dream.
"Alright recruits, last one to the training field cleans the trays tonight! Move it, move it! Go! Go! Go!" Carol ran at a steady pace, careful not to injure her leg. As she was running, another recruit, Brian Frye, fell in next to her.
"Hey baby." Carol brushed aside Frye's flirtatious comment, and concentrated on keeping a steady pace. "Really, the cold shoulder? I didn't even ask you anything yet."
"No. I know exactly how you are with girls. You date them for two weeks, then go after another one. Who was it last week, Jessica?"
"Oh come on, just one date? Please?"
This time, Carol shouted at her fellow Cadet, "No! Leave me alone!"
"Do we have a problem here?" Both cadets turned in shock to see Sergeant Williams behind them. "Never mind, fifty push-ups each before you go inside. Now double-time it before I made it seventy-five!" The rest of the run was uneventful, as were the morning calisthenics. First there were the push-ups, with Carol and Frye finishing last, due to their extra set. Next came the crunches, and jumping jacks, suicides, and many more torturous exercises.
Around thirteen hundred hours, it was time for Carol's favorite part of the academy; the Flight Combat Simulation Room. Similar to arcade games from the twenty-first century, the RFSP-135's were designed to give pilots full flight experience without even going into the air. They were programmed with hundreds of thousands of different combat scenarios, ranging from extraction missions to dogfights. All of those scenarios were monitored by the Academy's A.I., Lady Clara. The "pods" as the recruits would call them would rattle, shake, and react perfectly in sync with the digital environment. Each pod's exterior looked exactly the same: a giant olive drab egg. The interiors perfectly recreated the cockpit of D73 "Pelican" drop ships, the UNSC's standard drop ship. Carol held the top score in the academy, having successfully completed fifty-five missions, with only twelve failures. Oddly, only half of the pods were active.
Colonel Burchett, the headmaster of the academy cleared his throat, getting the attention of the gathered cadets. "Today you will all start a new segment of your training; flying with the assistance of a copilot." Excited murmurs ran through the cadets; some were excited for this new development, others were not. Some students, like Carol, were already devising new strategies to win. "You will be put in pairs of two, based on your Battle Proficiency Ratings." The Colonel gestured towards his lieutenant, who was holding a datapad. "Lieutenant, if you would."
"Yes sir. The first name called is the pilot, the second is the copilot. Cadets Abbot and Robins are on pod two. Cadets Jefferson and Rogers are on pod two. Cadets Rawley and Frye are on pod three…" Carol could not believe what she had heard. She was paired with Frye!?
"And finally, Cadets Long and Wu on pod thirty-five. Dismissed." At the verbal prompt, all seventy cadets ran towards their respective pods. To Carol's detest, Frye was already strapped in when she reached her pod. As Carol climed in, Frye had to try again with getting a date with her.
"Why hello again, m'lady. Thou look as beautiful as a summer rose."
Carol glared at her new copilot. "We just finished running not even ten minutes ago. I still haven't stopped sweating, and you think it's wise to flirt with me?"
"Is that a question?"
"Just shut up and get ready." Carol strapped herself into her seat, and activated the pod. A hologram of a beautiful Victorian era lady appeared in the simulated glass cover of the pod.
"Hello Lady Clara." Carol said politely.
"Hello Carol, how are you today?"
"Fine thank you. Is the simulation ready?"
The A.I. snapped her fingers, turning the blackened windows into a replica of a Halcyon-Class cruiser's flight deck. "Your mission today is to rescue fireteam Wilma from the LZ at these coordinates." A series of numbers appeared on Carol and Frye's Helmet HUD's, detailing the firequads last known location. "They are under fire from a heavily armed group of insurrectionists. They have twelve hijacked shortsword bombers, as well as two D75-b assault Pelicans. There are also thirty heavily armed insurgents on the ground, six of which have surface to air missiles. The fireteam only has around ten minutes left to survive."
"What weapons are we packing?" Asked Frye. Carol swore to herself, He was always faster.
Your ship is equipped with a fifty-millimeter chin gun, and fifty HE-ANVIL missiles. Do you have any more questions?"
Carol smiled, "When can we start?"
The blue A.I. smiled back at Carol. "Immediately.
Wow, much better than the original. Okay, so I changed a lot of things in here, fixed some weird parts, and just tried to round this whole thing out. Please rate and review, so I can fix more things in the later chapters. Au revoir!