The Explosion: Redemption
By Matthew Smith and Kristy Harrington
CHAPTER ONE
6 Months after the death of Clymore
Washington D.C. - The New United States of the Republic
The room was of standard size. The walls were made of brick and steel. The floors were made of wooden panels. The ceiling was made of carbon steel. The door - the only door - was made of pure industrial strength silver steel and it was 24 inches thick. The man in the lab coat turned from the computer and looked up at the man who, almost naked except for the cloth draped around his waist, was cuffed by chains connected to the ceiling.
The man's feet just barely grazed the ground as he hung in the air, completely out of it. The Doctor turned back to the computer and read the text on the monitor. The results were nearly perfect. Nearly. It would have to do. The doctor turned to the phone next to him and dialed a number.
"Yes. Tell Chairman Admon that the process is complete. The order will be given at 0500 hours in the Tactical room, if he wishes to be there." There was a pause. "Very Good." The doctor hung up the phone and turned back to the man hanging from the ceiling.
This one should be able to match them all. The doctor smiled to himself. He could not wait…
(-)
Isle Cortana, Near Hawaii - The New United States of the Republic
The Hall was dim as I made my way down it, unknowing what I was doing there in the first place. How did I get here? Suddenly a scream rang out. I felt my heart's pace quicken. I reached out as I approached a door and opened it. A figure stood in the center of a cube shaped room. I slowly walked over and touched the figure's should, and it turned. I gasped. Clymore smiled at me.
My eyes shot open, and I found myself gasping for air. I sat up in the bed, panting heavily. It was just a dream. There was a soft moan next to me. "Matt? What's the matter?" I shook my head. "It's nothing." I turned to Kristy and gave her a soft kiss on the lips and stroked her hair softly. "Go back to sleep. It was nothing."
I got out of bed and went out onto the balcony. I breathed in the fresh air and looked out into the night's sky. Thunder rolled in the distance. I rubbed my forehead. It was going to be a long night. Suddenly a voice caused me to turned around. "Matt," The White Queen began, "A check of the motion sensors revealed that one has been disabled. Do you know anything of it?"
I blinked. "No. Which one?"
"The court yard."
"I'll check it out."
"Very well. I shall keep watch."
I nodded and went back inside the bedroom. I grabbed a shirt of the chair near the bed and pulled it on. "What's going on?" Kristy asked. "Court Yard Motion Sensor's been disabled. I'm going to check it out. I'll be back in a moment. Really, get some sleep. We've got a big day tomorrow with the Commandos returning, and I won't be but a minute."
She nodded and laid back down. I turned and made my way into the hall, closing the door behind me. I went downstairs and went outside into the court yard. Everything was quiet. I stood on the front steps for a moment, listening. All I heard was the distant thunder. I shrugged and went over to the wall, where a small round chip was. I pushed in a smaller brick and the small round chip extended into a short tube. I unscrewed it and found the problem. The cable was unplugged. I frowned and reconnected it.
I looked around and frowned again. Something wasn't right. I took out a comm. "Did that fix it?" I asked. The White Queen's voice replied "Yes. It's back online. You may return inside."
"Copy." I slipped the comm back into my pocket and went back inside.
(-)
The next day I made myself a cup of hot chocolate. I wasn't much for Coffee. I went outside and stood on the front steps, sipping carefully at the drink. The White Queen appeared next to me. "The Clones are to arrive today?" she asked. I nodded. "Yea."
"I shall check on the status of the gunships." And with that she vanished. Suddenly two arms wrapped around my stomach. "Good morning." Kristy whispered in my ear. I smiled. "Good morning."
Kristy slid around next to me and looked around. "Clones are coming home then?" I nodded. "Yea. The White Queen went to check on the ETA."
At that moment, the White Queen Reappeared. "They're set to arrive in 10 minutes."
I nodded. "Wonderful."
"Shall I contact Blazer, Etain, Fordo, Lara, Jacob, Kate and Rebecca?" She asked. I nodded again. "Yes, please." She vanished again. Kristy looked at me. "Care for some breakfast?" I smiled. "Sure. How about having that in bed?" She laughed and leaned into me and I kissed her passionately as I placed my hands around her waist.
Suddenly the White Queen appeared. "I'm sorry to disturb you Matt and Kristy. But There's a problem."
We looked at her. "What is it?"
"The gunship carrying Delta Squad has just made an emergency landing in the forest just 5 miles from here."
"Cause?" Kristy asked. "Unknown."
Kristy and I exchanged looks. "Looks like breakfast in bed will need a rain check."
(-)
"Hey! Hey! No cheat codes!" Blazer hissed at Fordo, almost laughing. Fordo moved his fingers around on the X-box controller, and spun his character around and open fired on Blazer's character. "I said no cheat codes!" Blazer was cracking up now. So was Fordo as he press a button and tossed a grenade at Blazer's Character. Blazer tried to make his jump but was far too late, and his character went flying all the way across the blood gulch map of Halo.
"And I said, I wasn't cheating Ner Vod. This here," Fordo pointed at himself, "is all skill!" Blazer faked a frown. "We'll see about that." He said, smirking. Suddenly the girl in the pure white dress and blue eyes appeared behind them. "Blazer, Fordo. Matt and Kristy needs you too meet them at these coordinates." Some numbers flashed on the screen, taking away their game of Halo.
They both exchanged looks. The White Queen continued. "It's Delta Squad. Their gunship crashed in the forest for some unknown reason."
"Well why'd they crash?" Blazer asked. Fordo smacked him upside the head. "Conditions for the emergency landing are unknown." The White Queen stated.
(-)
There was an ATV for each of us.. All were designed after the warthogs from Halo, but with a few changes, that stemmed from everyone's own person ideas. The few additions were armor plating, which could quickly cover the entire vehicle in a super duty steel armor, made from Katarn Class 3 Armor plating, courtesy of the commandos before they had left. Another was A night vision mode windshield, for when and if you had to go out at night. In addition to that there was the Ejecting seats in case of emergency. And last but not least, two rocket launchers, on either side of the vehicle in the front just before the headlights, had been installed.
Yes, they were custom. And we all loved them for different reasons. But they were our main transportation. Blazer drove his, with Fordo in the passenger seat, through the dense forest. "Would you watch it, please?" Fordo asked, ducking to avoid being clobbered by a tree limb. Blazer just nodded. They came upon another ATV and Blazer put his in park. They got out and ran over to the main reason they were out there. The crashed gunship.
I looked at Blazer. "Nice of you to join us." He smiled sheepishly. "Any sign of Delta?" Kristy shook her head. "No. None what so ever. But whatever happened, it did a number on the engines of the gunship." She pointed to the smoldering remains of twisted metal and durasteel. "Oh." Blazer said. Fordo frowned. "We'll how long ago did they crash?"
"About an hour ago."
"Then they couldn't have gotten far."
I shook my head. "Well if they're around here, the White Queen isn't picking them up in her scans."
We all frowned. The White Queen could do almost anything except fight physically. Her scans picked up even a moving leaf. But no Delta squad. "What the hell could have done that, anyhow?" I asked, picking up the remains of the engines and turning them over. "A ground to air missile." Fordo said. We all looked at him. "What, it's true." I thought about it for a moment. My friend had a point. I shrugged. "Come on. They're obviously alive. "Let's go see if Omega knows anything." I got into the driver's seat and Kristy climbed in next to me. I started up the ATV, and Blazer did the same with his.
(-)
Everyone stood around the front yard of Matt and Kristy's house, waiting for Omega squad to land. The White Queen had alerted them that they would be here any moment. Jacob was fascinated with the White Queen. He'd stopped by everyday since Fixer had given the Computer AI to Matt, just so he could talk with her. Her. Yes. It was almost as if she was like a real person. And she was to him. With the exception that she could not be touched or handle anything physically.
He just simply enjoyed her company. Etain shrieked excitedly. "I see them! Their here!" He looked up in the sky and saw the red and tan gunship flying toward them. They were here alright. The gunship lowered to the ground, but did not touch it, simply hovering about 24 - 48 inches off the ground. The Commandos dropped out of the gunship, their custom Katarn class 3 armor glistening in the sun. They all took off their helmets and looked down on each of them.
Etain rushed over and gave them each a hug. "Welcome home, guys." Atin smiled. That was rare for him, from what Jacob had seen. Niner looked around. "Where's Matt and the rest?" He asked. Lara stepped forward. "They're out inspecting the remains of Delta's gunship."
Darman nodded. "Yea, that was really strange."
"Why? What happened?" Kate asked. Fi shrugged. "Well, you don't see a ships engines just explode in mid air everyday. It was almost as if Sev coughed. His breath is really-"
"Stow it, Fi." Niner said, shaking his head. He turned to the group. "Delta's fine. We contacted them. They're walking the rest of the way. We offered them a ride, but they declined."
At that moment, two ATVs pulled up. Matt and Kristy got out of one and ran over, followed by Blazer and Fordo. "Welcome home, Omega." Fordo exchanged the secret hand shake with Atin and Kristy gave Fi and hug. "What happened to Delta?"
"They decided to walk." Fi said, chuckling. I cocked an eyebrow. "Well, it is a nice day out." Atin brought his hand up from behind and smacked Fi upside the head. "Should of kept your helmet on "Di'kut." Fi jammed his elbows out playfully into Atin's arm and just laughed.
"Well, well." A voice came from the other side of the parked gunship. "Looks like you guys ain't as fast as you thought after all." Boss rounded the gunship, followed by Fixer, Sev and Scorch. We all smiled. " 'Bout time you boys showed up. We were talking about celebrating without you."
Kristy looked at Darman. "Celebrate what, exactly?"
Scorch looked at Omega. "You guys didn't break the news yet? Awesome. Looks like I'm the hero then." He turned to Kristy and smiled a cheesy smile. "We got the Anti-Aging DNA Structure."
"Are you serious?"
I felt my jaw drop open. Blazer smacked Scorch and the Clones on the backs. "Awesome! Now you can enjoy your time!"
Kristy grabbed Fi by the arm as everyone began to go inside the house. I couldn't help but smile. The clones had done it. After 6 months of planning, Recon trips, raiding ammo storages, and locating the structure, they finally found the cure to their accelerated aging. They could live life. They could enjoy it. They were free.
If only we all knew what was going to happen.
(-)
We all sat around the living room, wherever a chair happened to be, listening to Delta tell us what happened. "Oh, yea. Everything was going smoothly. We were worry free. And I had noticed some guy on the main road below us as we were getting ready to fly over the forest. But I just figured it was one of you guys." Boss said.
"But then the ship rocked and there was an explosion so loud, our helmets had to adjust the sound levels to protect our hearing. Then the pilot screamed that we all needed to hold on to something and that we were going to make an emergency landing in the forest." He stopped and looked at us calmly. "But we crashed so roughly, that we all blacked out. When we came to, the pilot was dead."
"How so? From the crash?" I asked. Sev shook his head. "No," Fixer said, "His head - Helmet and all - had been.. Severed off. In fact we couldn't find his head."
Scorch frowned. "Poor Sob. He was cool too. Loved Mon Cal Opera. You would have liked him Fi."
I sat back on sofa next to Kristy and frowned at this information, trying to take it all in. "Who could have done that?" I asked, more to my self then anyone else. The White Queen spoke. "Perhaps it was the same person who disabled the court yard motion sensor."
Blazer cocked an eyebrow. "Court yard motion sensor problems? I had the same."
"So did we." Fordo said. "Same here." Lara said. We all looked at Kate and Jacob. They both nodded. "Yea. So did we."
"So what should we do?" Blazer asked. I thought for a moment. "What can we do? We don't know who's doing it, or when. All I can say is have a weapon in your houses. Be ready for anything."
I turned to the White Queen. "Can you monitor the security cams around everyone's houses? Alert me if anything suspicious comes up."
She nodded. "Will do."
I turned to Omega and Delta and smiled at everyone. "Well, enough worrying. We'll deal with worries tomorrow. For now. Let's celebrate the ant-accelerated aging." Fi popped open a bottle of wine at that moment and grinned as the foam spilled over the top.