STELLULATE 42 LUNAR 4 ETA - 4 DAYS 0 HOURS 48 MINUTES

I awoke a while later, I couldn't tell how much later, my watch (Authors note: God knows why..) wasn't working in zero G. I then slowly began to remember all my troubles, the first few moments of senility granted by the waking process quickly fading away. I looked at my arm, where the gauze was soaked slightly in blood. My head had a swelling bruise on it from what I could tell, and I hadn't been captured, so I must have only been out for a little while. Pushing a cabinet out of the way, which had drifted in front of me, I launched myself through the room. So much for stealth. I pulled the berretta out of my body armor and slid the magazine out of it. Floating in the center of the room I grabbed a few more bullets to fully reload the magazine, and loaded each shot into the clip before sliding it back into the weapon. I cocked the gun, sliding another bullet into the chamber of the gun and prepared it to kill. I pushed myself forwards out the door, and into the hallway. I knew what the UNSC would say that my next task was, to go to the bridge, and to send a distress call so that the ship would be picked up by a cruiser, since we were in the Lunar 4 area probably a Legacy, and they would sink our ship, literally. If not they would send in a sweep team and everyone aboard would die anyway. But otherwise these terrorists would live, so I decided to go to the bridge. Checking the hallway I drifted out, satisfied that it was clear. Kicking off the door frame towards the ladder, I pulled myself up to the dorsal structure of the ship, and carefully swept the long hallway for any patrols. I spotted one, about ten feet away from my position. It was a man that I had not seen before he was a tall, lanky man and had blonde hair. I couldn't see his face, only his back, but a neck strap assured me he toted a rifle. I needed his gun, and killing him, I decided, would be no problem, but I didn't want to take on his friends too, so I had to kill him silently. I floated out into the hallway near to where he stood, silently floating closer to him. Some orbs of blood from my wound still floated in the air nearby. I pushed nearer to him as he began to rotate around. I quickly caught him in a headlock as he yelled "What the hell!?!" I quickly quieted him by pressing my berretta against his head and kicked off the wall to drag him back to the ladder.

"Drop the gun." I said quietly, "I am Jack Anderson, and I have a few questions. Now I want to make one thing clear, you do anything I don't like, and I will make sure that your head is along that wall. And maybe that one too, so do what I like, and tell me why you are here and what you want with us." I said coldly to him. He gave a weak nod of agreement, and broke the strap that held his rifle and letting it float in the hallway.

"We are here to eliminate evil at its origin." He said. More zealot blather.

"I meant why are you here, not for more of this rhetorical crap." I said back to him, replying to the moronic speech I knew was coming otherwise.

"What do you mean, this is the only way, to destroy evil?" he said. He was seriously brainwashed.

"Okay, we'll try this again," I pressed the gun against the side of his head, "Why hunt me and my crew, how did we become evil? Is it because we are in space? Well I got news moron, you're in space too." I said. Maybe taking this to a little more illiterate level would untie this idiots tongue.

"We are combating you creating people, only the works of a god can do that, no person should ever do anything of such a nature." He replied.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! When did we start making people! We're just a damn transport ship! We carry the stuff, we get paid, the end, I don't want to offend your religion of something!" I expressed at him, with a silent fit of yelling.

"But you support them. You killed a defender of justice, Roguriez."

"I killed him? Nice shot aren't I?"

"A great shot, you hit him in the heart, but as an aggressor of the evil, you are unfit to live."

"Um. Aggressor? Who shot first? You guys. You came aboard, no invitation, killed one of my crew, I assume, and took the rest prisoner, beating one. At least one."

"I told you, you supported evil with this cargo."

"I still don't get it. HOW!?!" I shouted, still silent, however.

"Do you know of something your government is working on? Something special, something secret to help win the war?" he said. I was fed up with these speeches, however this seemed to be the only one going anywhere so far, "It is called a Spartan, it is a clone. And guess what you are carrying."

"Let me guess, a Spartan?"

"No. You aren't."

"Then why did you capture our ship idiots? We aren't your enemy, I don't even know what a Spartan is!" I yelled, still silent I might note.

"You have something that makes a Spartan from strongman into super soldier. An aid mightier than the very rifle, and coveted so, the armor for which they will wear to combat the Covenant, which they clearly need, so it is our goal to hinder them by taking it."

"This is.. Riveting." I said.

"Yes, so will you aid us? Gods are the only ones that can create people, not machines! Help to hinder their cause!" I stared at him for a second before starting to laugh hysterically.

"You expect me to believe that? Clones? Moron, that's the stuff of sci- fi, it has been banned for something like 600 years!" I laughed some more, clearly offending him. He had just marked me as his enemy. I heard some movement in the distance. I could tell he did too judging by a sudden increase in his movement. I readied the Berretta, my laughing may have attracted their attention. I poked the side of his head with the gun, and again whispered, "Tell them you are okay. Do it." I pressed the gun against his head another time, "or else."

He hesitated, "KELLY, HE'S OVER!!!" his sentence ended suddenly, a loud pop taking it's place. My blood was no longer the only one spilled in this hallway. Snatching his rifle, which was still floating in the hallway I fired a few shots down the dorsal hallway, déjà vu. I ducked around the corner as a few more bullets whipped by me, they were getting to be better shots in zero g. I grabbed the dead man and flipped his half-decapitated body into the hallway. Jumping out behind it I grabbed his arm and fired five shots down the hallway. They returned fire, two of the shots hitting their comrade and propelling me further down the hallway. I fired three more shots down the hallway, the tracer fire arching towards the ladder, which had the blood of Roguriez's exit wound behind it. I had a downward angle though, and hit off the floor at high speeds. Grabbing my shoulder, which had hit the floor and releasing the body I bounced off the floor and continued down the last leg of the hallway. Jumping to the ladder that led to the command sector of the Stellulate I quickly pulled myself down the ladder and aimed my gun down the hallway. Someone floated around the corner, jerking their body at the sight of me, a hostile.

"Don't shoot!" I shot. Four shots hit him in the chest, he died instantly. I grabbed his gun and ammunition and dropped my berretta, leaving it floating in the air. He had another pouch on his chest, near his heart, so I grabbed that too, hoping it was something of use. I jumped around the corner to the door leading to the absolute tip of our ship, the bridge. I checked the pouch, inside was some plastic explosives. Looks like these newbies had some good weapons. As I floated near to the door it opened automatically, revealing the inside of the tiny bridge. Noting more than a glass encased sphere with a seat on it, it was a small bridge, but an adequate one. The man who was sitting in it, another zealot spun around, "What the-" I shot him as well, hitting him in the chest with three shots.

Floating into the room I pushed his body out of the chair and sat down instead in his place. Wiping some blood off of the radar panel I reached down for the communication radio, stopping my hand just inches from it. A sweep team. Did I really want one? They have the bad habit, as do I of shooting first and asking questions later. I mean, I was doing ok, one wound and four enemies down, I was doing great. I could take care of them myself. I pulled out my Swiss Army knife, and cut the cable that controlled the communications system. As a last ditch effort, they might call one in. Checking the ETA, which was four days, I left the room. Chances are they were attempting to regroup, probably attempting to take over the cargo hold, it was they're best place to gather, and their objective as well, so hopefully I had the whole ship to roam without being spotted, and I could literally lay siege to them. They were trying to take something, maybe some gold or credits, but not armor like that dummy had told me. But whatever it was, they have a reason for deactivating the gravity, so I want to fix it, as soon as possible. It will at least slow them, and right now it was to a condition of Guerilla warfare, so the best I could do was to stall them and utilize a series of hit and run attacks.

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STELLULATE 42 LUNAR 4 ETA - 4 DAYS 0 HOURS 37 MINUTES

I floated into the gravity generator room, and was surprised at the roar of the engine. It hummed louder than even the ships, and was probably consuming more power. I could survive without gravity, and we could probably chalk up the saved power to add onto our profit. But now wasn't the time for that, I cocked the gun and drifted into the center of the room to the controls. I pressed the power button, no results. Checking beneath the control panel I found the pathogen, a clipped power cable. I really was dealing with amateurs here. I grabbed the rubber key cover (the nerds down at engine room just had to have them. Thank you nerds.) used to keep dust out of the keyboard. Grabbing the two halves of the wire, I waved one in the air. It left a glowing streak of electricity. Cool. I connected the two wires and watched as all the display screens and monitors activated. I left the two wires and stepped to the console unite beside the gigantic cylinder, which contained everything needed to create the gravity that a decent sized planet produces. I hit a few buttons on the screen and drew up another more complex screen. I looked up and down the screen. There was some text printed too little for me to even read. I stared for a second, trying to read it and eventually decided to just randomly hit buttons. I got lucky, and the gravity quickly activated. I fell to the floor hitting my chin on the keyboard unit. It snapped off and dangled by a few cords, but it would do. Stood back up and checked my chin. It wasn't broken, but it was bleeding. Wiping the blood from the open wound I readied my rifle. If the gravity was as crucial to their operation as I thought it was, they would be here soon. I took a small claymore type weapon that I had grabbed from one of the soldiers I had killed, and stuck it underneath the keyboard. It was set to a proximity circuit, so if anyone dared to attempt to reactivate it, they would be blasted along with the gravity generator. Stepping out the door I carefully checked the hallway before progressing. I was glad to have gravity back, it was nice to be able to shoot a gun and not fly backwards as a result.

Stepping cautiously around the corner I was suddenly alerted by a noise. Stopping my motion completely I readied the rifle and peered around the corner. It was another tight cramped hallway, as many on the ship were, and was not longer than ten feet to the other door, which led to a hallway leading parallel to mine along the belly of the ship. Suddenly I heard it again, another squeak. I slowly turned around the corner and stepped into the next hallway. Pressing my back against the wall I slowly progressed closer to the other hallway. I aimed my gun for about the height that someone's chest would be at and spun around the corner, ready to kill them. There was nothing there at all. I looked up and down the hallway confused and suddenly saw movement at my feet. It was my pet rat, sitting at my feet; he probably floated out of his cage and down all these hallways when the gravity was out. I knelt over and lifted him up, after slinging the gun around my neck of course. I raised him up to a level where we were eye to eye. "Hey Peneke. Yer gonna be a hero today."