CHAPTER 3 A NEW FIGHT

Azoth's cryo pod opened and he stumbled out of it and bent over. "Damn been awhile since I've felt like this after a freeze." He said as he stood up and walked over to his locker and looked to see the rest of the pods opening and the ODST's stumbling out of them.

"It is expected after such a long cryo sleep." Came the ships AI.

"And how long have we been under….?" Azoth asked pausing not remembering the AI's name.

"Two years." Replied the voice. "and my name is Seras."

"Really? Two years?" Azoth asked in shock "that is the longest I've ever been under."

"Yes it was a very long trip." Seras replied "now the captain is already on the bridge waiting for you, he wants you up there for when we exit slip space"

"Alright tell him I'll be up in a minute." Azoth said as he finished putting on the last of his gear and grabbed his SMG.

Azoth walked on to the bridge of the ship where he saw the Captain and the General looking over the maps they had. The General looked up and saw Azoth walk in. "Ah Night Angel good to see you awake."

"Good to be awake still getting the kinks out from that nap." Azoth replied with a stretch.

"Haha yeah I know what you mean." Dunsparce said with a laugh stretching out his leg.

"Hey if you had gotten on that bird I wouldn't of had to shoot you." Azoth said making both of them smirk as the captain walked up to them.

"General we are about to exit slip space." Captain Jager said interrupting their chat.

"Good." Dunsparce said "And I can sense the tension in your voice." He added getting a shocked look from the captain "I know you don't like answering to someone else on your own ship." He said getting the captain to nod "Once we find a good base of operation ground side I won't be in your way any longer."

"Honestly out of all the marine officers above me that I've worked with you've been the easiest to get along with. You seem to understand that a captain's ship is his home and he doesn't like taking orders on it." Jager said with a smirk and relaxing his stance a bit.

"Captain exiting slip space in ten sir." One of the navigators called out "six, five, four, three, two, one" just then they exited slip space to the scene of a massive space battle.

"Shit general quarters all hands to battle stations!" Jager yelled "Get us dark now!" he yelled as they activated their stealth capabilities. Once they were dark they moved away from the battle.

"Well at least we found out there is intelligent life here before they found out we are here." Azoth said looking at the triangular ship going side to side with the half oval shaped ship both opening up on each other with plasma fire.

"What do you mean Night Angel?" Jager asked

"With the covenant we had no idea they were around till it was too late and we were at war." Azoth said "and bonus these guys seem to be at war with each other so they won't pay us too much mind." He added with a smirk

"Pretty good." Jager said "You will make a good general someday."

"No give me a squad and send me into hell." Azoth replied as he watched the triangle shaped ship explode at the engines and begin to fall to the planet below. "So if I get promoted beyond this put a bullet in me." He said pointing at the General as he began to walk away from the screen

"Just in the leg, to pay you back for the one you put in me." Dunsparce replied

"Where do you think you're going?" Jager called out as Azoth walked to the door

"Down there to the crash site of the ship see what we are up against." Azoth said

"Give it a bit and we can get a squad to help you." Jager said as patted an officer on the shoulder and pointed to something on their screen.

"No it will be easier to move around with just me." Azoth said

"Hold up a sec." Dunsparce said as he walked up to him holding up a small electronic chip

"What's this?" Azoth asked

"It's an AI specially created for this mission" Dunsparce said as he handed it to him "It has all the knowledge that we have on the forerunners."

"And why are you giving it to me?" Azoth asked

"Because you are supposed to be our long range recon and may run into something and may need it." Dunsparce said

"alright." Azoth said as he walked out the door and it closed

Azoth entered the drop pod bay and put the chip into his helmet as he got into a pod.

"Alright we are directly over the crash site." Came the captains voice over the radio

"Alright dropping." Azoth said

"Well what do we have here?" came a new male voice

"So you're my new AI huh." Azoth replied

"AI seral number Delta 58996324, you may call me Durzo Commander Azoth" Durzo replied

"And you can call me Night Angel." Azoth replied back as he felt his pod disengage from the ship and begin to fall

'Abandon all hope ye who enter here, for here must all distrust be left, all cowardice be dead, for we shall fall from the heavens, delivering hell upon the land, now let us make our way to the doleful city, for we are already dead' Azoth said to himself as he broke through the atmosphere soon he felt the drag shoot engage then the thrusters and finally the impact of the ground. His door blew away and he jumped out with his SMG up and scanned the area, he saw the wreckage of the ship not too far off in the distance and started making his way over to it.

After a quick jog over to the ships wreckage Azoth called the ship. "Sir I've reached the downed ship."

"Alright watch yourself in there." Came the captains voice

"Always do." Azoth said as he moved into the ship. He moved up the halls slowly clearing as he went. He moved to what looked like an armory and saw rows of blasters. "Sir I've found what looks like an armory." He said as he picked up one of the blasters.

"Alright take what you can." The captain said as Azoth put one of the blaster rifles and pistol in his pack.

Azoth moved further down the hall when he came across something that shocked him.

"Ah sir you may want to link to my helmet cam." Azoth said as he activated his camera

"What is it Night Angel?" the captain asked as the image of humanoid bodies in white armor were strewed across the floor. "The hell?" came the Captain's voice as Azoth walked over to one of the bodies and pulled off the helmet to reveal a human face.

"Sir the hell am I looking at?" Azoth asked that was when he heard a female voice over the radio.

"Night Angel this is Commander Grey." Came Gray's voice. "From our findings humans where at war with the Forerunners before the flood infection, they may have followed them here."

"Alright. Let's just hope the flood didn't follow as well." Azoth said as he got up and worked his way to the bridge. "I've made it to the bridge." Azoth said as he opened the door, and saw more bodies scattered across the floor. Just then he heard a moan from the corner. He then turned and saw a man in what looked like robes with bits of armor. "Sir I've found a survivor." He said as he dug the man out of the debris. He pulled away the debris and saw a man with brown hair and a short beard. The man let out a groan as his eyes flickered open and closed. "Don't worry man I'll get you out of here." He said as he finished pulling him out.

"Damn't Spartan we are here to observe not interact." Came Grey's voice over the radio.

"Sorry I will not leave him here." Azoth said in anger.

"Damn't that is an order!" Grey yelled

"You should ask Dunsparce about how well I take orders to leave someone behind?" Azoth said as he saw three blips on his motion sensor. "I'm going to have to get back to you." He said as something called out to him

"Aldo." Came a robotic voice. "Nalgo gadi jedi" Azoth heard as he stood up and turned his head to see three brownish tan robots standing behind him. "Nalgo gadi jedi" the robot said pointing a blaster at his back. In a flash Azoth swung around firing three bursts from his SMG with the new plasma rounds putting them down in the blink of an eye.

Azoth walked up to look at his handy work. "Damn these new rounds seem to get the job done." He then radioed the ship "Sir we have some sort of robots here."

"Let me guess you destroyed them?" came Dunsparce's voice over the radio.

"But of course" Azoth replied as he heard cursing in the back ground of the radio. "And this new ammo does a decent job"

"Well good to hear just get out of there you have a lot of movement coming your way." Jager said

"Roger that." He said as he turned back to the man and picked him up and threw him over his shoulders and headed out of the ship. Once he got back to the exit he looked out and saw a massive amount of droids headed his way. "Ah I may need that pick up on spot, that is a lot of tin heads." He called over the radio

"Negative it is too hot they have air superiority and we can't risk them finding us." Jager said "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." Azoth replied "At least this time I got an apology."

"No I'm not leaving you behind again!" Dunsparce yelled over the radio "I'm sending a jump squad down to help get you out."

"You know that would be a suicide mission." Azoth replied "I won't have another squad's blood on my hands." 'not again.' He said to himself

"Damn't I can't just do nothing like last time." Dunsparce said "I'm sending you a resupply."

"Alright then get out of here you need to complete the mission it is more important than me." Azoth said as he looked and saw a large pod falling through the sky. After a short time the burning pod landed just outside the ship where Azoth was standing.

Azoth looked to the sky and for the second time he was left to die out numbered and alone. He then began to gather the weapons and ammo from the pod and staged the weapons where he wanted them and set claymores behind him so they couldn't get behind him from within the ship.

"Well this is just great my first day and I'm going to be destroyed." Came Durzo's voice

"Well sorry to disappoint but this is how combat is some days you win others you're faced with insurmountable odds." Azoth said with a smirk as he set up a heavy machine gun behind some cover and got behind it.

"Well with your reputation I should have anticipated this." Durzo replies "You have a history of going into suicidal situations."

"Well what can I say I like a challenge." Azoth said as the droids got within range and he open fired on them while they returned fire.

The fight lasted for a good while and Azoth had run out of ammo for his heavy machine gun and had switched to his SAW. "Damn't they don't even try to use cover they just march in a straight line." He said out loud

"Their tactics seem to be to overwhelm their enemy with sheer numbers." Durzo offered

"Just like the goddamn grunts in the covenant, and it is working I'm almost out of ammo." Azoth said as he reloaded his weapon and heard a groan from his side and looked over to see the man he had pulled out of the wreckage begin to stir.

The man looked around in confusion then to Night Angel and had a look of shock and a bit of fear as Azoth looked down at him. He tried to get up but winced in pain from his leg.

"Hey don't move around too much I think your leg is broken." Azoth said but just got a confused look from the man. "Of course he doesn't understand English." He cursed to himself as he shook his head and returned fire on the droids.

"From those few words those droids had said it sounded like a dialect of forerunner." Durzo said

"Wait so you're saying they speak forerunner?" Azoth asked

"An evolved version of it, try telling him 'ga loga' and point at his leg" Durzo said

"Ga loga." Azoth said pointing to his leg and saw some recognition in the man's face as he looked at the leg. Azoth then reloaded his SAW and handed it to the man and pointed down at the approaching droids. Azoth then grabbed a second saw and gestured for the man to shoulder the weapon and fire at the driods. The man nodded and shifted around on to his belly and began to fire on the droids. "Gotta love charades" Azoth smirked as they continued to fight till all their weapons began to run dry.

"Well looks like this is it." Azoth said as he loads another mag into his SMG "this is my last mag." He says as he looks over and sees the other man pull out the mag of the assault rifle he had given him. He then looked up at Azoth and held up his hand for another mag but Azoth just shook his head getting the man to look down in disappointment.

Just then some Y shaped ships flew overhead and there were explosions in the middle of the massive army that was descending on them. Then some drop ships came in and landed surrounding the droid army dropping off the same troopers he had seen inside the ship. The battle lasted for another hour until the white armored troopers made it to their position with raised weapons at Azoth. Once they walked up and helped the man he pulled out of the wreckage, up to his feet they talked to him as if he was in some sort of command position. At his words they lowered their weapons that were drawn on him.

"What are they saying Durzo?" Azoth asked

"I'm not some sort of translation device this is similar but also completely different than forerunner at the same time." Durzo said

"Any ideas?" Azoth asked

"The one you saved seems to be some sort of commander." Durzo replied

"Well I got that." Azoth said.

Just then they heard a female voice call out "Junda Kenobi" and a humanoid type alien ran up and on instinct Azoth raised his SMG and pointed it at her. But in an instant a plasma sword cut his SMG in half and she swung at him again but it was blocked as he pulled out his own plasma sword. They pushed away from each other and all the troopers sighted in on him again and were ready to fire when the man he saved called out and they all stopped. That was when the troopers walked up to him with blasters still on him and reached for his weapons.

"Well shit at least it took a whole army to finally capture me." Azoth said with a smirk as they bound his hands.

"Dumbass they saw you as an ally why did you ruin it." Durzo said shaking his head.

"Hey I see an alien I kill an alien have been my whole life so it's just natural reaction now." Azoth replied as he was led to one of the dropships.

END CHAPTER 3