Chapter Four: Memories

Keith sprinted through the lush jungle as fast as he could. His armored feet padded on the lively forest floor, or cleared the many roots and other obstacles in his way as he ran. He breathed heavily as he sprinted, his green armor a blur of motion. Running next to him were three other Spartans, their green armored bodies pumping as fast as his own. Only Michael stood out, with his obsidian colored armor, Michael had always been the darker one of Hammer Team, and thinking back Keith didn't know much about the Spartan.

A few minutes ago the four Spartans had found each other and were about to head out when loud shots had filled the air. The Spartans had quickly decided it was most likely their comrades in danger and had headed toward the source of the noise as fast as their augmented bodies would allow them. Michael ran ahead of the Spartans, he was clearly the fastest of the group, but Keith remembered his days on Reach and knew the Spartan named Lucy had been the fastest out of all the Spartans. A powerful SRS99C-S2 AMB Sniper Rifle magnetically attached to his back. Ammon carried an M319 IGL, aka Grenade Launcher on his own backside. Ashlynn carried an M41SSR MAV, Rocket Launcher and Spartan Laser cannon; she was the team's heavy artillery.

As Keith thought about Ashlynn, his mind's eye focused on his childhood. Keith and Ashlynn had both been born on the planet Madrigal. The pair of them had both grown up orphans living in a small and pleasant orphanage. Keith and Ashlynn had been inseparable, they had done everything together. Every summer they would spend all day playing tennis on the old courts, or they would go for a swim on the bay; their favorite time to swim was during storms. Sometimes they would swim out past the breaker and float on one of the large metal floating skiffs. Keith remembered lying next to Ashlynn and watching the stormy sky above. When they had turned six Dr. Halsey had taken them from their orphanage, promising that she would be able to give them a home, with real parents, and that the two would be able to stay together happily. Halsey hadn't been telling the whole truth. Instead they both had been put through rigorous training as kids, their bodies had been augmented and changed, made more powerful, and they had been encased in MJOLNIR Mark IV armor, they had been turned into the perfect soldiers, into weapons.

Instead of swimming together and playing Ashlynn and Keith had become squad-mates, they had seen many battles, and watched many friends die. Together they had blasted away many enemies, leaving no mission unfinished, but their attraction for each other, they had never had any time to pursue it, and sometimes Keith thought of how their lives could have been different if they had stayed on Madrigal, and lived as normal people; except Madrigal had been glassed three years ago by the Covenant. Sometimes Keith had to remind himself that fact, it felt unreal to him, that so many planets had been glassed. If he and Ashlynn had stayed on Madrigal maybe they would have had a good life, maybe they would have become a couple and had gotten married, but one day they both would have been turned to slag like everything else, and that was why Keith and Ashlynn fought in this war, to protect their own race from destruction.

Keith turned his helmet to the side and watched Ashlynn run for a moment, she looked so graceful, so at peace, it almost reminded him of when they used to float on the skiff and she would stare up at the sky. Keith shook his head to stay focused on the task at hand. The shots were getting closer, and they could feel the ground shaking beneath their armored heels. A massive root obscured the Spartan's paths, and they were forced to climb over it and slide down the other side. As Keith slid to the ground he saw them: Kane, Caden, Cody and Rachel, they were all alive, but they weren't alone. Three massive creatures were attacking them, and by the looks of it the four Spartans might actually be loosing.

Kane had switched from his BR to his M90 Close Assault Weapon System, pump action shotgun. When Kane pumped a shot gun you knew you could kiss your ass goodbye. He took aim and fired off another round at one of the massive creatures, the rounds tearing into its side.

Keith, Michael, Ashlynn and Ammon quickly fell in line opening fire on the massive beasts. "Those are Thanator's, the equivalent of Pandora's apex land hunters." She whispered in his head.

Michael ran sprinted off incredibly fast at the nearest Thanator, his sniper rifle still on his back.

"What the hell is he doing?" Keith shouted. Kane heard the backup fire and turned his head to Keith.

"What he always does." Ashlynn said, coolly, firing off a round from the M6C Magnum pistol she kept on her hip, which is what she used when she didn't want to waste ammo on her big guns.

"Hey Keith, nice of you guys to drop by!" he yelled over the roar of gunfire.

Keith nodded at Kane, and then directed his gaze back to Michael. The black armored Spartan neared the nearest Thanator and then leapt into the air with all of his might. A long wrist-blade slid out of each of Michael's armored wrists, it was a special upgrade he had designed himself. Michael was also the CQC captain and the team's sniper. He landed on the neck of the beast, and dug one of his blades into the back of the creature's head. He then jabbed his other blade into its head again, and repeatedly began jabbing them in, splattering its blood onto his armor. The Thanator roared in pain, and suddenly shook itself, forcing Michael to fly off of its back, and roll on the ground.

Keith had had enough, he motioned to Ammon. "Take that thing out Spartan!" he said, continuing to concentrate his fire on the beast. Ammon nodded and hefted up his Grenade Launcher. He took aim and then fired, shooting off a grenade in the Thanator's direction. The Thanator spied the movement of the grenade and turned to see what it was. In that exact moment the grenade went off, exploding in the beast's face. The Thanator flew backwards, most of its face incinerated completely off. Keith motioned with his arms and the three Spartans with him fell in line, drawing closer to the other four Spartans and the other two creatures.

One of the Thanator's roared when it saw its comrade fall. It suddenly pounced on Rachel, knocking one of her M7/Caseless Submachine Gun's out of her hands. The beast lashed out attempting to bite into her shoulder.

"Ashlynn!" he roared. But she was already on top of it. She hefted her Spartan Laser cannon onto her shoulder and took aim. Keith watched as the thin red beam shot out of the weapon and took aim on the side of the Thanator. A soft sizzling noise filled the air and slowly got louder as the laser readied to be fired. A few seconds the laser went off, a loud sizzling sound filled the air, followed by a crack of ozone and a huge crimson column of energy shot out of the rifle and smashed into the Thanator. The Thanator didn't stand a chance. The cannon blasted a hole clean through its side, and it collapsed upon Rachel not moving.

The last Thanator charged at Caden, ready to tear him to shreds. Caden quickly activated his hologram armor upgrade and sprinted away, leaving his hologram where he was standing. The Thanator charged harmlessly through the hologram, and bellowed angrily. By now all eight of the Spartan's concentrated fire was on the creature and the bullets were literally tearing the creature's hide to shreds. Keith took aim with his rifle, aiming for the creature's head. He then fired off three shots, pumping them into the Thanator's skull. The creature bellowed and then fell over, clearly dead.

Keith sighed in relief. "Everyone okay?" he asked, stepping over the corpse of one of the huge beasts to stand near the others.

Cody and Caden helped pull Rachel out from beneath the body of another Thanator.

"Yes, just a bit grossed out." Rachel said.

Keith nodded; he felt some of the earlier pressure that had been on his mind slowly fading away. His team was alive and that was all that mattered, Hammer Team was okay.

"Alright people, it's time I explained what's going on here." He said briskly.

"While we were flying over this damned jungle our ship went down as you know, the natives somehow put an arrow through his skull. But as we all know their arrows are hardly efficient enough to go through the glass of the cockpit, that and we were extremely high up in the air. That only leaves on possible scenario. The Navi' that killed our pilot Jim must have been flying right above our ship, obscured in the clouds, and if he was right above us he wouldn't of appeared on the radar, though the radar was fluxuating slightly if I remember. Anyway, he must have swooped down and broken the glass somehow, either with a stone or large blunt weapon. There could have been possibly two of them, maybe one to break the glass and the other to take the shot. Now that we know how they did it we have to figure out what we do next." He said, looking at the faceless helmets of all his teammates as he finished.

"That's easy; we take the fight to them and make them pay." Kane said.

Keith shrugged. "They did attack us, and we do have the rights to fight back but I'm not sure now if that's the best course of action. We still need to at least try to negotiate with them." Keith said.

"Fuck that! Sorry, excuse me Captain, screw that, we should just take what we want and shoot any of the bastards that get in our way." Kane said.

"Watch it Spartan, we will do as I say." He said, his voice taking a cold tone as he spoke.

"Yes sir," Kane replied.

"Now, this is what I propose. We go ahead and attempt to fill out our objective. We have Miara change our NAV marker to where we were supposed to set up our LZ. We will go there, clear the area so some Pelicans can get down here and that will be that. Once the base is up and running again we can go and mingle with the natives, whatever that may be." Keith said.

The Spartans around Keith nodded their heads, they understood. Keith was about to ask Miara to switch the NAV marker but a second later he saw it change.

"Was already on it Keith." She said; he could detect a note of amusement in her voice.

"I don't like it when you do that, guess what I'm about to say or do." Keith said.

"Well who knows how long we will be sharing this space so you better get used to it." Miara said.

"You sound like my ex girlfriend." Keith joked. Miara didn't reply; Keith figures she was busy calculating something; Hammer Team then moved out, each of them patrolling the area with their eyes and the barrels of their weapons. As they made their way through the jungle Keith couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. Every once in a while he would see something out of the corner of his eye, a flash of bright blue. He would immediately turn his body their, pointing at the area with his gun, but every time he did he would find nothing, just empty trees.

"This place creeps me out." Kane muttered.

"Quit the chatter Spartan." Keith barked.

Fifteen minutes later the Spartans reached their destination. As they moved toward it the trees thinned. Keith looked down, seeing pavement beneath his feet. But it was hardly pavement anymore; the jungle had clearly overtaken it. The pavement was cracked into thousands of tiny pieces, and massive roots moved through it. There were many trees that had completely broken through the pavement; it was like standing in a jungle that had once been civilization. Through the trees Keith could see what looked like a massive base, it was so covered with vines it looked more like a large square bush than anything. Here and there through the trees there would be some sort of old human technology left untouched, covered in vines as well, or a tree growing next to it. He saw bulldozers, and other machines. He didn't see any air craft, but knew that they would all be in the hanger bay, which was attached to the base.

"Alright, so how do we clear the LZ?" Caden asked.

"Leave that to me." Ashlynn said stepping forward. She unclipped something from her belt and showed it to him.

"We blow ourselves a hole. I'll rig an explosion big enough to cover a radius big enough for some Pelicans to land in. The middle of the explosion will be a crater, but as it moves outwards it will just destroy the surrounding trees, giving us an LZ." She said.

Keith nodded. "Sounds good, how far do we have to stand from the blast?" he asked. But suddenly a new NAV marker appeared on his HUD.

"I was already calculating that. Stand exactly where the NAV marker is and you should be fine." Miara said. Keith relayed what she said to the other Spartans and they all nodded, beginning to move there way over there. Keith stood with Ashlynn as she began her work. She started by placing four explosives in key spots. Then she began the timers, each one slightly different so she would have time to rig the rest. When she was finished she motioned for Keith to follow her.

"Come on we have four minutes till the blast." She said, already beginning to sprint away from the explosives. Keith fell in line and they ran as fast as they could through the foliage. When they reached the NAV marker Keith realized that it was a large distance from the explosive, at least a few miles.

"Should be any time now." Ashlynn said.

Keith looked over to Ammon who was standing about ten feet in front of where the NAV marker indicated.

"Ammon, what are you doing?" Keith said.

"Getting a better view, where you guys are standing there is that dam tree in the way." He said.

"But your ten feet past the NAV marker, the explosion could hit you." Keith said sighing.

Ammon laughed. "There is no way that the explosion can reach me all the way over here." He said.

"Just watch Captain, I'll show y-" he wasn't able to finish his sentence as the explosions suddenly went off. A massive tremor shook through the ground, and in the distance a wall of fire was flying toward them, and up in to the sky. Keith watched as the fire overtook trees and seemed to turn them into dust. A wave of solid air and sound moved past the explosion, cutting through trees like a blade. Before Ammon could move the wave smashed into him and then died out, stopping precisely where the NAV marker indicated. Ammon had been launched into the air, he flew about twenty feet backwards, tumbling head over toe until he smashed into a tree and slid down the bark.

All the Spartans rushed over to him, but by the time they reached him Ammon was already on his feet.

"Well that didn't feel good." He said, brushing off his armor. The Spartans began to laugh, apparently finding the situation hilarious.

"I'm glad you guys think that was so funny, I could of died you know." Ammon said.

Chuckling Keith asked Miara to contact On the Horizon's bridge.

"Once second," Miara said.

"Connected." She said.

"Admiral Brian?" Keith asked.

"Keith!" the voice of Brian said through his Com.

"You're alive! That's great! We saw your Pelican go down and then we lost radio contact with you, did you not think to tell us you were okay earlier?" Brian said.

"Sorry sir, we were busy fighting off some local wildlife and clearing you your LZ." He said.

"That's fine Spartan, is the LZ cleared?" he asked.

"Yes sir, send some Pelican's down here and we can get this party started." He said.

"Good work Spartan. I'll have you debrief me on what transpired down there in a few hours, when I'm groundside myself."

"Sounds good Admiral, we will see you then. Spartan 032 out." He said before ending his connection with the bridge.