Chapter 4

Nova

Day 2, 10:47:12

Dominion Ghost November Terra

124th Marine Regiment

Outside Oasis, Mar Sara

He is in here! I know it! Whoever it is, he has to be in here. I race down the hallways of the refinery checking every corner and open doorway. The same few words keep echoing in my head. Try to find me Nova, I know you can. I never expected Psionic UED's, but that's the least of my worries. I stop at an intersection in the refinery. My eyes race around, trying to find the hallway he is down, but I can't. I start to get frustrated with myself. Come on Nova, you have to do better than that. His thoughts taunting me.

"Where the hell are you?!" I scream at the top of my lungs, making my throat sore.

I slam my fist into the wall. Where is he?! I dart down the hallway on my right. I run down it for a few feet till I am met with a door which ends the hall way. I teek the door open and ready my rifle. The room was huge! There were stacks of canisters, most of which were empty, but the ones that were not had some sort of purplish pink gas. It didn't look like vespene gas, so I had no idea what it was.

The room they were stored in was at least 11 to 12 feet taller than me. I slowly walk up to them to check them out. The containers were about half the height of me. How come these containers are full? This refinery shouldn't be active; the rust on it shows it was decommissioned years ago. I put my left hand up to my ear and activate the comms unit.

"Nova to the Corrina, I need to know the decommission time of the refinery I am in now." The comms fill with static as I wait for a reply, but it never comes. I repeat what I said. Nothing. Could they be interfering with our comms?

Nova, see the truth about Mengsk and be free from him. I turn around back toward the door, my rifle ready again. Where is he?! My head is on a swivel now, scanning the room. A sharp pain hits me on my right cheek as my head jerks left and my rifle drops to the floor. I try to regain my composure, but I am too dazed. Where did that come from? I eventually do regain a stable stance and prepare for the next attack. Another pain strikes my left rib, but it doesn't faze me as much as the last attack. Instead I retaliate and send a right hook at him. I know I hit him when I feel the sting on my knuckles and the reassuring thud of him hitting something.

His cloaking system fails and he appears a few feet in front of me. He is leaning against the containers now, using them as support. I grab my rifle from the floor and aim it at him. He puts on a smirk and looks at me now. The pupils in his eyes seeming to be fully black as if the color in them were swallowed whole.

"Who are you and the hell are you and why are you here?" I say, trying to be stern and strait forward, but my voice quivers at the sight of his eyes.

He laughs a little. "Oh Nova, you should know why we're here, but let me help you refresh that memory." He swings his fist at one of the containers, smashing the glass and the gas now begins to flood the room; the air now thick with the scent of copper. I begin to hear more glass break as the room begins to fill with a green misty cloud. I start running toward the entrance; taking my focus of my attacker. I find the door and rush out of the room. I shut it quickly hoping to stop the gas from spreading any further than just that room.

It seems now my priorities have changed; I need to get the hell out of here, now. All my assets now seem nonexistent. I have to find the rest of my team and leave this planet. Wait, Daniel! I had forgotten about him. I ditched him back at his drop zone. I now start sprinting back toward the entrance of the refinery. I hope he happened to follow me here. At the same time, I hope he didn't. I was the reckless less one; following some voice in my head.

I keep running down the path I took to get to the spot I was just at. I still check corners and open doorways; just to make sure I don't get flanked by whoever just attacked me. That's when I see him. Daniel is lying down, on his side, with blood streaming down his back. I rush over to him, worried.

I run up to see what has happened to him. I kneel down to get a better view of his wounds, which don't seem to be very major wounds. I check for a pulse on his neck. To my relief, it is still thumping away. Then I see why he was bleeding, and I can't believe I missed it. It was obvious to see, but knowing his injuries wasn't as important as know if he was still alive.

He had a knife stuck in back, just above his collar bone. Oh god, I don't have anything to stop the bleeding and I can't take the knife out; that will just make it worse. I have to get him out of here, but how? He is too heavy for me to carry out of here. Waking him up is the only reasonable option, and even that still has flaws. He could be too injured to walk. I have to try. I give him a slight shake to see if he will react.

He jumps a little as he starts to slowly come around. That was easy, easier than I expected. Maybe he wasn't unconscious. He attempts to rollover but I stop him immediately. He glances in my direction; a smirk spreads across his face.

"So glad you came back for me." He says sarcastically. I am surprised he remains this calm when he was literally stabbed in the back.

"Now isn't the time for jokes, we need to leave."

"Why? What's up?"

"We don't have any type of backup at this moment. We are going to have to hold out till we can get some help."

He looks shocked, now. I guess when you get news like this it can bring down any kind of mood you're in, which still seems to surprise me that he is in a good mood. "Are our comms down?" I nod. He brings his right hand to his temple and rubs it like he has some sort of head ache. I grab he good shoulder and start lifting him up, but he still seems to wince in pain.

"You think you will last till we get to the nearest town?" I say.

He nods. "Yeah, I think I will be fine." He winces again as he gets to his feet.

We begin to make a fast walk toward the exit with Daniel looking ahead and me checking our rears. It seems as though he didn't make it that far into the refinery, because we reach the exit fairly quick.

"I hope you know where you are going, now." He says

In all seriousness, I really didn't know where to go. I had no idea where the nearest town or city was. "Yeah" I lie, "I know where I am going. Just give me a second."

I can tell he saw right through my lie, it was a little obvious, let alone the fact he is a Psionic. He grabs my arm and starts making me walk with him. "Come on, I think I might know where the nearest city is, if I can remember the map well enough."

We start walking in the direction he wants me to walk in. I am a little worried. Can I trust him to bring us to a city nearby? I guess at this point, I have nothing much to lose. The red dust swirls around us as we walk toward wherever Daniel is taking me. I started counting our steps in the beginning on the long walk, well walk/jog, but lost count along the way. I think I was on 593 steps, or was it more.

He begins to slow down on his walking. Is he hurting too much, or are we closing on someone. Then, I see the beginnings of a road. The buildings come second; seeming to tower over us as if they were giants. Right as we reach the line of building he practically throws me into an alley way. I slam into the wall of the building; having the breath knocked out of me.

"What was that for?" I say starting to regain my breath

He jogs into the alley still looking out toward the streets. "We need to stay low. Ghosts are still hated by almost everyone, and I don't want to be gunned down by a group of drug smugglers. Also, looking for Dominion marines might not be the best idea at this point."

"What? Finding any Dominion personnel is hopes for getting us out of here."

He glances at me then returns his gaze toward the streets. "Marines and personnel are completely different Nova."

He starts backing me further into the alley way. When we are finally in the middle of the alley way, we start to calm down and take a break from the long walk here. Once we did that, though, Daniel drops to his knees, wincing in pain and breathing through his teeth. Shit, I need to find something to bandage his wound with.

"Daniel, I will be right back, ok. It won't be long, but we need to find something to patch you up with."

I begin to get up to walk away, but just as I do he grabs at my arm. "Nova, are you sure about this?"

"Are you testing my abilities as a Ghost?"

He smirks. "Testing? I guess you can say that."

I just shake my head and begin walking out of the entrance. Once I reach the entrance of the alley way I activate my cloak and begin walking out toward the city. I walk toward the nearest store, which wasn't too far from the alley way I was just at. I wait for someone to walk in before me so I can sneak in while the door was still open. The store is really run down, but the merchandise looked ok. Also, the store seemed pretty empty right now, so I shouldn't get spotted as easy. I looked around the store hoping that they had gauze and some sort of disinfectant. They had the gauze but they didn't have any disinfectant. I grabbed the gauze and some canned food, just in case we would be here a while. I walk up to the cash register with the bag in one hand and my rifle in the other. What am I going to do? I can't buy these. I don't have any sort of money. I guess I have to just steal it. This should be easy, well easier than when I was little. Wait, how do I remember this? Whatever, that's not important now. I need to get back to Daniel. I, now, start walking toward the door. I open it just enough to sneak out.

"What tha hell?!" says someone back in the store. I bolt when I hear the voice. I start running toward the alley way as fast as I can and don't look back. When I reach the alley, I stop and put my hand on the wall and start taking heavy breaths. Am I already winded? Then again, I did sprint about 10 or so kilo's. I walk all the way back to Daniel and fall to my knees.

"Nova!" He says as he crawls toward me. "Are you ok?"

I nod still breathing heavy. I pull out the gauze and get behind Daniel.

"You ready?" He nods. I put my right hand on the handle of the knife. I hear him breathe in deeply as if to get ready for what's coming next. I start pulling on the knife to see if I can get it free without having to rip off much flesh, if any at all. He flinches but doesn't say anything. After a few seconds, I stop pulling and rip the knife out of his back. He lets out a loud shriek of pain. I quickly start applying the gauze. Once I finish, l turn him around so he can lean against the wall. I then lean against his shoulder and pass out from exhaustion.

I want to thank everyone who is reading my series so far. I hope you are enjoying so far and hope you enjoy it throughout the series. Please do feel free to write a review as I do read them and enjoy what you have to say. I will try to PM you thanking you for the comment, good or bad.