CHAPTER 7

"Shit!" the scientist ran to a nearby computer monitor and quickly clicked the keyboard, revealing the facility's external cameras. It seemed the Brutes decided to blast a hole where the door used to be, and now the whole Covenant army was climbing in.

"Move." Cunningham said, pushing him aside. She took control of the monitor and activated the facility's lock-down procedures, covering nearly every door in the first floor with bars of hard steel. The scientist just watched her, petrified. "We'll have a few minutes before they can get to us, they'll have to cut through all of these bars now." she said.

"How do we get out of here?" the Commander asked the ONI scientist.

"I thought that was your job." the scientist said. "I've been surrounded for a few hours now and they haven't kicked the gate in. They were waiting for word from their Ship Captain, I assume. But now that your friend rammed a truck into them they decided to get in. You soldiers are good for nothing.' he said.

The Commander grabbed him by the shirt collar and rammed him into the wall. "Shut up. From now on, you can only talk when you're addressed. You will be respectful or I will make sure you get out there by yourself. You'll be crying for us useless soldiers but we won't come." That seemed to shut him up good. "Now, this is a UNSC facility, not just ONI. You must have weapons and vehicles stocked here somewhere. A couple of Warthogs, maybe?"she said.

"Y-Yes sir! There is an armory at the first floor, in the garage." the scientist said. Apparently all it took was a little violence to suck his balls back in. I almost laughed him in the face, but I stopped myself. "But your... ODST has placed the first floor on lockdown. We're going to have as much trouble as the Covenant!" he said.

"Don't worry about that, we'll have access anywhere. We can open all the doors with your security code." Cunningham said.

We went back down the elevator and when the door opened, Jason and me existed into the corridor, weapons ready- Jason went left and I went right. "The corridor's clear." I tell the Commander and she, Jane, Cunningham and the scientist leave the elevator. We follow the path to the right, to get to the armory. Soon enough we hit a barred door. The scientist enters his code into the nearby panel and the bars swing up. After we all passed, he entered the code again and closed the door behind us.

Then we heard an explosion coming from behind us, small and concentrated. It seemed the Brutes were impatient- they were placing small explosives on the locked doors to destroy them. We ran faster, only to hit another set of bars. The scientist began entering a code, but he was getting it wrong. The stress was weighing down on him, it seemed. Another explosion sounded, this one closer. "Come on now." the Commander said. "Just enter the damned code."

I look at Jane and see her crying in the corner. "Don't be afraid, Jane. We're leaving now." I tell her.

"The monsters are coming." she said in between cries.

"I won't let them hurt you." I say, stroking her hair. It seemed to be calming her down, so I continued. "We're going to get out of this city now, to a place where there are no monsters." I say. Another explosion, this one even closer. "I'm going to take you to Earth. Have you ever heard of Earth?" I ask her.

"Yes." she says. The door opens, and we pass through.

After a minute of walking in silence, Cunningham broke the ice. "So, what is this... artifact." she said, struggling in her accent.

The scientist gave her a look, as if struggling to figure out if he should answer. "We don't know yet. We had a number of tests and all seemed to imply this is some sort of data container. Like a hard drive." he finally said, and opened another door. "But then, a couple of days ago, we decided to see its reaction to an electromagnetic pulse. Something happened- a pulse of purple light around it. The EMP didn't even affect it, it just strengthened its signal. As if the artifact identified us as a threat and was calling for help."

"It seems your test is what brought the Covenant here in the first place." Cunningham said.

"We didn't know! We couldn't have known! You think we wanted this? You think I wanted to stay here alone with only two damned rookies? They got themselves killed faster than I could blink my eyes. So I locked myself in here and I didn't open the doors. Not to the Covenant and not even to civilians. It was too much of a risk! If the Covenant get their hands on the artifact, who knows what they'll make it do!" he shouts, revealing more information than he needed too. Clearly he was guilty, and he should be. I could see them- families trying to knock at his door, the UNSC's door, for help when they couldn't evacuate. But he ignored them. He let them all rot until the Covenant came and wiped them out. I imagined Jane standing out there, crying for help, but all he would have done was look away.

Another boom sounds, but this one is closer- much closer. I turn my head to the far left, where a small barred door stands still and strong. And then it blows up with blue plasma, sending dust, metal and concrete flying across the hallway. "RUN!" I scream. Cunningham takes Jane in her hands and sprints right into the busted hallway- a risk, but better than being pinned to the wall. My heart stops, as they disappear into the cloud of thick smoke. The dust settles and for a moment nothing happens. Jason then sprinted towards the blasted hole and the Commander and I followed him.

Everything happened at once: a shielded Jackal came out of the hole, Jason rammed it to the ground and shotgun-ed it in the face- splattering purple blood on the floor. And then a small grenade hits him in his center mass, blowing his hand to pieces. I sprint to help him but the Commander was already there. She was crying in the comms. I never heard her crying. I didn't know how to react. The Commander was now inside the hole. She killed the Brute that murdered Jason brutally- stabbing its face with her combat knife. Then she turned, slashing a charging Grunt in his gas tank. Another Grunt began running away but she shot him with her pistol, a clean head-shot that splattered blue blood across the floor. I had no work to do, she killed them all faster than I could blink.

She turned and kneeled by Jason, removing his helmet and checking his pulse. Dead. She fell on her hands, crying. "Commander, we have to go. We have to get out of here." I hear the steps of more Covenant forces coming from the hole in the wall, very close, so I pull the Commander up and we begin running. Only then did I remember the scientist, which wasn't running fast enough. His back got sprayed with purple needles and for a second he looked like a porcupine, before exploding in a sphere of purple smoke. But we kept running.

The next door's bars had already been lifted. It seems Cunningham managed to make out the code by watching the scientist insert it- luckily, or we would have been sitting ducks and the Covenant would have gotten us all. Beyond a set of double-doors, was the armory. It was a fairly large garage- filled with weapon racks containing all kinds of guns both heavy and light, and one vehicle, a large Warthog equipped with a chain-gun turret. The armory was shut away from the city with a huge iron plate which we could open with the same code, presumably, as the one the scientist used. We saw Cunningham sitting in the driver's seat of the Warthog, kneeling under the wheel, and Jane standing near it. It seemed like the car wasn't starting.

We barred the doors behind us. "Rob. Take this." the Commander said, handing me the glowing crystal.

"What? Why?" I ask.

"We have no time. There is a whole Covenant army at our backs and another out there. We can't handle that. I need to hold the Covenant off and give you a chance to get the Warthog running." the Commander said.

"No. Don't Commander. I'll do it." I say, forgetting my vow.

"You won't. I came here with a team of seven, and now we're three." Commander Kai said, breaking my heart. "I was responsible for them and they died on my watch. It is my job, and I must see it through."

"Commander, you can't." I say, feeling tears in my eyes.

"I have to." she said. "Rob, do you remember what Ben told you? If everyone sacrifices themselves there will be no one left to fight for. Go to Earth. Quit the army. Get a life. Vengeance won't bring back the dead, the best thing you can do for us is live. For me, for Ben. Live."

"I will." I said. "I'll do it."

"Good." she said, patting me on my shoulder. She then went to Cunnigham, they talked for a few seconds and then they hugged. The Commander went back out, into the hallway that will be her grave. Jane watched with big, sad eyes as the Commander locked herself out and lowered the iron bars once more. Before the Commander left, she looked at me- she stared right into my heart. She deactivated her mike- she didn't want us to hear, but I'm sure she was listening. I heard bullets being fired, but it was the sound of the engine that broke me out of my saddened trance. I looked at the purple crystal in my hand. Could this little thing really win us the war? Was it worth all this death and sacrifice?

"Let's get out of here." I said, looking back at the building's interior where the faint sound of plasma fire echoed.

Jane sat at the passenger seat barely visible under the large angular green metal, and Cunningham took the wheel. "Open the door then, and hurry back. We will have seconds to get out before the Covenant will see us. They have Ghosts and Choppers and god knows what else. If they see us before we get a good head start, we're dead." she said. I went to the panel near the locked metal door.

"What's the code?" I ask.

"3435189117." she said.

I enter the code and walk back to the Warthog. "Jane, we're going home." I said, smiling to her, but she knew it was a false smile- she knew the Commander will die and a whole army was waiting for us outside. The gate makes a loud clunking sound before it begins lifting, and just as it does I sprint to the Warthog and get on the turret at its back, jumping up on the small green ledge and holding on to the rounded grip. I turn the massive turret around to face the opening gate. From the slowly widening crack came a ray of light- and as soon as it was wide enough Cunningham sped towards it.

The sun was rising, and the light of dawn lit the skies purple. In front of us was a Covenant army: Grunts, Jackals, Brutes, Choppers, Ghosts, a couple Banshees and a Wraith. Certain death. But for the lack of any other thing to do, I began shooting. The Grunts fell down fast as the heavy bullets penetrated their flesh. Even the Brutes didn't hold a chance- my turret dropped them faster than I had ever seen them drop. The Jackals were a bit more challenging, as you had to pop their shields first. It took only a few seconds before my turret filled the paved ground with a sea of alien bodies and colorful blood. Cunningham rammed through a wall of shielded Jackals, sending them flying into the air around us, but not leaving a scratch on the vehicle. I turn my turret right to face the enemy armada and the spinning rail under the turret makes a satisfying clicking sound.

It was now that the Wraith noticed us, when we were almost to the other side of the street and past the main trouble. It spins to target us and sends a jolting blue sun of plasma arcing towards us in the sky. "Cunningham, go left!" I shout, and thankfully she reacted in time. The plasma projectile exploded with immense force just to our right. It was so close that I felt its heat. I heard Jane scream with terror and it renewed my motivation. Cunningham sped through the block. I could see two Grunts driving Ghosts were hot on our tails, along with the huge, motor-cycle like Chopper.

"Ascension, this is private Abigail Cunningham. Under the last order of Commander Yuki Kaiden I need immidiate assistance." Cunnigham said, barely steering away from a flipped car on the road as the Ghosts pursued us- shooting small bolts of blue plasma towards our Hog. I turn my turret to one of the Ghosts and begin spraying it long and hard. My teeth rattle and my hands shake but I managed to get the Grunt driver in the neck and the hovering winged vehicle laid flat on the ground. It seemed the Wraith was also following, but it was too slow.

"This is Ascension. What do you need ODST?" Persephone called from the comms.

"I need a Pelican to pick us up, and fast. We have the artifact and we're being pursued by a whole Covenant armada." Cunningham said.

"Right away, ODST. Sending a pelican to your position, ETA 7 minutes. Is that all?" she asked.

"No. I need you to destroy the ONI facility. Lay the facility flat. There are hundreds of Covenant forces in it and around it just waiting to be destroyed." she said. How like Commander Kai- her last order was to destroy the facility with her. To destroy every trace of that wretched building along with many Covenant forces.

Silence. "A missile has been fired. I suggest you get as far away as you can, ODST." she says, and in reaction Cunningham steps on it. I aim at the second Ghost and spray it with a torrent of bullets, after two seconds it blows in a purple explosion. Two down, one to go. Out of the smoke of the wrecked Ghost, the Chopper leaped into the air and landed hard against the ground, spraying dirt all around as it made a sharp turn to follow us. Cunningham was trying to buy time and get as far away from the facility as possible, before it would blow. She zig-zagged between the white obelisks that were New Kingston's skyscrapers, but the Chopper followed persistently Finally, it came in my line of fire- and I came in his.

The Chopper shoots yellow bolts at the Warthog and a large piece of metal breaks off and scrapes against the ground making a horrible sound before finally disconnecting. I was less successful at damaging the Chopper, as it had huge brown armored plates. I kept shooting at it, even when a yellow bolt caught me in my arm. But then, where the ONI facility was- only a kilometer behind us- I saw a small falling object with a rounded bottom. "Jane, cover your ears!" I said, and I barely manage to finish my sentence before it happened.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! The explosion seemed to take half the city with it, growing and expanding from its center quickly. Within seconds, a ball of fire blocked the horizon, and as it grew larger it struck the sides of skyscrapers- I could see their glass windows shattering. And then all I could see was a blinding light. I closed my eyes and almost fell back as the shock-wave hit me. But I was alive, and the Warthog was still running. I opened my eyes to see the burning remains of the Chopper at the side of the street- I must have gotten him without realizing. I look up at the sky and see a pitch black mushroom of smoke the size of ten of these buildings combined.

I take a moment to remember the fallen: Harry- the recruit, Benny- my greatest friend, Frank- the one who sacrificed everything so we could get the artifact in our hands, Jason- who died so suddenly and of-course Commander Kai. She thought she failed her job, letting her whole team die, but I knew full well no one would have done it better than her. The smoke rose high in the sky and then, out of it, a Banshee came- in our direction. "Our trouble isn't over." I said. "A Banshee's coming." The old turret would be useless against it, and one shot of its green plasma canon will wipe us from the face of Helios. I let go of the turret and sit back.

The Warthog wheeled around a corner and right out of the city to open desert ground. At our right, the city sprawled and the mushroom cloud still expanded at its center. To our left was the sea- magnificent and blue with ripples and waves all around it. It has been years since I've been to the sea. Four years. I pull the small picture from my jacket pocket and see my wife Anna smiling as the wind took her hair, and my small Laura in her hands. We were at the beach that day- the sun was bright and there was a warm wind. A good day for the sea. I smiled.

"Are you okay, Jane?" I ask her. Still too shaken to answer, instead she nods.

"We're going home now. To a new home- to Earth. I will bring you there myself, and if you want I will stay with you. I'm done with the army, done with all this death." I said, looking up at the Banshee- which was coming closer and closer. I take off my helmet and brace the morning sun as it lightly touches my face. I see a green light form around the Banshee's plasma canon as it charges a shot. I take a deep breath of fresh air and close my eyes. I hear a blast. Am I dead, is this the afterlife? Will I see my family again now? Will I see Benny? Will I see the Commander? Will I see my parents and my friends? Will my soul finally be at peace? I open one eye to see the Banshee tumbling to the ground, destroyed.

Behind us, a Pelican flies- thrusters at full power and making small circles of dust on the rolling sands and its guns were hot. If we all sacrifice ourselves there will be no one left to fight for. The Commander told me. And she was right. I knew that now, after so much sacrifice. Almost everyone I knew is dead, but I must continue, I must not give up. From today and on, I will live. I will move to Earth and I will make it a new home. I will build a house and I will get new friends, maybe even a new family. I must move on, or my past will overcome me. I see the fire in your eyes. Benny said, but now a new fire burns inside me- hope. I will live; I will give Jane a new family and a home. And I will visit that moon.

The Pelican lands and we park our Hog at its side. Medics run to our aid, to check our wounds and to make sure we are alright. They steal the artifact from my hands. We sit in the Pelican and it rises high above Helios. The view is, once again, beautiful.