Part Two
Chapter Eight; ...Leads Me To Where You Are
UNSC Firgate Legend; December 30, 2557, 2:54am
The pod's door hissed as the week old air esacped the vents. The door opened, and John opened his eyes. All he could see was blurry objects. He blinked, and after a few tries, his vision returned. As far as he could tell, Lachlan and Ginger were still asleep, and their pods still airtightly closed.
"Swiftwolf," John asked into the emptiness. "Are you there?"
"Of course I am," The AI replied, as the pilot uniformed hologram faded into exsistance on a nearby pedistal. "Where could I go?"
John shrugged to himself. "How much farther to Requeim?"
"We're about two-hundred miles away. Short enough for the Broadswords to fly there, and far away to keep the ship safe from the Covenant fleet. I'm still going to activate the ship's cloaking, though."
John jerked his thumb at the other two Spartans, still sleeping in ice cold pods. "When are they getting up?"
"Right now." John heard the hiss of the pods, and a few seconds later, Ginger was staggering around as if he had gotten drunker than a redneck at a New Years party. Lachlan remained in the pod for a few minutes allowing himself to get adjusted, and then stood up. He managed to stay upright, even as Ginger fell to the floor.
"So, we heading out?" The black armored Spartan asked as he walked over to the terminal, going out of his way to avoid stepping on Ginger.
"It's a two-hundred mile run to Requiem from here," John said as he guestered to the holographic display of the planet. There were several Covenant cruisers around it. "We launch the three nukes at different ships, just to weaken them." He pointed at the wide-open enterance of the metal planet. "We go in here, and then form up on me. I'll lead the way."
The three Spartans walked in silence to the hanger. The Broadswords were still the the exact same as they found them. The hanger door was open, and there was a thin shield protecting them from the vacuum of space. Each Spartan climbed up the ladder an into a Broadsword. John flipped a few switches, and the warning light changed from red to green. He was ready for the flight.
"Green light, ready to move," Lachlan notified him. John nodded and waited for Ginger.
"Ready. Man, we have a date with destiny, boys," Ginger said, with his hands shaking on the controls. Flying a Broadsword was fun.
"How'd you get a date with Chief's AI?" Lachlan asked, making the last pre-flight adjustment. John cracked a smile, but kept it to himself. The docking clamps released the fighters, leaving them floating due to the engines on the bottom designed to do that.
"Lachlan, you can suck my di-" John shot out of the hanger before Ginger could finish the sentence. The roar of the engines drowned out the sound of the other two as they flew out of the hanger.
"I can't suck what you don't have." John heard Lachlan say as the roar became softer. They were still a long distance from the planet, and the Broadswords could only go so fast. It was about a ten minute flight to the planet.
"There it is," John said, as he could barely make out the metal planet in the distance. Then he saw the Covenant fleet. It seemed larger than it was when he had first seen it. Much larger.
One of the cruisers broke off from the main fleet, heading straight at them. "I think they know we're here," Ginger said, with a hint of worry in his voice.
"Is that a bad thing?" John asked. "The rest of the fleet is jumping into slipspace, so they should have their shields up," he pointed out. "The shields would have to be down to attack us, and that's when a nuke is going straight at it."
"Oh, that makes sense," Ginger agreed, losing some of the fear he had. "Dibs on the kill!" John sighed. These new Spartans were way too over estatic.
The Cruiser, as expected, lowered its shields, and several Phantoms and Space Banshees, and the occasional Seraph flew toward the three Broadswords. John immediantly opened fire with the machine guns, tearing apart the lightly armored Banshees. Lachlan pelted the Phantoms with the missles, destroying two in less than seven seconds. "Break off, get away from the Cruiser. When it lights up, you don't want to be near it." John said. Then he added, "Trust me, I've lived through one of the blast of a havok nuke. Big explosion. It sounds like-"
A extremely loud, deafening explosion cut off John. He looked up toward the Cruiser, and his helmet automatically polerized to protect his augmented eyes. The Cruiser was now in millions of separate pieces, blue flames spewing from most of them. "It sounds like that," John commented when his ears had stopped ringing. Lachlan laughed, whether at John's comment, or the fact that the Phantom that he was shooting at had just be killed by a piece of flaming blue Covenant ship was uncertain.
"Um, looks like there are more after us now, sir," Ginger informed John. Indeed, several more Cruisers had started toward them.
"Okay, every man for themselves to the opening of the planet. We'll regroup once we land," John ordered. Well, being in charge of a fireteam wasn't so bad after all. If you could call this a fireteam. "Lachlan, you have free reign of that nuke. Hit what every you want."
"No problem. This is going to be fun." The three fighter zipped off into different directions, heading for the wide open hole into Requiem. By now, most of the Cruisers had lowered their shields to let out their own ships. Plasma, lasers, and bullets flew throught the air as a second Covenant Cruiser exploded, heavily damaging a nearby one with the wreakage. "Whoo-hoo!" Lachlan yelled as he flew through the debree field. His Broadsword was a little scorched after he came out, but it was of no concern to him.
John did a barrel roll to avoid the plasma torpedeos launched by the Phantoms behind him. He already had his target picked out. There was a Covenant Assualt Carrier, larger than any of the other Cruisers here. The presence of the ship made him feel certain that he had found the place where the Covenant had come form. Now, how to get it to lower its shields...
Of course, the Covenant had learned their lesson. No more crusiers had lowered their shields. Instead, they moved to cover the entrance to the giant metal planet. John sighed. There was pretty much no way to take out the Carrier. So he settled for a Cuiser. John fired his nuke at a ship, hoping that the shields were down. They were. The Cruiser blew, sending pieces of it toward the ships at the enterance, creating a perfect hole to fly through. Now or never...
John flew right through the hole, and right into the enterance. A Cruiser flying out of the planet was waiting on the inside, and it fired a large EMP, disabling John's Broadsword, and about fifty Covenant fighters that were tailing him.
"Fuck!" John screamed for the first time in a long time. "It's a trap!" he tried to warn Ginger and Lachlan. But the comms were offline, so all he could do was fall. But why not fall in style?
John kicked the fighters canopy open, and let himself fly out. He saw several of the disabled Covenant fighters falling, and that was not how he was going to die. The ground of the planet was rushing up to meet him, so John braced for impact.
The crash was all a blank to him. He opened his eyes, and saw the wreakage around him. The broadsword had been torn into many pieces, and it had crushed a wall of a UNSC frigate. Wait there wasn't a frigate that had come in with them. As far as he knew, Swiftwolf and the UNSC Legend were safley away from the Covenant fleet. But that could only mean...
His fear was comfirmed when he saw the writing on the wall. Literally. Written on one side of the wall was; UNSC FFG 201 Forward Unto Dawn. Holy shit. John lifted his head off the ground, and looked around. This was the place he and Cortana had crashed almost three months ago.
A familiar female voice echoed through his ears. This place will become your home. This place will become your tomb.
A/N: The poll is still up, and will be taken down when the next chapter is posted.
I tried to make this chapter awesome, and I had First of The Year by Skrillex stuck in my head. For those of you that have heard it, it is awesome.
That is all.
Peace out!
