10.
Location: Numbuoy Apartments, Level 1, New Mombasa, Kenya, East Africa, EARTH.
Timestamp: October 21st 2552. 01:22 hours.
Unit ID: Corporal Jacob Matthews (Male, 26, 5'11"), Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, 7th Shock Troopers Battalion.
Status: Functioning.
Jacob was looking out the window, over the street and observing the alleyway in which he rescued Shay'est. He was now wearing his helmet and had his visor on. This was partly due to the fact that his visor allowed him to see things clearly at night, as it outlined objects with a banana yellow coloured line to help see where he was going during night ops. This was also partly due to the fact that he wanted to cover his face until it stopped being redder than a tomato.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Just because you get good news, doesn't mean you should burst into a bathroom whilst a woman is showering and tell her. I should have waited. God I'm an idiot. She'll probably never trust me again." Jacob said to himself.
Whilst he gazed down at the alley, he kept getting mental images of that moment back in the shower. He tried to shake them off, but being the man he was it was proving difficult. He needed something to distract him. Something to take his mind off of her being nude and covered in moisture. Oh god this was harder than he thought. Something. Anything.
"Hey Jacob?" Shay'est's voice sounded from down the hall "Could you get me a towel? There aren't any in here."
Oh god, not helping.
"Sure. One sec, something's going on over here." He said, gazing down at the alley, where now a small red armoured grunt had appeared at the alley he saved Shay'est from.
The grunt looked around and observed the puddle of blood that Shay'est had left. It was starting to be washed away by the rain but it was still there. The grunt was accompanied by two brutes. They weren't low ranking either. They scanned the area with their eyes, and then seemed to be shouting at the grunt. The grunt began to panic and looked around stressfully. Whilst he was looking the other way one of the chieftains pulled out a Mauler compact shotgun from his belt, and aimed at the back of the confused grunt's weak armour.
A loud Crack ripped through the moist air, causing Jacob to jump. The grunt flopped to the floor as bright blue blood sprayed from its back. The brutes trudged off toward the direction they came from, leaving the grunt's corpse there. The grunt must have been leading them to something; probably Shay'est, and when he couldn't find her, they blew him away for wasting their time.
"Well, that was a pretty good boner killer." Jacob muttered to himself as he turned away to fetch a towel. The thoughts he had about her in the shower had started to fade, due to that alien show.
After he grabbed a towel from the adjacent room for Shay'est, he returned to her and this time made sure to knock on the door. She opened it a crack and peeked through. Her face was still visibly purple.
"Here you are. Sorry again about earlier." He said, scratching his head with his other hand.
She took the towel but left the door open still. Only a crack however, so he couldn't see through.
Jacob decided now was an alright time to mess with her. "If it's any consolation," he said through the gap between the door and doorframe "I think your freckles are cute."
She let out an eep! and slammed the door. Jacob walked off laughing to himself. His statement may have been true, but her reaction was priceless. Just the kind of mood raiser he needed.
He made his way back to his makeshift campsite, where he began to extinguish the napalm camp fire he had made. Each ODST's survival kit came with napalm throwers and fire extinguishers, among other things. After extinguishing the fire, he put the elite's weapons together neatly for her to pick up. She had a carbine rifle and a plasma rifle. Both decent weapons which were more than capable of causing a lot of pain.
The burn on Jacob's shoulder was in fact caused by a plasma rifle from an elite he had encountered earlier. He hadn't checked on his wound in a while and decided that now was as good a time as any. He unclipped his shoulder plate and examined his wound. The burn cream had worked wonders, even healing his flesh. It was still visibly scarred but looked much better. The air chilled his flesh, sending a chill down his spine.
"What's that?" A voice came from behind him.
He turned around to see Shay'est walking toward him, her gaze fixated on his shoulder wound. She was finishing clipping on her breast plate, and had her helmet under her left arm. The rest of her armour was already on, and it looked like she'd given it a good clean, probably with the damp towel she used to clean the water from her moist body with.
Not again.
He shook the thought and stayed focused. "It's just a wound from a plasma rifle. Nothing too bad, I'll live." He said, about to clip it back down.
"No, let me see." She grabbed the shoulder plate, preventing it from lowering.
Jacob sighed, but indulged her. He let the shoulder plate dangle down whilst she inspected his wound. She looked concerned at first, but then smiled. "Well, it looks like you'll be fine after all. What did this to you?" She asked.
"An elite male, like yourself." He chose his next words carefully, attempting not to cause too much anger "He stepped on my chest whilst I was lying and still dazed from the shockwave, aimed his gun at my head, but I snapped to it just before he pulled the trigger, shoved his gun out of my way, unfortunately causing it to discharge a shot into my shoulder, and punched his knee, fracturing it and causing him to step off of me. My shoulder plate had been knocked free from the blast. I've fixed that since."
Shay'est swallowed hard. She was concerned for her ally, but at the same time her curiosity of the situation got the better of her. She wanted to know the details behind every story and not miss a thing. She had been like that since she was a child. "And then what happened?" She shakily asked.
Jacob didn't want to scare her, but needed to get a message across at this point. He looked into her eyes and said "I put a bullet in his head."
Shay'est flinched and looked away as Jacob clipped his shoulder plate back on. That should have gotten the message across not to double cross him. Jacob was a good ally to have, and he was definitely not someone to be fucked with.