PLEASE READ: A/N: Hello all! To all returning readers, I would like to apologize but I finally made up my mind to change the main character's name. He is now Jason Blackwell (last name is unchanged). Should be correct throughout. If you liked it better the other way, let me know and I'll change it back. Sorry if it's a bit confusing, but if you don't mind it then please bear with me!

Chapter 10

0300 Hours, September 1, 2552 (Military Calendar)/Epsilon Eridani System, Unknown Building, planet Reach

They got up at three, just like James had said they would. Somehow even though I knew this was coming I'm still not happy about it. Jason thought to himself as he replaced his armor plates in silence. Once they were secure he initiated his helmet's startup sequence; watching the display indicators spring to life one by one on his HUD.

Last to boot up was his personal energy shield, which had fascinated him since he had received the upgrades for the armor. The quiet pop and sizzle of the air around him as it was instantaneously displaced by an invisible force made him feel nearly invincible. He looked around the room once he'd finished, not surprised to see that the two Spartans had already taken up posts at the window and door.

As he moved to go, something sprang into mind, and he deactivated his shield and popped the seals on his armor. He checked his shoulder, seeing that the wound wasn't looking good. Seeing it brought the pain to the forefront of his mind. He debated about popping a stim, or using more Biofoam, but thought that it would do more harm than good at this point. It hadn't helped yet, there was no reason to think it would start now. He fixed his armor and shield.

Jason picked up his rifle, looking at it for several seconds before strapping it to his back and choosing his assault rifle instead. The smaller profile of the weapon would allow him more freedom of movement, and would be slightly less audible if something went very wrong and he wound up having to use it before they reached the ship.

"I'm ready," he said.

They wasted no time in leaving the apartment, making their way down to the edge of the crater. They turned off all external lighting on their armor, not wanting to give away their position until they reached the lift. It was roughly two hundred meters from point to point, and the path looked clear.

The three of them made their way up to the base platform silently, taking cover behind large crates waiting to be carted off elsewhere.

"We should sneak up one by one." Jason suggested. "It looks like they're transferring artifacts up every time they send something down. I think they're stripping the building of valuables and tech."

"I agree. What are you suggesting?" Carris asked.

"It looks like they're about to send up another shipment," he said, "We could catch a ride up with it."

"That sounds feasible," James said. "You first."

Jason watched and waited until no one was looking, and then silently sprinted onto the raised platform. Once he was safely hidden behind a crate of artifacts, he flashed the all clear signal. One by one, he was joined by the two Spartans on the platform.

They hid there for several minutes, until the grunts were finished loading the platform with what Jason could only assume to be millions of Credits' worth of centuries old technology. Suddenly they began to rise and he felt his stomach sink to his feet. Oh no, can they see us? He wondered, only just now realizing that they would be fully visible from the ground.

Luckily, the crew loading the gravlift at three AM seemed to be more inclined to slack off between loads than watch to make sure there was nothing wrong. It took them no more than thirty seconds to reach the loading bay and have the hatch slide silently shut beneath them.

Jason stepped out from behind a crate, moving around the edge just like he would do while clearing a building; weapon first and ready for anything. Dozens of possibilities flashed through his mind at the same time; Grunts, Jackals, Elites, Brutes, or even Hunters. Luckily, the room's only living occupants were three grunts that they quickly put down.

He looked around. They were in a large cavernous space, full of crates of artifacts, any one of which was likely worth more than he made in a lifetime. The room was lined in doors, but which was the right one?

"Which way should we go?" he asked.

"I would imagine that the bridge is more forward than this, but probably not by much. The Covenant don't use forward windows like our ships do. They typically use full wall view screens and the rooms themselves are more towards the middle. Since we're a little ways behind the middle, I would imagine that we only have a short ways to go." Carris said. "But we need to move fast, they'll notice the disruption in unloading soon."

Jason looked around, finding the door that led to the front of the ship. It was only then that he realized that James was nowhere to be found.

"Where's James?" he asked.

"He's on his way to disable the thrusters," Carris told him. "It's up to us to take out that structure." She started forward, moving at a light jog. I hope she's not going slowly just so I can keep up. Jason thought, knowing that that was likely the case.

They moved into a long hallway, and were surprised once again to find that it was empty. What's going on here? Jason asked himself. Surely there has to be someone on board.

It only took them two minutes to reach the bridge; Carris's estimate was correct, it wasn't far from the hold. They stacked up on either side of the door, glancing at each other for the count. A countdown popped up in Jason's HUD. A green light flashed, and they both turned inward at the same time, causing the door to slide open and admit them to the Bridge. Jason took it all in at a glance, creating a mental tally of enemies.

Eight Elites sat in front of consoles, ten Grunt Ultras were milling about, none facing them. Six Special Operations Elites stood in an Honor Guard formation on either side of a walkway leading to a chair in the middle of the room in which the Captain was sitting, directly in front of a large wall of monitors. The monitors showed the exterior of the ship, all linking together to form a nearly seamless picture.

No one so much as half turned in their direction; they were so assured in their safety. After all, who would suspect anything from being amiss this deep within their own ships?

Jason and Carris paused, staring at the strange sight before them. Never in their lives had they faced a room with twenty three Covenant soldiers in it and not been shooting. Jason set it off, lobbing two grenades into the cluster of Grunts. Carris tossed two more towards the Honor Guard. Jason was in the process of switching to his sniper rifle when the grenades went off.

It took a moment for the smoke to clear, and as soon as it did he put a round through the three surviving members of the Honor Guard, and was delighted to find that his two grenades had managed to dispatch all ten grunts without detonating their Methane packs. An explosion that size might have damaged equipment that they needed to use to destroy the structure.

"Fall back!" Carris yelled, retreating through the doorway. He was all too happy to oblige, retreating through the door just as the nine remaining inhabitants of the bridge were turning to face them. As the doors were swinging shut, he saw the Captain turning in his chair. He put the last bullet in his Magazine through the side of his head.

"Eight," He said as the doors slid shut.

"You know they're going to charge us, right?" Carris asked him.

"Yeah, that's what I would do if I were on the bridge crew. They probably have energy swords too. Allows for quicker, more precise kills in close quarters." He slid another magazine home, hearing the satisfying click as it notched into place. He sighed deeply as he racked the slide. "I don't like doing this, killing them I mean. It's just not right. We shouldn't be in this war, it's pointless."

"This isn't the time to get sentimental," Carris said. Just as she finished this thought, the bridge crew recovered from the shock of their initial attack and the door slid open. Jason pulled the trigger, more out of fear than reflex, and the first round sailed forward. It should have impacted mid-chest on the first unlucky Elite in line, but it didn't. Instead his bullet hit the soft pulsating orange tissue of the Hunter's midsection and passed through, damaging it, but not killing it.

The wounded Hunter issued a deep roar that seemed to shake Jason to his very core, then lowered his head and charged; bringing his spiked back panel raking across the floor towards him.

Jason was rooted to the spot. His body rigid, not knowing what to do. He had never fought a Hunter directly before, only ever with his Company. And then it had been a simple matter of waiting for the men with rockets to take care of them. Now, as he stood watching several tons of death hurdle towards him, he was amazed he could still think.

"Jason, move!" Carris screamed, fear evident in her voice. The sound of her voice spurred him into action. She's in trouble, she has to be. Her voice wouldn't crack like that unless she was in danger. He leapt to the side and pulled a grenade from his belt pouch. It was his last; he had to make it count.

The Hunter was dazed; he had hit the solid metal bulkhead head on, and it was obvious that it was having an effect on him. He was still leaning heavily on the wall, trying to recover. Jason primed the grenade and held it, waiting and counting. When he reached one and a half, he tossed the grenade underhand so that it rolled underneath the Hunter's shield and came to a stop. He turned towards Carris, and upon seeing her standing safely down the corridor a few meters from him, sighed in relief.

The grenade detonated. Jason felt ground up bits of organic material splatter against his back, and watched the fluorescent orange goo rain down around him. He turned back towards the door, placing himself between Carris and whatever might be rushing out to meet him. They only hunt in twos, Jason thought, so where's the other one?

Just then the door slid open, and an Elite came scrambling out, running straight past Jason, and attempting to pass Carris. She put a single round through his head. A second one tried to run, but he tripped. Why the hell are they running? I've never seen them panic like this.

The Elite had fallen flat on his face when he tried to turn the corner, and was scrambling to rise to his feet. Before he managed to, another giant figure lumbered out of the doorway, stepping on the back of the Elite as it did so. Jason was fairly certain he wasn't going to get back up.

The hunter ignored Jason for the time being, choosing instead to move to his fallen comrade.

. . .

Igada Yarsa Masu gazed down on the broken body of his bond brother, willing the orange blood to go away, for his body to reform, for him to stand. He gently prodded him with his shield, praying that he would wake up, get up and join him in the fight to kill the scum that plagued this ship. But he knew that this would not be the case.

He gazed upon the body of his brother for life one last time, and then let out a scream. He had screamed before, many times in fact. Often when he was truly enraged with something he would roar. Any noise that he made was caused by a vibration of the Lekgolo that he was made up of. When he screamed in anger, he used many of them, all vibrating rapidly to make a very loud noise.

But this scream was different. He felt it rise from deep within him, building up until he could feel every one of the tens of thousands of Lekgolo within him begin to vibrate as one. This scream he knew would be his loudest, his biggest, and perhaps even his last. There would be nothing left in him after this; he was going to die this day. Whether it was by his hand or the hand of the heretics that he now despised, he would die today in vengeance of his brother.

They killed the Captain, and now my bond brother, they must die.

. . .

Jason felt it. He felt the noise. He couldn't even hear it really, his armors audio dampeners popped into effect, shutting off all outside noise as soon as it happened, just like they would in an explosion. But nothing could stop him from feeling it.

It hit him harder than impacting the surface of a planet at just under lethal velocity, which he had plenty of experience with. It was like a wall of sadness and anger.

He stood, watching the Hunter scream. Jason was terrified. This was like facing a wounded animal. He knew that it would keep up the fight until it couldn't anymore. He didn't give it a chance to finish it's cry, emptying his sniper's magazine into the Hunter's midsection before switching to his assault rifle. He continued to pour rounds into it as he backed away, and as soon as he was out of Carris's line of fire she joined him.

As Jason reloaded, the Hunter fired, catching him squarely in the chest. He watched as his shield drained almost instantly to zero. He felt the heat of the blast wash over him as he leapt clear, somehow managing to avoid the majority of the attack. Jason kept firing, emptying two more magazines before he was satisfied that his opponent was dead. As soon as the Hunter fell, Jason sank to his knees, looking down at himself.

"Jason!" Carris yelled, rushing over to him. She crouched beside him, gently placing a hand on his back. "Are you alright?"

He quickly popped the seals on his armor and removed his helmet and chest plate; taking a look at them before reattaching them to himself. Despite the energy dispersing nature of the material they were made of, the plasma from the Hunter's blast had taken its toll. They were both too far compromised, and he would need to remember that they would be useless to him in an actual fight.

He stood, and accompanied Carris to the bridge. When the doors opened, they were met with a gruesome sight. The remaining bridge crew had gotten in the way of the second Hunter, and now lay broken and shattered on the floor.

He sighed and looked around at the available consoles. He spotted one that looked like it might control the weapons and made his way over to it.

Jason took a seat while Carris stood guard over the doorway. He wasn't the most technical person, but the controls for the weapons systems that he had sat down in front of seemed pretty similar to controls that he had seen being operated on UNSC ships.

"Can you operate it?" Carris asked him.

"Yeah, I think so. This looks like it operates several different weapons systems. Hopefully there isn't that big of a learning curve."

"Okay, hurry up; I don't know how much time we have."

He rested his hands on the controls, and managed to pull up a view of the ground below them. He could see the entire crater from where the camera was located on the bottom of the ship. He pushed a few buttons that looked like they might correlate to each other. Along the left side of the console, there were two columns of buttons that he could light up all at once by pressing them. That must be activating specific weapons, and I would imagine that if they're all lit up, I'm controlling them all at the same time.

He found a small mouse pad type object, which seemed to control a targeting reticule. He rested it on the base of the Forerunner structure. A small button was flashing at him from the bottom right side of the keyboard. He pressed it.

Twelve Pulse Laser Turrets and ten Heavy Plasma Cannons charged up and fired at the structure simultaneously. The combined onslaught was much more effective than he had anticipated. Parts of the structure were melting and blowing off, the whole building becoming unstable. He gave it less than a minute until there was nothing left.

"Jason and Carris, what's your status?" James asked through the Comms.

"We're holding our own on the bridge, haven't seen any additional opposition. Where are you?"

"I'm in the hangar bay. There are two Phantoms left here. How much longer will you be?" James asked. Carris looked to Jason for an answer.

"If there are two left, then go ahead and take one and get to orbit. We won't be too far behind you." Jason answered.

"I'll see you there."

"How much longer until–," Carris began.

Something in the crater exploded, ending Carris's sentence abruptly. The detonation was fabulous. A ball of orange plasma rising towards the sky.

"That's going to hit the ship." Jason stated.

"Shit." Carris gasped. "Run!"

They left the Bridge at a sprint, running as fast as they could towards the upper hangar. They got about twenty meters down the hallway before it hit the rear of the ship, rocking it forward. They lost their footing and began sliding down the hall, in the opposite direction from where they wanted to go.

"Grab my hand!" Carris yelled. He managed to grasp it after a moment of flailing. He held tightly, their hands finding each other's forearms and holding on. Carris engaged the magnetic clamps on her boots, allowing her to seal her feet to the deck below them.

Now that they were attached to the floor, they weren't in risk of moving further away from the Hangar. Unfortunately, now Carris had to drag him back up an incline for nearly two hundred meters. It was extremely slow going.

He could feel the ship trying to correct itself, its gravitational stabilizers attempting to level it out. But with no one manning the ship's Bridge, it wasn't going well.

It took them almost three minutes to travel two hundred meters, but they finally made it to the Hangar. As the door slid open in front of them, they saw that there was still one Phantom left, and it was directly in front of them. Carris threw him into the hatch, which was only a few feet away. Jason climbed his way upwards to the pilot's seat, strapping himself in.

Carris joined him a moment later, strapping herself in the gunner's seat beside him.

Just as Jason moved to disengage the docking clamps there was another detonation from the rear of the ship, and suddenly they were weightless. Then his stomach sank, and he knew they were falling.

"What…" he started, but was cut short. The impact damaged the docking clamps, and after a moment they began to fall again.

They landed upside down, and the console in front of Jason lit up with warnings. He touched the controls experimentally, but got no feedback. Shit. Now we're stuck down here.

"What happened?" He asked, finally able to finish his question.

"I think the explosion in the crater set off the bombs that James planted in the Engines." She replied.

"Great." Jason grumbled. He unstrapped himself, forgetting for a moment the position he was in, and promptly fell several feet onto his back. He rose to his feet and looked around the dimly lit cabin as Carris dropped out of her seat to land gracefully next to him.

They made their way out of the Phantom, and then across the hanger to the main doors, which were thankfully now resting at ground level.

Once they were out of the ship they looked around, scanning the street for hostiles; but they were alone.

"Well," Jason said, "I guess we're walking."