Chapter Nine

Vengeance

Something Spartans Should Never Feel

D+92:13:40(Spartan-076 Mission Clock)/
October 17, 2552(Time anomaly-ERROR)
Aboard Covenant Special Operations Ship
Unknown Location.

Anger surfaced.

Hate consumed.

Sorrow filled.

Rage boiled.

James flexed his muscles. His constant dreams and memories of his dead brothers and sisters flooded his mind. His sleep tormented him. His stomach hurt from not eating, his suit stimulates and rations ran out. The dead bodies of grunts in the back of the ship tempted his senses.

Hate is all he could think of. Somehow, someway he had to make the Covenant pay. If it meant risking his life, he was going to make them pay. Just like on Draco III.

Just like Draco III.

James checked his monitor, the slip space drives were well out of power, and the ship has been running on full power for three months. If it had been that long, he lost track of the days, months, years. Not even full power could make the journey to Earth. God knows what's going.

God.

He was never there; he would give some kind of sign. No, he doesn't. If he was there, humanity would have hope. Something they don't have.

His emotions were flooding over him. He couldn't stop, he didn't want to stop. He was losing control. Years of training were breaking; he couldn't hold back the adrenaline any more.

Something awoke in him, something he hadn't felt since he was taken away from home.

Fear.

He was scared, tired, and angry. He drifted asleep, and was forever lost.

Days went bye, the first good sleep James got in weeks. No dreams tormented him, nightmares that angered him. But something swelled inside, something that would control him until he had an answer. Becoming the machine the Covenant feared so much. Memory was shaping him, emptiness is what he felt. But he didn't realize that it set off a string of events.

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James's sleep awoke something, something in his body, a gene, the same gene that Dr. Halsey discovered in her Spartans that made them able to hold the augmentations. It was in this particular gene that allowed her to pick the Spartan candidates, something beyond the Covenant, or Humanity.

Something Forerunner.

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Three days Later

James woke up. His hunger was banished from his mind. He could only feel loss. A pain he wished he never felt. After years of emotional containment, he finally broke under the strain. He let loose a waterfall of tears. Spartans never had time to mourn a loss; they were always shipped away on another mission. Now, it seemed like he had an eternity to say good bye. He looked around with his bloodshot eyes, and found what he was looking for.

A plasma rifle.

James slowly got up, walked toward it, and picked it up. He went back over to the odd shaped chair, now broken to fit the MJOLNIR armor, and sat down.

I can't. I can't, I have nothing to live for, and humanity's doomed. He thought

He slowly lifted the plasma rifle to the side of his head.

But then he dropped it, with heavy eyes he looked up at the navigation screen.

A UNSC Cruiser tore a hole through space, and entered. James was relieved and immediately tried to contact them-

-only to fail and see it explode. Two Covenant frigates came from the dark side of the closest moon, and destroyed it with plasma torpedos. They were waiting, like hungry sharks.

James, clenched his fists, and realized why he had to live. The Covenant, were still out there, and for every life they just killed aboard that ship, James was going to make sure they would be avenged.

He had to live to protect Earth, now that Reach was destroyed.

The two frigates remained where they were, flying without concern over the Titanium-A debris. They were obviously communicating. James ran his fingers over the control pad, trying to do his best to tap into their communications.

James typed the key pad even faster, trying to do his best with the Covenant Calligraphy scrolling on the screen. Shit. James thought, he backspaced, and re-typed. A slight beep went on the screen.

"Bingo" he said aloud

He raised the overhead speakers loud enough so he could slightly hear beyond the static.

"--the prophetsstatic-wort- the Brutes-wort wort-many Sangheilistaticmissing. Humansstatic Earth found-wort wort wort-Demon is therestatic prophets are up to something."

Shock, surrounded by static from the speakers engulfed him. The Covenant had found Earth. On the view screen, it should the two frigates enter slip space, and disappeared from space and time itself.

James once again felt alone.

He pushed the tiny ship toward the area where the covenant cruisers were moments ago. Looking, hoping, that something would be there to find out on what's going on at earth.

Nothing, he could not even find an old frequency from several months ago.

His hunger returned to him, and the ache became the gnawing sensation he wished would go away. It was painstaking. He couldn't think, his heart was beating slower, trying to hold on to what little energy it had left.

With a last desperate move, he scanned the planet nearby to see if it had inhabitants, or a breathable atmosphere.

No inhabitants, of course. There are only us, and the Covenant, and they most likely glassed it. Breathable atmosphere though. So it hasn't been glassed.

He moved the ship onto a course with the main landmass. At least, that's what the spectroscopic analysis told. He typed in the last key and pushed the joystick onto the heading. He took a combat knife out of the sheath, and crawled to the back.

Grunt bodies lay there, he had no time to take them out when he escaped the Covenant cruiser. James slowly crawled over to them and cautiously cut the meat off the arms. Blue, phosphorescent blood seeped out of the veins. James was about to eat some of the meat when the ship started beeping again. The ship slowly was drifting to the side.

Something was on radar. He could hear the soft decompression of another ship latching on.

No, that's not possible; this ship is too small, unless, am I being docked? But who could have a tractor beam? That's way beyond our time. He thought.

Oxygen left the room, and he passed out.

A/N: Oh no! What has happened to James? Who are the mysterious creatures who has captured James's vessel? The Covenant? Rogue humans? Find out next chapter!!!

Sorry, had too. Anyways shorter chapter, yes, bad cliffhanger, yes, just don't hate me yet. Next chapter you won't believe what will go down. Read and Review please.