Author's Note: Here's a nice and long chapter for y'all! Enjoy!
Chapter 10
"Sir, Zeta has arrived,"
"I'm aware of that. I want to know if the cadet made it,"
"Yes, she did. Although…"
"Although what? I want you to tell me what happened,"
"Well...the ship they were on was attacked by covenant...they had to jump off of it and onto the planet...then they had to use grunt gas to power a mongoose…"
"Heh, see, I told you she would make a great soldier! Oh wait...I told Zeta that..."
"Well...she'll be arriving soon...do you know what you're going to tell her?"
"I do, but I don't want to tell her too much. It might be best that she figures some things out for herself,"
"What about me, sir?"
"You? Don't tell her anything that she doesn't know. If you do, I will find out about it,"
"Yes sir!"
"Good. Now, you better go. She's waiting outside the door, and she needs an introduction,"
Axel and Zeta waited with Peters outside a small door; they had been for about 10 minutes. The trio were beginning to get bored as they waited, and tried to find ways to occupy themselves. Zeta and Cadet Peters played holographic cards while Axel tried to balance a knife blade on her finger.
"What's taking so long? Can't we just walk right in?" Axel asked flatly, not looking away from the knife.
"Nope. We're not allowed to go into the boss' office without an escort," Peters explained.
"Well aren't you my escort? Isn't that the whole reason you're even here?"
"Yeah...but...I mean, the boss has a lot of meetings and stuff, and you can never really tell when he's in a meeting, so he has somebody let you in when he's ready for you,"
"He better hurry up then. I'm BORED!" Axel groaned childishly. Suddenly, the metal door opened up quickly, and another spartan stood on the other side.
"The boss is ready for you," the spartan explained briefly. He had a british accent that seemed to flow as he spoke. He gestured for the trio to enter, and closed the door behind them. Ooh...fancy! Axel thought. The spartan reminded her of butlers from super old movies she'd heard of before.
Her curiosity grew into anger as she looked around the room. Instead of seeing a big and mysterious figure seated in the middle of the room, like she had expected, Axel was faced with a tiny, empty room with nothing in it but a few dinky little chairs and a huge screen. The screen was on, and seemed to be relaying a message, but the face of this mysterious person was nowhere to be found. The screen was blank despite a blue line in the middle.
The spartan with the British accent gestured to the puny little chairs, beckoning Peters and Axel to sit. Axel folded her arms and slumped down into a chair, contemplating how miserable her day had been so far. She suddenly noticed that she was exhausted and starving, but kept her mouth shut and tried to ignore it.
Whoever was relaying the message began to speak, and the blue line bounced up and down as it recorded sound waves.
"You are Cadet Taylors, I presume?" the voice spoke. It had obviously been edited so that it sounded much lower than it actually was. Ok, this is too cheesy… Axel thought with a frown.
"Uh, yeah, I am. Ya mind telling me why I flew all the way out here, got blown up, fell onto a popsicle of a planet, got attacked by a gruntpocalypse, and never during all of this got food?" she asked with a hint of a sneer in her voice. Exhaustion had made her grumpy and she just wanted food and sleep. The room went silent for a moment.
"I apologize for the troubles you've been through, cadet, but I need you to please listen," the strange person said, the sound waves bumping up and down slightly. Axel stayed silent, beckoning them to proceed.
"I've been watching you for a while now. You're a great soldier. You know that, don't you?"
"Actually, I don't, I've only actually been in battle twice, and both times it wasn't even a real battle,"
"Well, three times. If I'm correct, you were...attacked by some ODST's before you left to come here, correct?" Axel fell silent.
"Anyways, I don't need to see you fight to know that you are an excellent prodigy,"
"Hmph, if you could call it that…"
"I have a job for you. There is a-"
"Why did I have to come out here if I could just video chat with you from back at the academy?"
"That is not your concern. Now if you don't mind, I would like to tell you what I want you to do without interruption," Axel went quiet again.
"Thank you. Anyway, there is a small town on a planet near here in need of some...assistance. You see, the mayor of the town doesn't like the UNSC for some strange reason in which my sources have not yet revealed to me. I need you, cadet Peters, and Zeta to go there and convince him that the UNSC is meant to protect. We picked up a Covenant fleet on our radar that's headed for the town and the mayor refuses to let us help because he thinks we're bad," the voice explained seriously.
Why me, though? It's not my job to do what strangers tell me...Why am I here? Axel had these and many more questions swimming through her brain, and it seemed as if none would ever be answered.
Zeta began to speak privately to her, though.
"Keep calm and just do it. I know you're confused, but as soon as you do this I'm sure you can go home," the A.I. whispered. Axel gave a sigh.
"Fine...I'll do it…" she groaned. "But can I at least have lunch first?"