CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

Where the hell am I?

Paris IV – April 29, 2556: 0949 Zulu Time

Captain Henry Bondarev paced the bridge of his ship. His ship was the Marathon-class heavy cruiser UNSC Crimson Splendor. It was the flagship of a five ship task force that had been on patrol in UNSC-controlled space. The cruiser had been supported by four Stalwart-class light frigates.

The task force had been performing its patrol, when they received a distress signal from a reclamation and recovery team on Paris IV. The planet had been "glassed" by the Covenant back in 2549. With the war over, the UNSC had been sending out teams to all the destroyed colony worlds to evaluate them for terraforming and recolonization. The distress signal reported that Covenant ships had entered orbit and had started landing troops on the planet. Before the distress signal was cut off the team reported incoming Phantoms and Banshees towards their camp.

Captain Bondarev had immediately ordered his task force to set course to Paris IV. He'd also sent a report and a request for reinforcements to FLEETCOM, but the Navy was spread thin these days and reinforcements were at least five days away. When the task force exited Slipspace, near Paris IV, they had been confronted by a single Covenant CCS-class battlecruiser orbiting the planet. They had caught the battlecruiser in the middle of unloading troops and equipment for the supporting ground operations planet side.

Bondarev was an experienced veteran of the Human-Covenant war and he knew how tough Covenant battlecruisers could be, but he didn't hesitate to order an immediate attack. An hour later, the Captain looked out his ship's bridge viewing port at the floating debris of the Covenant battlecrusier. It had been a hard and costly battle, three of his escorting frigates were also floating debris fields. The fourth frigate, the UNSC Venture Forward had suffered severe battle damage that Bondarev had ordered it to immediately retire to the nearest fleet base for repairs. The heavy cruiser had taken some damage in the fight, but she was a tough ship and was still fully operational.

As the cruiser entered orbit above the planet, the ship's sensors picked up large numbers of Covenant air and ground traffic. The cruiser deployed its Longsword air wing to lay in some airstrikes and reduce some of the Covenant forces on the planet, but it appeared that the Covenant had been able to establish a sizable and strong beachhead on the planet. The Covenant had managed to get a heavy anti-air defense presence planet-side and the Longswords took heavy casualties during the first strikes. As Bondarev reviewed the reports coming in from the airstrikes, he realized that he didn't have the numbers or firepower to take out the Covenant forces planet side—especially with reports showing that the Covenant had been able to setup a shielded Command and Control center. His next priority became locating any survivors from the reclamation and recovery team and trying to evacuate them off the planet surface.

Ship sensors finally located about seventy-five survivors that were fleeing from Covenant forces that had attacked the reclamation team's base and were now pursuing them. The cruiser had onboard a full twenty-two man ODST combat team and two marine platoons—giving the Captain few options in how he could respond groundside. Even knowing that his ground forces would be horribly outnumbered, Bondarev didn't hesitate as he ordered the deployment of his ground troops to protect and rescue the survivors on the planet. He briefed the commanding officer of the ODST team and placed him in charge of the overall ground mission. The ODST team would drop first by orbital drop pod close to the survivors. The marine platoons would then be brought in by Pelican dropships to support. Bondarev watched stoically from the bridge as he monitored the orbital drop pods followed by the Pelicans descend to the planet's surface.

oOoOo

Captain Richard (Stew) Suliga was a hardened veteran and a survivor. He had joined the Marines during the war at age sixteen. Eighteen long bloody years later he was an ODST officer. Even with the war supposedly being over, he was still making lots of combat drops, with this one shaping up to be his roughest and bloodiest since the end of the war.

The Crimson Splendor had been right on the money dropping Suliga's ODST team close enough to the survivors to get to them quickly and hold off a small Covenant pursuit force. The two Marine platoons arrived within twenty minutes by Pelican to reinforce. The timing was close as the group got hit by a larger Covenant force and they were forced to withdraw, without being able to evacuate anyone—the Pelicans just barely avoided being destroyed on the ground. Even with the chaos of the firefight and being forced to withdraw, they were able to do so in an orderly fashion keeping the civilian survivors safe with minor causalities.

Suliga had enough battlefield experience that he had planned ahead for such a contingency. Before the drop, the Captain had mapped out fallback positions that could provide good defensive positions and pick-up points along with getting resupplied by orbital drop pods. The major problem was would these Covenant co-operate and give them enough time to bring in Pelicans to let them evacuate everyone. From the Covenant response and how they were pursuing his little force, it didn't look like they wanted anyone to leave—alive

Suliga was overseeing and organizing his command for the fall back to the next designated position when he received a call over the battle net from the cruiser.

"We have detected what looks like a small Slipspace rupture 1.5 kilometers North-East of your current position at map co-ordinates G43-R12."

Shit! It's not like I'm lounging around here doing nothing that I can go off and wander around looking for anomalies, thought Suliga.

But being the good officer and soldier he was, the Captain responded without betraying his thoughts or emotions, "We'll investigate as the opportunity presents itself."

Luckily the co-ordinates were parallel to the path that the group was retreating to its next fallback position. Suliga was at first going to detach a Marine squad to investigate, but at the last moment he changed his mind and decided to send one of his four-man ODST teams instead.

Suliga called over the ODST channel on the battle net, "Sergeant Mazankowski… Take your team to map co-ordinates Golf-43 by Romeo-12 … This is a Snoop and Look OP. In and out quick and quiet and meet up at the next fallback position … Understood?"

The Captain heard the Sergeant reply with an affirmative.

Suliga watched as the ODST team headed out, he hoped that he wouldn't regret sending them. Some of the civilians and Marines looked puzzled and questioningly as they saw the ODST team head out.

oOoOo

Faith was disoriented as everything came back into focus. She tried to regain her senses and tried to remember what had happened to her. The last thing she remembered was seeing Michael killing The First and she'd been fighting Stacy—then nothing but darkness and now she found herself on this desolate looking landscape. She looked around as she got her feet back under her trying to figure out what had happened to her and where she was.

I guess I'm not in Kansas anymore, she thought worriedly as she looked around at the barren landscape trying to figure out her next move.

Her attention quickly shifted as she caught movement out of the side of her eye and she turned quickly to face the threat. She was greeted with the sight of Stacy staggering about 50 meters away. Faith's nemesis looked even more disoriented and confused and was having a difficult time. Faith didn't hesitate as she rushed over and grabbed Stacy and threw her to the ground.

"Where the hell are we? How do we get home?" Faith yelled as she held Stacy up by her shirt.

Faith could see that whatever power the Potential had gotten from The First was now gone as her eyes were normal and she didn't put up much of a struggle. Stacy's confusion was still obviously apparent and she was still dazed. "I… I... I don't know…" she said with fear in her voice and tears now appearing in her eyes.

"Well you better start knowing something … It was your boyfriend The First that opened the portal." Faith said angrily as she shook Stacy.

More tears came from Stacy and Faith let go of her in disgust. She kept one eye on Stacy as she looked around at the land around them. She wasn't sure, but it looked like it was morning as the sun was coming up and she could see more of the surrounding terrain. She assumed it was morning—the sky was grey and dark clouds drifted high above her. It looked like a wasteland—the whole place had the feeling and smell of death hanging over it. She thought she heard rumbling—like thunder far off in the distance and also thought she saw faint flashes along the edges of the horizon.

Must be some kind of hell dimension, she thought somberly looking around and sighing as she tried to get a grip on her situation.

At least there're no demons around… yet.

She felt the twinge of fear and panic start to tug at her, but she pushed those thoughts and feelings down—at least for now. She held out a glimmer of hope, I know Michael will look for me, but where will he know to look or start? she thought shaking her head.

Faith saw that Stacy had now pulled herself to a sitting position. She had her legs pulled up into her with her arms wrapped around them—rocking back and forth muttering to herself. Faith couldn't make out what she was muttering about.

Faith looked over the pitiful young woman and felt her anger subside a bit. She was still pissed that Stacy had attacked her and handed her over to The First, but now she looked at the troubled young woman with some sadness and pity. Faith only saw someone that had been forced to deal with evil and terrible things and hadn't been able to cope with it and the evil had taken advantage of her. She saw a young woman that had tried to grab on to something that could protect her from the horrible nightmarish things she'd been forced to face.

Another member for the 'Women who love Sierra-113' club … Definitely have to come up with a better name, Faith thought sighing, but a small smirk came to her face at the attempted joke.

Faith knew that whatever their differences were, her and Stacy where stuck in this hell dimension together until they could find a way back or Michael found them. She was about to go over and see Stacy and try to get her to snap out of her muttering and rocking, when she heard a noise in the sky—it was coming closer.

Faith looked up and in the distance she saw what looked like a small plane approaching. Her hopes started to rise—demons didn't fly planes. The plane came closer and then turned and headed off in another direction causing Faith to momentarily lose hope. She had been able to get a decent look at the plane and it wasn't like any plane she'd ever seen before. The "plane" was a dark purple color, the main body section was big and bulbous with two small wings out the side and had what looked like jet engines attached to the small wings. It looked so strange and different from anything she was familiar with. The plane didn't look like it should be flying at all, but it was.

Faith's hopes seem to be dashed as the plane flew away, but that was a good sign that there were other people in this dimension. She was caught off-guard and surprised as the plane did a sudden loop in the sky and started coming back towards them. Faith felt her hopes rise again and she was about to start waving to signal the plane, but she held back. She started to get a bad feeling about the oncoming plane. There was something about it that made her uneasy and cautious.

Faith turned to warn Stacy, when she heard a loud roaring noise in the sky. She turned back quickly and saw a green ball of fire coming right towards them. A part of Faith's mind noted detachedly that it looked very similar to what Michael had fired at The First, but this was much larger.

Faith yelled at Stacy to move, but the young woman was frozen to her spot—just sitting there rocking back and forth. Faith was helpless as there was no time for her to get to Stacy, all she could do was move quickly and dive for cover.

A huge explosion went off as Faith dove for cover, picking her up and tossing her around showering her with dirt and debris. Faith moved slowly as she lifted herself off the ground still feeling dazed from the effects of the explosion. She shook it off quickly and looked back where Stacy had been sitting—there was only a smoking hole in the ground where she'd been. Faith didn't have time to think about Stacy as she heard the plane's engines and looked up and saw that it had done another loop and was headed back towards her. She didn't hesitate or wait, she got up and ran.

Faith was at a full out sprint, but she could hear the plane getting closer. She tried to remember all the training Michael had given her and she changed direction, which was lucky as the plane started firing at her. The shots hit the area she would have been and she kept up her run changing directions and zig zagging to throw off their shots. She saw the shots that the plane fired and they looked like bright bolts of light. Some of the shots came close—just missing her—but she felt her skin burn from the heat of the near misses.

She kept up her run for what seemed like an eternity, but she could feel her lungs starting to burn. She didn't know how much further she could go to keep avoiding this attacking plane.

Faith slowed down to try and catch her breath. She looked up with anger at her oncoming attacker. She didn't know how much further she could run and all she had left was to try and anticipate where the shots were going to go and then dodge then. She took a deep breath and saw the plane coming in close for its attack run. She watched its movements trying to get a clue as to which way it was going to come at her and when it was going to fire. Her concentration was suddenly interrupted by a very loud and commanding voice.

"GET DOWN!"

Faith didn't hesitate and she instinctively dove to the ground, trying to make sure she protected her stomach. She was still trying to figure out who the voice was when a very loud and powerful machine gun opened up followed by a whooshing sound. She looked up in time to watch the plane explode and see the debris falling from the sky.

Faith was still dealing with the surprise and shock along with catching her breath when four people seemed to appear out of nowhere. She immediately noticed that the four people were wearing body armor and helmets that looked somewhat similar in design to what Michael wore. Her eyes widened in shock as she noticed the winged eagle symbol with the letters UNSC.

Faith stood there trying to make sense of everything that was happening to her. Her thoughts were interrupted by one of the soldiers, "Are you alright Ma'am?"

Faith refocused her thoughts looking at the soldier and nodded, "I think so…"

She heard one of the soldiers mutter, "I so hate Banshees…"

The soldier that had spoken to Faith spoke again, "Ma'am if you're able to move, we need to get going. There are too many Covenant around here and I don't think we should be standing around waiting."

"Is there anyone else with you?" another soldier asked.

Faith looked back to where Stacy had been, "No … I'm alone."

The four soldiers and Faith started their hike to meet back up with the rest of the soldiers and civilians at the next fallback position.

oOoOo

Captain Suliga wasn't fond of puzzles and he found himself facing a very strange and perplexing one. His recon team had located and brought back a female survivor from the area of the Slipspace rupture. She was definitely human, but she was wearing strange clothes and none of the other survivors recognized or knew who she was. The woman had given her name as Faith Lehane, but she was unable—or unwillingly to explain how she got here. The Captain had ordered a medic to check her out for injuries and as a security precaution. He was shocked to have the medic report back that that his newest addition was also pregnant.

Suliga was now trying to keep the civilians alive, keep ahead of the Covenant and evacuate the planet and now he had a mysterious pregnant woman on his hands. He was wondering what else was going to happen to him today. He would have liked more time to ask this woman more questions to get to some answers about where she had come from and why she was here, but the Covenant were making another push. He filed away his questions for later when they would have a chance to dig deeper—if they survived. Captain Suliga quickly issued orders and organized his command for another pull out and retreat to another position. He knew that they were running out of places to fallback to and unless they could get the Pelicans in soon, it was going to get ugly for everyone.

oOoOo

On board the UNSC Crimson Splendor, one of the crewmen quickly noticed a strange anomaly on her sensor display. She didn't hesitate as she immediately reported it.

"Captain… I'm picking up another small Slipspace rupture on the planet surface…"