Keep an eye on Montag. He might act like a coward at times, but occasionally he'll do something so completely off the wall that you won't believe it. He's a weird one.
Sergeant Joseph T. Barnes
0737 Hours, 19th September 2552 (Military Calendar)
Armory 3-C, UNSC derelict cruiser (Pillar of Autumn)
Unidentified Artifact
Privates Kanoff and June had been closest to the door. A split second before, the sound of conflict had come. The two Marines outside were firing their rifles in exchange for plasma bolts. Before anyone could react, one of the Marines shrieked the scream of the damned, and the other had dove through the door. He only made it halfway before the plasma grenade stuck to the other Marine exploded. The overpressure threw the surviving Marine against the doorjamb, his fatigues flash-burning and his spine cracking.
Kanoff and June immediately grabbed the Marine's hands and attempted to pull him to safety. A shrieking klaxon went off, and the door engaged in an emergency lockdown.
A Blue Elite ran out of the darkness and threw itself in the doorway. It forced the doors to a stop, and then began to force them apart, despite the 400 kilograms of hydraulic pressure closing the doors.
Kanoff and June looked up at the monstrous Elite. The Marines in the Armory were exchanging fire with the Covenant outside. However, both sides were hitting the Elite, draining its shields.
The Elite stared down at Kanoff and June. Alien it may have been, but spreading your jaws and snarling was a universal message. Bracing one of the doors with a hoof, it reached down with it's free hand and pulled out a plasma rifle.
Kanoff, thinking quickly, grabbed his shotgun and stood up. Meeting little resistance from the Elite's weakened shields; he rammed the shotgun in the Elites mouth.
"EAT THIS!" he shouted as he pulled the trigger.
The Elite's head literally exploded, and the corpse fell down into the doorway, still blocking the doors. June and Kanoff dragged the Marine out of the way, and plasma bolts continued to pour into the room.
By then, the Marines had ducked behind whatever cover was available and returned fire. There was nowhere to run, no way to close the door, and only a matter of time until a stray plasma bolt punched through a crate of ammo and cooked off the contents.
Armory 3-C, small arms section, 0737 Hours
When the explosion went off, Montag and Da Vega looked over at the door in time to see an Elite block the doors from closing. Da Vega pulled out her assault rifle and fired in the general direction of the Elite's chest.
Montag pulled the Handgun out of its holster and dropped to one knee. Holding the Handgun in his right hand, he started firing at the Elite's chest. Aiming after each shot took longer, and lightning bolts of pain shot down his arm.
He gritted his teeth so hard it hurt. Only an idiot, or one of the Hollywood types (but then again, he repeated himself) fired a large-caliber handgun one-handed. For accuracy and pain-free shooting, one had to use both hands.
The Marines were forced to avert their fire when Kanoff stood up and shot the Elite in the head. The Elite fell, its body leaving the door braced with two-thirds of a meter of gap, enough for the Covenant outside to shoot through. After Kanoff and June were out of immediate danger, Da Vega crouched behind a rack of shotguns and reloaded her assault rifle. As she slammed the clip home, she realized that Montag wasn't standing next to her anymore.
Armory 3-C, heavy ordinance section, 0737 Hours
Montag ran to the 'heavy ordinance' section, with the crates of rockets and drums of Warthog ammo. Grabbing the crate labeled M7057 Defoliant Projector, he shoved it over, pulled out the Knife, and began to hack at the clips that held it closed. The two halves of the crate fell apart, exposing the foam packaging material and the flamethrower.
He then slashed at the duct tape holding his left arm to his side. This was going to hurt.
Before starting out, he grabbed an oxygen mask from a nearby port labeled 'In Case of Emergency', said emergency intended to be anything short of a critical depressurization of the room. The mask barely fit under his helmet, with the HMD and all, but it would have to make do for the next five minutes.
With the seal still hardening around his face, Montag picked the defoliator up by its front handle and loaded it with an ammo canister. Clipping two more canisters to his belt, he hefted it to test its weight; just as heavy as he remembered. His left shoulder began to ache.
Armory 3-C, small arms section, 0737 Hours
Da Vega was busy laying down a suppressing fire, but she noticed something moving out of the corner of her eye. She looked to her left and saw Montag running towards the doorway, encumbered by whatever he was carrying.
Then she saw exactly what he was carrying.
"Hell no," she thought. "Even he's not that crazy."
She watched as he threw a flare out the door, and then leaped through.
"Yep. He is."
Armory 3-C, starboard entrance, 0737 Hours
Montag ran through the armory to the doorway. He kept close to the walls in an effort to avoid the plasma bolts, and to remain unseen. Five meters away from the door, he let go of the forward handle and threw a plasma grenade he had grabbed earlier. A loud thump, a blinding light that seared his eyelids, and it was over.
He leaped over the Elite's body and into the hallway. In the darkness, with illumination coming only from the red glow of the deck and the Covenant energy weapons, Montag switched on his Infra-red. Most of the Covenant were ten meters to his left, near a series of cross-bracing. To his right were four Grunts and an Elite. They seemed to still be stunned, still recovering their dark-vision. Good.
Turning to his right, Montag pulled the trigger and sprayed the Pyrosene in a semi-circle, consuming the squad to his right in a deluge of fire. With a roar, the flames blossomed and lit up the hallway, catching Montag in a wall of heat. He closed his left eye, maneuvering by the infra-red image on his HMD.
Montag turned towards the rest of the Covenant, most of whom were still blind. The few that could see were transfixed at the vision of a grim specter, whose armor had turned a gleaming white, backlit by a raging inferno. A bone-white angel of death, with a predatory gleam reflecting off the eyepiece covering his right eye.
Montag took a second to hoist the flamethrower, getting a better view of the enemy.
Xenos die pretty quick once you put the fire to 'em. We ought 'a burn 'em all. Low-life bastards. Burn all those low-life xeno foxtrots.
Burn 'em to ashes, and then burn the ashes.
Montag primed the trigger, enjoying the feeling of the electric pump winding up, like the turbine of some exotic sports car revving up, promising to propel him to euphoric speeds. When he pulled the trigger, it was like unleashing the brakes, peeling out from the red light with a smile plastered across his face. With the growl of a dragon, a torrent of fire stormed out of the nozzle and sought out the Covenant.
The liquid fire was everywhere. It twisted and swirled, surrounding and embracing the Covenant with its fiery embrace. The droplets of pyrosene rapidly deoxigenated the air and stripped the paint off the floor and the walls.
Montag kept the trigger pressed, despite the warnings in the instruction manual to fire in bursts.
The Methane rebreathers on the Grunts exploded, popping like a series of firecrackers. The methane, despite the failsafe gas, mixed with the oxygen in the air and added to the fire
Montag kept firing. In a perverse way, it was beautiful to see things blackened, to see things changed. To see them burn.
With a screeching, the fire-suppressant systems on the PoA came on. Jets of carbon dioxide sprayed down from the ceiling, smothering the flames.
No.
Montag jerked the flamethrower up, coating the ceiling with a layer of sticky Pyrosene. The nozzles were never intended to deal with direct flame, and definitely not with the Pyrosene. The Pyrosene clogged and warped the nozzles, reducing but not the jets of CO2.
The Flamethrower sputtered and died. Montag removed the ammo canister and threw it behind a structural support, five meters away. The heat burst the canister ignited the remaining vapors, and it exploded like a grenade.
Montag slapped a new one in and kept on spraying. He aimed the jet of fire back and forth like a fireman fighting a great conflagration with a waterhose. Except this fireman was feeding the blaze with the food it hungered for: Fuel, flesh, and hatred. Unrelenting hatred. But damn, he'd forgotten how good this felt.
The Jackals hid behind their shields, embers dancing around them like brilliant orange butterflies. Only a few could withstand the high temperature, and most panicked, surrendering themselves to the fury of the fire. The few that stood strong were helpless as the Pyrosene built up on their shields. The shields soon failed, and a wall of blazing Pyrosene collapsed on them like a blanket.
Montag was dripping with sweat, and the stubble on his face had been singed off. The room had to be at fifty degrees centigrade. He didn't notice this however. Hatred is a jealous mistress, and when she has your full attention, nothing else can gain it. He was riding on a high, one that was better than any that could be gained from drugs. He was the conductor, the master of the symphony of blazes and burnings.
The Elites were dying, the last to go. The heat and the chemical reactions taking place directly on their armor had quickly depleted their shields. Now most of them were writhing on the ground, their skin too far gone to feel pain, but the shock was overwhelming. One minute, they were burning in Pyrosene and hatred. The next minute, they were burning in Hell.
One Elite, its Red armor complimenting the inferno around it, staggered forward. It was dead or dying, it didn't matter which. Its body, or its corpse, sank to its knees three meters from Montag.
Montag angled the flamethrower so that it was spraying directly at the Elite, the torrent of flame rushing around its head. The helmet blew off, and the skinsuit under it caught fire. The skin and flesh quickly cooked and fell off like meat falls off a tender steak. The skin and muscles dripped on the floor, oozing burning grease. All that was left of the head was a charred, brittle skull barely visible beneath the blanket of liquid pain.
Montag was torn from his reverie when the flamethrower was torn out of his grip. He felt hands on his arms, yanking him backwards. Distantly, he heard shouting; his name, other names. He was struggling violently, but something heavy struck him on the head.
Distantly, he felt himself being dragged away, though it was hard to tell through the storm of endorphins and adrenaline pumping through his brain.
He was back in the Armory. Morris's face was in front of his.
"What the frickin' Hell did you think you were doing?"
As the adrenaline high receded, the room slowly came into focus.
The Elite had been dragged out of the door, and the door had clamped shut. The medic, Dirkens, had patched up two Marines, and was approaching with a medical kit.
And then there was his body. His face felt gritty, oily; and he smelled like diesel. Or Pyrosene. Would that explain why his shoulder felt like it was on fire?
Armory 3-C, 0741 Hours
Dirkens was making his way towards Lance Corporal Montag and Sergeant Morris when Montag suddenly grabbed his shoulder and started rolling around on the ground, shouting out expletives. Some of them were in English. Most were not. He sprinted toward the fallen Marine, already opening his medical kit.
"Get the Hell down here and hold him down!" he shouted at Morris, who was just standing there in disbelief. Was this Marine really worth it?
After pinning Montag's arms with his knees, Dirkens pulled out a device looked like a cross between a flashlight and a spray gun. It was the tranquilizer of the twenty-sixth century, one that would use ultrasonics to propel tiny amounts of medicine below the dermal layer. Quick, easy to use, worked with a wide range of medicines and a few hallucinogens, and you didn't break needles off in a troublesome patient.
The tranq was pressed against Montag's carteroid artery and fired. Two microliters of sedative were propelled into Montag's blood, and were diffusing throughout the brain in a second. Montag went limp a few seconds later, not able to move his limbs.
Dirkens looked back at Morris. Morris was holding Montag's legs down, and wheezing like he had run the six-minute mile.
"What's wrong with him?"
Morris shrugged his shoulders. "Sadism? Pyromania?"
"Shoulder…"
Dirkens leaned closer to Montag. "What was that?"
"My shoulder was hit…" Montag whispered. The sedative was slurring his speech, making him sound like he had a few strong ones at the bar.
"What, with plasma?" Dirkens asked as he removed the torso armor and unzipped the fatigues. Beneath that were a white shirt and an extremely swollen shoulder. But it hadn't been hit with a plasma bolt. No burn, and the clothing wasn't vaporized.
However, the joint looked wrong, as if it was halfway out of the socket. Dirkens pressed the joint, getting feeble resistance from Montag. Not only was the socket halfway out of the joint, but the muscles and tendons were tight too.
"What did you do?"
"Dislocated shoulder und tightened it back up… fifteen minutes ago."
Dirkens paused. This Marine had been stupid enough to pick up something heavy with his left arm fifteen minutes after injecting the 'stiffer' into it?
"Alright, Montag. I'm going to tape you up." Dirkens told Montag as he pulled out some supplies. "And you won't be using your arm for a while, maybe the rest of the day."
Montag muttered something in slurred Russian.
"Fine then," Dirkens said, pressing down on Montag's shoulder, slipping it back into the joint. "Don't come crying to me when your arm falls off."
"Yes, Mother…"
With Morris's help, Dirkens brought Montag into a sitting position. Next came the surgical tape, wound around Montag's torso and left arm, securing his left arm to his body at the wrist, elbow, and upper arm. The tape slowly constricted, pulling the arm in and removing any slack. Montag was leaned against an empty ammo rack, and Dirkens walked off to check on the other two Marines.
Morris squatted down in front of Montag. Montag was almost out of it; his eyes were dilated and a dribble of saliva was running down his chin. Hard to imagine that this Marine had just killed a cargo ship full of Covies in the most barbaric way imaginable.
Armory 3-C, 0745 Hours
Da Vega was playing with one of the cigarettes they had liberated from the hanger, flipping it back and forth. It was one of the Camel filters, the kind with the touch-light ends. A plastic cap on the tip held a chemical that would ignite on contact with oxygen. All you had to do was break the seal and it would light the cigarette for you, no matches or anything.
As much as she craved the nicotine, however, she didn't feel like lighting it. The flame would remind her of the bodies outside, and how they had died.
Sitting on an ammo drum across from her, Kanoff was desperately cleaning his shotgun. Specks of blood and grime were easy to get off. Elite saliva and gray matter (it was actually a brownish sort of color) were another story altogether.
Da Vega sighed.
"I wonder if Jonesey is as bored as we are."
Pillar of Autumn, Upper Hull; 0812 hours
Jonesey was busy running a systems check on the cannon he was disconnecting. It weighed a good twenty tons with the framework and hydraulics, and the last thing anybody wanted was to haul one off and find out that it was broken. The XPAQ plugged into the fire control attested to the sound nature of the weapon, despite the crash landing several hours earlier.
Each autocannon had its own fire-control computer that coordinated defense with the rest of the battery, and handled the complex mathematics of hitting car-sized vehicles at five miles away. The ship's AI could override it in case of an emergency or malfunction, but the computer saved the AI a lot of processing.
Jonesey was testing the autocannon's axis of movement when his radio crackled.
"We got Covenant reinforcements inbound! I'm counting a total of eighteen bandits. Everyone take cover!"
Jonesey looked up from his work. He could see what looked like seven Spirit Dropships and a lot of Banshees in the distance. He should hide and wait for the Pelican to come get him… or he could do something about the problem.
He pulled up another menu and began typing.
Hydraulic Pumps: ON
ENTER
Target Acquisition: ON
ENTER
The Autocannon whined and moved, pointing directly at the approaching Covenant.
Unit Status: Active
Jonesey reached over and grabbed one of the most useful tools he had ever encountered. It looked like a cross between a very large double-barreled shotgun and an overgrown assault rifle. It had attachments that he could clip additional tools to, ranging from a plasma-cutter to arc welders.
Holding the tool tightly, Jonesey grabbed onto the gun's framework (Thirty meters is a very long ways to fall) and pressed the Enter key. The autocannon quit firing after ten seconds, and Jonesey looked back up. Every last aircraft had been shot to pieces by something they had not expected. No wonder the Brass wanted these things.
Jonesey turned on his radio.
"Covenant?" He said, a little too loudly. "I don't see any Covenant."
Armory 3-C, 0812 hours
Da Vega had given up entirely on the cigarette, and walked over to the twins.
"Any idea when the team is getting here?"
June shook her head. "At least another fifteen minutes. Morris had to call them and tell them to wait."
Da Vega sighed and sat down. The twins were a lot easier to tell apart with their helmets off. June wore her hair slightly longer, in a boyish hairstyle. Liz, on the other hand, had cut hers almost down to the roots a while ago. It was barely at one centimeter now, giving her a spiky appearance.
"Anybody notice anything weird about the weapons in here?"
Kanoff was looking at the stack of crates in the center of the room. All of the weapons and ammo, from the magazines to the rockets, had been moved into the center of the room and quickly sorted into piles by type.
June looked up from her helmet and studied the weapons. Nothing seemed to be different.
"What are you talking about? I don't see anything different."
Kanoff forgot about the shotgun he was reassembling and walked over.
"It's not what's different. It's what's missing. I noticed it when we abandoned ship, but I thought that I just didn't have time to look and missed something."
Liz realized what he was talking about.
"You're right! There's no SMGs or BR-40s. And why do they have a defoliator on a ship like this?"
Da Vega was too spent to care, really. Kanoff had mentioned using the SMG as a sidearm, but she preferred the pistol.
"I read something in Leatherneck Magazine about the BR-55 getting shipped out to Earth and other colonies," June ventured. "They could have been in the process of replacing them when this ship was in port."
"Then why don't we have either one of the models?"
"I have no idea."
Montag opened his eyes.
He wasn't sure how long he had been sleeping, but he doubted it was more than fifteen minutes, twenty-five for safety.
He felt great, relatively. His left shoulder still hurt, but the sedative had worn off. He felt rested, alert, like he had just taken a six-hour nap. He deserved it too. He had only taken brief catnaps in between engagements, and had not settled down for a proper rest since he had gotten out of the cyrotube.
With his right eye closed, he looked around for his helmet. During the scuffle with Sergeant Morris, it had been knocked off. He found it, put it on, and then pressed the power button on the HMD.
The screen, grayish brown when powered down, turned an off-white color. Words appeared, superimposed over a triangle divided into three parts.
Cyberdyne Systems
Infantry/Weapon Optic-Dynamic Network
Beta test model: (2541) I-SSM-22
Montag smiled. Cyberdyne Systems. Aside from General Dynamics and Cyrez, it was one of Consolidated Industries' crown jewels. Hell, without the automation and computer technologies pioneered by Cyberdyne, Consolidated Industries wouldn't have become the household word it was now.
Consolidated Industries was a conglomerate of the largest military contractors, working in fields ranging from firearms to armor to pharmaceuticals to vehicles. Just about any military hardware the UNSC and many planetary governments used groundside, or at least below low orbit, were produced by one of the companies under CI. Consolidated Industries was so big, especially with the war going on, that it controlled the economy of a dozen major planets and had over thirty million employees.
Please Calibrate.
Montag looked at the flashing yellow dots and blinked, going through the familiar process of calibrating the HMD. He remembered the first time he had done this, when the Cyberdyne representative/technician had explained how it worked.
At the time, the UNSC Marine Corps had been going through the process of upgrading the HMDs issued to Marines. The model that Montag was using was one of the candidates. It had plenty of extra features, from full color video to the ability to display live footage from select weapons, like the Rifle. (The previous HMD, as it was holographic, could only display green-hued black and white video, although it recorded in color)
However, as useful as it was, many of the features were not absolutely necessary, and another model (A holographic HMD, with expanded capabilities and processing power over the previous model) earned the contract.
Interestingly enough, since both companies just happened to be subsidiaries of Consolidated Industries, the two HMDs used almost the exact same operating system, and the HMD that Montag used was compatible with the standard HMD, although it tended to turn heads.
Life was oddly bizarre sometimes, but Consolidated Industries' stock went up all the same.
The familiar icons began popping up on the screen, and Montag pulled out the Handgun.
The tracker on the underside of the barrel had been intended to be used on assault rifles and shotguns and the like. The intent was to give infantry a better idea of where they were shooting at, with a FPS-like quality.
Montag quickly found that the video linking from the Rifle could be used to aim it with greater accuracy, and no need to squint through the scope. The tracker had quickly been regulated to the Handgun.
Montag switched on the tracker's laser, and lined the laser dot up with the sights. He didn't squeeze off a shot though. His right arm felt bad enough without additional shock. The Gaubika had a special firing chamber, with some of the reloading mechanism situated in the handgrip ahead of the magazine. Not as effective as a Kriss Super VII, but helped maintain accuracy by directing almost all recoil directly backward instead of upward. Had one Hell of a kick, though.
Sliding the Handgun back into the holster, he sat back and listened to the conversations bubbling in the room. Morris was talking to Dirkins about who would need to be evacuated. The 'Twins' and the 'Lovebirds' were arguing over the weapons.
The weapons…
That was something he had noticed when he had broken into the armory. He normally eschewed the SMG over the Handgun, preferring accuracy and stopping power over RoF. He neglected the BR-40 too, on the grounds that he was a sniper, not a designated marksman.
However, when a Marine goes into Scout Sniper training, he is taught to observe everything. A sniper with honed observation skills could really put them to use. Before the War, snipers had been used for intelligence gathering, scouting enemy bases, investigating everything they did and everything they left behind. By scavenging the trash from an abandoned insurgent camp, a sniper could deduce how high the morale was, how well fed they were, and who they were getting support from. By examining a spent casing, a sniper could tell not only what gun fired it, but where the bullet and the gun were made, and even the condition of the gun that fired it. Many of these skills had been adapted to the War, and many more had been learned in the field.
Ergo, the absence of these particular weapons told him something.
Obviously, they would not be needed for whatever mission the PoA had been sent on, as the guys in S&L weren't completely incompetent. The presence of Marines and their vehicles was proof that the PoA was going to defend a planet, but the weapons choice, the upgraded reactor and MAC didn't fit this scenario. Obviously, the Brass wouldn't send a lone ship to secure this Ring.
Given the Marines, choice of weapons, the new ship systems, and the fact that they were on a Halcyon cruiser, a ship known for their indestructibility, there was only one conclusion.
Boarding action.
One of the most suicidal jobs a Marine can be given, despite how easy Hollywood made it look.
First, the enemy's drive system had to be taken off-line. Assuming that was done without destroying the ship, the attacker would have to close in to point-blank ranges, cosmically speaking, overcoming inertia, orbital motion, and a dozen other laws of physics that worked against two million-ton warships in their attempts to match speed and vector. Then Marines had to fly over in dropships, at the mercy of the enemy's point-defense systems. They had to smash their way into a docking bay. In pre-War boarding attempts, the enemy would often open the vacuum hatches in the docks, sucking the boarders out into the void.
Even if the Marine's survived all of this, they would be left fighting close-quarters with an enemy that knew the territory. The enemy had all the defenses, and intelligence or reinforcements were often impossible to get.
Of course, this was understandable. As a veteran of several tours, Gui Montag knew a fact that the UNSC kept hidden from as many people as possible.
Humanity was losing this war.
Montag took out a cigarette and lit it. The lighter he used was one of the brass plated ones, with an image of the Grim Reaper seared onto one of the sides. The dancing flame reminded him of his last victory, just outside this room.
Humanity was losing the war. Montag had seen a dozen planets or so go up in flame, and only one had put up a decent fight; the closest thing to a victory Montag had ever seen.
The UNSC claimed that they inflicted more damage on the Covenant than the Covenant inflicted on us. Their analysts and PR flaks infused the media, regurgitating endless propaganda about how the Covenant couldn't keep up the war, how they would be forced to leave us alone in a few years at this rate.
The ironic thing was that the Marines would be the first to die out, when they were the only ones who really deserved to live.
The last few times Montag had gone out amongst the 'civvies', (a term that was unsurprisingly close to 'covvie') he had the urge to keep washing his hands, like there was some sort of infection that they spread. They all went on with their long, dull, uninteresting lives, working day in and day out, ignoring the Covenant threat like sheep ignoring the wolves upon a nearby hill. Pathetic.
No, it was worse than that.
Montag's hand tightened around his lighter, the knuckles turning white. This thought process was rapidly devolving into a pantheon of hatred. Hatred for the Covenant. Hatred for Humanity. Hatred for the civilian morass. Hatred for…
His train of thought was quickly interrupted by the squawking of the command-reserved channel on his radio.
"This is Retrieval Team Charlie. This is Retrieval Team Charlie, calling Beta-Sierra Squad."
Sergeant Morris switched on an acknowledgment.
"This is Sergeant Morris; I hear you loud and clear. Are you guys outside?"
"Knocking on the front door. Looks like you guys had a party out here."
"You'd be surprised," Morris said. He then turned to the Marines scattered throughout the armory. "Lock and load! Retrieval is here!"
The Marines scrambled. Two positioned near the door unlocked it, and another Sergeant walked in.
Morris greeted him and offered help with loading the ammo. The Sergeant abruptly refused.
"Nah. My Marines can handle it. You just get your men out on guard duty."
"I've also got two people wounded-"
The Sergeant smiled. "Would one of them be the one who threw that barbeque outside?"
Morris didn't think it was funny, and this Sergeant was starting to tick him off. "Can you take them, or can't you?"
"Nope. Those Warthogs are going to be filled to capacity."
The Sergeant turned to look at the two injured Marines, the one with the bad arm and the one with the bad back.
"We can make just enough room for the one with the broken back if we shift things around a little. If the other one has to go, then he'll be walking, and frankly we won't be going all that slow."
By this time, all of Sierra Squad had moved out to the hallway, and the retrieval team had formed a line from the stack of ammo to the doorway. The lighter boxes were being carried away hand to hand, and the heavier boxes were being loaded onto dollies and carted out.
"Fine then. Call me when you want to cooperate."
The Sergeant shrugged. "You'll be the first to know."
Frustrated, Morris stormed outside into the hallway.
Sierra squad had moved out into the hallway to give the retrieval team more room to work with. This had caused a problem. The retrieval Warthogs, with the trailers, took up all of the hallway to one side of the armory. The hallway on the other side was where Montag had gone on the killing spree.
It was rather unsettling. A thick coating of black grime covered everything, and all that was left of the corpses were charred remains. The Jackals were the worst. The skin had burned and peeled off, leaving asphalt muscles and tendons covering the bones. Then the bones had shattered, where the marrow had melted and boiled..
So the Marines were standing as close to the door as possible, trying not to inhale the sickly-sweet odor of cooked meat, trying not to look at the carnage.
Morris walked out of the Armory and began to address them.
"Alright, we're moving on to our last objective. Everyone stay alert; I don't want to run into another group like this."
He turned and pointed at Montag, who was examining the remains of the Flamethrower.
"As for you, I want you to stay in the middle of the squad, and I want you to stay out of the way."
Montag cocked his head.
Morris gritted his teeth. There was one in every squad. "You can't shoot a weapon with one arm, and you'll get yourself shot to pieces.
Montag bent down and picked up a blackened plasma rifle. Hefting it with his right arm, he fired a trio of shots at the ceiling.
Morris stepped forward so he was face to face with Montag. "You got a death wish or something?"
Montag's visible eye was cold as ice, the red lens on his HMD substituted for his right eye.
"That's between me and God, sir."
Morris leaned closer, his voice lowering so that only Montag could hear.
"You keep this up, and I'll put a bullet through your head, let you talk to God in person."
"Whenever you feel lucky, sir."
Morris was taken back. He had merely been threatening Montag. Montag's reply, when coupled with the scene behind him, was on an entirely different level.
Putting that on the back-burner, he turned around. "All right, we're moving on. We have fifteen minutes to reach our next objective."
June stepped forward from the group. "Sir, we haven't had a decent break since we got out of the cyro tubes. We've been on the move ever since, and we've been fighting for about half of the time. We haven't even had a meal yet. How about we let Alpha take care of it."
Morris forced himself to remember that she was joking, and smiled. Glad she brought that up, actually. "Oh, trust me. You are going to love our next objective."
He paused dramatically. "Marines; you will be fighting for your lunch today. As a matter of fact, our next objective is the Mess Hall."
The other twin raised her hand. "Sir, what the Hell are we waiting for?"
A/N: Not quite a month since I've updated. I hope I've made it up with a slightly longer chapter, and a few explanations. And don't worry. I won't force them to spend too long in the PoA, like last time...
Well, the next chapter won't be out till I finish "Take a Breath", which will be over in the StarCraft section.
Don't forget to Read and Review!
And, it's recently come to my attention that there's a certain map on Halo 3 called 'Isolation'. Nice... if it's only a coincidence, but still pretty nice.