Six POV
For a while, all I could do was stare outside of the ship, stare at the scarred planet. Reach. We were really here.
To see that some of the planet recovered, it was shocking. I thought the planet would always be a desolate wasteland after it was glassed. Either the covenant weaponry isn't meant to destroy for long periods of time, the UNSC was helping restore the planet, or it was bouncing back on its own.
"Six." I turned back to our new marksman.
"Jun. What's up?" He looked out towards Reach.
"You know exactly 'what's up'." I sighed and nodded.
"Yeah, I do. We're back to this place, to hell. Where we fought a worthless battle." I couldn't help but clench my fist, feeling frustration build up in me.
"Not true, many covenant ships were destroyed, including that CSO super carrier, not to mention the amount of covenant killed." Jun was always level headed, always cool and collected. But I still noticed how he was slightly tensed up.
"Yeah. Sure. Where do you think the Insurrection. Could be hiding? After the covenant glassed Reach, they would have no place to hide, and I doubt they would find any good equipment." I decided it was time we got down to business, trying not to think of the fight we had no hope of winning.
Jun hummed, taking his helmet off and bringing a hand up to his face, "That, Six, is a tough question. All military bases have been destroyed and allows cities are destroyed. They would have no really good place to set up shop unless they went under-" he stopped mid sentence and clenched his fist.
"Unless they went under ground.." when he finished I knew exactly where we were heading.
"Omicron, take us to sword base."
When we arrived at sword base we were all set. Jun had his sniper and an older BR model, me and Connie had the same weaponry as before. Omicron had to put all his attention on the ship, especially with the distance we usually put between us and the ship. This time, I told him to forget the ship. We would need his help here more.
We walked through the ruined courtyard of sword base.
'Six, take out that Ultra! It's causing problems for the marines!'
For a second, I saw sword base how it used to be. Bright sunlight, the base in good condition, Kat was firing at grunts and Jackals from above, I saw myself jump on the Ultra while it fired at the marines and I saw the past version of me drive my knife into its skull.
Someone shaking my shoulder brought me out of it, "Hey, you ok?"
Connie. She was worried, "I'm fine Connie, don't worry about it." Even though I couldn't see her face I had a feeling she didn't really believe me. Eventually she turned away and started to move forward again.
As we went further into the base, I looked at the broken forklift. It was in terrible condition, though that was to be expected considering I rammed it into a hunter.
All of a sudden I saw a bright green column of light coming towards me, 'It's a hunter!' My heart rate suddenly increased as I rolled to the side and pulled the trigger, opening fire with my assault rifle on where the beam of light had come from.
'Six, calm down! There is nothing there Spartan!' I stopped when Omicron spoke, pulling my finger off the trigger, 'Heart rate increased, heart rate now lowering, adrenaline levels high. Six, what is wrong? What happened?'
"I thought I saw a hunter... I thought one had fired at me and I saw a hunters light coming towards me. I panicked and acted without taking a second look to make sure it wasn't a hunter.."
'I see. That explains why you stopped before, at the courtyard. Your having flashbacks of your time here on Reach.'
"It doesn't matter, let's just keep going." I had used up the Assault rifle magazine from my panic so I quickly took out the empty mag and reloaded with a fresh one.
Jun and Connie looked at me for a second before they started to follow me again.
We slowly moved throughout the base, over time it had only gotten worse, the base falling further into disrepair. A piece of the ceiling sparked before it fell to the ground next to Connie, making her bring up a knife to defend herself, "Oh, just a piece of the base... sorry." I chuckled a little bit at how she had suddenly turned so jumpy. It had helped distract me from the flashbacks.
"It's not surprising this place is falling apart. Several attacks from the covenant should have left nothing left, it's amazing that this is what's left." I looked at a old elite body, decaying from the decades it had been here.
"Things were that bad here?" Connie seemed slightly disturbed.
"They were. We fought hard to keep the covenant from taking Reach, but you already know how that played out." I knelt down next to a jackal body that had a stab wound in its chest, most likely Emile with his kukri. I took out his kukri and slid it into the stab wound, being proved right.
"Jun, is there any chance that the lift even works anymore? It barely got us down before, I don't think it will be able to come back up and bring us back down." I stood back up and placed the kukri back in its sheath.
"There is a very small possibility that the lift still works, if it doesn't were gonna need to go down the hard way."
Jun finished off, Connie looked at him though, tilting her head.
"What's 'the hard way' exactly?" She questioned Jun, seeming suspicious.
"Simple. We climb down the shaft." He moved ahead of us, leaving it at that while Connie looked down and sighed.
"Somehow, that's the answer I expected, and the answer I was the most afraid of."
-little line break here-
It took us a while, Connie nearly falling down the shaft several times, forcing me or Jun to catch her, or for her to catch herself on a handhold.
Me and Jun had also fallen numerous times, it was dark and it proved difficult to find hand holds in the lift shaft.
Eventually we touched down on the top of the lift, once we had however we climbed back up thirty-five feet, strangely climbing up was much easier then going down.
Once we had put some distance between ourselves and the lift me and Jun both tossed a plasma grenade down to the top of the lift, making a hole big enough for us to hop in once the grenades had gone off. The edges of the hole were left sizzling and glowing orange.
Once we climbed back down we hopped down the hole, one by one. Once we had hopped down we exited the lift and looked around.
Several destroyed covenant vehicles were scattered across the icy cavern. Wraiths, Phantoms, Banshees, Ghosts, the whole shebang.
For a few moments I saw the battle that had taken place here, Carter and Jun keeping their distance as they fired on the enemy while Emile got up close and personal while I dealt with the vehicles.
I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths so that I could try to shake off the flashback that had hit me. Once I had shook it off I continued like nothing had happened.
Several decaying covenant bodies covered the ground, all their weapons in a state of disrepair.
The cavern hadn't changed much over time, the glassing seeming to have not affected it. I walked over to one of the turrets, checking to see if it was still operational, when the turret turned on and turned to me.
I stuck a plasma grenade to it quickly and jumped back, watching as it was destroyed.
Jun didn't seem all that bothered by what had just occurred, "It seems that the insurrection has brought the defenses under they're direct control. Lets not go to investigate any more of the turrets, lets just head inside and finish this." I nodded and walked ahead of him and Connie.
When we got to the entrance, I had Omicron open the door. We raised our weapons, thinking we would find opposition on the other side...
And yet there was no one. We lowered our weapons and looked around in confusion, yet we stayed on guard. We walked through, finding no sign of the insurrection what-so-ever.
We looked at each other as we found nothing, thinking we were wrong and had gone to the wrong place.
However as soon as we turned back to leave the building, the door shut and left us in total darkness until we turned on flashlights.
Turrets came out from the ceiling and the floor and aimed at us, at least a dozen ready to rip us all apart.
A screen turned on over the door that we has entered through, showing a man with an all black ODST helmet, no red markings like the previous commanders.
"So, it seems someone has finally found me. I was wondering when my luck was gonna run out."
I frowned beneath my helmet and turned off external speakers, "Omicron, see what you can do about those turrets."
Omicron stayed silent as he got to work while I turned my external speakers back on, "Yeah, your luck has run out. You only have two options here, you surrender so we can deliver you to face justice for your wrongs, or we kill you."
Connie looked at me with a side glance, most likely because of how blunt I was being with the insurrectionist.
"What great options," He deadpanned, "However I don't think I am quite ready to 'face justice' of any kind yet, not until my work is done."
I frowned and sighed at the mans response, "I guess you leave us no choice then."
The man nodded his head, "As you leave no choice for me." He turned to the side right as Omicron finished his task, the turrets pointing at the ground once he finished.
The man on the screen growled in anger as his defenses were shut down by the A.I, "You really shouldn't have given us time by talking to us. Lets go."
Jun and Connie followed me as we headed towards the one place we hadn't thought to check.
Dr. Halseys lab.
Once we arrived Omicron got the door open for us and the three of us charged in, taking aim at the man who had his own gun, a shotgun, aimed at us.
"Stay back. I'm not ready to die yet and I sure as hell am not going to jail!"
I glanced at Connie and Jun and pointed behind the man, the two seemed to understand.
Connie and Jun surrounded the man, forcing him to turn around to try and keep track of all three of us.
He fired his shotgun at Connie, only for the real Connie he shot at to flicker out, revealing that it was a hologram. The real Connie came up from behind him and knocked him out.
We all looked down at the man we had knocked out as I spoke, "Well, that was easier than expected. So, we take him to Lord Hood or have him come and pick the guy up and then we'll be on our way?"
Connie and Jun nodded and we restrained the man, making sure to deactivate all the defenses before we left, leaving him there for Lord Hood.
line skip
Once our prowler was in orbit above Reach and after we had sent our message to Lord hood, the three of us got together to figure out what we would be doing next.
Connie was the one who decided to speak up first, "So... what are we going to do now? We've taken care of the insurrection, what else is there to do?"
I crossed my arms and stared down at the floor as I thought about what we were supposed to do, "Well, we wait. As far as we know, nothing else has happened aboard the mother of invention while we've been busy. We have done all we can do for the moment, once we receive word from York and the others, we can make our move."
Finally, longer chapters are back! This chapter was originally 1,400 words while this one was increased to 2,100 with a little bit of polishing, I am happy with it. I hope you all enjoy, and after two chapters I will be publishing new chapters! Also, I wanted to ask you guys, how would you all feel if I started writing this in third person? I am better at a third person POV, and I have even unconsciously switched POV type without meaning to sometimes. However if you like things the way they are and would prefer it to stay this way, then no problemo I live to serve! See you on the next chapter! Which will be in a few hours ;)