Crash and Burn

The pleasure of being in the sun again soon wore off and became a pain as Muse trudged through the heat whilst sweat poured off her. It seemed that she was pausing to wipe her forehead every few seconds, and the constant warmth beating down on her back and shoulders was starting to sap her energy. She felt tired and a little faint, and a headache was starting to make itself known behind her temples.

When she mentioned her discomfort to Clay, he paused and went over to her, noting how she'd fallen behind. He checked her eyes to find them slightly glassy and unfocused, and - unable to check any other way - pressed her forehead to his cheek to get an idea of her temperature. She was very hot to the touch. Clay felt a flash of anxiety and his thoughts immediately went to the bite on her shoulder; was her high temperature just a result of being in the merciless sun, or was it the much more ominous possibility of the bite becoming septicaemic?

Able to do little else, Clay made Muse sit down in the shade of some rubble while he unwrapped and tended to her shoulder. The wound was putrid and Clay fought back his gag reflex as the smell wafted up to him; the flesh around the punctures was still oozing pus and blood, but had now become vaguely green. Taking the bundle of cloth from Muse's hip-pack, the Gear soaked several of the strips in water before painstakingly cleaning the wound. Muse winced as he touched the tender skin.

"M'sorry," Clay murmured, "But I have to clean this."

"S'okay." Muse mumbled, then; "Why aren't you meltin'?" The way her voice was slurring only added to Clay's concern, but he kept it out of his tone when he answered.

"My armour's semi temperature-controlled."

"Lucky you…"

Clay finished cleaning the bite, and bandaged it up again. Then he pulled his water flask from his belt and offered it to her, telling her to drink. Muse took the bottle without argument, and drank slowly, as though even that small effort made her weary. Her docile compliance served to worry Clay further; he was so used to Muse being strong and independent that this quiet, obedient creature was a little disconcerting.

Muse drank as much of the water as she could, then rubbed her face with a sigh, elbows on knees and eyes closed. She felt a little better, but still utterly drained; her very bones ached, and she just wanted to sleep. It was suddenly so hard to open her eyes…

Her whole body jerked when the small radio in her bag let out a harsh scream of static, and Muse looked up, eyes half-lidded.

Clay also looked up at the sound, and watched Muse fumble a moment before pulling a battered radio out of one of her packs. It looked like one of the old block-shaped walkie-talkies from before the Pendulum Wars, except it was obviously only a receiving unit. Despite its age though, after Muse had adjusted the knob on the top, the static cleared a little, and a breathless female voice came through.

-peat, this is KR Three-Six requesting immediate assistance. We're taken a hit and we're down. Requesting immediate pickup for five survivors including Chairman Prescott and Colonel Hoffman. This is KR Three-Six, we're-

Muse's gaze snapped up to meet Clay's as the pilot relayed her coordinates; his dark eyes were wide. The political and military leaders of the COG on a downed Raven, near to their own position… Why weren't they at Jacinto? Muse could see the warring emotions on the blonde's face - torn between his duty to the COG and his worry about her health - and made the decision for him.

"We have to go." She pushed herself to her feet, ignoring her own aches and pains, and allowed the sudden surge of adrenaline to bolster her failing body, briefly assuaging her fatigue. However Clay saw the muscle tremors as her legs fought to hold her up, and shook his head.

"Muse… no… One of the other Ravens will pick them up." She turned her eyes on him, the green-blue still glassy and ringed with dark circles, but nevertheless determined.

"If anyone's been injured they could be dying, and it won't be long before the Locust are drawn to the crash site. We have to go."

She was right; they were closer and would probably reach the downed Raven before anyone else did. Clay sighed and stood, knowing it was pointless to argue. Putting aside his worry for the woman for the time being, Clay put a finger to his Tac Com and responded to the mayday.

"This is Corporal Carmine, we read you KR Three-Six, we're heading to your position, hold tight." Muse didn't hear the reply, but as soon as Clay finished speaking, they were off; heading to the downed Raven as fast as they could.

* * *

Anya Stroud coughed as the dust settled, and looked around, for a moment wondering where she was. She remembered being evacuated from Jacinto before it had been sunk, and she remembered seeing Marcus, Dom, and Damon Baird on another Raven. She remembered the look Marcus had given her… Anya frowned as she tried to remember what had happened after that.

The convoy of Ravens holding the last of the evacuees had been heading to the location of the new base, the Vidandear metropolis, chosen because it was harder for the Locust to come up there, and… what had happened? Anya concentrated. The Raven she was on had been flying over a city, not Vidandear, another city, and… and…

There was a Seeder…

It was coming back to the intelligence officer now; the convoy had been attacked by Nemacysts. One Raven had been hit directly and gone down, the pilot's last act in life to make sure the chopper hit the Seeder; killing it stone-dead. Unfortunately before going down, the helicopter had glanced KR Three-Six, sending it spinning off-course. They'd crashed too.

Anya looked around again. From what she could tell, the Raven was on its side and wedged between two buildings of which one had partially collapsed - half burying the chopper and making it impossible for those inside to get out. Distantly, she could hear the pilot sending out a distress call.

Beside her, a large something shifted and grunted, and Augustus Cole pushed himself into a sitting position, groaning softly.

"Urg…what happened, baby?" he muttered to Anya, "Feels like I just got smacked by a Berserker…"

"We crashed," Anya whispered, "I think we're trapped." Cole let out another groan and rubbed his aching skull. Meanwhile, the other survivors were stirring and Anya let out a sigh of relief as she made out both the Chairman and the Colonel, apparently unharmed except for a few scrapes and bruises. The pilot managed to climb out of the cockpit and into the loading bay of the chopper. She too was unharmed apart from a gash on her forehead.

"I sent out a distress call. There's another King Raven en route to come and pick us up, and I got a response from a Corporal Carmine who's also heading to our position. All we have to do is wait." She said.

"What about that Seeder?" Hoffman demanded, "Did you see any more birds go down?" It left a bitter taste in his mouth to think that the passengers of the Raven which had crashed into the Seeder had survived so much, only to die when they were so close to home. The pilot shook her head and shrugged helplessly.

"I don't know sir, I didn't see anyone else go down before we got clipped."

Hoffman made an 'hm' noise, but didn't say any more. An almost nervous silence fell, and Anya quietly suffered the apprehensive snakes writhing in her stomach; had Marcus been on that other Raven? She tried not to think about it, but her mind seemed unable to stay away from the thought, causing a squirm of fear each time.

All of a sudden there was a thump on the metal above them, followed by the sound of something scuttling across the surface of the crashed chopper. Five pairs of eyes tracked its progress above their heads, and Hoffman slowly cocked his Boltok pistol.

"Wretch…" he growled softly.

With strained ears, the rest of the group listened to the scuffling as it changed to a scraping noise; as though the something on the Raven was digging through the loose rubble which half buried it.

"Get ready…" the Colonel murmured to Cole. The black Gear levelled his Lancer and nodded.

The scraping sounds continued for a moment, and then a thin spear of light shone into the dark interior of the chopper as whatever was digging managed to clear away some of the rubble blocking the open side of the helicopter, and the sun broke through.

"FIRE!"

Bullets sprayed from the muzzle of Cole's Lancer, and the blast of the powerful Boltok almost deafened those trapped in the Raven as the two Gears opened fire.

Outside, Muse heard the command to open fire, and flung herself out of the way just in time. The rounds punched through the weakened metal plating which she had been kneeling on a moment before, and roared passed her; mere inches from where she lay sprawled on her back.

"What the hell!? CLAY!" Muse yelled at the Gear who was working to clear away the larger chunks of rubble pinning the chopper, "I thought you said they knew we were coming! They're freakin' shooting at me!" Even as she finished shouting though, the gunfire ceased and Muse heard shuffling coming from inside the Raven. Cole's voice came through the hole she'd dug, a moment later.

"Muse baby! Is that you?" At the familiar voice, Muse crawled over to the hole she'd made.

"Cole?"

"Hey baby!" the Gear crowed exuberantly.

"Seriously, is that how the Cole Train greets all this friends, by shooting at them?" Muse heard the huge black man laugh loudly.

"Sorry, baby, we thought you were a Wretch."

"Charming, is everyone alright in there?" Before Cole could answer, another voice abruptly interrupted.

"Who is that? We were told Corporal Carmine had responded to our distress call." Muse recognised that voice, the last time she'd heard it; it was speaking rallying words to Gears about to attack the Locust on their own turf…

"He did Chairman, he's currently trying to get the wall that's blocking you in off the bird." Somehow she managed to simultaneously sound respectful and patronising…

"So who the hell are you?"

"Just a Stranded, so you can easily ignore me…which you seem to be good at."

Silence from inside the Raven. Muse went back to clearing as much rubble as she could.

Clay meanwhile worked a length of metal girder under the section of collapsed wall pinning the helicopter. Once he'd gotten the lever wedged under the rubble, the Gear put all his weight against the metal girder and bore down. Muscles bulged and strained, and slowly, ever-so-slowly, the section of wall began to shift.

"Muse! It's moving! Get out of the way!"

Muse obeyed, and with a scrape and rumble that sounded like a small landslide, the rubble finally slid off the chopper, throwing up a cloud of dust. For a moment there was nothing but blindness and coughing, then the dust cleared and Muse saw Cole climb out of the Raven, helping first Anya out, then the female pilot, then Chairman Richard Prescott. Colonel Victor Hoffman hauled himself out last.

The Chairman brushed dust from his grey dress uniform, looking up as Clay approached them and saluted briefly.

"Chairman, Colonel Hoffman."

"Corporal," Prescott returned, "My thanks for coming to help us."

"Thank you, sir," he gestured to Muse, "But if we haven't picked up your mayday on Muse's radio, we wouldn't have known to come at all."

The leader of the COG looked at the dark-haired Stranded woman, Muse, standing a little way away. Her gaze was cold and unfriendly; just as hostile as he would have expected any Stranded to be towards COG officials. She held his gaze for a moment, then looked toward the Corporal in an obvious dismissal.

"We should move, Locust'll be attracted to the crash site." Just as Clay nodded, Hoffman cut in; he'd been watching Muse with wary mistrust since pulling himself out of the chopper.

"And what makes you such a Locust expert? Why would you even help any members of the COG?"

"Fourteen years of surviving them without the luxury of an almost impregnable base." Muse answered in a voice without any inflection. "And because it turns my stomach to leave people to die. We should move."

Without waiting to see if anyone was actually following her, Muse hopped down from the wreck of the crashed Raven and began walking, striving to keep her annoyance in check. The COG were responsible for the scorching of Sera, for abandoning maybe thousands of people, and killing billions more, and yet they had the audacity to look at her like she was some kind of insect.

A few moments later Clay caught up with her, catching her shoulder and turning her around. Muse caught a glimpse of the five editions to their group following behind; apparently Clay had come ahead to catch up with her.

"What was that about?" he said quietly, "You almost looked like a cornered dog back there…"

"Can you blame me?" Muse snapped back, barely restraining her irritation. She checked herself at the hurt look on Clay's face and continued more calmly. "I'm probably looking at the two men that okayed the burning of Sera and abandoned most of the population. I'm not going exactly going to be chummy. The sooner we can get them to a pickup, the better."

"…You almost sound as though you're not going to come with us…" Muse looked at the Gear sharply.

"Why should I?" Clay took his time answering; he didn't want to upset Muse, but he also wanted her to see why refusing to come with them was foolhardy and stupid.

"You don't have anyone else. If you come with us, you won't be alone…"

Muse suddenly thought of the rest of Delta Squad, Dom… Marcus… even Baird… what she wouldn't give to see familiar faces again…

She relented with a sigh.

"Fine, I'll come with you… but this doesn't mean I'm all for the COG now. I won't follow their orders."

"I understand."

Muse watched the blonde glance back at the five survivors, checking up on them. "Go back to them," she told him quietly, "I just need to think for a minute…" Clay looked at her for a long moment, then nodded and fell back, leaving Muse alone with her thoughts.