I'm posting this a little early because I'm just too excited to wait. The second half of this chapter, as well as the next few, are all the first few scenes I imagined when I first thought of this story. I am so happy to be able to share this with you all. I hope you like it.
Tinu, Wash, and I stand back to back in the midst of our attackers. We were surrounded within seconds of the hornet going down. I worry for a moment for Sarge's safety, but the constant thunder of his shotgun puts my mind at ease. If he's still fighting, then he's probably ok.
"We need to get out of here," Wash says, firing expertly within a one hundred twenty degree angle to keep his section of the circle covered.
Tinu's helmet is on the ground next to her empty gun, and she bares her teeth at the robots. "I'm open to any suggestions," she shouts over the sound of the battle. One of the robots makes the mistake of getting too close to her and pays with an arm.
The air is filled with thin blue lines as Rho continues to highlight the path of plasma blasts, showing me when to dodge and duck between them. I could do it myself. My reaction time is good enough to dodge plasma, but letting her do this part allows me to focus on my aim. I need to focus. With only one pistol, I've resorted to throwing daggers with my left hand just to stay ahead of the robots, but I'm quickly losing the lead. Worse still, the knives aren't working very effectively against these particular opponents. I need a weapon with an electrical component.
Suddenly I remember something and prep a grenade. "Run to the ship," I order, throwing the grenade between us and the wreckage. The grenade goes off with an explosion of mechanical stopping electricity, courtesy of Yttrium, and we sprint through the gap in the enemy's ranks.
When we reach the ship, Yttri's climbing out of the cockpit. She looks at us as she jumps to the ground. "What are you guys doing here?" she asks, sounding surprised.
Tinu, Wash, and I line up next to Sarge and start shooting. Sarge grunts and nods at us while he reloads.
"We were trying to rescue you," Tinu starts, "then something went wrong."
"Where's Simmons?" Wash asks.
"Hopefully, minimum safe distance," Yttri answers.
"Safe distance from what?" I ask. "What's going on?"
Yttri shoots a robot that managed to get behind us before answering. "Give it a second," is all she says as she reloads the pistol. I'm surprised by how well she's handling this situation, but I'm glad. It's nice to see Yttri being herself while on a battlefield again.
After a moment, there's a large flash of light. The robots stop in their tracks. There's a moment of stunned silence, which is broken by Sarge.
"You call that an explosion?" the older man challenges.
"No, I call it an electromagnetic pulse," Yttri says haughtily.
"You said you were gonna overload the engine," Sarge accuses. "That should've caused an explosion."
"If this were a normal engine that ran on regular fuels, sure," Yttri says dismissively, holstering her pistol. "This is my engine."
"And I suppose that means it runs on rainbows and unicorns," Sarge says in a girly voice.
Yttri's fists clench at her sides. "It runs on cold fusion and zero point energy," she says through grit teeth.
"Ooh," Doc marvels, sprinting up to meet us. "Very environmentally friendly. I like it."
"I would have gone with the fact that it's cheap and efficient," Yttri says, "but sure. Whatever you say."
I back away from the conversation as Sarge continues to argue, following Tinu to where she'd left her helmet. She tsks at the crack in the visor before putting it back on. I start inspecting one of the robots. There's no way Dr. Han has the funds to buy an army like this, not with how much we've stolen from her. She must have gotten these some other way. I peel back a piece of secondary armor from one's shoulder and see an insignia. It's familiar, but it takes me a moment to place it.
"The Federation of Chorus?" I whisper. It's surprising that Gold would be using their robots in his ambush. I've read that they have more resources than the struggling New Republic, but I doubt they have enough to not notice a theft of this magnitude. That, or mom's made a deal. Either way, someone on this planet probably knows we're here. I decide it's time we get moving.
And maybe when this is all over I'll take a closer look into this civil war.
I sprint back over to where Sarge and Yttri are still having their 'discussion', with Doc acting as mediator. I wave them both into silence. "Head back to the ship," I order. "We need to get off planet."
Yttri starts to protest, arguing that we could salvage supplies from these bots while we're here. I'm about to argue when Wash speaks up.
"Silver's right," he says. "This wasn't exactly the quiet skirmish we'd planned for. The people on this planet probably know we're here now. We should clear out before there's more trouble."
Yttri grudgingly accepts the explanation and starts walking back toward the side of the canyon where we left the pelican. After a moment, she activates her radio. "Hey, Cyborge, you out there?" she asks.
"Yes," Simmons' reply filters in through my helmet's speakers. "Lopez and I are at the pelican."
"Good," Yttri says, and I think I hear relief in her voice. "Any bots get missed by the blast?"
"A few," Simmons admits, "but I took care of them."
"Awesome job, Cyborge," Yttri says. "We'll meet you there in a few minutes." Once she's done speaking she deactivates her radio.
Tinu's voice is bordering on teasing when she speaks up. "Nice to see you've made a friend," she comments.
"It's easy when I find someone who's actually competent," Yttri grumbles back.
"I have a feeling you think he's way more than just competent," Tinu giggles.
Yttri manages to imply an eye roll even though she's wearing a helmet. "I think you're over-thinking things."
"Not according to Nick," Tinu says in a sing song voice.
"Nick's an even bigger gossip than you when he feels like it," Yttri complains. "He doesn't know what he's talking about."
I smile while listening to their bickering until Rho speaks up. "We've got an incoming transmission from deep space," she says, avatar appearing on my shoulder. "It's a little staticy, but I'll try to clean it up."
A few seconds later, Ruth's panicked voice is in my ears. "Silver, we're under attack," she starts, and I feel my heart stop. "They're everywhere! Nick's tying to hold them off, but…" The sentence trails away in the sound of an explosion. "Oh no, not again! You need to get back here, now! Please, Silver, hurry! Come home!" The transmission ends abruptly with the sound of another explosion.
"Silver?" Rho says cautiously.
I look up and realize that everyone's watching me. They all heard it too. Our home is under attack. "Move," I order as I run for the ship.
No one speaks when we reach the pelican. I can see in their body language that they're all worried. They're all feeling the same dread that I am. I run to the pilot's seat and don't bother to check if everyone's strapped in before starting up the engines, taking off in record breaking time.
"I'm sure they're alright," Wash says part way through the flight. It's only now that I notice he's sitting in the copilot's seat, allowing him to talk to me without the rest of the ship hearing. "Nick's there, as well as Tucker and Grif and plenty of others. Everything will be fine."
I grunt unconvincedly. My mind keeps turning to the worst case scenarios. If the UNSC have found us, then they could all be captured before I get there. If it's the Covenant, they might not even bother with capture. And if it's Gold, if he somehow got there before us… I don't let myself finish the thought. Mom has no need to take prisoners.
The hangar doors are closed when we get there. Rho sends a message to the base's main computers while I radio Nick. He doesn't answer. The doors only open from the inside. I made sure to have Yttri rig them that way, so no one but us could get in. I never thought I'd be in a situation where no one would be available to open them.
After a few more moments the doors begin to open. There's another ship in the hangar, a large alien looking vessel that I don't recognize, and I land us next to it. The landing gear's barely touched down before I'm running to the back of the ship. The ramp can't seem to go down fast enough, and I find myself tapping my foot impatiently.
I see Tinu at my side, as impatient as I am. I know she's worried about Nick. She heard me radio him, and she knows he didn't respond. She can't help but fear the worst.
The ramp's finally down and we step out of the ship. To my relief, I see Nick standing with someone else at the other end of the hangar. I don't recognize who's with him. It takes half a second too long for me to realize that Nick's fighting the mystery person. In that half second, disaster strikes.
There's a tearing sound which is quickly drowned out by Nick's shout, and he falls in a shower of blood. "Nick!" Tinu screams and runs toward him. I lift my pistol and aim a shot at his attacker, but whoever it is moves too quickly. They run to the door, and all I can register is blond hair before they're gone. I don't even get a chance to fire. I lower the gun and run to join Tinu at Nick's side.
I'm shouting for Doc before I even comprehend what I'm seeing. I block a lot f it out, refusing to look. I don't look at Nick's arm, lying on the ground much too far away from his body. I try not to see just how much blood is on the ground as I press my hands to the wound on his shoulder. Tinu is still standing by his feet, staring down at Nick's face as it grows paler. I try to tell her to help me but the words don't come. Then she turns and runs to the door where his attacker disappeared. I try to shout for her to come back but scream Doc's name instead.
"Si," Nick whispers. He's so quiet I can barely hear him over the rush of blood in my ears. I force myself to stop screaming and strain to hear his voice. "Not us," Nick says. He's so pale, the blood pooling on his right side stealing the color from his skin. I find it hard to hear his words as I stare at him. He reaches up with his left hand (his only hand, a part of my mind whispers, and I try to tune it out) and grabs mine, forcing me to focus. "They're not us," he repeats, voice growing stronger even as his grip weakens. "Si, you have to…" he trails off in a ragged breath.
"I'm here," I say, trying to hold his hand to mine, not acknowledging how his grip has slackened. "I'm right here. You're gonna be fine." His hand slips out of mine and I lose it.
"Doc!" I scream so loud my throat hurts but I don't care. The ship's only a few dozen yards away. How is he not here yet? "Doc, please! I need your help!"
And then he's there, kneeling beside me with his medical bag. His helmet's off and for the first time since we met, Doc doesn't look nervous. He looks determined. He pulls a pouch out of his bag and begins to spray liquid foam over the injury. I know this stuff. It's supposed to disinfect the wound and harden to stop bleeding. I've seen it used before. It doesn't seem to be working this time, though. There's too much blood and the foam begins to dissolve immediately after it hardens.
"No no no," Doc murmurs, dropping the pouch of foam and pulling thick handfuls of gauze from his bag. He places them over the injury and moves my hands to cover it. "Keep pressure here," he instructs. I nod and press down on the quickly reddening gauze.
"Can't make a tourniquet," Doc mutters. "Not enough of the arm left. I need something…"
"Here," Wash says. He hands down the strap used to carry his gun, and Doc grabs it without a word. He quickly wraps it around Nick's shoulders, pushing my hands out of the way to pull it tight.
After a few moments, Nick's bleeding slows. "I think he'll be okay," Doc says. "He's lost a lot of blood, and he's still not out of the woods, and we can't risk moving him yet, but he's stable. For now."
I nod thankfully. I want to stay here with Nick until he's ready to move. I want to stay by his side until I know he'll recover. But I can't. I need to find out what's going on here. I stand, albeit a little shakily, and step away from the bloody scene on the floor. I need to distance myself from it. I need to focus on something else right now.
I turn and face Wash. "Let's get to the bottom of this."
Also, I want to apologize. I was very mean to Nick here.