Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the squad characters, and the plot.
Chapter 4 – Questions
It didn't take long to find the Pod. All I had to do was head toward the rising column of thick black smoke that was pouring from the impact crater the Pod had created. The only difficult part was trying to find a parking space. Eventually I found a patch of treeless ground near the crater, settled the Banshee down gently, and got out. After about a minute, Michael, John and Nicholas burst through the nearby foliage in the Warthog and slid to a stop in front of me. "Nicholas," I said, as they climbed out from their various positions on the Warthog, "scan the crater, and search for any hostiles."
"Right Sarge." Nicholas walked toward the crater, unslinging his sniper rifle as he did so. As he reached the edge of the crater, he lay on his stomach and began to scan the crater with the sniper scope. "Looks clear Sarge. You could probably drive the 'hog down there as well. As for the Pod, it looks pretty banged up, must have been through some rough times. It's still intact though."
"What about debris?"
"Not much. That strange, glowing capsule I saw from the bunker's still there. It's about ten metres from the rear of the Pod."
"Anything else?"
"Nothing apart from that Sarge."
"Right. Nicholas, keep scanning, if you see something, radio it in."
"Sure thing Sarge."
"Good. John, you're coming with me. We'll take the Warthog down and start looking around. Michael, you're going to stay here and guard Nicholas's back."
"I won't be the last time I've done something like that." laughed Michael. "Don't worry, Nick's not about to die, not while I'm around."
"I bloody well hope so," I said, "'cause if this thing's hostile, our little holiday here could go to hell real fast."
Michael stopped laughing.
I looked at my men; "You all ready?" nods all round, "Then let's do this."
The Warthog bounced, slid and roared down the slope of the crater wall as John and I headed toward the crashed Pod, looking around for any sign of trouble. We came up alongside the glowing capsule and I slowed the Warthog to a stop. John leapt out of the passenger seat and began to scan the area, as I climbed out of the driver's side and approached the capsule with my sights on it. I reached it and immediately gave an involuntary start of surprise; what I had thought had been an explosive of some kind from the bunker, I now noticed to be a data capsule from one of Earth's Star Cruisers.
"John, get over here and take a look at this." I called over to him.
"Jesus, is that what I think it is?" whispered John, "What the hell is something like that doing with something like this Pod?"
"I have no idea, but I bet we can find out."
I looked up at the crashed Pod. There were strange symbols on the side that I could see that looked like letters of some kind. I left John to look at the capsule as I walked up closer to the Pod to get a better look at the symbols.
The skin of the Pod was pockmarked and scratched by unknown space debris and slightly burnt from the heat of re-entry, it also looked like it had been in space for a long time, the symbols and skin colour of the metal having faded slightly. I couldn't make sense of any of the symbols so I recorded it with my visor camera for later.
Turning around, I saw John picking the capsule up and placing it in the storage compartment of the Warthog, that capsule would tell us what we needed to know. Suddenly I realised something; the whole time we had been down here, including when we located the Pod from the Bunker, no-one had seen the opposite side of the Pod. Quickly I walked around the damaged hull of the Pod and came to the other side; what I saw made me gasp. Hidden from view by the Pod's bulk was a hatchway, and it was open.
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