Disclaimer: I don't own Halo. I wish I did, because then I'd be rich. I do, however, own Spartan-150 also known as Mariana.
A/N: Just so you know, for those of you who hadn't read the books, I'm cutting out two battles towards the end of the chapter because they're pretty straight forward in the book, and they leave me no creative movement.
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"Promise me you'll be here when I wake up," she said as she lay down in the tube and the clear cover slid on.
"I promise," John whispered, watching her vital stats grow sluggish as she fell asleep from the gasses, "I'll be right here when you awake." Once he was sure Mariana was asleep, John headed to the bridge.
"Master Chief, I take it that the NAV database was destroyed?" Captain Keyes asked when John approached.
"Yes sir," John replied, "Captain Keyes, can you scan for active FOF tags? One of my Spartans is floating out there."
Keyes nodded and had Lieutenant Dominique scan for James. "Sir, I have a lock on a FOF tag. It's being brought into one of the UNSC cruisers that are still operational. I'll see what the Spartan's condition is," he replied after a minute.
John stood rigid for what seemed like an eternity before Lieutenant Dominique turned back around. "Master Chief sir, your Spartan is in a coma, but Med techs on that ship say he will live. Diagnostics are incomplete, but they think he was out in the cold for a little too long and sustained minor injuries," the Lieutenant replied.
John visibly relaxed and felt weary as the adrenaline ebbed out of his system. "Master Chief, go get some rest. We are going to be going into slipspace, so you have plenty of time to catch some shut eye," Keyes ordered. John nodded and made his way back to the cryo bay and eased himself into the cryotube next to Mariana. As he fell asleep, John checked on Mariana. She was long past the REM cycle and seemed if she was in suspended animation. Smirking to himself, John knew that it'd be hell getting her to wake up since she tended to flail coming out of cryosleep.
…
"John…" came a voice floating on his mind. "John, you have to get up. Covenant are attacking the Autumn," the voice urged more clearly and John recognized the voice that was coming over his speakers. Opening his eyes as soon as he was able to, John looked up and saw another Spartan standing on the other side of the cryotube door.
"Mariana?" he asked, noticing the smooth shape of the armor and the way the Spartan leaned her weight on her right foot to keep it off of a broken ankle.
"Yep," she replied as the glass door to the tube opened and she helped him out, "Like I said when you were still in la-la land, Covenant are on the way. Let's get your shields and stuff back to normal and go give them a warm welcome."
John nodded and flexed his stiff muscles. "How long have I been out?" he asked.
"For about three hours. At least that's what Cortana told me."
As John stood patiently while the technician recharged his shields, he looked Mariana over. "How is it that you're able to walk?" he asked.
"Easy, I locked the joint on my boot for extra stability. I can't run well yet, but I can scuttle pretty good," she replied looking down at the armor that concealed the cast on her foot.
John nodded and at that moment, the Intercom crackled. "Bridge to Cryo Two…This is Captain Keyes. Send the Spartans to the bridge immediately."
The technician was about to protest, but Keyes put the tech in his place quickly. As the two headed for the exit, they heard the whine of plasma weapons and looking up, saw covenant in the observation theater gunning down the tech up there. "Let's get out of here," Mariana muttered, loping towards the door as fast as she could go.
The technician pushed ahead and was rewarded for his hurry by being blown up as the next door exploded. Mariana and John skidded to a stop, both doubting that the shield system in their armor would be able to protect them from that inferno of a fire. John looked around and spotted a second passageway on the other side of two power conduits. Pointing it out to Mariana, the two Spartans leapt over them and continued down this hall.
Pushing their way through the doors that had half-melted from the blast on the other side of the wall, Mariana and John found themselves in a dark room, lit only by a half-raised blast door. Ducking to see under, John waited for the crewmen and repellers to push the covenant into the air lock before crawling under the door and then turning and giving Mariana a hand.
"I'm not made of lace you know," she growled, but accepted the help as her locked boot joint made her stumble. The two then were forced to ignore the various fights seeing as they had no weapons and work their way to the bridge. Upon reaching the bridge, John and Mariana saw a vast construct out of the viewport. "Cortana or Amee will fill us in," Mariana said to John over a private COM link.
John nodded and approached the Captain. "Captain Keyes, reporting as ordered sir," John said snapping a crisp salute.
Captain Keyes turned and nodded to both Spartans. "Good to see you both. Cortana and Amee did their best, but it just wasn't enough," he said
Amee and Cortana exchanged looks from where they were standing together on the holopanel and Amee rolled her eyes, her body shifting to amethyst with Lapis Lazuli eyes and hair as Cortana arched an eyebrow. "A dozen Seraphs against a single Halcyon-class cruiser…With those odds, we are quite content with three…make that four kills," Cortana replied before turning to the Spartans.
"Sleep well?" Amee asked the two cheerfully in spite of the situation.
Before either could answer, another blast hit the ship, causing it to rock violently. John grabbed onto a support pillar and held on as Mariana lost her balance, and fell at his feet. A tidal wave of pain shot up through her leg and all the way to her brain, causing her to see stars and become disoriented. As her head cleared, Mariana growled to herself and released the boot hinge. Pulling herself up, she heard John, Captain Keyes, and Cortana talking about abandoning the Autumn and trying to land it on the construct.
"Mariana, if you've been listening, you're going to stay out of the fight. I'll get some of my crew to get you down to the launch bay safely enough and you're going to take a pelican down to the surface," Keyes told her.
"What about John?" she asked, accepting Amee's crystal from John and sliding it into its slot on her helmet.
"I'm going to go stall the Covenant as long as I can and then get on a lifeboat. You're only going on a pelican because they're closer, and you can't run," John replied. Coming closer, he wiped the Spartan's smile signal on Mariana's faceplate before leaving. Mariana's shoulders slumped and she took a full five seconds to collect herself and push off of the wall where she had been supporting herself.
Going with some crewmen, Mariana got to the launch bay all right. Left alone since the crew personnel had to return to the bridge, Mariana stood in the center and looked around. As of right then, the pilots hadn't reached the bay yet.
"Mariana, what are you doing?" Amee asked as Mariana headed to a weapons locker and pulled out an assault rifle, ammo, and grenades.
"Easy," she replied, slapping a clip into the rifle, "I'm going to take out any Covenant that may try to destroy my ticket out of here." Amee just sighed and fell quiet. Mariana knelt down and waited. Sure enough, Mariana soon spotted the colors of Covenant armor and fired in sustained bursts.
She was so effective, that when the Pelican pilots arrived in the bay, the first thing they saw was Mariana calmly reloading her rifle, Covenant corpses scattered in the entry and no father than twenty feet in. "Foehammer, will you be willing to have an extra passenger to the surface?" Mariana asked.
Captain Rawley smiled briefly. "If you can help out with the flight, hop aboard," she replied.
Mariana nodded curtly and started to board when her motion tracker picked up contacts. "You didn't tell me you were being followed," she growled, slinging her rifle and switching to a pistol and activated the zoom. In a matter of a minute, the ten Covenant aliens were down for the count. Boarding through the rear hatch, Mariana sealed the hatch door and fastened herself in. A moment later, they were on their way.
Mariana closed her eyes and tried to ignore the shaking ship when the ship lurched and she was thrown against her harness. "Sorry Mariana, we hit an air pocket and dropped straight down a bit," Foehammer apologized.
"Don't worry about me, just concentrate on your ship," Mariana tried to say as the ship's shaking jarred her teeth, "I just want to land in one piece alive if it's not too much to ask." Foehammer let loose a strained laugh and cut the channel.
Besides the descent to the ring's turbulence, nothing else eventful really happened. Mariana, soon feeling the turbulence stop, got up and went to a viewport. Ignoring the pain throbbing against her armor, Mariana looked down at lush forests and plains, bordered by distant mountains.
"Where are we landing, Foehammer?" Mariana questioned, tearing her gaze away from the landscape long enough to ask the question.
"This is where you come in. I'm told you have extensive knowledge of any type of strategy. I'll let you pick the best spot," Foehammer replied.
Mariana limped to the hatch that Foehammer opened to give her a better view now that they were safely in the atmosphere, and looked out. Seeing a large clearing in a patch of woods, Mariana consulted with Amee and then dropped a NAV marker on it. "There, that looks like the best this area has," Mariana replied finally.
Immediately Mariana felt the Pelican turn and descend on the clearing. Once they landed, the crews swept the area and found no Covenant. Mariana took the given time to take off her helmet and relax for a minute before reaching into a compartment on her armor and taking out a small first aid kit. Filling her ankle with the biofoam, Mariana then popped a painkiller and resealed her helmet.
"What's up Amee? You seem oddly quiet," Mariana wondered.
"Oh, I'm just talking to Wellsley…Major Silva's AI. Apparently the Helljumpers are grouping about ten klicks south of us. We will rendezvous with them tomorrow morning," Amee explained.
"Granted that one of our groups aren't attacked beforehand," Mariana snorted before lying down and deciding to take a nap within the safety of Foehammer's pelican.
…
That night, Mariana was taking her turn on patrol, the Biofoam already working wonders on her ankle when Mariana heard footsteps.
"Who's there?" she demanded, bringing her rifle to bear.
"Whoa, don't shoot!" came a voice, "Helljumper C Company reporting to the pelicans as ordered."
Mariana kept her rifle up and flicked on her helmet light. In the beam stood about twenty Helljumpers with about thirty more behind them in the shadows. "Why are your FOF tags not on?" she demanded, lowering her rifle.
"We didn't want to attract the attention of any Covenant," the ODST replied. Mariana huffed and led them back to the small campfire since it was time to change shifts anyway. The rest of the night consisted of sleeping and patrolling for all of them. Even the ODSTs had helped, explaining that it was only fair.
Early the next morning, before the sun rose, the Pelicans loaded up and flew all fifty Marines and Mariana to the temporary base. Mariana stepped down when the Pelican landed and looked around. Seeing Major Silva, Mariana sighed in resignation and headed over to him.
"Major, Master Chief Spartan-150 reporting for duty," Mariana said, standing at attention but as always, not saluting.
"You know you should really salute to superiors," Silva stated, turning to look at the armor-clad soldier.
Mariana bit back a growl. "Let's get a few things straight, sir, I only will salute Keyes and no one else. I'm not a Helljumper, so I'm not technically under your command. I will help you, but I refuse to take orders from someone I probably could snap in half if I really wanted to try," she hissed, hearing Amee chuckle in the back of her mind.
Silva bristled and then seemed to accept it for the time being. "How well can you shoot Spartan-150?"
"Not as good as my one teammate, but I am a dead shot with a rocket launcher," she replied with a shrug. Silva nodded and motioned for her to take a spot next to the other rocket jockeys, one of them passing her an extra launcher after she complied.
A harrowing battle later, Mariana found herself back in a Pelican, flying to the top of a nearby butte. Seeing the Covenant scrambling, trying to get into a counter formation, Mariana sighed, feeling like she should be able to spot or realize something. Leaping down, Mariana joined the Marines in fighting for the butte.
…
Mariana grumbled to herself as she patrolled through the covenant corpses. Silva, being the bastard he was, assigned her with the task of executing any Elite and Jackal still alive and tying up the Grunts. Rolling a crimson Elite over, Mariana brought her rifle to bear when it groaned, but dropped it in surprise when she spotted and recognized a scar that crossed under the Elite's left eye.
Dropping to her knees, she took off her helmet and held the Elite's hand. "A-Arkanee," she whispered.
Arkanee weakly opened his eyes as Mariana blinked back tears of happiness and sorrow. "Anamee? I must be dreaming," Arkanee stated, looking into the indigo eyes above him.
"No Arkanee," Mariana replied, in the Elite tongue, "it's me. I missed you and Daddy so much. He didn't die up here, did he?"
"I know you missed us," Arkanee soothed, reaching up a hand to stroke the soft black hair. "Anamee, you must listen carefully since I know my wound is fatal and I will transcend the physical soon. Your father was not here. He is close, in orbit in fact, on the flagship. He is a black armored Elite now. A year ago, Adadee was awarded the black armor because he chose to go into special ops. Anamee, you must let him know somehow that you are alive and on this ring…" Arkanee trailed off as his eyes closed, his grip went limp, and he stopped breathing.
Mariana bit down on her bottom lip to stop the one thing she always hated doing…cry. Sealing her helmet once more, Mariana stood and after folding Arkanee's hands over his body walked off. Seeing as she had some free time now, Mariana started going around, picking an Elite corpse of every color armor available: blue, cobalt, crimson, silver, and gold. Once she had one of each, she relieved the aliens of their armor and carried it to her issued quarters. Getting out of her armor, Mariana sighed and went to take a shower, feeling that she needed it.
Twenty minutes later found her on the butte, waist-length hair twisted up off her neck. Going to the edge, she spotted Foehammer returning to the butte. "Bus rides?" she asked the pilot as it landed and let off Marines.
Foehammer chuckled. "They're survivors that Master Chief is rounding up," she explained. Mariana stood back as Foehammer lifted off again and stalked to where some Marines were stacking the covenant bodies onto a lift.
"Want help?" she asked.
One of the Helljumpers looked up and nodded. "You can grab that last Elite body if you can lift it," he replied. Mariana snorted and went to the Elite to notice vaguely that it was Arkanee. Picking up the body, Mariana placed him carefully on the pile of Elites.
"I know this sounds wrong, but it looks like the aliens are having a mass orgy," a second Helljumper stated. The other two Helljumpers laughed as the lift descended, and even Mariana couldn't help but crack the tiniest of smiles.
After helping bury the bodies, Mariana returned to her quarters to see someone waiting with his back to the door of her tent-like cubicle. About to ask who it was, Mariana noted the muscles rippling in the back of the arms, and the tall proud form of the male. "John!" she exclaimed, launching herself into his arms when he turned around, "You're safe!"
John smiled and hugged Mariana in return. "Of course," he chided, "I'm beat from rescuing Marines though. How are you feeling?" When Mariana didn't respond at first, John grew concerned. Pulling his friend away from his body gently, John looked into her eyes to notice that Mariana's eyes were shining with tears. "What's wrong?" he asked.
Mariana immediately started to cry silent tears. "T-The Elite who helped my father raise me was on this butte. He was fatally wounded by an assault rifle," she whimpered.
John pulled Mariana into another hug and rubbed her back gently, surprised at the rush of emotion. "What about your father?" he asked softly, feeling the girl's tears seep into his shoulder.
Mariana pulled away and took a minute to compose herself. "Arkanee told me before he died that Adadee was still on the flagship they were assigned to. I hope he stays there so I don't accidentally kill him," she murmured. "By the way, where are you quarters?" Mariana asked, changing the subject.
John smiled a toothy grin. "I was assigned to this cubicle with you. They're suppose to be looking for another cot for me to use," he smiled. Mariana nodded and guided John to her cot.
"Just use mine for now," she explained at John's look. John nodded and laid down, falling asleep in a few minutes. Mariana sat on the edge of the cot for a few minutes thinking about her father, eager to see him again after eleven years. Finally getting tired, Mariana laid herself down next to John and drifted off to sleep.
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Ria: well, that's all for this chapter. I am sooo sorry that I took forever to upload, but as one of you know, I was in Egypt since April and I only came back maybe two weeks ago. Review and I promise that I will get the next chapter up sooner!
P.S. The Pyramids were amazing! Such heights…makes you wonder where the dirt from the ramps used to get the blocks that high went to… o.O Maybe one of you know. If so, tell me.