Author's notes: Thanks to all the reviewers so far! I had a bit of a struggle with this one, but I hope you like it. Please R&R!
Tic Toc
November 2nd, 2552 10:41AM
Sol System - Aboard the MAC Orbital platform Malta
Level 4 Aft - Mess Hall A
"So that's why the Covenant had stopped attacking. They left us a present. We need to get the hell out of here NOW!" Sergeant Reynolds' previously cool demeanor had degenerated into a controlled panic as he realized the Anti-Matter bomb could go off at any time. None of them; no, this station would not survive the blast. "Sergeant, what is that thing?" Justin had moved up to Reynolds' side. For some reason the protection of the Hobbit's armor was now working against him, a mild case of claustrophobia beginning to grip his being.
"A nasty present from the Covenant, and we need to go before it decides to detonate. This whole place is going to go." Justin was taken back by the Sergeant's statement, but quickly regained his composure. "No, we need to get that thing off this station." The coldness in Justin's voice made the others wonder if he realized what he had just said. "I can get that thing out of here with the MSAC, and shove it out into space. Sergeant, can you take the others and head to the life pod? In case I don't get that thing out in time I want them out of here."
"No, you are NOT being a fucking hero!" Audrey was practically screaming at her husband, but as soon as the words came out of her mouth she knew they would land on deaf ears. She just couldn't stand the thought of possibly losing him. The feeling was mutual. "I am not going to be a hero, just the guy that gets this bomb out of here. No go with them and I will meet you on Earth. Sergeant get your man and these people out of here."
"Negative. Private Jordan, escort these people to the life pod, I will stay with Justin to defend in case there are any Covenant bastards left on this boat." Audrey opened her mouth to protest again, but Bob cut her short. "He will be fine, we need to get out of here." Somehow Audrey didn't believe Bob, and the thought of leaving him was killing her. "No, I am staying too." "Dammit Audrey! Get out of here now! Bob, please get her the hell out of here!" Bob immediately grabbed Audrey up and put her over his shoulder as she struggled against him. The others joined Bob as he sprinted toward the elevator, Audrey's thin frame not adding much weight to slow him down. Tears streamed down her face as the horror took hold of her. "Don't you die on me Justin Madison! Don't you go and fucking die on me!"
Justin mentally was hearing none of it. He knew he had to block the thought of leaving Audrey, perhaps for the last time, out of his mind. He looked at the Sergeant to his left as the elevator doors closed on the far side of the room behind them, and nodded to him as he started moving toward the bomb. The sound of the bomb's constant beeping seemed to echo louder in their mind as they walked closer, as if it was calling out to them in defiance for any action they might take against it.
So what are we going to do with it?
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Orma Usurlee watched as the humans exited to the transport on the far side of the room. His active camouflage combined with the bare purple interior of the boarding craft made him practically invisible to the filthy humans outside. He had chosen not to fight, but rather to wait. His orders were clear, to protect the bomb no matter the cost. Should the humans try to stop it, then he would cut them down like so many of their kind before.
Pathetic humans, they will die, either by the hands of the prophet's device or by mine. They will not outlive this battle.
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Justin surveyed the room quickly and then turned again to Reynolds.
"Sergeant, do you know how to operate their boarding craft?" Reynolds quickly latched onto Justin's idea. "So you want to send it back where it came from huh?" The Sergeant could see Justin's head nod through the Hobbit's clear viewing plate, now covered with small scratches and splatter of Covenant blood. Justin carefully began manipulating the area around the bomb with magnetic fields, and with a slight upward motion of its appendages the bomb was levitated about 3 feet into the air.
The bomb's constant beeping seemed to grow louder in Justin's mind, and he wished he could just sprint the twenty or so feet to the pod and throw it in, but he had no clue if the jarring actions could set the thing off. Sweat ran down his face, a small bead of it getting into his left eye and irritating it. Although the MSAC's regulatory systems were working, there was just no way for it to control the stress that Justin was feeling. The weight of the world seemed to be on his shoulders, but he was glad he had the Hobbit to help him carry it.
He thought of Audrey, of their wedding day and of their honeymoon on Ministry. It brought him comfort knowing that his family was still safe there, and hopefully they could stop the Covenant before they would find them. He missed his father and brother.
Why did the Covenant have to destroy humanity?
What the hell had we ever done to them?
It wasn't up to Justin to answer the questions, as he refocused on the beeping pincushion before him. He was getting closer to the pod, and he was starting to feel some relief. Maybe he could save them after all.
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Wyetep shushed the other grunts that were standing with him. The cargo hold had been secured, and any attempts to regain it by the humans had been squashed by him and his small pack. The black SpecOps grunts were some of the best trained in the entire Covenant, and were one of the very few packs that got to engage an enemy without an elite watching over them. They had a complement of weapons with them, Wyetep carrying a needler while Bielin carried a plasma pistol, Nejap another needler and Tugaw hauled around a fuel rod cannon.
"Mayab, you there?" His radio came back with only a wash of static. "Wyetep not like this. Mayab not check in for two cycles." "Mayab not smart grunt, may have shot himself" Bielin placed his own plasma pistol to his head, and motioned as if he had blew his own brains out. Wyetep shook his head and turned toward the elevator as a noise caught his attention. "Transport coming this way. More humans to kill. Hide in shadows and attack as they pass. Tugaw, you blow up anything that gets past pack." The SpecOps grunts slid back into the hallway adjacent to the elevator. The lights had been destroyed inside to give the pack a dark place to hide while their enemies walked into their traps. Each time had been the same. They had slaughtered the humans that exited the transport and the hallway behind them was littered with their remains. The cauterizing effects of the covenant weapons had worked in their favor, as there wasn't much of a blood trail leading to their location.
The doors parted on the transport and a group of six humans, three male and three female exited. They were all armed, but that fact didn't bother Wyetep, as all the others had been as well.
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Private Jordan examined the room as they began to fall out, pointing his BR55 in various directions, searching for anything that could be perceived as a threat. Something didn't feel right. There didn't seem to be any activity, and he had thought there would be fewer life pods, but it looked as though there were as many as ten still docked out of the fifty that this part of the station housed. Most of the aircraft were gone, the parts of some strewn about the exit to the hangar, apparently not able to escape in time. There were still some tanks and warthogs, although Jordan knew the majority had been dispatched down to the earth to reinforce the ground forces.
Some lights flickered about halfway down the cargo hold, stubbornly trying to keep themselves alive despite some damage from misplaced ballistic and plasma fire. Small fires were also smoldering along its length, one of them being a Covenant Phantom that had managed to be taken out of the air by the scorpion that now lay crumbled beneath its crash site. There were both Covenant and human corpses dispensed throughout the expanse as well, but Private Jordan felt some solace in the fact that they seemed to have been stopped before getting close to the elevator.
Bob joined Private Jordan at his side, and they broke up surveying duties, with the Private sweeping the left and Bob the right. "Do you think that Justin will be able to get the bomb off the station?" Audrey tried speaking softly, but the eerie silence both in and around the cargo hold carried her voice well." Davis looked at her intently. I have seen Justin do amazing things with the MSAC. I don't think that porcupine will give him any problems. And if any Covies show up, the Serg will handle them. The only worry you have is how to meet back up with him when you both get to Earth."
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Wyetep grabbed Nejap's arm as he started to head out to slaughter the humans. "Change of plan. If translator right, they try to stop Zonti. We wait and go up to Mayab to see. Kill humans there and make sure Zonti destroy station." Nejap growled quietly and then cursed in their native tongue. His thirst for blood was stronger than his pack-mates, and he always enjoyed killing the humans, especially the females. In a former time he had been a red foot soldier, and had gotten his thirst when he participated in the slaughter of innocents on Draco III. Since that time he had almost became mad with his thirst.
Let it be the will of the prophets that there will be humans there. I will shed their blood and watch them breath their last breath, even if it means the Zonti will be MY death.
The pack watched as the humans moved past them and begin to enter the life pods, and waited until the door shut. A dull thud came from the far side of the room, announcing the pod's departure. "We go now. Stop stupid humans. Make sure Zonti blow up station and humans left."
Finally.
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Almost there.
Justin could feel the weight starting to lift off of him as he now stood with the far tip of the bomb about three feet from the portal entrance. The purple energy arced itself from one portion of the round entrance to another, when suddenly the flowing energy seemed to distort itself. Justin tried to brace himself and adjust the output on the magnetic field but there was no time. The drop ship's pilot came barreling through the portal entrance, slamming into the bomb, hurtling it back into Justin. The impact sent the Hobbit off of its feet and crashing to the ground, as the bomb itself connected with the ground behind Justin, breaking off many of the spiny appendages that helped serve to keep it stationary.
Taking a quick look at his HUD, Justin noticed his shields were depleted, and a sensor was reading hydraulic failure in his right arm. He then noticed the elite standing over him, its plasma rifle pointing directly at his head. "Hey asshole! Over here!" The elite turned its head momentarily before having it explode all over the MSAC and surrounding floor. Apparently it had been too focused on getting Justin to realize the Sergeant was there. Justin watched as the elite's lifeless body fell off to his right, blood pouring out of its neck. He then tried to move the Hobbit's right arm to free it from under the elite, but found it inoperable. "Well that's fucking great." Justin reached across with his left arm and pushed the corpse off, then hobbled back to his feet.
"You alright?" Sergeant Reynolds still had a bead on the elite's body, as if he was sure it was going to come back from the dead. "The damn thing took out my right arm. I can still get the bomb out of here, but it is going to be a lot more difficult to balance it." "How about dragging the bastard?" The Sergeant had relaxed his aim and walked over to the bomb, giving one of its spines a strong tug. "Yeah, I can try that." Justin positioned the left forks around the spine and then closed them. A painfully loud scraping sound filled the room as the bomb started to shift, following Justin's lead. Justin felt like he was having to start over, as the bomb was now a good thirty feet from the opening, but now that he knew it could take abuse, he would be much more efficient about getting it there.
"Look out!" Justin could barely hear the cry from Sergeant Reynolds over the scraping of the bomb across the floor, and he turned just in time for several needler rounds to splash across his slowly replenishing shield, bringing it back down to twenty-eight percent from forty-three. Across the room beside the cargo elevator stood four grunts that had black armor that he had never heard of before. Sergeant Reynolds immediately took cover behind the bomb as several plasma streaks flew over his head. He took a quick glance around the side and noticed that two of the four were attempting to flank them, one on each side. Apparently these grunts were better trained than most. "I wish you had some sort of damned weapon." An idea clicked in Justin's mind and suddenly he knew he indeed did have a weapon.
Using the weight of the MSAC to brace against the bomb, he grabbed one of its spines with the Hobbit's left hand and gave it a good yank downward, breaking it off cleanly. He then manipulated it so that the point extended outward from the suit's palm, and held onto it tight as he increased the amount of the reverse polarity magnetic field. He stood up and took aim at the grunt holding the needler that had previously shot him, and aimed best he could at the small creature. Plasma and needler impacted his shield, again lowering it from its thirty-one percent regenerated state to twenty percent. He felt the spine start to slide outwards from the force the magnetic field placed on it, and released his grip.
The spine shot from his hand with great velocity toward the black armored grunt, and entered just below its neck. The armor it was wearing seemed to have little effect as the spine tore its way out of the grunt's back and embedded itself in the wall behind it. The creature stood motionless momentarily before crumbling under its own weight, and blood spilled forth onto the floor. The other grunts momentarily stopped their assault to look at their now-fallen comrade, and Sergeant Reynolds saw his chance to strike. He put the grunt flanking their right into his sights and pulled the trigger, the BR55 barking out a three-round burst that immediately caused blood to splash across the wall behind it as a few needles managed to escape harmlessly into the metal floor beneath it.
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Wyetep had seen enough. Bielin and Nejap's deaths cut deep into Wyetep, as they had both saved his life in previous engagments. They were his responsibility, and he had failed them as a commander, no, he had simply lead them to the slaughter. He had clearly underestimated these two humans, and now his brethren had paid dearly for it. Maybe the prophets were wise to put Sangheili over the Unggoy, even though they were despicable creatures. A barrage of needler shards arced from Wyetep's weapon toward the now-exposed human soldier, and impacted his left arm as he tried to shield himself. A smile grew across the Unggoy's face as he watched the appendage separate from the body, and blood began to pour from the wound he had created.
But how to deal with the armored human? Surely this is not one of the demons? How will we draw him ou…?
Wyetep saw his opportunity in the form of the port created from the boarding ship. "Tugaw! You no shoot human, aim for window hole! He die in space!"
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Justin looked over at Sergeant Reynolds' now lifeless corpse. He was alone. This was his task to complete, and somehow he had to do it. Justin once again broke another spine off the bomb, and took careful aim at the small grunt that seemed to be leading them. He was so focused on targeting the little creature that he didn't notice the brilliant green bolt arcing through the air until it splashed across the screen behind him. The shockwave knocked Justin into the bomb, as another spine pierced a relay for the right leg hydraulics, sending him crashing to the floor. "This just couldn't get any damn better." Justin wondered why they had fired so far off the mark, but the sudden gut-wrenching sound of metal beginning to stress behind him made him realize their plan.
Using the left leg to push him into the open for the shot, Justin once again took aim, but this time at the grunt with the fuel rod canon. He released the spine, projecting it across the room, hitting the small creature in the leg and tearing it off. The grunt screamed in pain as it fell to the floor and began rapidly bleeding out. Justin instantly reached up to attempt to break off another spine, but without the wait of the MSAC to offset the pressure, it simply rocked back and forth, but seemed to be caught on the floors' dull-metallic paneling. As he let go of the bomb he noticed the beeping starting to become faster, and higher in pitch.
Dammit, I am not going to die here
Justin extended the Hobbit's leg out to meet the bomb, and once again took hold of a spine. He yanked quickly and was relieved when it broke off. He quickly positioned it and began to aim, and noticed the remaining grunt now had the fuel rod canon, and was taking aim as well. The beeping from the bomb continued to intensify as the two let go of their rounds at the same time, the spine flying fast and straight as the green glob arced slowly toward the porthole. The grunt flinched as the spine flew past its head and went through a potted tree behind him, splintering out the back side and then embedding itself into the wall.
The round the grunt shot, however, was on target and landed gracefully inside the boarding craft before detonating. Their was an ear shattering noise as the craft exploding, exposing the inside of the station to the vacuum of space. Chairs and tables and anything not bolted down began flying out of the station, some being contorted and crushed to fit through the opening. Justin tried to grab hold of the bomb, hoping to pull it out of the station with him, but could not latch onto it quickly enough as he was picked up and tossed out through the hole.
Justin struggled to look back toward the Malta, as he continued to be propelled away from it. He noticed the grunt had been sucked out the whole as well, and struggled vainly for its life as blood began to break through its skin, forming a grotesque cloud of droplet bubbles around it as it became motionless. He could also see life pods continuing to stream from different sections of the Malta, and silently prayed that Audrey was on one of them. Maybe his dream had been more a premonition than he had thought. Audrey was indeed falling away from him, but it wasn't to her doom, but rather to the relative safety of the Earth. At least Justin hoped that's how it was happening.
He then closed his eyes, satisfied that indeed that was the way it was happening. It had to be. He only now need to await the inevitable, and it came for him as the station erupted into a brilliant flame of varying colors as many secondary explosions of ships and satellites erupted around what was once the Malta's perimeter.
Justin began to scream as the wave washed over him. His shields instantly failed and the hydrostatic gel boiled. He could feel his skin burning and boiling as the heat continued to rise, and shock set in. He only managed to utter his only solace as he slipped into unconsciousness.
I love you Audrey. I'm sorry
THE END
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Author's notes: I hoped everyone enjoyed my story. This is going to be the kickoff for some things to come after it, and hopefully I will do a better job. I was a bit sparse with the amount of fighting with this story, but I am planning quite a bit in the next one, as well as developing some of the characters further. I am trying to copy (read: steal) some writing styles of other authors to hopefully spice up my stories some more, so any suggestions you have would be appreciated!
