me: yeah im gonna write a metroid/halo thing
also me: *finally posts a thing six months later*
anyway yeah here's a thing where nothing happens.
ambient wonder.
blue team (+1) avoids some inclement weather.
They decided to make camp once darkness fell.
With the setting suns casting golden hues on the landscape, the approaching storm looked all the more ominous; a dark wall on the horizon silhouetted in vibrant reds and violets, the near-constant flashes of multicolored lightning illuminating the clouds from within as they cascaded from the storm into the surrounding area. The planet was full of life and energy, but between the hostile flora and fauna, poisonous air, and now raging storms, it seemed none of it was fit for humans.
Kelly emerged from the underbrush with a HUD full of markers and troubling news.
"It looks like part of a larger geomagnetic disturbance," She explained, already sharing data with the rest of the squad. John and Fred followed along silently as the images she took on her brief scouting foray appeared across their HUDs. "It's impossible to tell what's going inside the storm, but I'm seeing wind speeds at almost 200 knots. And the lightning
If they were lucky, it'd just fry their long-range sensors. If they weren't, it might fry them as well.
"Is that rock floating?" Fred zoomed in on the image in question until the pixels began to blur. Under the thick blanket of clouds objects seemed reduced to silhouettes and basic shapes, but the positioning was hard to mistake for anything else. The boulder was at least six metres in length.
"Looks that way." They all collectively agreed not to dwell on it.
"ETA?" John asked.
"Within two hours." A ripple of unease passed between the SPARTANs. If it were the four of them, they could make it back to the Pelican with time to spare for a safe takeoff. But with Linda still out cold and the ruptures of her suit sealed only by bio-foam and sheer force of will, their mobility was dangerously limited. They had to camp out for the night, and somewhere close.
In what felt like a lifetime ago, they had studied human history and learned of countless battles where the victor was determined by the weather. Never had a story been told of mankind waging war against nature itself and truly winning, and perhaps there was a lesson in that. Even they, some of humanity's greatest living weapons, were no different from their ancestors of old. At the mercy of the elements.
If they were different people, they would've found some poetic irony in this. But the thought was barely given a passing glance as the group quickly took stock of their options.
"We might find some caves along the cliffside of the far end of this valley," Kelly offered, her attention shifting from the storm to their surroundings. "I saw some signs of erosion, and Samus seemed to agree. Pointed out some isolated tree lines atop the ridge."
Fred shifted to get a better look at Samus, surprise echoing in his voice. "You managed to communicate?"
"Not... exactly." The hesitation was out of character, and spoke to just how collectively out of depth Blue Team was when it came to handling their plus one. Samus herself appeared unbothered, standing off to the side, ever patient as the team discussed things among themselves. Staring off at the horizon for some unknown reason. "We seem to have reached a mutual understanding of some basic hand gestures." To demonstrate, Kelly turned to Samus and offered her a thumbs up.
There was a brief pause in the conversation as Samus caught the movement out of the corner of her vision and turned back to them. The silence continued for a moment too long before Samus returned the gesture.
That was... something.
"You think she has a place nearby?" Fred joked on their private comms.
"If she did," Kelly mused on the same channel, "I doubt she'd take us there."
John frowned, mulling over it. "She's helped us so far." When she didn't have to. Mutual cooperation was easy to understand, back when the planet's native life was at its worst and any gun was a welcome addition. At this point, however, they were dead weight to her.
She had saved Linda. Put herself at risk to do it, despite how poorly their first encounter with each other had ended. Perhaps the gesture was unnecessary, as any other member of Blue Team could have reached Linda in time, but it had happened nonetheless. And instead of leaving them to their fate she lingered, sensing weakness and appearing to offer aid for it. There was too little information for the SPARTANs to determine intent; instead they were stuck with weak theories and flat-out guesses. It was enough for John to work with, but only just so. Not nearly enough to settle the anxiety that writhed in his gut.
A whistle cut through the heavy atmosphere. Samus was staring at them now, visor blank, waiting for their heads to turn to her before pointing at the base of the ridge Kelly had mentioned. The trio of SPARTANs exchanged glances before staring back at her in unison.
John's HUD suddenly pinged, his systems altering him of an incoming foreign data packet. Only a fraction of the information sent was successfully parsed, but it was still a massive improvement from earlier attempts that had nearly crashed several critical subroutines. If any of the team had a smart AI, the communication issue would've likely been resolved hours ago, but that realization sat a little too close to a fresh wound for John to dwell on it any further. Instead he focused on the single word that his system had managed to translate, hovering at the top of his HUD in bold, commanding type: FOLLOW.
She whistled again, seemingly to confirm their attention, before heading down the slope. For a moment, there was a debate among them. It passed in mere seconds, communicated silently in hidden stares and near-invisible shifts in body language. Then John and Fred picked up Linda and, with Kelly taking point, Blue Team followed Samus further into the valley.
Despite leading them, Samus let the SPARTANs determine the pace, matching their steps as they crossed the uneven forest floor. The group moved slower than any of them were satisfied with, weighed down by the delicate care with which they had to handle their injured comrade. As if heralding the coming storm, the earlier hum and chatter of alien life that had filled the forest had given way to an uneasy silence. Leaves and flowers had turned in on themselves, tucking away their delicate parts, and the hushed air was only interrupted by the distant rumble of thunder, culminating in a tension that pressed on an increased sense of urgency.
The SPARTANs moved in relative quiet, only speaking up to make occasional commentary on their surroundings, mostly content with focusing on the task at hand. Their route was winding, but it took only two or three half-turns in seemingly random directions for John to realize that Samus seemed to be seeking out the easiest terrain possible. She came to a stop only twice, to look in the direction of the oncoming storm, but never longer than a few moments. Whatever she saw was apparently not worth mentioning. Her pace never changed.
Eventually, the foliage began to thin, and the group emerged from the underbrush into a small clearing. The last vestiges of sunlight had dimmed the landscape, but with their augmented vision the SPARTANs were able to see their surroundings with ease. Before them, across a large patch of the strange moss that seemed to grow everywhere on this planet, was a section the base of the cliffs Kelly had mentioned. Even in the low light it was easy to make out, the stark white of the stone stretching up into the sky a high contrast to the dark hues of the surrounding foliage. It also looked like a dead end.
John's grip on Linda tightened imperceptibly. Neither he nor Fred made any move to place her on the ground as they turned to their comrade.
"Kelly?" John prompted.
"I don't kn-"
Oblivious to their conversation Samus held out her arm, appearing to motion for the SPARTANs to stay behind her. The group fell into silence as they watched the tip of her arm cannon shift. The panels parted and expanded, rotating around some unseen axis, and before anyone could react a missile went sailing out of her cannon and into the rock face. Stone shattered on contact, white shrapnel flying across the small clearing as the explosion rang out through the valley. John nearly dropped Linda as he reached for his weapon. Frederic tensed as well, but Kelly, unencumbered, had no issue reaching for her pistol and aiming for the small of Samus' back., where the armor looked thinnest. Without warning Samus fired another missile, scattering more rock, and the SPARTANs all but flinched as the base of the cliff exploded once more.
"What the fuck."
Her cannon shifted back to its original form as she turned to them, freezing mid-step as she took in their frozen stances and the gun aimed at her. As she slowly raised her hand in a tentative thumbs-up, the dust behind her settled, and the SPARTANs could see a pit of black shadow beyond the bleach-white of stone.
It was a cave.
The mouth Samus made was narrow, forcing the three SPARTANs to enter single-file with Linda carried between them. Samus, shifting into her ball form that John had yet to wrap his head around, had no issues slipping through the crevice, rolling forward past mossy, damp stone. While Kelly hung back to secure the entrance, Samus led John and Fred deeper into the cave, silently continuing into the dark until it swallowed up the last vestiges of sunlight. The flashlights on their helmets powered on automatically once the light reached a low enough level, casting dim shadows as their augmented vision adjusted to their dark surroundings. Rock, and more rock.
They continued in silence, spreading out when the width of the cave widened considerably. Samus rolled forward at a steady pace, trailing light behind her like a beacon. Either she had mapped this area before, John thought, or her suit's sensors exceeded that of his own; either way, she seemed to know how deep they needed to go in order to avoid the storm.
After almost two klicks of winding corridors and squeezes through small openings, Samus came to an abrupt halt, rocking back and forth before circling the SPARTANs. As she unfolded back into her regular form, John and Frederic set Linda down on the damp rock, careful not to disturb her injury any further. It seemed they had found their camp for the night.
"Her vitals are stable," Fred said, crouching by Linda's side as his suit uploaded the diagnostic information it could recover from her armor. "But the seal is still fragile, and her suit's sensors are mostly fried. She has a few fractures, but I can't get any detail on the point of contact."
"Once the storm passes we'll head back to the Pelican," John replied. He hated to admit it, but Linda was lucky to still be alive. As soon as her suit registered it was compromised it had released the bio-foam as preemptive first aid. While it certainly had helped the injury, it had served a more important function as sealant and had taken the brunt of the corrosion in place of her flesh.
It went unspoken that if the bio-foam hadn't absorbed all of whatever that creature had spat, it could still be eating away at her insides and they had no way of knowing, much less stopping it. It also went unspoken that the bio-foam itself would likely collapse before the storm passed, and Linda would suffocate in the toxic atmosphere before she could succumb to her injuries.
It was going to be a long night.
The sound of shifting pebbles pulled the attention of all the SPARTANs. John glanced up to see Samus turning on her heel, proceeding further into the cave. Watching her go, he nodded to Fred, who rose to his feet and began to follow her with his assault rifle in hand. She didn't seem to mind, not even sparing a backward glance at her guard and escort as the two disappeared into the black.
For a moment, with only an unconscious Linda by his side, John felt alone. He knew it was far from the truth; both Kelly and Fred were still within comms range, their channel open and clear despite some interference from the approaching storm. Their tags hovered and bobbed in his HUD, showing their position even outside of visual range. A simple ping from John and both of them would respond. Nevertheless, the distance between them all was unsettling. With a member of their team down, even the slightest vulnerability felt like massive chink in the armor.
Kelly returned first, the silhouette of her armor spilling out of the shadows as she holstered her weapon.
"Storm's only a dozen klicks out," She said, sitting across John in their small cave. "Already getting some lightning strikes nearby. I boarded up the entrance as best I could, just in case." She settled against the dirt and stone, leaning her head back against the wall. Experience had taught them to rest when and where they could, and this was far from the worst place they had slept in.
John nodded halfheartedly, still focused on Linda, and soon enough Kelly's gaze was on her as well.
"She okay?"
"She will be," John replied, steel in his voice. As if sheer determination would hold her suit together.
As if on cue, Linda awoke with a choked-off gasp, her frame shuddering as she returned to consciousness.
"Don't move." John ordered. He and Kelly had no time to be relived, already sprung into action to hold Linda in place. "We can't risk your seal breaking."
Linda went quiet and still for a moment, going through the data on her HUD. Her suit had registered her waking and had wasted no time in bombarding her with status updates and warnings regarding the state of her armor.
"How long was I out?" She asked eventually.
"A little under four hours." John grimaced. "We don't know why."
Linda mulled over that in an uneasy silence, Kelly and John at either side of her in reassurance. The severity of her situation set on quickly, but neither John nor Kelly rushed to press her with information. Stuck in a holding pattern, they few options other than wait.
Suddenly, their comms crackled to life. Fred's tinny voice, carrying only the lowest notes of confused concern, filled their helms. "We may have a problem. Our new friend's gone underwater."
"What?"
"There's a river here. It likely carved out this whole cavern. And she just... jumped right in." A beat, and then he continued with a small laugh. "She gave me a thumbs up before she did, though."
John considered it for a moment. "Hold position."
As they waited for any change, John and Kelly quickly briefed Linda on what she had missed during her time unconscious; the fate of the creature that attacked them, the full breadth of Samus' assistance.
"We're going to miss our first check-in." Linda noted. She moved at a painstakingly slow speed, attempting to keep her injury as still as possible as she adjusted to a more comfortable position on the ground. "Infinity needs to be updated."
"Our intel was poor," John agreed dryly. He wasn't as angry as he had expected, considering Linda's injury. That didn't mean he wasn't above sarcasm, though. "The parameters we were given are no longer applicable."
Linda's voice was cool, but he could hear a grin. "What a surprise."
"Looks like she's coming out." Fred cut in. "I think her boosters work underwater- she just leapt out like a fish. Why don't we have that?"
"It was either that or preserve your winning smile, Fred." Kelly joked.
"I'm half-tempted to give it up- She has something." A pause, and the other SPARTANs leaned in subconsciously, waiting for Fred to continue. "Some kind of device. It's definitely tech, but nothing like I've seen before. Looks a bit banged up, too. And she's bringing it with us."
Fred and Samus returned with little fanfare, only preluded by the distant glow of Samus' suit entering view and their markers appearing on motion sensors.
"Had a good nap?" Fred asked, giving Linda another once-over. She huffed in response.
"Any idea on what that thing does?"
"Dinner, maybe?" Fred offered with a laugh. "She isn't handling it like it's a weapon or explosive." Samus paused as they spoke, head cocking to the side briefly as she looked the SPARTANs over. Following the conversation, but seeming to lack comprehension. Rather than attempt to communicate back, however, she instead moved away. Still close enough where the lights of her suit still reflected off the finish of Blue Team's MJOLNIR armor and scattered flecks of green across the cave, but with a healthy space placed between them. A show of courtesy, perhaps? Or distrust? John couldn't decide, and chose not to dwell on it. There were more immediate things requiring attention.
The device, much like Samus' suit, had no elements to its design that were familiar to the SPARTANs. Scans brought up only some passing similarities to Forerunner Sentinels, but the resemblance was not enough to be worthy of note. But though it was visually distinct from the aesthetics of her armor, Samus handled the object with a notable degree of familiarity, opening several panels to examine the contents within. The SPARTANs watched in curious silence as she rummaged around in its interior, appearing to check the placement of a few components. Rather than put it back together, though, tucked part of it under her arm, and with her free hand gripped one of the other panels and ripped it off of the device.
If she wanted their attention, she definitely had it.
The components of her arm cannon shifted, the body of her weapon elongating as the bright yellow lights along the barrel deepened into a molten red. The SPARTANs stiffened, hands reaching for their weapons on reflex; whatever was happening looked clearly different from when she had launched missiles, but they had no interest in taking chances. But there was no explosion of sight or sound this time. Not even a rumble. Instead Samus held up her cannon in demonstration as a trio of small prongs came together and emitted a white-hot spark. She gestured to the panel with it, and then to Linda.
The SPARTANs understood the intent immediately. They parted like a wave, reaching for Linda and turning her partially onto her side as Samus moved in, low to the ground. Rather than immediately begin, however, her hand and cannon hovered over the expanse of the injury as her gaze went up to meet Linda's.
Linda huffed a laugh when she realized what Samus wanted, and slowly formed a thumbs-up with her fist. Samus perked up at the confirmation, and with a low whistle she got to work.
For several minutes, the only sounds in the cave was the hiss and crackle of welding. First, Samus' blowtorch cut out the panel in an approximation of the shape of the hole on Linda's chestplate. Then, with the SPARTANs watching silently, she leaned over Linda and began to weld the metal to the corroded edges of the titanium alloy plates. It was a slow, delicate process, Samus bending the metal as she worked to conform it to the hole as best she could. John could only be grateful that the two metals, despite being alien to one another, seemed to weld together well enough.
When the hissing stopped Samus backed away, her canon shifting and contracting into its regular form. The job she did far from perfect; the patch was glaringly obvious, the new splotch of blue-grey chrome mottled with edges of welding, but it was definitely better than bio-foam.
Blue Team released a breath they didn't know they had been holding. John was not so expressive as to visibly sigh with relief, but the knot in his stomach that he had been ignoring unwound itself, the tension relaxing out of his whole frame.
"Thank you."
She stared at him, uncomprehending, and he nudged his head over at Linda's prone form. Their understanding of each other may be limited, but this, he hoped, would get across.
He gave a thumbs up.
.
.
blue team, in a military sci-fi fps: you can't just launch a rocket at a wall to get in a cave
samus, in a exploration platformer: ha ha missile goes boom
Anyway I said nothing happens and I meant it. I might name all of these bits after halo tracks. I haven't written anything like this in... well... a while. Usually the stuff I do is extremely prose-y. If there are mistakes that's because I have no beta and I'm tired of looking at this lmao.
