p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"Their squad was sitting at a table in one of the corners of the mess. They grabbed a tray of food and arrived at the table to see Pyro flicking peas at Hawk. Hawk was calmly using a small plate to block the small projectiles. The two elite brothers Thar'os and Rtyre Kraramee just watched on with some amusement. Kieth noticed them as they sat down, " How are you doing Mark?" Mark rolled his shoulder and replied, " They did a great job despite the fact I was turned into a shish kebab." The elites chuckled at his nonchalant response. Classy slowly ate her food while looking around the mess. Mark on the other hand was scarfing down his food as if it was his last meal. Cassy spotted Ryker as he walked into the mess. She watched him make his way to a table and sit with the rest of his squad. She realized that she wasn't the only one watching. "Freaks." Kieth muttered and went back to eating. Cassy and Mark had been very careful the past few years about their secret. Some members of the team were no fans of the Spartans. They finished eating and then headed off to their room for some sleep. /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"3 days later. /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"Cassy was running on a treadmill in the ships gym while the rest of the squad did weights and sparing. She enjoyed this small "alone time" to think and let her mind wander. She had just started to get into a rhythm when the ships on board A.I appeared on the treadmills small holo emitter. "Hello Ronas, what can I do for you today? She asked. Ronas nodded " The captain requests you and your squad to report to the briefing room in 30 min." He than disappeared. She grabbed a towel and walked to her team to relay the message./span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" In 30min they we in the briefing room awaiting the captain. The door opened and the 3 members of Shadow squad walked in with the captain. They quickly saluted and sat back down. Ryker sat across from Cassy. The lights dimmed and soon the holo table's blue glow filled the room. The captain cleared his threat and began. " I have received word from High Comm about a high value target within our area." The table hummed and a picture of a large Brute appeared. " This is Barrock, a ruthless War chief that is responsible for the raids that killed millions and for some missing human personnel." The captain pause before continuing. " Thanks to the efforts of Fire team Eclipse recovering that data, we now know where Barrock is." The image on the table changed to show a moon orbiting a glasses planet. " This is M-35, also know as Algerion. For some reason unknown, the covenant over looked this moon and left it untouched. Algerion is a thickly forest moon with large mountains. It's was not heavily colonized, just a few small villages, because of its over all cold climate, short days and wildlife." /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"The captain looked around the table. "Your mission is to infiltrate Barrocks hideout. Secure the 5 huragok that his has, and kill Barrock if the opportunity presents itself." The room was quite for a moment before Ryker spoke. " How are we getting in?" The captain smiled. "You will be inserted via a new type of drop pod. Smaller, and covered top to bottom in stealth tech." Fireteam Eclipse all had large grins on their faces. Ryker spoke again. "Extraction?" The picture on the table changed again. Ronan waved a had at the pelican displayed. "The new stealth drop ship." Ryker nodded approvingly. The captain stood tall and nodded. "You have your order, now make that monster pay." /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"The two squads gathered in the loading bay for the new drop pods. Each of them was armored up and were just going over their weapons and gear. Cassy walked over to the spartan team fully aware of the eyes of her team mates burning into the back of her head. Ryker saw her and took a step to her. "Ryker, the captain wanted me to give this to you." She held up an A.I chip. He gently grabbed it and looked at it. Cassy sighed and then continued. "He also put me in charge of the mission." Ryker tilted his head slightly to the side. She smiled. "I am appointing you as second in command." He nodded and gave her a salute. "Understood ma'am." She turned and walked back to her squad. /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"span style="color: #454545;"spanRyker looked at the chip as he turned to his team. He finally put the chip into the slot on the back of his helmet. An icy feeling shot down his spine and he grabbed his head for a second. A male Nordic accent entered his ears. " Not bad, bio readings check out and armor is ready to go." A screen appeared on the top left of his hud showing a large man in what looked like ad bowmen's garb with a dappled patterned cloak./span/spanspan style="color: #454545;"span "Allow me to introduce myself. I am UNSC A.I -NS/352 or kalis." Kalis took a short bow. The other two Spartans winked green on his light display indicating that they heard the introduction. Kalis continued. "I am to assist your team for the mission." Ryker nodded. Satisfied that things were in order Kalis disappeared. Ryker picked up his shotgun and placed it in his pod. Vapor opened a personal channel for his team. "So how do the chain of command flow this time?" Ryker turned to him. "Corporal Williams is leading and I am her second in command." Vapor nodded with approval. Ryker stepped closer to them. "Vapor I want to ask you to do something for me. If this mission goes south I want you to take care of Cassy and Mark." Vapor set a hand on Rykers shoulder. That spoke volumes between them. "I promise." Vapor said with determination. He swiped two fingers across his face plate and Ryker returned the spartan smile. /span/span/span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"A loud alarm brought them back into reality. The captains voice came over the com. "Over the drop zone in 3." The group quickly got into the pods. Cassy checked in with everyone. She took a deep breath as the pods rotated into position. She mentally counted down. A loud boom accompanied by a huge jolt signaled that they were away. As they fell she marked their landing location right into the middle of a massive rain storm, using it for cover. /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"The quiet sound of rain was drowned out by the crashes of the pods breaking through the trees and coming to a stop. The hatch of the pod broke open and Mark carefully poked his head out. Seeing it was clear he cleaned out the pod and started hiking to the rendezvous point on his hud. He had hiked about 2 miles before he stopped to take a drink from his canteen. Before he could put his helmet back on a low deep growl sounded behind him. He slowly turned around and saw two glowing green eyes staring at him from within the bushes. He reached for his magnum but the thing leaped out and struck him. It knocked the gun from his hands and pinned him against a tree. He just managed to get his armored forearm in front of him as the beast bit down. He made a quick mental note to thank the tech heads that invented this stuff. Mark yelled in pain as the large predator held onto his arm and swung him to the right, tossing him. He rolled and quickly got to his feet. The beast leaped again but Mark grabbed his combat knife, stepped to the side and slashed at the beast. The animal howled in pain as its shoulder was split open. It looked at Mark and snarled. He prepared himself for the beast to attack again, but paused when he saw that it was cowering and slowly backing away before completely turning and running. "Ha! That's right run away you coward!" He said proudly. Mark paused to wipe the blood off the blade and put it back in its sheath before turning around. He walked face first into a metal object, hard enough to knock him on his butt. He looked up and saw Ranger standing there with his head tilted in what appeared as amusement. Mark groaned. "That's why it ran off." He face palmed. The Spartan nodded and offered Mark a hand. /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"Within an hour the entire team was at the rendezvous point. Pyro and hawk just snickered when they saw Mark arrive covered in mud. He just scowled at them and began to clean his gear. Cassy and Ryker were standing next to a large stump with a map spread out on top of it. They nodded and she folded up the map as they walked over to the group. "The hideout is five miles to the north. We have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of forest and mud to slog through. You have 10 mins to get ready before we move out." She quickly told them. They quickly sorted the gear and set off./span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;" /p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"strongspan style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;".../span/span/strong/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"strongspan style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"Sorry this chapter is a little short. But worry not! The next one will be full of fighting./span/span/strong/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"3 days later. /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"Cassy was running on a treadmill in the ships gym while the rest of the squad did weights and sparing. She enjoyed this small "alone time" to think and let her mind wander. She had just started to get into a rhythm when the ships on board A.I appeared on the treadmills small holo emitter. "Hello Ronas, what can I do for you today? She asked. Ronas nodded " The captain requests you and your squad to report to the briefing room in 30 min." He than disappeared. She grabbed a towel and walked to her team to relay the message./span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" In 30min they we in the briefing room awaiting the captain. The door opened and the 3 members of Shadow squad walked in with the captain. They quickly saluted and sat back down. Ryker sat across from Cassy. The lights dimmed and soon the holo table's blue glow filled the room. The captain cleared his threat and began. " I have received word from High Comm about a high value target within our area." The table hummed and a picture of a large Brute appeared. " This is Barrock, a ruthless War chief that is responsible for the raids that killed millions and for some missing human personnel." The captain pause before continuing. " Thanks to the efforts of Fire team Eclipse recovering that data, we now know where Barrock is." The image on the table changed to show a moon orbiting a glasses planet. " This is M-35, also know as Algerion. For some reason unknown, the covenant over looked this moon and left it untouched. Algerion is a thickly forest moon with large mountains. It's was not heavily colonized, just a few small villages, because of its over all cold climate, short days and wildlife." /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"The captain looked around the table. "Your mission is to infiltrate Barrocks hideout. Secure the 5 huragok that his has, and kill Barrock if the opportunity presents itself." The room was quite for a moment before Ryker spoke. " How are we getting in?" The captain smiled. "You will be inserted via a new type of drop pod. Smaller, and covered top to bottom in stealth tech." Fireteam Eclipse all had large grins on their faces. Ryker spoke again. "Extraction?" The picture on the table changed again. Ronan waved a had at the pelican displayed. "The new stealth drop ship." Ryker nodded approvingly. The captain stood tall and nodded. "You have your order, now make that monster pay." /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"The two squads gathered in the loading bay for the new drop pods. Each of them was armored up and were just going over their weapons and gear. Cassy walked over to the spartan team fully aware of the eyes of her team mates burning into the back of her head. Ryker saw her and took a step to her. "Ryker, the captain wanted me to give this to you." She held up an A.I chip. He gently grabbed it and looked at it. Cassy sighed and then continued. "He also put me in charge of the mission." Ryker tilted his head slightly to the side. She smiled. "I am appointing you as second in command." He nodded and gave her a salute. "Understood ma'am." She turned and walked back to her squad. /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"span style="color: #454545;"spanRyker looked at the chip as he turned to his team. He finally put the chip into the slot on the back of his helmet. An icy feeling shot down his spine and he grabbed his head for a second. A male Nordic accent entered his ears. " Not bad, bio readings check out and armor is ready to go." A screen appeared on the top left of his hud showing a large man in what looked like ad bowmen's garb with a dappled patterned cloak./span/spanspan style="color: #454545;"span "Allow me to introduce myself. I am UNSC A.I -NS/352 or kalis." Kalis took a short bow. The other two Spartans winked green on his light display indicating that they heard the introduction. Kalis continued. "I am to assist your team for the mission." Ryker nodded. Satisfied that things were in order Kalis disappeared. Ryker picked up his shotgun and placed it in his pod. Vapor opened a personal channel for his team. "So how do the chain of command flow this time?" Ryker turned to him. "Corporal Williams is leading and I am her second in command." Vapor nodded with approval. Ryker stepped closer to them. "Vapor I want to ask you to do something for me. If this mission goes south I want you to take care of Cassy and Mark." Vapor set a hand on Rykers shoulder. That spoke volumes between them. "I promise." Vapor said with determination. He swiped two fingers across his face plate and Ryker returned the spartan smile. /span/span/span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"A loud alarm brought them back into reality. The captains voice came over the com. "Over the drop zone in 3." The group quickly got into the pods. Cassy checked in with everyone. She took a deep breath as the pods rotated into position. She mentally counted down. A loud boom accompanied by a huge jolt signaled that they were away. As they fell she marked their landing location right into the middle of a massive rain storm, using it for cover. /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"The quiet sound of rain was drowned out by the crashes of the pods breaking through the trees and coming to a stop. The hatch of the pod broke open and Mark carefully poked his head out. Seeing it was clear he cleaned out the pod and started hiking to the rendezvous point on his hud. He had hiked about 2 miles before he stopped to take a drink from his canteen. Before he could put his helmet back on a low deep growl sounded behind him. He slowly turned around and saw two glowing green eyes staring at him from within the bushes. He reached for his magnum but the thing leaped out and struck him. It knocked the gun from his hands and pinned him against a tree. He just managed to get his armored forearm in front of him as the beast bit down. He made a quick mental note to thank the tech heads that invented this stuff. Mark yelled in pain as the large predator held onto his arm and swung him to the right, tossing him. He rolled and quickly got to his feet. The beast leaped again but Mark grabbed his combat knife, stepped to the side and slashed at the beast. The animal howled in pain as its shoulder was split open. It looked at Mark and snarled. He prepared himself for the beast to attack again, but paused when he saw that it was cowering and slowly backing away before completely turning and running. "Ha! That's right run away you coward!" He said proudly. Mark paused to wipe the blood off the blade and put it back in its sheath before turning around. He walked face first into a metal object, hard enough to knock him on his butt. He looked up and saw Ranger standing there with his head tilted in what appeared as amusement. Mark groaned. "That's why it ran off." He face palmed. The Spartan nodded and offered Mark a hand. /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545; min-height: 20.3px;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;" /span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"span style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"Within an hour the entire team was at the rendezvous point. Pyro and hawk just snickered when they saw Mark arrive covered in mud. He just scowled at them and began to clean his gear. Cassy and Ryker were standing next to a large stump with a map spread out on top of it. They nodded and she folded up the map as they walked over to the group. "The hideout is five miles to the north. We have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of forest and mud to slog through. You have 10 mins to get ready before we move out." She quickly told them. They quickly sorted the gear and set off./span/span/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;" /p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"strongspan style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;".../span/span/strong/p
p style="font-family: HelveticaNeue; text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0px; line-height: normal; color: #454545;"strongspan style="font-size: 15px;"span style="font-family: Times;"Sorry this chapter is a little short. But worry not! The next one will be full of fighting./span/span/strong/p