Sometimes Things Go From Very Bad, To Much Worse

Disclaimer/Author's note: Sorry this has taken ages to write – I have no excuse – but I hope people are still reading. And please leave a review. Don't worry; I have a good ending planned.

Silverman watched in horror as the Warthog moved in a nightmarish slow-motion.

It was 5 metres above him, then 3, then 2. He shouted in fear, and rolled to the side, hoping it would do something to stop the black, flaming 'ball' of metal.

But it was no use.

Xan watched, and heard, the Warthog crash onto the sand. It hit, flew into the air and flipped once, crashed onto the sand once more and lay still, the flames covering it getting smaller.

After bullets had just missed him, he had been tackled by 812, and he was grateful as bullets passed overhead. 812 was still on top of him, and their visors were touching, but Xan was lucky they were so darkly tinted – otherwise 812 and the others would have seen his panicked expression. 812 hopped off him, and Xan was stand up when the firing from the rocks near the tunnel ceased, and he knew that the battle was over. For now.

"Thank you, Sergeant."

812 looked at Xan, confused. As far as he knew there was no-one in Xan's presence was as low as a Sergeant – except for Xan himself, Hawkins and Blay, of course – because he was usually surrounded by the bridge crew, who held the rank of 1st Lieutenant or something close to that. The only time when he was with Sergeants, Corporals, etc. was when he was with a squad.

"Sir?"

"You heard me, Sergeant 812. Now I want that new Bravo team, led by you, to check out the damage and see if there are any survivors."

812 was glad. He had been promoted 2 ranks, skipping Corporal and going straight to Sergeant! He went down the outside ramp and spoke to the comm officers via the main channel.

"This is Sergeant 812, requesting new team comm channel for Bravo be up-linked with the Captain and comm officers, over." He said over the radio to a comm officer once he had come to the sand.

"Roger that, Sergeant, comm up-link confirmed and ready, out."

He opened the channel to Bravo – everything was going according to his plan, but it was happening a lot faster than he anticipated.

"Bravo team," he said over the channel, stepping around the corner to the back of the building where they had racks of weapons.

He paused as 2 IFT-X tanks hovered past, almost deafening him with the noise of their engines.

"This is Sergeant 812, your new CO – rendezvous with me at the CP for new orders.

He heard various answers of, "Yes, sir." And he grinned – he was a squad leader.

Then again, he was also sad, he thought as his grin disappeared. He sighed inside his helmet softly so no one could hear him over the open channel.

He was still going to kill Xan.

Downstairs, Blay injected his leg with bacta, and groaned as he felt the pain of the bones in his leg realigning. He squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to witness the grotesque scene of his leg bones moving 90 degrees to the right, and then his bones cracked as they locked into place once more.

It would take some times for the pain to stop, but as far as he was concerned he was good to go. He stood up. Ouch. Limped to the ladder. Ouch. Slowly climbed up.

Ouch. Step. Ouch. Step. He would soon get used to it.

He arrived up on the roof to see Xan briefing Hawkins and at least 36 other clones on their latest mission.

Handicapped or not, Blay was going to go with them.

He joined the group that took up the space on the roof and saw as Hawkins greeted him by holding up one finger.

Blay switched to comm channel 'one' and heard Xan briefing them.

"We're going into the centre of the city specifically to bring out 700 of our clones."

Xan cut straight to the point and paused as a holographic map of the city was beamed onto everyone's visor.

"Their last report indicated that they were in – or around – this area," a circle with a radius of about 20 km appeared near the city centre.

"This map is a rough layout based on aerial photos taken on the way down, and that is where most of the life-pod signatures are transmitting from."

Blay new that when Xan said 'most of', he wasn't telling everyone that about 120 soldiers had landed outside the zone and were now MIA or KIA.

"As I said, this map isn't perfect, and enemy strength is unknown…we'll be landing in hazardous territory, most likely vastly outnumbered. Are you all with me?"

Every single clone answered, "Yes, sir!"

Blay turned as he saw 7 LAAT's land on the sand, and beyond, he saw allied tanks hover into the highway tunnel – under Xan's orders – to scout out the area beyond.

812 and the other 3 clones in his squad advanced cautiously towards the wreckage of the vehicle, after passing a black-clad corpse. They had confirmed that he was dead, and now 2 of the clones lifted up the wreckage to check for the green giant while 812 and the last clone secured the second black-armoured corpse.

But this one was alive.

They removed his helmet and 812 gasped as he saw the human's scar.

It was exactly the same as Xan's!

The human groaned, but was unconscious.

"Sergeant 812, report." Xan's voice came over the comm.

812 gulped.

"Uh, we have one dead, one alive, but the green soldier is gone."

"Very good, well done. Take him to the CP until he comes to for questioning, and fill me in."

Uh oh.

812 couldn't allow for this – Scorp would be here soon, and he would get all the glory for the kill. He could not allow that.

"No! I mean- sir, we'll meet you on the ship with the prisoner."

There was silence on the comm.

"Very well, we'll see you on the ship, Xan out."

Xan, Blay and Hawkins stood on board the lead LAAT, the engines were humming loudly, and they were ready to take off, all they were waiting for was Bravo squad with the prisoner.

"Why are you bringing him?" Hawkins asked Xan over their private channel.

"Because I believe that he knows the streets better than our map designers, and he can probably lead us through, and maybe even get us out of a sticky situation by telling us alternate routes."

"But we have no idea who – or what – he is!" Blay said, agreeing with Hawkins.

Their conversation was cut short as the prisoner was thrown on board, and he landed at their feet. The unknown soldier was clad entirely in black, but his helmet had been taken off. Xan gasped.

The soldier's leg had been crushed, most likely from the vehicle that had tumbled over the top of him, sections of his 'armour' had been burned away, and his skin had been burned and was black and charred, not too bad, but enough so that it would hurt a lot when he came to. The soldier was human. But Xan wasn't looking at the injuries.

He was looking at the soldier's face.

Silverman was drowsy, and he groggily awoke from his state of unconsciousness, and good only see blurred images. He coughed, and then felt pain in his right arm and leg, and gasped, his eyes flying fully open he sat up and shouted, gritting his teeth and willing it to go away. When he was sure that the pain had died down a little, he squeezed his eyes shut and slowly opened them, making an effort to breathe slowly, and then he looked up.

He was on some sort of transport ship, one of far different design to human or Covenant, and he realised that he had company; a crowd of the white soldiers were standing around him, all of them unmoving, and his eyes narrowed as one crouched before him.

They're like clones.

All of the soldiers looked exactly the same

He remembered that they tried to kill him, Sarge and the Chief, so he felt for his weapons – gone.

Damn it!

Where were they? Had they gotten away? Or were they prisoners too? Or worse, were they dead? He had no way of telling.

Shit.

He lashed out with his good leg – in anger – in a feeble attempt to kick the crouching soldier. It grabbed Silverman's leg and held it there with one hand, then pulled out a weapon – which was what Silverman presumed to be a pistol, as that is what it looked like – and levelled it with the bridge of Silverman's nose.

"I will say this once more, and only once." The voice was projected from speakers of some sort and sounded human; Silverman knew it had come from the white soldier with the pistol.

He continued, shouting what they had heard on the Warthog radio however long ago.

"I am Captain 325 of the Republic, stationed aboard the Helmor, and I want your name, rank and verification status of our army in 10 seconds or I will pull this trigger, do you understand me?!"

The soldier sounded pissed and nervous, but he didn't know what about. But he knew he didn't intend to find out in Hell.

"My name is Corporal James Silverman, with the United Nations Space Corps., and I have no fucking idea who you are."

The soldier with the pistol paused, thinking for a moment.

"Fine, Silverman. I think you'll find that we have a lot in common."

Silverman's temper flared.

"You tried to kill two of my CO's, and you barge into the middle of a war when our race is near extinction, and you say we have something in common?!?! For all I know you're a fucking alien!"

The clone then dropped the pistol, popped a seal on the helmet and ripped it off, and Silverman's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

The soldier was human, and he looked like the battle-hardened face of one of the elite ODST's. But that's not what Silverman was focusing on.

There was a scar on the soldier's face that was

A/N: Done! Finally! Sorry for that, for anybody who was waiting, but I am now back into the habit of writing! And hopefully I'll get them done twice as fast, as soon as I'm finished the next chapter of the other one I'm working on.

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