Chapter Four: Wounded in Action

An Abandoned House, along Highway 87, Nevada

November 2, 2557

A sharp crack woke Howell from his sleep.

"What was that?" he asked as he sat up, rubbing his tired eyes. His teddy bear was tucked in the nook of his arm, hanging out without a care in the world. "Michelle, what was..." his voice trailed off when he realized that neither the human nor the Elite were in their beds. Getu's armor was gone from the heap that it had been in during the night.

He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and stood up, gently setting his teddy bear on the bed. "Don't worry, Teddy," he told the stuffed animal, as he reached into his suitcase and pulled out the M6C pistol from within. "I'll be back for you in a minute."

Keeping the weapon level before him, much like the people he had seen in the movies, Howell slowly walked down the hall to the door. So far, he hadn't seen any signs of either of his teammates, but he did notice that some of the weapons were missing from their stash.

He heard some faint shouting from outside, followed by a long barrage of Assault Rifle fire. Howell released the breath that he had been holding. At least he knew that Michelle was alive. Opening the door, he caught a glance at the outdoors...and wished he hadn't.

Two Promethean Knights stood in the yard, firing away with their Suppressors, while a Watcher floated lazily above, providing occasional support to the two Knights. When a Knight saw Howell, it turned its weapon on him.

"Get down!" Michelle cried, reaching up and grabbing him by the collar. She yanked him down behind the over-turned table that she was using as cover. "You don't want to get shot, do you?"

"It's not on my list of things to do," Howell admitted, struggling to adjust his large body size in the small cramped area. "But then again, living through the end of the world wasn't on that list either." Three bolts of hardlight hit the wall above his head, and he flinched. "I'm beginning to regret coming on this expedition already."

Michelle was still in the nightgown, and had her MA5 in her hands. It wasn't something that you would expect to see early in the morning, but in the given situation, Howell didn't think much of it. "Where's our alien friend?" he asked, noting the absence of Getu. "Don't tell me he's dead."

Shaking her head, Michelle popped out of cover only to be forced back in by heavy fire. "He's preparing a little ambush," she explained, looking at the ammo count on the rifle's stock and grimacing. She would have to go to her last clip soon. "But if he takes any longer, this table's not going to hold up."

"Well, this is fantastic," Howell said, offering his pistol to Michelle. "Here, you might need this; you'll be a better shot with it than I will."

"No, hang on to that. That could be your only defense someday."

Shrugging, Howell nodded. "I see. And do you want me to start shooting, or simply wait for our alien to take them out?"

Michelle groaned. "Of course I want you to wait it out. Why bother risking your life for our survival?" Several rounds of hardlight impacted on the table-top, cracking the glass. "I mean, it's not like we're going to actually have trouble along this journey, just giant alien robots that want to kill us!"

Howell nodded. "I'm no stranger to sarcasm." He gripped his pistol, and peered over the edge of the table. "Well, those things certainly are large...to say the least."

"Just shut up and shoot!"

Howell ducked down, and fired his pistol randomly over the edge of the table. "I don't think I hit any of them," he said, bringing his hand back into cover. "And I don't think that this table's going to hold up any longer."

Michelle sighed. "You didn't even aim! How the hell were you supposed to hit them in the first place? This is how you do it." She stood up, firing off the last of the Assault Rifle clip into one Knight's body. There were enough bullets to break the shields, but not to kill it. "Now shoot it!" Michelle shouted at Howell, as she ducked back down.

Taking a deep breath, Howell stood up and leveled the pistol at the weakened Knight. He squeezed his eyes shut as he pulled the trigger over and over again. He felt a hand grab his arm and pull him back down behind cover.

"Nice shot," Michelle said, with a hint of a smile on her face. "You actually got it."

"I did?" Howell asked, completely surprised. He peeked over the edge of the table and saw the Knight falling onto its back, disintegrating into small orange particles that floated away in the sky. "I mean, I did."

The Watcher that was lazily floating around saw its comrade go down, and flew over to resurrect it from the small glowing orb left behind.

"Ah shit," Michelle cursed, as she saw the Watcher move it. "Take that thing out, fast!" She aimed her Assualt Rifle at it, and squeezed the trigger...only to hear the nice click of an empty clip. "Dammit! Howell! Shoot it before it can rebuild its buddy!" she ordered, fumbling for her last clip.

"I'm out, too," Howell replied, with much resignation in his voice. "And I don't have a spare clip." He snuck a peek out at the battlefield, and saw that the other Knight was simply watching the Watcher. "The other is wide open," he informed Michelle, as she finished loading the last clip.

"Screw that, I'm taking out the Watcher first." She brought the rifle up and out of cover, just in time to see the Watcher go down in pieces. She sighed in relief. "There's Getu."

The other Knight turned toward the slightly distorted blob of light and opened fire with the Suppressor, only to find its arm cut off a few seconds later. It raised its sword arm, prepared to strike at the Elite, only to get its knee sliced open.

Michelle jumped out of cover and ran toward them as the Knight crumpled to the ground. Getu was standing over it, with his Energy Sword ready for the killing blow. "Nice timing," she told her alien friend. "Any longer and we would've been dead."

Getu clicked his mandibles. "It would've been here sooner, but it was harder to get onto the roof of that house than I thought it would. Especially for someone like me."

The Knight lashed out with its hardlight sword, narrowly missing both Getu and Michelle. "Yeah, go ahead and kill that thing," Michelle ordered, walking over where the first Knight had gone down. "Wait, why were you going to the roof?"

"Better ambush point," Getu replied, thrusting his sword into the Knight's abdomen. He then twisted the blades, killing the Knight. It erupted into a storm of orange particles and disintegrated. "Besides, some of the Knights can somehow see through Active Camouflage. I wasn't going to take that risk. So I attacked from above."

Michelle shrugged, kicking a piece of Watcher away. "I guess that makes sense. You did save our asses, and that's what counts." Reaching down, she grabbed the first Knight's Suppressor. "Hey Getu, grab the other one and we'll add them to our armory."

"On it," he replied, snatching the weaponry from the ground. "And what about these?" he asked, holding up a cube-like object. "Should we take these as well?"

"What are those?" Michelle asked. She had seen some of the cubes before, in places where Promethean Knights had died. However, she had no idea what they were.

Getu tossed one to her. "They're Promethean Pulse Grenades. When thrown, the make a huge sphere and drain the energy shields of the people in or near it. Then, it implodes, completely disintegrating anyone inside."

Michelle let out a low whistle, looking the cube over. "Yeah, we can definitely use them. They work against Knights, right?"

"They should."

"Great," Michelle replied, tossing the grenade back to Getu. Put it in a separate place from out frags and plasmas. I want to conserve them as much as possible."

Getu nodded. "I assume we'll be departing soon?"

"Yep. I'm going to put my armor back on, and then we'll be leaving. That gives you and Howell a few minutes to pack up your gear and grab some more food supplies."

Michelle handed her Suppressor to Getu, who slapped them on to his hip plates for temporary storage. "I'll get Howell ready to leave," said the alien, as he headed for the other human, who was still behind the glass table.

After Michelle had suited up in her armor, which smelled strongly of lilacs after the excess amount of detergent, and after Howell and Getu shoved loads of assorted foods into a sports bag that they found in the garage, the three of them departed and continued on their journey to the small city of Payson.


It had been nearly three hours since they left their house, and the sun was hanging high overhead. The highway that they were traveling on was surprisingly empty. On occaison, there was a stopped car on the road, and every time there was something that prevented it from being used. First was no fuel. The next had no wheels or engine. The last was on fire.

"I don't see why we have to eat the fruit first," Howell commented, with a mouthful of banana. "I'm sure that having one bag of chips won't hurt our food supplies."

Michelle sighed in agitation. This was Howell's fifth food related comment in the past five minutes. And the fact that she had been unsuccessfully screwing around with one of the Suppressors for the past half hour in an attempt to learn how to reload it wasn't helping "The fruit would go bad long before any of the other food, so we need to get that out of the way first. When the fruit's gone, we'll work on the chips and other junk food."

"That seems lame." Howell tossed the banana peel behind him. "Any chance we can find something with wheels? My feet are killing me. I'm not wearing shoes that are made to take this much torture. I'll have blisters the size of Mars on my feet before this is over."

"Oh, quit your bitching and figure this out," Michele ordered, shoving the Suppressor in to his hands. "That should take your mind off of the pain for a while."

Howell mumbled something under his breath, but submitted to the request and began working with the gun.

"Getu, can you hand me the map?" Michelle asked, as they passed by another ruined car. This one was upside down and completely crushed. "I want to know where we are."

A few seconds later, the Elite handed her the old-fashioned paper map. "I'm not sure how you plan to find out where we are, since you have no immediate point of reference. But, by all means, feel free."

Michelle realized he was right. How could she find out where they were if there wasn't anything around to use as a point of reference? "Um..." She looked around trying to find anything that they could use. "Aha, there!" She pointed toward a rest stop several meters up the road. "There's bound to be something there that we can use."

"And there's probably a place where I can rest my feet," Howell muttered, still fiddling with the Promethean weapon. "Are you sure that this thing is supposed to be reloaded? Maybe it's one of those one-use weapon. When it runs empty, they simply throw it away."

"I'm not even going to answer that," Michelle replied, taking the lead toward the rest station.


The rest station was smaller than expected, having only fifteen parking spots and two small bathrooms. There was a main building in the middle of it all, with all the map information that they would need.

"I'm going to head to the restrooms," Howell announced, handing the Suppressor back to Michelle. "I can't figure that damn thing out. Maybe we should just abandon the alien tech and stick to what we know." He turned and walked to the bathroom.

"Getu, go with him," Michelle said. "I don't want him to be alone. Bad things happen when people are alone."

Getu cocked his head to the side as he trailed after the human. "But then I would be leaving you alone, and you say bad things happen when people are alone, and you'd be alone..."

"I'm a Marine, and he's just some fat rich guy," Michelle reminded him. "I can take care of myself."

"Whatever you say," Getu said, before sprinting off to catch up with Howell. He could feel that something bad was about to happen. Call it his sixth Sangheili sense...

"Now, where are we?" Michelle asked herself, heading off to the main building where the maps would be. It was empty as she expected, but there was the map pillar in the middle of the room, fortunately with power.

She went over to it and touched the screen. It hummed to life, bringing up a map of the area. Unfortunately, the link to the satellite had failed, so she was viewing a map that hadn't been updating in six years. Fortunately, that didn't matter. Nothing had changed much in this area in six years.

Upon finding the "you are here" dot, Michelle found something that made her much happier. It was only another five miles to Payson. "Thank God," she muttered, turning to leave. "My feet were beginning to hurt as well."

The minute she stepped outside of the doors, Michelle could tell something was wrong. Maybe it was the fact that it was completely silent, without the birds and whatever other animals in the area that the Prometheans didn't bother with. Or maybe it was the three dots on her helmet's motion tracker.

All three of the were coming from behind her, advancing toward her position. She knew that none of them were Getu, since she had specially tagged the Elite for easy identification. In a flash, she pulled her rifle off her back and whipped around to face the dots.

Three men were behind her, and they instantly raised their hands when they saw the rifle. "Look lady, we don't mean no harm," one said, at an obvious discomfort at the sight of the machine gun aimed at him. "We're just lookin' for food."

Michelle lowered the weapon slightly, but kept it at the ready. "Yeah, I'm doing the same," she lied, deciding that it was better that they didn't know that she had a food supply. They might turn violent when she refused to share. "But some damned looters already cleared this place out."

"Hey, you're a Marine, aren't ya?" another one asked, inspecting her armor. "That's...a good thing, right?" he asked, looking over to one of his friends.

The friend shrugged. "Well...I guess so. After all, there is only one of them."

"What are you talking about?" Michelle asked, tensing her grip on the MA5. There was something about these guys that seemed...off. The all had on dirty T-shirts with worn out, faded jeans. They didn't look like they needed food, or had been without it. The one in the middle was actually quite fat.

"You'll help us, right?" asked the first one. "We've been wanting to head into some larger cities and towns, but with those giant alien things, and then looters, we just haven't had the courage."

So, they were just a bunch of scared survivors? They saw a Marine, and figured that the Marine would help them. That makes sense. With a hesitant sigh of relief, Michelle lowered her rifle and extended her hand. "Corporal Michelle Collins," she introduced.

Suddenly, she felt the rifle torn from her grasp. "What are-" The stock of the rifle slammed into her face, and she fell to the ground holding her jaw. "Ah, dammit!" she swore, enduring the pain. "What the hell?"

The large man in the middle of the group sighed. "Jensen, can't you knock out people with the first hit?"

"I'm sorry," the one called Jensen apologized. "But I was raised not to hit girls. It's hard for me to do."

"Idiot." The fat man ripped the rifle out of his comrades hands, and stood over Michelle. "Sorry about this, but only the strong survive." He raised the weapon, and then brought it down on her head.

Michelle was instantly knocked out.


"No, I'm not going to explain what that graffiti says," Howell said, for the tenth time in the past few minutes. "It's completely obscene; I wouldn't be caught dead uttering those foul words. It's beyond someone with just a status as myself."

Getu squinted at the etched writing above the urinal. "Well...there's just this one human word that I've never come across before. It's a five letter word...and it's spelled P-E-N-"

"Just stop," Howell snapped. He turned on the sink, and stuck his hands into the warm water. "I guarantee that it's nothing you'd want to hear about, but if you must know...please ask Michelle."

"Eh," Getu replied, clicking his mandibles. "Whatever that is, the person who wrote that he has a stiff one." He went over to the sinks, and looked at his reflection in the mirror. "Hm, how about that? There's a scratch in my shoulder armor," he muttered.

Howell chuckled. "At least you have armor. All I've got is this checkered suit. It was my wife's favorite..." He sighed, and looked up at himself in the mirror. "Have you ever met a woman you loved, Getu?"

The alien cocked his head. "Like what? A mate?"

"Well, we humans call them spouses, but I guess they're the same."

"In that case, then no. Why? Have you?"

Howell nodded. "My wife, she was the best wife a man could ask for. She could cook a great meal, she was there when the times were rough, she knew exactly how to take care of the kids while they were growing up, and she never cut me off in bed."

"I see," Getu said, "and she's no longer with you?"

Howell shook his head. "No, not anymore. We were vacationing in New Alexandria a few years ago, in the penthouse of one of the most luxorious hotels in the city. She and I stepped outside on the balconey, and what do we see? A Covenant starship over the city. We made a run for the evacuation site, but she didn't make. Got gunned down just a few yards short of the Pelican."

Getu felt guilt rising in his stomach. "If it was my species that did this, then I am truly sorry. We were blinded by the lies of our Prophets."

"No, Getu," Howell said, "It wasn't Elites. It was the Brutes. I just wish-"

The Elite raised his fist to silence Howell. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I thought I heard Michelle screaming something..." Getu walked to the bathroom door, and cracked it open enough for him to peek out of. He saw Michelle on the ground, and a man with her rifle standing over her. Two other humans were walking off to the highway.

Howell poked his head out just below Getu's mandibles. "Is she alive?" he asked, once he saw the scene.

"Unsure," Getu replied, grabbing his Energy Sword hilt. "You get the one man with Michelle. I'll take the other two," he said, as he activated his active camo and went out through the back window.

Taking a deep breath, Howell pulled his pistol out of his pocket, flipped off the safety, and went to face the one man. He put the sights on the man as he advance. "Hey! You there! Back away from the woman, or we're going to have a problem!"

The man looked up and upon seeing the pistol he put his hands up, keeping the Assault Rifle in his grip. "hey, I don't want any trouble old man."

Howell motioned to the ground. "Throw the weapon down, and kick it away." The man did as he was told. "Now step away from my friend."

Looking down at Michelle, who was just starting to push herself up, the man shook his head. "Sorry old man, but that's not going to happen."

"Step away from her, or I'll put a bullet right through you."

"You don't have the guts, old man," the man taunted.

"To hell I don't," Howell muttered, squeezing the trigger of his M6C.

Click.

Howell looked down at his pistol, suddenly remembering that he ran out of ammo shooting at the Knights outside the house they camped in last night. Fear swelled in his heart at that moment.

"That's too bad, old man," the man said, reaching into the back of his jeans and producing a pistol of his own. "You're damn outta luck." He aimed it at Howell and fired.