Chapter Five: Sterling Silver
Rest Stop on Highway 87, in Nevada
November 2, 2557
Michelle's world was spinning. The man with the rifle had probably given her a concussion from each time he hit her in the face. She blinked trying to gain some sense of reality, looking at her fallen friend. "Howell!" she yelled, after gathering most of her strength.
There was no response.
She started to push herself up, only to have the man kick her back to the ground. "Now now, we can't have you getting away, now can we?" he asked, rolling her onto her back with his foot. "Your friend over there made it so I had to shoot him. If he hadn't come out with his weapon," he chuckled, "his empty weapon, then we would just stolen all of your weapons and food, and then we'd be done with you."
Michelle tried to remain as calm as she could, even though she felt like she was about to pass out. Slowly, her hand began to trail down to her leg, where she kept her combat knife sheathed. "You...you murderer!" she seethed, managing to get the words out.
The man smiled, and shook his head. "No, I'm not. I'm a survivor." He reached down and grabbed Michelle by her collar, and lifted her to her feet. "Only the strong can survive out here." He thrust the barrel of the pistol into her stomach. "Now," he said, with a smug grin of supremacy, "how about a kiss for little old me?"
Struggling in his grasp, Michelle was desperate to get free. But, in the end, she was weak and on the edge of consciousness, and he was physically stronger than her. The man smiled, pulling her closer to him. "I'm not letting you go. Not until you give me a little something, if you know what I mean."
"Oh, I'm going to give you a little something," Michelle replied, secretly enjoying the man's quick flash of confusion, "if you know what I mean." With a single motion, she pulled the knife out of its sheath and stabbed it into the man's torso. As he cried out in pain, Michelle knocked the pistol away from her, but a moment too late.
The was a flash and a bang, and Michelle felt something small and hot tear through her side. Both she and the man fell to the ground at the same time, although the man was in much worse condition. "I'm the survivor," Michelle seethed, swiping the pistol out of the man's hand and aiming it as his head.
The man just glared at her, his gaze made out of pure hatred and pain. Michelle didn't hesitate. She pulled the trigger, and watched the man's brains fly out the back of his head.
For the first time in the past ten minutes, Michelle could finally breath easier. She let the pistol slip from her hands, and went to check her wound. The bullet had just grazed her, but there was nothing major other than a little blood loss.
"Dammit, that hurts," she muttered through the sharp pain. She brought herself back up to her knees, and slowly began crawling towards the fallen, crumpled body of Howell. "Howell!" she cried again, hoping to get some response.
Nothing.
"Oh dammit," she swore again, as she got closer to her fallen friend. "He's not moving, that's bad...Getu! Getu! Getu, where the hell are you!" Michelle's eyes darted around, searching for her tall Sangheili comrade, but he was no where in sight.
"Over there!" The other two men that had been with the first man came running toward her, weapons in hand. "She killed the boss!" They both snapped their small firearms up at her, preparing to shoot.
Michelle swore, looking around for the first man's pistol that she had used. She swore again when she saw it laying next to his dead body, several feet away from her.
There was a bang, and she felt something zip by her head. They had begun shooting at her. "Shit," she cursed, looking around for any means of protection. Howell's pistol was next to him, but it was completely dry of ammo.
The second shot narrowly missed her hand, sending up a small clump of dirt. Both of the men just laughed at her, and began shooting around her. They weren't trying to hit her, at least not yet. They were just toying with her for pure excitement.
"Getu!" Michelle cried again. Several seconds passed, and the Elite was still not in sight. "Fuck." She had only her knife, and that wouldn't be effective at this range. While she did know how to throw a knife, her weakened state made it impossible.
Then she saw her Assault Rifle laying next to the dead body of the man, several feet away. It was her only hope.
She slowly began crawling towards it, flinching as another bullet shot into the ground mere inches from her hand. Michelle didn't cower or retreat, she pushed herself forward again, putting her closer to her gun.
"Hey, she's going for the gun!" one of the men shouted, and he ran over and kicked the rifle farther out of reach. "You might have killed the boss, but don't expect to get lucky with us, bitch," he said, leaning down into Michelle's face.
Michelle just glared at him through a swollen eye with pure hate and anger on her face. These guys had shot, and possibly killed Howell, and now Getu was missing. She went for her knife, now that the second guy was in close enough range, only to find that it wasn't in its sheath, but still stuck in the chest of the first man.
"What are we going to do with her?" the third man asked, catching up to his friend. "We can't just leave her here. She knows our faces, man. She could get the authorities, and we'd be in a lot of shit, man." He wrung his hands, looking around rapidly, making sure that they weren't being watched. A bead of sweat rolled down his face. "We have to kill her, right?"
The second man shook his head. "What authorities would she go to? All the towns around here have gone to hell. That's why were out here robbing and killing people. We need to survive." He paused, leaning over to spit out a wad of saliva. "We can take her back to the hideout. Keep her prisoner, and, you know, make a good use of her."
"What do you mean? She doesn't look like she'd be good for anything."
"I'm a great cook," Michelle commented drily, wiping some of the blood leaking down her chin away. "I can make one hell of a cake."
"See?" the second man said to the third. "She can cook...among other things, if you catch my drift."
The third man wrinkled his brow. "No...I don't."
The second man face-palmed, only to suddenly jerk to the left and fall to the ground, clutching his throat. Blood gushed from a bullet hole that had just appeared below his head, and the second man was dead before he fell.
"What the?" The third man whirled around, only for a bullet to find his head. He went down with a scream, and his pistol discharged into the ground.
Michelle rapidly looked around, trying to find the attacker. "Getu?" she asked, slightly hopeful. "Getu, is that you?"
"Are you alright, Corporal?"
She whirled around to face the man behind her. He was tall, taller than her anyway, but other than that, she couldn't make out any other details, since he was clad in ODST armor. In his right hand, there was a silenced pistol with smoke rising from the barrel. "Corporal?"
"I'm...I'm fine," Michelle replied, looking the ODST up and down. Could she trust this guy, or was he another person who was simply going to lie to them to get at their supplies? "I've had worse than this before."
The ODST nodded and offered his hand to help her up. "Yeah, tell me about it. I'm Sergeant Silver, of the 345th ODST Division. I'm second in command of Skull Team. Perhaps you've heard of them?"
Michelle shook her head as she took his hand. "Sorry, I've never heard of them," she answered, as the ODST pulled her to her feet. "Do you have any medical supplies, or medical knowledge, or something?"
"Um...yeah. But you don't look that bad. Just a little blood and a black eye. Nothing to be too concerned about."
"It's not for me." She motioned to Howell's fallen figure. "It's for him. He might still be alive."
Sergeant Silver looked at her, and then to the body. "I don't know, he doesn't appear to be moving. See, dead bodies have that trait. They're very still, and they're typically laying on the ground."
"Just go check, please."
"Please what?" He tapped his rank's insignia on his armor.
Michelle sighed. He's pulling rank at a time like this. "Please, sir."
"That's better." Silver walked over to Howell, and rolled him onto his back. "I don't see any blood, but there is a bullet hole in his jacket..." He placed on hand on Howell's neck, checking for a pulse, while he followed the hole to Howell's pocket.
Michelle watched him, and when he wasn't paying her any attention, she slowly reached down and picked up the pistols of the second and third man, making sure they were loaded and ready in case she needed to use them. She felt a sharp pain in her side, from the bullet wound. But, being the tough-ass Marine that she was, she shook it off, ignoring the small amount of blood.
"You won't fucking believe this," Silver told her, holding up a small golden square with something stuck into it. "He's got a strong pulse, but he's out cold. The bullet didn't even hit him."
"What?"
"He had freaking gold in his pocket. It caught the bullet."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously what?" Howell murmured, cracking his eyes open. They shot open when he saw Silver holding his precious gold ingot. "Give me that!" he snapped, snatching it out of the ODST's hands. "I'll let you know that this has been passed down in my family for many generations..." he trailed off as he saw the bullet embedded in it, destroying the Howell family coat of arms engraved on the shiny gold. "What the hell?"
Michelle felt her burden get slightly lighter. At least Howell was still alive, even if his priceless family heirloom had been ruined. "Looks like your family knew how to keep their people alive," she remarked, smiling slowly crossing her face as she walked over to the two of them. She stayed behind Silver, and made sure to have a pistol ready to strike if this ODST really wasn't here to help.
"Yes, well," said Howell, as Silver offered his hand and helped him to his feet. "My family always considered this little piece of gold to be good luck. The Howell family had a lot of enemies, and whoever carried this wouldn't get hurt by rival companies."
Silver chuckled. "Well, it looks like it also works for scavengers as well." He looked over at Michelle gazing at her from behind his blue visor. "So, where are you two heading? Perhaps I can offer you a lift." The ODST motioned to the highway, where his vehicle was waiting.
It was a brand-new Ford 2558 model, with comfortable room for four, and an expansive truck bed that could hold a whole Mongoose. Which it did. It was a nice sleek black, with imitation chrome rims and top speed was nearly 250 miles an hour.
"You'd really give us a lift for free?" Michelle asked, bringing up one of the pistols and checked the magazine. "That's nice of you, stranger." She had a feeling that there was a catch. There usually always was.
"Well, I didn't say that it would be free," Silver added, with a shrug. "I'll give you a lift, for a price."
"What's the price?" Howell asked, shoving his hand into his money pocket. "Whatever it is, I assure you that I can pay you in full. In cash."
Silver laughed, shaking his head. "You think I want money? What good would it do when we're stranded out here. No, what I want is dinner."
Michelle looked over to Howell, who sighed at the fact that he would have to give up more food. "Oh come on, Howell, we have more than enough for all of us, and..." She looked around for Getu, who was still out of sight. An uneasy feeling set into her gut.
"And who?" Silver asked.
"Nothing, I was just thinking to myself," Michelle lied, deciding that leaving out the part with their compatriot Sangheili was a smart idea. "We accept your terms and...oh shit." She just remembered that Getu was the ones with the food.
"What?"
"Well, we don't happened to have our food anymore," she admitted, sheepishly. She heard a groan and a face-slap from Howell as he realized it too. "Perhaps we can get a rain check?"
Silver looked between the two of them, and then laughed to himself. "I think you might have misunderstood what I meant." He thrust his index finger at Michelle. "I want dinner with you. As in a date. My unit is holed up in a radio broadcast station up on the mountain. We have plenty of food there."
"Oh..." Michelle suddenly found herself blushing. She hadn't been much of one for romance, after the time in high school when she woke up with a hangover from a party and in bed with another girl. But that's another story. "I...um..."
Howell stepped in. "Just do it, Michelle. He seems like a nice guy, even though we haven't seen his face." He coughed, and kicked a rock along in the grass. "So does this mean that the nice ODST is going to give us a ride now?"
"Ugh, fine," agreed Michelle, "I'll go on your stupid date with you, if that makes you happy. But, there are some ground rules. First, no hugging on the date. Second, no kissing on the date. Lastly, no sex on the date. Okay?"
Silver just glared at her for several seconds. "Wow, you sure know how to take the fun out of stuff, but yeah, I won't do any of that. It'll just be a nice dinner in the candlelight with the two of us and the violin music and the champagne...just like all those romance novels I read. They're just so...moving." His voice slightly cracked at the end, and he almost sounded like he was almost to tears.
Howell elbowed Michelle. "Nice catch you got there, Michelle," he quipped. "Look like he's a keeper."
"Oh, fuck off."
Silver opened the door to his truck, and motioned for them to get inside. "Come on, we need to get moving. I've already been away from my unit long enough. They'll get worried."
Michelle looked around, searching for her alien compatriot. "We can't leave just yet," she said, looking down the road in the direction that Getu had gone. "We still have to wait for our friend."
"Yes, he's still out and about," Howell told the ODST. "He went after these two," he gestured to the two dead scavengers on the ground," and I guess they circled around on him and beat him back here."
"Or they killed him," Silver deadpanned. "Two on one would be a fair fight."
"Trust me, I think he would've had the upper hand anyway," said Howell. "He's a little...different from you and I."
"And he's been know for his inhuman strength," Michelle added, smiling at her own joke to cover the concern in her eyes.
Howell gave a light chuckle. "Yes, that too."
The ODST shook his head. "Look, we don't have much time. The only reason I came out here was to investigate an IFF tag we picked up on the long-range," he explained. "Nothing as nothing said about driving around random people that I met. The only reason I'm offering is because she's UNSC. And hot. And agreed to a date."
Silver reached up and pulled his helmet off, revealing his messing brown hair, calm blue eyes, and smile on his thin lips. Michelle wouldn't say that he was handsome, but then again she didn't really know what a handsome man looked like. Most of the men in her life were drill sergeants, normal sergeants, and gruff marines.
"Say, Corporal," Silver said, pointing to the Assault Rifle on the ground. "Is that yours? If not, I call dibs on it."
Michelle sighed and retrieved the weapon. "It's mine, Sergeant," she said, making sure the rank sounded distasteful on her lips. She wasn't quite sure that she could trust this guy. "I could use ammo if you have any."
"Please, call me Sterling," the ODST said. "That's what my friends call me, after that one incident in Colorado...But away, just call me Sterling."
"So that makes you Sterling Silver, then," Howell noted. "How quaint. I have...had, a lot of that type of silver back in the vault of my mansion. It was worth quite a bit, you know. Would've been enough to pay half of my employees for a year. Or all of my employees for half a year."
Sterling did not seem interested. "Wow, seems like you were quite rich. I always despised rich people. I grew up poor. That's why I joined the ODSTs. They gave me food to each and a bed to sleep in, so it was an improvement."
"Well, Mr. Silver, Sterling, I assure you that the Howells are not a despicable family," Howell said, defending his kin. "We have been a rich and powerful family for a great deal of human history. The earliest record of our family was in 1204, and even at that time we had a large sum of money. Although there were the estate issues a few centuries later, when one of my ancestors was stuck on an island, we still came out on top."
Sterling glared at him. "Just because you were on top, doesn't mean that you couldn't have helped the families that were struggling to survive. If you have billions, then you have more than enough to help needy people. But you don't. Rich people are self-centered, only focused on-"
"Stop, I don't want to have to put up with an argument right now," Michelle said. She slung her Assault Rifle onto her back, and looked off into the distance, toward where she hoped Getu was coming from. "Where is he?" she muttered to herself, fearing the worst.
Following her gaze, Sterling shook his head. "It looks like your friend might not be coming. He might not even be alive." He once again opened the door, and motioned for them to get in. "We can't stick around here all day."
Howell scoffed. "Well, I don't see why not," he said, mainly because of his new disgust toward Sterling for calling him out for being rich. "There's nothing out here but dirt, rocks, and those three dead bodies. There's nothing that can-"
An inhuman screech echoed throughout the area, and several of Promethean Crawlers jumped into sight from behind some bushes. Two of them were almost instantly cut down by Sterling's pistol, while another went down from Michelle's.
"So, now you want to leave?" Sterling asked, quickly reaching into his truck and pulling out a SAW. He unleashed a huge wave of bullets into the Crawlers approaching them, slowly climbing into the driver seat. "If not, then it's been nice knowing you!"
Howell ran at what might have been the fastest he's ever run in his life and jumped into the truck bed. "Come on, Michelle! We need to get out of here!"
"What about Getu?" she shouted back, raising both pistols and firing. The Crawlers had begun to return fire, and orange bolts were flying through the air. Most of the Crawlers had the Forerunner Pistols that Michelle had read about, the name slipped her mind, and they were too concerned about dodging the human's bullets than aiming at the human.
"Move it, Corporal, or we're leaving you!" Sterling shouted, slamming the door shut and passing the SAW through the back window to Howell. "Here, keep them off of us!" He turned on the ignition, and revved the engine. "What's it going to be, Corporal?" he asked, as a few orange bolts pelted the side of his truck.
Michelle's pistols clicked dry. Swearing, she threw them down, and turned and ran toward the truck, For those few moments, she forgot about her Elite comrade, and her instincts were trying to keep her alive. She dove into the back with Howell, and tore the machine gun out of his hands, much to the rich man's dismay.
"Go!" she shouted, firing off the rest of the clip at the Prometheans. The truck began speeding away just as some Knights joined the Crawlers, one of them with an Incineration Cannon at the ready.
Several seconds passed, and they were several hundred yards away from the enemies. Michelle sighed and lowered the weapon. The Prometheans, they had come from the exact same direction that Getu had went. That didn't seem like a good sign. The Prometheans and Getu might have had an encounter, and if the Prometheans were the ones to come back, then that means that...
Howell seemed to read her thoughts, and placed his hand on her shoulder. "It's okay," he told her, trying to hide his own worry. "He's out there somewhere, looking for us. He's smart. He'll find us."
Michelle shook her head. "No, we're driving down the road at fifty-miles an hour. Even if he's an Elite, there's no way he'll be able to find us. He might not even be..."
She didn't finish her sentence, and the two of them sat in silence. The entire time their thoughts were on their missing ally, the one that they might never see again.
