Spartan 058 - The Tale of a Sniper

Chapter 6 - Sacramento, California, Mechanical Beta Station 5

"Linda! Please respond," Will shouted, he knew she wouldn't but he kept on trying anyways, "If you copy respond now!" His mind was racing, he knew that Linda had already "died" once, and he didn't want there to be a second time. Will bolted out the tech room door, he had to get to Linda and Fred fast, he knew they probably wouldn't last long alone in New Mombassa. As he ran through the labyrinth of corridors he pondered on what could have made Linda's COM go silent, Covenant maybe, or was it something larger like a plasma torpedo. Only time would give him the answers and he was running out of it.

The glare of flashlights woke her up in the midst of the night, what were these people doing? She remembered the face of one of the four men, he and a nice looking lady had talked to her as she was walking home from school. But what was he doing here again, in the middle of the night at her home? One of the other men grabbed her while another pulled out one of her fiery red hairs, no tears came from her emerald eyes as she was taken from her home and put into a large van.

Linda awoke screaming in pain, her body burnt and smelled of flesh, a large piece of ferrocrete was pinning her down mid-torso, she could tell her lungs were punctured by the ribs because breathing hurt and was short lived. Thankfully her head was untouched, she wished she could say the same for the rest of her body, her COM didn't work but some of her other systems did, her suit was running at 30 efficiency. She remembered talking to Will, and then the explosion came, it rocked her eardrums and sent her to the ground as the building crumbled, she could remember Fred screaming as well. Fred! She had completly forgot about him, she looked around for signs of him and spotted his flourescent green hand poking out of a pile of rubble. She knew that she needed to get to him, she grabbed the ferrocrete and with the help of a steel bar was able to move it enough for her to get out. Her legs weren't broken just sore beyond belief, it was her chest she needed to worry about, but all these things she pused to the back of her mind, her main priority was to get Fred out. She dug for nearly two hours exposing more and more of Fred's feeble body, he was unconcious and badly hurt, but he would probably make it if they made it to a nearby med station or hospital. The roar of a Pelican ahead made her sigh in relief, with much pain due to her punctured lungs, as she saw a Spartan rapell down, his FOF tag showed that he was Will.

"Thank God, are you okay Linda?" asked Will as he rushed to her side and started helping her dig out Fred.

"Things could be better, I was worried that you wouldn't make it off in time before the bomb blew." said Linda with a hint of worry in her voice.

"Oh don't worry about that, twenty minutes after I got on board they shipped me planetside, instead of my suit getting sent up they got a mystery box filled with a hundred jars of mayonaise," Will said with a laugh, "I can't wait till I find the person who made the mistake because I want to thank him for getting me off of there."

They finished getting Fred out thanks to the arrival of Will after about twenty more minutes of moving.

"His vital signs are pretty low, we need to get him to somewhere where we can patch him up soon, and the same with you to," said Will as he and Linda loaded him onto a stretcher and into the Pelican.

"Don't worry about me I'll be fine, let's just worry about the tast at hand, from what I know the Chief and Cortana followed the Prophet of Regret into slipspace, the explosion from them leaving inside of an atmosphere was what blew me and Fred on our asses," said Linda as the two of them flew miles above the ground to the nearest med station. "We'll probably end up with cleanup crew around the area to look for living Covies."

"Do you have any idea where the Chief was going? Or why?" asked Will who was still absorbing Linda's last statement.

"None whatsoever, I guess we'll just find out when he gets back from doing what he does best," remarked Linda.

They were coming up on a medical facility in northern Germany to undergo Fred's surgery when Will's COM snapped to life, Miranda Keyes voice came through.

"We're in uncharted space near another Halo, the Covenant say that it is Installation - 05, we'll remain in contact as much as possible."

The COM snapped off.

Will's head lowered, "Here we go again."