Date: March 26th
Location: Reach training fields, one miles from the underground base
Today, the taskforce was going through another phase of training, only it was on pelicans. Some were learning how to fly, apart from the pilot taskforce soldiers of course, whilst others were being given the training tasks of firing at targets from the pelican and launching landing operations after being dropped off from one and securing and protecting one from holo-Covenant forces. Pelican training exercises were hard, which was what some taskforce soldiers had said, but others had said they were good and easy.
Marcus did not know which one to believe at first, but today he would be making his own decision on that as he was going through his first training exercise on a pelican. However, what type of exercise it was he would be going through, he did not know. Hopefully, it would be an easy one and not the pelican exercise where you had to try and fly a pelican as he was no good at flying aircraft. Ground vehicles, he could control very easily but piloting a pelican was a lot harder and he really did not want to do that type of training.
"Alright, get ready!" a voice commanded from the cog pit.
Right now, Marcus was on a pelican with four other taskforce soldiers. A pilot named Brian was flying the craft and in the resting area with Marcus was Tyler, a woman, who was also a former marine, with blonde hair, blue eyes and an athletic body called Tanya from Russia and another woman called Alice, who had previously worked at the UNSC company of TechCorps, which was previously built to help in producing new weapons before the war but was now being used to study Covenant technology in hopes of finding a weakness in their ships, with brown hair, green eyes and she had a wound over her hand where a needler projectile had struck it during the Battle of New Milboar on Takra.
The four got up and took out their weapons from under their seats. Marcus, Tanya and Alice took out their battle rifles whilst Tyler took out a large deployable machine gun and set it up at the end of the resting area just in front of the entrance of the craft.
"Alright, soldiers," a voice said from the radio in the cog pit. It was the commanding officer in charge of the training at the training's base. "The targets will enter the training region in ten seconds,"
Upon hearing this, the four in the resting area quickly loaded ammo clips into their weapons and looked out of the resting area, waiting for the targets that would come after them in a few moments.
"Do you think the targets will be seraph fighters?" Tanya asked.
"Maybe," Tyler replied as he knelt down behind the machine gun turret and placed one hand over the trigger of the weapon. "But they'll most likely be banshees,"
"I hope they are," Marcus piped up. "I hate seraph fighters and if we get one of them on our tail, we're dead,"
"Just be thankful this is training," Alice said. "At least we won't actually die in this,"
The others nodded in agreement and resumed looking out the resting area, waiting for the targets to attack them. Marcus took a deep breath to keep calm. His heart was beating like made against his chest like a drum.
C'mon! he thought impatiently through fear. Attack us already!
Then, as if responding to his demands, the radio in the cog pit came to life again.
"Prepare for the attack," the voice said. "Three…two….one…GO!"
All of a sudden, the pelican shook as a barrage of blasts struck the side of it. Marcus and Tanya were thrown to the floor of the resting area but Tyler had managed to hold onto the machine gun turret to stay upright and Alice had grabbed hold of one of the seats to stop herself from falling on her back. As they got up, a large shape came into view from the resting area. It was a banshee, and it was chasing after them!
At once, Tyler got up and fired a barrage of bullets from the machine gun turret at the holo-craft. They hit the target and it fired a blast in return, which he and the other three ducked to avoid as it flew into the resting area and struck the wall next to the doorway that led into the cog pit. Marcus stood up and fired a burst of ammo at the craft, hitting it in one of the engines. A pillar of smoke rose from the banshee's engine and it veered left and disappeared from sight.
"Nice one, Marcus," Tyler commented.
"Look out!" Brian shouted suddenly from the cog pit.
The four were thrown against the right wall of the pelican as it banked in that direction to avoid a head on collision with another banshee. As the four got up, they looked out of the resting area to see the banshee turn around and fly after them. Then, the first banshee descended down from above and flew alongside the second banshee.
"Oh great!" Tanya said. "One of them is bad enough!"
"Let's just hope we take it down," Alice told her and she fired two bursts of ammo at the banshees, hitting both of them in the front but doing very little damage to either one, though it did make the banshees fire a barrage of blasts in return, which hit the craft on the wings and side.
"Hold on!" Brian shouted to them from the cog pit and the four grabbed hold of the seats, Tyler grabbing hold of the turret hard to hang on.
Suddenly, their worlds were spinning violently as Brian began spinning the pelican rapidly non-stop. The banshees tried to fire on the craft but It's quick manoeuvre made all of their blasts miss so they began to copy the pelican and were firing as they did so.
Marcus closed his eyes, as did Tyler, to block the images out of their minds and to stop themselves from throwing up. Tanya and Alice had their faces buried in their seats and were praying that this spinning would stop. Marcus and Tyler were doing the same thing. Their stomachs were churning and they were getting close to throwing up. They too were mentally praying for this to end, but they could not move to the cog pit and tell Brian to stop.
Suddenly, after a few horrible seconds of spinning and the feeling that you would be sick at any second, Brian stopped spinning the craft, but as soon as he did, he suddenly pulled back on the throttles and the pelican came to a halt, which almost threw the group to the floor. The banshees failed to react in time.
CRASH! Both of the craft slammed into the back of the pelican and they fell from the sky to the ground below, crashing into it and creating another loud explosion that lit up the sky. Then, as quickly as they crashed, they disappeared.
Marcus groaned as he got up and rested a hand on his stomach. That was horrible when Brian had spun the pelican around like that. At least the feeling of him throwing up was starting to go away. Another three groans around him made him look to see Tyler, Tanya and Alice sit up. Alice's' face had gone bright green. Tanya had one hand on her head and her eyes were still closed. Tyler began breathing heavy, holding onto the machine gun turret for support. Then, he dragged himself quickly over to the end of the pelican and, with a loud yell, vomited over the edge to the ground below.
"Are you guys alright back there?" Brian shouted to them from the cog pit as he flew the pelican forward again.
"If you do that again, Brian, I will come up and punch you," Tanya warned.
"Well, sorry, Tanya, but we were in a bit of a situation back there," Brian replied.
"Alright, c'mon, knock it off," Marcus barked, silencing the argument between them. "Let's just stay on track with the training,"
"Watch out! We got more of them coming after us!" Tyler warned all of a sudden.
The four looked out of the resting area entrance to see a large craft chasing after them. It was the craft Marcus and Tanya had been talking about a few minutes earlier on and what all of them on the pelican feared. It was a seraph fighter.
The seraph fighter fired a blast at the pelican, striking it at the right wing. A loud alarm sounded from the cog pit. Brian swore loudly and descended the pelican. The seraph fighter flew overhead but quickly turned around and flew after the pelican as it veered left in an effort to get them away from the craft.
"What's going on, Brian?" Tyler shouted to him.
"The right wing's badly damaged!" Brian replied, shouting as the alarm beeped louder.
Another blast shot underneath the pelican, narrowly missing it, followed by another. This time, it hit the pelican, striking it on the back and tearing a chunk of metal off of it.
"Oh crap!" Tyler said as he saw the metal fall off the craft. "We're so dead,"
"Not yet," Marcus told him. "Fire on that seraph fighter!" he ordered.
The other three obeyed and fired on the enemy holo-craft as he did. Their bullets struck the craft repeatedly, but they were doing very little against It's thick armour. It was going to take more than bullets to bring this craft down.
"Hang on, I'm gonna try and out-manoeuvre it!" Brian warned from the cog pit.
All of a sudden, the pelican shot upwards into the air, the seraph fighter following close behind, firing blasts at it as it did. Then, Brian descended the craft sharply and then ascended the craft again, this time Brian hoped the pelican would slam into the seraph fighter as it ascended back up into the sky, but the fighter avoided the pelican's upwards swipe and continued on after it.
Then, as the pelican descended again and veered left, the seraph fighter fired another blast at it. The blast struck the right wing of the craft. This time, smoke began coming out of the right wing and trailing behind the craft, which the four in the resting area quickly noticed. Then, fire engulfed the right wing. A louder alarm beeped from the cog pit.
"Oh no!" Brian exclaimed in panic. "Right wing's on fire!"
"Order command to stop the training then!" Alice shouted to him.
Brian grabbed the radio and shouted into it: "Command, this is Echo 003! Cease the training! I repeat, cease the training!"
No response came back. Brian repeated what he had shouted but still nothing came back. Growling, he threw the radio to the control panel.
"Damn it!" he shouted. "They're not responding! Let's face it, we're dead!"
"No, not yet!" Marcus told him. "Brian, descend the craft and keep descending it and, whatever you do, don't stop," he ordered.
Brian looked at Marcus for a second as if he were crazy, but then nodded and descended the craft. Sure enough, the seraph fighter followed it, firing away at the pelican, but Brian managed to get the pelican to avoid the blasts by moving the craft left and right, but still he continued to descend the craft towards the ground as if he wanted to crash it into it. Closer and closer the ground came but still Brian made no attempt to pull the craft up. Marcus looked through the cog pit door at the window to see the ground approaching, as did Tanya and Alice, who began to panic. Marcus then looked back out through the resting area entrance. The seraph fighter was still following them. Good. He looked back through the cog pit doorway to see the ground just forty feet from them.
"Now! Pull up!" he shouted at Brian.
The pelican, as if responding to his order itself, rose and flew back up into the air. The seraph fighter failed to react in time…
CRASH! The fighter slammed into the ground, throwing up al large cloud of dust and dirt. Marcus, Tyler, Alice and Tanya ran to the end of the resting area and looked down at where it had hit. Just as they did, an explosion erupted from the dust cloud and a large object skidded across the surface of the field, fire coming out of all sides of it.
The four cheered and Brian breathed a sigh of relief.
"Haha!" Marcus shouted in triumph. "We did it!"
"Yeah!" Tyler shot his fist into the air in triumph whist shouting out.
Tanya and Alice hugged each other whilst shouting happily. Brian let out a yell of happiness from the cog pit and clapped his hands whilst laughing.
They had done it. They had passed the training.
"Echo 003, this is training base, over," a voice said from the radio.
Brian grabbed the radio and held it up to his lips.
"Command, we did it!" he shouted. "We got right of the seraph fighter!"
"We know, and good work, guys," the voice replied. "Now, head back to base. You've all done well today,"
Brian set the radio back down on the control panel and banked the pelican right and flew on in the direction of the training buildings. In the resting area, Marcus slumped down into his seat, heaving a heavy sigh of relief. They had done it. They had passed the pelican training. His decision on this training was it was good, but hard.