CHAPTER Four

The men arrived at the cave where the signal was at its strongest. Anders and Kilosomee took positions beside the entrance and made a motion for the grunts to move in and scout the place. After they heard an all-clear, everyone moved in to see a massacre.

There were dead hatching dragons about the place, their guts everywhere as well as blood. A Marine gagged, ran outside and promptly vomited.

"You good?" A sergeant asked the shaky private.

"Search the cave, find any survivors!" Kilosomee ordered and the place bustled about. Anders wandered up to the black dragonelle and sighed. It wasn't a pretty sight. He felt for a pulse or anything.

There.

He felt it. It was very weak, but it kept beating.

"This one's alive," Anders declared, "Signal for a medical team and get their asses up here."

"Sir! I've got another one!" A Private called.

"Bring it here!" The second survivor was a furry drakka. The midsection was bitten nearly in half, but he noticed that she was still breathing.

"Anything else?" Anders com'ed the team. All he got was "No…"

Anders looked around; he saw only four dead hatchlings and tilted his head.

"What is it, Anders?" Kilosomee asked.

"Strange, there are two people missing. From the vid we saw, there were five hatchlings and a dragon. All I see is a dragonelle, a furred Drakka, and four hatchling bodies. That means this was a kidnap and murder." Kilosomee looked and saw that it was true.

"Damn…" Anders said sadly, "Here's one thing, at least," He stood and said to Kilosomee, "We've got our base. Let's signal in, move the bodies and settle in."

It took awhile, but Alpha Base was established and its defenses up and running. Commander Anders looked on as the last occupied cyro tubes that contained a person who volunteered for the patrol before things went south.

"It's amazing," Kilosomee said nearby, "I once feared those two, now that I'm on your side, I'm glad I don't face them anymore."

The cyro tube hissed and out came one of the last Spartans: Spartan 10Four Fred. They had found the Master Chief Spartan 117 John, who was discovered a 100 meters west, after landing and having reconed the planet. Anders had heard the report of Chief's plight from the final destruction of Halo and the Flood that was contained in them. The Arbiter as the only "survivor" of half a ship that was discovered and retrieved. And now standing before him was a legend.

"Sir! Reporting as ordered, sir!" The Chief and Fred barked.

"At ease, boys." Anders returned the salute and said, "It seems we've become lost in another place, we're in an inhabited world where everyone is hospitable. Now it's turned into an investigation and now we don't know if we're next, since we've stumbled onto this planet." He gestured at the two grunts that moved that last of the bodies into a small hole, "That was a murder and kidnap. I'd like to at least see what happened."

"Sir! We've got contacts!" A Sergeant yelled.

"How many?"

"Well at least a hundred! And they don't look too friendly!" Anders swore, "Well, shit." He stood up, "Suit up, Marines! We've got company and they're trying to crash the party, set up and are ready to give them what they want." He heard a few "Yes, sir!"S and turned to the Spartans, "Time to wake up, boys!"

Chief and Fred sprinted to the arms lockers and inspected it: Plasma pistols, rifles and needlers in one locker, SMGs, MA5Bs, BR55s (Old and modified) M6Ds, Standard-issue HE pistols and M90 CA Shotguns. The rest had explosives like the fuel rod cannons, M19 launchers and sniper rifles like the Beam rifle and the S2 AM. Fred gravitated to the mod BR55s. Unlike the MA5Bs, the rifles had a longer barrel and stock, with a cutdown muzzle shroud. There was a scope equipped to the optics railing across the top of the rifles and had auto zoom. Fred then pocketed the M6D pistol and a couple of clips for the both of them. Chief hefted the MA5B and the HE pistol, and grabbed five clips for the rifle and 10 for the pistol, as light as they were. Anders came by, picked up a BR55, a plasma pistol and grabbed a few ammo for it as well. Kilosomee had a plasma rifle, plasma pistol and a plasma sword, which he modified himself. The sword looked more like a short sword but could change to a katana. Snipers gathered in strategic points while hunters, brutes armed with the brute shot grenade launchers and racketeers would be up on top of the cliff and deal hell to the enemy below.

"I bet that the enemy expects us to fight with the classic swords and shields, eh?" Anders commented to a Jackal, who had picked up a needler and his personal energy shield. The Jackal thought about it and agreed, "Least it isn't like those damn gassers back on Halo." The two grinned. The Flood wasn't brainless as anyone could think, because the parasites could use weapons of whatever they pick up when they were in combat form, rifles to rockets to rocks.

"Contact! Enemy sighted!" A sniper called, every man and Covie turned to where the sniper had located the enemy.

The enemies were like orcs and ogres; except they had light armor and they looked more like skirmish forces instead of heavy armed. They were marching up with roman-like shields, which they used to great effect. Box formation, it was called. The formation involved the shields covering the front, the top and the sides making them impervious to a lot of things… Had the enemy had bow-and-arrows. Anders and Kilosomee barked "Pick your targets and fire at will!"

The first volley was disorientating at first. The result was very pleasing. The front and middle lines were absolutely obliterated from the cannons and explosions. It made at least a third drop what they had and made a run for it. The rest tried to form up again, but they were nearly obliterated in the first minute. The Grunts, and Jackals went down to see what they could pick and eat at; some were excited about the meat being cooked perfectly by the resulting explosions and fire grenades that were dropped on them. One found a survivor and gave him promptly to Commander Anders and Kilosomee. It was an orc who was missing an arm from a plasma blast from a hunter. Anders stooped down, "Who sent you?" The orc grumbled and received a sharp blow by Anders and said, "The Drakemaster. He saw you coming and sent us to see how you'd react." Kilosomee raised an eyebrow. The orc then succumbed to his wounds and died with a grunt. The two commanders gave the body to the pleased carnivores and talked about what was going on.

"Well, it's obvious that we aren't very welcomed to this "Drakemaster"." Kilosomee started. Anders looked down and said, "Hmm, you're right. But for all we know for now is that we've either angered someone by accident or the Drakemaster is just hungry to fight someone. Either way, we need to get out of here, fast."