Chapter 7
Large chunks of debris from the ship were scattered, and small craters speckled the ground. It was night, and the craters seemed to match the stars in the sky. In the darkness, a small green light flickered on, and Zeta appeared. She hovered about a foot above Axel, scanning her bio-readings. The A.I. gave a sigh of relief when she managed to pick up Axel's heartbeat. It was loud and strong, and Axel didn't seem to be too horribly injured, just unconscious.
Suddenly, the Spartan gave a lurch, and she got on her hands and knees, then leaned backward into a sitting position. She groaned in pain.
"Z...Zeta? W...what happened?" she asked, the confusion clear in her voice.
"Well, our planned worked, which is nice. However, now we don't have a ride so if we need to get off this planet we're basically doomed. Also, I lost connection with cell towers during the crash, so we can't call anyone to come pick us up. We'll have to walk from here," Zeta explained. Her voice sounded distracted, and she was looking off into the distance. She noticed Axel looking at her and quickly snapped out of the trance.
"Sorry, just...thinking. I mean, why would the Covenant go out of their way to try to kill a single A.I. and a Spartan that's still in training? It doesn't make sense..." the A.I. trailed, her voice becoming low and soft. Axel stopped staring at her and looked around a bit. She stopped at a large mound of debris from the ship. She threw some parts off the top to reveal a Mongoose. It was dented a bit, and the paint was peeling off, but it appeared to be in decent shape.
"Hey, what about this?"Axel asked, gesturing to the vehicle, which was lying on its side. Zeta glanced at it.
"I just scanned it. It's in good shape, but it doesn't have any gas. Unless you plan on pushing it, that Mongoose isn't going anywhere," Zeta replied with a frown. Axel looked around curiously for some sort of gas. However, there didn't seem to be any, and there also didn't seem to be any other U.N.S.C. vehicles, either.
Then, Axel heard running behind her. In a matter of seconds, she grabbed a broken pipe on the ground, whipped around, and tossed it toward the noise. It hit a Grunt hard in the nose, knocking it out, but not killing it. Well, if Grunts even had noses; no one could really know because of the mouth-pieces they wore. Either way, Axel had hit it.
"He must have been sent in case the rest of his buddies couldn't stop us in time. If that's the case, there are probably more of them," Zeta explained. Axel walked up to the dead Grunt as Zeta continued to speak.
"Then that leads to the question: Why would they be so desperate to stop just a simple cadet and A.I.?" she continued with a frown. Axel seemed distant now, and wasn't even looking at Zeta anymore.
"You already asked that," she said softly, bending down to touch the dead creature gently.
"Huh?" Zeta questioned.
"You already asked why they attacked us when we first crashed a few minutes ago," Axel answered. Zeta turned to her, just noticing that she was next to the Grunt.
"What are you doing?" Zeta asked. She seemed content on asking questions. Axel turned her head toward her, but didn't get up.
"Well, don't Grunts have some sort of gas stuff in their backs or something weird like that?" it was Axel's turn to ask questions. Zeta nodded.
"Well, something like that. You got close enough," she replied. "Why?"
Axel turned back to the Grunt, rolling it onto its stomach.
"Why don't we use the gas to run the Mongoose?" she questioned. Zeta put her holographic hand to her chin thoughtfully.
"That might work, but I don't think it would be enough to get us very far." As the A.I. contemplated, she raised her head and her eyes widened. She appeared to be looking at something off in the distance. Axel turned her head around to see a large wave of grunts, all running straight toward her.
"Well, now we know you were right about there being more of them," she exclaimed. She pulled her Suppressor from her back and turned on her invisibility.
"This'll only take a sec," she said to Zeta from seemingly nowhere. As she said that, Zeta logged off, and it appeared as if they had never been there.