Chapter 3
Dreams of the Past
"Hey Max?" I heard a sixteen year old in my arms whisper almost asleep. "Yes Mindy?" I asked her. "You think this war will ever be over?" She asked. "I hope not. I want to make those alien bastard pay for what they did to our families." I said. She snuggled up against me and sighed. Silently agreeing with me.
"Coyote. Up and at em soldier." Somebody patted the the shoulder of my OD green t shirt. Then kicked me in the shin. "What the fuck?" I asked, my eyes snapping wide open to see May standing over me. I lit a cigarette and took a long puff. "The Med Officers were scared to wake you but wanted you to know Arkansas is out of surgery and will be ready for visitors in about fifteen minutes. But better get to her before ONI does, they're going to pick her apart piece by piece to see why she was being held by covenant forces. They're also pretty curious as to why a person who doesn't exist in any database was found in a set of Mjolnir." I stood up and rushed to the room where she was.
I walked through the door of Mindy's room. "Who'd have thunk one of the greatest bad asses of all time would end up as a lowly ODST?" Mindy weakly joked. "Hey now, a squad of ODST might stand a chance against half of one of us." I quietly replied with a smile. "So how long till Mr 117's bosses get here?" She asked. "Just long enough for me to get you out of here." She nodded ready to move. I grabbed my radio and set it for a single beam to May. "May, grab my gear and meet me in the airfield bay. You have sixty seconds." I put the radio back in my pocket. "Aye, sir."
Everybody started strapping into the Prowler we were about to steal. "Arkansas, give May the last project coordinates. May, get us off this UNSC rock." I started throwing on a set of SPI armor as a resounding "Aye, sir." Erupted from the ship's coms.
"Coyote, return to the Autumn at once!" Cortana yelled over the coms link between the battleship and our stolen UNSC Prowler. "ONI AI Cortana, Access granted to file 'Freelance Justice' Clearance authorization 'Coyote 458' We can't come back now." I broadcast back, a few seconds later the coms went dead. "Coyote, the Autumn's weapons just came online!" May yelled from the sensor array on the bridge. I sighed "They've just learned my true identity as well as Arkansas' and now they realize how dangerous we truly are. Slip space jump to the coordinates Arkansas gave you." I felt time slow as the ship we were in began to travel faster than the speed of light through space.
It felt like seconds but in reality took weeks in normal time for us to reappear in normal space. "Sir, we're here. UNSC records show no inhabitable planet in this system though." May said sounding confused. "You really think one of the best kept secrets in the galaxy would show on ONI records?" I asked her chuckling and lighting a cigarette.