Chapter XLVIII: Family Matters

August 20, 2541 (UNSC Calendar)/

UNSC Inconvenience, in orbit above Concordia, Zama System

There was a lot of activity going on in the Inconvenience right now. Mostly Navy personnel and the occasional soldier or marine that was on board the ship for some reason or other. The covvies had finally decided to jump into the system en-masse. I am pretty sure that every single person in the UNSC fleet defending the place felt a little bit guilty about wishing that the aliens would show up already. I understand that feeling, it is horrible (not to mention boring) to wait for an enemy force to show up without actually knowing their strength or numbers. I felt a little bit guilty myself as I observed the holographic display showing twenty enemy ships, two of them were assault carriers and the rest were CCS-class cruisers. You see, normally a cruiser is more than a match for two of our very own Marathons, but an assault carrier is really something to look at. I'm not going to say that it is as deadly as a supercarrier (after all, it is six times as small), but it certainly isn't very good news to any human either.

B and Echo companies had now been almost completely vacated from the ship, being sent to the planet to protect important refineries and mines. I think that they were both working together to protect a medium-sized complex that contained both a mine and a refinery. Most civilians were still there, even though all the mining and most of the refining was done by automated robots, there still needed to be a couple of human overseers making sure everything went right.

"Twenty ships eh Frank?"

"That's what the display shows buddy," I said.

"Mhm," he muttered.

I had already put on my armor by the time the ship was fully ready to fight. I looked at all the battle scars on it appreciatively. It was a testament of my experience, skill, and most importantly, luck. There were two old gashes crossing the center-section of the chest piece, from a spiker's bayonet. Those were shallow, the brute hadn't had a long enough reach for the blades to go through my armor, instead leaving the equivalent of scars on the metal. Those two were the most notable by far, but not the only ones. My shoulder pieces had both been switched to UA/multi-threat when a beam rifle blew off the Gungnir piece cleanly. They had suffered more than most other sections of my armor, having been hit by numerous rounds and debris. My right pauldron had been nicked by a carbine before, a small chunk of it blown away, leaving a small canal-like furrow in the armor. The other shoulder piece was simply cracked on the surface, but apparently was still combat ready. I had spray-painted a white image of an elite skull with a bullet wound on it, behind it were two crossed knives and a modern-looking shield. A sniper in Echo had one of the same type for every elite officer he killed in the stock of his rifle. I had borrowed the design and made it about 10 centimeters tall (that's roughly 4 inches) and painted it onto the middle section of the shoulder piece. The cracks made the armor tattoo look all the more intimidating.

There were two dots like scars on the back of my armor, titanium coin-like pieces welded to my armor where I had been shot to make it vacuum-capable once more. My helmet had a long scorch mark running on its right side, from a plasma shot back in Juno, the one that burned out all my circuits and radio. My legs and arms had been luckier, with only scratches and some paint chipped away. Talking about paint, I'd need to give my suit a fresh coating before it started looking like arctic camouflage instead of the all-black piece of armor it was supposed to be.

My rifle presented similar battering, it was the same original gun that had been issued to me right after leaving ODST training, and it had been my gun during training as well. The BR55 could boast to having seen more than most soldiers on the fleet all by itself. It had five etchings in the stock, marking my first enemy kills. I had stopped the practice after loosing count, besides, it is difficult to etch all your kills into a rifle so small. Ha, I'm just motherfucking awesome.

My pistol looked better, but there were still numerous scratches and scars that the years of fighting had left on it. The pistol was now simply a shell with new components, including recoil dampeners, heavier barrel, the suppressor/barrel increase, a two-shot burst switch, its small camera that allowed it to connect to my helmet for zooming, and a small telescopic sight the size of my thumb sitting in the front.

Pavel's armor was pretty much the same as it had been forever, with the exception of the chest piece of his armor having been painted a dark blue and some other stickers and armor tattoos. He still looked like an ODST on steroids, which in a way, he was. I, on the other hand, am a more literal example of that phrase. Not that I minded that much, my augmentations had saved my life and others more than enough. If all I had to pay for that was some routine checks, I was more than happy enough to keep my near-superhuman abilities. Besides, I very much doubt that ONI could've taken it away.

I tightened my knives and their respective sheaths to my armor, more because I had nothing better to do than because I was worried that they would get loose. I checked the massive combat knife in my lower back, satisfied that it was sharp and ready to kill some covvies. The smaller backup knife felt as balanced as ever, a good knife for throwing, if perhaps a little bit weird to have prolonged knife fights with. The last knife, a gift from a cook in Jericho VII, was the best of both worlds, large and sharp, with the blade slightly bending forwards as it reached the tip, less so than a kukri, but enough to give it some use as a slashing tool. I spun it twice in my hand before strapping it back on to my right boot.

"Well, the captain certainly took his time," Pavel muttered.

"Shush," I said. "You know he'll show up exactly when you say that idiot."

"Alright, alright," Pavel conceded. "I'm just saying."
As my friend finished his sentence, the doors of the room opened. That in itself was weird enough, this was a small empty room that had been given no use for as long as I remembered. Well, at least since Zavala was forced to retire.

A tense and nervous-looking Captain Brooks entered the room, he was wearing his captain uniform, but for some reason it looked like he hadn't taken the thing off in days and had had a very bad time recently. His expression was one of tiredness and sadness. His usually impeccable face was now sporting a three-day beard. His hair looked uncombed and slightly out of place. For the first time since I had ever met him, Brooks looked like the man that he actually was. Tired, angry, and having seen way too much.

"Captain," we both said as we stood up for a salute.

"Sit down," he said off-handedly.

"Sir, is anything wrong?" I asked.

"I said, sit down," he growled.

"Sir," I said, then I complied.

"As you know, the system is under attack, with Covenant forces already landing on the planet. Normally, you would've been sent to protect important points in the planet, but I need you two for something."

We both nodded slowly, carefully.

"This girl," he said as a picture popped up in a screen on one of the walls. "Needs to be retrieved at all costs," he said. The girl in question looked strangely familiar, as if I had known her before, or at least her cousin or something like that.

"Her last known location was here," Brooks said as the picture shrunk slightly in size and gave way to a map of a city on the planet. A red circle closed of an area, and then that area occupied the entirety of the screen. Finally, a building was highlighted.

"This building is the headquarters of Concordia's largest newspaper. Last I heard, the girl in question was forced to hole up in there due to the Covenant attack."

"Sir, what's the importance of this girl?" I asked.

Before the captain had time to answer, I made the connection, or at least half of it. The girl looked like she was in her late teens or early twenties, maybe worked as an intern for the newspaper while she finished college. Her appearance was that of someone that could've belonged to royalty, much like the look that one certain Captain Brooks possessed. There were other marks there as well, such as physical likeness. I deduced that she must be a familiar of the captain even as he answered.

"She is my daughter," he said.

I honestly never saw that coming. The captain always seemed to me like a man that was married to his job, mostly because I had never seen him outside of the ship unless it involved military issues. Brooks had been the captain of the ship for longer than I had been on it, he had never once mentioned anything about his personal life to anyone. The only thing that I knew about his life before the Inconvenience was that he was originally sent here after he pissed off an admiral's daughter.

"Very well sir, we'll bring her here safe and sound."

"You'd better Staff Sergeant, else I'll have your head," he said. He sounded dead serious.

"If you don't mind me asking sir, why didn't you try to evacuate her or bring her on board this ship before? Nobody would've objected," Pavel said.

I winced before the reply came, knowing that my pal had made a mistake.

"You think I didn't try you stupid asshole?" he yelled. "I did everything I could, even now she doesn't know she's being rescued!"

"Sorry sir," apologized a visibly shaken Pavel Klaus.

"You go do your job, the ship is already moving into position above the area around the building. As soon as you get her, contact me directly on this line, I'll send evacuation for you."

"Thank you sir," I said. "Would you mind telling us her name? Just so she knows why we're there."

Brooks took a deep breath before he answered. "Claire, her name is Claire," he said. As he said that, the man looked like he had aged a lifetime in a few moments, not the forty-seven years that he actually had.

"As I said, we'll get her home safe," I said. With that, both Pavel and I left the captain alone in the room and headed towards the drop pod bay.

Red, orange, yellow, green. I was rocked slightly forward as the pod lurched from the ship and towards the planet. I could see the city at my feet, the larger explosions clearly visible from orbit. I could feel the zero gravity for a few instants before the pod moved slightly towards a less damaged area of the city and into the planet's gravity well. The pod started rocking as it broke atmosphere, with it, I started sweating profusely from the heat. That in itself was not unusual, in fact, it was exactly what was supposed to happen. I wished that I could wipe some sweat from my brow, but the helmet prevented me from doing so, besides, there would be time for that later. An automated voice told me that it was time to activate the drag chute. I pressed the correct button and the SOEIV slowed down considerably, forcing my upper half forwards and shaking my insides. The city was now clearly visible, and I could make out cars and bodies in the roads and streets.

The tallest skyscrapers were just beginning to fly by when I activated the rocket boosters that slowed down my drop even more. The thrusters activated exactly fifty meters above the ground, with them, the windows of my pod polarized and hardened automatically. The rockets decelerated the speed of my pod significantly. The speed of the descent was stopped even more as the pod crashed to the street. It had been an exceptionally stable drop. It had taken thirty seconds to travel from upper atmosphere to ground level. That was quite fast for the distances involved.

As soon as I was able to jerk myself upright, I made my pod windows become transparent once more. I was in a decent sized crater for my pod, with the area of one meter around me having been pushed away by the sheer kinetic force of my SOEIV, leaving me inside a very small crater. I looked up just in time to see Pavel's SOEIV dig through the side of a building, one side of the pod ate through windows and walls before finally landing a foot from the base of the building.

By the time dust had cleared Pavel's pod I was already out of mine and scanning the area through the scope of my battle rifle while moving towards my friend's SOEIV. I banged on it twice before Pavel banged back. That was the 'OK' signal, so I moved out of the way of the door. Instants later the metallic piece fell noisily to the ground and Pavel emerged from his pod with his M247 already up and ready.

"You good?"

"Yeah."
"Ok, let's go," I said.

We started moving through the city and towards the target building. We had landed about a kilometer away, so we were supposed to arrive in a couple of minutes. The city was an eerie place to be in. We were in a section of the town that was completely devoid of life, both human and alien. There were clouds of smoke swirling around, making visibility pretty damn bad. I could hear the explosions in the distance, but other than that, we were alone.

I popped out of a corner to cover my friend while he crossed a street. Once he arrived to the other side he did the same for me and we both moved across the block, backs slightly hunched down and rifles ready to fire. The waypoint in my HUD told me the distance that remained for the newspaper building. We had to cross a rather large and open plaza to get inside. Should be easy right? Wrong.

Just before we both started sprinting across the plaza, we heard that familiar humming, that noise that signaled danger and death. This was going to get tricky.

"Phantom," I said.

"Got it," Pavel acknowledged as he checked the ammo count on his LMG.

We both moved to different sides of the street we were in so that we'd have better fields of fire and so that we could reduce the danger of both of us being engulfed by a plasma fireball. Instants after I had reached the other side of the street, a phantom craft appeared, it hovered above the plaza for a few moments before it dropped three elites, four jackals, and ten grunts. All of the elites were minors, so we weren't going to have such a hard time taking them out.

The covvies quickly positioned themselves in a circular formation before they started taking defensive positions. Well, I assume that that was what they had in mind, because we opened fire right then. My first three bursts hit an elite in the chest rocking it backwards, I quickly switched to single-fire and ended the squid's life with a headshot. Pavel used a more unconventional approach and sprayed the elite with a sustained burst, killing it instants before mine went down. The remaining elite was smart enough to roll behind cover. I switched my aim to a grunt that was about to throw a plasma grenade. My shot hit the small alien in the chest, making it drop the grenade. The subsequent blast engulfed it and two of its friends. Right about then I had to take cover when two carbine shots hit the wall next to me.

"Pavel, handle the jackals," I said.

"On it."
I heard a sustained burst and decided to run forward, sliding to cover behind a large potted plant. I could see carbine and plasma fire peppering the wall I had just been in, so that meant that they still thought I was there. Probably preparing themselves for a flanking maneuver. I waited for Pavel to fire another sustained burst before I jumped to another potted plant. From here, I could spot two jackals next to each other, overlapping their shields while Pavel's rounds bounced in all directions after hitting them. I thought about taking them out, but that would give away my position.

"Frank, the elite's on the move," Pavel warned.

"Roger," I said.

I looked out on the other side of the pot just in time to see a large blue blur slide into cover in another of those large potted plants, three pots away from mine. I slid on to the next one, once again I avoided detection from enemy forces. The jackals were slowly moving forward while Pavel switched between them and whatever grunt decided to leave cover. I slid towards the next pot just as the elite slid into it. So there we were, two mortal enemies, both taking cover in the same place, about two feet of dirt between us.

I carefully switched my rifle to full-auto and made my move. I leaned in over the rectangular pot without really forcing my head to leave cover. I poked something with the barrel of my gun and instantly opened fire. You know, controlling full automatic fire is hard enough as it is, but it's even harder when you're doing it blindly without your stock for support.

I heard the familiar sound of bullets hitting energy shields before the sound switched to bullets hitting concrete. I went back down and peeked over one side to see a wounded elite, dragging itself backwards while firing at the pot. I could've taken it out with my BR55, but decided against it and simply tossed a frag at it. I was rewarded by the sound of a beautiful explosion followed by the splattering of alien flesh around the blast radius.

I didn't waste my time though, I immediately switched targets to the two jackals, they were now about ten yards away from Pavel, and they were starting to return fire from their plasma pistols. I shot one in the back of the leg. I did that so Pavel could get both kills, he deserved them after all. My friend turned the jackals into alien pulp before I eliminated the last remaining pair of grunts.

It had been a beautiful engagement, perhaps it would've been more so if I hadn't use a grenade, but all in all we did pretty damn well.

"We did pretty damn well, didn't we?" Pavel asked.

"Damn straight," I agreed.

Then we moved across the plaza to reach the enormous building in front of us. It wasn't only tall, it was huge. Like most buildings in this place, it had a grayish tone to it, it was made mostly out of titanium. The thing was cheaper than polycrete here. Engraved above the front doors in large black letters were the words 'Zama Herald.' The whole newspaper was named after the system instead of the planet. Probably because some visionary tycoon had thought that in the future some other planets or moons in the system would be colonized. He might've been right at the time.

"Ok, move in," I said.

We entered the building and I was instantly creeped out by the sight of the lobby. The place looked spotless except for a bunch of papers right in front of the receptionist's desk. It reminded me of those times when Spec. Ops. Shangeili had finished their work inside a base. All they left was blood and dead bodies, not even the occasional plasma scorching on the wall.

"Count your rounds eh Frankie?" Pavel suggested.

I simply raised my rifle in response, and we both started moving more slowly and a lot more carefully. Brooks' daughter was supposed to be in the 79th floor, way above us. I didn't like the idea of using the elevator, but there would be no choice, by the time we were done climbing the stairs the entire city would be under covvie control, so that was a no-no.

"Elevator?"

"Yeup," I said.

"Very well then," Pavel said.

The bug guy clicked on the button that called the elevator here while I aimed at the air in front of us, scanning it for any shimmering and also ready to shoot in case a visible covvie decided to walk inside the building.

Ding.

Pavel aimed at the empty elevator before he was satisfied it was actually empty. Then he walked inside and signaled for me to do the same. The elevator doors closed and the elevator shot upwards.

Believe it or not, as soon as the doors closed, the corniest elevator music I had ever heard started playing. It was probably a very funny sight, two ODSTs, fully armored, fully armed, sitting together in a very nice elevator, with elevator music in the background.

Suddenly, a large explosion rocked the entire building, actually making the lights flicker a little bit and the volume of the song go down for a few moments.

"What was that?" Pave asked, understandably worried.

"The Girl From Ipanema," I replied.

"Ha-ha, smartass," Pavel said.

We spent the rest of the elevator ride looking at the elevator doors pointedly, none of us saying a single thing. Eventually we arrived to our destination and the elevator made a satisfying ding. As soon as we heard that noise, we went back to combat stances, I took the lead while Pavel walked a couple of feet behind me scanning the area with his M247L. We started searching the whole place, I went through every single room twice before I started looking below desks and inside cubicles.

"Aw fuck it," Pavel said. "Claire! Claire!"
"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Claire? Claire Brooks?" he continued. "Oh Claaaaaireee!"
"Dude, seriously," I said.

"Claire?"

"She's not here man," I said.

"Looks like it," Pavel agreed.

"The captain's going to eat our fucking heads."
"Mhm."
We both went into a small room that happened to have a soda machine, the kind that is used in fast food restaurants. Pavel grabbed a cup and filled his glass with coke. After it was full, he took of his helmet and started drinking. I sat down on an office chair, the weight of my armor pushing it down. I was about to ask Pavel for a cup of coke when a small figure emerged from a cupboard and tackled Pavel, bringing him to the floor.

"What in the fuck?" was all he had time to say.

The figure then lunged towards the door, but was abruptly stopped by my right arm. I grabbed the girl by the waist and slammed her into the chair I had been sitting on. She kept struggling before I depolarized my helmet, showing her my face. At that point she seemed to calm down a little bit.

"What the fuck?" Pavel repeated.

"Looks like we found her," I said.

"Found who?" Pavel asked. "The captains daughter?"

"Yup," I said.

"Damn."
"Who are you?" the girl shyly asked.

"Are you Claire Brooks?" I asked.

"I asked first."
At that point I polarized my helmet's visor. Claire visibly recoiled a little bit. This armor, after all, had been designed to look as intimidating as possible to human beings. Not that it worked with aliens.

"Are you Claire Brooks?" I asked again, my voice slightly angrier.

"Yes," she answered.

"Daughter of one Captain Brooks?"

She nodded.

"Well, your dad wants you to get home safe, so we're going to do just that."

"No, I don't want anything to do with Nosmo, as soon as I was born he left me and my mother to fight against the aliens, he abandoned me. He has never wanted anything to do with me and I am glad to return the favor."

"Captain Brooks' name is Nosmo?" I asked.

"Man, that's hilarious," Pavel said.

"I know right? Nosmo…" I said while laughing.

"Aw man, wait till they hear about this," Pavel said.

"Amen to that."

Claire looked seriously annoyed at both of the ODSTs laughing at her father's name while she had just given a very serious speech.

"Well, let's go Claire, we don't have much time," Pavel said.

I was already contacting Brooks. "Captain, you there?"

"Yes! Is my daughter alright," he said.

"Looks like it," I replied. "Doesn't seem too glad about coming with us though, should we knock her out?" I asked. Claire looked shocked and inched a little bit away from me.

"No you idiot! She's my daughter," Brooks ordered.

"Roger, where's our evac?"

"The building's landing pad, there's one in the same floor that you are," he said. "I'm sending Zekalwe to pick you up," he informed us.

"Roger that sir," I said.

As the captain cut the conversation, Pavel had already grabbed a struggling Claire by the arm, just like they do in the movies, unfortunately, the girl kept fighting, so eventually Pavel had to put her on his back like a sack of potatoes. She started banging on his armor while yelling something about hating her dad and that he was a controlling freak and whatnot. She stopped after a few seconds when she noticed that she was punching metal.

"Landing pad, to the right," I said.

"Yes Frank, I can read the sign," Pavel said.

"I'm glad, we've made some progress since last time."
"Please Frank, I misread one fucking word," he complained. "One."
"Well, that one word certainly cost us a lot," I said.

"Well, we made it out just fine didn't we?"
"Not thanks to your reading skills," I muttered just loud enough to hear.

"Will you two shut the fuck up!" Claire replied.

"Oh, we've got a feisty one here," Pavel said.

We arrived at the landing pad and emerged into a small balcony. I clicked a button and the large landing pad started folding outwards from the walls. It took it exactly five seconds to get into a horizontal position.

"Wouldn't wanna fall down," I noted as I peeked over the rails if the balcony.

"Agreed," Pavel said.

"Frankie, my boy, Zekalwe here, I'll be there in just a moment," the pilot said through the com.

"Don't take to long," I replied.

Sure enough, instants later the pelican emerged from between two buildings. It started moving towards us and started setting down on the lading pad before I saw something terrible.

"Banshees!" I yelled.

"I see them!" Zekalwe called out.

He pulled up his craft as four fuel rods hit the landing pad, completely blowing it to pieces. A flight of four banshees flew overhead, turning around for another go at the pelican. They started peppering it with plasma before Zekalwe fired his Anvil missiles, taking out two of the banshees. They broke off in different directions before returning to shoot the pelican.

"Can't do it Frank, too hot," he apologized before he turned around his craft and left. "I'll pick you up over here if I manage to shake them off," he said as he uploaded a map into my HUD. "Good luck."
"Same goes to you," I said.

Pavel had already pulled Claire back to safety, and I jumped inside the safety of the building just as one of the banshees decided to hit me, fortunately, it missed completely, hitting only the space I had been in before.

"Let's go," Pavel said as he dragged Claire to the elevators. The doors opened as soon as I pressed the button, and Pavel shoved the girl inside and then we both entered the elevator and Pavel hit the button with a big 'L.'

Well, if the first elevator ride was awkward, this was even more so, we were practically kidnapping a girl here. Halfway to the floor I couldn't stand it anymore, so I burst out laughing. Both of the other occupants looked at me. I tried to calm myself down but failed utterly, laughing like an idiot once more.

"What?" Claire asked.

"Nothing, nothing," I said while taking deep breaths. "I just love this song."
I managed to calm down a little bit by the time we reached the lobby, it was still completely devoid of life, but I doubted that it would remain like that for a long time.

"Hey, do you have a car?" I asked.

"Who? Me?" Claire asked me.

"No."

"Oh."
"Yes you!" I said.

"Oh, well, yeas, it's in the parking lot, one floor below."
"Back to the elevator," I said.

"Fuck that, we're taking the stairs," Pavel stated as he opened an emergency door.

"Fine," I agreed.

We climbed down the stairs, Claire was now feeling a little bit more cooperative since she had just witnessed a banshee attack, even if it was a failed one. She was even trying to move like us. I rolled my eyes as she failed in mimicking Pavel's movements. She almost tripped a couple of times before deciding that a combat stance wasn't her thing.

"Over there!" she said as she pointed at a vehicle.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me," Pavel stated.

"Yeah," I agreed. "Perhaps you could've bought an even girlier car."
"I don't know maybe make it pink instead of purple," my friend suggested.

"Or maybe make the thing rounder," I said as I shrugged.

"Oh, I know, maybe add a girly sticker," Pavel said. "Nope, looks like you've got that covered," he said. "Is there another car here?"

At that point Claire broke down crying. I'm not good with people when they're crying, especially when it's girls, and even more so when they are pretty, attractive girls. I didn't think I had to mention the fact that she was hot, you guys are probably aware of my good luck on that department already.

"You made her cry," I said quickly, placing the entire fault on Pavel instead of admitting to my own. Surprisingly, it worked.

"Ok, listen, I'm sorry, it's just that we're used to driving around on warthogs," he said as he clumsily patted Claire's back. While he did that I grabbed Claire's purse form the color and emptied its contents. As soon as I found the keys I put them on the door. I took a deep breath before opening the door.

"There goes my manhood," I muttered. Claire only sobbed louder.

"Frank!"

"I'm sorry jeez," I said. "Just hop in."

Pavel led Brooks' daughter into the backseat before hopping in on the copilot's seat. He took a deep breath and looked uncomfortable, even with all that armor on. I simply smiled behind my visor and called the guy a hypocrite. I turned on the car.

"Dear God, it even sounds girly…"

"Just drive."

I pushed the accelerator, bringing the car in reverse, I used the handbrake to swing it wildly in a 180º turn. The car stopped with the front facing the exit at a perfect angle. I smiled to myself, thinking of how absurd the situation was. If I had had any other friends, they would've laughed at me forever, but since my only friend was here with me, it wasn't that important. I switched to drive and floored the pedal. The small car lurched forward with a speed and intensity that seemed impossible for a thing this size.

"Nice," I said.

"It goes up to 150 miles per hour," Claire said shyly.

"Hm, who would've thought," I murmured to myself.

We were now driving through the abandoned streets, heading towards a large park where Zekalwe said he would pick us up, I hadn't gotten any transmissions from the guy since he uploaded the map to my HUD, that could be both good or bad. I decided not to worry about it for now.

"Frank, in front of us," Pacel said.

"I see them," I said.

I put myself in a ramming position before realizing that hitting an elite with this tiny car might not be such a good idea after all, it would be comparable to hitting a cow. I stayed on the same position and moved to the side at the last second, leaving behind a very startled elite and group of grunts. A second after the car had flown by, a single plasma bolt shattered the rear window. I saw a flash of blue in the corner of my eye before it made contact with the windshield, the heated plasma didn't shatter the hardened plastic, instead it burned through it, leaving a sizeable hole right in the middle. Pavel curled himself in his seat and kicked at the windshield, popping it free from its frame. The plastic flew over the roof and crashed behind us.

"My car!" Claire complained.

"Oh, you'll buy another one," I said.

I dodged a couple of abandoned cars before I made a turn, the park was right in front. I could see the green trees in between all the titanium buildings. I tapped the accelerator, trying to make the little car go faster. I was about two clicks away from the park before I heard a pelican flying nearby.

"That you in the purple car?" Zekalwe's voice said.

"Oh fuck off," I replied.

"Yeah, I'm saving a picture of this one for sure," the pilot said after a chuckle.

"You're trailing some smoke there ace," I said.

"Oh fuck off," Zekalwe said.

I gunned the accelerator, not succeeding in my goal of making the car move any faster. The pelican disappeared in between a couple of trees just as the little purple car jumped over the curb. We all shook as the car's crappy suspension failed in absorbing any of the shock that they were supposed to actually absorb. Pavel looked back to confirm that Claire was ok before looking forward again. The car slowed down considerably due to the uneven terrain of the park. Oh, and all the trees and stuff in the way. Finally we made it to a clearing where the pelican was hovering. As soon as we arrived I stopped the car and Pavel had to practically dragged Claire away from the horrible purple thing.

"I just finished paying for it!" she yelled. "Fucking covvies!"

"Woah, easy there," Pavel said as he half-helped, half-tossed the petit girl into the blood tray of the pelican.

"Hurry up boys," Zekalwe said. "And girl."
"We're already in," I said.

"I know, I just love saying that," Zekalwe admitted as the pelican flew off.

I laughed before I sat back down. At that moment I felt like a huge weight had been lifted of my shoulders, we hadn't let down the captain. In fact, we had completed the mission with flying colors. Well, flying color. Purple, in fact. Pavel collapsed on a seat next to Claire, who was now sobbing due to all the confusion and events that had just happened around her. I leaned my helmet back into the walls of the pelican bay as the doors closed, leaving behind a burning city.

Well, that's it for Chapter 48. I want to apologize if my writing quality has decreased over the last couple of weeks. School has kept me busy and I haven't been able to write as much and with the same amount of focus. Also, can't really go through the chapter five times, only proofreading it after I am satisfied with it.

Regardless, as always, hope you enjoyed.

-casquis