Warning... warning. Ion engines are only working at half capacity. Warning, main turbines one, three , seven, eight and fourteen are non functional and cabin pressure is dropping rapidly.
"Lambda, diagnose now!"
Hyperspace travel route was misinterpreted by the navigational computer. The cause of which was flying several hundred light-years too close to a neutron star. The radiation surge hit us heavily and the engines are diagnosed to suffer catastrophic failure in four minutes.
"It's a good thing we're this close to Yelliton, then!"
Agent Missouri, must I remind you that although we have a seventy-one percent chance of surviving impact on a horizontal surface of dirt, that this is a ruined planet in the middle of nowhere. There is less than a ten percent chance of anybody coming to our rescue. We will likely die on this backwater planet.
"Oh, Lambda. Ever the optimist."
Catastrophic engine failure resulting in complete inner-cabin combustion will occur in three minutes.
"Right, Lamda, keep your shirt on! Deactivate the ion engines!"
Done. Ion engines deactivated, switching emergency control to tail wing rudders. Your flight controls will in turn control the aircraft but ONLY once you've broken Yelliton's atmosphere.
"Who doesn't like a challenge, Lamb?"
I do hope you are joking. The engines are once again safe from blowing the both of us up but we are going to hit the atmosphere at a slightly... disadvantageous angle. You must pull the flight controls toward yourself in order to regain the proper Karman line one-hundred kilometers above the surface. Once we have made it past the atmosphere you must deploy emergency reverse thrusters to slow our descent.
"You make it sound easy."
Caution! We have just entered Yelliton's atmosphere. Brace!
"I can feel that, sweetheart."
Indeed, pull back on the flight controls to maintain correct angle of descent. flight path is levelling out. Almost... almost... there! Maintain angle.
"We're going to be on that gorgeous yellow-brown landscape soon."
Enable reverse thrusters on my mark... Mark! Not so harsh, ease into the reverse thrusters. Decrease speed gradually... Yes, that should work nicely. Warning! Emergency landing subroutines offline! Brace for impact! Brace for impact! Brace for -
BBBBBBB
Agent Missouri's eyes opened beneath his helmet, his vision hazy. His head ached as if he had downed several bottles of strong alcohol and he squeezed his stinging eyes shut. He groaned aloud, calling Lambda's name.
The impact of the emergency landing had been much rougher than Missouri had anticipated. He was still harnessed into the Pelican's pilot seat. The grey steel hull of the ship had been damaged severely, the dents in the metal not even hinting at the insurmountable damage that the interior engines had suffered. Any hope of the ship being spaceworthy was dashed when Missouri opened his eyes to see the formerly lit panel lights having been turned into a dead black with light no longer emanating.
Lambda flickered and flashed in front of Missouri's helmet, her brilliant pink light nearly blinding and causing his head to hurt more before her light bending subroutine proved its brokenness when she flickered once more before going dark. Her voice sounded in his head through his audio pickups.
Another cheery landing, Moe. Lambda said cheekily.
"To be fair this is the first time I've crashed a ship since we highjacked that space cruise liner." Missouri reminded her, peeved for being reprimanded on his flying skills.
Indeed. Those space otters... I can't even bear to think about it.
Missouri shook his head and said nothing. The tragedy of the space otters was indeed tragic. Missouri took his time searching around the crash area.
Missouri stood in a once heavily populated megatropolis. Where glistening sky-scraping residential and office buildings stood around streets of concrete sat literal mountains of steel which had rusted to a dark red after being exposed to the elements for so many thousands of years. The yellow sand had tried its best to reclaim the rusted steel bones of man and alien made monoliths once more, but the avenging granules had stopped midway up the several hundred stories tall rubble leaving behind only the topmost remains, which were still several hundred feet tall.
Missouri stood upon sand when he should have been standing upon the broken remains of the street. He allowed himself to do the math and realized that had the sand not been beneath his feet that he would have been eight-hundred and fifty feet above the ground. Missouri estimated that four-hundred feet of steel and concrete stood mightily above his head.
"God damn." Missouri muttered under his breath at the awe-inspiring scene before him.
People and aliens have done this, fighting amongst each other. Even the reason for the start of the Yelliton wars has been lost to time. Global nuclear war raged on until the entire planet... every city and every town... looks exactly like this.
Lambda lamented the death toll that had been exacted upon Yelliton's citizens. The loss of life had been catastrophic. Billions of people lay dead beneath his feet, buried by hostile winds moving sand along over the vast centuries. The thought that the entire planet was a grave chilled Missouri to his very core.
"Where could Speartip be hiding? And why would she choose this planet? Just because I was a delegate from Earth before the remnants of the planet's citizens were bombed to hell?" Missouri wondered.
He cursed Speartip. He had always felt guilty for failing to introduce peace to this planet which had already been at war for hundreds of years. He had arrived three years before the launch of the first nuclear missile. It was already a futile effort trying to negotiate peace among the planet's denizens, but he had tried. Lord he had tried. In the end he watched aboard his escape shuttle as the mushroom clouds erupted among the warstruck people of Yelliton.
The memory made him close his eyes against the throbbing in his skull.
Her message said that she would throw my memory unit into the radioactive sea. There is only one mountain left standing that is high enough to throw my unit into the radioactive sea without herself taking so much radiation damage that she dies in a matter of minutes. It was once called Mount Ellis, one of the tallest peaks in the world. Now it is only a fraction of its former glory, but still tall enough for her to be protected.
"That's right. The fact that one side of it is landlocked as well. She would have to stand on the south side of the summit to throw you off into the sea. We will approach from the North."
Missouri shook his head and fought off the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him before checking his rifle and heading off toward the shattered mountain.
As Missouri trudged onward following the blips he watched dance upon his heads up display, his eyes took in the disturbing ruin around him. He noticed a protrusion of white among the dead steel that once made up a housing skyscraper. As he neared the mysterious white object was revealed to be the skeletal arm of one of the sky loft's former occupants.
The merciless Yelliton sun had bleached the bones years before and what remained now was nothing more than the luckless occupant's skeleton. Even the clothes that the deceased had been wearing had disintegrated who knows how long before. The eye sockets gazed blindly into the sun and the mandible hung open in a silent eternal scream. Missouri wondered if the former building's occupant had been staring at one of the thousands of mushroom clouds that had reduced the mega city to the ruins upon which Missouri now walked.
Missouri turned his eyes forward and glimpsed the peak of the half-mountain to which he was heading and left the skeleton behind. Missouri's eyes flicked to the sky as he heard the unmistakable roar of ship engines. The horizon grew increasingly unfriendly as the sky was suddenly turned into a warzone.
A pelican dropship swayed left and right, up and down in the sky as it desperately attempted to maintain its airspeed and angle even while it was being chased by a smaller personell transport. The transport which was on the pelican's tail was firing, its cannons hot, turning the pelican's escape into a dogfight.
The personell dropship scored a fair hit upon one of the pelican's tail engine, sending it falling to Yelliton soil. It landed loudly, but the lack of an explosion made Missouri wonder if there were survivors. The transport which was tailing the pelican called off the pursuit and moved on toward the very mountain to which Missouri was heading.
BBBBBBB
"God dammit Grif! When are you gonna land one of these in one piece?" Sarge demanded, surveying the damage to the Pelican.
"I didn't do that! We were attacked and they hit our main engines!" Grif protested.
"Well they sure as shit are gone. Could've been avoided if the pilot weren't a blubbering moron."
"Uh oh. Sir, look over there!" Simmons shouted, dread evident in his voice.
Simmons pointed a hundred yards away at the UNSC Special Forces unit they had fought before.
"Oh no! They nearly killed us last time!" Grif lamented.
"Nearly." Sarge said before cocking his shotgun.
"I knew that Missouri wouldn't have the guts to come alone," Special Agent Commander Fest commented. He gripped his battle rifle tightly, obviously battle-ready.
"Yeah, well, solving other people's problems against our will is what we do." Grif said, sarcasm dripping from his words as usual.
"Not for long." Fest said, his voice low and grating. He raised his rifle before tilting his head at a new sound. A soft hiss sounded from Fest's foot.
"What the..." Fest wondered aloud. He looked down.
The pulsing bright blue light of a sticky grenade enveloped his foot.
He looked to the right and saw the pink one, Donut, standing in what he probably thought was a heroic stance. He laughed.
"Six points you dirty..." He began.
Fest interrupted him by casually pulling the pulsing blue grenade off of his foot and tossing it back at the reds.
"Oh God!" Donut exclaimed as he and the others dove out of the blast radius. It exploded, nearly deafening them but doing no further damage to them.
The gunfire began as the UNSC Special Agents opened fire on the Red's pelican, behind which they sought refuge.
The Reds peeked over their cover, making pot shots at the seasoned veteran soldiers.
"Corellia, flank the enemy!" Commander Fest shouted as he attacked with his battle rifle.
"On it." She said as she activated a stealth field and crept off to the left toward a hilltop covered in yellowed dying grass.
"Hoth, Mustafar! Advance on the Reds! I will cover you from here."
The two privates grunted in the affirmative and waited until Grif and Simmons crouched behind cover once more to reload. As Fest began firing heavily at the pelican, Hoth and Mustafar sprinted closer to the downed airship. When they cam within range they fired, Hoth with his SMGs muzzles blazing and Mustafar with his powerful handguns' blasts echoing loudly in the otherwise quiet Yelliton night.
Corellia Smiled as she crouched on top of the hill and focused her sniper rifle on Sarge's head. In the distance she could hear Sarge calling out orders and joyfully struggling with Private Hoth.
She chuckled as she switched off her safety and curled her finger around the trigger.
"Goodbye gramps." She whispered.
A loud shot rang through the air, drowning out the battle below.
Corellia's eyes went wide behind her helmet and she gasped. She looked to her side to study the gaping hole in her rib area for only a moment before she breathed her last and toppled over, her sniper's rifle and her knives landing uselessly on the uneven terrain.
"Alright, boys. Let's save their asses again!" Carolina called to Tucker and Caboose.
With that the trio charged into battle as Carolina rained pot shots from her enormous fifty caliber rifle even as she ran.
Hoth was still engaged with Sarge having lost his SMGs and Sarge's cumbersome shotgun being useless with Hoth's close range. Magnum fire sounded loudly as Mustafar took careful shots at Grif and Simmons while Fest rained lead toward the Reds.
"Oh, Shit!" Fest yelled as he turned his battle rifle toward the sprinting Carolina. She saw this and activated her speed boost, her suddenly lighter feet moving her quickly through the battlefield and toward Fest's position. Before he could squeeze the trigger Carolina caught up to him and as she sprinted past, she pushed out an arm, catching the Commander just below the helmet.
He grunted as he hit the ground, his throat badly injured. He struggled to cry out in pain but only produced a series of grunts and gurgles. His throat would no longer allow him to speak.
But he could still stand.
And if he could stand, he could fight.
Carolina swung around, her foot whirling in an attempt to roundhouse kick Fest, who grabbed her leg and flipped her over. He smiled as she landed with a huff on her back. He produced a single knife which was very similar to Corellia's.
It had been a gift from the Second in Command to Fest. He held it blade down and pounced toward carolina. She rolled and the Dragon blade stabbed the soil. Had she not rolled the knife would have broken her visor and lodged into her face.
Carolina sprang upward, her feet carrying her body up and over to where she was standing. She dodged three swings with the blade. As Fest's momentum carried him to the right, Carolina spun, her body whirling to the left. Her armored Elbow smashed into the back of Fest's helmet. The blow staggered him enough for Carolina to back pedal until she had some breathing room.
Fest gurgled with rage.
"Killing us won't bring your friend back." Carolina said.
Fest lunged again, stabbing at her with the ornamental knife. Carolina caught the blade with both of her armored hands. The deadly blade sliced through the palm of her black glove and blood flowed from the wound, pouring from her lacerated skin.
Carolina kicked, the toe of her boot catching him in the groin. He doubled over and the blade slipped from between her hands, further damaging her palm. The blood ran down the underside of her gauntlet and she cried out.
Fest rushed her again, wildly swinging the knife in lunatic swipes. Carolina analyzed the movements for a moment before making her move. She grabbed Fest's knife weilding hand and quickly grappled him to the ground. She knelt atop him, trying to wrestle the knife away.
She moved just a fraction too far to the left however and the blade came free and he stabbed at her shoulder. The knife blade was forced deep into Carolina's shoulder, which was the only spot on her body that fest could aim for from his position.
Carolina threw herself backward and rolled to her knees, clutching her newly lacerated shoulder. She looked up just as Fest made it to a knee. He attempted another rush but Carolina swung violently with her sliced hand, sending a torrent of blood flying directly into Fest's visor. Blinded for the moment he was unprepared for when Carolina kneed his gut before smashing her forearm time and again into the back of Fest's helmet.
He rose swiftly however, knocking Carolina off balance with his strong arms. She only barely managed to raise her right hand as Fest's knife stabbed at her, pierced her already bleeding hand and punched through the top of her hand.
Carolina screamed in pain and was knocked to her backside. Fest pushed with all his might, trying to get the pierced hand and the lethal knife blade to poke at the leather that surrounded her throat. She struggled and cried out in pain as she fought not to allow the man to cut her neck.
Her hand burned, throbbed and sent shockwaves of pain through her body with every movement. She pushed as the knife moved closer to her neck.
With a loud grunt of frustration, Fest unsheathed the knife from within Carolina's hand, flicked the blood away and forced her hands to the ground. He pushed his knees into her elbows, breaking both bones as he pushed with all of his weight.
"Say... goodbye." Fest whispered with his hoarse voice.
He raised his arm, knife in hand and ready to kill. His visor hid his bulging eyes and open frown, his teeth bared.
"Hello!" A voice called cheerfully.
Fest looked to his right as did Carolina.
Caboose stood staring at the scene. Fest moved from atop Carolina and rushed in a frenzy at Caboose. Caboose grabbed his hand and squeezed. Tighter, tighter and tighter as Fest gurgled a scream. The bones in his hand were crushed.
"I am Michael J. Caboose!" The blue soldier yelled.
"And this..."
He squeezed tighter.
"Is how..."
Even tighter.
"I shake hands!"
He let go of the destroyed hand, and grabbed Fest by the neck and groin. He hoisted the Commander over his head and threw him several yards away where he crashed into the remains of the Pelican and fell dead, breathing his last.
Caboose knelt and retrieved Carolina, picking her up with both arms and carrying her toward safety.
"Caboose... What... What are you..." Carolina moaned, swiftly losing consciousness from her multitude of injuries.
"You are my friend and that big mean guy hurt you! But do not worry, Carolina. I won't let anybody ever hurt you ever again. Ever."
"Thank..." Carolina mumbled as she closed her eyes and passed out.
BBBBBBB
Missouri looked down from the summit of Hilltop mountain upon the battle raging below. He sighed. They had shown up after all, even after he had taken off alone to meet up with the woman who stood a few feet in front of him. He watched Carolina fall and a tear slid down his cheek. He hoped she hadn't been killed for his sake. It touched him deeply that the Reds and Blues were here, fighting a war for his sake. More importantly, they were fighting for Lambda's sake.
Missouri looked sadly at Speartip. She stood patiently, Lambda's memory unit held firmly in her stark white gloved hand. She said nothing, apparently waiting to have the former freelancer's attention.
"All of this. This death. This war. This dead planet. All because a freelancer and an AI give the ODSC's a bad mark." Missouri said. His voice had healed considerably on the trip to this god forsaken planet.
"That would be one way to describe this situation, yes." Speartip answered.
"479. Do you feel loss?"
The comment had caught her off guard.
He stood, arms at his sides, breathing heavily. The possible execution of Carolina hurt him deeply.
They hadn't been close, even in Project Freelancer. She hadn't always been the paragon of protection either. But the loss made his body and his head ache.
"I don't have the luxury of mercy." Speartip answered simply.
Missouri sighed.
He reached to his helmet and detached the snaps and air hoses and fasteners before pulling it off his head. He flung the helmet down the mountain and into the dead, radioactive sea.
Yellow, as the planet was named after.
Missouri heard the cacophony of the battle below with his own ears rather than his helmet's audio pickups. The clear and decisive sound made his heart sink.
He looked at her with round dark eyes, weary with dread, with sadness and feeling the loss of his only friend. His only love. His straight, narrow nose stood proudly above full lips. One scar traced its way to the left of his upper lip. A brown beard and gotee combo lined his strong jaw line. His thick dark hair was cut short in a standard, men's military style.
"What are you doing?" Speartip asked before she could stop herself.
Moe sighed again.
"She's dead isn't she?" Missouri asked.
Speartip was shocked. She was under duress to kill him and he was asking her questions?
"She is." Speartip confirmed.
Moe's face contorted and he staggered back several steps. He trembled and he seemed to barely be able to stay upright. He clutched his chestpiece where his heart would be. His tears moved down his cheeks as he closed his eyes.
"I knew it." He mumbled before repeating the words like a mantra.
"Before you kill me, is there any way to bring a dead AI back to life?"
Speartip again found herself taken aback. She was about to answer when static sounded through her helmet's communication intercom. The Director's voice was clearly heard.
"Agent Speartip, is Agent Missouri on the planet with you?"
She was stunned to silence but she cleared her throat. If she didn't get back to Hargrave he would assume her dead and murder her husband as he assumed the mission had been failed. She depressed the intercom button on her wrist before speaking, a croak coming from her throat before she coughed and tried again.
"Director Hargrave, sir. He is." She answered.
She let go of the button.
"You're not going to fight me are you?" Speartip asked, adressing Missouri.
He looked up, staring into her visor with a look that she could tell was of a man who had finally lost everything.
"Give me a reason to fight."
Speartip was silent for a moment before Hargrave's maddening voice returned once more.
"Very well, nicely done. Now, do what you have to do. Destroying him should be simple for an Agent of your talents."
Speartip was silent once more. She thought about answering Hargrave but her mind was stuck in the middle.
On one side was her husband, being held against his will under the threat of immediate death should Speartip not follow orders to the letter.
On the other side was a man who had lost it all. A man teetering on the balance of clarity and insanity.
And wasn't that just it? Wasn't he just a man? No more than a living, breathing man? Simply trying to hide from everybody who wanted him dead? Why, they wanted him dead for simply existing after stealing an active AI.
"Speartip, comply now or you know exactly what refusal brings." Hargrave commanded in her ear.
Before her, the man... the nearly broken man stood awaiting her answer. She knew the answer to his question of course. She had studied AI handling and maintenance for fifteen years. She was an expert on AI care.
She depressed her intercom once more.
"Director Hargrave, may I have permission to take Missouri into custody?" Speartip tried, her conscience suddenly rearing its head.
"Absolutely not, Speartip. The UNSC government wants him dead. He had his chance at a trial, but he denied it and ran away, thieving a piece of classified military property along with him. He is a renagade terrorist and you will open fire on him immediately." Hargrave commanded.
Speartip produced her sidearm, but she held it tentatively as if her right arm had been severely weakened. The piece shook and wavered even though it was held by her right hip.
"He's unarmed." Speartip said softly, in nearly a whisper, knowing that her breath had been wasted.
"Good. That makes it an easier target." Hargrave said in a chilling low tone.
She studied her gun nearly in a trance.
"479. My question stands."
Speartip looked to Missouri. His eyes were hollow, his emotional state completely drained upon hearing the news of his love's death.
She tried stalling but the voice in her ear started in on her again.
"I grow tired of asking this. So it will be the final time. Make your choice. Missouri..."
Speartip raised her pistol to her visor studying it again as her mind raced.
"...Or your husband."
Speartip deactivated her intercom. She studied the ground before taking Missouri's face in once more.
"There is no evidence whether concrete or theoretical that any dead AI can be brought back. All testing has shown negative results. As of now, it is impossible to bring a dead AI back." She rattled off from memory in a sad monotone.
Missouri hung his head. His tears flowed and his mind reeled.
He remembered Lambda.
He remembered her pink glow, her piercing green lightbulb like eyes, her avatar smiling warmly at him and making little love faces as the two of them waxed poetic about one another.
He remembered how his body filled with pleasure as she acted on his very mind with erotic visuals and stimulation of all of his body's most sensitive nerves which was their version of making love.
He recalled the first time he saw her memory unit, the first time he had installed her. Oh! The peace that filled his mind as her presence wrapped around his innermost being, kissed his very soul and thanked him for saving her.
Oh! The love he felt coursing through his mind and his body.
His dreams were her reality which she would act upon to give herself the image of a human body and when she danced with him in the bright sunlight filled fields of a dream it was the most romantic and safe he had ever felt. When she cooed to him, softly bringing his mind into a higher plane whether during the day physically or at night among her Love-induced dreams with him he felt lighter than air and more indescribably loved that he felt pierced in body, mind, soul and spirit; utterly and completely void of anything and everything but HER.
He remembered.
And he knelt.
His bare head slumped forward. His eyes opened and Speartip nearly wept at the utter and complete hopelessness within them. They were the eyes of one who had lost a god, or in this case a goddess. They were the eyes of one who had gained every important answer in life and then all in a flash lost them.
They were the eyes of a dead man.
Speartip engaged her intercom once more.
She stared into those eyes with the greatest pity she had ever felt for another human being. With all of her thoughts riding on her husband and moving her eyes away from the husk that knelt before her, she made her decision.
She pointed the muzzle of her pistol at Missouri's head.
And Speartip pulled the trigger.
THE END
Author's Note: This is the end of Missouri's story. There are questions I have left here, some of which will be answered in the epilogue and most of the others to be answered in the sequel.