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All Roads Lead To Sol...Just Make Sure To Bypass Mars: Chapter 18
Posted By: S7N<n.j.r.jones@brighton.ac.uk>
Date: 2 January 2004, 2:52 AM
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Chapter 18
1750 Hours, August 30th, 2550 (Military Calendar) /
UNSC Frigate Horatio, orbiting Corona
"Just keep running!" Fincher yelled to his muscular counterpart as they tried to get away from the Covenant onslaught that was chasing them. "Run!"
Things had gone from bad to worse, to terrible in a matter of minutes. Not only had they gotten lost, they were being chased by what seemed like hundreds of Covenant soldiers, and worst of all, they were unarmed.
"I heard you the first time!" Harris bellowed back at him. "Now shut up and save your breath for dying!" Harris' comment made Fincher think for a moment. Was he going to die? Here? Now? His time wasn't up yet. Or was it? He'd faced death too many times, like all Marines. Was it time for him to part this world?
He was torn back to reality by a hard slap to the face from Harris. The large man loomed over him, a stern finger pointed at Fincher. "You'd best not start getting all melodramatic on me!" his face was red with anger. Or was it just exhaustion? "I know you!"
The two locked eyes for a minute, them smiled. "C'mon ya big oaf, we gotta find the others!" Fincher yelled and grabbed at Harris' uniform, dragging him off in yet another direction. It hadn't occurred to them that for the brief period they were standing still there were no Covenant firing at them. Fincher stopped slowly, then glanced over his shoulder, Harris coming up beside him.
"Hey, I think we lost them!" Fincher said, a smile blossoming on his face. It quickly disappeared as green light filled the corridor, energy burning the plasteel walls near his head.
"You had to open yo..." Harris' retort was lost in an explosion that shook through the ship, almost taking the privates off of their feet. They looked at each other in bewilderment, then realised that the ships they had seen in the mess hall were attacking. And the Covenant soldiers had caught up to them. They watched as over a dozen Jackals and two-dozen Grunts piled into the tight corridor behind them. It didn't take much to get Harris and Fincher moving again, as they once again tried to evade what seemed like an ever-present enemy.
"I can't do this any more!" Harris yelled, a pained expression on his face. They rounded a corner, not looking where it led to and ran full pelt into Harland and Sarah. Harris slammed into the Corporal, taking him off of his feet. Sarah wasn't better off as Fincher nearly head-butted her. Before any of them could ask any questions, a Jackal's shield emerged from behind them and Harland realised why he had been knocked to the ground. Harris took one look at the newcomers, waved for them to follow and then took off in the direction they had been going.
It seemed like they had been running for hours, their legs burning and sweat covering their clothes. Harris had turned a bright red, and Fincher's breathing had become wheezy and thick. Sarah, though looked a deathly pale, and was also lagging too far behind for Harris' liking. He came to a stop at a junction and waited for them all to stop, then moved to Sarah.
"Are you alright? You don't look so good." She looked as if she was about to say something but her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell limply to the floor. The others were round her in a flash, shouting her name, touching sensitive points on her to try and wake her up.
"What happened?" Harland yelled. He was in the process of pulling off one of her boots.
"She just collapsed, "Fincher replied, holding her shoulders and head up off of the floor. "Where did you find her?" Harland looked at the NCO.
"When the attack happened I was in med lab, getting a piece of shrapnel removed from my thigh. Sarah was on the bed opposite, she'd undergone intense therapy and wasn't supposed to get out of bed for at least another twelve hours. I had to bring her along with me, the med lab got almost completely decimated."
The sound of a hundred feet echoed around them, and Harris found it hard to try and discern where it originated. When Sarah had fainted, he had lost his bearings and couldn't remember which direction they had come from.
A strange calm washed over Raynes, he felt light as a feather and there was not an ounce of fear or anger in him.
It was a feeling that he thought strange considering the fact that he was hurtling towards a Covenant Destroyer a thousand times his size. On either side of him the Spartans gripped his arms. It was unnerving to say the least, and to think that these three Spartans had probably killed more Covenant soldiers than he'd see in his lifetime. The black expanse of space seemed to shrink around him as the large Covenant ship engulfed him, ready to swallow him up at any moment.
Purple plasma fire littered the air around him, and he could have sworn that one of the energy beams passed within an inch of his face. The nose of the ship dived away from them as they shot over its bow, passing only a hundred metres from its surface. Raynes felt his pulse spike at the marvel below him. Despite the Covenant being the possible eradicator of human kind, what he was seeing now was breath taking. When he had first seen a UNSC Cruiser, he had thought he'd never see anything more magnificent. And here he was clearly being proven wrong. The way the light rebounded off of the purple hull, sloping down out of view. The sparkle it held was nothing less than breathtaking.
He felt the grip on his arms loosen and turned to look to his left. The Spartan stared straight ahead; or at least that's where Raynes thought he was looking. The golden visor hid all facial expressions, which was both a help and a hindrance.
"What are we doing?!" Raynes yelled into his mic. "We're passing over a very dangerous Covenant vessel!"
The Spartan's helmet swivelled to face him, and Raynes could have sworn he saw a smile beneath the shiny reflection. "You'll see." A steely voice said in his ear. He didn't like the sound of that. He looked back down again and was surprised to see that the Covenant ship was gone beneath him. He tried to force his head down to get a glimpse of it, but the pressure suit wouldn't allow it. He thought of his men on the Horatio, what will come of them if that destroyer opens fire on them.
"We've missed the ship!" he cried into his radio. "Now where the hell are we going to go?!"
"We are getting on that ship." The female said, her free hand pointing at another Covenant ship that was quickly taking up Raynes vision on his right. "You." She continued "are getting on that ship!" he looked to where her arm was pointing and saw a UNSC Frigate closing in from the opposite direction. It wasn't the Horatio, that was a few thousand kilometres behind him, but it had a distinct resemblance to it.
"And how am I going to get over there?!" the Sergeant screamed. The female Spartan started waving her arm in a circular motion, bringing herself around and underneath him. The Spartan to his left did the same, coming round next to her. They linked arms, pulled their legs in, the kicked out, catching Raynes in the chest. The impact wasn't hard, but it was enough to knock the wind out of him. The kick sent him spiralling in the direction of the Frigate, and he found it hard to focus on the objects around him. After a few seconds he finally got his bearings and saw that the Spartans had disappeared from sight. They had shrunk into the distance, merging with the Covenant ship beyond.
"They have to be around here somewhere." Walker yelled ahead "With Fincher leading the way, it shouldn't take that long to find him!" Manny ignored the comment and sped his pace up a little. They had spent the last five minutes wandering the corridors aimlessly, like ghosts trying to find their lost comrades. It wasn't until they ran into a pack of Jackals that it became a retreat. They had thrown a couple of grenades, turned tail and ran. And now they were lost.
"Just keep running, marine!" Cochran yelled back at him. The trio rounded a corner and saw a group of soldiers huddled around each other. Manny recognised them as Harland, Fincher and Harris. The bigger man was cradling someone, and Fincher and Harland stood looking gaunt. To his dismay, as Manny neared them he realised the person on the floor was Sarah. He almost dived onto her, grabbing at her body, prying her from Harris' grip.
"What happened?!" he screamed. "What happened? Has she been hit?" he checked her pulse. She looked pale and her lips were tinged with blue. Her eyes fluttered open and locked onto him. She gave a weak smile and tried to speak.
"Am...am I dead yet?" her voice was quiet. Manny gave her a wry look. "What happened?"
"You fainted." Harland replied. He stood with his rifle pointed down one of the corridors. "But I suggest we get moving, those Covenant bastards can't be too far behind!" As the last word uttered out of his mouth, a plasma pistol appeared up ahead. It was followed by a handful of Grunts, each one overcharging their small energy weapons.
"Move!" Harris yelled. He scooped up Sarah and flung her over his shoulder. Manny and Cochran primed grenades and threw them down the length of the corridor, turned and ran, closely followed by the others.
"We need to get to the escape pods!" Fincher cried out. "The ship must be over run!" Harland upped his pace and got ahead of them.
"I know where to go," he shouted over his shoulder. "Just follow me!"
"Where have I heard that before?" Walker managed to sputter, firing a burst over his shoulder. Manny suppressed a smile as Fincher shouted something obscene in the other man's direction. Walker just smiled and carried on running.
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