Of Unknowns and Mysteries.... by Revenant
|
MysteriesCrossover1
Date: 22 December 2006, 6:26 pm
Of Unknowns and Mysteries….
Book 1: Crossover
Chapter 1
Samus Aran stretched lazily in the pilot's seat and yawned. She took a moment to savor the fell of air on her face, a luxury well appreciated after days on end seal in her Fusion suit. But her reverie was interrupted when a warning beep issued from the control panel in front of her. She spun, instantly changing from daydreaming woman into battle-hardened bounty hunter.
"ADAM, report!" she barked as she disengaged the autopilot and took control of her ship. "There is a frigate-sized vessel ahead. It is not running any kind of ID beacon, but markings are consistent with a Space Pirate ship.", said the AI. Samus grimaced. She just couldn't seem to get away from the lawless thugs. Suddenly, the frigate's engines glowed with light, and turned toward her with surprising agility.
"The vessel's weapons are coming online.", ADAM warned, then he made a thoughtful noise. "Strange. There seems to be a spatial anomaly of some kind off the port side of the Pirate vessel. Perhaps they were investigating it." Samus cut him off, "And now they're trying to kill us, so save the quantum physics lecture for later and get me firing solutions for the missile tubes."
But before Samus could fire any of her weapons, a missle streaked from the frigate, and she was forced to send her ship spiraling sideways to avoid it. Another missile fired, and another. Samus gritted her teeth in concentration. The heat from the explosions filtered through the skin of her ship, causing sweat to bead on her forehead. One small drop of sweat rolled down into one of her eyes, and she blinked for one critical half-instant.
At that precise time, a missile screamed through space and exploded too close to Samus's ship. A meter-wide ragged hole appeared in the side of the command deck. Red lights flashed, and an emergency klaxon blared in the escaping air. Samus knew that her Fusion suit was her only hope of survival, and that she had mere seconds to reach it. She dove, aided by the vacuum, and her fingers caught on the edge of the tube. She struggled to pull herself inside, but once she did so, her suit pulled itself together around her with blinding mechanical speed. Once it hissed shut she took a deep breath and sighed with relief. Then she realized with a trill of sheer terror that her ship was drifting straight into the maw of the forgotten singularity. She lunged for the controls, but then time seemed to stop. She watched, helpless, as the empty void swiftly flared with cold blue light….
* * *
"Field of fire on that bulkhead." Master Chief clicked off the safeties on his two SMGs. Then a peal of thundering explosion blasted the metal door apart. Springing into action, Master Chief laid into the charging Grunts with his guns. He struggled to keep the weapons on target, and he decided that they weren't worth the effort.
When the magazines were empty, rather than reloading, he simply tossed the guns aside, dissatisfied with their performance, and reached for his battle rifle, and single shots from it served to dispatch the two remaining Grunts, and a series of three-shot bursts bit into the commanding Elites' shields, which flared in the darkness. Fire from the Marines behind Master Chief cut the aliens down without hesitation. Sgt. Johnson grinned and flashed the Spartan a thumbs-up.
The Chief returned the gesture, slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle, and charged down the corridor. As he fought through the station, lending aid to the embattled Marines, he paused at a makeshift armory and grabbed a pair of magnum pistols to replace his discarded SMGs. The brief relative peace of the moment was shattered when a clutch of Grunts came running around the corner. Master Chief whipped around and opened fire with his new guns. Grunts screamed and flew through the air, and the survivors fled in terror. However, before leaving a crimson-armored Covenant paused to toss a grenade back in Master Chief's direction. The grenade missed him by close to two meters, but he didn't take any chances and threw himself behind a crate.
When the ensuing explosion severed a power conduit, he had no choice but to throw himself through the resulting hole in the wall. Time seemed to slow, even for this accelerated mind as he landed in a pile of blazing debris. But instead of heat, Master Chief felt a numbing cold wash over him as blue flame licked at his shields….
|
