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James by Commander Demitri Wolf
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Elysian Fields (part one): Aftermath
Date: 11 November 2005, 5:53 am
Disorientation.
When you're tumbling backwards through the void of space it's your worst enemy, and that was exactly the mantra that James ran over in his mind as the same situation played out through his visor.
His first thought was to right himself, when he was secure he could find a way to get through the radio blackout that had prevented him from getting a stable link through to John only thirty seconds before.
Logic, which he had always been taught to use, told him that his best chances of survival was to make sure he didn't get swept further into space; not easy for a half tonne Spartan in zero gravity. But logic also told him to use all objects at his disposal to achieve his goals.
And for a half tonne Spartan, one of those objects were the small retro propulsion thrusters in the power pack of the Mjolnir armour system. Chinning the command functions, James fired the retros, and managed to right himself.
The second he was stable he carefully surveyed his immediate surroundings – as he had always been taught – wrecked hulls of both Human and Covenant warships littered space all around him, the docking station where he had last seen John – the Master Chief – was in the distance, small enough to be covered if he was to raise a fist at arms length.
A huge and battered slate of titanium-A battleplate was staring him down from the opposite direction, and again, James' logic told him to secure himself, so naturally, he used the retros to fling him right in its path -
- just as it rocked past him, giving him just enough time to obtain a hand hold and fling himself right way up, which ever way that was.
He tried the comm, static, paused five seconds and tried again, static. James was a firm believer of the power of the number three, so when he keyed his comm again, he wasn't at all surprised that he obtained a signal.
"Spart…ero-Three…Jame…o read me." James let a smile tug slightly at the corners of his mouth, 'Spartan Zero-Zero-Three,' he thought to himself, 'James, do you read me?'
John never had been one to admit defeat, a quality James admired enormously, as children they hadn't been the greatest friends, John had Sam and Kelly, and James had Fajhad, Lilly and Alex.
Further into their training, however, and with the untimely death of Sam in the Spartan's first space op, and Fajhad's Unfit for Active Service classification as a result of the program's crippling of his body, the two young men sparked a friendship.
James had always been better. Target practice, time trials, obstacle courses; James had come in top three every time, John would fall in further down the line, still exceptional by normal standards, but nothing compared to James.
But he had the most important quality a Spartan could ever want or need; luck.
There were thousands of times John could have died, times he should have died, but he never did. James lost his entire arm in a mission on Cote de Azure, John – the team leader since they were children – left the planet with valuable Intel and not a scratch on him.
But now as James stood alone on the large metal hull section, none of this mattered to him, and he realised; it never did. All that mattered was Earth, Earth and her colonies – her people – and the lives of his fellow servicemen and women, in particular his brothers and sisters in the Spartan program, that was all.
Never the sentimental one, James quickly abandoned his trail of thought and keyed the comm line to reply to the Master Chief, "Sir, Spartan-", the line filled with static before he had started talking, Damn it! The Spartan thought and sighed deeply, now that he paused to think again he realised that under his weight, the battleplate had slowed in speed, now he needed a new transport.
His thoughts were answered as far to his right a bright blue flash splattered across the darkness of space and the nose of a ship pierced the fabric of normal space and left the confines of Slipspace.
The Covenant capital ship dwarfed the wrecks of the other ships as it entered the system, even the orbiting MAC cannons seemed to pause, awed by its presence. But then they resumed their barrage, protecting the ever weakening planet, and the capital ship rocketed past.
It only took James a second to calculate his chances of survival; minimal. He would have to time himself perfectly, a slight error could leave him back where he started, floating in space and a mile behind the ship.
The only other alternative to success was getting caught up in the Slipspace stream that still wavered over the ship, if he was sucked into that, there was no telling what might happen to him.
But it was the quickest option, and in his mind, the best. Timing himself, James took a twenty metre run up, fired his retros one last time and leapt into the abyss of space, hoping that some of his friend's luck had rubbed off on him.
With a thundering crash the Spartan came to the end of his jump in a gap on the hull of the ship. A plasma cannon ten metres away fired a round and the shield around it dropped, just long enough for James to get through it.
As his shields recovered from the heat of the blast James surveyed the ship, there was no visible entry point, so the soldier did the only other thing he could think of.
Raising his mechanical arm he waited only a second before bringing it crashing down on the hull, once, twice, three times. On the third strike, the hull was breached, and James' shoulder was hugging the outside while his fingers grasped the inner roof.
He took his arm out and the room below him explosively decompressed, the atmosphere within bursting out like a puff of smoke, only subsiding when the head of a small vulture like creature wedged itself upwards.
The creature stupidly allowed its reflexes to make it breath, a second later its head burst open and the remnants of its body clogged the breach.
James reached over his shoulder and unhooked a package of high grade explosive, left over from the ones he had been strapping to the nose of the Pelican back at the docking station.
He wedged it down into the hole and set the timer, "Knock, knock." He muttered as he dove clear of the blast, the tumultuous explosion blowing a large section of the ship out.
Looking into the hole he saw nothing but an empty room, but knew it wouldn't be that way for long. And sure enough, ten seconds later the doors pinged purple and the predictably stupid Covenant barged through, only to be blown out the gap in the ship as the atmosphere in the corridor behind them rushed out from under them.
The plasma cannon fired again and as the shield dropped the seven bodies of Grunt and Jackals were whipped out and into the vacuum of space, still alive, but not for long.
James was quick to fling himself into the hole and launch out of the room as the doors closed and locked in place behind him, sealing the breach off from the rest of the ship. He hit the ground hard and rolled on to his back, looking up he found he was staring directly as a very angry Hunter; with a jump to the left he unsheathed a combat knife.
The creature let out its bellowing cry, calling its bond brother to the fray, "You want to fight?" James asked condescendingly and beckoned the massive creature forward, "bring it on."
James' shoulders heaved as he drew deep breaths, behind him the bodies of the two Hunters lay in pools of their own blood, one with a ten centimetre blade protruding from its neck and the other with a hole ripped straight through the fleshy abdomen.
Knowing never to stay in the open for too long, the Spartan grabbed his combat knife, sheathed it and slunk into the shadows, making his way down the corridors and slipping into the darkness as more patrols passed him.
For the first time since he had been on the Pillar of Autumn, James felt a cool feeling in his mind, temporary brain freeze as he was joined by his AI companion, Ulysses. "There's a strange signal coming from the planet that's cast everything this side of the planet into total communications blackouts," he explained, "Cortana's team is out of range."
James continued past a pair of Jackal guards, before, with a flash of silver, he slit their throats and stashed them in the shadows behind him, "Hmm," he eventually replied, "Get me to the bridge and I'll take care of that."
Ulysses chuckled, "The Covenant don't run their ships in the same 'archaic' fashion that we do, Petty Officer, their 'bridge' is more of a central command station reserved for use by only one, the Ship Master. It is buried deep within the ship, close to the centre, so your best hopes of getting there are going straight down." He said with a scoff.
James pondered the situation as Ulysses continued talking, apparently used to the Spartan's quite personality, "So unless you have some sort of tunnelling device, we're going to have to take the long way."
Now it was James' turn to grin, "That's where you're wrong," he then proceeded to retrieve the last charge of explosives from his thigh holsters, Ulysses watched in curiosity and amazement as he saw that the charges were not high grade explosives at all, rather a smaller charge.
"Now," James asked politely, a plan formulating in his mind, "is there any place on this ship closer than the command room where you can access the plasma cannon system?" As he spoke he placed the charge in a large circle shape above head on the roof of the corridor.
The AI froze momentarily and accessed the UNSC Gettysburg's system, directed its aft camera towards the ship at the point where the explosives where now being placed by James, "Oh you are joking me," he said a millisecond later, "You've gone mad."
Inside the Mjolnir, the grin that had been lingering on James' face became a full smile and he nodded, "No, now please, the weapons system?" Ulysses huffed indignantly and slipped out of the system, returning a full ten seconds later.
"I spiked the system, for the moment we have remote access to all shipboard systems, make it quick though, there was…something in there," he said uneasily and the Spartan nodded, "Shut down all weapon, propulsion and the shielding systems, leave the shields on standby for immediate re-activation."
"Why," The AI questioned, "Would we want to do that?"
"Because, when the largest ship in the enemy fleet is defenceless and our people have no idea we are here, where do you think the attack is going to be directed?" James replied and the AI murmured in concurrence before doing so.
With the last charge in place he fired the high-tensile-wired piton from his power pack and waited for it to obtain a deep hold in the floor before jumping high, smashing two handholds into the inclosed circle and holding on tight, "Fire in the hole," he called, chinning the detonation.
The aft camera on the Gettysburg was still directed at the point on the enemy ship, and just as the shields flicked and died and the plasma cannons powered down in mid-shot, a small section on the hull burst free; a section that held one of the smaller cannons on it.
If there had been anyone alive on the ship to witness the event, they would have seen a green armoured soldier wrestle the section of hull around, direct the cannon inside the ship and then throw himself clear, and again into space as the now stationary ship receive a massive blow from its own cannon.
James' right arm ached more than it ever had in his life, a seal had blown in his bionic left arm and his slowly deteriorating shields took hit after hit as he was pummelled against the ships hull.
He dug his armoured hand into the gap where the plasma cannon once was – it now being flung out into space – and using the barley intact wire attached to the piton, reeled himself back inside the ship. The scene that met him was pandemonium, bodies of Covenant soldiers were hurled everywhere and a gaping tunnel dug halfway through the colossal ship.
Knowing he couldn't rest until he had control of the ship, James ordered Ulysses to reactivate the shields, the flickering barrier covering the breach and stopping the decompression momentarily as several MAC rounds slammed into the ship and again took it down.
Five seconds later as James was trudging over to the tunnel, the shield righted itself again and the ship rocked from the abrupt atmospheric change, allowing the soldier to leap from the walkway and down, towards the command room where a group of four Gold armoured Elites guarded the Silver armoured Ship Master, preparing for battle against this resourceful and dangerous new enemy.
The Pillar of Autumn jumped system, aboard were the Master Chief, Captain Keyes, the clinically 'dead' Linda in cryotube storage and a large contingent of UNSC Marines.
Fleet Commander Orna 'Fulsamee stood on the command pedestal of his ship and sent the order out to all the ship's under his command, "Follow them." One by one, the Covenant ships winked out of system, simultaneous flashes of blue light as Slipstream highways opened in blank space.
'Fulsamee paused as he saw one final ship, a Capital ship, holding position above the surface of Reach, he hailed the commander, but before the Ship Master could formulate a response, Ulysses spiked the system and sent back a message in the Sangheili text.
Our vessel has fallen in the pursuit of the Great Journey, continue our work Brothers, by the Prophet's decree we will have salvation, in this life or the next.
'Fulsamee recognised the passage as the official death message of ships, an automated response activated when a ship's crew is incapacitated or dead, with a final scan of the system, he too ordered his ship to follow the Slipspace route, and in one final flash of brilliant blue, it headed in trail of the Pillar of Autumn.
Seconds later Ulysses was booted from the system and the Ship Master furiously trailed to hail him, with a loud and prolonged curse, he realised that they were stranded in a dead human system, surrounded and infiltrated by the enemy, in one final attempt at defiance to the Human race; he tapped a series of commands.
His ship's failsafe mechanism.
In three units the ship's reactors would go critical; a thermonuclear explosion would help to spew the ship's super-heated plasma reserves through the human occupied space all around.
James fell down the shaft and with a crash, came to a halt as he dug into the wall and dropped himself to the floor below, directly outside the command room. Ulysses winked into James' Mjolnir system again and spoke his final words, "Nice aiming, oh Captain my Captain." He then slipped into the Covenant ship's mainframe and overrode the controls again, managing to lock it off before the other presence accessed his subroutines and systematically deleted him.
"Goodbye, friend," James bowed his head before the door before him flashed purple and opened, three plasma sword equipped Elites burst free, shouting their cries of war.
With the grace of a dancer, the Spartan flung himself backwards and grabbed his BR55 as his feet touched the ground. He fired three three-round bursts at the lead Elite who dropped instantly, blood gushing from the wound on its neck.
The other two snarled and charged, swords deflecting a further six volleys, James raised the weapon in defence as one Elite swung down on him, the blade passed through the gun with a hiss! sound and it clattered to the ground in two pieces.
The Spartan then did something unexpected, he ran right at the Elite, smashing his head into its stomach while at the same time grabbing its ankles and flipping it onto its back. His companion charged and James ducked and grabbed its wrist, twisting hard he broke tendons and snatched the sword from its user.
He snapped the glowing sword up, sliced the Elite's head clean off before about facing and drilling the blade through the other Elite's stomach. As the second Elite died it let out a guttural cry, but then the sword bisected the creature in two and the cries stopped.
Without time to think James spun again and faced the door the Elites had left, to see the Ship Master and the final Elite, Carbine loaded and aimed right at his-
Swoosh!
-James dived clear as the projectile shot past his head; he grabbed for the M6D on his waist, found it, raised and loosed two rounds. Both struck the Elite in the forehead, knocking his shields down, the beast cried out loud and charged.
The Spartan tried to dodge but this Elite was smarter, he parried the move and struck James with a vicious blow to the gut, he doubled over and gagged, the creature above him gave a laugh, "You are finished!" he declared in human tongue.
I don't think so, James though and with the hardest punch he had ever thrown, swung at the Elite's head and connected.
The crack was sickening, the Elite dropped like a stone when the entire right side of its head shattered and pierced its brain, gurgling for a few seconds before it died.
James turned his attention to the Ship Master, and with the last of his strength he picked up a fallen energy sword and with a roar fiercer than any of the Elite's, raised it above his head and ran to the entrance to the command room.
The silver armoured creature was pitifully weak, inheriting this position from its noble father, it could never match the Spartan for strength, so when the green armoured beast brought the sword crashing down on his head, his eyes closed and he faced death like a coward; calling to the Forerunners for salvation.
With the last of his strength, James staggered to the command pedestal in the centre of the room; oddly his fading view was drawn to a symbol on the display, not any different from the others.
Weakly, he managed to raise a hand and push gently down on the symbol, a droning beep sounded as though through a broken record player as the Spartan finally let his body rest, collapsing at the foot of the pedestal.
The droning sound buzzed on, falling on deaf ears as the ship continued to plough through space, the system James had triggered causing lines of flowing blue to cascade around its hull.
Seconds later it ripped a hole through normal space and entered a Slipspace channel, where the unmanned vessel continued to traverse, until the sequence that the Zealot had activated caused the ship to emit a low rumbling noise.
With a flash of the most brilliant blue mixed with an explosion of red the massive ship imploded in on itself, its plasma reserves serving to annihilate the wrecked sections of hull.
Everything still alive on the ship died instantly, and in a few short seconds later the entire Capital ship and all aboard it were disintegrated, and Reach was saved a bombardment from the ship by its lone saviour, the Spartan martyr.
1254 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
Fontana Mersinias System, approximately 301, 000 light years from Sol
The tendrils of orange radiance cascaded around the prone figure, dissipating into thin air just as quickly as they had appeared, with a groan the figure rolled onto its back and looked upwards.
What in the hell,he thought as the calm blue sky looked down on him, clouds dotting its otherwise untainted scape. Knowing that the pain was telling him he was still alive, the man got slowly and strugglingly to his feet, the violent feelings in his stomach making him want to throw up.
Reluctantly he retracted his visor and did just that, trying to remove the vile taste from his lips by spitting onto the brown dirt; he froze.
The brown dirt.
There was only one place he had ever seen with soil as fertile and rich with nutrients as this, and that was years ago, as a child on his home world of Elysium. Crouching down he cupped his hands and dug a handful of it, letting hit run between his armoured fingers, he dropped the soil and stood.
"What are you doing mister," the voice suddenly came from behind him, the man spun and faced a young boy of ten, "Why are you on our farm?"
He looked around and saw the cottages and farmhouses that were spread around the land before him, "Your farm?" he asked, "I…I don't know."
The boy looked at him puzzled, and smiled, "Well, what's your name?" The man thought, my name? The amnesia took its temporary blow on him but the soil had re-jogged his memory, "My name is James."
This time the boy's mouth dropped open and he starred at James in amazement, "I had an Uncle called James, but he was taken away a long time ago."
The Spartan froze again, the soil, a missing uncle, was this what had brought him here? He looked down at the boy again and smiled, crouching to be at eye-level with him, "What is your mother's name?"
"Sarah," he said, and looked back to the nearest farmhouse; a woman had appeared at the doorway, "There she is, wanna meet her?" The Spartan nodded and rose to full hight, he was surprised when the young boy took his hand and dragged him towards the house, "Come on!"
James just stared forward at the woman at the door way, a woman with the most amazingly blonde hair, hair like his own. He looked at the boy now running full pelt towards her, the likeness of his young self, the fastest child in his neighbourhood.
He reached the cottage a few seconds later and stood at the base of the steps while the boy ran to his mother, she hugged him close and then looked at the newcomer, when she did her eyes widened.
She saw the scar below his right eye, the gash where he had been cut as a child, in a moment of recognition she laughed with joy, "James?"
The great armoured man before her smiled and opened his mouth to reply, when high above their heads a great rumbling noise sounded. Looking upwards James spotted them straight away, a flash of blue light and six large purple blobs appeared in the sky above, the Covenant were here.
He looked at the woman, his sister, and placed a hand on her shoulder, with a reassuring look. Plans formulating in his mind, he spoke the first words to her that he had in over thirty years, "I'm home."
Elysian Fields (part two): The Artifact
Date: 6 January 2006, 6:40 am
1312 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
planet Elysium, Fontana Mersinias System,
Civilian Estate designation A-32
What are they doing here, here of all places, James thought to himself as he gunned the domestic 2553 series Warthog carrying his entourage across the fertile land. Sarah sat in the back of the converted military vehicle with her son, who James had discovered was named for his grandfather – and James and Sarah's father – Casey.
The Spartan, in an attempt of making himself less threatening to his newfound family, had removed his bulky Mjolnir helmet, something rare for the soldier as well as something that left him feeling slightly vulnerable. But not nearly as vulnerable as they were about to become.
Overhead the Covenant numbers had multiplied threefold, with at least eighteen of their ships now in low orbit of Elysium, "It's overkill," James had told Sarah as they left his sister's cottage, "There's something here they want."
As the 'Hog bounded over a hill, clearing a fence and leaving the property, James swung the wheel around and brought them screeching onto the road, "Cool!" cried Casey, his mother was not nearly as impressed.
"Sorry," James replied, almost sheepishly, "I'm not used to driving these things carefully." He zoned out as the vehicle sped down the highway and thought back, to Reach, the Covenant vessel, and his curious arrival here. Running the events over in his mind, James forced himself to remember the last seconds aboard the doomed Capital ship.
He could remember his roar of triumph as he bisected the Ship Master, the euphoria that was overcome in milliseconds as he literally collapsed onto the command pedestal. No, before then, he had hit a random key, hadn't he? Now that James recalled the moment the symbol drilled into his mind, and he could hardly remember consciously pressing it.
James wiped the memory from his mind as the Warthog received an uplink signal from SiriusHub, the information network portal. The passenger side windscreen became a projected information station, and as James stole glances at it, filled with live images of Covenant blockade.
The Spartan called back to his sister, "How do I get the communications network?" She responded by climbing over the armrest in the front seat and sitting down in the passenger side, as she buckled in she tapped various keys on the dashboard and the display changed.
She handed James a Chatter from the glove box compartment and he attached the device to his head, "Good to go, Chief." Sarah smiled as she dialled him in to the UNSC Personnel Switchboard.
Seconds later, he was speaking to Admiral Kale Fenton, having given the AI at the switchboard his Spartan designation and asking to be transferred. Fenton was Admiral of the Fontana Mersinias UNSC Fleet, which made him the number one person for James to contact.
"Son, I don't know what the hell you are doing in this system, last news I got, all Spartans were on a Blacklist operation off-planet Reach, but while I got you here, I ain't lettin' go." The Admiral spoke with a Texan drawl that reminded James of Thomas, a long dead Spartan friend of his listed falsely as MIA. And – James noticed – the way he labelled James you, an individual person, there had been many a time when he had been spoken to like an object, one of many mindless creatures.
"It's extremely complicated, Sir, I don't fully understand the scope of this myself." He kept his voice calm as he spoke, drove, and cycled through the travel directory on the Warthog's SiriusHub uplink.
"Well then, I'll be blunt with you Spartan; we have a situation here," That's an understatement, James thought but let the Admiral speak, "Recently our archaeological team lead by Professor Aleksandr Lazutkin have been making…discoveries."
James steered the Warthog around an obstruction on the road with ease and replied, "Sir?"
The older man sighed, James could see a mental picture of the man now, dishevelled, unshaven; he was on the end of his tether, "We have something that they want, Spartan – hell! What is your name soldier?"
He asked the question not in a rude or angry manner, but rather inquisitively, which the Spartan appreciated, more and more he was beginning to like this man, "My name is Spartan-003, Sir, but… I am called James."
Fenton chuckled, "Thankyou, as I was saying, James," he paused as if collecting himself for a second, "Ten hours ago, the Professor and his dig team unearthed a crystal of sorts, I think that may be what brought them here, what brought you here."
A crystal, James thought, just like on Sigma Octanus IV. Subconsciously he ran his fingers over the seared patches on his Mjolnir over his arm, the arm he lost at that very conflict, because of the crystal
"Sir, that crystal is very likely a dangerous artifact, I have previously come into contact–"
Admiral Fenton cut him off quickly, "I know, soldier, that's why it is extremely fortunate for me that I just landed myself a final lifeline; you. I'm patching you through the most direct route from your location to the dig site; your objectives are being updated into your HUD."
James discarded the chatter and donned his Mjolnir helmet again and reconnected the link to Fenton.
He accessed his objective menu, as the Admiral had said; five new objectives now filled the screen. It told him that his primary objectives were the securing of the artifact and the safe transport of it to the Space Lift on his HUD map.
His secondary objectives were as simple, protect the Professor, prevent un-necessary losses of military personnel and lastly, prevent civilian fatalities, these objectives were the usual ones for a mission like this, "Ten-four, Sir, Spartan-003 en route to target destination. But, Sir, I noticed one thing missing on my objectives, extraction of you, and of the rest of the Admiralty."
Fenton sighed, "That's because we're we are, James, we don't need extraction. If you could see me now soldier, you'd see an old man saluting you."
There was a hiss of static and the line disconnected, for the first time in minutes James remembered the presence of his family in the car when Sarah gasped, "James, look," he followed her pointing finger to the sky, "they're engaging the Covenant."
Sure enough, a convoy of around twenty assorted UNSC ships, Destroyers and Cruisers mainly, had started a bombardment of the Covenant fleet. James chinned a control inside his helmet, and instantly individual identification tags spat on his screen, each marking a ship, and sure enough – and just as the Spartan expected – at the head of the human armada, launching a miniature salvo of Archer missiles an two gigantic MAC rounds, was a colossal capital ship, the UNSC Empire State, Fenton's flagship.
James raised his hand in a salute to the Admiral and muttered, "And I salute you too, Sir." Casey leant over from the backseat and place a hand on James' shoulder, he didn't say anything; he didn't need to.
As the Warthog spun out onto another highway, Sarah finished telling James about the last thirty-five years of her life, "And the father?" James asked quietly, cocking his head slightly towards Casey who was watching a HoloVid in the backseat.
His sister smiled and replied in hushed tones, "He was killed two years ago," James winced, "Captain Leroy Nelson, UNSC." The Spartan looked up with a new look on his face.
"Captain of the New England," he murmured, as he again removed his helmet, realising he had once served under his brother-in-law without ever knowing, "I was there when he died, we had entered a ground engagement, plasma bolt," James jabbed his right index and middle fingers into his chest, "right to the heart."
"Oh my God," Sarah had tears forming on her eyes by this stage and James put an armoured arm on her shoulder, this was how he had seen officers console war widows before.
The Spartan smiled at her when they parted, "He was a good officer, and a great man," the scene oddly played back in James' mind, the explosions, aerial strikes, and then everything froze as Nelson, his commanding officer during the campaign, was hit.
It went into slow motion as the life faded from the man's face and he slumped, first to his knees and then on his face, as six more globs of plasma hit and seared away flesh on the dead man's body.
He could remember looking up and seeing a lone Elite towering above his prone figure, he recalled scooping up and priming a plasma grenade from the debris covered ground and flicking it with his wrist towards the great laughing creature.
And last of all, he saw its face contort into a look of surprise as the glowing ball stuck to its neck, heard it bellow in rage as it clawed to no avail and finally he felt the adrenaline and fury flowing through his body as the creature was disintegrated by the blinding explosion.
"I said, we're there," Sarah had dried her eyes now and was staring at the entranced Spartan, "Wake up."
Though he was driving he had slipped into a daydream, he brought himself back and apologised, "You stay here with Casey, I'll be back for you." He scooped his helmet up in his hand and smiled at his family, he would protect them. The Spartan eased the Warthog into a park near the dig site and hopped out.
He placed the helmet over his head and clicked it into place, atmosphere venting from the airtight seal as the HUD came online, the flashing red icon telling him he had incomplete objectives.
It was then that he looked at the actual site of the excavation, it was huge. A giant charged fence ran the perimeter, maybe a kilometre square, and inside the land was dotted with tents, equipment and in the middle of it all, surrounded by many smaller ones, was a hole that looked a good twenty metres in diameter.
James was aware of how little time there was and began to sprint to the security barrier that had been constructed at the main entrance to the site. The MP at the station was alert, his BR55 unslung and pointed at the running Spartan, "Halt!" he called and James obliged, time-wasting formalities followed before he was allowed clearance, and not a second later he had resumed his dash.
He was met twenty metres into the dig site by a man in his late forties, his face and clothes were grimy and dirt stained, the nametag on his excavation helmet read 'A. Lazutkin'.
"Professor," the Spartan said as he looked around the site again, men were running in every direction, fleeing the site as news of the attack reached them. In fact, the only person remaining calm was himself, even Lazutkin was looking panicky. "I need to extract you and the artifact now. The man before him nodded and replied, "It is in the main tent, we must hurry."
Lazutkin cocked his head towards a tent off to their left, and with a nod the Spartan ran to it with him following close behind. James roughly pushed aside the tent flap and stormed inside, his eyes falling on the pedestal in the centre of the tent. "Is that it?" he asked Aleksandr as he came through the flap.
"Aye, that's where she is." He replied simply and looked metal encased holding chamber with a smile. James stepped up to the pedestal and tapped in his UNSC override code to the keypad affixed below, the titanium-A battleplate armouring receded and a bright green light shone out from inside. James' blast visor darkened to protect his eyes as they focused on the intricately designed crystal beyond the aurora like haze.
James tore his eyes from the mesmerizing sight and turned back to the professor, "Can I hold it? How am I meant to retrieve it?" Lazutkin snapped from his trance and looked at the Spartan with horror on his face, "What ever you do, don't make direct contact with the crystal!" The Spartan wasn't sure he wanted to know why, and thought against asking, "We lost three workers early into the excavation, they just...died."
They just died? James didn't want to know more for the moment, that could wait, "Will my shielding system be able to handle it?" The professor looked the Spartan over and then nodded, "We used Mach I's for the excavation, you should be able to hold it without trouble.
Cautiously James reached out a hand and touched the green crystal with his index finger, it responded to his touch by ceasing to glow and pulsate, and by casting a wave of static over his HUD. The Spartan looked at his spectroscope and noted the quick spike in the gamma range, but when nothing else happened, he took it as a sign of success and grabbed the crystal quickly. He looked to the professor as another man entered the tent, he was panting and looked terrified, "They're here…they've found us, we have to get out of here!"
James thrust the crystal into the holding canister attached to the pedestal went to the front of the tent and looked up at the sky, three Covenant dropships were descending on the site, spewing plasma down on the sentries. Sarah, Casey, James thought, he looked into the room and eyed the only weapon he could see in a locked glass cupboard next to Lazutkin. He moved like lightning, "Get out of here, now!" He bellowed to the professor and the other workman as he smashed the glass and grabbed the backpack inside; he furiously threw it over his arm and snapped it on, grabbing the attachment in his armoured hands and twisting the ignition valve as he exited the tent after the two men.
The first dropship had just set down fifteen yards from the tent when James burst free, the flamethrower in his hands already licking the air a good two metres in front of him. The Elite that jumped from the dropship was the first to be incinerated, the flames engulfed his shield and as it flickered and died the tongues of fire seeped through grooves in the armour and delivered deep burns to the creature.
Unable to remove its armour, the Elite fell to the ground wreathing and screaming in pain as its skin was seared off its body. Two Grunts jumped down next, firing plasma pistols at the Spartan, two bolts glazed his Mjolnir armour as the flamethrower hissed over their methane tanks and exploding with the sound of a small bomb going off.
Pulling the safety catch on the dual nozzle, James spun the release valve and along with the first jet of flame intensifying threefold, a second burst accompanied it off to the right, so now two identical streams were licking at the hull of the dropship; the result was almost instantaneous.
The remaining occupants of the dropship were cremated unceremoniously as the fire caught them, the dropship dipped as the internal temperature of the cockpit skyrocketed and the elite pilot collapsed over his controls.
James ran for it.
Behind him the dropship, now well alight, crashed to the ground and exploded, sending large piece of chassis flying over his head. The second craft that had been flying in behind it hadn't seen the explosion till it was too late, and was caught in the eruption as well. But the third dropship was still well alive, and as the Spartan and the two men with him escaped the compound it released a violent burst of plasma from its turret.
Everything went into slow motion for James as the plasma rain dropped to the ground, he grabbed at his bandolier of grenades to find only two left, he primed them at once – leapt – and hurled them with the accuracy of a bullet. The hung in the air and then descended down on their target. One hit the gun turret and the second the pilot's compartment, James dove for the ground as they erupted three seconds later.
The final dropship exploded twenty metres above the ground and came crashing down a moment after, surveying his handiwork James got to his feet and pushed the two men forwards, "Get in the Warthog, now!" He threw off the smoking flamethrower and jumped into the driver's seat of the vehicle that his family still sat in, "We're getting out of here."
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