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The Hall Of Echoes


.................................... Chapter 2 ....................................
: Falling :

//Mission Clock-07:00.hrs.//Earth Date-jun.12.2553/_UNSC.Ft.Bragg//vec.19909273//Ltn. Frank Merritt./.

"Ah, screw this." Shouted Frank. He was getting tired of the hold-ups with the engine. He could see explosions in space from human vessels struggling against Covenant Cruisers.
"Are you almost finished down there? Because they sure as hell are almost finished up there." He complained.
"Just a moment! I don't know how this thing blew a bearing, but I will never get it changed if you don't shut up!" His engineer screamed back.
"Can we make it with out it? Asked Frank.
"Only if you can fly without engines." Frank laid his head on the controls and let out a big sigh. To him, a war or battle could not be won unless he was flying. He pondered the idea of not having any engines. Could he somehow make it fly without them? His co-pilot rested his hand on his shoulder.
"Look, if anybody can get this bird up the fastest, its Oliver."
"They are up. Punch it." Shouted Oliver. The good news ringed through Frank's ears. Frank hit a few controls and the engines roared to life. He radioed in to the other fighters.
"This is Morning bird 7 to Morning bird 4, nap-time is over. Our engines are up and we are on the way." There was a pause on the radio.
"This is Morning bird 9 to Morning bird 7. Roger that, over. Frank, Morning bird 3,1,5 and 4 have been recalled to the Batter-back base at Mombassa. It seems they are already up to their ears. Good thing they dropped off a Spartan. I guess it is just me, you, the squad and as many as we can round up at Fort San Monica on the west coast."
"Roger that Morning bird 9. Lets give'em the old razzle dazzle." The Longsword jetted across the continent at unmentionable speeds. Frank slowed them down once he neared the Pacific ocean. A fleet of Drop-ships carrying heavy turrets and tanks were inbound.
"Ok, you guys see that? I want that to fall out of the sky in ashes. Is that understood?" His gunners got into position.
"Roger that, just keep us in good range." One of them yelled from the back of the fighter.
"That, I can do." Replied Frank, breaking formation from the other fighters to flank the ships. Plasma pelted the air all around them. Mortar cannons and LAAGs fired from his own, silencing the smaller of the ships.
"Can you get me in a little closer? I am going to try and take out the lead ship." Shouted the gunner of the flak guns. Frank pushed the engines to 120% and did a barrel roll to avoid getting his engines knocked out by a lucky plasma bolt.
"Where do you want her?" He asked.
"Bring me belly side, I'll go for the fuselage." The ship groaned as it maneuvered under the large battle ship. Flak pounded the shiny metal until it blackened and gave in to the force of the blow. An explosion was heard from the inside of the vessel, and Frank cut the power to the lead jets to clear them out of harm's way. The ship fell like a rock from the sky with a large trail of smoke behind it. A cheer went up in the fighter's crew until they found what was on the other side of the smoke. Three Covenant Ambush fighters were flying directly at them. Plasma rained all around them, but there was no dodging it this time.
"Sir! Engines have taken a direct hit!"
"Can you fix it?" Yelled Frank over the roaring engine fires.
"It is a little more than a lose bearing this time sir, by the time I could strip away the damaged parts or the worst of it, we will have already been ten feet into the ground." Frank paused, struggling against the controls. He looked over to his co-pilot who had frozen up.
"It looks like I am going to have to try and take you up on flying with no engines old pal." He muttered to himself, pulling the shaking controls of the rumbling ship backward to turn the steep slope of the falling brick into a steady fall into the ocean.
"We still got guns back there?" He asked, Watching his sky mates gunned down one by one.
"I'll do my best sir." Yelled the Auto cannon gunner. The guns roared but blended into the sound of the engines overheating. Frank let the control stick drop a little to pick up some speed on the fighter then he shifted the wings slightly backward so it wouldn't plunge or go into a stall. It was like trying to drive a warthog on a needle.
"On my mark, brace yourselves... extremely well." He grunted to his frightened crew. The mile marker read four miles distance from shore and just enough water beneath them to cushion their fall. A warning flashed on the diagnostic screens that read 'Altitude dangerously low' and he hit the override key to silence the warning. He sealed the hatches on all the doors and anything else that could leak. He cut the power to the whining engines and focused on landing the beast. The water streamed past them only feet below them, seeming to move at the same speed only in reverse.
"Mark!" He shouted, hoping his crew heard him. He yanked the control sticks back and brought the front end of the fighter near straight up in the air. He hit the deck and grabbed the foot bars. The rear section crashed with full force into the ocean, a fraction of a moment later sending the front end into a crashing dive for the water. Frank landed on the ceiling of the fighter with full force and coughed as he grabbed his ribs. He looked up and saw his co-pilot's arms dangling from his limp body - held in his seat by his brace belt.
"Is everybody all right?" He yelled, hearing a few groans then simultaneous responses. He pushed himself to get up, and felt for a pulse on his friend's near swollen neck. Nothing. Peterson was dead. The hissing sound of the engines cooling wasn't as loud as they were when they were on fire, but still they were loud.
"Hang on." He said, then he turned the artificial gravity generators on. He fell to the deck and Peterson's arms fell back down to his side, later he slumped over. Frank got up and squinted his eyes so he could see out of the window. Something was there, on the other side of old San Francisco. Explosions swarmed the area. There had to be people there. His job was to save them.
"Can I get maneuvering thrusters?"
"What is with you and pushing this ship too far all the time?" Grunted Oliver, rubbing his shoulder.
"Can you do it or not?"
"Don't need to. They are already up. I'm not stopping you from using them, but if you break 'em, you buy 'em." Frank got back in his seat. He hit the side boosters and turned the ship back on its belly of sorts. He flew low to the ocean floor and stopped near the outskirts of old San Francisco. About 300 meters away was an enormous base. It was the size of a UNSC Cruiser, but took a beating a lot better.
"Uh, you guys want to see this?" Said Frank, his crew packing the window with their mouths open.
"Whoa, look at that thing! Is it ours? It can't be - its too big!" Oliver frowned and rubbed his chin.
"I've heard of this place. Pacificus 3 if I'm correct. It is the largest hidden base that the UNSC has. I never would have guessed that they would have it on Earth." He turned to Frank and explained.
"See, this is where the ONI does all their dirty work. All of the new weapons and vehicles and whatever else it is they do that's useful is made or shipped to here. From where, I don't know. But I can tell you that they have the stuff in there I would need to get this thing up and going in no time flat. Or if anything else, a better ride." The sound of new toys made the entire crew look at Frank as if they were little wanting kids, asking permission for something.
"Well, I don't care what we do - there are people in there and we have to get them out." He looked at his half mangled crew.
"I need all of you on guns if we want to get to that base. Personally, I got my eyes on that thing there." He pointed to a fighter that looked almost half alien but was five times the size of his own and in much better condition. It had two jet pod ports on it, one in the front and one in the back - but that was just the starboard side.
"Stop gawking, we have to get over there before they spot us, take your stations people, lets get it on!" Frank hit full thrust and ignited the last of the booster fuel the thing had in it. Sand and dirt trailed behind them, then hydrogen bolts of the Covenant nailed it back down. The Longsword's guns were muffled but pounded through the musky water and Frank still struggled with holding the ship still. Flying under water was a lot different than in flying in the rain. The top of the base shadowed over top of the tiny fighter and shielded most of the incoming fire. A stray hydrogen bolt hit the rear boosters and melted them shut. Frank pulled the nose up and coasted it thirty feet further before hitting the belly jets. He shifted the pitch of the nose back and forth, until it was lined up with a small dock. The rubberized docking arms reached out of the fighter and took hold of the base's hull. Frank jolted forward in his seat from the sudden stop and gagged when his brace belt held him back. He retracted the arms and sealed the shaft airtight. His Crew had already begun opening the escape hatch. Some excess water poured in as they climbed into a room full of monitors and computers and high tech scanning equipment. Frank looked around the empty room then looked at his crew.
"Alright guys, get some guns and lets find that ship." His crew smiled and eagerly obeyed the order.

//Mission Clock-07:13.hrs.//Earth Date-jun.12.2553/_UNSC.A72//vec.19909273//Ltn. Garret Asperso./.

Garret couldn't do anything else but try to scramble their communications. He rigged his decoding A.I. pad or 'Foster' to the control palette as fast as he could. He had the A.I. Scramble as many of the codes that the Covenant were transmitting in hope that he could slow them down some. The codes just kept coming in. Foster wasn't fast enough to confuse them like he had planned. The floor of the deck rumbled beneath him and Garret sighed, knowing that they would all be killed. He didn't want to go to his nephew and introduce himself at the last moment as his uncle who he had never known that would save him, for Daniel probably had more fighting experience than he had anyway. Garret was sloppy with a gun, but he had seen Daniel in training before, and he knew that the boy could take care of himself. He wrote something on a sticky note and placed it on the book that he was so fond of writing in. He held it and looked at it a moment, then placed it under the control palette.
"Foster, if you see a group of young - no, very young marines come by here, make sure you show them where I put that book - alright?" The lights went dim, flickered then went off. The red glow of the alert lights beamed over Deck C-5. The comm was flooded with people screaming that the base had been boarded, and everyone under Garret's command had already cleared the deck. The blast doors behind him gave in to a blow force and a Commando Elite met eyes with the brazen Crewman. Garret pulled the pin on the white phosphorus grenade he always had kept in his desk just in case and began to lunge it forward. A bolt of super heated plasma melted through his organs and left only his spine visible through his bloody shirt. Garret didn't feel any pain, he just looked confused. He couldn't move or feel anything, but it was the absence of pain that surprised him. The grenade rolled out of his hands onto the floor and what was left of his body fell limp and folded. The Elite picked up the glowing device the human had held, curious to see what it was. The Elite touched the pressure switch on the grenade and it instantly blew a hole in his skull. The remaining white phosphorus clutched to the alien and ate through the major remaining sections of his body, leaving it utterly indecipherable. Foster, the A.I. held his semi-transparent body straight at attention over his portable glowing data transfer pad and saluted the fallen crewman out of respect for his last impression on the Covenant. He was a soldier and a good one too. He had never fought the Covenant with frontal assault, but he had won many significant battles from the now vacant command seat he had been stationed at only moments before.

//Mission Clock-07:17.hrs.//Earth Date-jun.12.2553/_UNSC.A72//vec.19909273//Sgt. Daniel Asperso./.

Daniel's squad made it to the lift first with no resistance. They (as they were trained to do) covered the area until all of the squads were secure. Rodney uploaded the lift with the deck and passwords they were to go to from his armband. Daniel looked straight up into the shaft, seeing the slightly showing sun through the ceiling's ceramic-glass view port and the tons of water resting on its strength. The lift itself traveled freely between the upper and lower view ports of the shaft. Daniel looked at Rodney who was still looking disgusted at the girl that was identified as the 'Sniper Fraction's' leader. He rested the Battle rifle on his muscular shoulders and accidentally fired the weapon into the wall when the lift jolted down a few feet and screeched to a halt. The lights all blew with sparks leaving each one like a chain reaction to the other, and the lift's large cords hummed and vibrated, causing the entire lift to shake. The marines were all braced with readied weapons and searched their dim surroundings for an alternate route to the objective.
"There, an escape hatch!" Shouted Greg. He was an assault groupie and could spy out anything in close range faster than any of the others.
"Give me a lift." He said, looking at Daniel. Daniel looked at Rodney, shrugged then linked his fingers under his teammate's foot. He sprang the young marine into the air with his augmented bicep's un-countable strength and offered his hand brace to whomever was next. They all formed a link and pulled the remainder of the kids into the hallway. They readied themselves, and let the assault fraction lead the way. They turned the corner and found a pack of Commando Grunts. The Grunts made formation and hurled bolts of plasma at them. Two bolts struck the group, but the plasma only burned a small hole in their jump suit and revealed unharmed skin behind it. The Grunts panicked when they found that their weapons were useless and lunged their grenades at them, running backwards and tripping over themselves screaming. Their misery was ended moments later with a round of armor piercing, wound inflicting bullets. The Spartans re-grouped and headed for the fastest way to the closest hangar - through deck C-5 of the EBNC decryption labs. They passed a few more corridors with no serious resistance and walked through a blown blast door into the enormous darkly lit Atrium where the holographic pillar once had been. Human and alien blood mingled the floor below them, and Rodney reached down to get the marine's dog tag as he did to every fallen marine, looked at the name carefully with a puzzled look then shook his head and shoved it into his pocket. An A.I. Ghostly figure appeared on the control palette.
"Marines, I am not sure which one of you he meant, but there is a book under this control panel that the lieutenant had for one of you." Greg knelt down and felt under the control panel. He reached it out and read the sticky note attached.
"Uh Daniel, that lieutenant wanted you to have this." Daniel looked at him confused. Greg shrugged.
"I don't know why either. He also wanted you to take that A.I. With you. The note says that it may come in handy, whatever that means." Daniel took the book frowning in confusion and placed it in an empty ammo cache in his jump suit. He took the A.I. Chip and pad and placed it in the same cloth compartment as the book. Rodney just looked at him as if he knew something that he ached to tell him.
The deck rumbled as did the whole base. Water began dripping from above - first slow, then faster and in larger quantities.
"Come on, lets get the hell out of here!" Yelled one of the squad leaders. They all ran through the next blast door and it sealed behind them. The fight was harder now as they progressed, but they pushed even that much harder to get through and make up for lost time.

//Mission Clock-07:23.hrs.//Earth Date-jun.12.2553/_UNSC.A72?//vec.19909273//Ltn. Frank Merritt./.

Oliver grabbed a small gun from his boot and checked the safety key.
"Where did you get that?" Asked one of the crewmen. Oliver smiled and fed three bullets into the top of the gun.
"It must have wound up in my laundry." He replied, setting the gun beside of him to get his scanning pad out of his crew pack. He touched the screen and activated the device. It glowed blue and pulsed a variety of dots in different areas.
"Alright, lets head this way." Said Oliver, pointing through a door while looking at his pad. Frank let his engineer lead the way. The entire remaining crew of the Longsword followed Oliver to a tiny closet he called a 'weapons cache'. Only two of them got one fragmentation grenade each, but there was enough for each one to get a gun with very sparing ammo.
"Ok, now I hope there will be more than this in the ship yard." Said Frank, examining the MA-1A Derringer looking assault pistol in his hand.
"Don't worry about that sir, there will be plenty for you to mess around with once we reach it." Said Oliver viewing the status of the ship yard on his nav-pad with wide greedy eyes. They avoided as many contacts as possible with alien forces until they had gathered sufficient defenses off of some of the dead marines that lay strewn in the hallways. Every fifteen or so feet, Frank would nudge anyone who showed signs of slowing because water was now dripping from the structural beams above them. Some dim red lights were shorted out and threw sparks into the soaked hallway, some brighter than the lights themselves. Gunfire was heard ahead in a compound, but Oliver kept them moving with his gun. Every instinct drove him to help those men, but saving his own life and the lives of his friends was his first priority. He stopped a few feet from a locked door in a now better lighted hallway.
"Guess what guys? After this door is an access grid. It will take us right under the belly of that big thing Frank had his eyes on earlier. Are you sure you want that one Chief? - cause there is a larger one in there." Frank's eyes jumped then relaxed.
"Na, I think that one will do, we don't want to make a big target out of ourselves. Lets try and get out of here in one piece ok?"
"Right. Ok crew, on the quadruple. Break that hatch and lets find a way into that ship." The men had already begun shooting the hinges off and worming their way into the access grid. It was a tight squeeze, and quite cramped, but before long, echoes of gunfire, and yelling marines thundered through the metal grid. They reached the entrance hatch near the large fighter and kicked the vent cover in and onto the ground from the wall and each of the men leaped onto the ground and hit the dirt in case of them being in the line of fire. The fairly new ship reflected bullets like they were lead pellets and absorbed plasma fire almost seamlessly. There were excavation spotlights running on portable generators all around the fighters and some of them were blown useless by stray fire. Frank aimed in the direction that the plasma bolts were coming from and emptied his clip of ammo to provide some cover for him and his men to make it up the ship's ramp with no or less casualties. Frank made sure that he boarded last and hit the ramp's seal key when he was close enough to. The thing didn't work. He kicked the wall and paused before screaming and holding his foot in his hand. He leaped towards the pilot seat cursing. He powered up the ship's controls and hit the ignition device. The ship rumbled and groaned but powered back down. He laid his head on the controls and yelled. Oliver ran to his station and looked at the engine. He had never seen this kind of engine, it appeared to run off of anti-matter plasma.
"Uh, sir? I am not sure if I can fix this thing, I'm not even sure I know what it is."
"Well fix it anyway." Yelled Frank from the pilot seat. Those words always infuriated Oliver but it also oddly made him find and fix the problem. Not this time though, he didn't even know the general specs on this model, much less try and fix whatever was wrong with it. He studied it and tried different things, but nothing seemed to work.
The human gunfire outside of the fighter ceased and one of the crewmen watched as the aliens formulated against the fighter with full force.
"Hey Frank, can you get that big juicy gun up there running?" Said his main gunner. He knew how to handle tight situations, but only with a big gun. Frank touched a few buttons and powered up the weapon systems. The airman jumped into the gunner seat and began pounding the aliens back with the 200 caliber laser weapon and judging from the design, it was surprisingly of human origin. The other crewmen hit the deck near the ramp to guard it from anything that might make it past the laser turret though that was highly unlikely.

//Mission Clock-07:37.hrs.//Earth Date-jun.12.2553/_UNSC.A72//vec.19909273//Sgt. Daniel Asperso./.

Daniel felt that they had already failed their mission by not escaping the compound before the Covenant got there. They had cleared out many Covenant troops without losing anyone, but at the speed they were moving in, they wouldn't make it out before the base collapsed. That thought was more prevalent now, for the walls bent out of shape and wheezed with the pressure of the thousands of tons of water combined with the constant battering of the Covenant's weapons against the hull. Resistance was more challenging than they had expected, for half of the group's jumpsuits were weathered with the burn holes of the plasma weapons used against them. They had come across two new types of enemy contacts that they had only heard about, making their progress that much more difficult. One was an extremely versatile being that could change into their surroundings and destroy most of them in the process, something a few marines they had encountered along the way referred to as 'Chameleons'. The other was surprisingly more intelligent than the Elites but appeared to that of a small dragon, roughly thirteen feet tall. They would fall from ceilings and actually shred a human into a vast variety of pieces with their large teeth and then eat what ligaments were left. For the Covenant, this seemed rather barbaric, but it scared the hell out of marines and one could easily kill fifteen ODSTs before it was shot down. Yet needless as it may be, some of the beings were covered in full body armor, even out to their scaly bony wings. The armor was designed to be as frightening as the creature itself, and it did a very well job at it. Therefore, these barbaric creatures kind of got the name 'Scythes of the Covenant', though no real name was issued from headquarters yet. The group had encountered one of the Chameleons, but took it down faster than it could fathom. They were worn out but pressed on through the dim mucky hallways. They came to the power deck, two parsecs from the hangar. The large generators slightly hummed, only giving dim, moderate light to the large dome shaped structure. Water stood a near foot off of the ground, and shattered controls were littered with human remains.
"Keep your eyes peeled, they're here - and they're hungry." Whispered Rodney, aiming his gun at the hanging metal decks above them. Daniel spied quick movement behind them, but it disappeared. A slight icy breeze brushed his chest, and a clang of some metal was heard above.
"Backs to each other, strong formation, they have us surrounded." Whispered The girl. She dropped to one knee and shot a round of sniper ammo into the air and a horrific scream was heard, later a large limp being fell to the ground, landing on some comm antennae. It twitched as blood and drool ran from its large crocodile mouth and let out a painful last breath before relaxing into a dead state. About three more screams were heard, not of wounds, but of hunger. Daniel turned his flashlight back to the dead being, and caught a sight of it being dragged off into the darkness, a sound of tearing flesh followed.
"Whoa, they are eating their own." Said Greg, now trembling. A heavy splash settled in the musky water, followed by two more. No one moved. They held position as one of the demolitions groupies threw a group of blue flares a far as he could throw them in all four directions. The blue light illuminated the room, revealing at least fifty of the Scythes - surrounding them from above and enclosing on them in every possible path available. The beings charged in unorganized rows and grenades flew with rockets and bullets in masses from the group in all directions and the beings continued to fall, but trampled over their fallen comrades and kept coming, some stopping only to devour the dead ones. The near invincible Spartan II.Vs were falling one after the other. Greg steadied himself and fired into a being, stepping back as it fell at his feet. He emptied the clip into its hideous head to prove his point. When he looked back up, one of the beings lunged at him from above and locked its jaw into his diaphragm, swooping back up into the darkness and clawing at him to disable his seismic refracting shields. Daniel fired his weapon in anger at the position where the being was that held Greg in his jaw and heard it scream and fall to one of the above decks with incredible force. Greg's bundled gory body fell into the water below and formed a cloudy pool of blood around him. The remaining five beings dove and lunged for his body seeing the large pool of blood and judging by the area it covered, it looked like there was more than one dead or struggling humans in its vicinity.
"That's our break, lets move." Said Rodney, slinging his battle rifle over his shoulder and running with the remainder of the group into the next corridor, sealing the hatch behind them with fresh napalm. They were worn and dazed from the previous battle and only twenty one of the Spartans were left. They had never seen the Scythes formulate that way, they were normally somewhat controlled like the Brutes but having never seen them in a large congregated group; they now knew what not to mess with. What the humans didn't know was that the Covenant used a mind altering process on the 'chosen' Scythes, but used the unaltered ones to take out certain strong targets that they only thought of as something in their way, and thus did not grace the unaltered types with the 'chosen' ones' armor. Daniel's muscles ached from being thrown, battered and beaten. He was sorry for the loss of his friends, but there was still him and twenty of his fellow Spartans left that were up for grabs by those ravaging creatures. The Covenant had already dumped their worst on them and they lived, so anything that came next was sure not to be a surprise to them. By now, Daniel hated dark and quiet hallways and they were in another. A plasma bolt materialized out of the air and blew Daniel back a yard and leveled him onto the ground. Rodney fired his weapon in front of him and the seven foot tall Chameleon materialized and fell to the ground lifeless. The combat knife of the Demolitions leader lifted out of its case on his hip and tore a gap in his side large enough for the floating plasma pistol to enter. He screamed and looked down as the weapon over charged and fried his insides. Daniel held the end of his gun and swung it at the area where he supposed the alien to have been and luckily crushed its skull. They fought and fired until nothing breathed or moved in the hallway but them. Rodney took the Demolition Fraction leader's dog tag and stashed it in his pocket with the others he could gather. They eventually made it to the Ship bay and formed quick plans for a route to the fighter where a laser turret was firing and airmen were holding their position the best they could. They all entered the hangar with their heads low and ran to a bunker of a few marines to help them out. The man in charge looked at the kids in shock first at how they could have survived making it to the hangar from anywhere and second that the three kids with sniper rifles floored a group of jackals almost instantly. He saw the stripes on their arms and shrugged.
"Sure, why not, I've seen about everything else today. Can any of you fly one of those?" He asked pointing to a fighter nearby. Rodney raised his hand then turned to the group.
"Alright, despite Mendez's orders, we are going to have to split up. You have all seen how they ambushed us back there. If we separate, there is less chance of them taking all of us down." Said Rodney, and he had some good advice. He turned to Daniel and held something out in his hand.
"Asperso, this guy's name was the same as yours. He may have been related to you. Why don't you take this for good luck - I may not ever see you again seeing as I am the only qualified pilot in our fraction for a large fighter, you four and I will go separate." He said, waving to four of the other Spartans. He looked at Daniel who seemed rather disappointed that he had chose him to go separate from most of his remaining group, and felt the need to lighten his spirit.
"Daniel, I feel like we are as close as brothers, so since I am older, I am going to ask you to protect these guys and don't let them screw up ok?" Daniel took the tag and shoved it into his pocket.
"I'll try sir." He said and nodded in recognition of the order. He knew he would see him again, he had always looked up to Rodney and he knew he could fight through anything. He motioned to three of the other Spartans and they all ran to the fighter across the hangar.
The men in the hatchway were surprised to see the boys fight their way to the ship taking no damage. Daniel ran up the deck and grabbed his teammate's sniper rifle as he followed, but was a lousier shot than he was. His teammates ran on past the deck to assist the crew with the take off.
Oliver struggled with the engine but he didn't know if he was breaking or fixing it. He hit the engine with his welding tool and turned to see a child behind him, staring directly at him.
"You know, violence won't cure anything." Said the young boy with what looked like a plasma weathered jumpsuit, walking up to the engine. He bent down and looked at the engine a few times as if he knew more about it than the veteran crewman did.
"Antimatter plasma core, product number: *yy65789c. The channels haven't been set. If we want to get out of here, I suggest we set them. This happens a lot on the 'Galion Tryke' fighter types." Said the boy, utterly loosing the Crewman in shock.
"Uh, right, set them." He said straightening himself, trying to make it seem that he wasn't surprised. The boy crawled behind the engine and did something that made the entire thing light up, hum and glow. Out of excited shock, Oliver screamed back a reply to the constant nagging of Frank's complaining about no engines.
"Frank, they're up! You can shut up now!" He cheered as Frank ignited the engines' pre-run flight test.
There was something wrong, the Covenant suddenly began drawing back and withholding their fire. Daniel knew what was wrong and turned to warn the crew over their cheering for supposedly winning the battle.
"I guess you guys haven't seen a Scythe lately? They are one of the new contacts and worse than I have ever met in combat at that. They were really trying to get rid of us back there, and I wouldn't be surprised if they have sent another load of those things right here into this bay." The crew looked at him, chuckled then went back to their stations. One of the Spartans eagerly manned one of the guns, for he remembered what the aliens had done. Garret turned to the original crew and shrugged.
"Look, believe me if you want to, but I would rather not be eaten today." Said Daniel, achieving their undivided attention. The ship rumbled, lifted three feet off of the ground, then plunged front end first into the hangar floor. Frank started to yell at Oliver, thinking he had something to do with the failure of the front belly jets, but the words couldn't leave his mouth. He was too frightened to move. The large creature that had caused the plunge stood on the nose of the fighter and roared meaningfully in an alien babble. Drool ran from its mouth by the gallons but Frank went from frightened to pissed.
"Get that damn bat off of my wind shield!" He yelled to his gunner who was now pounding one of his own with every thing he had. Daniel grabbed his Battle rifle off of his back and readied himself as another of the Scythes leaped onto the ramp that was now making a grinding sound as it tried to close. The beast snapped its jaw at him and caught the end of the Battle rifle in its teeth and pushed Daniel against the wall. The force caused Daniel to pull his trigger, filling the beast's head with new lead components. The alien's heavy body fell on Daniel and forced him to the ground. He bent his knees and kicked it off of him and back down the ramp. The struggling ramp finally began to close as Daniel stood at the edge, prepared for anything that tried to stop it. He glanced out of the open part of the hatch and watched Rodney and some of the others take off in their much larger fighter. He saluted them, hoping that some day they would make contact for the rendezvous as ordered and complete their mission that had so many failures. Frank finally got sick of the thing trying to break his windshield and he switched the belly jets over to his maneuvering thrusters.
"Yeah, lets see what you got now jackass." He murmured to it, thinking it understood him. He yanked the controls into reverse and grinned half-jaw as the fighter kicked backwards. The beast looked somewhat surprised in its misshapen face, lost its balance and clawed at the nose as it slid off of the fighter and onto the hangar floor. The nose of the fighter came level with the rear and steadied itself with the belly jets. As Frank switched to full thrust, the fighter shot out of the hangar and into the launch bay, incinerating the beast with after burn. An energy barrier held the 400 foot tall wall of water in place so ships could move freely through them, without admitting any ocean water.
'If I would have known that before now, I could have brought that old rickety Longsword in this way.' Frank thought to himself as the large fighter jetted out into the ocean's semi darkness and shifted upward, the engines now glowing at 100% power. The only difference in the surroundings was that the ocean had become much brighter, and as Frank soon noticed, the ocean level had significantly dropped. The Covenant had begun glassing Earth. His thoughts were overwhelmed with hate towards them but he had to escape. He overrode the safety protocols and forced the engines to 150%. The ship catapulted from the water, loosing some of the oceanic traction it had obtained. The planet glistened like glass and reflected the sunlight's beams into the fighter that was now near out of the atmosphere. Blockade after blockade of Covenant cruisers and battle barges began to appear in the view ports as the atmosphere dissipated from the space bound fighter, along with a few mangled human vessels who's escape pods were launching and then being destroyed. Frank hit the key that ignited the vacuum jets and braced for concentrated fire as the fighter attempted escaping the blockade. The now tiny fighter passed the near planet size Covenant cruiser hull and glided across its silky shields harmlessly. Daniel marveled at the size of the ship, and at the count of the others, for he had never left the base in his life. There were explosions of battered human vessels everywhere, some were very large and some small, but Daniel could only hope that any one those explosions wasn't his comrades' escaping fighter. Frank's plan was to glide it as close to the cruiser's shields as possible to mask their signature somewhat and for now, it was working. If they made it past this cruiser, they would have a chance at jumping into slip space unharmed and unnoticed. Frank uploaded his personal messaging file to the comm panel. It was something he always did in a new fighter no matter what the situation was. Right now it was a handy habit to get his mind off of the present. A message icon blinked on his communications screen. The file was from his second cousin Jason on Mars base A52. They kept in frequent contact and Frank figured that the message was to tell him what system he was now in and to meet him there. Frank downloaded the file to his messaging chip for later reading. They were nearing the end of the cruiser and he had to find a suitable way past the rest of the blockade. About six Covenant Ambush fighters had spotted them and was closing in fast.
"Gunners, get those things on fire." He yelled as the heavy pelting of plasma began. Four of the fighters sloped in to flank them as two more came from above, preparing to drop some plasma charges on the top of the hull. Daniel Grabbed the empty top window seat of the 'lob-launcher', a hydrogen projectile that delivered a very explosive force. He took the controls and pointed at the nearest trailing fighter, and launched one of the burning casings into its engine intake valve, barreling it towards another of the fighters. They impacted and exploded in a storm of plasma as the other two raced through the aftermath. He jolted forward as a pounding force hit them from above. He gathered himself and whirled the gun in a ninety degree angle and pointed upward towards the craft. The charge bays were opening on the second fighter. With careful aim, Daniel launched another lob of hydrogen into the charge bay, igniting the charges from within the Ambush fighter. The explosion did major damage to its neighboring fighter, causing it to pull off and break its formation. The original crew's gunner was concentrating all of his fire onto burning and slicing through the hulls of the remaining two trailing fighters with his 200 caliber laser cannon. Daniel knew they had more to throw at them and soon found out they did by the distant bombers that were gaining speed and fast. He also found out that they were shielded with energy barriers as the gunner of another smaller Longsword fighter found his guns useless and then was incinerated from within his seat by a plasma torpedo. Daniel looked at the ramp that led to the Acorn fighter deck below him and looked back at the heavy Covenant bombers heading towards them. It was up to him now that Rodney wasn't there to stay in control and the thought weighed heavily on his mind. He had never really been in the situation to act as a squad leader, but what skills he had were soon put to the test. A guided missile slammed into the hull from the oncoming bomber group. It was just enough to shake some sense and confusion into his mind. Although he was a Spartan, he was still human. With the power outage and collapsed barriers in the fighter's main deck-way, all that could enter his mind was panic and thoughts of escape. He hurried in utter confusion to find if anyone had survived the blast, seeing as their breathing atmosphere was instantly weakened by the blast. The smoke and debris from inside the fighter was so strong, he couldn't hardly see anything. At last he came across a fellow Spartan, and a marine crewman. He searched his sight range for any others, but these two were all he could see. The ship was still moving he found out by hearing the constant clean humming of the engines, which indicated that the pilot was still alive. He glanced back through one of the view ports and spied two small blazing bright plasma torpedoes gaining speed fast. Time seemed to stand still as he grabbed his fellow Spartan and the marine's arm, pushing them down into the Acorn fighter deck. He paused at the hatch to get a better grip on his teammate's waist and ran at his best with them to the nearest fighter pod. The pod was positioned upward and unlike the larger vessel had absolutely nothing to produce artificial gravity. The maneuvering room inside was small, but he managed to find a quick, secure place for his comrades and power up the flight controls in the pilot's seat. The ship made contact with the first torpedo, sending him face first into the main view ports. He winced as a slight trail of his own crimson blood followed him back to his seat. He strapped on his safety holds and released the docking arms from the docking port. The reverse thrusters whined against the large fighter's hull, and broke the awkward formation it held for the time being. Daniel struggled to bring it to a steady halt, before forcing full thrust into the small booster rockets in the rear of the pod. The view port was now as bright as the sun itself from the after burn of the large fighter now in front of them. The small pod wobbled seemingly helplessly by the force of the exhaust as Daniel pulled the controls backward, lifting them out of the roaring blaze. The small fighter pod rumbled past the highly damaged fighter, preparing to try and trail one of the other, faster fighters that were streaming into open slip gates. An orange like beam shot from the damaged Fighter and opened a glowing slip gate, right in front of the pod. Daniel tried to reverse his thrusters, for he knew that it was dangerous for a small fighter to try and enter slip space without the mass of another, larger vessel shielding the wake before it. At this range, his thrusters were useless. Even the thrust from the reverse boosters were sucked into the slip stream. He knew this was it. He had to coast it into the stream. He powered down all of the engines and powered up the hull shielding at its maximum. Bright echoing light surrounded the pod and space seemed more infinite than it ever had before. Everything was still and black. They had made it out of Earth's solar system. He felt that Rodney would be proud for how they escaped, or would he? He remembered the other two Spartans he couldn't save from the fighter. Pain and guilt rushed all through him for the many Spartans that had died in one day. He took the book out of his pocket and observed it. There were instructions and many symbols of some kind - not even Covenant. Diagrams of ships and objects he couldn't even fathom littered its many pages. He grew very intrigued with the book, but knew that he had to study the language or whatever it was more to understand it better. For an hour, nothing seemed to move. That was until a slicing sound was heard, as an enormous bright blue object passed inches over the small fighter, causing them to jolt out of the slip stream as all of the stars in the sky began to reappear. They were all lucky to have survived even entering the slip stream, much less an unsafe exit. The shielding generators were at 2%, a mere ounce more than death. A nearby nebula was the only sign of any possible planetary life within three hundred billion miles, and seeing as the vessel possessed only thrusters, it took twelve days to reach the nearest system. With much needed luck, they found a livable planet, operated by the UNSC. When they landed, they were counted as some sort of heroes to have escaped Earth, but all Daniel could ever think about from the time they left the slipstream, until where his aching life now resides was,
"Did my teammates survive? Was that blue glitch in the slipstream the fighter they were in? Was everything my fault? Where the Covenant after this book - after me?" Daniel knew that his questions would never be answered, and his teammates were now only memories, but the feeling of a constant nagging of guilt and responsibility to his team captain to get his men out unharmed seemed to haunt him throughout the rest of his caved in childhood.


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Chapter 3: Kidnapped from Misery and the rest of The Hall of Echoes is coming soon, so for now that is it - it will continue. Please go to http://haloharbor.cjb.net and mainly http://johnbief.hyperboards.com to see concept art and info on the comic version. It may not appear much to critics now, but it will grow more interesting. Want in on the comic? We need artists, color artists, fans, but not negative critics. This is still a work in progress. Feel free to send me an email at: Master_Bief@hotmail.com.
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