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All Roads Lead To Sol...Just Make Sure To Bypass Mars: Chapter 19
Posted By: S7N<n.j.r.jones@brighton.ac.uk>
Date: 9 January 2004, 2:35 AM
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Chapter 19
1820 Hours, August 30th, 2550 (Military Calendar) /
UNSC Frigate Horatio, orbiting Corona
Another explosion rippled down the ship, nearly sending Manny to his knees. The group rounded the corner to the escape pod bay, narrowly missing a hail of enemy fire. Harland leapt into the nearest pod, closely followed by Harris carrying Sarah, Fincher, Walker and Cochran. Manny took one last look around, then dove in and sealed the hatch.
He glanced up the front of the boat and saw Harland clambering into the pilot's couch, attaching a headset round his helmet.
"You know how to fly this thing?" Manny called up to him. The Corporal turned and winked at him, then buckled the safety belt around his waist. Manny fell into the front stall, fastening the restraints around his chest and stomach. Opposite him sat a pale Sarah. She looked over to him, and gave a weak smile, then her eyes fluttered shut and her head lulled forwards.
Horror rushed through Manny as he tried to undo his harness, but he found a firm hand shoving him back into his seat.
"She's fine, Manny." He turned to Harris who sat next to him. "I gave a dose of morphine, she'll be out for an hour or so." Manny breathed out slowly, relieved at what his comrade was telling him.
"What's wrong with her?" Manny asked. He looked back over at her.
"She's just exhausted from the therapy she has endured, as well as our run through the ship. I'm sure that didn't help either." He gave he smaller mans shoulder a squeeze. "She's going to be fine."
Manny turned and smiled at the marine, then let his eyes drift out the rear view port. The Horatio was slowly getting smaller; its hull badly charred and burned. The ship seemed to light up the sky as it started listing to Port. The ship seemed to open up at the front, the top half coming away from the bottom half. Fire engulfed its read, and small explosions could be seen all over the ship. A red line appeared along its bow, cutting deep into the ship and it wasn't until it had burred completely in two that Manny realised the destruction was caused by Covenant plasma.
He took a deep breath and exhaled, lifting his hand in a salute to those unlucky enough to be still aboard.
The Pelican decelerated as it entered the Defiant's docking bay, coming to a sudden halt as it touched down on the steel deck. Raynes got up from where he was sitting and marched out of the small craft. As he landed on the floor he felt good to finally have his feet on solid ground.
He had spent twenty minutes in EV, watching as three Covenant destroyers took apart the Horatio. Luckily, the Covenant ships hadn't turned their attention on the Defiant, and Raynes' pulse stayed steady throughout the engagement. It was a quick fight, with both sides taking heavy casualties. The Horatio had been completely obliterated in the firefight, and one of the other UNSC ships looked as if it had been badly damaged. Thankfully all three Covenant ships had been destroyed; whether the Spartans were on one of them he wasn't sure. He had only briefly wondered what had happened to the cybernetic soldiers that had nearly led him to his death, but the appearance of several UNSC warships made him forget all that and all he could do was sit and watch the fireworks. Raynes' FOF transponder had obviously pinged the ship he was on a collision course for, and he got word on the radio that a Pelican dropship had been dispatched to collect him, along with a number of other crewmen and marines that had also gone EV.
He took in a long breath of air, holding it for a few moments, then releasing it. He handed the EV suit he had been wearing to a tech nearby along with his rifle, then made his way out of the bay towards the soldier's mess. The Sergeant felt wobbly on his feet still, despite spending the last half hour in the dropship. He'd had to keep his suit on to help drag in the other EVs, and when they were all in it had been so tightly cramped that he had barely managed to get out of it.
Strolling down the brightly lit corridor, passing a few techs as he did it suddenly struck him how weary the day had been. He was looking forward to lying down in a nice cosy bed. He felt the ship accelerate to Port, then settle straight ahead; it was nice to be on a ship not swarming with Covenant. Which brought him back to the dilemma with his team. Were they still alive, and if so where? The last time he had seen them, they were running the other way from him.
Raynes hoped deep down they were okay, but he had a strange feeling that they weren't. Raynes pushed the thought aside, he shouldn't think like that.
He hadn't gotten far down the metallic corridor when a voice called from behind him. He turned against the oncoming flow of people to see a man, an officer in a black uniform marching towards him. The man was youngish looking, with closely cropped black hair, and dark skin to match. His white eyes pierced the Sergeant with an icy glare, making him uneasy at meeting this man.
The officer came to a stop a metre away from the marine, then saluted sharply to the man, a gesture that took Raynes by surprise. He noticed a badge on his shoulder - black and silver eagle wings over a trio of stars, with the words SEMPER VIGILANS above the embroidery. The man was Naval Intelligence. This should be fun, Raynes thought to himself.
The Sergeant returned the salute, then folded his arms across his chest.
"You are Sergeant Raynes," the man said, his voice tinted with a Portuguese accent. "Am I not mistaken?"
Raynes nodded. "Yeah, that's me. What can I do for you?"
"Greetings, I am Lieutenant Hakir." the man continued, his voice humorous, yet eerily probing "As you fully know we have just destroyed three Covenant ships, a victory that shall be cherished among other things. But it came to my attention that you were in contact with three Spartans." He coughed into a closed hand. "Being Section Three, it is my duty to debrief you and find out if you have obtained any sensitive information from them that could be seen as classified information."
"Like what?" Raynes replied sharply. He had no time for these mind games; he just wanted to get to sleep.
"Why they were on the Horatio, why they went EV to infiltrate a Covenant ship, and why they took you with them." The ONI Spook looked Raynes up and down before he gave him a curt nod and a smile. He then gestured to a door across the hall. "Please, this will only take a moment."
Raynes obliged and pushed passed the bustling techs and crewmen into the small room. He checked to see that it hadn't been set up for this meeting and was pleased to be proven wrong. The room was small by comparison, more like an interrogation room. It had a table with chairs either side of it, and a few decorations around the wall, but apart from that it was practically empty. A blue light pulsed in the corner, illuminating the room in a faint haze. A room like this didn't normally exist next to the docking bay, so the spook must have set this thing up, knowing Raynes was going to be here. This was freaky.
"Please, take a seat." The officer said to him, pointing to a chair as he did. Raynes pulled the metal seat out from under the table and sat down, leaning his elbows on the table. Hakir sat across from him, but Raynes noticed that the kind persona he had shown the Sergeant in the corridor had dropped, and now he under the icy gaze again. Raynes hadn't expected anything else. The spook flipped out a small device and placed it on the table in front of them. It looked like a recorder, but Raynes wasn't too sure; until the Lieutenant flipped a switch and started his proceedings.
"For the record, you are Sergeant Usaf Raynes, 2nd Platoon of the 81st Marine Corps, are you not?"
"That is correct," Raynes said, straining his voice to be as interested as possible.
"Please relay back to me what happened from when you boarded the UNSC Frigate Horatio, to when you were brought aboard the UNSC Carrier Defiant."
So he did. Raynes told him about meeting up with his squad, telling them to get off the ship, then being rescued by the Spartan, and consequently going on to being thrown out of an airlock. The Lieutenant sat and listened intently, his eyes locked on Raynes.
"At any point during contact with the Spartans, did they reveal anything that your though sensitive material or classified information?" Raynes sat back in his chair and gave out a sight.
"How would I know if it was classified or sensitive?" he put his hands behind his head. "All I can remember them saying was 'hang on' and 'stay with us'. We didn't exactly have time for small talk."
The agent's eyes thinned, and his lips tightened - Raynes seemed to have hit on a nerve. They sat staring at each other, seeing which one would break first. Ever since Raynes had joined the UNSC he had always found himself in debriefings with Naval Intelligence, which Raynes took to be as unlucky more than anything else. And the more he frequented them, the more he toyed with them, wound them up until they flipped out. Unfortunately it hadn't happened yet, but Raynes was always hoping.
"Sergeant Raynes, may I remind you that if you are in anyway lying to us, or I believe that you are in any way lying or keeping something from us, you could be brought up on charges of treason, which as you are fully aware, is punishable by death?"
Raynes smirked at the man opposite him. "Does this mean I can go now?" before Hakir could answer that Raynes was on his feet, pulling the out from underneath him.
"We may need to recall you to finalise a few details in a formal hearing," Hakir replied, then he nodded at him and give him what Raynes could only perceive as a genuine smile. "Glad you are alive, Sergeant. We need every man we can get."
1400 Hours, August 31st, 2550 (Military Calendar) /
UNSC Carrier Defiant
Slipspace vector, Reach
Manny sat with his back to the wall, looking on at the people sitting round him. The mess hall didn't offer a variety of drinks, but the ones they did have went down well. Manny and his friends had been in the mess hall for an hour now, finishing off two or three bottles each. They had been allowed to stay awake for the duration of the journey home, as the last mission had been particularly harrowing, and nightmares in Cryosleep weren't the nicest ones to have.
They toasted to being alive, as well as toasting the dead, of which there were many. Bitterness had come the moment they were rescued by the Defiant, but it quickly faded when they learnt that the Covenant had been beaten, for now. No doubt they would return in greater numbers and Corona would fall under their plasma canons.
"Anyone hear from the sarge?" Fincher piped up among the chatter. He sat to Manny's left, his feet up on the table, chair leaned back into the wall behind them. "He's been in his room an awful long time."
"Maybe he found a pretty nurse," the man opposite him replied. Walker guffawed at his own joke, but no one else saw the funny side. Harris who was situated next to him clouted hit round the head, leaving the Private keening in pain and rubbing his head. That made the others laugh.
When Manny had heard about Raynes' trek through the Horatio with three Spartans he had felt a pang of jealousy. It was every marines dream to see a Spartan, but Raynes said he was more scared to see them than he was happy. They had all laughed and joked with him when they came aboard, but then he had insisted on getting some sleep. Harland put it down to the fact that he was a grumpy old man. And in a sense it was true; Raynes was in his forties, he'd been serving for over twenty years and was the most loyal soldier Manny had ever met.
The Sergeant had seen a lot in his life time, and Manny was surprised Raynes was still just a Sergeant. Maybe he didn't want the responsibility that came with commanding a platoon, or a battalion for that matter. Maybe he liked the closeness of an eleven-man squad, knowing each member personally and knowing exactly what made them tick.
And in a sense, Manny completely understood why. The more they fought together, the closer they became, the more they bonded and the better they worked as a team. He looked around at his fellow marines. Fincher, Walker, Cochran, Harris and Sarah. They were all that was left of what came out of boot camp three years ago. And he vowed from that point on that he would make sure none of them came to any harm, even if it meant putting his own life at risk.
He loved them like his own family.
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