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SPARTAN II's Lt. Col. Kurt Ambrose-051 William-043 Samuel-034 Joshua-029 Anton-044 Grace-093 Malcolm-059 Isaac-039 Vinh-030 Li-008 Cassandra James Kirk Rene The Entire Spartan II Beta Team
SPARTAN III's Min-B174 Adam-B004 Mark Jane Robert Dante Shane Holly Alpha Company Beta Company
"Survivors..." she whispered. "There are none," he said. "We have to get out of here. The Black Cat's capacitors will drain in four hours and we won't be able to jump to Slipspace." She turned to him, eyes wide and brimming with tears. "How are you sure we're alive?" Lucy's words asking if they were alive would be her last. "Posttraumatic vocal disarticulation," the experts would eventually declare. And although recertified for duty, she would remain silent--either unable, or unwilling, to speak for the rest of her life.
The Sentinel pair was half a kilometer away. One of the spheres heated and light flashed. Kelly took three sidesteps as the ground where she had been standing vaporized. Globules of molten rock splattered off her MJOLNIR armor's energy shield. She made an ancient and arcane gesture at the machine with one finger. Mark joined Holly and Kurt. "No way," he breathed. Kelly turned and ran, leaving a plume of dust in her wake. The diving Sentinels accelerated to two hundred kilometers an hour. A golden lance flashed from it's center of mass--detonating the earth under her feet. Kelly tucked into a ball, tumbled, and came up running without breaking breaking stride. She sprinted straight into the tunnel. The Sentinel's hexogonal geometry fluttered along it's drive trajectory. A mere five meters over the gravel wash and screaming toward the tunnel--it had no time to pull up. It chased her down the hole. Kelly appeared silhouetted at the mouth, golden illumination blazing behind her-- --and the tunnel exploded. Cones of fire shot out both ends. The superheated overpressure wave blurred the image of Kelly as she was propelled through the air, end over end. The hill collapsed and and a hundred tons of earth crushed the Sentinel pair. Sand, stone, and dust blasted out in feathery jets. Kelly's body impacted a rock wall, and fell limp to the gravel wash.
The outer layers of spheres tumbled and bounced off their fwllows, a chain reaction of cascading destruction; rivers of metal balls flowed, then torrents, an avalanche that rolled across the floor in great waves, tons of metal headed for them. "Guys, move it!" Mark yelled over TEAMCOM. Ask blinked and snapped out of his stupor. He and Holly turned and sprinted toward the extraction point. Mark and Olivia were already on the platform, waving for them to hurry. Ash felt the thunderous force through the floor that grew louder with every step until it shook his bones. He and Holly leapt onto the platform. "Dr. Halsey, go," he screamed over an open COM channel. Nothing happened. Team saber stood shoulder to shoulder and watched the tidal wave of metal smash over machinery and crush Sentinels that struggled to escape it' kilometer-high surge. But there was no escaping something like this. "We got the mission done," Ash told his friends over TEAMCOM. "We won." He still held Holly's hand. He gripped it tighter. The shadow of the wave covered them and plunged them into darkness. There was a flash of light.
The hill trembled behind Kurt. He turned and saw a hunter pair plod onto the top at the four o'clock position, flanked by a vanguard of three Elites with energy swords. Kelly reacted first, moved in, greabbed an Elite's wrist, and snapped it. She followed with and elbow to the Elite face--twisted the sword free and slashed, cutting it in half, as well as the two Elites on either side. She spun to face the Hunters. For once in her life, she was too slow. The monsters had leveled their fuel-rod cannons at Kelly. They had her. Holly jumped between Kelly and the weapons. The Hunters fired, outlining both Spartans in the blinding green radiation for a split second. The overpressure of both point blank fuel-rod cannon detonations threw Kelly, Will, and Lucy into the air. Holly explded backwars--a spray of molten SPI armor, disintegrating flesh, and jets of smoke. Kurt stood horrified, frozen, but then the instincts and training clicked on full force, and without thinking, he rushed forward before the Hunters could finish his proe teammates. The nearest Hunter turned on him faster than he expected--slicing it's two-ton shield into Kurt's solar plexus. The outer layer of Kurt's armor cracked and the liquid ballistic underlayers failed and squirted out. Pain rippled through his torso; ribs cracked; he coughed up blood and spattered the inside of his faceplate. He dropped in a heap at the Hunter's boots, dazed, only recovering his wits enough to see the Hunter raise both fists over him for the killing blow. Linda's sniper rifle cracked. The exposed region of the Hunter's midsection exploded in a mass of ornage, but it remained miraculously upright. Will hurled himself at the Hunter, and knocked the beast off it's feet and into it's mate--and the three of them tumbled down the stairs. Kurt got up, ignoring the near-blinding pain, and limped to the edge. Will stood between both Hunters at the base of the hill. He kicked the nearest in the unarmored middle and it staggered back. Around him were a dozen Elites who, confused by the sight of a lone Spartan engaging two Hunters in hand-to-hand combat, were momentarily too stunned to act. Kurt and Lucy opened fire, suppressing the Elites before they regained their senses. One hunter lashed out with it's shield. Will ducked, darted inside it's reach, and battered it's bruised midsection--punching through flesh and ripping out wriggling chunks of the composite eel colony. The second Hunter angled away from the fight and brought it' cannon to bear. Will spun around. The Hunter shot him. Will's energy shield vanished, and the front of his MJOLNIR armor melted. He took a step toward the beast, and colapsed. The Hunter turned and roared at the Spartans at the top of the hill, and then started to bring it's tremendous shield back in line... A SPNKr missle screamed past Kurt's head, leaving a spiral of propellant exhaust, streaked toward the Hunter, and impacted dead center of it's mass. The air erupted into a blurred sphere of explosive force. The nearby Elites were tossed aside like rag dolls, their shield flaring. The Hunter burst into a cloud of snakelike parts that wetly spattered upon te floor. Kurt turned and saw Fred kneeling next to him, his spend SPNKr tube smoking. It was silent. Nothing moved. Not the Elites, the Hunters, or William. Kelly and Linda finally rose, shaking off the concussion from the fuel-rod detonation. They stood with Kurt and Fed and stared at their fallen comrade. Ash was on his knees where Holly had stood a second ago. There were the outlines of two bootprints on the stone... nothing else.
"Die?" Kurt laughed. "Didn't you know?" he told the Elite. "...Spratans never die." Kurt turned his gauntlet face-up and pressed the detonator.
BxR Pants Girl · Mon Jan 08, 2007 @ 05:59am · 0 Comments |
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