Temporal Rift PART III: LOST IN SPACE
Posted By: Alexander_Valient<jdprosper@ripnet.com>
Date: 1 November 2003, 4:15 AM
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This series is will make very little sense if you haven`t read the first two chapters.
(even less if you only read chapter 2.)
PART III: LOST IN SPACE
???? Hours, ?? , 2552 (Military Calander) /
Exact location unknown, Deep Space
Kelly started to wake up. She remembered leaving the Pillar of Autumn aboard a dropship and heading down to the Fortress world of Reach. The SpartainII`s had pushed back the first wave of Covanant troops without any trouble but then they had been overun minutes later and pushed back to the last remaining power reactor complex. Joshua had set the nukes at the other reactors to detonate in one minute, then Fred Joshua and herself had charged out into the sea of enemies to take down as many as possible before the Nukes detonated. Some sort of tear made up of pure white light had appeared before them and that was the last thing she remembered until now.
It felt as if she were falling so she opened here eyes to see what fate greated her, But all that she could see through her visor were stars stretching on into infinity. She was somewhere in deep space obviously.
Looking arround the first thing that came into view was a dead Jackel with something behind it.
An Elite pulled itself around the dead Jackel and pushed off of it hurling itself towards Kelly. As it reached for her helmet to tear it off, she grabbed it by the wrists then kicked as hard and fast as possible at its midsection throwing them away from each other.
Reaching for her holster and finding a pistol still there, she pulled out the weapon and unloaded the clip into the Elite as it drifted away. With the last shot the Elite`s shields went out, depriving it of the little protection from vaccume that it did have. Globules of blood poured out of its mouth as the Elite`s innards were pulled apart by the emptyness of space.
Then Freds voice came in over the communications frequency. "If there are any other Spartain II`s out there please respond."
"Joshua here I think some Covies are still alive."
"Kelly here. I just took down an Elite. "
"Copy that, I just shot a couple of Grunts. " Responded Fred.
No one talked for a moment.
Finally Fred spoke "Everyone set your suits to minimum oxygen use we might me able to last two or three hours that way. If we get really luckey a Covanant ship might detect these bodies we`re floating with and then we can board it. "
All of them knew that wasn`t going to happen. They were all going to die out here in the depths of space.
They waited in silence for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for their air to slowly run out.
A bright flash of light caught all of their attention.
"What was that?" yelled Joshua.
The light slowly faded away but what was left behind defied explanation.
"It`s a space cruiser!" yelled Kelly.
"And here I thought Fred was just trying to keep our moral above board."
"I was dammit, but this thing dosen`t look like it`s Covanant or UNSC. Who`s is it?"
"Sir." siad Kelly. "I think it`s dead in space. The ship is spinning on it`s axis. I see .......three, four...........About eight dome like objects on the outer hull, a couple of ball turrets housing cannons on the leading edge of the forward half of the ship. There are also openings that appear to be missile and shuttle launch bays. "
"Ok listen up. Try to find something, anything, to push off of and propell yourself towards that ship. The first one to land on the hull is to find an entrance and replenish their air then see to they can help get the other two aboard. Got it? Go. "
With that they each pushed off of a nearby Covanant body and began slowly drifting towards the mysterious ship.
***
Rima Tharen wokeup with a ringing headache and the familiar smell of burning Holo controll systems
filling the air. Caughing from the smoke she hauled herself to her feet.
'ouch......did anyone get the licence of that grav truck that must have hit my head. " she said more to herself.
"Rima!" called Alex from the side of the bridge. He was pulling some extinguishers from an emergency kit. "here take one! I`ll deal with this side of the bridge. "
The two of them worked their way around the bridge in opposite directions putting out all of the fires and the smoking remains of controll systems. Ian was unconsious from hitting the wall he had been leaning against. All of the rest of the bridge crew were slightly burned and scraped, except, that is, for the weapons officer.
Alex walked over to where Rima was crouched trying to hotwire the door. "Patrick is dead. When his control pannel exploded a piece of shattered Aluglass got him in the heart."
"Shit. He was my weapons officer on the LimaVII. The best shot with S.P. Torpedos i`ve ever seen. Any chance an Alliance fleet Hospital could get him back?"
"Dosen`t look like it but i`ll put him in a stasis chambre as soon as you get the doors open. "
Just then the doors both slid open to reveal Griffith standing on the other side getting ready to use a laser torch to cut the door open.
"Ah so you do remember how to hotwire de doors! Good! I was just getting ready to cut through them, after I realised dat you can only hotwire de doors from the inside on dese ships. "
Has Griffith`s accent gotten even thicker since the few hours ago that i saw him? thought Alex.
"Whatever. Griffith I want you to get the backup systems online as fast as possible."
"Dat`s what I came up here to do! Out of my vay. "
***
After half an hour of drifting towards the unknown ship Kelly was the closest to touching down on hull. It only made sense after all, since she was the fastest spartian, that she get there first.
Now she was only a few hundred meters away from the front of the ship and needed to figure out a way to get inside. On the topside of the ship was what appeared to be the bridge or at the very least some sort of lookout, if it was the bridge the glass would be heavily armoured. On the under side of the ship were what appeared to be two launch bay doors but both of them were closed at the moment.
She decided to make for the launch bays.
If they do send out any fighters of dropships to get us it will be easier to get inside the ship from here.
She touched down on the hull and stood up.
This ship must have artificial gravity if it`s holding me to the hull.
She started walking along the hull towards the launch bays.
***
"We have internal communications back on line. " said the slightly charred opperations officer.
"Good!" exclaimed Grifith as he slaped his hands together. "I will be heading back to engineering if you need me. I think dat I had best take a look at the jump engine core. "
"Griffith." called Rima at the last minute. "I want you to send out a repair team or two in shuttles to inspect the hull and repair any breaches. "
"I vill get right on dat, goodbye for now." With that Grifith charged off aft.
Ian had woken up by then. "Ow my head. What happened? "
"The ship was pulled into some kinda vortex and then your skull got a little too friendly with that bulkhead over there kid. We`re trying to fix up the ship right now."
"Which wall did I hit?" he asked as he rubbed the sore spot on the side of his head.
"Over there." Alex pointed. "The one with the dent in it."
"Right.......You want me to go check the cargo bays for you? See if everything is still tied down? I need the exercise."
Alex shruged. "Fine kid just make sure to call in if you see anything out of place."
With that Ian sprinted away into the corridors.
"Rima. I still don`t know how Nekonians can take injuries like that. A human would have been dead from a hit like that."
"Alex stop thinking and work!"
***
Kelly had made it to the entrance of the landing bay and was waiting. The doors were made up of two large plates that would slide apart to allow ships in and out, but they were closed at the moment and she could find no other access doors.
Just as she was beginning to contemplate heading for the windows on the top side of the ship, a sharp clank resonated through the hull she stood on. The launch bay doors began to retract revealing a dark interior. When the doors had opened completley a ship dropped down -or from her point of view, up- out of the launch bay then turned and headed towards the back of the ship.
It hadn`t noticed her.
Peering over the edge into the bay all that could be seen was darknes and what looked like a ceiling. Pulling herself over the edge and into the launch bay she noticed a recess that ran arround the entire launch bay opening. Inside the recess was a glowing line which seemed to be creating a field that held the atmosphere inside the launch bay but allowed solid objects to pass through it freely.
"I wonder if the Covanant have stuff like this." Kelly said to herself.
After pulling herself past another two meters of armour plate she reached what had to be the main deck of the landing bay. It was roughly thirty meters wide by sixty meters long and was arround eight meters high, two large lifts were at the very back of the bay and atleast eight of what looked like dropships sat in recessed bays at the sides. The landing bay on the Pillar of Autumn was larger than this.
None of the ships lights in the bay were turned on at the moment as figures with flashlights ran back and forth around the bay attempting to move powered down dropships.
Some of the figures looked human, but now wasn`t the time to dwell on that, she had to help out her fellow Spartains.
When none of the bay workers were in her vicinity Kelly pulled herself onto the main deck then darted behind a dropship and began looking for what she needed. It didnt take long before she found a bundle of what looked like steel cable. Better than nothing which was about all else that was available. Too bad The Cheif wasn`t here. This was the sort of thing Cortana had been designed for, 'ship boarding action'.
Hooking the cable to an attachment point in the decking as close to the bay door as possible she dropped back out into space without anyone noticing.
'This is Kelly i`ve got an entrance into the ship. Head for my location. "
"Roger that" came Fred`s voice over the headset. " I just touched down on the hull."
"Joshua here I think i`m going to drift past you. "
Not good. "Hang on there I`m tossing a cable into your path. just catch it and pull youself in."
Taking her empty pistol and hooking the end of the cable onto it to add weight she threw it in the direction that Joshua was drifting.
"He`s not going to make it." Came Fred`s voice. "Josh if you have any ammo left use it to propel yourself towards the ship."
"Understood." Pulling out his M6D he fired his last three remaining rounds into space away from the ship. The shots changed his trajectory enough that he was able to reach out and grab the end of the cable Kelly had thrown out.
Fred arrived at the launch bay shortly therafter and the two of them pulled in the steel cable.
"Follow me." said Kelly. "and don`t get spotted."
The three Spartains made their way back into the still dark landing bay and behind the same dropship. There was a door in each corner at the back of the small side bay the dropship was in. As they made their way through Joshua noticed that the door was setup to act as a backup airlock when necessary but was turned off at the moment. They now found themselves in a room probably ment to act as an equipment and weapons locker.
"There`s alot of stuff in here. Guns, ammo, space suits....." started Kelly.
"But none of it is standard. " interupted Joshua "This looks like assault Rifle ammo but it`s some kind of 5.56mm variation. All of the pistol ammo is 9mm."
"Over here" motioned Fred. "I just found some fifty Cal pistol ammo for you two, though it isn't the UNSC HE pistol ammo. I`m going to keep with my AR for now I still have three Mags for it. "
"Lets get out of this part of the ship. We need to find the bridge and figure out if these people are with or against the UNSC. If they arn`t we`ll have to convince them to take us back to Reach. Or if they have the location in their databanks mabey we could go to the Covie Homeworld and kidnap a Prophet. "
"Lets just get to the bridge Fred. "
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