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Cry for a Hero Part 7: Escape...again?
Posted By: el_halo_diablo<funkmonker3lite@hotmail.com>
Date: 25 August 2002 5:31 am


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       That was it, we were done for, after all we did, we are foiled by something so unexpectible, yet stupid.
      "Well," I slumped down on the ground, laying my back against the wall,"it's been nice knowing ya."
      "Yah you too," Zamns answered.
      As I lay on the ground, I felt a cool breeze run down my back. I close my eyes imagining that the breeze is coming from an open window on Earth, the cool autum breeze soothes me, and I relax and forget about my troubles. I thought to myself, too bad there's no windows. I snapped my eyes open, realizing that the cool air was coming from something.
      "Hold on Zamns," I said getting up on my feet,"I think there's an air vent in here."
      I slammed my hands on the wall and traveled them up the wall to find that air was blowing harder. I flipped on my infared vision on my view glass, and saw blue heat signatures iminating from a place in the celing.
      "AH-HAH!" I yelled.
      "What is it?" Zamns asked in the pitch dark.
      "I found a way out, flip on your infared vision and help me up there."
      I saw the red heat radiating from Zamns come towards me, and stick out his arms. I jumped on his hands and bashed open the grate that lead to the air conditioning vents. When I got up in the small vents, I helped Zamns up, and we continued down the vent.
      "Ok we need to find a vent that leads to the generator on the roof." I told Zamns.
      We crawled and went around a couple bends until I saw blue signatures going upwards. I was able to stand up and look upwars. The generator was blocking the exit, seeing that there was emmense heat radiating off of the air conditioner that was about 30 feet above us.
      "Stay back." I told Zamns, and I fired a round at the air contitioner. I saw the red bullets zing into the generator, until it exploded in a briliant red color on my small infared screen.
      "I hope you can climb." I said as I positioned myself, so my feet were on both sides of the 3 foot wide vertical shaft to the roof. I slowly climbed up the shaft, with Zamns directly behind, errm, below me. I reached the top and pulled myself up onto the roof. I helped Zamns out of the shaft, and I turned off my infared screen. It was bright outside, and the dust storm seemed to have passed. We ran down the fire exit, down the side of the building to hit the familiar hard sand.
      "2 minutes to detonation." the computer voice boomed outside. I watched as rebels scrambeled for empty warthogs to escape. I ran beside the building not worrying about getting into a warthog.
      "Where are we going?" Zamns questioned me.
      "Not only was Hopkins stupid enough to use my plasma dagger, but also he gave me a perfect escape idea."
      "What!?!"
      "Hopkins told me that he killed everyone in his pelican, and went to the com center to radio in for a rendevouz point. He couldnt have ditched the Pelican and still made it to the com center and broadcasted his message in such a short matter of time for all the UNSC to get there."
      "So...."
      "So what Im saying, is that Hopkins HAD to have flown the Pelican all the way to the com center in such a short matter of time. The Havok nuclear blast hits a radius of 50 miles, but only affects aircraft within 10,000 feet from the explosion. We would never make it on a Warthog, so that why we're taking Hopkins' Pelican."
      We came around the corner to find Hopkins' Pelican hovering.
      "Hurry someones going to Take off!" Zamn said to me.
      We ran into the back hatch of the taking-off pelican, and opened up the cockpit to find a terrified rebel piloting the aircraft. I lifted my weapon and fired directly at his body, to make sure the controls weren't damaged. Blood splattered all over the cockpit, and we threw his body out of the seat. I grabbed hold of the controlls, and made sure that we went almost directly upwards.
      "How much time do we have left?" I asked Zamns
      "Ummmm...one minute."
      I looked at the altitude monitor: it read 4,000 feet.
      "Why cant this thing go any faster!?!" I screamed at the Pelican, thinking that we might not make it.
      "Drop the cargo." Zamns said, pointing to the Warthog hanging on the tail of the Pelican.
      I found a button that said "Release vehicle" and pressed it. The Warthog dropped to the ground, and the pelican gained a little more speed.
      "Needs more dropped!" I told Zamns.
      He nodded, and started releasing all the weapons holds on the pelican. Rocket launchers and other heavy items slid out the back and into the air. The Pelican gained more speed, showing us at 9,000 feet.
      "TIME?!" I yelled to him.
      "25 seconds." He answered back.
      My hands gripped the stick and sweat poured off of my face. I knew this was going to be a close one. The altitude devivce showed 9,600.
      "10 seconds!"
      9,800.
      "6 seconds!"
      9,900 showed on the device. Breakup warnings lit-up all over the ship. The status display showed that our wings were about to break off. Just a couple more seconds, hold on wings!.
      10,000 feet!
      3 seconds.
      I looked back at the building and It flashed, and a gigantic blinding explosion blew out of the place where there was the com center. I had to look away from the brightness, but felt that the explosion was close to hitting us. The shockwave hit us and knocked out our landing rockets. The remaing ammo was thrown all over the back room and the cockpit. I saluted all the men that gave up their lives in that battle, and continued onward, closing the back hatch before we began to exit the world's atmosphere.
      "Off by 3 seconds" I said to myself.
      "Zamns," I said, getting his attention,"I saw the thing that the com officer saw..."
      "Huh? What was it?"
      "It was..." I strained to say it. I thought to myself, no it cant happen here...here of all places,"proof of covenant forces near Saturn and on a vector towards Earth..."
      I saw Zamns drop on his knees,"no.....no-no-no-NO!"
      "Sorry...but its true. We might be the only ones to know, so we have to tell the UNSC "Phoenix" about our findings, so we can rally the whole UNSC fleet in the entire universe to combat the covenant in our home galaxy."
      "Right." Zamns said un-enthusiasticly.
      "You don't think we will prevail...do you?" I asked him grimly.
      He didnt answer my question, just stayed silent on the floor of the pelican.
       We were in space for a while before Zamns slowly walked to the cockpit, and sat in the side seat.
      "Whats that?" Zamns asked pointing at somthing in the distance. It was large, and had a metallic look to it. The large object gleamed in the sun and seemed to be a large UNSC ship.
      "Hmm...it looks like the "Phoenix", I'll try to establish a com link," I said, and switched the frequency to the ship's frequency, I got nothing. I looked over to Zamns and said,"no link."
      "Well mabye they're maintaining radio silence." Zamns inquired.
      "Yah, lets take a closer look and try to get in touch with them." I said, and pushed the thrusters towards the object.
       We got closer and saw that there are many pieces of metallic slabs floating around. We dodged a few pieces that came at us, as we neared the great looking object. The figure blocked out the sun as we went next to it. We flew by the side of it, and our jaws dropped, when we saw the words printed on the side of the big metal heap: "Phoenix".
      "Oh my..."
      "Uh Cooper...look..." Zamns said in awe of something.
      "Not right now Zamns." I said to him staring at the "Phoenix", which was now a heap of metal with large plasma holes borred into it.
      "No...LOOK!" Zamns said, and swiveled my head towards something else, in a different direction. I looked over, and saw the lovely moon of Earth, only, a big hunk was torn out of it. I looked over to where there were many purple objects in space, past the moon. I looked on the navigation display to where the purple objects were:

      <....navigational point Alpha....>

      <....processing....>

      <....Nav. point found....>

      <....Locaton: Earth....>

      I saw as some of the purple objects broke up to reveal some of Earth, It was red and charred in many places as the purple objects, which appeared to be hundreds of covenant cruisers, hailing Earth with thier weapons aimed to incenerate the planet.
      "What are we going to do?" Zamns asked me, still starring at the awful sight.
      "Run..." I said just before something came on the long range sensors.
      "CRAP! Its a covenant cruiser, they've spotted us!" Zamns said. I saw a light flash on the enormous cruiser, and I jeered off course. The plasma cannon shot vaporized our wing and sent us in a crazy path.
      "MAYDAY! MAYDAY!" I yelled as I sped back towards Mars in hope of landing safetly.
      "Oh shutup no ones going to listen to you!!!" Zamns screamed at me. I watched as the Orbital MAC Batteries guarding Mars, fired a volley of MAC rounds at the cruiser, and blew it to pieces. More covenant Battlecruisers were coming out of slipstream, close to Mars and immediatly opened fire upon the recharging MAC guns. The covenant cruisers were slowly picking off the MAC guns one by one, as we descended down upon Mars. We entered the Atmosphere at great speeds. Once again, breakup warnings lit-up all over the Pelican. I put the thrusters on full and tried to get a less of an angle on our quick descent. We were nearing the ground quickly.
      "OOOOOH CRAP!" I said over the sound of the speeding pelican, just noticing that we had no landing rockets because the Havok knocked them out of service. We came in at emminse speeds, and I thightened my helmet strap. 10 feet and closing, I was still going fast, but was trying to land it as softly as I could, by going in at a very small angle. 5 feet and closing, I saw a big boulder in the way about 2 miles ahead. We hit the ground and I pulled up, trying to create drag, to slow it down. The impact into the ground sent my hands off of the controls, and Zamns to scream,"COOPER YOU IDIOT!"
      Another warning light went on, this time it was a seat-belt malfunction , on my side. The seat belt came loose immediatly. The Pelican slid at great speeds on the ground, and I held onto the seat. The boulder was getting closer, and I knew we would hit it. We kept sliding on and on and the boulder was getting closer, and I waived to Zamns,"IM GONE!" We hit the boulder and my body flew forward into the protective glass. The glass shattered from the sheer momentum of my body, and I was projected out of the Pelican, rolling across the sand for about 100 feet. If it weren't for the neck support, I would have broken my neck on the impact of my head on the glass. I came almost to a stop and rolled over and bumped my forehead on a rock. My vision started to blur. and I took one last look tat the Pelican that was now flipped over the boulder.
      "aww man...not again...." I said as I knew I would fall unconsious. I tried to get up, but my vision blurred and I fell to the ground and took a nice nap...



      <next part: Part 8: Unexpected Savior>





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