A Spartan Named James- Part 2
Posted By: ZePHyR wRaiTH<zephyrwraith331@aol.com>
Date: 15 October 2003, 2:54 AM
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0840 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
Epsilon Eridani System, Covenant Flagship above
Reach Naval Yard
Flashes of blue light strobed the interior of the Covenant docking bay, each line of plasma seemed to race the other in a never-ending struggle to reach the elusive target first. James was pinned down behind a rapidly melting Covenant alloy crate. If he didn't do something soon all of his hard work to get into the ship would be made completely useless.
But James wasn't worried; this kind of engagement was what he was raised for, what he lived for, and what he desired.
At the first indication of a lull in the hail of fire he edged closer to the edge of the crate. When it stopped, he went to work. He spun around from behind the crate and four Jackals dropped when his green flame licked at their face, vital organs, or burned through their limbs. Eight Grunts collapsed when the plasma cut through their breathing apparatus or melted their methane masks to the craggy purple skin of their faces. Then James' plasma pistol sputtered and died. He ran towards the closest fire team of Covenant and feinted a roll to the right, but at the last second he made a dive for the legs of a Red armored Elite. The warrior went down with a bloodcurdling howl, but James quickly silenced it by smashing its head into the shimmering plating of the deck with an audible crunch. If not for the extra traction offered by his prosthetic arm his hand would have slid over the shields of the creature in a futile attempt of self-preservation and he would have been the one lying on the ground in a spreading pool of blood.
But James didn't have time to spare pondering this, the training embedded in his mind wouldn't allow it, and almost before the alien had hit the ground James had stripped it of the plasma rifle it wielded and cut down the group of Grunts it had commanded. That was when the Hunters and the Giant Ape decided that it was time to act.
Two jade green bolts of fire from the Hunter's fuel rod cannons and a purple lance of light from the primate's nasty looking, scythe tipped weapon raced across the hold toward him. James watched them close on him and at the last possible second he crouched behind a Wraith Mortar Tank. The Covenant tank absorbed the Hunter's fuel rods, but the purple energy from the Ape cut straight through it. James fell onto his back and watched as the violet plasma sliced a neat line through the tank mere centimeters above his face plate.
"Time to die you big ugly Brute," James cried, unwittingly naming a creature that already had a name for him: Food.
James stood and backed away slowly from the tank, sweeping his weapon from left to right to check for any unwanted visitors. Then he dashed at the tank, when he was three meters away from it he leapt into the air and soared at what he now dubbed, The Brute, plasma rifle spitting liquid light at his enemy, while he shouted a war cry at his assailant. The Brute took a shot in the chest and howled in fury, then a shot in the arm, then a burst of three shots in the side, and finally a shot in the mouth that splashed up and engulfed its head in flame. As it toppled to the floor filling the hold with the stench of burning hair and meat, a group of Jackals came around the corner of a divide that separated the cargo and fighter bays. They saw James standing over the dead Brute and were overcome with fear, they let out a series of squawks and knelt in a rough phalanx formation. The overlapping shields made it nearly impossible to get in an accurate shot, so James did the next best thing.
He tossed his lone frag grenade at the rear of the group and watched in grim satisfaction as they all went up in an explosion of enough force to crush some of the birdlike creatures against three separate bulkheads, and tear the rest into a spray of gray body parts, and a purple haze of blood. James ran through the mist of alien fluid and rounded the corner that the alien troops had come out from behind, and met...
Nothing.
The cargo section of the docking bay was empty. James had single handedly wiped out more Covenant in the hold than there were Spartans like him in the universe.
The thought of the other Spartans kicked him into action. James ran to a glowing holographic panel and began searching for the schematics of the ship. Along with being the most resilient Spartan in the eyes of some, he was the greatest hacker among them in the minds of them all. James wasn't sure how to work the floating keypad, but decided to give it his best shot. James stretched out his finger and felt an overwhelming urge to touch a green symbol in the lower left corner of the screen, so he did.
In a rush of sound and a flash of light, a holographic representation of the ship hovered in the air in front of his faceplate. James gawked open mouthed at the apparition and vaguely wondered where on the alien Flagship he was, immediately a pulsing blue circle appeared on the far side of the map.
Okay, he thought, Now where is the bridge and how do I get there?
Almost as soon as the thought had crossed his mind a lance of blue light shot out from the holographic "him" and lashed through the floating passageways of the ship until it got to a point in the center of the vessel.
"Well, that was easy," Muttered the Spartan after taking time to memorize the route through the ship.
And with that he turned on his heel and double timed it out of the cargo bay and into the unknown corridors beyond.
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