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Pitch Black Chapter One
Posted By: Havoc 101<syrtisminor@gmail.com>
Date: 22 March 2008, 5:00 pm
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Lieutenant, Bob Decon woke up in the dimly lit cryobay. The whole place was on emergency lights. He could barely see a thing, and the blurred glass of the cryotube wasn't making anything better.
He put his face on the cold glass and saw that engine alert lights were on. He was on a UNSC class colony transfer shuttle. The shuttle was smaller than a freighter, but much bigger than any small shuttle you've ever seen on star trek. It was meant for transferring civilians from one planet to another.
Since it was 125 years after the covenant war, there were no threats in the galaxy. Small groups of insurrectionists would try to hijack ships here and there, but always failed. Just in case, though, the ship was armed with a majority of plasma weapons (compliments of humanity's elite allies), 5 archer missles, and two large, fully loaded, lead spewing chain guns.
All of that would be enough to take out an unshielded, covenant freighter, but the amazing part of the shuttle was its engines. Since it was a light ship, it could support, larger, more powerful engines. Currently, the shuttle was carrying two anti- gravity, Pheidippides A class engines. They were not slipspace engines, but they could travel faster than any other ship any humanity's arsenal. These engines were highly explosive, and could blow the shuttle into stardust if the overloaded.
That's why there were alarms for the engines all around the ship. When the alarms flashed, that meant only a few moment until: BOOM!
He tried to open the cryotube, but nothing happened. He suddenly heard the oxygen warning alarm in the cryotube. He checked the cryotube's oxygen meter, and it was almost down to zero.
"God damn it!" he yelled.
He looked around anxiously for some way out. He saw a red button on the side of the tube. He knew of all the shows he had seen where people who pressed the red button got hurt or killed, but he didn't have time for such baloney.
He slammed his fist on the red button and the front of the tube exploded and smashed against the wall of the cryobay. Bob was sent crashing down onto the floor. He felt like shit, but forced himself up anyway.
He rushed through the bay past his sleeping, fellow marines. He went through the door and many dimly lit hallways. He finally got to the bridge.
The bridge was small and triangular. There were three chairs, one in the very front of the ship, two behind it. There were no lights, and the only source of light was the white sun through the windows.
Through the windows in the bridge, Bob could see a planet with two suns around it. There was a blue sun coming around the planet and there was a white sun farther away from the planet. The shuttle was currently stationed in front of the dark side of the planet, so he couldn't see any of its features.
That wasn't the problem, though, the engines were. He looked at the engine status and saw that they had suddenly dropped power. A sudden drop in power when the engines were on their highest speed would certainly send then floating through the stars in minutes. He would have to shut off the engines.
He went to a glowing red button saying ENGINE ALERT and pressed the button. The engines turned off and the alert lights deactivated. He pressed a button on the bridge's dashboard, calling for the shuttle's AI.
Back in the 25th century, there were only few smart AI's, and they would go rampant and dire in seven years. Now, dumb AI's were being selled for scrap, and every AI was a smart AI. Again, thanks to the elite scientist and technology, AI's were smarter than any time before, and they rarely went rampant. No one knows how long they will last, but none of them have died yet.
The AI, legend (named after the shuttle, Gold Legend) came up on a pedestal on the dashboard. She was the color of gold, and was wearing a weird elite, human designed robes, probably meant to symbolized our peace with the aliens.
"What woke you up?" she asked him.
"Two exploding engines which you were supposed to take care of," he said with a hint of announce in his voice.
"Sorry, I was recharging my data core,"
"You picked the wrong time. Is there any way to restart the engines?"
"It doesn't look like it, but I have detected an energy source somewhere on the planet. If my analysis is correct, that amount of energy should be able to start the engines by a small percent and take us to the nearest colony in about 5 days for repairs,"
"Alright, activate the teleporter,"
"It's heavily damaged, we've lost power from almost all systems, however, I can use the small amount of energy we have left and start the engines up for a little while. Then I can drive us to the planet, and I'll be able to send you down there via a rope,"
"Alright, do it, but what about the 40 passengers still in cryo?"
"There all fine, but there is no need to wake them, all they'll do is file a report on this shuttle's engines, and the prototype will never be finished,"
"Then we'll both lose our jobs. Wake the marines, if there is hostile life on the planet, I want them ready to defend this shuttle,"
"It will take 23.5 hours to wake them due to loss of power,"
"Then you better get started,"
While the ship started its approach to the strange planet, Bob got ready. He went to the armor room. Spartan armor today was like making bread. Therefore he had all of the armor variants at his disposal and he could mix and match them anyway he wanted.
He was going to go tactical this time. He put on the marathon security armor helmet, which had night vision and a flashlight in it. It was also good for communication since it had a built in antenna. It fit in all of his needs.
But there was no body parts for the security helmet, so he would have to mix. He put on a Hayabusa Samaria body armor, for ninja stealth, he like to say. It had built in active camouflage, but it only lasted a few minutes.
What for shoulders though? It took him a while to decide between C.Q.B or Security, but he finally chose regulator shoulders. These would protect him from explosions and shrapnel. Surprisingly enough, shrapnel always hit's the leg or the shoulder, which is why this is an excellent choice.
He took his weapons, a shotgun, and an assault rifle. The assault rifle again held 60 bullets, and packed more of a punch than last time. The shotgun was the same except it sent shells out at a faster rate, causing more damage. You got to love the 26th century.
When he was done, he went into the decompression room. It had two hatches. One on the wall to his right, and one on the bottom of the small room. The one on the right was an exit to the top of the shuttle, for repairs and thing like that. The bottom was an exit out through the bottom of the ship. He was going to descend form that hatch with a rope, down onto the planet's surface, if it had one.
Legend finally told him he could descend. He attached the rope to one of the hooks on the room's wall. He attached it to his armor's belt, made sure it would hold, and then opened the hatch.
It was black, just black, you couldn't see a thing. He turned on his night vision, but it was like being blind, all he got from night vision was a green coding covering his eyes. It was so quiet too, except for the wind. The wind was cold, he could feel it even through the thick armor of his suit. He turned on the suit's heater, but it did no good .
He turned on his flashlight, looked down, and then jumped. He kept falling. Bob was scared, but he had no idea what was going to come next.
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