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The Flood Onslaught - Part 6
Posted By: The Grenadier<smaytothej044@yahoo.com>
Date: 12 July 2005, 10:54 pm
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Hope you guys enjoy this as much as you did the last one.
Chapter 6
Andrew glanced to his left where Jenkins stood. He couldn't see his face, but he knew if he could, it would be rock solid.
Andrew had spent years fighting the horrific Flood, but deep in his heart, he still feared them. Jenkins, however, had spent over one hundred years living with the Flood, as a Flood. He was not afraid. They stepped into the elevator and acsended down.
They both carefully inspected their weapons and cross-checked the MJOLNIR systems. Andrew normally did this on his own, but it always helped to have a second eye. He sighed heavily. It was almost as if he had a brother again...
The elevator stopped abruptly and they were thrown to the floor. Getting up quickly, they hefted their Shotguns. There was an explosion, and a Combat form jumped down through the recently made hole in the ceiling. Reacting almost faster than Andrew did, Jenkins shoved the muzzle into the creature's belly and squeezed the trigger. It was dead before it even touched them.
"That was close," Jenkins said, wiping some Flood guts off of his visor. "We've got to find a way to get this elevator working before we get more unexpected guests."
"I was just about to say the same thing," Andrew replied. He took the piece of metal that used to be part of the ceiling and forced it back into place. "That ought to hold them. Now, about the elevator - "
"Working." Deja interrupted. "It's no use. The system is completely fried."
Andrew cursed under his breath. "You can't get it back up and running?"
"There's no way. Looks like you're walking." Deja said, sarcasm present in her tone. "We could... Uh oh."
"More good news?" Jenkins asked.
"Plenty." Deja said. "See for yourselves." Static washed across their HUD and a recording played. It was taken from the outside of the Orbital Platform. It displayed the main thrusters necessary to keep the station in orbit. Flood ships were heading straight for them.
"Quick!" Andrew yelled. "Brace yourself - " But it was too late. They felt a shudder throughout the hull from the crash and they were thrown into the wall. Their shields were completely drained by the blow.
"That was not good. We need those thrusters to keep ourselves in orbit. We are rapidly falling towards the planet - ETA to crash is fifteen minutes." Deja warned.
"Is there anything we can escape in?" Andrew asked, his heart racing.
"Yes. There are a few lifeboats in launch bay 4C. But, according to my calculations... the chances of making it there are slim to none." Deja said.
"We'll see about that." Andrew growled. He crouched down to the floor and let loose a lightning fast punch. A hole the size of his fist was left. He and Jenkins then slowly peeled back the reluctant metal. It was now big enough for them to jump through.
"What are you doing?" Deja asked.
"Making an exit." Andrew replied. He jumped down, feet first, into the dark chasm. Jenkins followed closely. They increased their shielding to the maximum on the bottom of their boots to soften their landing, and after a few seconds of free fall, they hit the bottom of the elevator shaft and felt a shudder as they dented the meter-thick Titanium A.
"Deja," Andrew said, "can you pull up the schematics and link them to our HUDs?"
"Already done." Deja said. "What exactly are you looking for? We can't reach the lifeboats now that we're at the bottom of an elevator shaft."
"Ventilation tunnels," Andrew said. "If we can find the right one, we might find that launch bay and get off of here in one piece." He pulled up the diagram and searched for a way out. His mind was racing.
Jenkins spoke up.
"Found it," he said. "This one, to our direct right. It leads to a launch bay, where there are a few lifeboats we can escape in." Andrew nodded in agreement. Before they could move, though, the elevator several meters above them fell.
* * *
In unison, the two Spartans sprinted towards the ventilation shaft. Jenkins dove in, but there was no time for Andrew to follow suite. He braced himself and prepared to stop the free falling elevator dead in it's tracks. A half ton of man and armor and the titanic elevator collided. Andrew made an unpleasant noise over the COM and slowly made his way over to the shaft. He jumped in and panted.
"Are you alright?" Jenkins asked.
The truth was, he probably was not alright. On the outside, his armor barely looked like it had taken damage. The inside was another story. Andrew could feel all of the internal bleeding and near-shattered bones screaming inside of him. They begged him to stay, but he shrugged the feeling off. Pain would have to wait.
"I'm fine," he lied. "We need to get moving." He waited for his shields to recharge, but they didn't. The generator was blown. Damn. he thought. Another snag.
He glanced at the timer in the left-hand corner of his HUD. It read 10:35. They turned on their flashlights and started to crawl through the dark tunnel.
* * *
"We're here." Jenkins whispered over the COM. "But it looks like we have visitors." They peered through the opening. A dozen Combat forms littered the area, along with exactly three bulbous Carrier forms amongst them. That was a problem. With a blown shield generator, just a few Infection forms could quickly overwhelm and penetrate his armor. Jenkins seemed to understand. "I'll take care of 'em." he said.
Jenkins jumped down and immediately began to fire his MA8B Assault Rifle. He quickly gunned down the Carrier forms and mopped up the Infection forms they left behind. He slung his AR and drew his Shotgun. The 8 gauge shells cleanly killed anything that happened to get in the way of the barrel.
That was when a Comat form weilding a hammer, albeit a crude one, got behind Jenkins and delivered a bone-shattering blow to his head. Andrew saw him fall to his knees and moan on the floor.
Shield generator or no shield generator, the other Spartan knew what he had to do. He jumped down from the shaft and raced towards Jenkins' attacker.
The Flood form seemed suprised to see another human appear out of nowhere, but hefted it's hammer anyways and prepared to meet his charge. Andrew side-stepped the menacing blow and launched a powerful open handed strike to it's rib cage. The Combat formed doubled over from the blow as the Infection form inside it was shredded to pieces.
Jenkins got up slowly and limped towards Andrew. "Thanks," he said, recovering his breath. "We need to leave soon if we're going to leave at all, though." He was right. The timer read 3:27.
"Okay," Andrew replied. "We just need to get to one of the lifeboats and -"
Deja cut him off. "There are no lifeboats. They were all launched."
"What?" Jenkins said, pain forgotten. "By who?"
"It wasn't a Brain form - I can tell you that much." she replied. "There seems to be some kind of higher intelligence onboard the station."
"A Flood AI?" Andrew thought out loud.
"No. That's not possible." Deja said. "Flood are smart creatures - atleast smart enough to reload and operate weapons, drive vehicles, and such. But creating an AI is way beyond their limits. I could search the station's computer system and find out for sure what's in here."
"I'd like to find out too, Deja," Andrew said, "but we have bigger problems. We have less than three minutes to get off."
"Searching..." she said. "All Pelicans, Drop Pods, Lifeboats, Phantoms, and Longswords launched. Looks like we're stuck here."
"I don't think so," Jenkins said. "Time for a rough drop." A rough drop was a very risky situation. However, there wasn't much of a choice. So together, the two Spartans pried open an airlock door, and were sucked into the black void of space.
* * *
Andrew and Jenkins tumbled out of the rapidly falling station. They had gotten out just in time, only to run into a bigger problem - landing.
They stretched their arms and legs out to slow their fall, but it wouldn't do them much good. In the half-ton MJOLNIR Armor, they flew like rocks. Plus, with Andrew's blown shield generator and Jenkins' hydrostatic gel malfunction caused by the hammer-weilding Flood, it would be next to impossible to land this without dying. That was when a Longsword passed underneath them.
Apparently the pilot knew they were falling, because the craft slowed down considerably. They grabbed on to the wing, and shuffled over to the air lock. The door opened, and they jumped in. It cycled them through, and walked into the cockpit. The pilot's chair swivled around. In it sat a Spartan.
* * *
Andrew could tell right away who it was. Spartan 155 - Lauren. After the success of the original Spartans, the UNSC decided to create a third generation. The only Spartan in the second generation was Andrew's father. Section 3 augmented him against his will, and forced him to become a soldier. He loathed fighting, but did it anyways to protect humanity and her allies from the Flood. He single-handedly killed thousands of Flood.
But on the Yros IV campaigns, he was overwhelmed and literally torn apart by several hundred Combat forms. His body was never recovered. That was when the UNSC realized how much they needed more Spartans if they were to ever win this war. They stole Andrew and twenty-nine other children from their families and started the Spartan III project. Twelve of the original thirty survived the augmentation.
Andrew couldn't dwell on the past, though. He pushed the memories aside and greeted Lauren by taking his thumb and forefinger and tracing a smile across his faceplate. She returned the gesture. It was the closest any Spartan came to an emotional outburst.
"Thanks," he said as he removed his helmet. "We wouldn't have made it without your help."
"No problem," Lauren replied. "I caught some radio traffic about the platform. I figured I could be of some help." She smiled.
"By the way, this is Jenkins." Andrew said. "The scientists up there were able to turn him back from a Flood."
"That's great," she said. "We could always use some more help."
"Sorry to interrupt," Deja said, "but I'm detecting multiple Flood craft landing on the planet's surface. If you're going to help anyone, they could sure use it down there."
"Alright." Andrew said, re-sealing his helmet. "Spartans: let's move in."
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