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Messages - Dunder Moose

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31
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: February 26, 2010, 20:40:51 »
Part 11 posted.

Warning: an upset character swears. I usually Keep It Clean, but Spartans can wake up nasty.

I also edited earlier portions to include atmosphere on the asteroid.  I learned that high explosives produce no shock wave in a vacuum and I needed oxygen for James 417's incinerator to burn.  It also gave me the option for the cool lighting effects of the Crawford generator in the hollow cavern.

32
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: February 26, 2010, 20:37:09 »
Part 11
Sierra 137 Decanted from the cryopod and snapped to zero-G attention, body rigid, toes pointed. James 417 fished the gripper attachments out of its case on her cryopod and fastened them to the bottoms of her feet while the startup sequence initiated. By the time he had maneuvered her to latch on to the wall next to him Ann had woken up. She put both hands on his chest and shoved hard, grabbing the magnum off his hip while he windmilled his arms, trying to stay attached to the cavern wall.

“You son of a bitch!” she said.

“Woah, woah!” said James 417.

She aimed the pistol at his head and he executed a quick takeaway, snapping the gun out of her hand. As he raised it to bear on her she used the same move taking the gun right back. As it left his hand he managed to flick the clip release and the magazine slid out to float between them. When she reached for it he snapped the gun out of her hand again and aimed it with his stump in front of the handhold. She quickly grabbed the top and racked it back toward him ejecting the last chambered round to spin between their faceplates. They stared hard at each other. Finally she grabbed the round and clipped it into the magazine.

“You have the gun and I have all the bullets.” she said. James 417 didn’t reply. An impish part of him wanted to activate the elite sword soldered onto his stump, but he refrained. It might be good to have a few surprises left in him.

“I need to get to medical. I don’t have much time! You shouldn’t have woken me here!”

“Let me grab Striata and we’ll get out of here fast.”

“No. That one’s crazy.” She said, pointing at the pedestal with the large mass attached to it. “I have a backup taken before that thing took hold of her.” She tapped her helmet.

“I can’t just leave her here.” James 417 said and pushed off. He sailed across the gap and landed hard next to Striata.

“Hang on, ma’am. I’m getting you out of here.” he said.

The AI’s laugh was a delightful tinkling in his helmet. When he touched her disc the large mass convulsed and several of the chords let loose of the pedestal to thrash at him. Her laughter turned to a hideous scream.

“NO!  YOU WILL NOT TAKE HER!”

James 417’s vision blurred as the new voice rolled through him. He grit his teeth and pulled the disc. Keeping Ann 137’s warning, though he put it in his belt pack instead of sliding it into his helmet.

“YOU FOOL!”

The egg sacs in the entire chamber burst open and the strange creatures exploded into the cavern like a firework in hell. James 417 fired his pistol three times before he remembered it was empty. Three loud explosions rocked him and he saw an open path through the writhing monsters to the portal.

How did she? he began to think, then realized that all the grenades were missing off his belt.

“Move it James!” Ann 137 shouted, diving for the portal.

“You beautiful kleptomaniac!” He said back starting to dive, then he saw it. One of the creatures he had come to think of as a tank was forcing its way through the ruined portal.

“Ann!” James 417 cried and tossed the pistol at her. She caught it, slammed home the clip and chambered the first round in one fluid motion while she soared toward the hole. She raised the pistol over her head and fired the whole clip into the monster’s head. It finally died on the last round, but the entire opening was filled with the monsters, alerted by her grenades. Three pear shaped ones crawled around the opening and opened, looking like an inside-out hedgehog, bristling with spines. The spines fired, each one zipping dead-on into the velocity field around Ann 137’s head. She tossed a flame grenade which engulfed one killing it, and caused the other two to close up, protecting themselves from the heat and ceasing their fire. She landed and leapt off of one of the closed ones, back toward him as more tanks bashed their way in. As she speared toward James 417 he noticed the tunnel her grenades had made through the little creatures was collapsing quickly

“Cerebello! Fire one AP round on my position!” James  417 commanded.

“I need authorization from the,”

“Do it or I die!” James 417 commanded.

“Foxtrot one.” Cerebello said and James 417 jumped for all he was worth. A magnificent hole opened on either side of the great cavern, with a core of light running from one side to the other, passing three centimeters below James 417’s feet. The Crawford field generators exploded in a glory of light and all of the little creatures in the cavern popped at once.

James 417 saw Ann 137 as a blue lozenge of light coming toward him as her shields maxed out, trying to cope with the energies being released in the room. Then the entire cavern went dark.

She collided with him in the weightless dark. He put his arm around her waist. A tentacle wrapped around his foot and pulled them both back toward the pedestal.
“PUT HER BACK, NOW!”

James 417 quickly got his bearing. He shoved Ann 137 toward the opening the Defiant Answer had blasted into the asteroid. She drifted bonelessly toward the opening.

“Ann!” he called, but she did not respond.

When his boots touched down on the squishy mass it spoke in his head again.

“I HAVE PLANS AND YOU CAN BE A WONDERFUL PART OF THEM. THE BIOMASS ON THAT STARSHIP IS CALLING OUT FOR THE LIBERATION OF THE GRAVE. POOR RAMPANT STRIATA WANTS A MATE AND I WANT ANOTHER AI.”

Before it could say more James 417 activated his sword and jammed it into the center of the mass. He dragged it one way, then another making a large plus sign, before leaping at the hole in the sky. The thing made no more noise.

He caught Ann 137 with the crook of his elbow and caught the rim of the asteroid, swinging them out onto the surface. His gripper boots bit into the rock and he ran toward his booster frame with Ann 137 over his shoulder. She shuddered. He set her down on her feet.

“It’s too late for me James, I can feel it.”

“No, we can get you back.”

She coughed, gagged. “I can feel them tickling my throat. How many Spartans left?”

“I don’t know.”

“John?” Her question bit a piece out of his heart.

“He’s alive. He’s on the Pillar of Autumn.”

“That’s good.”

James 417 was about to tell her how he’d always felt about her, how it had changed since he met Major Noble, but was stronger for the trial. Before he could say anything she interrupted him.

“You should run now.” Her voice had grown so deep the last word was almost masculine.

33
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: February 25, 2010, 21:29:15 »
Part 10 up. It's short, but I figured it was better to keep them coming than wait until I'd finished the thing.  More coming soon. Warning.  Contains sword use on a sphincter.

34
SGP Task Force: 7 / Re: J Banner 7
« on: February 15, 2010, 14:25:44 »
Try here.

35
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: February 11, 2010, 00:35:27 »
Part 9 up. The good guys get a whoopin'. Enjoy.

36
SGP Task Force: 7 / Re: Subliminal Messages?
« on: February 06, 2010, 16:28:48 »
I wonder if the Subliminal Messages tie in to the faintly visible sigils noted here by Wikibruce. (Under Super's Code)

We've never really looked into those symbols but they look like either more glyphs or elite characters.

37
SGP Task Force: 7 / Re: J Banner 7
« on: February 06, 2010, 16:22:17 »
Still been hammering away on this.  Looking at the images I was put in mind of the quipu that use knots in string to signify meaning.  Unfortunately nobody has ever really deciphered the quipu. but they most likely use a 7 bit arrangement for knots/no knots.  That lead me down a trail to a place we've already been.

The next thing I am excited about is the ARK01 code that team vergil uses.  The layout got me thinking, what if the j-banners work the same way? Each dot is a 1 and strings of them add up with the open space being the separators.

So J-15 would give us
1 2 1 2 4 1 1 5 2
1 2 2 2 2 1 1 2 1 1
1 1 1 4 2 2 4
7 1 1 2 2 2 1 2

J7 is:
1 2 1 2 4 1 1 6 1
1 5 2 2 2 3 2 1 1
1 1 1 4 2 2 1 2
3 1 1 2 1 2 1 2

And J0 would be
1 1 1 2 3 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 6 15 1
1 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 2
3 2 2 1 2 1 2

I'm going to be working on these numbers but I don't want to be the only one.  Come on team.  Do they map to letters?  To a polybius square (bungie's would probably be 7 by 7). Let's knock the cobwebs off and get those labcoats back on!

38
Intel / Re: >> SGP TRANSMISSION 02 <<
« on: February 03, 2010, 20:34:01 »
Translation:  I AM FOREMAN!

If you would like to be able to read these too, it's time to start down the bunny trail.

39
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: January 28, 2010, 15:09:41 »
Part 8.  Some questions are answered. Resupply for the fight.  More inside-joke ODSTs show up.

Part 8

At the weapon rack James 417 looked up to see Noble approaching him.

“Captain.” he stood.

“It’s Major again. I am going in with you.” She looked at the flat surface of his armored stump. “The techs are growing your arm back as quick as they can, but it’s nowhere near ready.”

“Tell them to take their time. The fast-grown ones aren’t as strong and never quite stop tingling. Besides, I had a tech work something up on an old souvenir of mine from Reach.”  He opened a case and pulled out a bone shaped rod that had been welded onto a circular cap. It snapped into place over James 417’s stump. He took a step back and activated the Elite sword.

Major Nobles eyes widened in the blue glow. She gasped at its sudden crackling energy field.

“I lost my paw, but not my claw.” James 417 said. He deactivated the sword.

“When you said that it sounded like you were smiling behind that faceplate.” she said. “I don’t think I’ve seen you do that without your mustache. I bet it looks good.”

“Spartans don’t smile, Ma’am.” James 417 said.

“They sure can lie though.” She put her hand on his armored chest. “I know you’ll do well in there, but I don’t know what we’re up against. We need to get that AI back. It’s more important even than figuring out what these things are. It could be a cake walk or we could lose everybody on the first breach. Promise me that, no matter what, you will get Striata back. And if you can’t, that you’ll destroy her.”

“I promise.”

“And if we both make it out of this...well, there’s an unfinished chess game in my quarters.”

“Ma’am you need to know about Ann. I am sure she fought to the last breath against these things. She may have been the one to destroy the Cost of Dereliction. But if they didn’t kill her, if she got...infected... The one I fought was stronger than me and it was a civilian. Ann got better scores than I did at the clone facility. She is faster, sharper, meaner. And I only have one hand.”

“Did she mean a lot to you, James?”

James 417 couldn’t speak. He was struggling not to do something else Spartans never did behind their faceplates.

“She is lovely.” he whispered so low that the helmet mic didn’t pick it up.

“I’m sure you will do whatever you need to. We all will.” she put on her Recon helm and strode away.

James 417 looked at the weapon rack before him. The sniper rifle was out, he didn’t know how much range there would be in the asteroid’s interior. The shotgun would have been the next logical choice, but with one hand he’d be slower at cocking it. He put a magnum on the hardpoint on his thigh. Turning he saw an ODST lifting a Spartan laser. His patch read Imp.

“This ought to finish them off.” Imp said, patting the weapon. That made James 417 consider his heavy weapon options. He jammed his stump under the forehandle of an incinerator and hefted it.

“Finish ‘em hey?” he said. The flamethrower had sharky jaws painted near the nozzle.

“I’m big on the finish.” said Imp.

“Me too, man.” said an ODST named Blast Nimbus. He sliced at the air with a knife.

James 417 remembered Judson’s complaint. “Fragging peas, man.”

“Zip up!  We’re on the move!” Major Noble called and they all pressurized their suits. The large minibase doors fell open and they ran to form up, taking odd jerky steps in their gripper boots. Marines were mounting Scorpions and Warthogs.

A Warthog with three ODST’s skewed around to a stop by the formation. The driver’s callsign was Wasp. ODST Bugger rode shotgun and their gunner’s tag read Shatbiker. They all seemed to carry an almost ridiculous amount of grenades.

Major Noble gave the order and they marched toward the cave.

Part 9

Two hundred meters in the asteroid’s cave ended in a thick muscular portal, which Judson loudly dubbed the ast-hole. Noble and Riddle were deliberating how to cut through it when it irised open on its own, whistling wind and disgorging another shambling horde.
James 417 lead the UNSC forces into the fray. He registered the front line and the odd tissue lining the tunnel and then the battle was on him and thought took a backseat to reaction. He remained on point as nobody wanted to run in front of a Spartan with a flame thrower. He was letting the thing off in short spurts, conserving the fuel. In the pressure of sudden atmosphere the gel flared brightly and the nightmare howls of the burning monsters echoed through the cavern. For every five he burned down ten got past him. The gunfire chattered from both sides and human screams joined the monsters’.

James 417’s remarkable subconscious was still busily assessing and storing away facts (he thought that perhaps the flesh lining the tunnel had exuded an acidic mucous to bore the tunnel) but his forebrain was entirely engrossed in killing the enemy. He did not hesitate. His every move was sure. For James 417 , behind joking and human interaction, this was what life was really about, and life was good.

Yellow-white streams of fire ate through limbs and armor faces and things that were once-faces. The more normal man sized things were wearing thin and behind them a monster shambled towards him, running with knuckles and feet. He hit it head on full stream and it bowled him over. The flamethrower went spinning and James 417 was in a furious hand-to-hand battle with the thing while they both burned. It grabbed him by the head and slammed him into the cavern wall hard enough to make his helmet creak. A lance of bright red light blinded James 417 and he floated a bit until his gripper boots clamped onto the ground. The things arm drifted in front of him severed at the elbow. The howling thing’s stump was big around as a tree’s. It turned to face the Marine who’d shot it and saw Judson charging up his Spartan laser for another shot. Before it could go for him James 417 slugged it in the side of the head. It hesitated just long enough for another shot from the Splaser that cut it in two.

“Thanks Judson!” James 417 called.

“No sweat Popsicle! Just gave him a cut-puppet!” Judson hollered back.

A bulging sack on two legs with tentacle whips stumbled toward them. James 417 drew his pistol, but another Marine hit it first with a burst from an assault rifle. The explosion blew James 417 to the other side of the wide tunnel and killed the front row of Marines.
Judson was screaming. James 417 looked up to see him covered in large bulbous jellyfish. He took aim and fired six times, bursting one with each shot. Judson was up and running. One was on his leg. He stomped it into the ground and emptied his pistol into it, screaming.

Noble ordered them to fall back. They had widened the breach and it was time to follow the Warthogs and Scorpions. They got halfway in when their own dead rose up and fired on the vehicles.

“Cerebello! What’s going on?” James 417 asked. In his helmet Cerebello’s calm voice replied.

“Reviewing the footage. The little ones that came out of the exploding life form fixed on their bodies and have reanimated them.”

James 417 shared this horrific news and they turned their weapons on their newly fallen comrades. They almost broke then, but they survived the fight and pressed on, clearing out the tunnels as they went. By the time they were halfway through the asteroid all of their vehicles had been destroyed, mainly by their own grenades and rockets. They feared the stumbling bag monsters. Once some small arms fire raked an infected looking clump of spheres and more of the jellies swarmed out, leaping and whipping red-feathery tendrils. Once more their dead arose. Once more James 417 had to pick them off with his pistol, this time from Major Noble herself. Her suit was ripped open at the arm and several tentacles dove at the wound like tongues to lap the blood. James 417 ran up and ripped the thing off her, it’s tentacles tearing into pieces. She sprayed sealer foam over the cut.

“There’s pieces wriggling in my arm! I’ll get the rest out when we’re back at base.” she said.

“Ma’am! We can’t go on like this.” he said. She nodded. She gave the retreat order before the men could run. They had reached over seventy percent casualties.

“James!” she called him, “You know what to do!”

He nodded and watched them retreat, leaving him behind. He replenished his ammo and grenades, picked up a battle rifle and pressed on.

“New strategy Cerebello.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’re not gonna clear this thing out. We’re going for the AI and getting out. Give them a chance to get off the rock then prepare to fire.”

“Sir, I can’t fire danger close without authorization from the Major.”

“Just get ready.”

Part 10
20 minutes later, panting, James 417 stood at a thick muscular wall. He had killed more creatures than he could count. He had sneaked past even more. If Cerebello’s heads-up display was accurate he was near the nerve center of the asteroid. According to the seismic readings the initial bombardment provided, on the other side of this portal the asteroid was completely hollowed out. No more tunnels to slink down.

He checked the tunnel down which he’d come and, finding it empty, activated his elite sword. The membrane was thick and tough, but once he’d cut past the outer ring the door shied open away from his blade.

Must have hit a nerve, he thought.

Inside was a huge cavern dominated by the internal workings of the large ship motors, harshly lit by the glaring spheres and angles of the Crawford field generators. Before the main control for the Nano-graviton pulse hub was a familiar pedestal with a pink hologrammatic female glitching occasionally.

“There she is.” said Cerebello. James 417 deactivated the blade.

The egg-sacs he had come to fear filled the cavern and he saw a pulpy mass, larger than a broadsword-class fighter, with several fibrous tendrils wrapped around the base of Striata’s pedestal. Way off to the left, tipped over as if tossed aside, was a Spartan cryopod.

He jumped for it, through the sagging portal relishing the acceleration as his boots left the tunnel and he floated into the empty globe. His rapid flight seemed like a lazy drift in the large open space and the spears of blue, yellow and white Crawford light played over his armor like dapples on a dolphin just under the surface.

Striata noticed him sailing toward the cryopod and giggled.

He hit the surface hard enough to activate his velocity shields, then hand-over-handed his way to the cryopod. The armor inside was almost identical to his own. A little shorter perhaps; wider pelvis and narrower codpiece. Ann 137 was stenciled on its shoulder. His armored fingers scraped down the frosted glass. Then he pulled the release lever.


40
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: January 25, 2010, 21:31:13 »
Part 7 up.  Some space warfare ahead, as well as some oddly named ODSTs. :)

41
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: the darkness
« on: January 20, 2010, 20:34:08 »
Really creepy start Glitcher!   :D

I might suggest getting to know your character a bit more before writing the next part.  It's okay if the audience doesn't know who the character is yet, but you had better know who he is and how he got there.  In my opinion you can only drag the mystery out so long before you have to explain something.  NOt everything, mind you.  I would introduce a few concrete details and try to bring about a few more questions to keep the tension high.

Sometimes stories start like this, or in a completely blank white room because we need to write our way into the story.  That's okay.  Once we know what is going on we can go back and rewrite the beginning to make it match.

I am excited to see what you come up with.


42
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: January 20, 2010, 20:27:00 »
Thanks guys.  I hope the ending satisfies.  :)


43
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: January 20, 2010, 17:19:40 »
Part 6 posted after 5.  Preparation for war.

Hornet-  The Dead Man-thing was the civilian that they found in the Pelican adrift, the only known survivor of the UNSC ship, Cost Of Dereliction.   He was in a coma, and then died when they tried to revive him.  It reanimated in the morgue and fought its way to the bridge where James 417 encountered it.  Unfortunately they couldn't get a name from him/it before it died and became monstrous.

As to why it could do that, or how?  You'll have to read on....  :)

44
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: January 18, 2010, 22:16:26 »
Thanks Imppa!  I edited the confusing pronoun out and changed references to the dead man as an it rather than a him.  I also edited it for length.  It should flow a little better now.  I like to change things like, "He was running" to "He ran." and  "The door started to close" to "The door closed."

45
ODST Fan Fiction / Re: Perchance To Dream
« on: January 18, 2010, 17:35:24 »
Sorry for the jump. Max character limit hit.  Part 5 is violent and has scary imagery.  You've been warned.

Part 5

James 417's helmet sat next to a 3D Chessboard in Major Noble's quarters. They played while trying to make sense of what they'd seen. James 417 didn't talk much during hard thinking so Amelia bounced ideas off him. They played like amateurs.

"Maybe it's some Covenant troop type we haven't seen before.  Like commandos that can infiltrate and even use our equipment?" she said.

"Hmm." James 417 said and moved a bishop up two boards and diagonally three squares. "How did they get onboard?"

Amelia took the Bishop with a pawn. "What if they can look like us?"

Their eyes met, horror on both their faces at the possibilities.

"You really need to lose that mustache. It's very distracting." she said. James 417 stared at her and their tension broke with sudden laughter.

"It must be really bad if it takes your mind off shapeshifting aliens." he said when he could.

"It's just, that's how I deal with stress."

"Random insults?" he asked. She went into the head and came out with a towel, a razor and a bulb of shaving cream.

"No way!" he said, laughing again.

"Hold still.  That's an order." She squirted cream on his lip and whisked the razor under his nose. James 417 shifted in the seat.  She was leaning over, straddling his armored thigh, focused intently on his mouth.  He could see the fine wrinkles around her eyes, and faintly smell her floral shampoo. She wiped the leftover cream from his mouth.  "Much better." He grabbed her waist, intent on stopping her next word with a kiss when the alarm klaxon sounded.

They moved as one, she grabbing her pistol and he his helmet before dashing into the hall.  He jammed his helmet on and heard Cerebello giving the damage report.

"Fire in the morgue, two casualties.  Small arms fire in the hall behind the Bridge."

The Bridge!  They rounded the corner to see the dead civilian jamming on the button to close the decompression doors.  James 417 dove through the hole as the door irised shut, trapping Major Noble outside.  Captain Ridley raised his sidearm to fire on the corpse.  It caught and wrenched the Captain's arm, loudly breaking the bones and tossing the him into the comm controls. It picked up the pistol. James 417 ran at it, but the dead man fired five shots into the Captain's chest.  James 417's armored fist connected with its jaw with all he had.  The dead man flew across the bridge, cracked the viewport and fell to the deck.  It rose steadily.  Its jaw had unhinged on one side and hung at an angle.  It tried to grin.

The crew took cover as it emptied the pistol at the Spartan, lighting up the deflection field and sparking off his armor. James 417 had frozen for a second.  He simply had not expected an unarmored human to get up after taking that punch.  Cracking the viewport should have broken every bone in its back.

They ran at each other, James 417 pulling back for another punch.  The dead man caught his fist and pivoted, throwing James 417 right back at the viewscreen.  Wen the Spartan hit it, the tortured shriek of escaping atmosphere filled the Bridge. They ran at each other again, but as the man swung James 417 ducked under it and hit the override button.  The pressure doors opened and Major Noble was ready.  Her Recon armor was sealed and the full complement of ODST's swarmed in and pulled the crew to safety as she opened fire on the man, sending him staggering backwards.  As soon as the ODST's were clear James 417 released the button.  Noble realized what he was doing a second too late to lunge in, but Riddle tossed in a Spartan Laser before the door shut.

The dead man and the Spartan saw the weapon come sailing into the room, saw each other see it, and dashed toward it. James 417 got there first and laying hold of the long weapon swung it up into the man's damaged face, pulling the trigger.  The man fell over on its back as the heavy weapon whined, charging up for the shot.  The beam would have burned right through it had it not lashed out to tangle the Spartan's feet. The shot went over high, destroying the cracked viewport and sucking them both spaceward.

James 417 was amazed the thing could reach him.  He released the weapon as they both skittered across the deck.  He got a handhold and the dead man held his foot.  The thing-man crawled up him until it stared into James 417's faceplate. Its jaw had completely detached and its tongue furiously slapped his neck in the wind.  Fine red filaments writhed out of his open throat, feeling for James 417's face.  He saw that its right arm was now a tendril twice as long and thin as it had been.

James 417 grabbed the head in one gauntleted hand and slammed it against the deck three times.  On the third it finally released him and went sailing toward the open hole.  The whiplike arm lashed out desperately and wound around James 417's right arm.  He gritted his teeth and gave his suit the command to jettison his gauntlet.  The monster sailed out into space, gripping his glove and followed by his naked hand as the Mjolnir armor amputated the forearm and sealed itself against the vacuum.

Cerebello patched video into his helmet.  The exterior camera panned along the ship.  The man-thing was crawling along the hull, looking for another way in.

"Shoot it." James 417 said and watched a turret rotate and fire, finally destroying the thing.

"It's over." he said into the comm.

"The Captain's dead." Major Noble replied. "I am assuming command of this ship." 

James 417 sat in the Captain's chair, regarding his stump as the doors cycled open and repair techs in hardsuits came in to patch the hole.

Part 6

The next day they sighted the asteroid.  Though the Cost Of Dereliction’s thrusters were by far the largest, there were many more engines sticking out of the rock at bizarre angles.  It was peanut shaped with most of the thrusters bristling off the larger bulb.  Along its waist lay a clutter of landed broadswords and one civilian yacht. People were climbing around the outside of it.

Now-Captain Noble whistled through her teeth as they surveyed the readouts on the Defiant Answer’s bridge.   
   
“Is there any atmosphere on that rock?” she asked.

“Affirmative.” Cerebello said.  “I detect a weak Crawford field holding in the atmosphere. But most of the reactions powering those thrusters are unshielded. It’s how I found them so quickly. The whole asteroid is extremely radioactive.”

“So how’s the crew climbing around in high rad?” she asked.

“Could be a resistant alien biology, or hardsuits.” Cerebello offered.

“The thing I fought yesterday used to be a man.” James 417 said. “If it was an alien it didn’t start that way.”

“Give me closeup on those crawlers.” said Noble.

The screen magnified to show the creatures. They had four limbs and a head, but there the similarities to humans ended. The shoulders were huge as were the arms. The neck was engulfed. Also, many of them had a long whip for one or both arms, or extremely long fingers.

“We’re taking those things out and getting our AI back.” Noble said grimly. “Battlestations!  James get to your booster! I want my peas in the pods!  Marines, suit up for vac! Techs, proof the Scorpions and Hogs for anti-rad.  You have two hours people! Shag it!”

As the boots hit the deck she turned to Cerebello. “Wait ‘til my Broadswords are ready to launch.  Fire a salvo at their thrusters and then jump us 3 hours ahead.  Launch Broadswords and set up the optimal ambush formation.”

“On your mark, Ma’am.” Cerebello said, smiling.

“Mark!”

The Defiant Answer opened fire.   The fighters launched off the asteroid like a swarm of hornets, whirled once then homed in on the Defiant Answer.  It waited just long enough to see the main thrusters shatter then disappeared.

Part 7
It was a typical land-commander error. Noble had assumed that without thrust the asteroid would drift in a straight line right into their ambush. They sighted the drifting asteroid an hour early and it was well above them.

Everyone was prepared but the techs.  They had fitted the Warthogs and Scorpions with gripper treads for maneuvering the asteroid in micro-gravity but they had not completed shielding the electronics from the radiation.  As James 417 and the broadswords broke formation and accelerated in pursuit of the asteroid, Captain Noble gave the command to launch without the land vehicles.

Scores of pods launched from the forward bay of the Defiant Answer like a salvo of coffin-missiles. Pelicans followed trying to keep up. 

“Hit it with high explosives!” Noble commanded.

“Ma’am, HE shells won’t do much except to the surface.  Would you like me to fire Armor Piercing instead?” Cerebello said.

“Just do it!”

“Aye Ma’am.”

James 417 caught his breath as the main guns fired lances of light straight through the onrushing ships, but Cerebello knew what he was doing and though the shells speared the void close to some Pelicans and ODST pods they went down range straight and true.

The shells impacted the asteroid as the broadswords were launching.  The detonations barely cratered the asteroid’s surface, but the shockwaves crumpled the fighters like a giant stomping on tin cans and blew most of the air outside the range of the Crawford field. Only a dozen or so made it off the surface whole and they flew like they were stunned, neither forming up nor attacking.

James 417 lead the dive hoping to mop them up before they could get their bearings.  As one, the enemy fighters wheeled and opened fire.  Ignoring the Spartan’s broadswords they sent missiles and chaingun fire into the ODST pods, shattering several.

“Foxtrot one!  Foxtrot two! Guns,guns,guns!” James 417 cried and his wing opened fire destroying the enemy fighters in one volley.  He broke off from the group, heading for the asteroid’s surface, commanding the fighters to pick off the remaining thrusters and provide air support for the surface battle.

Ten minutes later, his boots on the asteroid, he commanded the deploying ODST’s to fan out, fire on site and locate the AI.  The void was unbearably quiet.  Nothing moved on the surface.  They swept their patrol.  He went back to his booster frame for some altitude.  Thirty minutes later he radioed the Defiant Answer to report.

“Ma’am there’s no sign of life down here.  The ODST’s have discovered some very unusual linkages for the Thrusters, but no sign of the AI.”

“Tell me about the thrusters, James.” Captain Noble said back.

“They are powered and commanded by some sort of biomechanical connections.  Part cabling from the Cost Of Dereliction, part connective tissue from who knows what.”

“Is it alive?”

“Yes, Captain.  I think so.”

The radio filled with screams.

“Defiant Answer this is Delta Seven! Multiple contacts, multiple contacts!”

“I’m inbound Riddle!” James 417 called whipping the booster frame about. “Marines! Converge on Delta Seven, move! Broadswords give me cover!”

They were on the far side of the asteroid.  As he rounded it James 417 could see the bright lines of tracer fire and see the tiny sparkles of starlight off the spinning ejected casings, but he could only hear the gunfire when the suit radios activated.

The creatures were boiling out of a cave.  The gunfire was really chewing on them and pushing them around, but they didn’t fall or stop.  The first one reached the squad of ODST’s and batted the first three off the asteroid with one swipe of its tentacled hand.  They flew off screaming and writhing as the air and the blood and the heat escaped the long gash each had across his chest. They died quickly, their bodies would not be recovered.

The night burned red as an ODST discharged his Spartan Laser into the mass.  Multiple creatures flew off the asteroid in burned pieces, but more swarmed out to take their place.  James 417 crash landed his frame on the surface, skewing around tail toward the cave.  He popped the minigun and opened fire on the horde, sweeping the fire back and forth at head height.

The monsters spun off into the sky as James 417 reaped them like grain before the scythe.  The ODST’s were able to regroup and focus fire into the mass.  Rockets thumped into the opening as the Marines arrived and opened fire.  The wave ended and everyone waited, their barrels glowing red in the airless night.

The second wave was equally monstrous, but they looked more human and many of them came out firing assault rifles, pistols and smg’s.  Air escaped the cave with them and the sounds of battle were oddly muted and tinny in the thin pressure. The front ranks of ODST’s got stitched up with the small arms fire, but only two died of suit rupture.  They opened fire and let the monsters have it and it was over even quicker than the previous wave.  After that there was no enemy activity for half an hour.  The Marines quickly set up a minibase and stationed turrets around the mouth of the cave.  The base was pressurized in minutes and the simulated gravity plate switched on.  Captain Noble touched down in a pelican and called a meeting in the minibase.

James 417 watched out the portal as the gripper tanks and hogs were flown in and secured to the asteroid.

Cerebello had captured many battle images from the broadswords, and showed them zooms of the creatures they were fighting.  Many wore scraps of uniforms and armor from the Cost Of Dereliction.

“You mean we’ve been killing Marines?” Judson asked, face pale.  His group had been especially boisterous in celebrating on the mic’s as each monster fell.

“They weren’t Marines any more.” James 417 said.

Cerebello spoke.  “Seismic scans from the bombardment show this asteroid is heavilly tunneled and hollow in at least one large place. We have to assume the main force is inside and have secured the AI there.”

“What are the alternatives?” Captain Noble asked.

“That they just tossed the AI into the void like an empty beercan.” said Riddle.  Judson and Rook exchanged knowing glances and Velazquez laughed.

“You mean we might crack this egg, fight all the forces of hell inside and the AI might be whipping through the galaxy?” she asked.

“Not likely.” said Cerebello.

“He’s right.” James 417 said. “Whatever these are, they started human.  Some of them had to know the value of an AI.  What’s guiding this asteroid?  What are the thrusters connected to?”

“But why would our AI guide their ship for them?” Riddle asked. He looked at another ODST, callsign Chillswooper who shrugged.

“Probably had no other choice.” said a serious ODST named Helios Thulsa.

“Alright.  So we’re going on the assumption that the AI is in there.” Noble said. “Cerebello, what can you tell me about the Cost of Dereliction’s AI?”

“Real sweetheart.  Striata.  She’s pink and a genius.” Cerebello said.

Thinking of the human monsters he’d seen, James 417 asked a question and dreaded the answer.

“Cerebello, did the Cost of Dereliction have a Spartan?”

“Yes, James.  It did.”

“Ann.”

“I’m afraid so.  It’s likely that the AI is toward the back of the asteroid, close to where the main thrusters were wired in.”

They all sighed at Cerebello’s words.  The cave entrance was on the front of the asteroid.  They would have to fight through the whole thing.

“Alright people we know what we need to do.  The good news is that cave is big enough for our Scorpions and Hogs.  And the Defiant Answer should be able to punch holes along the way for drop pod insertion of backup weapons and extra ammo.  Let’s go get our lady and get out.  Oo-Rah?”

“Ooo-Rah!” they answered.  As they poured out of the minibase to form up James 417 thought of Noble’s words: Let’s go get our lady.  He thought about Ann.  He’d seen what a civilian could do when the monster took hold of them.  He wondered about what a Spartan monster might be like.


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