Surprise mother fuckers! Super sneaky ninja update is ago.
Chapter 8: There Will Be Another Time.
Katherine approached the heavy duty elevator which led down into the main hangar and keyed the down button. The large metal platform began its slow descent and Katherine had time to contemplate her mission. After several moments of deep though she erupted into a fit of anger.
“Fuck!” There was no other word for it, she was pissed alright. While this may have seemed like a fun little getaway at first. She quickly realised she would most likely be spending her time off, with a corpse. That was perfect, just perfect. She couldn't pin exactly why it was that she was angry about 42 being dead. She was sure in her head that she didn't like, like him. Maybe he was a good friend. Yeah, that was probably it. He was as close a friend as a Spartan could get and she would be damned if anything were to happen to him while she wasn't there to help him. The metal grey tiles of the elevator shaft soon gave way to pristine, white metal sheets as the elevator came to a complete stop in front of a large bulkhead. The bulkhead was painted a bright, bleach bone and had a small red light centred on its front. The small red light flashed twice before turning green and allowing 16 access to the hangar.
The door opened slowly and took its time moving bit by bit. The sound of whirring gears could be heard as the heavy metal was pulled by the inbuilt servos. Some security staff and a few ODSTs, were on the other side waiting for the elevator to grant them entrance to the platform while she was trying get off. Looks of annoyance were plastered across the faces of those who did not frequent the hangar as a destination. After several seconds of impatient waiting, 16 gave up and simply dived through the fairly large opening before coming into a roll and walking on like nothing happened, leaving several stunned security personnel and disgruntled ODSTs. Smirking inside her helmet, she walked further into the hangar, it opened up before her into a grand display of human achievement. Human vehicles and ships lay and hung everywhere. Some, the cutting edge of technology and others, the more robust and humble. This view was quickly cut off as she stumbled into a maze of containers and supply crates. Finding no issue with the various boxes and barrels, she shrugged and continued to proceed out of the other side and stepped up to a particularly sleek ship with a glossy black finish. 16 took a deep breath through her helmets air filters and caught the tang of fresh, chemical paint. It reminded her of home. The ship was large, not by starship standards but definitely large compared to a Spartan. It stood at 37ft tall, 71ft long and 90ft wide. It weighed around 350 tonnes and packed the fire-power of an air-ground longsword with the combined addition of prowler stealth capabilities. It was an impressive sight to behold and cost the military one hell of a pretty penny but damn was it worth it.
Walking around the ship, she came up to the back drop ramp and noticed several engineers still working on the interior mechanics. Yanking off her helmet she shouted up the ramp and heads turned in her direction.
“Hey guys! I thought this ship was done and ready for lift off asap.” She was irritated, definitely. She had kicked her ass into overdrive just to arrive at an unfinished ship... she didn't like waiting. The engineer team quickly wrapped up whatever they were working on and hastened their exit as they dashed towards other ships to continue their work. While members of the marines and ODSTs felt more comfortable around Spartans, the support staff still had their fears.
One engineer grew some balls and walked off the ramp and up to her before snapping off a hasty salute.
“Ma'am, we've added some modifications for longer journeys in space at Captain Lasky's request. She should be up to the task now.” Katherine saw the man's eyes dart nervously around the room as a pressing silence hung between the two. Katherine saw some mechanics in the corner of her vision trying to signal for their buddy to just run, yet he remained stock still. She was impressed.
“Thank you. That will be all.” With his cue given, the tech-head quickly dashed off to rejoin his comrades who consoled him like he had just encountered his worst nightmare.
Looking at the exterior of the ship once more, she noticed a large title in white, block text along the edge of the ship. The text read 'UNSC Cloak n' Dagger'. She smiled once more, surely an apt name for such a swift and brutal ship. Ascending the ramp she hit the door controls and the familiar sound of motors buzzed to life as the ship sealed up. She walked along the deck of the ship and looked down ever short corridor to see a bulkhead at the end of each one with a small symbol sitting above the door to represent what awaited inside. She reached the final bulkhead at the end of the deck and stepped through to reveal the pilots cabin. Two seats were positioned next to each other at the front of the cabin and a large LCD screen hung above the seats, which showed a beautifully detailed version of the new UNSC logo. The cabin had a striking resemblance to the old longsword cabins but with some small changes. The sense of familiarity with the layout made this mission seem all the easier as she realised she wouldn't have to spend ages getting acquainted with this ship. Taking a seat at the main controls she keyed her helmets internal mic into the prowlers systems and contacted hangar control.
“Hangar control, this is Spartan A-016, pilot of UNSC Cloak n' Dagger. Requesting permission to take off. Over.” There was a short break before a cut of static and a males voice came through the other end.
“Cloak n' Dagger. This is hangar control. You have the full go-ahead from the Captain and clearance to match. You are free to exit the hangar.” The static cut off and Katherine keyed her mic once more to reply.
“Much obliged hangar control. Cloak n' Dagger is on its way.” She powered up the engine and increased the vertical climb as the ship rose from the metal decking of the hangar and accelerated out of the shield barrier, which kept the harsh storms of slips-space and unforgiving vacuum of space, out of the hangar and the rest of the ship. The G-force didn't last long as she quickly left the gravity well cause by the UNSC Infinity and she gunned the ship onwards towards its pre-planned destination.
~~
'Hands! Oh god, what was he thinking'. Shortly after the deal had been made, Lyra had bounded off in a mess of uncontrolled glee and hyperventilation, much to the humour of everyone but 42. It hadn't taken him long to realise what he had gotten himself into. As soon as Lyra was out of eyesight, everyone had went back inside and began preparing for the day as though he wasn't even there. They talked, dressed and goofed around like any normal perso... no, pony would. Twilight and Luna had asked him several questions about how the prosthetics actually worked. Even though they did not understand some key details, they got the general gist of how the arms functioned.
“How barbaric. Surely thou could use telepathic technologies to control the arm rather than plugging wires directly into ones nervous system?” Luna seemed a little shocked at how blunt the technology was despite being used for such an elegant task. 42 sighed in his helmet. He was getting tire of the constant prattling on from the midnight mare and her lavender lackey, Twilight.
“Look. I don't expect you understand it, much less right away. So please just take my word for it when I say it has a little more finesse than that.” He ground his teeth in frustration when she replied with an uppity 'hmmph' and turned her head skyward, so that she gave the impression of displeasure. Twilight cut the tense moment with another question of her own, interrupting 42 as he attempted to continue reading the book on pony anatomy, which Twilight had handed to him.
“I still don't see why you would need to carry prosthetic limbs around in the first place. Surely the prospect of losing a limb isn't that high?” 42 gave up on trying to read in peace and slammed the book shut rather unceremoniously. He drew the attention of the rest of the room with suspicions looks but interest quickly reset to the previous tasks of the other ponies as they continued to chat. All but Fluttershy as she walked over to Luna and Twilight, trying not to make herself seen by 42 as much as possible. 42 mimicked pinching the bridge of his nose using the front of his faceplate and sighed. Not a frustrated sigh. But rather the painful sigh of one who has seen many a things happen to those who serve with them.
“When you fight something like the Covenant. Loosing and arm is the least of your worries. God forbid they capture you.” There he went again with the religious sayings. He put it down to the stress of bad memories and left it at that. Fluttershy was the first to break the awkward silence that hung between the three ponies and the tired Spartan.
“It must be so awful being a space soldier fighting those meanies if you're prepared to lose an arm.” 42 was shocked to say the least. As childish as the one named Fluttershy had put it, she was right. She had nailed the experience of a UNSC soldier right on the head. 42's head sunk a little as he continued the conversation.
“She's right you know. It is terrible. The feeling of dread every morning you wake up on the battlefield to find half your squad died on a night op. The knot that forms in your stomach as you watch your best mate blown apart by a Needler. The headaches that form after being pushed across twenty five miles of mountain just to assault a Covenant outpost and lose, while on minimal body nutrition. Yeah it's definitely terrible.” He wasn't exactly blowing things out of proportion. Everything he said was somewhat a summery of his career as an ODST in the 501st Fire Chimps. He had hiked twenty five miles over the Akrid mountains to sneak up on a Covenant outpost only to be forced to retreat by a retaliation strike from an Elite Spec-ops group. He had watched friends in the corps get blown apart by Needler wielding Jackal formations, while they were trying to retake the embattled city of Tennesco on Saides IV. He remembered seeing most of the 501st being sent off to retake a space port on the very same planet one night, only to wake up the next morning and find they had all died. He missed them all, except maybe Dave Leblonsky, that know-it-all ass. His reminiscing of the past was cut off by Twilight as she asked yet another question.
“So why did you become a Spartan?” Her tone seemed to give off the air of worry. Maybe it was for him or maybe it was because she feared his mental stability.
“Good question. I ask myself the same thing sometimes. But you must know that I wasn't always a Spartan. Before that I was an ODST and before that I was a Marine. I worked my way up the chain with determination and skill. As for why I joined. Well, most people join to protect those they love, other to protect humanity, hell, some even fight for the cash, but me. I don't quite really know why but I would say by biggest reason was revenge.” The three ponies looked at each other for a moment before turning back to 42. Luna voiced their concern.
“Why would you sign up for revenge. Surely thou would know of the problems cause by dwelling on negative, past experiences.” She spoke as though she had experienced such an event herself but 42 decided to pry no more into that subject and carried on with his own explanation.
“It was never personal of anything of the sort. I didn't want revenge for lost family, or for friends killed in the war. No. I wanted revenge for every last Human being to die in that god awful war. I joined because I wanted to grind my foes beneath my boot like lowly lickspittles. I wanted every member of the Covenant to regret their decision of ever fucking with Humanity and to watch as they were savagely beaten ten fold for every Human dead. That! Is why I joined. I wasn't an efficient soldier because I wanted to protect but because I wanted to kill.” His answer had obviously scarred the crap out of them as they were now trying to hide behind each other with Fluttershy being forced towards the front. “Oh stop it.” A bit of mirth crept into 42's voice. “I wanted to kill the Covenant for what they had done. Not every alien I encountered. You're perfectly safe around me.” They physically relaxed but minds still seemed to twitch as their thoughts mirrored on the rapid movement of their eyes.
Pinkie, completely oblivious to the conversation that had just transpired, bounced over to 42 and the others and started a new conversation.
“So 42, what do you personally do for fun?” 42 liked that question, it was innocent and a good distraction from the previous topic. Everyone else had joined the group at this point ans stood/sat before him like children waiting to hear a story from their favourite grandparent.
“Well, my favourite ways and what I actually did changed from division to division. Back when I was a civy, I liked to go down to the shooting range and pop a couple of shots off with my dads old bolt action.” They all seemed very confused as to what a shooting range was exactly but they listened intently and did not interrupt nonetheless. “When I joined the marine core there wasn’t much to do there, other than dick around with your buddies of course. And that means mess around before you go thinking I'm gay.” 42 said this last part to cut off a snicker emanating from Rainbow Dash as she interpreted it as a euphemism.
“Things started picking up when I signed on to become an ODST though. I was assigned the platoon known as the 501st Fire Chimps. I quickly learned of their nickname though, which was aptly called the 501st Party Brigade.” Pinkie cut in with a giggle.
“Gee, they sure sound like a fun bunch of party ponies. Oops, I mean people.” Everyone chuckled at her outburst including 42 as he recalled several of their shenanigans.
“Yeah we were a real bunch of party animals but not in the traditional party sense you would know off. We preferred the more 'mature' themes. One time, when we were stationed aboard the ship 'UNSC Oasis' we found ourselves alone on the ship as the Captain, C.O and the entire command crew were ashore for logistical reasons. Finding nothing better to do with out time, we converted the entire hangar into a nice little party for us and the support crew, who ran maintenance. Now, a few ODSTs went and invited some people they knew in the city we were shored in. Those people invited other people and before we knew it, we had had a massive rave going on, right in the bloody hangar of a warship. Now the Captain was a pretty laid back man and when he found us shaking our asses off, he wanted to join in but the C.O would have none of it. While the party was allowed to continue for moral boost reasons, per the Captains request. The C.O had the entire platoon scrubbing the ships latrines for the next month. The Captain was against the punishment but didn't want to get ONI involved and have half the platoon and his own ass kicked out of the job so he left us to it. After that, word quickly spread through the civilian populace of the planet and then onto docking ships with military personnel about our escapades. Soon enough it was known as a large rumour throughout all of the marine core and ODST core that if you wanted a good time in the military, you best pray you get assigned with the 501st Fire Chimps for a mission.” 42's little ditty ended with a mass collapse of ponies as they rolled around the floor in laughter. Even the regal princess sisters allowed a few chuckles of pure mirth through their usually stoic demeanour towards humour. The guards, who had previously sat at the back of the room like statues failed to hide their smiles as they heard the ending of the tale. 42 finished waiting for them to stop laughing and sped up the process by beginning to talk.
“Of course there's my time as a Spartan, but that can wait until another time. Right now I need to relax.” Applejack was the first to recover and stepped forward.
“Say partner. Ah don't know what ah bolt action is, but ah have a range up at the farm for when ah like to use mah crossbow. You said you enjoyed shooting up at the ranges when you were a 'Civy'” 42 was surprised that she had a weapon of any sort. But then again, she did say she ran a farm and any Human farmer worth their salt had some sort of weapon. He was quick to take up the offer.
“Yeah that sounds like some nostalgic fun, and I could use the break. Lead the way.” She tipped her hat and motioned for him to follow. He slowly stood up and followed her towards the front door. Rainbow Dash and Luna followed but everyone else remained where they stood/sat. Raibow Dash called over to the others.
“Hey! Aren't you guys coming?” She was met by a plethora of no. As Celestia and the others all stated their different reasons. Celestia wished to get some research done and required twilight's assistance. Fluttershy had to go and care for her animals as they would probably be missing her right about now. Rarity had to finish an order of dresses she was already falling behind for and Pinkie said something about looking after Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake. Rainbow dismissed them with a wave of her hoof. “Fine, if you don't want to watch the cool alien, then it's your loss.” She turned around to find that the other three had already started walking off. “Hey!” Rainbow called out as she flew off after them and slammed the door behind herself. The slam sent several books tumbling off a bookshelf and burying Spike as he walked out of the kitchen.
“This happens way too often.” Was all that Spike could say in an extremely aggravated tone beneath the books.
Damn! That took a while to write but if anything this chapter should show that I take my readers comments to heart (and mind in some cases). You know who you are when you read this chapter.
Comment and Discuss.
“Crime doesn't pay. Good citizens do their part.”
-Super Intendant