Lorenzo flickered and gasped.
It wasn’t some hallucination, he presumed as he stared straight into the void ahead of him while thinking back to the time he spent with the Librarian, after learning of the immense task bestowed upon him and his men with the introduction of the machine that would fuck up his entire day. Devoid of any activity, he struggled to jerk his arms around only to find them completely numb. It hurt like hell, but eventually he was able to move them and quickly looked for the unlit LED screen. Finding it, he tapped it and soon it came back online.
With the cold boot of the Grizzly’s onboard computer, Lorenzo’s eyes darted around the cockpit to make sure he was still in his tank and that Russell was alright. After the initial boot-up screen, it asked for verification, which initially ticked off the rudely awakened Marine as he pulled out a keyboard. As he typed in the codes to bypass the security check of the tank, he noticed that he felt dizzy and sick. Wondering where was he exactly, he looked up and used his hand to push up against the hatch. After it refused to budge, he then realized that he had to get the actual thing working before anything could happen.
Feeling stupid, he went on to finish the verification process and immediately, the screen chirped and an emergency light flashed to life.
Authentication valid. Welcome back, Captain Donald Lorenzo.
The Marine sighed and skimmed the screen to open the hatch of the Grizzly as he heard something mumble inside the dimly lit cockpit of the tank. Upon hearing the groan, he immediately started to speak with his somewhere-inside fellow gunner.
“Russell? Is that you?”
“Mmmph...” responded the recovering gunner as he lifted his hand up to soothe his aching cranium.
“Dude!” Lorenzo yelled and moved to shake him awake, only to find that he still had his seatbelts on. With the hatch grinding open, he wasted no time and quickly attempted to snap back his friend into reality. On the screen after the command, there was an IFF signal right next to them which he was not immediately aware of as he woke his friend.
“Fuck... what in the motherfucking hell?” Russell stirred and finally to began to see light, albeit an emergency light that was not even helping anyone at all. “Are we in the afterlife, momma?”
“Nope,” Lorenzo replied, anticipating for the gunner to freak out and struggle because of that realization. Even he was panicking inside, but held his ground after remembering the Librarian’s word. Still, where the fuck were they? He remembered the blood red hologram of Harbinger saying something about altering the slipspace stream and the Librarian’s words.
But it wasn’t the time for that as the hatch was halfway opened, revealing a brick red sky laced with the string of clouds. Lorenzo noticed it was stuffy for some reason, and quickly diverted attention to monitoring the system of the tank. After reading the temperature, he was stunned to find out how hot it was.
Average temperature reading: 155 Degrees.
“Shit...” Lorenzo groaned to himself and he quickly felt sweat droplets beading down through his neck. Wheezing, he sought to look for his combat helmet and his back-up rifle, in case the tank in any way was compromised by hostile forces.
“Ren, where are we?” Russell asked after shaking his head and flexing his muscles.
“I don’t know,” Lorenzo replied as he found his helmet and hastily put it on, activating its in-built sensors and ammo readings. Then he turned his attention to the Grizzly’s screen and activated its smart scanning systems, that would allow it to map out the terrain and provide them with viable options.
On the outside, a small cylindrical object was deployed on the surface of the tank and it emitted a bright blue light that surrounded the area in waves of spectral data that would be transmitted to any UNSC combat helmets in the area. With the process of mapping estimated to be around five minutes, Lorenzo took the liberty of exploring this new world to Russell’s surprise.
“You sure we’re not dead?”
“Not dead, just yet,” responded Lorenzo through the visor blocking his eyes. Retrieving the BR55 firmly placed into the wall, he gave it a good pull of the bolt and used his free hand to get a good grip on the outside.
With his strength, he pulled himself outside of the tank only to fall down flat on his face.
“Ow, fuck...” he groaned to himself, and slowly put two hands onto the ground to lift himself up. After getting up, he dusted himself and checked the battle rifle for any damage. Finding no mechanism damage and having a full magazine, he looked around the place and was awed by the towering cliffs that reminded him of Harvest. With the atmosphere just as intense, Lorenzo set out to study the terrain before he could start up his battle-ready tank and move out. Even though the Grizzly was built to survive a Scarab, it might not be powerful enough to take out whatever was here.
When he turned around, he noticed his motion sensor was not only picking up the detailed image of the Scorpion colored in yellow, but also the previously unnoticed IFF (Identification of Friendly or Foe) tag that lay just on the other side of where the Grizzly was in.
In actuality, the reason why Lorenzo dropped out of the tank was because it was in an awkward position. Remembering about Harbinger’s interference, he wasn’t all too surprised to find that it somehow caused their tank to end up like that on the rocky cliffside. Noticing a small cave that led straight to the other yellow dot, he slowly approached it as he contacted an awaiting and dazed Russell.
“Lorenzo to Russell, do you read?”
“I read you, fucking hell... that helmet took forever to find,” Russell replied, still hostile after his awakening.
“You still found it though,” Lorenzo jokingly replied as he was just a few meters from the cave entrance and the tilted Grizzly. Looking at it, he was going to need a lot more than just his hands to get the Grizzly back to prime state and since the Forerunner had implied Mac and Rarity might be here too, it was the best of his interests to get their own vehicle up and running first. “Alright, hang on in there. I’m going to scout out the terrain and look for Mac.”
“Roger, but where’s everybody? My sensors are picking up another IFF tag just across whatever is blocking us.”
“That’s why I’m moving out,” Lorenzo gruffly replied as he took up cover at the side of the cave entrance. “Take a rifle and lock up, it’ll be a while before I come back.”
“Aye, aye.” That was all Lorenzo needed to hear as he activated his helmet’s flashlight and entered the looming darkness of the cave. Cautiously proceeding through it with his rifle’s barrel being leveled at nearly everything, he failed to spot something very large and sleeping.
Fortunately, Lorenzo had an instinctive feeling to just stop walking and stopped dead in his tracks. Looking forward, he realized he had illuminated a gigantic reptilian beast which he instantly recognized as something out of mythology, and maybe out of that show.
“My god...” In front of him was a great sleeping dragon, coated in dark blue and striped with black. Making sure not to awake it, he tiptoed past its head and gripped onto his rifle to prevent any noise from being made. Although he doubted their existence, he admired dragons for their sheer size, their abilities and just because they look damn cool as he remembered during his youth on Mars. But he never expected to meet an actual one, more or less stand in front of the snout of a slumbering behemoth. As he slowly walked past the dragon’s right eye, it suddenly opened to his surprise and watched the Marine as he stood completely still.
If you stand still... it won’t see you...
Damn it! To him, it sounded like a brilliant idea but he knew better than to trust old movie quotes over real scientific facts. Elites belonged in the reptile category as spoken by UNSC scientists and they could see anything whether they moved or not like an eagle, and Lorenzo knew that this applies to dragons, in fact anything that is in the reptile category. Slowly backing away, the dragon’s eyelids slowly shut and he sighed in relief that it did not awaken to burn him alive.
He sprinted forwards, noticing the high change in temperature as opposed to outside. It was frigid inside the cavern, and he was lucky to still have his Harvest campaign uniform. Designed to both soak plasma fire and prevent the wearer from getting frostbitten, he felt safe indeed. But it wasn’t enough to sate his paranoia as he went deeper into the labyrinth. Then he noticed there were...astounding amounts of minerals scattered around inside, as his boots crunched several emeralds and rubies on the ground to his surprise.
He had no need for such useless objects, and so he quickly took up position as he heard something familiar crackle over his active radio.
“This is RRY 0892-3 transmitting emergency distress signal! Can any stellar or ground UNSC force hear me, over?”
Rarity’s voice was all he needed to confirm that Mac and his Wolverine was close. Tweaking the helmet’s microphone, he updated his interface and spoke to the AI. “Hello? This is Captain Lorenzo of Grizzly 054-7!”
“Lorenzo? Where are you? I’m picking up your IFF tag inside the cliff next to us!”
“That’s where I am!” Lorenzo responded as his boots thumped on the illuminated floors of the rock corridor, the sun shining through the holes in the walls. “And keep it low, will ya? Just passed a friggin’ dragon who happened to be taking a nap!”
“...a dragon? Where are we?”
“Let’s say I don’t wanna talk about that,” Lorenzo grunted, not wanting to tell the AI about the Librarian just yet. “Anyway, can you help me find a way out? Can you map the cave system at all?”
“I can...but give me a while, darling. I have to wake Mac up, he’s still out,” Rarity replied to Lorenzo’s satisfaction as he nodded and sprinted out further into the cave system, presuming that he was close to reaching his friend. After what the Librarian had said about Mac, he felt that he was now more important than all of them, if they were around at all. Now, where was the Spartan and Colby? If they were caught in the supernova, then they had to be somewhere out there in the vast unknowns of this world.
Then his sensor picked up two slow moving red dots that were coming in from the right, and immediately he sidestepped into the shadows of the intersection he had reached. Whatever it was, he knew it meant trouble. Cursing at his lack of X-Ray vision, he readied himself for a fight.
The two dots came closer and closer, until they reached the middle where Lorenzo took a small peek at what were they. He noticed they were also dragons, but the more active and lighter versions of the gargantuan he saw slumbering behind. He heard them mutter incomprehensible words and shrugged, not wanting to jeopardize the rally with the Wolverine. After the two red dots moved towards the next corridor on the left, he slowly crouched past them and eventually, they were out of ear range. Breathing a sigh of relief, he continued on towards the exit and he reached an opening that led right where he wanted to, outside. Contacting Rarity, he hugged the wall just in case anymore bipedal dragons was wandering outside. With the temperature reverting back to outside’s heat, he grunted and checked his battle rifle again, before holding it up with one hand and pulling out his M6B to check it. After he confirmed that it had sustained no damage at all, he holstered it and re-equipped his rifle as he stepped outside. The sun was bringing its full wrath upon him, making it almost intolerable to stand for even a second. Lorenzo quickly hurried away, following the yellow dot that was now closer.
“Mac, dear! Please get up!”
“I’m approaching your vehicle! Stand by, I need your help later!”
“Be patient! This lazy man wouldn’t get up!” Lorenzo snickered before sliding as he saw the same two dragons from before in the cave system, now stopping to look on their own left to find something odd in the distance. As he observed behind the rocks that covered him, they slowly talked in an alien language and took a few slow steps forward in curiosity on their discovery.
He was now on a deadline, Mac was still unconscious and with the dragons approaching their presumed location, it was risky to move on without engaging. Lorenzo then slowly moved out of his cover and sneaked his way behind a rock monolith, getting ready to take out the would-be target. Hearing the chattering of the dragons and their hisses, he silently contacted Rarity and hoped Mac was up.
“Rarity? You guys got incoming, twelve o’ clock!” Lorenzo barked into his headphone and hoped that they didn’t hear him.
“I have them on the radar!” Rarity frantically replied back as the Marine heard the grunting of the newly awakened MacBeth. “Thank goodness, he’s awake! Quick! Put on your helmet, Mac!”
After hearing his friend groan and seeing the dragons getting closer than ever to the unseen Wolverine, his mind raced fast. They might be civilians even if they were dragons, killing them was an untactical decision. He had to draw their attention away without causing too much of a commotion. Then he remembered a contingency plan that Forge laid out during the battle of Arcadia, to let the civilians escape on board the transports. That plan saved many, but in the process he and Russell were nearly killed by overwhelming amounts of plasma fire and energy lasers only to be saved by Red Team in the nick of time. If it weren’t for the Spartans, he might’ve not been here.
But now, it was him. No longer was Forge around, or his fellow tank commanders. Just him, with the curious multi-colored dragons between the Wolverine with Mac and Rarity inside and him. Lorenzo thought fast and checked the ammo counter on the battle rifle. He had enough to take them down, but first he surveyed the area. Spotting a pile of diamonds, rubies and emeralds, he came up with a better plan. Patting his vest, he found that he still had three M9 HE grenades all ready to be primed and detonated.
Already it has been less than a day, and he was faced with an increasingly difficult decision and a risky plan that would hopefully give enough time for Mac to fully awake and reoperate the still Wolverine with its arsenal of Argent V missiles and grenades. Pulling out one M9, he silently prayed to the gods above and pulled the pin before getting out of cover, flinging it towards the pile of minerals across the canyon.
The grenade went straight and true, arcing in the air before finally landing with a loud think on the diamonds. The dragons stopped and lifted their snouts in the air with their ears in response to the think. In a heartbeat, the frag exploded and caused the dragons to stumble back in confusion and panic. As they tried to gather themselves, they took the liberty of what caused the explosion to Lorenzo’s delight. All was going to plan, he thought to himself as he sprinted across the red rock plains and reached the Wolverine just as he heard Mac grunting and complaining.
“Jesus... Lorenzo? Do you hear me?”
“Copy that, Mac. I read ya,” Lorenzo said as he stood outside the Wolverine, battle rifle stowed away and now currently preoccupied with observing the behaviour of the stunned dragons, as they found that their minerals were all shards and bits. “Get this thing up running, now!”
“What for, mate? Where the fuck are we? Thought we got vaporized by that sun!”
“Long story, now we have to get moving!” Lorenzo’s head spun back and found that the dragons were now facing them. With looks that could kill, they roared and charged at the Wolverine in retaliation for the destruction of their treasures. “Fucking dragons are going to pound us!”
“Dragons? Oh fuck, better not hope we landed in the middle ages, yeah?” Mac responded as he tapped buttons after buttons, activating the engine of the Wolverine and causing it to rumble to life after being transported by a mysterious force that only Lorenzo knew about.
“Go, go, go!” Lorenzo shouted as he sat behind the grenade launcher and took out his battle rifle before aiming it at the foot of the dragons. He clicked the trigger and it spat out three rounds that impacted the ground, momentarily dazing them. “If you bloody lizards come a single foot closer, I’ll blast those scaly snouts of yours back to High Charity!”
They looked at each other, still angry, and tilted their heads. It was all too clear that they didn’t know what the Marine was speaking of as they had no idea what he was even saying. Lorenzo steadied his aim and hoped that they heeded his warning shots, now thinking of Rarity’s translation program that UNSC engineers installed to make sure that they could listen in on local Covenant networking.
“Rares, you still have that translation lingo program?”
“Still have it within my memory core. What for, dear?” Lorenzo nodded and still kept his aim on the dragons who instinctively took a few steps back, ready with their own surprise.
“I need it now!”
“But Ren! It doesn’t accurately translate alien language! More or less, dragon!” Rarity chimed out, a little irritated and still in a state of panic.
“Just install it into my helmet HUD, I’ll do the rest and see if they listen!” Lorenzo shouted and prepared for a fight, just as he saw the dragons look at each other and nod before they looked back at the now moving Wolverine with their jaws wide open and red glows emitted from their throats.
Lorenzo was in the shit, he remembered that dragons could breath fire and he needed to think fast before the Wolverine was scorched. Even with its heavy titanium armoring, it wouldn’t last long against the intense flames of a dragon, let alone two. He didn’t want to kill them, but the situation was going to the red zone way too fast.
It was to either get melted into nothing or take the shot.
Lorenzo pulled the trigger and sent a burst of bullets into the leftmost dragon’s throat, gutting him and causing him to shriek in agony and bark intangible words until Rarity had finished installing the translation software into his helmet.
“There, it’s done deary! Be thankful that I’m the element of Generosity!”
“Thanks, Rares,” Lorenzo responded as the dragon looked at his fatally wounded accomplice who shortly fell to his knees and finally died due to the bullets ripping through his skin. Lorenzo then bulked up and started to converse with him, using the newly installed software.
“If you do not want to end up like your friend over there, I suggest you back off and let us go.”
“Bastard!” The dragon spoke out as the software worked its magic to Lorenzo’s delight, now that his message could be delivered.
“You get the warning?”
“You... killed him!” The dragon cried out before he turned his seething eyes towards Lorenzo, who immediately gulped. He had just incurred the wrath of a dragon, and he knew better than to piss off a dragon than to kill one of a single Hunter pair.
“Raagh!” He charged at the Wolverine, completely berserked. Lorenzo raised his battle rifle to deal with the rampaging dragon, but the Wolverine’s MLRS suddenly swerved to life and he could hear the Argent missiles warming up for launch.
“Don’t worry, Ren. I got him.” Then in a loud series of shrieking missiles, the spot where the dragon was before was now a smoldering crater thanks to the Wolverine and Mac who smiled inside the cockpit of his vehicle, which Rarity sighed at, not out of dissapointment though.
“Generous enough to use your missiles?”
“Yep, still generous.” Lorenzo chuckled but immediately, he told them about their own stranded Grizzly.
“Alright, I need you to help me out with something.”
“What do you need, mate?”
“This thing got tow cables?”
“Sure thing, always used to pullin’ out Elephants and other shit in the bogs,” Mac responded as he tapped a button, causing the tow cable behind to whir in response.
“Good, we need to get to the other side of the cliff ‘cause I just left my Grizzly there.”
“I was wondering where is that tank of yours, anyway,” Rarity responded as she did a quick scan on the geography of the valley with the Wolverine’s computer-controlled CITV station. “Let me guess, did it get stuck upside down?”
“It’s stuck, not upside down though,” Lorenzo replied as Mac nodded and hit the gas, causing the Marine who sat on the vehicle to hold on to the many grips of the Wolverine which proceeded to advance towards where Lorenzo’s tank was, still with Russell inside. With no contact for almost an hour, the tank commander began to feel terribly worried for his friend and hoped that his beloved heavy vehicle was still there.
Ten minutes later, the Wolverine’s exterior cameras finally caught glimpse of the massive war machine and confirmed it was just up ahead, with Lorenzo being correct about it being stuck in a dreadfully awkward position.
“That’s such a terrible fate!” Rarity remarked on the Grizzly as the Wolverine progressed towards it, with Mac readying the tow cable and Lorenzo ready to help get them out of this valley of dragons. Now that he thought of it, maybe he should ask Mac about anything dragon related in the show to get an idea of what they should be expecting on... wherever they are. After a minute of Mac’s driving, the Wolverine grinded to a halt next to the Grizzly and Lorenzo jumped down to get ready the cable. As he was doing it, he let Russell know it was safe to ease down.
“Come in, Russell!”
“Ugh...yeah? Pretty damn stuffy here...” Came the voice of Russell as he shook himself awake and checked his MA5B, still with its safety on. Sighing, he then asked where Lorenzo went all this time.
“Went out for a little searching, came back with an AI and a friend.”
‘Ello, mate! Been enjoying your sleep?”
“Ah! It’s so good to see you, Russell dear!” The gunner grunted and tapped the screens of the Grizzly, reigniting it. As he was checking up on the system, Lorenzo outside was busy pulling the tow cable out to attach it to the front hinges.
“Mac! I’ve attached the cable to the Grizzly, get ready to get rolling!”
“Whoa...what? We’re gonna get outta this place? Fucking finally!” Russell groaned inside as he stowed away his assault rifle and took over the driver’s seat to help push out the Grizzly. Activating the engine, the Grizzly rumbled to life to Lorenzo’s delight. It was good to see that his beloved tank could still operate amidst all the trouble they been into. Lorenzo took a few steps back after attaching the cable and told Mac to start up the Wolverine.
“Aye, aye jefe!” Lorenzo nodded and quickly backed away from the Grizzly. The Wolverine’s engines started to roar loudly, and the Grizzly was finally pulled out of its rocky entrapment onto the earth. Letting out a victorious cry, he quickly sprinted to man the Grizzly once again. Russell, knowing this, moved to his gunner seat and checked the weapons system so that they could fend off any kind of attacks. Opening the hatch, Lorenzo jumped in and quickly got into the driver’s seat, proceeding with the next part of his plan.
“Rarity, I need you to locate the rest of Hell’s Jokers.”
“But dear! I don’t even know where to start looking without a satellite!”
“Then try to find their IFF tags, faint or not-Then the Grizzly’s sensor picked up a humongous red dot that passed over the Grizzly and the Wolverine. Grunting, he quickly informed Mac to ready his missiles for fire while pushing the Grizzly ahead. “Russell, get ready the guns.”
“Already ready, Ren!” Russell energetically responded and continued maintaining the smoothbore cannons and the co-axial M247T machine. After loading up a pair of HE shells into the cannons, Russell edged to fire.
Meanwhile, Mac was reloading another batch of Argent V missiles when something dropped down in front of them, something very big and pissed off. With the radar picking it up, he slowly put his hand on the CITV’s controls and locked on to the thing that was in front of them, revealing it to be a gigantic dragon that looked hungry. “Guys? There’s a fucking dragon...”
“Knew about it,” Lorenzo grunted and signalled for Russell to maneuver the cannons to fire upon the olive colored dragon, that reminded him of the UNSC’s coat. Shaking it out of his head, he then spoke into the microphone built onboard the Grizzly while the translation program did everything for him. “Alright, sir! I need you to step away from us if you don’t want to get overkilled!”
He heard the dragon huff and it spoke back, the translation program still working out. “Diplomacy isn’t my kind of thing, you know. And I’m hungry as a hydra!”
“Then you’ll never be hungry again,” Lorenzo declared and sent out the go signal for Mac to fire. “In Hell.”
Russell pulled the trigger while Lorenzo quickly stepped on it, propelling the tank forward and flaring out its shells while the Wolverine’s Argent V missiles screamed and decimated where the dragon was. After the initial launch, Mac quickly activated the XM511 grenade launcher and sent 40mm rounds straight for the center of the resulting black smoke while keeping up with the pace of the Grizzly.
“Woohoo! Never been able to blast a dragon, and its fucking awesome!”
“Yep, never thought about even meetin’ one,” Lorenzo replied as the smoke cleared, revealing just a charred crater and no bones in sight even. As the two vehicles activated their headlights and went into the forest ahead, Lorenzo took this time to check their passive inventory, specifically hoping for a UAV that Rarity could use to locate the rest of Hell’s Jokers. With the temperature dropping to a bearable level, he sighed and whistled at the sight of the forest. It had been a long while since he had seen anything this serene and beautiful, even back on Harvest and Reach during his military leave. Blinking, he kept scrolling down the screen until he found what he was looking for, an ARGUS drone inside a pod of the Grizzly. Remembering that he had extensively modified his Grizzly for long-term engagements and sneak attacks, he told Rarity of what he had found.
“Really? That’s absolutely perfect! Quick, ready it up and we can get to finding our friends!”
“Ma’am!” Lorenzo jokingly replied back as the Grizzly rolled into the foliage. Tapping the option on the screen, the pod opened up on the outside and the drone promptly flew out, ready to survey. Rarity shortly took over the UAV’s systems and it soared off into the skies above, looking for the missing ODSTs, the Sparrowhawk along with Colby, Snowdrop, Douglas and his Marines.
“Okay! Just give me either an hour or two, and I’ll let you know where they are!”
“Got it, Rarity,” Lorenzo replied as Mac spoke through the helmet, bent on asking him where they were.
“Hey Ren, where the hell are we? Dragons...fuck me, are we dead?”
“We ain’t dead, but we ain’t exactly close to home either,” Lorenzo replied. “You know that pony show you scrounged up in the UNSC’s databanks?”
“Yeah...wait, don’t tell me....”
“Yep, it seems like we’re in your paradise now, with a bad start.”