KIA

by Darkswirl


Hard Landing

Boop boop boop boop boop hummmm.

Noble Six flicked her tired eyes open as her body began reacting to her situation.

She briefly saw the end of her shields recharge before the pain caught up to her and she jerked as her whole body seemed to catch fire. Her nerves screamed as she spasmed and cried out in her helmet, and soon the pain subsided into something more manageable for the battle-hardened Spartan.

Struggling to pull herself to her feet, Noble Six leaned up against what appeared to be some sort of tree and racked her mind for answers.

What had happened?

Where was she?

Why was she here?

It all came back to her- slowly, but surely.

She remembered.

She remembered the sounds of sizzling plasma and screaming marines as hundreds of aliens swarmed over their defenses...

Reach.

The Corvette.

Jorge.

Noble Six remembered it all, every little thing she had done to fight off the Covenant... Right up until she activated the rigged slip-space drive and sent half of the ship and herself into oblivion.

The weary Spartan turned her head up, and her gaze was met with a beautiful sun; a godsend for her.

How was she not dead? Or, was she, really?

She'd never heard of a Spartan, or anyone for that matter, surviving an unprotected slip-space rupture.

And yet... Here she was, leaning up against a tree and panting softly in pain.

She couldn't be dead. She still had her armor and, after a quick check, her standard-issue M392. What would she need those for in Heaven, or Hell?

No, she couldn't be dead, because pieces of the Covenant corvette had fallen with her, to wherever she was now. The smoke trails in the sky, and the few pieces of heated metal told her this.

So, the question remained... Where was she?