//------------------------------//
// Chapter Two: Captain Bradford. Service Number 009 
// Story: Halo: Ponyvilles Last Stand 
// by Gozy 
//------------------------------//


Halo: Ponyvilles last stand Chapter Two: Captain Bradford. Service Number 009


Bradford sat on the hard broken dirt ground looking at the cruiser high in the air; he lifted his hand above his head to block out the sun. He could see the glow of the charging ball of energy on the underside of the covenant carrier. He sighed and let his hand drop onto his lap, and let his head sink down to his chest. He closed his eyes and he started to think back at the events that led him to this unknown anomaly of a planet.
“Oh god sir they are launching boarding parties.” 
The crew member said with his head facing the side while his body and the rest of him continued to face forward towards the screens and monitors. Which were all flashing a bright darkening red, with the vast amounts of warnings that displayed on the screen one after the other. 
“Keep at it crew man, we have Bradford on the scene on the lower decks mopping them up.” A rather short and skinny man wearing a white navy uniform with the title of “captain” on a badge on his chest said. He pointed at the crewman sitting in the chair in the corner watching the coms and ships sensors. A large and impacting thud was heard and felt against the underside of the ship that knocked the small captain about as the ship felt an impact.
“Oh shit sir. We have four more boarding crafts on the lower deck.”
The small captain got himself straightened up before giving a nod of acknowledgement. He reached up to his earpiece that sat on the back of his ear and fed into his inner ear. By pressing a couple of buttons he contacted the radio channel that the Spartan II super soldier known as “Bradford” was connected to.
“Captain Bradford this is Captain Montez just letting you know there are four more boarding crafts that have just attached onto the lower decks. Give’em hell.“
Captain Montez lowered his arm away from his ear and bowed his head. As explosions and crackle of gunfire echoed in the distance and sirens were going off Montez closed his eyes. Raised a cigar. Put it in his mouth. Lit it. And sighed.

The clinks and clanks of bullet cases hitting the cold steel floor engulfed ears of the Spartan as he mounted the turret and opened fire at the tall hoofed aliens with a split jaw. The four segmented mouths formed mandibles. These creatures were referred to as “elites” They had two long arms with 4 fingers on each end they were a menacing foe. Most wearing a dark blue set of armour and one even wearing a red set. 
“Cortyn give me covering. West flank.” 
The red Spartan said as his shoulder plates that were the standard MK.V that were small, lightweight but could still take a lot of punishment vibrated as the gun shot. The barrel spinning almost heating up to a point of red as the bullets came out at blinding speed piercing and mowing down the smaller of the covenant infantry. These were called the grunts. These arthropod creatures are around the size of an average human, very dumb and known for their cowardly behaviour. With a large methane tank on their back they can sometimes be used as cheap explosive ordnance. The bullets ripped through the skulls of the simple creatures as blue luminous blood spread and splattered all against the floor and on the enemies’ team mates. On the motion tracker in Captain Bradford’s helmet he saw with disbelief a small red dot behind him.
“how in the hell, How did he slip by me.”
He let go of the turret and turned around to see a faint liquid silhouette appear, It was 8 feet tall easy. It stopped and paused. So did Bradford. The Spartan began to slowly edge his way towards his knife that was holstered in a thick black leather sheath on his chest. The creature took note of this and uncloaked taking away his liquid curtain to reveal a pissed off golden armoured elite. The Elite sprang off his feet, charging towards him with a flared up handle that when extended revealed two long blades that protruded from each end. The handle was held horizontally in the hand of a skilled elite. The blades curved at the end, and then curved back inwards to form a long blade like point that could easily cut a shielded Spartan clean into two parts. Bradford had to react quickly.
As the gold tall creature charged at him; time seemed to slow down. He conveyed his decision and grabbed his knife and pulled it out of the holster and with a large amount of force. He swung upwards moving his upper arm and straightening his forearm and elbow  to make a 90 degree angle, with the knife pointed upwards he then pushed up with blinding speed. The tungsten blade hit the elites shield. It sparked then gave way. With the knife still going the tip of the blade hit the layered armour of the elites fore arm. Like a hot knife through butter it went straight through. The knife penetrated the arm and bone of the creature. Bradford for a split second had control of the arm of the elite and he knew what to do. He pulled with all of the augmented might that he had and forced the blade into the exposed and rough neck of the gold elite. Everything stopped as the elite stood up right for a couple of seconds, his own blade through his neck, blood dripping down from his neck and his arm, splashing on the cold steel floor.
“That’s for reach you son of a bitch” The Spartan said before the elite went limp and collapsed to the floor like a ragdoll. 

The clinks and clanks of standard issue drop boots against the steel of halcyon class cruiser interior could be heard as sergeant Cortyn made his way through the carnage of the busted pipes, broken glass and spilt metal. The smell of blood and anger filling his senses as he saw a mixed colour palette of blood. Green, blue, purple and red. Cortyn approached an obstacle in his path, a broken door black square door. He opened a small pouch on his upper pants pocket to reveal a small grey rectangular device that fit nicely into the palm of his hand. He placed it on the keypad for the door that was located to the lower right of the black door. Cortyn started to fiddle with dials as he tried to hack the door controls. All was silent around him, besides the odd crackle of gun fire that echoed through the empty halls of the cold steel ship, everything was quiet. Out of nowhere a loud bang was heard coming from the other side of the door. Cortyn fell backwards; he got back up to his feet and raised his MA5B assault rifle, aiming at the door, he held it tightly. BANG! Another large impact against the square black door. This time bending it almost out of shape. Sweat was slowly going down Cortyns tanned face, going onto his thin brown eyebrows and avoiding his green eyes. The door broke open with a huge swinging motion and then fell onto the ground with a collapsing thud. Cortyn panicked for a second as he saw a large red figure approaching.
“Cortyn! Planning on going AWOL where you?”
Cortyn lowered his gun and a sigh of relief escaped his mouth.
“Sir you do not believe how Glad I am to hear your voice. Sorry I got lost, I went to flank west and yeah… I got lost.”
The Spartan walked into the room where Cortyn was. The faint darkness of the room engulfed Bradford. The only source of light being the luminous red warning light that pulsated at the top of room on the ceiling. The Spartan rested his back on the wall. He slid down so he was sitting.
“I just got the order. We are abandoning this ship.” The captain sighed and muttered some swears under his breath. “The life boats are just down there we should go.”
The captain slowly rose and put his gun on his back. He raised his arm and flung it forward giving the “follow me signal” Cortyn stayed put and trembled before opening his mouth
“With all due respect sir. I am not leaving here until I find my husband.”
The captain looked at Cortyn and saw his hands all clenched up in fist and his body tense. Bradford walked up to Cortyn slowly his boots clacking on the ground, metal against metal.
“Never leave a man behind. Huh?”
Cortyn nodded. And spoke
“He was last seen at the mess hall which was down there, which was why I was going through that door… before you kicked it down.”
Bradford Began to walk through the broken entrance way. The fire of the broken pipes and scorched plasma lighting his armour in a magnificent mix of red, blue, purple and orange. This lighting continued as the Cortyn followed along beside Bradford as they made their way through the broken and dying ship.  creaks and moans of the stressed metal was heard as the ship was hit by plasma shell after plasma shell. The halls all looked the same to Bradford. The dull grey and bland yellow on the floor showing the path to the mess hall. Braford had only been on this grey monster of a battle cruiser that looked like a flying almost cylindrical brick for a short time. A body guard for a package to a mining colony. One minute. To fighting for his life in the flying Metal coffin the next.

They arrived to the mess hall to see it in complete disarray  and utter destruction. The tables were half melted there were bodies of covenant and human soldiers everywhere and reamins of limbs scattered aimlessly around the mess hall. There was blood on the floor, walls and ceiling. Plasma burns and bullet holes decorated the walls as well. Corrtyns heart sank as he saw the catastrophe that was the mess halls status. The soldier looked around for all signs of life frantically looking at all the dead soldiers scattered around everywhere. Bradford waited at the door and guarded the exit. He peered over to see Cortyn hit the ground on his knees as his body went limp. He lifted up his arms gradually and took a hold of his helmet; He lifted it up and threw it off. The helmet hit the ground and rolled. He leant over and rested his head on the chest of a marine who lay on the ground, his right leg missing and badly burnt and a hole in the left side of his chest. His face was as black as a badly burnt piece of meat; this was most likely caused from a plasma burn from an explosion from a plasma grenade. Cortyn lifted up and opened his lungs yelling at not just the state of his husband, but at his own stupidity for leaving him. Tears slowly started to form below his eyes and started to edge down his cheeks. He rested his head softly on the soldiers’ chest again quietly sobbing to himself. Bradford walked up slowly the metal click clacks not as loud; he approached the now sobbing Cortyn and rested his arm on his back gently.
“Hey…We have to go now.” Bradford said softly.
Cortyn sat up and grabbed his husbands’ arms and placed them across his chest one over the other. He grabbed the dog tags and pulled them off.
“it’s not fair… it’s just not fair… He was a nice man…kind…gentle. He didn’t deserve this.” Cortyn said, softly mumbling at some points.
“I’m sorry I really am”
Cortyn interrupted the captains speech and with blind fury he got up with blinding speed, he got up real close to the captain.
“Do not! Feed me bullshit. You don’t feel emotions; you don’t know what it is like to lose someone you care about. You are pretty much a Robot! I heard all about your Augmentations. So with all due respect sir. Stow it!”
The captain stood firm and held his ground.
“It was during training, and I and my twin brother Luke were more or less chosen to be a Spartan. We were going well. It was supposed to be a simple task. Take out the targets and get the best times. Luke was always a show pony, liked to show off. He pulled the pin to a grenade held it for three. Then decided to show off… he held it for that one second longer. Even though he was trained not to. He threw it, it was the right range, but he didn’t have enough time to run. It exploded, and a Piece of shrapnel entered his brain. He died on the training run… He was only 13 years old... So don’t tell me that I can’t feel emotions and I am a robot … till this day I still have his dog tags with me so I fight for his memory. And you should as well. Don’t let your husband die in vain.”
Cortyn looked at the captain embarrassed and shocked.
“I am so sorry sir… I didn’t know…”
Bradford patted Cortyn on the shoulder and nodded.
“It’s okay… now, we should go.”

“Captain? Captain! Are you awake? those ponies have returned”
suddenly the captain awoke from his grim and foreboding memory to find himself still stuck in the bright colour palette world that he crashed in. Cortyn stood in front of him still in his ODST gear and with the dog tags of his husband hanging from his neck.  The captain slowly rose up and looked down and saw six bright ponies looking at him. One pink, one white with a beautifully curled purple mane and tail, one orange with a cowboy hat and yellow mane and tail tied up at the end, and the other was the yellow one that he saw earlier and the purple one and blue one with the fiery attitude was there as well. He scanned around at all of them and whispered to himself.
“what the fuck have I gotten myself into”