- Wolverfrog
- |
- Fabled Legendary Member
Good, I'm unbanned. And with a new part of Insurrection ready too. And I've nearly finished Part 44 as well. Can't stop the signal.
The tide turns. Well, sort of.
Part 43 - Thrown together
Eden frowned. He hadn't fired, he was sure of it. No, he definitely would have remembered something like that. Suddenly, he felt himself break into a cold sweat. Peculiar. He looked down at the Captain with blurry eyes. Why were they blurry?
Captain Daniels was staring up at Eden, wide eyed and relieved. The Admiral opened his mouth to speak, and found he couldn't utter a sound. His hands began to shake, and unwillingly, he dropped his gun.
A strange warmth began to spread across his torso. Eden begin to feel faint, his legs felt like jelly and his mind was in a similar state. The next thing he knew, he was quivering on the ground, lying down in a red puddle. Had he spilt the wine?
He distantly heard voices, but it was as if they were calling to him from the other side of a football field. Eden suddenly felt a flash of pain, and cried out. The pain brought temporary clarity, and Eden began to have the first inkling of what had happened. With incredibly shaky hands, Eden felt the moist warmth which had spread across his entire coat. And in that moment, the Admiral realised the terrible truth.
He was bleeding. Badly. The gun shot he'd heard hadn't been his own.
Still shaking, Eden pushed himself up, forcing himself into a sitting position. When his eyes finally uncrossed, he found a long, gun barrel rammed square between his eyes. The wielder of it was someone who Eden thought dead.
"You!" he gasped, staring at Chief Petty Officer Mendez. The grizzled instructor of the Spartans nodded grimly. Eden suddenly broke out into a coughing fit, and realised that even if Mendez didn't shoot him, he was a dead man.
"Me," Mendez agreed with a fierce grin, and suddenly his finger pulled down on his weapon's trigger. Eden shut his eyes tight, but death didn't come. Instead, the click of an empty weapon sounded, echoing around the room. Mendez swore, and tossed the ammo depleted rifle he held aside, reaching for a sidearm.
Suddenly, an explosion smashed into the blast door outside, completely wrecking it. All three human heads turned to the source, and yelped in surprise as three Flood forms flew through the man-sized hole that had been created as a result of the explosion.
Mendez drew out his pistol and turned away from Eden, whose vision was starting to blur again. The grizzled CPO fired two shots, which smashed into the cavity of a Flood form where the infection form rested. The figure toppled to the ground.
The other two Flood forms carried onward, ripping the flustered mech unit to pieces as they did so. One smashed into Mendez, grappling with the abnormally strong man fiercely. Another paused before the helpless body of Eden, a gruesome smile on its hideous face as it smelt his warm, freely running blood. Eden drew a small knife from his belt, but was unable to move his arm the distance needed to swipe at the Flood form with, which was now reaching down with eager, sharp clawed hands.
Then it was slammed into the wall by an 8-gauge shotgun blast, plastering the office's interior with the disgusting biomass. Eden looked up at his saviour, and saw CPO Mendez looking down at him with disgust.
"I should kill you for what you've done. But in light of the current circumstances, that would be stupid," Mendez growled down at him, indicating the lifeboat pod, which was now aflame and crumpled, with multiple breaches in its small hull. "It seems as if their intention was to wreck our means of escape. One managed to toss a grenade in."
"There's a Longsword in the docking hangar," Eden gasped out, his voice a mere whisper. "Don't leave me here to be turned into one of them, please."
Mendez scowled, before signalling to the Captain, who held a full canister of biofoam and a syringe in his hands.
"You're coming with us Eden, three people have a better chance of making it out of here alive than two. But first, you're going to have to unlock the fleet. Or else we'll just leave you for the Flood to find," Mendez threatened, and Captain Daniels nodded. Eden's eyes grew wide, but he shook his head firmly.
"Never! I won't give in, not now!" he wheezed out, coughing up more blood as he did so. Mendez looked at Daniels, who shrugged.
"Let's go," he said to Mendez, and the two of them began to walk away, leaving Eden lying in his blood like a beaten dog. Eden watched them go, determined to stick to his guns. A bone chilling shriek of Flood origin suddenly sounded across the ship's hallway, bringing with it all the terrible implications. Eden broke down.
"Wait!" he shrieked, exhausting the last of his strength to call Mendez and Daniels back, who turned around with raised eyebrows. "I'll do it! Don't leave me."
Eden was sickened with his own cowardice, but then reflected that it wasn't a good idea to leave the human fleet locked down forever anyway. Eventually, the Flood would overwhelm the Elites and Covenant, and then they'd turn on the helpless UNSC. His only regret was that the alien scum would be saved.
"Give him the adrenaline shot -- not the biofoam," Mendez ordered the Captain, who nodded, despite being of a much higher rank than the CPO. With age brought command.
"This'll give you a boost," Daniels muttered, jabbing the syringe into Eden's arm and injecting the strength imbuing fluid into his blood stream. Eden felt his energy return, and his eyes began to clear. "You'll still die of blood loss in a few minutes though unless we give you the biofoam -- unlock the fleet."
Eden shakily stumbled to his feet, applying pressure to his bullet wound with a trembling hand. Slowly, he staggered towards the console, trying to remember the authorisation code for fleet control. With a sigh, he typed in the code, and after a second, the light flashed green.
"Unlock fleet," he commanded the computer system with his voice, suddenly feeling sick. The computer system acknowledged his instruction, and instantly control returned to the pilots of the UNSC ships.
"Is it done?" Captain Daniels asked, moving towards Eden.
"Yes, you treacherous bastard. See for yourself," Eden muttered bitterly, scowling. His knees suddenly buckled, and he fell to the floor. Mendez quickly injected his wound with biofoam, sealing up the bleeding flesh and saving his life.
From the observation window of the UNSC Galapagos, Graham could see the UNSC fleet begin to stir, as engines fired up and weapons began to reactivate. With a sudden grin, Graham activated the fleet communications systems.
"This is Captain Daniels, acting commander of the UNSC. We had an incident, but the situation is under control," he began, before being interrupted by a quick talking man with a French accent.
"Captain, this is Lieutenant Commander Dominique. What the hell happened--never mind. What are your orders?" the Lieutenant questioned Daniels, who was beginning to breathe easily.
"Cut a path through the Flood ships and save the Elites and Covenant, then retreat with them to the other side of Sangheilios. We need to reorientate the fleets, make sense of it all," Graham instructed Dominique, and the rest of the UNSC pilots.
"Affirmative sir. I can see the Galapagos is in trouble. Do you wish me to dispatch a Longsword strike team to assist you?"
Graham mulled the question over for a few moments, before reaching a decision.
"Negative Commander, it's too dangerous. We have infected on board. Just be ready to receive us should we make it out alive," he commanded Dominique, who agreed.
"Will do Captain. Bonne chance." The link cut out.
Graham turned around to look at Eden, who was staring at him with pure, venomous hatred.
"Well done Captain, you beat me. Is this the part where you gloat?" he demanded sadistically, face set in a pose of utter depression.
Mendez grabbed the Admiral's shoulder roughly, shoving an MA2B into his bloodied hands.
"No Eden, this is the part where we fight our way to the Longsword," the CPO informed Eden, handing Graham a heavy Sangheili Plasma rifle. It felt like it was made of pure lead, the Captain could barely lift it. Still, it would do the job.
"You're giving me a weapon? That seems a little foolish, even I have to say," Eden exclaimed in surprise, noting that the rifle he'd been given was fully loaded.
"Well then, you won't question my wisdom when I order you to take point will you Eden? Try anything funny, and you'll regret it," Mendez let the veiled threat hang in the air.
"I understand, Chief Petty Officer," Eden replied stiffly, nervously moving in front of Graham and Mendez.
"I mean it Eden; if you so much as blink in my direction I will gun you down." The veil covering the threat had been removed.
Not bothering to reply to that ominous statement, Eden turned around, lifting his head up high and sniffing disdainfully, muttering curses under his breath.
"We're going to kill him, right?" Graham whispered to Mendez, who smiled morbidly.
"Hell yeah. Eventually."
"Good. Thanks for saving my hide."
"Don't mention it. I just want to escape this hell and get back in the middle of the action," Mendez growled, his voice regaining its normal volume level. The CPO then moved to a control panel, and opened the crippled blast door, revealing the dimly lit corridor beyond which would eventually lead to the docking bay of the battered Galapagos.
"Get moving Eden! We're right behind you."
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