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Halo: First Contact

Chapter 1_:_ One Small Step for Man...

A swarm of rippling portals materialized in the black depths of space. Forty-one gunmetal grey vessels ponderously withdrew from the swirling amethyst and azure thresholds. All but three of the ships were made up of elongated rectangles and segmented sections with massive engines built into the rear. The other three were all width and wings. The collection of spacecraft came in various sizes, but comparable shapes. The lead one was a colossal specimen, three point five kilometers in length with two enormous barrels crafted along the spine and one on the underbelly. If one looked hard enough they could also spot countless concealed missile pods hidden in hatches placed in orderly rows along the broad sides. It was in fact the ship commanding the fleet. As it hovered in place, the other ships moved into positions.

The command ship held in its armored bowels, over thirteen-thousand souls, countless marines, technicians, pilots, crewman, ODSTs, and fabricators. Designed to be self-sustaining, it could theoretically keep itself and its fleet fed, supplied, and battle ready. The lives of every person in the fleet were in the hands of one man, Admiral Mathias Earhart. He was currently standing on the bridge of his supercarrier, The Errant King. Admiral Mathias, a large bald man of African and Germanic descent clad in the crisp stainless bleached white medal infused uniform of the admiralty, sipped from a freshly brewed cup of black coffee, his private selection from Columbia, a country on his home planet of earth. As he felt the bitter and restorative liquid wash down his throat he smiled, turning to his XO. "John, what is the status of the fleet?" His voice was smooth and soft, strange considering his job was to bellow orders in the midst of combat.

The officer he was referring to was a moderately sized man wearing a pair of small rimmed glasses, and a grey naval uniform, slightly disheveled. He was standing behind and to the left of the admiral holding a glowing datapad. At the question he looked down and scrolled through the incoming sitreps. "All ships so far reporting at acceptable efficiency. The stridents' archer missiles were dislodged after jump, but reports say that the matter will be dealt with immediately. Marathon cruisers have encountered no problems, the corvettes underwent minor communications blackouts throughout their pack, the destroyers magnetic accelerator rails have been loosened, our Paris frigates have suffered insignificant structural fatigue, and the prowlers are in perfect working order."

Mathias nodded in relief, it could have been worse. The fleet had jumped using new experimental drives, supposedly they allowed for faster, albeit rougher, travel. It seemed as if the eggheads had delivered on their promise this time. Although he would have to from a long boring report on the condition of his fleet after every jump so that they could sift through the data and hopefully correct any errors. But that was a concern for another time. "Excellent news John, but before we can celebrate, I want you to make sure the fleet is back to normal, we can't have any problems."

"Yes sir, of course sir!" John saluted briskly and strode away, already tapping determinedly at his pad issuing orders. Mathias grinned as he watched his protégé walk away. He had picked up John on a colony world in the outer arm. The kid was all heart, but no one took the time to see it, until he did. It wasn't exactly regulation to have an inexperienced and untrained officer on the bridge; thankfully Mathias wasn't exactly a by-the-books Admiral. He had a more...easygoing mindset; he cared little about fraternization as long as the people involved still did their duty. Nor did he care about one's past or criminal history. His rare attitude attracted surprisingly efficient and loyal individuals. They came from all walks of life and shared a common goal, exploring the galaxy. The Admiral's fleet was the very first expeditionary force ever assembled and launched by the UEG and UNSC jointly or separately. The task ahead of them was daunting, to find resources, planets for colonization, and something the board and brass wanted.

On Sypious IV, a research team had stumbled upon an artifact. A relic from an extinct species called the forerunners. That very discovery is what led to the creation of the improved slipspace drives. Since they were well equipped and could function without support almost indefinitely. The hopes of the brass were that they would discover more locations of these relics and place beacons for pickup or research. Mathias was reminded of why they were here by the inner monologue and turned to his helmsman and sensor officer. "Mayer, take us to heading two-two-five, half speed. Jericho, get me a report on the surrounding system, I want to know where we are." With two 'affirmatives', the ship began to move, the subtle rumble of the engines and almost unnoticeable shaking of the deck broadcasting the fact, sensors pulsing far out into space.

With his orders being carried out, Admiral Mathias went to and sat down at his chair, still drinking his coffee, picking up his own personal datapad and rifling through messages and updates. The fleet was beginning to move in a winding pattern from the outer edge of the system to the core, searching for any sign of habitable planets, asteroids, or artifacts. Hours drained by as nothing seemed to be of any use. With a defeated sigh, Mathias ordered another jump, deeper into the uncharted regions of space. Once more portals opened and the fleet slipped through. They had been searching for weeks, in that time all they had found was a few planets and an asteroid belt, they had launched the beacons and carried on.

Mathias was going over a supply report when a familiar voice cut in. "You know Mathias, you have a ship A.I for a reason." He looked up to the holo tank to see a woman in a Spanish dress, composed of pure data standing with a wry look, hands on her digital hips.

"That may be Josephine, but you know I like to let my crew handle the mundane." He replied with a small grin. "After all, A.I's are too important to be placed on menial duties.

At that she scoffed, waving a hand dismissively. "One time! I said that one time, and you still won't let it go."

He chuckled. "Your words not mine, and anyways, it was really not all that important. Nothing I'm sure an A.I of your caliber needed to do."

She looked at him fiercely, an impressive action considering she didn't really have a way to do that. "Just remember, a bored A.I can make...mistakes." She vanished leaving him to think upon what she said.

His smile faded. 'I better find a way to appease the beast.' He thought, chuckling again as he went back to the endless reports. Being an admiral was harder than one would think.

Another couple of hours of inactivity and they exited slipspace, dropping into a particularly large system. Feeling optimistic for the first time in a week, the crew began to do the usual routine of searching with gusto. Almost immediately, long range sensors picked up a plentitude of planets and asteroid belts, a veritable Eden in the galactic worldview. This was the type of place they had started this expedition to find, before the crew could celebrate, things started to get interesting.

The sensor suite lit up like a Christmas tree and the officer spoke. "Admiral, sensors are picking up something odd just inside range, several unknown contacts in orbit above the nearest planet. The unknowns appear to be ships of some kind, and from the look of it, they're fighting." Jericho's sounded nervous, and with good reason. There were absolutely no UNSC ships in this entire section of the galaxy, the nearest sign of UNSC power was an asteroid base several months away. The only plausible explanations were that, A-insurrectionist forces held a presence here....or B-Aliens.

Neither one of those options were appealing. With an apprehensive feeling in his gut, Mathias came to a decision that would alter the fate of the USNC forever, speaking to one of the comms officers. "I want the Dark Heart prepped for a standard reconnaissance run, have them get close enough to get some readings, but not close enough to be discovered. Tell them to not take any chances, we have no idea what we are dealing with here, launch a stealth pelican if they need a closer look."

"Orders received admiral; Dark Heart is on the move." At those words Mathias looked out the bridge's reinforced viewport. The Dark Heart was a prowler, small fast and stealthy, prowlers reconnoitered places far from the fleet to gain invaluable intelligence. If there was any ship in the fleet that could get close without being discovered it was a prowler. The short winged vessel rose up from under The Errant King and after receiving a burst data packet, glided off into the direction of the apparent conflict. As they watched the ship disappear, the level of anxiousness from the crew began to steadily rise. Everyone on the fleet had barley entertained the thought of a first contact scenario, it seemed like some far off fantasy that only children still believed. So when the chance came for it to actually be real. It was a terrifying and yet fascinating prospect.

"Comms, have the _Midsummer's Solace _prepare for quick deployment. I want them ready to support the prowler in case of hostile action." Mathias was preparing for the worst. "And move the fleet into position around The Errant King, standard defense positions, launch broadswords and longswords, prep marine combat teams on every ship. Formulate a data packet and send it to the entire fleet, our men and woman should know what's going on." As he listed off commands, the crew began to feel more at ease, faith in Mathias outshining the fear of first contact. Mathias watched as his crew calmed down and went about their duties with commendable focus and precision. He knew they were a good lot; they could take any challenge...hopefully.

Josephine materialized at her holo tank and looked to the captain worriedly, all joking from earlier set aside. "Do you really think it could be aliens? I've run countless variables on the chance of alien contact and it was in millionths."

Mathis looked to her. "I don't know, but I am not going to risk it. Josephine, I need you to be ready."

Her blue avatar nodded. "I'm always ready. "

"Good, I hope this doesn't spiral out of control."

As they prepared, the Dark Heart neared its destination. Captain Thomas Ford was an ONI spook, a master of stealth and cunning. Unlike Mathias, he was much more severe on his crew. But of all the ONI agents in the fleet, he was the most reasonable, and that's why he was the one leading this mission. Thomas felt a little thankful that the admiral had trusted him for this task; it was rare for the fleet and ONI to get along.

"Captain, we are nearing the location of the signals." A crewman warned from her seat at one of the many bridge consoles.

"Acknowledged, prepare to go dark." He ordered, watching as his crew began to activate the stealth systems. The bridge lights went out and the ship was bathed in darkness.

"We've gone dark, stealth engaged." The crewman next to Thomas relayed.

"Excellent, now let's hope the contacts were just a ghost signal. All ahead full, bring the ship around the nebula." He ordered, spying a gaseous cloud of pink. The prowler curved around the massive nebula, twenty minutes of dread silence later and the planet was close enough to be seen. "Shit...looks like we are not alone in the universe." Thomas said with a surprising amount of steel, voice not quavering in the slightest.

Hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, a massive battle between two obviously alien factions was being waged with breathtaking ferocity. The ships were of two different varieties. The outnumbered force was composed of wedge shaped ships of numerous sizes and configurations. The aggressors were bulbous and completely foreign in nature.

What really stunned and struck fear in the hearts of the prowler crew was the fact they were firing lasers, which were either bouncing off shields or smashing into hulls. This meant that these aliens were levels above the UNSC's own technology. Not only had they discovered an alien race, but they were possibly stronger than them. There was only one way to be sure. "...launch the pelican; we need more information on this. We cannot go back to the admiral without facts and statistics." It took a moment for Thomas to speak, but by the time he did his voice betrayed not a single shred of doubt.

With concerned looks, the crew relayed the order down to the tiny hanger, large enough for only a single modified pelican. Inside the hanger sat a group of seven individuals. A pair of pilots and a small recon team of security marines. Just as the orders came in, the leader of the marine squad spoke up, a thin man that looked more used to accounting then bloodletting. "You gotta be shitting me, aliens, and they want US to go in for a closer look!"

The giant of a man besides him slugged the commander in the arm, making him tilt dangerously to the left. "Lock it down sarge, we will be fine. No one has ever detected a recon pelican; all we gotta do is get close snap a couple pictures and get the hell out of dodge."

"Rico's right Alphonse, we'll get back in one piece. After all we always have. Remember the rebellion on Andromeda; we made it, even after fighting through the hoard of pissed off civvies. This will be a walk in the park compared to that." The red haired woman in the group said comfortingly, as she loaded a clip with HP rounds.

Jane's correct, this will be easy." The youngest member of the squad backed up. Harry was wearing the uniform of a combat medic and also wore a pair of blocky glasses. He was the newest addition to the team but had been baptized in the Andromeda insurrection, he may look weak, but he earned his place with the team that during that bloody month of grueling combat.

The other team member sat silently on an ammo crate, loading his M90 shotgun, the only member of the team wearing a fully concealing helmet. He was a mute, courtesy of an insurrectionist prison camp; they had sawed his tongue out when he refused to give the location of his squad. He used to be the team joker, but after that day he had changed. Marcus was now the squad sniper, and close in specialist. A role he took to heart, he wore shellcasings around his neck, one from each round he put into the leaders of the prison camp, and anyone else who was there. His necklace had thirty-five casings. He loaded the last shell and pumped the shotgun, grabbing his team's attention. When they all turned over, he was already walking into the pelican.

"It seems like Marcus is done waiting." The Alphonse said, walking towards the gunship.

"Right sarge, let's move!" Jane barked, jogging up the ramp of the pelican and sitting next to Marcus.

Within seconds the team loaded up and was ready. After them came the two pilots, Mack and Bess. 'Please enjoy the ride, courtesy of Alien Safari!" Mack said with enthusiasm as he climbed the short steps to the cockpit.

Bess followed after him, shaking her head. Of the two, Mack was always the funny guy, while she was terrified of the fact aliens were just outside the vacuum of space, Mack took it all in stride. The duo sat in their chairs and began to get the pelican ready for flight.

The stealth pelican, or raven, was a matte black transport with countermeasures and systems designed to make it undetectable. Just like all pelicans, it had a large trop bay, all though it was smaller on the inside due to the special equipment built into it. It had engines on the short wings to the side, and had VTOL capabilities. The ship rose quickly shot out of the opening hanger doors. Mack, the pilot, swung under the nebula and decided to arc close to the planet, he hoped it would help shield them from any sensors.

In the troop bay, the team chatted quietly, all but Marcus nervously fingering the triggers of their weapons. The mute man just sat without a sound, staring at his combat knife with serious intent.

Soon the pilots were close enough to see the actual battle raging ahead of them. "Jeeeezzus, that looks more intense then the fight over Ageist VII!" He exclaimed as he watched a ship on one side big enough to be a cruiser splinter under a relentless barrage from a small corvette pack. "Let's get a closer look." He muttered with a mischievous grin, swerving the pelican a little closer.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Bess demanded from her seat behind him, watching with growing trepidation as they closed in on the fight.

"The captain wanted good pictures; this is the way to do it." Mack replied casually; too busy watching the titanic conflict to pay attention to the panicked tone in his co-pilots voice. The pelican drew closer and they could see the fight more clearly. What they had mistaken for missiles were actually countless diminutive fighters, leagues so under broadswords and their counterpart, the longsword. It was mind-numbing, the scale of fighting at that level. The UNSC only uses at most a hundred in a dogfight if the battle is dire enough. But these aliens seemed to use masses of these smaller craft in combat.

Mack's childlike wonder turned into gut-wrenching fear when a pair of red fighters' peeled off from the fight and headed straight for them. "Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!" He grunted repeatedly as he gunned the engines and tried to turn back.

Bess, in a moment of placidity, spoke. "Great job Mack, you got us in a steaming pile...again,"

"A little busy here!" He chided as he gave it his all to stay out of range of the incoming craft. He didn't want to chance anything; first contact could be done by anyone but him in his opinion.

Unfortunately, it seemed pelicans were slower than these alien fighters, even modified ones. The two fighters closed in easily and without warning or attempting to communicate, began to fire sickly red lasers.

"We weren't paid to dodge fucking lasers!" Mack growled as he turned the pelican, a streak of beams grazing the right wing and pealing a layer of armor of the hull.

"Yeah well we wouldn't be in this position if you hadn't insisted on getting so damn close!" Bess retorted, firing countermeasures and doing her best to keep them from being shot down.

The door to the cockpit opened and Harry stuck his head in. "What the hell is going on up here?"

Bess was about to tell him to get his ass buckled in when they heard a sickening crunch and the cockpit seemed to spin and everything went white. When their vision cleared they noticed two things. Harry had been flung back into the troop bay, and that the left engine had been absolutely demolished, sending the pelican screeching out of control. "Fuck, they hit us with some sort of torpedo." Mack groaned as he fought with the control stick, trying to regain control of the pelican careening towards the planet.

"I lost all system control!" Bess exclaimed fearfully.

"Well I am losing control of the goddamned bird!" Mack shouted, watching helplessly as the pelican began to enter the planet's atmosphere. The two pilots watched as they fell down to the surface.

"Captain, the raven's signal just disappeared somewhere on the planet's surface." The sensor officer said slowly.

Thomas frowned and stroked his mustache. "It seems as if these aliens are hostile, very well, signal the _Midsummer's Solace_appraise them of the situation. The fate of that team is out of our hands. We will stay on task and continue to gather what information we can." He turned to the holo tank situated next to his chair. As if knowing he turned to it, a figure materialized atop it. It was clad in a full suite of plate armor and wielding a giant two handed sword. "Crusader, see if you can piece together either of the warring sides comms net. I want to know if they speak any known language and if not I want a translation matrix ASAP.

The A.I saluted with the weapon across the helm and spoke in a deep resonating voice. "As you command general, these heathens will pay for their transgression." The avatar winked out.

Thomas looked back to his bridge crew. "Prepare to set up a moray mine field, if this fight gets us involved, I want them eliminated." Nervous, the crew went about accomplishing his orders, hoping that they would not have to deploy it. Thomas shifted his gauze back to the heated battle. 'I hope nothing else will go wrong.'

Aboard the approaching Midsummer's Solace, a squad of helljumpers was gearing up in one of the HEV bays. The first one ready was a large muscular man of Germanic lineage in his early twenties. The German had black hair and blue eyes, his face was free of scars and he had no facial hair. His bulky black armor had the insignia of a lieutenant on the right and left shoulder plates, a bloodthirsty dragon painted onto his breastplate, and his name which was stenciled into it, Liam Callahan. Under his name was his squad tag, 'Atlas'.

Liam reached down and hauled up the M739 light machine gun that had been leaning on his leg. His other main weapon, a M392 DMR was locked to his back. He went to the wall rack and grabbed one of the magnums, holstering it to his thigh. The last thing he did was sheathe a combat knife into his harness, and looked to the squad gearing up in front of him.

The one closest to him was a man of dark color. His name was Barbados and he was responsible for squad morale and was the designated ammo mule. The skinny jovial black man was hard to hate, even though he was somewhat of a trickster. He was currently fiddling with revised MA5D assault rifle, the only weapon he put any effort into. His antics had earned him his nickname 'Joker'.

Next to him was a small woman from Spain, Vasquez was the team's grease head, in charge of their vehicles. She had a short temper and was constantly conned by Barbados, still they were close friends, having saved each other many times. Her call-sign was 'Flare'

A distance away from them and lovingly tending to a heavily customized SRS99 sniper rifle was the squad's second in command. Cullen had been in the ODST almost as long as Liam, they had been friends since before Liam's promotion. Cullen was the designated marksman and had a reputation for taking out targets from over a kilometer away. He went by 'Deadeye'

Propped on the wall next to Cullen was his longtime girlfriend, Mary, the team's explosives expert. She could whip up an anti-tank mine from duct tape, deodorant, a motherboard, and lighter fluid. She was the heart and soul of the team and was practically a sister to them all. Her unwavering confidence and over protectiveness of the team gave her the call-sign 'Momma Bear'. She favored a pair of M7 SMGs and a M301 grenade launcher.

Liam picked up his helmet and slapped it down on his head, the visor polarized, concealing his face and he barked out using the suits radio. "Listen up Blood Dragons! It seems like we aren't alone in this universe. The Dark Heart's stealth pelican was shot down over a planet that a few aliens decided to fight over. This makes it a helljumper operation, we are going to go in undetected, drop in, secure the crash site, and get our people home."

Barbados raised his hand and spoke with a skeptical manner. "Sir, aliens?"

"No games this time Joker, this is the real deal. We have no idea what we are going up against, but we will do our duty." Atlas replied confidently. "As of now,Midsummer's solace is moving into the planet's shadow, when Dark Heart picks up the beacon, we will drop as close as we can to it and hike the rest of the way. Scanners depict the planet riddled with jungles; most likely this will be a rainforest op. That means I want you all on your toes, we don't know if these aliens sent anything to look for the downed ship."

Cullen frowned. "I hate jungles; there are hardly any sniping spots."

"It's okay, I'll make some." Mary said sweetly next to him, grinning wickedly. She loved to make things explode.

"Settle down Momma Bear, I want us all back alive, we are taking no risks. When we find the gunship we will check for survivors and call in for extraction. That means we will have to hoof it to an open clearing. This should be a regular op but the fact we have unknowns up in orbit makes this potentially the most unpredictable one we have ever been ordered to carry out. We don't know what will be down there. Now mount up, it's time to take the trip to hell. And how do we do it?" Liam asked with a smile in his voice.

"FEET FIRST SIR!" They all shouted back as they put on their own helmets.

"Damn right! Now get going and good luck, I hope to see you all planetside." Liam ordered seriously, turning to the HEVs lined up along the wall. He marched over to his at the end of the row and prepared to step inside. He looked back at his team as they all went to their respective drop pods. There was no guarantee that they would all make it down, he has seen HEV's burn up in atmosphere or have their chutes fail, sending them plummeting at lethal velocities. There was a reason it took a special kind of person to join the ODST core. They were the pride of the UNSC, the toughest units ever conceived, at least until the spartan program was made public.

Liam entered his steel coffin and closed the hatch with a foreboding clang, the temperature was stifling hot and the pod was crowded. There was barely enough room for him to get in. When he finally managed to get some modicum of comfort, he waited for drop. The squad chatted amongst themselves as they waited but he tuned them out, focusing on his own heartbeat until that was all he heard. It was his way of preparing for a drop, the team talked away their nerves, and Liam just kept quiet. The squad knew not to disturb him before a drop. A voice buzzed in on the suit radio. "Blood Dragons, drop in fifteen." The bridge crew had received the coordinates and was now angling the cruiser into position.

At that conversation dried up and each person said there prayers or whatever they did to comfort themselves. Liam still was silent, deep in a meditative trance, only when the drop commenced would he leave it.

Fifteen minutes later and the voice chimed in one last time. "Blood Dragons...drop." At that, the HEV bay opened and the latching bolts popped, sending the five pods screaming down towards the planet's surface. The squad was silent, each hoping that their pod would hold out again. It seemed like they would as the pods entered the atmosphere, heating up as flames began to manifest on the outer surface. The temperature was now sweltering, if they didn't have the armor they would have probably burned up inside the pods. Liam remained mute as his pod began to jostle roughly, sending his helm crashing into the steel in front of him. The hit almost made him blackout, but he used his willpower to remain conscious.

A few minutes later and they made it through the worst of the turbulence. Liam could hear the wind howling outside his pod as it closed in on the ground. When the barometric monitor beeped he barked out the order to deploy the primary shoots. While his squad complied he pulled the lever at his side and the pod jerked as the rate of acceleration rapidly diminished. His squad's shoots worked without a hitch, but his broke, sending him zigzagging kilometers of course. "ATLAS! Hit the secondary!" Deadeye bellowed, watching on the squad radar as the lieutenant's yellow dot zoomed away.

Not wasting a moment he yanked the reserve shoot switch, sending out the secondary and slowing his crazed descent. He checked his locator and knew that he would not be able to regroup with the team in time to save the ship. "Deadeye, you have tactical command, complete the mission." Liam's voice was stone cold; he didn't let the feeling of terror take control.

"I can't do that Atlas, we will wait." Deadeye said desperately as he watched his commander get farther away on the radar.

"You will do what I tell you!" Atlas snarled angrily. "The mission takes precedence, you know that." The secondary shoot began to vibrate dangerously, he looked to the indicator and it had a flashing yellow light. "Deadeye, my secondary shoot is about to fail." He said this calmly; knowing that is was basically a death sentence for a helljumper.

"No, there's gotta be something." Momma Bear cut in, not willing to believe what was happening. She sounded hysterical.

"I'm afraid not Mary." He said softly using her real name, a bad sign. "You know what to do, get the team back alive, save the crew of that pelican...and take care of Cullen." His pod shook again and the secondary shoot was shorn off a mile above the ground. He plummeted to the ground at a lethal velocity, disappearing of the radar.

"FUCK!" Deadeye howled, smashing his fist into the steel in front of him so hard that he felt the bones in his hand creak. "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUUUUCK!" He struck the steel mercilessly with every word.

Eventually his curses subsided and the rest of the fall was spent in mournful silence. The HEV's impacted at their designated points without a hitch; in fact it had been the smoothest landing of their careers, a sickening irony that twisted their stomachs.

With bleary eyes, Deadeye activated the bolts for his pod, sending the door shooting into a nearby tree with enough force to cut it in half. He fell out of the pod and fumbled with the seals of his helmet, tearing it off and leaving it to the side. Wiping away his tears, he pulled himself into a slouched position on the steaming pod cratered into the ground.

After he composed himself he picked up his helmet and softly placed it back on his head. He then reached into his pod and retrieved his sniper rifle. No matter the pain and sorrow, they still had a mission to complete. "Dragons 3-5 rally at my location." He turned off the comms subsequently, not wanting to talk.

Deadeye then took an overwatch position, waiting for his squad to trudge in. 'Huh...my squad, what a terrible thought.'

Atlas was at peace, death was what a helljumper came to expect every time he entered the pod. It came for all, the great equalizer; it cared not for political or social standing, wealth, poverty, age. He had come to grips with this fact years ago, after watching his brother take a sniper sabot through the chest.

Still, he could always try and survive. With that, he tried to repurpose the tiny thrusters to angle his doomed pod into a sliding trajectory. He watched through the miniscule viewport as it moved to an almost level position. Just as it seemed to be working, his pod hit the ground at an angle.

With a jarring bang and an agonizing snap in his right leg, it flipped into the air at an unstoppable tangent. It bounced for what seemed like forever until it came to an abrupt stop door up. Hissing, he looked to his leg and saw the bleach white of bone protruding from his ebony fatigues near the shin guard. 'Fuck, legs broken.' He thought as he groggily hit the sequence for opening the hatch. The explosive bolts ignited and the door fired into the air. Just as he was about to stick his helmet out to check his surroundings and report in his living condition, a brace of red lights flew over. Quickly he ducked down and tried to figure out what the hell he just saw. "Fucking lasers?!" He mumbled to himself, "goddamn fucking lasers!" He decided to chance it and swiftly stuck his helmet out again, and his mind received a third shock for the day. "...Animals with fucking lasers!"

Outside there was some type of laser fueled firefight between two factions of animals. One side was composed of normal types, dogs, cats, and he thought he saw a bird and a freaking blue fox! The other side was composed of armored reptiles and apes. He could understand the apes...somewhat, but cats...Dogs? It was too much for him.

Liam was for the first time in his chaotic career as a helljumper, stumped, baffled, perplexed, a wide selection of disbelief was at his disposal. What the hell was he to do now? Luckily...or unluckily, his decision was made for him when he saw one of the apes notice him and try to blast his head off.

He was forced to duck...AGAIN! Now Liam was upset, he had been almost killed by his own fucking pod, had his right leg broken (Which hurt like a bitch by the way!), and now some fucking Donkey Kong looking shithead was trying to finish the job. With a resounding roar he rolled out of the pod on the opposite, grabbing his LMG as he maneuvered, and braced against the pod. Still howling in deafening defiance, he unloaded the weapon in the direction of the bastard.

The M739 barked in unison to his rage, sending 7.62x51mm FMJ rounds slamming into the opposite side. The bullets shredded the ape and his comrades brutally, bypassing armor, until all that was left were disassembled corpses. Liam tossed his empty gun angrily at the unmoving bodies and fumbled with the latch of his pistol holster, tearing the magnum out and standing up to limp over, unloading it and the rest of his anger as well.

Finally his leg gave out and he collapsed onto the floor on his knees, right leg flashing hot and cold. He looked down to the wound; he would have thrown up if he wasn't wearing a helmet and had less self-control. The bone had ripped a massive gash in his calf, and blood was quickly pooling around it...too quickly. In less than an hour he would bleed out. With a surprising amount of desperation and will, he tried to crawl back to his pod, he reached the cusp and was about to reach in when he saw a shadow fall over him.

He whipped around, the action disorientating the concussed man. There was a blue shape standing there he fumbled for the combat knife and pulled it out of the sheathe swinging it drunkenly in the direction of the azure blur. "Back...get back!" He barked making the figure retreat. Satisfied he dropped the knife from now limp fingers and snatched the medkit, fumbling with the box, he tossed it onto the floor next to him. He tried to open it, sluggish fingers moving ineffective, as he was about to admit defeat, the blue figure returned, speaking softly, the feminine voice having a strange hypnotic effect on him, he was too delirious to tell if it was any language he could understand.

He found himself unwilling to attack the figure as it opened the box for him. In a moment of clarity he noticed that its hands were actually dexterous paws. "Th-thank...you." He blurted out suddenly, reaching in and grabbing the morphine. Liam fumbled with his breastplate and let it fall to one side, still connected by the straps on the left. Once his chest was clear, he stabbed the needle directly into his chest near the heart. Moments after the administration of the painkiller, the searing agony faded and he could function with some degree of normalcy.

With trepidation he looked to his leg and looked up to the figure. "If you can understand me, you have to set it back."

He waited for a while, as he was about to ask again, an orange blur walked up and crouched next to his leg. "Why is your face so long?" He asked with a chuckle, still a little high of the morphine, but his drug addled mind had a point. The figure's face was longer than a human's. Before he could concentrate he felt mango (That's what he decided to call the orange thing), grab his leg and pull.

Despite the painkiller, he felt the leg as the bone shifted back into place; he grunted audibly in pain and smashed his gauntlet into the soggy dirt next to him in an attempt to shift his focus. Mango moved away and the blue one came back, (he decided to call it cerulean), cerulean placed her paw like hand in his shaking bloody gauntlet. He felt soothing warmth wash over him and he actually heard words before he drifted off into sleep.

"Whatever this guy is, he will be okay now." Cerulean said softly, in a kind voice.

"Are you sure? He looks like he lost allot a blood." Another female voice chipped in with an obvious overactive tone.

"Yes fay, he will be okay." Cerulean replied.

"Jeez, did you see that guy go? He tore through those venomians like nobody's business." A male voice added with an impressed tenor.

"Yeah but we......." At that Liam finally lost consciousness, plagued with snarling ape like shadows and scaled beasts wielding weapons of pure energy, unknown to him he had begun to moan fearfully in his sleep and try to grab his knife from the empty sheath.

Suddenly the darkness and the monsters were chased away by the sound of cerulean voice telling him to sleep. So at last he drifted back into slumber, mind free of nightmares.