Categories > Games > Halo > 'Safe and Sound
Somewhere in Earth/Moon orbit
23.10.2554 7:43
Annie pushed herself off from the back of the newly opened airlock, feeling the sick jerk in her internal organs as her momentum pushed her free from the residual gravity of the Marathon class destroyer Yamato†s gravitational spin. Gene was just a few seconds behind her. Their armor was new, blue, like space seen from the upper atmosphere it was rated for twice the oxygen the regular suits, it had a backup re-breather, emergency thrusters built into the power pack, gyroscopic vision augmentation, magnets built into the boots and climbing hoots built into the gauntlets. All of it designed to make navigating in zero g easier. God knows how much the specialized suits cost, but they were the UNSC†s last-ditch effort to make the most of their seven remaining 2.1 Spartans. The traditional green wouldn†t have been very effective out here in space. Annie still didn†t like the fit, but there was no time to quibble about things like that right now.
She landed gently on a spinning piece of debris and pushed off again, not bothering to check if Gene was following her. Of course he was. They did this with out EV tethers, they had thruster packs, but they weren†t for this dangerous trek out into the battlefield.
Even among the most elite, the Spartan†s, they were elite. No one else could do this, navigate in zero g, with nothing but their brand new MJOLNIR armor between them and hard vacuum, during a space battle. Sean and Felix always had conniptions in zero G with out a tether, though she wouldn†t have minded having Sean with her here right now. His uncanny knack with machines would have made the whole mission much easier from the start. Charlie†s probability bending luck wouldn†t have hurt either. Though she would have given anything for it to be more than her and Gene out here in the middle of nothing.
They were nearly there; Gene dodged around flying shrapnel and catapulted himself forward, he caught up with Annie who was hanging onto a crystalline splinter of hull that had once belonged to the carcass of a Covenant destroyer
‽Whoa†Gene said.
She tapped his faceplate for silence, though she†d almost had the same reaction herself.
Ever since arriving the ship had done nothing, but even doing nothing it dwarfed the entire remaining Covenant and their own. It had shot into the system, out of nowhere; a lone transmission ordered them not to fire, and then, silence. It had taken a wide, unstable orbit and since then had done nothing other than drive the brass up the wall with anticipation.
‽How did the Master Chief get on that thing?†Gene wondered aloud, Annie shushed him by tapping on his helmet, but privately she had always been thankful for his constant chatter. The emptiness of a hard vacuum run would have been unbearable had it been with the silence that accompanied Ben or Joe, even Sean or Charlie†s hard sarcasm would have been unwelcome. Their chatter filled the void.
‽Ours in not to know blue two†she said
‽Amen and pass the ammunition blue one†he replied. Annie could picture his smile as they adjusted the throttle on their thruster packs.
‽Amen†She replied with a final adjustment to their trajectory and they were off at a high burn that would last for all of fifteen seconds before they would eject the external thruster packs and continue on momentum alone until they hit the side o the strange ship on it†s next orbital pass. This sort of thing had to be perfectly timed, the smallest miss calculation would send both of them spinning into the earth†s atmosphere, or into the path of the still fighting destroyers at the nearest Lagrange point. Grasscutter took care of that kind of thing, or at least the smartAI put into calculations what Annie and Gene did by instinct. He was loaded into Annie†s suit right now, flashing a bright red nav point on her face plate with a declining point worth as he readjusted trajectory.
The point worth reached zero, Grasscutter hissed angrily in her ear, she grabbed Gene†s hand. Annie pushed all thoughts of miscalculations from her mind and thumbed the trigger to set off the their primary thruster.
Thirty seconds later she discarded the thruster and felt Gene squeeze her hand even tighter. All of Grasscutter†s calculations couldn†t help them now if something went wrong. From here on in it was all pure Spartan instinct.
23.10.2554 7:43
Annie pushed herself off from the back of the newly opened airlock, feeling the sick jerk in her internal organs as her momentum pushed her free from the residual gravity of the Marathon class destroyer Yamato†s gravitational spin. Gene was just a few seconds behind her. Their armor was new, blue, like space seen from the upper atmosphere it was rated for twice the oxygen the regular suits, it had a backup re-breather, emergency thrusters built into the power pack, gyroscopic vision augmentation, magnets built into the boots and climbing hoots built into the gauntlets. All of it designed to make navigating in zero g easier. God knows how much the specialized suits cost, but they were the UNSC†s last-ditch effort to make the most of their seven remaining 2.1 Spartans. The traditional green wouldn†t have been very effective out here in space. Annie still didn†t like the fit, but there was no time to quibble about things like that right now.
She landed gently on a spinning piece of debris and pushed off again, not bothering to check if Gene was following her. Of course he was. They did this with out EV tethers, they had thruster packs, but they weren†t for this dangerous trek out into the battlefield.
Even among the most elite, the Spartan†s, they were elite. No one else could do this, navigate in zero g, with nothing but their brand new MJOLNIR armor between them and hard vacuum, during a space battle. Sean and Felix always had conniptions in zero G with out a tether, though she wouldn†t have minded having Sean with her here right now. His uncanny knack with machines would have made the whole mission much easier from the start. Charlie†s probability bending luck wouldn†t have hurt either. Though she would have given anything for it to be more than her and Gene out here in the middle of nothing.
They were nearly there; Gene dodged around flying shrapnel and catapulted himself forward, he caught up with Annie who was hanging onto a crystalline splinter of hull that had once belonged to the carcass of a Covenant destroyer
‽Whoa†Gene said.
She tapped his faceplate for silence, though she†d almost had the same reaction herself.
Ever since arriving the ship had done nothing, but even doing nothing it dwarfed the entire remaining Covenant and their own. It had shot into the system, out of nowhere; a lone transmission ordered them not to fire, and then, silence. It had taken a wide, unstable orbit and since then had done nothing other than drive the brass up the wall with anticipation.
‽How did the Master Chief get on that thing?†Gene wondered aloud, Annie shushed him by tapping on his helmet, but privately she had always been thankful for his constant chatter. The emptiness of a hard vacuum run would have been unbearable had it been with the silence that accompanied Ben or Joe, even Sean or Charlie†s hard sarcasm would have been unwelcome. Their chatter filled the void.
‽Ours in not to know blue two†she said
‽Amen and pass the ammunition blue one†he replied. Annie could picture his smile as they adjusted the throttle on their thruster packs.
‽Amen†She replied with a final adjustment to their trajectory and they were off at a high burn that would last for all of fifteen seconds before they would eject the external thruster packs and continue on momentum alone until they hit the side o the strange ship on it†s next orbital pass. This sort of thing had to be perfectly timed, the smallest miss calculation would send both of them spinning into the earth†s atmosphere, or into the path of the still fighting destroyers at the nearest Lagrange point. Grasscutter took care of that kind of thing, or at least the smartAI put into calculations what Annie and Gene did by instinct. He was loaded into Annie†s suit right now, flashing a bright red nav point on her face plate with a declining point worth as he readjusted trajectory.
The point worth reached zero, Grasscutter hissed angrily in her ear, she grabbed Gene†s hand. Annie pushed all thoughts of miscalculations from her mind and thumbed the trigger to set off the their primary thruster.
Thirty seconds later she discarded the thruster and felt Gene squeeze her hand even tighter. All of Grasscutter†s calculations couldn†t help them now if something went wrong. From here on in it was all pure Spartan instinct.
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