Unshaken

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The Pelican pitched to the starboard sharply and hit the dirt hard, gouging out a ten foot deep trench as its nose dug into the earth. It skidded along the ground, uprooting bushes and undergrowth, and displacing trees as it went. Its wings were torn off by repeated impacts against sturdy gold-coloured trees, before the whole craft hit a cyclopean trunk head-on, and came to an abrupt stop.

Nathan unbuckled his belt, stumbled down from the pilot’s chair, and hit the decking hard. His helmet came loose, clattering down onto the floor, followed by a splattering of blood when Nathan retched. He felt adrenaline coursing through him, making his hands shake, and his vision swim.

Shaking his head, he looked up to his co-pilot. The pilot BDUs were stained with blood, and torn. A branch stuck out of his chest, going all the way to the glass, and beyond. Nathan looked away from the grisly sight, and picked up his helmet.

He hit the door release and stumbled about the rear troop cabin, ignoring the few writhing marines in their chairs. The whole cabin swam with a black, choking smog. Nathan coughed again, retched up some more crimson blood and wiped his chin, fumbling to secure his helmet back to his armour.

When the seal hissed shut, he took a big lungful of oxygen and sighed, leaning up against the metal wall of the warped Pelican. Nathan stepped over towards the door, braced his left foot against the deck below him, and slammed his right up against the metal ramp. The titanium warped under the impact of MJOLNIR boots. Another crunch of his foot against the door shattered the top glass; a third impact sent the whole bottom part flying off of its moorings, and back down the trench the craft had tore into the earth.

Nathan hopped out of the twisted wreckage and stumbled outside. He took a few seconds to pop his helmet off and drain half a canteen of water, saving the rest until he could locate a reliable source.

Before he could think about his next step, a cracking sound made him look skyward. A Seraph bomber streaked across the sky, trailing purple smoke, and belching violet flames. Nathan followed it as it went down, spiralling towards the forest.

He balled his fists, squashed the sense of satisfaction that he had been able to damage his attacker, before vowing to finish the job. He strode back into the downed Pelican and ripped a service pistol from off the wall—the only weapon not warped or melted in the crash.

Chambering a round, Nathan charged back outside and struck off into the trees, following the smoke.

The fires grew closer, and Nathan burst through a pair of bushes into a small clearing, carved out by the path of the Seraph nosing into the soil. The Spartan brought the pistol up, sliding a knife out of its holster with his second hand. He swept the clearing, and even down into the freshly turned soil, stepping up to the burning Seraph with senses on high alert.

Nathan didn’t even know where the hatch was on this thing, or if there even was one. He settled for making a perimeter of the craft, searching for any view inside from external windows. Stepping up closer to the rim of the teardrop-shaped craft, he tried to peer inside somewhere. There were no viewports into the interiors, so he couldn’t even say if anyone was inside.

He felt a prickle up his neck and ducked down just in time to dodge a stab from an energy sword. The twin prongs sunk into the nanolaminate hull of the fighter and began sizzling. Nathan struck out with his knife, cleaving a wide arc behind him.

The gold-plated Elite jumped back, organic camo shimmering as it fell. The elite was battered, purple blood leaking from between two open mandibles—one of them hanging limp and useless.

It strained when it put weight on its left leg, favouring its right. Nathan brought the pistol up and fired it twice, the bullets popping off of the shield harmlessly. The Elite growled and brought up a plasma rifle. A moment later, guttural bursts of blue fire raced alongside the hull behind where Nathan stood a few seconds prior. He jumped up and over the top of the craft, nestling in behind a ridge running along the top of the fighter.

The Elite ran forward, keeping up the fire with the plasma rifle, grabbing its energy sword and yanking it free from the Seraph’s hull. It didn’t budge at first, and the Elite took its eyes off of the Seraph to focus on it, yanking a bit harder.

Nathan swung himself over the ridge and slid down the side, kicking out with his legs and catching the plasma rifle with his foot. It skittered away onto the mud of the clearing. The Elite growled and swung its energy sword up at him. Nathan backed off a step, but lost his footing, skidding down the rest of the Seraph and landing hard on the dirt. His pistol slipped from his hands, and buried itself barrel-deep in the mud.

The Elite wasted no time in kicking the Spartan in the ribs, lifting him up and sending him flying away a good ten feet. Winded, and gasping, Nathan struggled to roll over onto his back, keeping his knife up with a white-knuckle grip.

The Elite leapt at him, mandibles flared in a roar of contempt. It plunged its sword down atop Nathan, who barely had enough time to twist his upper body out of the way. The sword sunk into the earth, and Nathan swung his leg up and around, clattering the Elite on the side of the head and breaking the shield with a pop of electrical sparks. The elite stumbled from the force of the blow, and Nathan launched himself up off the floor, wrapping his arms around the alien’s midsection and forcing them both to the ground.

With one hand still on the knife he plunged it down towards the Elite’s exposed neck. Two muscled hands wrapped around his wrist and began screaming, and Nathan gritted his teeth, gripping the back of the knife with his other hand and putting all of his strength down onto the blade. The Zealot answered with its own strength pushing back, and they were locked in a stalemate.

A noise from the bushes around the pair made them both snap their eyes towards the source. Something parted the bushes and made a hissing, screeching cry, beady yellow-gold eyes studying the pair as it crept into the clearing proper, baring a jaw full of long, serrated teeth, and flexing hands with three pronged, wicked-looking claws.

Another joined it on one side, head low to the ground and plumage shifting under the light. Their scales rippled with some form of reflex response, colouring their skin a soft, muted blue. A third, then a fourth, and a fifth joined the pair, two of them smaller than the rest but no less deadly looking.

The Spartan and the Elite exchanged a glance, still locked in a silent battle of strength. All at once, something made the Spartan wrench his hands free, and the Elite let go. The pair separated, reaching for their respective weapons. The Elite grabbed the energy sword, discarded in the dirt, and the human pistol. The Spartan grabbed the plasma rifle from where it had fell next to the Seraph.

The pair looked at each other. The Spartan tossed over the plasma rifle, and the Elite answered by throwing the pistol up in an arc. The pair caught their weapons and readied themselves in the time it took the pack of reptiles to circle them.

The Elite and Spartan naturally gravitated towards one another, aiming their weapons at each of the creatures in turn. They began hissing, spitting at the two in the middle of the clearing, making vocalisations at one another. The chattering sound distracted Nathan from the fact that he was back to back with an Elite Zealot, who he was trying to carve up just a few moments ago, and who was zealously trying to return the favour.

One of the things charged the Elite. Nathan wheeled about and squeezed the trigger of his pistol twice, two bullets ripping through the thing’s knees and sending it sprawling on the floor at the Elite’s feet. It thrashed about on the ground, warbling a strange cry of pain, and lashing out with its feet and claws. The Elite stepped to one side and brought the energy sword down through its neck, severing it cleanly at the base, and rendering the thing silent save for a vestigial death gurgle in its throat. The eyes went vacant, and the jaw went slack, tongue lolling out of its mouth onto the grass-covered ground.

The rest of the pack fell silent, and Nathan looked around at the four that were left. Each of them began hissing all at once; a dreadful cacophony of harsh sounds that sent shivers down Nathan’s spine.

The hissing turned into barks of challenge; claws began to paw at the ground and scrape up the dirt. Bright plumage bristled in the sunlight, and their scales began shimmering in an agitated fashion. Nathan checked his ammo, and found only four bullets left in the magazine.

Before he could slide the magazine back into the receiver, all four of the remaining creatures charged at the pair.

The Elite’s plasma rifle began coughing at one of them, the thermal bolts splashing across unprotected hide and burning through layers of flesh in an instant. The creature wailed in pain and tensed up as more plasma washed over it, dropping it to the ground, where it began to writhe and flail.

Nathan fumbled with the slide of his M6, chambering the next shot just as one of the creatures leapt at him, claws outstretched. He ducked underneath it and turned around to follow it where it landed, bringing his pistol up and planting two rounds into its back, just above the left thigh. It squawked in pain and snarled back at him, limping in a slow circle, before pushing through the bushes and away from the clearing.

A second creature jumped onto Nathan’s back, scratching at the back plate of his MJOLNIR, and biting down on the bodysuit above his jugular vein. Nathan cried out as he felt the dagger-like teeth sink through the bodysuit and nick at his flesh—thankfully not enough to kill. The crushing force made him drop to his knees. He threw an elbow back against the creature’s ribs and tossed it off of him onto the ground. Wrapping his arms around the thing’s neck, he struggled to twist the iron-banded muscles and break the bone. Eventually he gave up, placed the barrel of his pistol against the thing’s temple and squeezed off a shot. The bullet lodged itself beneath the skin and half an inch into the thick, dense bone, but didn’t go any further.

The creature struggled free, scratching at its temple with a claw and lazily circling the clearing in a dazed manner. Nathan put his final round into its leg, forcing it to hastily retreat back through the bushes, yelping and cawing pitifully as it went.

A fourth creature slammed into the Elite’s side, biting down just below the ribs with crushing force. The Elite braced his legs against the dirt to avoid toppling over, but failed to get any sort of traction. The fifth creature leapt for him with a snarl and landed square on the Elite’s chest, clamping its jaw down around the Zealot’s sword arm and wrenching. A sickening crack of bone and a cry of pain got Nathan’s attention. He looked over to where the Zealot lay under the remaining two creatures, and instincts took over.

He rushed for one of them, tackling the fourth off of the Elite and swinging his arm for the other one. His fist crunched against the jaw of the fifth, and teeth scattered across the clearing. The creature went limp for a while in shock before following its comrades out of the clearing.

The Elite cradled its wounded wrist in one hand, before looking up at the Spartan wrestling with the last creature. The Zealot rolled over to pick up the plasma rifle he had dropped with his other hand, swinging it up and around and taking aim at the pair..

Nathan slashed and stabbed at the one he had pinned, sinking his knife down into whatever part of exposed hide he could. The Elite faltered for just a second, eyes darting between the human, and the creature it was savaging.

Its finger held off on firing for now as it watched the struggle unfold. Eventually, the creature began to get the upper hand, pushing Nathan down onto his back and snapping its jaws at the Human’s helmet. Nathan held it at bay with a scream of defiance, and an arm at the thing’s throat, but it was a losing fight.

The Elite took aim and launched a volley of plasma fire at the thing, raking it up its uninjured side. It fell off of the Spartan, who got back up and raised the knife above his head, before bringing it down on the creature’s exposed throat.

The predator barked once at the pain before its thrashing began to still, then stopped entirely. The Spartan stayed there for a minute, arms on the knife and breathing ragged. The Elite, also, didn’t move, still aiming the plasma pistol towards the human.

Nathan turned to look over his shoulder at the Elite, who lowered the weapon. The Spartan wrenched the knife free of the creature’s hide, and wiped off luminescent blue blood from the blade before sliding it back into its sheath.

The Elite placed the plasma rifle onto its thigh, and the two stared at each other for a while, both unsure of what to do next. Nathan stood up—the Elite’s hand hovered just above the plasma rifle whenever Nathan moved.

Without another word, Nathan balled his fists and ignored every instinct he had, turning his back towards the Elite, and heading back the way he had come. He waited for a plasma bolt to strike him, waited for an energy sword to pierce his heart, but neither came. When he reached the edge of the clearing, he looked back over his shoulder at the Elite, who was still standing above the carcass of the creature.

Nathan pushed the bushes apart and disappeared into the forest.