Flesh Wounds

Chapter Thirty-Two "First?"

34 Pov

-23:35-

Pulling my knife out of the Grunt's tank a gassy cloud of the green Methane leaks out and dissipates.

"Did you know, that Grunts basically breathe fart gas."

"Are you really not done??" I ask incredibly annoyed from his repeated comments.

"Everyone shush!" Dillan whispers but still loud enough to be heard by us.

"Oh yeah. Sorry.." I go back to whispering lowly.

"Please, allow me to direct you all towards the nearest stocked supply depot," A simple red light appears to represent the A.I.

"What the fuck is that?!" Dillan tries to keep her voice down as she stares blankly at the light.

"Wait, did none of you even hear her talking the whole time?"

"Well technically, I don't have a gen-"

"NO. Of course not." Dillan snaps at me.

"Yeaah?" The two male ODSTs look at each other, confused.

"So? Am I allowed to take you to the supplies?" Cherry asks, not having any specific tone of voice, since they're an Artificial Intelligence.

"Yes. You are allowed to do so," Dillan aggressively approves of Cherry's question before I could even think to speak.

"Then follow me towards the location," Cherry insists and floats off towards a direction the opposite of where I was going to go.

"So how did everyone here get killed?" I ask looking around wearily.

"Yeah true, I don't see a single body," The female ODST murmurs.

"Oh. You don't know? I thought you were aware," The A.I. starts, "The Covenant wasn't the cause of this place to be empty. Their just here to take what's left."

"Then. What was?" I ask shifting a bit as I walk after her. The sound of our footsteps still echo all throughout the base.

"I don't know. When I saw these things I didn't have any data on them, so I couldn't analyze perfectly," She answers without really telling us what it was.

"No data.." I mutter as we enter into the 'Cryogenic Storage'.

Only five cryo pods are inside but there is metal crates that are emitting cool gas.

"Holy crap, it's freezing in here," The Marine complains shivering.

Holding a rocket launcher while shaking, that makes me a bit nervous.

"Sorry. But subroutines require me too keep this area at a zero celsius temperature," Cherry tells us.

"Geez, thirty-two degrees.." I murmur as I look around. One of the five cryo pods are actually working, there's something- err - someone inside, "Hey, who's in here?"

"Oh dear! I forgot entirely, I could've gotten rid of the whole threat with him," Cherry then sighs and continues, "Yet. I forgot."

I walk over to the controls and press in a few numbers.

'CL34'

Then I type in a password and-

Access denied

"Crap!" I don't have enough clearance, "H-hey! Cherry," I yell out for the A.I.s' attention.

"Yes? What do you require?"

"You should quickly promote me to Sargent," I quickly and randomly blurt out.

"Granting you access to Sargent level information and commands."

"Aww. Darn, worth a try," I whine and turn back to the cryogenic controls.

I retype 'CL34' and put the password in.

Access Granted

"Eh, I'll take it," I can feel my lips curl a bit upwards as I smile under behind my VISR. The closest I'll get to being promoted.

"So who is this?" I ask Cherry scanning over the controls.

"This is Spartan-001. Jakob Frenkiel." She answers my question.

I stand at the controls and start heating up the pod, "Of which Spartan program?"

"He is from the Spartan-II program," She tells me at the same time as the pod starts hissing with life.

"Wait-wait-wait. You're telling me that this is the first Spartan-II?" I ask amazed at this coincidence.

"Yes you are correct," She tells me like this is not a big deal, this is a big deal.

I turn to the big glass panel on the cryopod, the frost on it is melting quickly as the inside becomes visible.

"Hey who's dat?" The Marine comes up behind me and asks blankly.

"It's another Spartan, the first of the gen two."

"I have no idea what that means but, okay?" He questions strolling off still visibly shivering in this freezing room.

"Alright, we've packed up most of the valuable supplies. You ready?" Dillan finally informs me that they are ready to leave.

"One sec, go ahead I need to get this guy out of here," I tell her and she just shrugs and walks off, "I mean we can't just leave him here."

"Would you like to open the pod now?" Cherry asks making me stop staring at the glass.

"Oh. Uh yeah, that," I thumb the 'Open' button on the controls and all the five pods open. But only one actually has someone inside. And this person is like ancient history, I mean, if the Spartan-II's are actually from the time of 2510-2512 this guy is, around a possible 45-ish.

Inside I can see a lot more clearly, a Mark-IV suit of armor with black colors sits inside the cryo pod.

I see his hand twitch, then his head.. then?

He jerks his upper half of his body up and looks around gasping for air.

I take a step back and flinch at the sudden action of his awaking.

He then sees my movement and stares at me with his yellow-orange VISR, "Wer bist du?"

I kind of become blank, because what ever he just said, or, asked me went way over my head.

"Wo ist Halsey?" He asks me again looking side to side for someone else. The other's already left to go and put the gear back at the Pelican.

"Uhhhhh.." That's all I can manage as I direct my gaze off in the distance.

"First Spartan huh?"