Halo: Operation X

Installation 09

"This is a really bad idea!" David shouted as I grabbed the control sticks on the inside of the banshee, I moved them forwards and the ship hummed to life. I had a digital screen showing me an outline of what was in front of me, so this is why banshees suck at air combat.

"We'll be fine. We only have to get to the peak." I said as the ship began to fly forwards, we were going the wrong way and towards the main corridor. But I didn't care, I wanted to get out as fast as possible, I didn't have the patience to turn around.

I flew through the corridor building speed as we flew towards the entrance, we shot up into the air the ship shaking from how hard I pulled the sticks. David held onto me as I flew up the side of the mountain, an alarm went off before the banshee was hit by something. I grunted as the ship went into a flat spin, "We're going down!" I shouted with my teeth gritted. 

I punched the canopy and sent the useless piece of junk flying, now being able to see where the hell we were I grabbed David and jumped. "Holy shit!" David shouted as we free fell around 50 feet to the peak of the mountain, we hit the snow and rolled into the ship. I stood up and saw another team of banshees flying towards us, they began to fire rapid fire plasma bolts at us.

I ran to the pelican and typed in the code to open the door before a giant explosion hit us and everything went black.

OoO

"Ugh." I grunted as I sat up, I moved snow and twigs off of me as my arms broke free of snow. I looked around the forest like area I was in, there were dense pine trees and ferns along with at least two feet of snow. "Sky?" I asked as I looked around myself, I noticed that night had fallen. I looked at the clock in my HUD and saw that it was around 10, I had been out for hours.

I slowly stood up and checked myself for weapons, I had my shotgun and rockets, and my pistol was safely in its holster. But my teammate was nowhere to be found, I connected the comms and contacted him. "Sierra? Come in, this is Delta 126." Static. "Sierra 115?" Nothing.

I sighed and pulled out my shotgun, I grabbed shells from my pocket and began to load them into the weapon. I looked around as I added them in and saw multiple pieces of wreckage, I now remembered what had happened. We were at the pelican on the top of a mountain, Skylon was putting in the code to open the door when the banshees all at once shot their charged cannon at us. 

There were multiple pieces of pelican scattered around the snow and forest, there was a bit of fire and smoke around as well. But the snow would soon put them out. I walked over to the biggest part of the pelican and saw my reflection in the broken glass, my armor had some scratches on it but overall didn't look too bad. The only big thing was the armor on the top of my chest blocking my neck had a big scratch on it.

I continued to walk and looked around for Skylon, I made routine checks on the comms as well. But there was nothing, I wanted to assume the worst, but I knew he was fine. If he was dead I would know...I chuckled a bit at the memory.

Gunshots flew over as we ducked down behind a street barricade, "Dirty fucking rebels!" Skylon shouted as he pulled an ammo clip from the side of his marine armor. He popped in a clip and popped over the edge with me and we began to fire our assault rifles, we shot multiple men before ducking down. He pulled a grenade out and tossed it to me, I pulled the pin and right before I could throw it a tank shell blew up in front of us. 

It sent us flying back into the street, the armed grenade rolling in front of us. Skylon grabbed it and tossed it, it made it 10 feet before blowing up. The blast sending him to the ground, I scurried over to him. "Skylon! Skylon! Don't go down on me! Don't die on me yet!" I said while shaking him, he grunted and pushed himself up. He looked at me with dirt on his face and still managed a smirk.

"Die? The day I die is the day Hell freezes over."

I smirked and walked to one of the now abandoned ammo crates, "It might be cold, but Hell's still hot and ready." I said to myself as I opened the crate. I grabbed extra ammo and began to refill my pockets and backpack, after getting all I could I stood up and began to look through the rest of the wreckage.

I thought for a moment before deciding to check my HUD for any set waypoints that Skylon might have set up. I smirked as I saw a flashing blue beacon on my screen, it was 200 hundred miles to the south. "I'm coming for ya buddy." I said as I walked past one of the broken wings, I saw something that brought a smile to my face.

The warthog.

I hopped in and stared the vehicle, I put it in quiet mode and began to drive through the snow. I began to think about where he was, if we were both on the top of the mountain how did we get separated on the way down? We must've hit a tree, or maybe got stuck in the snow? Perhaps we flew in different directions?

I shook my head as I shifted into the next gear, this warthog could hit a top speed of about 110 going downhill in a straight line on solid road, but only around 80-90 when going off road on all terrain. 

It would take me at least 2 hours to reach the waypoint, as long as I didn't have to stop or come across anything that the hog couldn't clear. But the thing that I was worried about is the fact that I have the warthog, so I'll get there faster than he can, I'll pass him eventually and we'll never find each other without letting the Covenant know where we are as well. So I'll just have to hope that he got a good head start, or has a way to get there, or hope that I can find him.