Matt-038 (Halo Fanfiction)

Chapter 74: First Strike

Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

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Chapter 74: First Strike

Location: Aboard hybrid vessel Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice, station-keeping in Eridanus system

September 13, 2552

0400 hours

Matt and his seven remaining teammates sat in the Gettysburg's machine shop. The room was large enough to fit a Longsword inside, and the walls, ceilings, and deck had robotic arms tipped with welders, multitools, and hydraulic presses.

Three of the arms had high-intensity spotlights directed onto the walls and provided a clear, cool, indirect illumination that Matt found soothing after having one too many plasma blasts etch his retinas.

They were here because Admiral Whitcomb had ordered the Spartans to repair their equipment and get at least six hours of sleep. The machine shop was a solid room, reinforced, and unlikely to breach in case they were attacked again.

John was awake and was currently cleaning his weapons.

Linda sat in the corner with her helmet, back torso, and shoulder MJOLNIR armor sections removed.

Fred and Will used two robotic arms to hold her armor in place. They swapped out damaged plates and components with the spare parts they'd found in ONI's CASTLE facility on Reach.

Angry red scars crisscrossed Linda's pale body—the only external trace of her double transplant operation.

Against Dr. Halsey's advice for strict bed rest, Linda had hobbled down here with her team. She sat cross-legged before a disassembled SRS99C sniper rifle and selected gyro compensators, optics, and adaptive texture barrel sheaths.

Linda proceeded to reassemble the precision-made weapon with the care of a loving mother caressing her newborn child.

Without looking up from her rifle she said, "Now I know what you have to do to get a couple of days' R-and-R in this outfit."

"I heard," Fred remarked, "that you spent the whole time sleeping, too."

"That's why she likes to snipe," Will replied. "I caught her snoring last time she posted in that tower on Europa."

Matt was glad they could joke about her return from the dead. He couldn't bring himself to join in, though. He had accepted the mantle of command, and CPO Mendez had taught him to repress his external emotional reactions to preserve his authority. Right now, he resented that.

Kelly rolled over and woke up. She nudged Grace, and they sat up, shaking their helmets. "0400," Kelly told them. "That was six hours."

"Felt like a fifteen-minute nap," Grace muttered. "I just closed my eyes. You're kidding, right?"

Kelly looked over to Linda and drew her two fingers across her helmet in the smile gesture. Linda returned a rare, bare smile to her.

The smile looked odd to Matt. He wanted to smile, too, but nothing much—apart from Linda—in a long time had given him cause: not the hordes of rebels crawling over and through the Gettysburg whom Admiral Whitcomb trusted too much, nor the imminent return of Covenant forces before their engines and weapons could be repaired... and certainly not the hundreds of dead crew members aboard the Gettysburg, whom they had collected and placed in cargo bay seven.