Matt-038 (Halo Fanfiction)

Chapter 83: New Developments

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 83: New Developments

Location: Aboard UNSC vessel Gettysburg, in Slipspace

September 13, 2552

1900 hours

"Commander, request permission to go below," Linda asked.

"Granted" Matt replied. "John take over for her."

Linda gave him a nod then left the bridge and rode the lift down to the machine shop which was designated at the Spartan's temporary barracks. She pried her helmet off and inspected it, some of the components were new, salvaged by Red Team on Reach. Mostly the ones in the back where she was shot and killed by a jackal's plasma pistol.

Killed, that word stuck in her head, she actually died. Linda had made a few remarks about it after she was revived by Doctor Halsey, but those were mostly jokes. Now that she had some downtime, strange feelings started to pop into her head, she just didn't feel the same anymore.

Linda sat down on the floor, cross-legged and closed her eyes, although she never adopted the religion she was a practitioner of several Zen meditation techniques that helped hone her skills with the sniper rifle. After a few minutes of controlled breathing, she found her mind adrift in the Zen no-thought state.

She was however interrupted from her meditations as someone else entered the machine shop, Matt. He glanced at her briefly before walking over to the other end of the room and standing before a metal table, he began to disconnect his armor.

Linda watched him from the corner of her eye and pretended to still be meditating. Matt removed the upper portions of his armor and stripped off the top part of his undersuit revealing the pasty white skin of his body, but around parts of his neck were nasty looking bruises.

She couldn't see his chest but she could make out the edge of another bruise on his side. Without even thinking about it she got up and walked over to him.

"Commander, are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm fine" he replied.

"Like hell," said Linda as she grabbed Matt's arm and spun him around to face her. "Matt!" she cried when she saw the extent of the injury, the bruise covered most of his lower right side and it had a nasty gash in the middle.

"I was going to use some biofoam and some nanites," he said.

"Matt, this is serious," she said, "you've definitely got a fractured rib, what if it was forced back and punctured your heart?"

"It wasn't," said Matt, "you don't need to worry."

"Like hell," Linda said again as she crossed over to the wall and removed a heavy duty first aid kit from one of the lockers, then went back to Matt.

"You better just let me do this," said Matt.

"Like hell, Matt," Linda once again said. She removed her armor gauntlets and delicately began touching the bruise to find the exact rib that was fractured. "Just tell me where it hurts the most." As she was doing this Linda started to get this weird feeling in her chest, like it was becoming lighter.

"There," Matt said which brought Linda out of her daze.

Linda removed the biofoam and stuck it into the spot Matt had specified, in seconds the foam had hardened around the rib. Linda removed a dressing and began wrapping around Matt's body. After she got the dressing on, Matt pulled out a syringe with a silver liquid in it and injected into his neck.