When Destiny Burns, Ep. 2 A Halo and Inheritance Cycle Crossover [Discontinued]

Chapter 14.2 The First Gear

Eventually they came across a small forest, where they established a small and somewhat sloppy perimeter and went straight to sleep. Each night they exchanged their sleeping bags, so that none of them would spend two nights in row by sleeping on the ground or in a tree. Initially, the soldiers had insisted on Wren keeping a sleeping bag with him at all times.

He had refused that.

By the time the sun stood high in the air on the eleventh day, they had already encountered two parties of searching empire soldiers. They had managed to avoid being detected by them, but Wren knew that it was only a manner of time before they would get located by the empire. They needed something faster, something more durable. They needed-

"Horses," Hudson uttered from his position half a dozen meters in front of them. The scout jumped in a nearby bush, as did Allison, Bryce, Riley, Mason and Takeo.

Captain Wren took one look at the approaching column of riders and knew that this had to be their best chance. If the riders passed them without incident, no big deal. If they didn't...

"Sir?" Sergeant First Class Wilks asked.

"What now?" Lance Corporal Browning whispered. Despite his excellent combat skills, the kid was always nervous.

"Follow my lead," the Captain replied and slowly walked over to the side of the road that they had been following for an hour now, keeping a hand on his belt as the riders grew closer and closer. Eventually, he was able to make out that their numbers ranged around the twelve and that all of them were armed, armoured and angry-looking.

"Halt!" The lead rider called and the rest of the skidded to a halt, just a few meters past Riley and Bryce's position.

They hadn't seen the marines.

"You sir, look familiar," the rider barked and on cue, the rest of the riders took up positions on his flank.

That's right you bastards. Bunch up.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" The rider asked in a rude tone, but he didn't get an answer to his question, as Captain Wren pulled out his sidearm and shot him in his face. The powerful pistol-round tore through the man's head like it was made out of wet paper and exited the back, spraying the soldiers behind him with blood and bits of brain.

And Wren's own soldiers opened fire. Within a second or four, all the riders had been killed by well-placed headshots. None of them had even had the slightest chance to retaliate and as the Captain holstered his pistol again, he briefly thought about the wrongness of their situation. Not only had they just caused a bloodbath in the middle of a hostile empire, they had also taken the lives of twelve human.

But he could not dwell on that thought, as they had an important goal to reach.

"Take the horses," he called out when the soldiers remained hidden. "We'll need them to get to Surda in one piece."

The rest of his squad appeared from their hiding places –he was surprised to see Hudson jumping out of a tree, while the Corporal had been hiding in a ditch the last time he checked- and mounted the various horses that were now scattered throughout the area. The loud noises of their discharging weapons had nearly scared them off and it had taken them quite some time to actually catch and calm the horses. Luckily, they were well-trained war-horses and it wasn't very hard to calm them down again.

And after that, the nine of them were free to move again. With the horses to bolster their speed and cover, they were really making progress. They covered ground at least six times as fast and like that, the kilometers melted away underneath them. After a mere three days of riding –during which they had been forced to ration their supplies carefully, as the horses seemed to burn through water and food like a Pelican 70-millimeter Chaingun.