The Proto-Spartan Project: Grounded

12:45 AM

"Augh! Hell!" Tyler shouted as the winch holding the Warthog to the dropship failed. The four soldiers, strapped to the truck, plummeted quickly to Platumen's surface. Normally, Tyler and Kevin would brag because of their training for explosive ordinance and piloting respectively. Their jobs brought them in many situations that they had to survive blunt force and sudden acceleration, so their armor was thicker and more advanced in order to keep them conscious longer. For the first time, Tyler wished that wasn't true, for his eyes were wide open as he watched the world flip end over end as he and the erratic ground rapidly approached each other. He kept his head pointed straight up, watching the alternating scenery.

Sky

Ground

Sky

Ground

Sky

Ground

Sky

He didn't see the ground again, but did feel the odd sensation as his seat tried to shove its way up his bum. His head snapped forward as the Warthog smashed into the pavement and wobbly bounced back into the air. The wreck started to drop back down, still moving forward, but Tyler quickly realized that it was leaving with out him. He took a quick glance down, and roughly judging by the small area of ground he could see with his flashlight, guessed he must be at least two stories in the air, but as he thought about it, he figured it was closer to just one story, he really couldn't imagine how he had thought it was two stories, in fact, one story seemed a bit much, it looked much more like-

2:56 AM

"Fucking seatbelts.... they're not worth shit" Chris mumbled...he had been awake for a bit, but was just now realizing what had happened. He had never liked riding in vehicles, they were too cumbersome and too easy of a target, and this little event gave him all the more reason to dislike them. He slowly tried to stand up, but he quickly straightened out and fell to the ground again as a sharp pain shot up his right leg. "Augh! Dammit!" Chris instantly recognized the familiar feeling of a broken leg. He lay still for a few minutes, and after the pain subsided, he turned on his flashlight, and slowly sat up, trying not to move the leg. He could deal with the pain for right now, but to help the situation, he took a small dose of tranquilizer to help numb the pain. He looked around, but didn't see anyone, he was lying next to a busted up sedan that was sporting a giant dent in its side. He was basically in the middle of the street, but at least had the wrecked traffic around him for visual cover, but he had to assume that the explosion must have attracted attention, if he was lucky, maybe it would only be civilians or Innies, but he was sure the Covenant would have noticed. He had to get off the road and into a building or something. But, before he could move, he had to try and secure his leg. He looked around for some straight pieces of something, and soon found a small piece of wooden plank behind him, but there was nothing else nearby that he could make a splint out of. He had to think...so he pushed himself gingerly to the sedan, and propped his back up against it. He felt something thin poking him in the back along his spine, and realized that he still had his rifle on him. He unslung it and examined it. The strap had held fine, but the S99's scope had been smashed in, and the barrel was bent and warped slightly, impossible to remedy in his situation. The rifle in his hands was useless to him as a weapon now, so Chris then looked at it as material. He took his small survival knife out and used it to loosen some screws on the gun and soon had separated the barrel from the receiver. He removed the magazine from the gun and ejected the chambered round, tossing the useless bullets away. He then placed the wood board under his broken leg; he then placed the rifle's receiver to the left of his leg, and put the barrel to the right. He used some survival tape and strapped all three objects tightly to his leg. The insides of his leg felt like it was full of broken glass interspersed with molten salt; he must have had a compound fracture, which was just peachy. The barrel extended about a few centimeters past his foot, and he also taped up his limp foot to keep it from tripping him up. Taping up his foot was actually the hardest part since he couldn't bend his leg to bring the foot closer. After a few minutes, he had his leg strapped up and he used the nearby car to prop his body up. He stumbled around a bit, but eventually figured out how to balance by putting most of his weight on his left leg and leaning back a bit. Chris looked around, trying to figure out what to do, and settled on using his radio to see if anyone answered.

"Anyone there?" He asked softly into his headset, no response. He switched his frequency from TeamCom to ProxCom and tried again. Almost immediately,

Sergeant Hinson responded back. His transmission was weak and broken up.

"Chris? Oh crap, I was...thought I was never going to...I've been sitting in this room for about an ho-" Chris interrupted him.

"Sir? I need your location, not how long you have been sitting on your ass."

"I haven't been just sitting around here doing nothing...we crashed, I tried to look for the team...ver find you or anyone else. I must have walked for a half hour."

"Okay, okay. I still need your location. What street are you on?"

"I'm in a building at the intersection of Bernoulli and Vance."

"One second...let me find it." Chris advised as he pulled out a small tactical computer that, thankfully, still worked. He checked his current position against Tyler's. Tyler wasn't too far away, but from Chris's estimating: Tyler had gone off searching in the opposite direction from the Pelican's probable vector. "Okay. Stay put for a bit. I'll make my way to you." He pivoted around and hobbled down the street in pursuit of Tyler.