The Proto-Spartan Project: Major Rogers

4:25 AM

Jordan had been sitting on a block of concrete for over thirty minutes now. He had been thinking about what he just saw for over forty minutes. He had been conscious for over forty-two minutes.

He remembered as he had woken up, noticing that the front end of his Pelican had remained in remarkably good condition for what it had just been through, Kevin hung upside down in his seat and Keigan laid on the floor, both made noises every now and again, so he didn't worry about them, but he then thought about the civilians, and groggily walked towards the back.

The rear end section was another story. The only way he could describe it was by comparing it to a metal box that had exploded, exploded with over two-dozen bodies in it. He had seen death, even what most people would consider "gruesome" death; but this, was too much. He had stumbled his way into the troop bay, and saw only blackness; none of the ships lights were on back there. He turned on his flashlight, and his gaze was locked onto the charred remains of a person's torso. He recoiled in shock and backed against a moist wall. After a minute of staring down the corpse, he noted that his peripheral vision, while mostly dark, was filled with little white stars. He had turned to face the lights, but only saw more charred bodies, but he started to realize that the pelican's inside had never been painted red. He promptly threw up and stumbled back outside.

After thinking on it for about twelve minutes, he knew it had been Simon. He had been the resistant one, the one who hated the UNSC. Jordan had always been wary of him, but he had no idea that Simon had been that unstable. Jordan almost saw some cruel irony in the fact that he had brought Simon along because he did not want to leave Simon and Tom by themselves at the base, he could have left maybe one guard...Jared or Jay, but he had wanted all the extra support he could muster.

He yelled out at the omnipresent darkness "Fucking lot of good this is!" He grabbed a chunk of concrete and tossed it away from him. A hollow echo of brittle, broken concrete bouncing off less broken concrete answered his efforts. In truth, he would have preferred to be greeted by a small explosion or something to relieve stress, but what was he to do?

Suddenly, he remembered that Keigan carried a few grenades with him. He crawled back into the cockpit through the shattered windshield and procured him self a M9 Fragmentation grenade of the team's medic.

"Thanks Corporal." He mumbled as he patted the sleeping soldier on the head. He crawled back out and strode back to his previous rock throwing position. He sat back down and examined the explosive device in his hand. He primed the grenade and tossed it far away from him. Unfortunately, he didn't think about where the grenade would land in proximity to the wrecked drop ship.

Kevin walked into his bathroom. He realized that he had left his sunglasses outside, so he grabbed his shotgun off the counter and stepped into the shower. He closed the door and waited for the wormhole to appear. A few minutes passed, then a few hours, then back to a few minutes again. He stared down at the drain, waiting for the hole to appear, he would have staired down the drain, but he realized that a stair would not fit in the tiny shower. In fact, he was in a very small shower, he wanted to leave it, but as he turned back around he faced a complete lack of door. he turned at ninety degree angles, checking each wall. No exit, no egress, no leaving. He pushed against the walls but fell into the porcelain whiteness.

Kevin woke up, blinded by the intense darkness that surrounded him. In fact, the emergency lights in the cockpit were still activated, but the pilot hadn't thought about opening his eyelids. He thrashed about a bit, but soon calmed down after realizing that he was only constrained by his seat harness. Before he could give any more thought to his odd situation; he heard an explosion right outside the Pelican. Survival took precedent and he punched the ignition and listened with glee as the engines sputtered to life.

4:34 AM

Jordan fell backwards off the rock, frightened by the roar of the dropship's engines firing up. He watched in awe as the Pelican lay upside down in the dark, a dull blue glow from the exhaust lighting up the nearby concrete column. Jordan rationalized that the explosion had woken up Kevin and that the pilot had accidentally started the engines. But his amusement violently shifted to horror as he saw orange sparks emit from the ground underneath the metal wreck. The dropship tried to move forward, but it was caught on the nearby column, so after a few seconds, the engines died down and Jordan allowed his self to exhale. Then the engines revved again, this time the Pelican was moving backwards unhindered.

"Oh hell!" Jordan shouted as he clamored back up and sprinted after the ship. He was easily catching up until he slipped in some dark liquid that formed a trail from the moving ship. "Dammit!" He stood back up and ran towards the ship again, trying to avoid the wet streaks along the ground, but his efforts were in vain. The Pelican's engines eventually gave out altogether and the lurching ship screeched to a halt.

Keigan was just waking up and stood up as Jordan crawled into the cockpit. "Officer on the floor!" He stood erect and saluted the emergency fuel release valve as Jordan stood up to get a good stare at him. The Major stood up and thanked him for the unorthodox greeting, then strode over to Kevin, seated in his upside down pilot's chair, smacking him in the head.

"What the hell are you trying to do?" Jordan locked eyes with the pilot's mirrored visor.

"Leave."

"Obviously. But you would probably be more effective if you just unbuckled and crawled out of the damn ship."

Kevin looked down at his readouts and finally acknowledged the sad state that the ship was in. He mumbled a confirmation as he unbuckled his straps with one hand, as he held onto his console with the other. While the pilot was skilled when he was sitting down, he became one of the most incompetent soldiers Keigan had ever seen. The following crash as the pilot fell to the floor solidified the medic's confusion as to how that soldier qualified for service. "Are you okay?" He asked.

"Fine." Kevin replied as he stood up. "How are you?"

"He's good." Major replied, trying to get the two focused. "We need to get back on the move. FUBAR doesn't even come close to describing the pile of shit we're in."

"Okay..." Keigan replied warily at the sudden sense of urgency thrust upon him. He turned on his flashlight to aid him in searching for his grenade launcher. "I can't find my launcher." He looked up at the Major in hopes of getting his help, but realized that there was blood on his armor and uniform. "Sir! You're bleeding!"

Jordan looked down at the blood that was rubbed onto his gloved hands. "Nah." He said reassuringly. "It's not my blood."

"Then whose blood is it?"

"Oh. It's from all those civilians. They're all dead. Did I mention that? I don't care, we need to get out of this garage before the Covenant catch up."

Kevin apparently had no qualm with the new information and quickly scrambled out the broken windshield. Keigan stood his ground.

"What?"

"Corporal! There is no time for this stuff. Get out of the damn ship, we can talk about this later."

Keigan took one look behind him at the darkened doorway that led to the troop bay; he took a deep breath and turned to follow Jordan out of the wreckage.

Upon reflection, he realized that he had no idea why he took that breath.