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Survivalism - Part III: Broken
Posted By: The Militant Poet<bkollmann@att.net>
Date: 16 December 2007, 9:51 pm
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Chapter 3 – Broken
0632 Hours – 30 August, 2552
Unknown Aerial position over Planet Reach
Jonas sliced through the air like a knife through water. The rushing wind pounded his visor as he darted through the smoke and debris trails that followed the rapidly descending Pelican to the ground. Even for a Spartan this was a bad situation. Being trapped in a thousand pounds of armor careening towards the planet at breakneck speeds was as close to an involuntary suicide as one could get. The Spartans had to do everything they could to make sure that assumption was proven false. Thinking quickly back to his many years of survival training, Jonas spread his arms and legs wide and tilted his body from left to right, creating as much drag as possible. No matter how much he tried though, he was still falling fast – too fast.
A sudden hiss on the COM broke the ominous silence in his helmet, "Covenant ground forces could be tracking the Pelican," Fred warned over the team frequency. "Expect AA fire."
A small marker on his heads-up display popped up in the neighboring valley.
"That's our target," Fred continued. "Move toward it but keep your incoming angle flat. Aim for the tree tops. Let them slow you down. If you can't, aim for water…and tuck in your arms and legs before impact."
Jonas reached up to his helmet mid-flight and tapped a small button behind a groove that ran over his right ear. A brief blue acknowledgement signal was sent instantly to his team leader's HUD. In a position like this, radio chatter was kept at a minimum. Leaders have to have COMs to themselves in an emergency, and this was no exception. Twenty six Spartans talking at the same time would only make this bad situation even worse.
Fred gave one last order before preparing for impact, "Over pressurize your hydrostatics just before you hit."
Jonas sent the acknowledgement signal again then turned to the planet below him, scouting out the best angle to hit the forest. A blur of dark, smokey emerald green flashed just thirty meters in front of him. Jonas checked his IFF tags – it was SPARTAN -059, Malcolm. His fellow Spartan glided and banked through the air, positioning himself for the impact. Jonas slid into position behind his comrade, and rode his wake on the way down to the deathtrap below. A flare of light caught the corner of his eye. Jonas looked over just in time to see the exploding chunk of metal barely miss his head as it whipped through the Spartan aerial formation. Behind this rogue slab of titanium was a banquet of debris and flaming metal on a collision course for Malcolm. Jonas' long time team member was on a fatal path, heading right for the flaming wake of their gutted transport. If any of the debris hit Malcolm, the pure force of the impact could throw him off course and doom him to a violent death.
Jonas tried to bring himself to warn his friend, but for some reason he couldn't will himself to open his mouth. He sat there, gliding through the sky, completely silent with shock. He watched in horror as Spartans before him pounded into the ground on all sides, sending dirt and rock high into the air. Trees buckled and splintered as flying armor scarred the jungle below, tearing streaks out of the solid canopy they once knew so well. There was no telling who was dead or who was alive. Jonas' worst nightmare had come true – his family was in grave danger all around him, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to help them. He could do nothing but survive.
Jonas turned back to Malcolm, still choked at the wave of fear that rushed up his spine. He cocked his head and tracked the wall of burning wreckage as it barreled towards his life long comrade. A leading chunk rammed into Malcolm's ribs, crumbling his form and sending him into a violent flat spin. Malcolm flailed his limbs in every direction, desperately trying to regain his balance in flight. The disoriented Spartan flipped and tumbled in the air, rapidly gaining speed as he neared the ground. Jonas saw something that nobody ever expected to see – a Spartan panic. Malcolm viciously clawed at the sky around him, furiously fighting the gravity that pulled him to his impending demise. That battle will always be a futile one. Human instinct had gotten the best if this normally calm and composed soldier. He did not want to die. Not here – not like this.
"Jonas!" Malcolm screamed over a private COM channel. "Help me, Jonas! Plea – "
Malcolm's voice fell silent and turned into the all too familiar hiss of a dead COM. Jonas saw a small patch of trees jet outward, and a swirl of dust and dirt get tossed into the air as he passed over his fallen comrade's crash site. He didn't even have time to offer his thoughts to the tragedy that just unfolded in front of him – the tree tops were approaching Jonas at blinding speed. This was the moment of truth. He pumped the hydrostatic gel in his suit to dangerous levels, and curled into the tightest ball he could. Branches and leaves whizzed by his head as he descended into the canopies.
His augmented, armored body crippled trees and snapped imposing branches as he knifed through the jungle. Blow after blow pounded against his curled physique and his grip slowly began to loosen under the stress. His shields flickered with each impact, and the gel layer that surrounded his body compressed over and over, squeezing him to the point where his blood circulation became dangerously weak. A thick trunk smashed into his arms and ripped them away from his knees, sending him spinning through the maze of tree trunks, boulders, and branches that lay before him. His back collided with another trunk and bore right through its ancient, thick layers. The shielding on his armor failed and his now unprotected plating smashed from tree to tree, battering his body until he finally hit the soft dirt below and slid to a painful stop.
He came to rest flat on his back, with his arms and legs stretched out, just staring at the canopy above him. Little rays of early morning light poked through the thick layer of foliage now and then, illuminating the jungle floor around him. To his right, a large trail of overturned dirt and rock marked his long, one hundred meter slide. Beginning at just a normal grazing, his armor was so heavy it dug nearly a third of a meter into the ground by the end of the skim. Around his resting place, overgrowth crowded the jungle. Ferns and bushes of all shapes and sizes encroached on his armor, and nearly hid him completely from view. The ground was covered with them and went on like an endless sea into the jungle. Trees dotted the overgrowth, providing the jungle floor with perpetual shade and protection, and they gave refuge to the assorted animal species that stared at their new arrival. To his left, a twenty meter high rock ridge, adorned with vines and various fauna kept a vigilant watch over the area.
The vicinity was frighteningly quiet. Not a gunshot or voice to be heard. Jonas wondered if anybody else was even alive, let alone conscious after a crash like that. He tried to get up and survey the area around him, but strangely he couldn't move. He flexed his arms and legs with all his might, but the MJOLNIR armor that encased his body would not budge. He opened the real time diagnostic systems report, and analyzed the data. Streams of information and updates poured across his display as he tried to figure out what was the problem. Finally a small reactor report came into view.
[///AUTOMATED REACTOR SYSTEM REPORT UNSC D-CODE 45760///
/:KGT – FILE ATTAINED 008-030-2552:.
///REACTOR DAMAGE REPORT ALPHA -
COOLANT SYSTEM FAILURE DUE TO COMPRESSION AND/OR HIGH VELOCITY IMPACT. PRIMARY REACTOR FUNCTIONS NO LONGER ACTIVE.
//ARMOR POWER SYSTEMS – FAILURE_0.00%_///
//ARMOR SHIELD SYSTEMS – FAILURE_0.00%_///
//ARMOR SURVELLANCE SYSTEMS – FAILURE_0.00%_///
// ARMOR RADAR SYSTEMS – FAILURE_0.00%_///
//ARMOR COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY – FAILURE_0.00%_///
// ARMOR PLATE INTEGRITY – SUSTAINABLE_85.46%_///
// ARMOR BACK-UP POWER SYSTEMS – UNSUSTAINABLE_7.42%_///
// ARMOR ATMOSPHERIC SYSTEMS – SUSTAINABLE_ 96.78%_///
_UNSC PROTOCOL RESPONSE DELTA: REROUTE ALL POWER TO ATMOSPHERIC SYSTEMS 1-8_ //[ENACTED]//
//END_REPORT//]
No Power, Jonas thought to himself. I'm going to be here for a while.
Jonas relaxed his struggling muscles and tried to conserve as much energy as possible. There was no telling who or what was going to find him, or even when he was going to be found. He was helpless to fight back – Trapped within a dead metal husk that might never let go. The armor that had protected him for all of these years in war had now turned into the one thing that he eluded the most – his coffin.
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