(OLD) Fate Twister Redux ActI ChIII

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Fate Twister (Redux Edition)

Act 1

Chapter III
“Simple Survival”


Don didn’t remember much besides blacking out to Agent Weaver’s voice.  Once he was out, he was met with another long stint of a deep and almost dreamless sleep.  On occasion there would be a moment where he would begin to faintly hear things around him, though it would never last long before a slight prick would slam him back to sleep.  From the little bit he did hear, he had barely been able to put together that they had been taken somewhere else to be ‘prepped for transport.’  Once again, the odds of surviving this ordeal seemed to lower even more.  Eventually, he was pulled from his sleep as the surface under him shook for a moment.  It sounded like whatever was causing the table to shake was deep; distant and powerful, though he had no idea what it was.  He was waking up gradually but had doubts he would be able to move even after waking up.  As the table shook again, the rushing of two sets of footsteps entered where Don was.

“What the hell are we going to do, Sir?”  The voice that belongs to the man Don remembered as Wates.

“I don’t know, Wates.”  Weaver replied quickly.  “We need to just grab our stuff and leave.”

This was followed by a brief period of things being shuffled around on desk tops and tables in the room.  Their voices sounded almost panicked; something serious must be happening especially if Weaver was in panic mode.  The room suddenly jerked harshly back and forth, causing things around the room to crash and break against the floor.  The room shook so much that whatever Don was on tipped over onto its side, dumping him on the floor in a heap.  His eyes flew open as he painfully smacked against the floor.  As he suspected, he couldn’t move much more past a finger or two, but he could feel the rest of him start to warm up.

“Jesus Christ!”  Wates yelled.  “C’mon man what are we gunna do?!  I mean what the hell are we gunna do?!”  The man sounded like he was about to lose his mind.

“Stop it, Wates.”

“Those aren’t ‘Innies’ man!  This is something else!”

“I know it’s not.”

“Not like this, man!  Not like this!  No one has ever hit an ONI ship like this before!  They destroyed our defenses in seconds!  This is-”

“Wates!  Shut the fuck up!”  Weaver shouted at the man.  “I need you to focus right now.  Help me grab the record banks so we can get the hell off this ship!”

“I… Yes sir.  Sorry.”

“Now get your head together or I will shoot you in the leg and leave you here!”  Weaver threatened.

Don grimaced slightly as he moved his left arm slowly, he would soon be alright to move.  His legs shivered slightly as he flexed his muscles, trying to speed up everything from sleep.  Don froze when he saw the feet of the two men walk past him to go deeper in the lab that they were in.  From the sounds of it, they were moving away from the door of the room.

“And what about him?”  Wates asked as they passed Don.

“We have everything we have from him I think we will get.  We would have gotten a lot more if they had gotten to Reach.  I think we will have time later to cut one of them open.  Whatever is attacking our ship is not Innies.”

Well that sounded like the chances of surviving were finally starting to rise for Don, especially now that he felt nearly ready to get up.

“I don’t care what they are.  We need to get out of here!”  Wates said as he walked over to the cabinet in front of Don.

Don glanced over and saw that Weaver was not looking their way, and in his stillness neither of the men had even noticed that he was awake.  If he had a chance, he would have to take it now, or risk being found out or worse.  With a careful and tedious reach, Don gripped Wates by the ankle and pulled him as hard as he could.  The man jerked in surprise as Don pulled him firm enough for him to completely lose his footing.  The Wates wasn’t able to grab onto anything before falling on the floor, his head bouncing against the hard floor.  Don spotted a gun on his side and scrambled to get it as he drug the man closer to him.  By the time he was gripping the pistol on the man’s side, Wates had finally begun to react to being attacked by frantically trying to punch Don in the head.  After a few hits to his head, Don angrily took hold on the man’s arm and twisted it quickly behind his back, dislocating it so that Wates couldn’t use it.  The man stopped fighting just long enough for Don to tear the M6C Magnum out of its holster.  With a weapon in hand, fired a pair of rounds at Weaver before he could get a shot at Don.  This caused his aim to waiver just enough that he missed as he dove for cover.

Scrambling to shaky feet, Don got up from the floor as fast as he could to find his own cover behind the tipped over metal table.  He had fired another two shots over where Weaver was to before taking cover again, leaving him with four remaining shots.  He tried to peer up over the table only to see Weaver pop out from behind a cabinet to fire several rounds at him.  Don exchanged a few rounds back and forth before his gun was empty.  As he tucked back into cover, Weaver also fired his last shot; the sound of his magazine bouncing against the floor could be heard over the rumbling of the ship.  Don growled and quickly got up and lifted Wates from the floor to use as a shield before briskly shuffling his way towards Weaver’s spot.  The still coherent man wouldn’t be much of a shield for Don’s size, but he was down to the wire.  It was the best he could do on top of trying to protect his legs by walking in front of anything as he stomped across the room.  Weaver had reloaded by this point and wasted no time taking aim at his subordinates’ body and firing rounds quickly into him, in hopes that the bullets would go through the unarmored man and into Don with some lethality.  Lucky for Don, only the last two rounds in Weaver’s magazine made it fully through the dying man’s body.  The seventh round somehow just missed Don, and the final eighth hit Don about an inch or so above his right hip.  He stumbled, dropping Wates’ body as he fell to his knees, catching himself upright on a nearby table.

Don had barely hit the floor before Weaver charged at him with a knife.  The man yelled as he tried to plunge the blade downward at Don’s neck.  Don jerked to the side slightly and took hold of Weaver’s forearm to stop his swing.  Weaver screamed furiously as he punched Don in the mouth with his other hand to try and get his knife hand free.  With a pair of follow up blows, he freed his hand and plunged the knife fiercely at Don once again.  Quick to react, Don slid his arm up and took a large grip over Weaver’s knife hand and shoved the swiping arm onward, shoving the knife into Weaver’s left thigh.  He hollered in pain and staggered out of Don’s grip slightly before frantically kicking Don firmly on the gunshot wound on his hip.  Don yelped out as he fell backwards onto the floor clutching his side in writhing pain.  He looked up to see Weaver pull the knife from his leg and look down with fiery eyes.

“You’re going to die for that.”  Weaver taunted, wincing as he limped closer, kicking Don in the wound again before prepping the knife for a final plunge.

Fighting all of the screaming pain through his body, Don took hold of a glass bin from the floor next to him, and swung it up at Weaver’s head as the man ducked down to stab at Don.  The glass bin collided with the side of the man’s head, breaking into large shards against Weaver’s face.  A streak of blood spattered along the floor in a line as Weaver recoiled several steps away to a table.  The glass had sliced a deep cut through his right cheek, through his upper lip, and partially through his bottom lip in the middle.  He grabbed his bleeding face and yelled in horror as he felt the separated sections of his face spread from the laceration.  At this point, all of Weaver’s fight left his body; this was the point that he would cut his losses and flee.  And so, with wailing sounds of defeat, he took his knife and stumbled quickly for the exit of the lab, snagging a towel as he made his frantic retreat from the fight.

With Weaver out of the way, Don could keep taking steps to getting his own ass out of danger.  He glanced down to look at the extent of the bullet wound on his side, luckily finding it much less of a wound than he expected.  Yes, the bullet had punched through the skin and into his flesh, but it had lost most of its velocity going through Wates’ body before hitting him, leaving it only to have penetrated into Don two or three inches.  The wound bled heavily, leaving a puddle of purple blood to start forming under his side.  This caused him to pause for a few moments; his brain almost couldn’t process the new color of his blood.  He remembered that Sangheili blood was purple from the games from a much younger time before where he and Mike would ‘paint walls’ in the campaign of Halo CE with the in-game ragdolls together.  He blinked and cursed, forcing himself to focus.

Don rolled over and propped himself as he found a towel.  With the towel in hand, he firmly held his hand on the wound as he got up.  He looked around for any medical equipment around the room.  It would take far more than a rag for this wound, but he was in luck. Mounted to the wall between the two doors of the room was an octagonal shaped white medical kit with a large red ‘H’ on the front of it. At least he wasn’t stuck in the redesigned version of Halo.  Below it was a pair of large handheld canister that somewhat resembled a lever grease gun, the side of which read ‘Canister, Medical Bio Foam.’  His mind pieced together some memories from one of the other games in regards to this.  Something to do with some night time cut scene inside of a ‘Kikowana-something’ station.  His mind was a bit fuzzy on the details, but he kinda remembered how the canisters worked, and so he took one of the Bio Foam and extended the lever of the canister to its locking position.  He grimaced and took a cleaner part of the towel in his hand and cleaned as much blood as he could from the wound before, as per the directions, he put the tip of the lever arm into the opening of his wound to depress the other lever on the canister.  Quickly the contents spat out of the end of the lever, fiercely stinging foam quickly filled the wound.

As the swiftly expanding foam filled the wound, the material began to sanitize the affected area, causing an extremely prominent burning sensation for Don around the area.  He grimaced as he stepped back slightly from it; honestly he felt that it was worse rubbing alcohol on a dirty cut, though he probably was just being a baby about it.  Once the foam stopped burning him, the wound was growing numb as if the stuff also had some sort of anesthesia.  This was truly the stuff of magic.  There was only one conceptual product like this back where he was from, and even then, the stuff hadn’t made it out of the prototype stage.  It wouldn’t fix his medical situation long term, but at least he was up and running now.  He just hoped that none of his vital organs had been damaged by the bullet, though he was hopeful; it was a proportionally shallow wound.  Don took some time to tie some gauss wrapping around his waist from nearby cabinet before the sounds of gunfire a distant hallway rang out.

“Damn it.” He cursed, waiting several seconds as the gunfire continued.  It sounded like there was more than Human weapons involved.  He needed to stock up.

Don pried the Octagonal health pack from the mount on the wall to see that there was a shoulder strap tucked away on the back of the kit.  With a little finagling, he slipped the strap over his head and attached the other container of Bio Foam onto the trap with it.  He then took another clean towel from nearby and tied it off around the kit before picking up the empty pistol that he had dropped on the floor.  After returning to Wates’ body, he found a single full magazine of bullets on him and a knife.  Don looked over the pistol in his hand for a moment as he made sure it would operate just like most handguns he was used too back home.  Seeing as it was, just being chambered in 12.7mm, it should be very similar to the liking of a Desert Eagle.  He loaded the magazine and pulled the slide back to chamber a new round before carefully making his way out of the room.

The hallway was dimly lit compared to where he had woken up; orange light flashed above from spinning emergency lights paired with beeping and soft alarms chirping and echoing lightly through the empty corridor.  With the sounds of the gunfight still rattling through the halls from far away, he carefully made his way down the corridor.  Don didn’t know exactly where to go or what to do, but he felt like it was best if he would keep moving.  He needed to find Mike as soon as possible, and figure out a way to just keep surviving.  Sure, he would love to be fixed and figure out how to get home, but that would have to come later.  As per Maslow’s Law, safety comes first and as cold as it would be, Don would kill anyone between him and Mike.  He needed to find the only person here that could help him in this great time of need.  And so, with the barrel of his weapon forward and open ears, Don slipped into his senses, taking the familiar war fighter mindset.  The length of the corridor was empty.  Along the right side were several open doors to other labs similar to the one he had woken and unfortunately they all seemed to be empty.  He would have to keep going.  At the end of the corridor was a two way intersection with another corridor, the connecting passageway was without hardly any doors between the ends all the way until the next intersection at the other end.  He took a few paces down the hall before the left wall opened up to a rectangular window to… Space.

Slightly dumbstruck, Don stopped in his tracks and stared out the viewport at the vast blanket of black and stars.  He never imagined that he would ever had just seen or rather been in space, and it kinda stopped his mind for a moment or two as he processed this.  Looking around the window, he was clearly on a ship of sorts, though he couldn’t recognize or figure anything than that as far as positioning and frame of reference.  After having a few moments to be in awe, he shook his head and glanced around to make sure that he was still in the clear.  Seeing no one else still, he continued on.  He soon noticed that there was frequent droplets of blood on the metal floor underneath his bare feet; it obviously belonged to Weaver.  It wasn’t too important to him, but if he could find and kill that man he would.  His face still hurt from that ordeal, regardless of how long it had been since.  Up ahead there was a sudden rush of three people in white uniforms running through the next intersection heading right.  Don quickened his pace and stopped at the corner of the intersection at the sounds of people's voices.

“Open the door, Maynard!”  One of them shouted at another.  They weren't too far past the intersection.

“God damn it I am trying!  The whole wing is on lockdown!” Another yelled.

“Yes, but our only way out!”  The first yelled back.

“Calm down!  He’s almost through, Tanya.”  Third spoke up.

“We just need to hurry up and get to the security checkpoint on the other side so we can get some goddamn firepower in case those things come here.”

That was all Don needed to hear.

After checking the other directions again, he spun around the corner with the pistol raised up towards the group.  They hadn’t seen him until he fired two rounds into the one that was furthest from the door they were trying to open.  The woman went down easy from the rounds, and before the other two could do anything Don fired another two shots into the other, leaving only the one who was messing with the door controls.  The man stepped back against the adjacent wall as he froze in horror at what was happening.

“Jesus Christ!”  The man shouted.

Before he could do anything, Don aimed the pistol at the man as he stomped closer, advancing quickly.

“Where is Mike?!” Don shouted as he drew but a stride from the frozen man.

“W-who!?”

Don growled as he stuffed the barrel firmly against the man’s chest, towering over the man.  “The other one like me.  Michael!  Where is he?!”

“Oh god!” The terrified man squealed.  He was clearly a Lab guy with a weak stomach.  “Down the hall!  That way!”  He said, pointing the direction behind Don.

“What room?”

The man’s gaze kinda looked past Don to the floor where the two other bodies now where.  “Y...you killed them!”

Don, wanting absolutely zero forms of bullshit, grabbed the man by the arm with the other hand and shook him slightly.  “You’re next if you don’t tell me the fucking room!”  Don shouted at the man.

“E62!  Oh god he’s in E62!”  

“What is the best way off this ship?”

“H…Hangar terminal.”  The man answered, choking up.”

“The what?”

“Damn it!  It’s through this door about 200 meters down the main corridor.”  He answered rather promptly.

“Good.  Open the door.”  Don ordered, stepping back and motioning the door.

The man hesitated only slightly as he scaled up the much larger foe who was making demands.  Don much have been at least two and a half meters tall or something now; close to whatever the standard Elite height was he imagined.  Despite the hesitation, the man got to quick work on the door, taking only a few more moments to unlock it and open the door with the keypad nearby.  The door flew open and the man turned and stepped in front of the door slightly.

“There!  I told you where to go and where Michael was!”  The man said, hoping he would be spared for his help.

“Good.”  Don said before promptly firing a bullet through the man’s head.

Stepping over the dead body, Don carefully entered through the open door way into another corridor.  This hallway was short, and ended soon in a lobby that seemed to connect to two other hallways.  There was signage noting that the security checkpoint was up ahead, so he would proceed with caution.  Just before he made it to the lobby, he heard a door opening ahead, followed by a set of footsteps.  Don tried to peer around to see where the person was, only to hear a volley of automatic weapon fire.  He ducked his head back as the bullets just missed him to ricochet against the other side of the corridor.

“Now you get the fuck back here, you big S.O.B!” A voice shouted.  “So I can drop you the right way!”

Don took a few careful steps back with the Magnum raised towards the lobby, ready for the man.  A moment later, the man sounded like he was coming around the corner.  The absolute moment that the man’s elbow started coming around the corner, Don snapped the weapon to match and fired a single round.  The bullet hit the man right between his shoulder and his elbow, being unhindered by armor, the impact caused the man to stagger back, almost falling over backwards.  Don quickly leaned out from the wall and fired again, hitting the man in the neck.  After firing a worthless burst of bullets against the ground, the man collapsed as he grasped his neck, bleeding profusely.  Don moved up, looking around every part of the lobby to find it empty; the man had been alone.  With no one else around, Don stomped up to man who was gurgling on the ground.  Standing over the man, Don decided to quickly take his life with a bullet to the head, braining the man in the metal bucket that he called a helmet.

Now out of rounds in his Magnum, Don quickly picked up the dead man’s rifle.  The rifle felt surprisingly comparable to the rifles that Don had used in the past even despite it feeling ‘lighter’ due to he not being now stronger and larger in size.  He checked his surroundings before he inspected the weapon for a moment.  The side of weapon said MA5B, which he thought sounded familiar, though he couldn’t place it.  It had been several years since he had played Halo, and now he was paying for it.  He had fallen out of shooting games after joining the military for a multitude of reasons; he was predominantly a racing genre guy after he got back home from service.  At least his hand eye coordination and motor skills had translated pretty well to his new body.  

The counter on the rear of the sloped top of the rifle read out the number ‘22,’ clearly displaying how many rounds were left in the weapon’s magazine.  He moved on from the dead man and ducked into the nearby security checkpoint; inside was a single desk and another chair in front of a console that looked like a terminal to look over cameras and other tasks like opening and locking doors.  Other than that, the only other thing of importance was a weapon rack that was enclosed by a sliding metal cover.  While there were several empty spaces in the gun rack, there were still two remaining weapons underneath the metal cover.  It was obvious after a moment of trying to physically remove the cover that it was locked in place by a biometric system; a hand print reader was nearby.  With a grumble, Don returned to the dead man and drug him into the office by his arm before placing the hand against the reader.  The system beeped and the cover lifted up into the ceiling to reveal two shortened carbine versions of the MA5B in his hand.  In a box built into the bottom of the gun rack were several boxes of ammo placed in an orderly fashion along with a pair of belts that seemed to have several retainer clips for magazines.  Glancing around again, he then took a box of matching designation to the rifles and opened it to see the box full of upright enclosed sleeves that each held a packaged and full magazine.  He spent a moment tearing the sleeves open and sliding magazines into as many clips as each of the belts could handle.  If he was to be in uncharted territory, he would rather travel heavier than be underequipped.  With each belt holding six magazines, he slipped them both over his neck.  He grabbed another rifle for Mike and left the checkpoint and doubled back for room E62.

It didn’t take him long to make it to the room, and he was happy to find Mike laying still on a study table unharmed.  He set his things down on a counter and went alongside the table and started shaking Mike.

“Come on, buddy.  Come back to me.”  Don said, continuing to try to wake his friend.  Finally after several minutes of shaking and plenty of other methods, Mike seemed to stir.

“W… What?” Mike groaned under his breath still with his eyes closed.

“Get up, Mike.  We have to leave.  Now.”  

The sternness in Don’s voice seemed to wake him up quicker.  After a moment more of stirring, Mike’s eyes opened widely.  He looked over at Don and jerked away, lightly waiting his right hand before stopping to stare up at Don.  

“Fuck…” Mike cursed, his breathing slowing slightly.

Don could see the growing panic and confusion in Mike’s eyes, clearly plagued with days or weeks of questions without answers.  He watched his friend's mandibles quiver slightly before letting out an almost sad sound from his mouth.  “It’s alright…  Take a minute.”  Don said, staying still to let Mike process.

“...Don?”

“Yeah…. We’ve been over this…  C’mon.  Sit up.”


Mike did so and turned his legs off the table towards Don.  He looked down at himself with a disappointed look before closing his eyes and exhaling deeply.  “What happened to us, Don?”

“No idea.”  Don answered softly; it was a question that he wanted to know too, but he had no answer other than the obvious.

“Can we…” Mike asked sounded desperate, not opening his eyes.

“No.”  Don shook his head lightly.  Mike wanted to go home, already tired of what was going on.  “We can’t… But we need to work together right now.”

“For what?  If we can’t get out of this then what can we do?” Mike asked angrily as he turned his gaze at Don, his throat tight and afraid.  “What the hell can we do?”

“Whatever we can, man.”  Don sighed.  He felt Mike’s sense of defeat.  “We just need to try… but I can’t do it alone.”

Mike’s eyes softened as they trailed down slowly to the bandage around Don’s waist.

“I’ll be fine.”  Don assured him.  “Now come on, big guy.  We have plenty of time to cry later.”

“If you say so…”  Mike sighed, doing his best to roll his emotions off his shoulders.

Don sighed too before turning and grabbing the full sized MA5B.  “Here.”  He said, holding it out for Mike.

Mike looked at it kinda quizzically as he took the weapon.

“It’s essentially a bull pup HK.”  Don explained how the weapon functioned as basic as he could.

“Eww… gross.”  Mike grumbled.  He wasn’t much a fan of the configuration.  “Thanks for the ugly FN2000.  Just what I wanted for my birthday.”

“That’s it, brother.  Welcome back to reality.”  Don chuckled slightly.  Mike, having a history of being a basket case, was easy to stray emotionally, but as long as Don kept him directed, he would be fine until they could rest.  Best not to dwell on things in the moment.

“Yeah, whatever.  Bullpups suck.”  Mike grunted as he stood up from the table, taking a second to get his footing on sluggish legs.  “Hey.  You’re not tiny compared to me anymore.”  Mike pointed out.

Don sighed.  “Mike…  Just because you use to be two inches taller than me doesn’t mean I was tiny.”  Mike had always been a bit taller than he, and now it was less of a difference.

“Bullshit.  You used to be like a little kid compared to me.”  Mike sort of forced an awkward smirk.  “Now you’re a big kid like me.”

“Focus Mike.”  Don said, holding out a belt of magazines out for him.

“OK, alright...”  He replied, taking the belt and draping it around his neck and shoulder.  After he finished, he looked down at himself one final time.  “Don.  Where is my dick?”  This was the utmost concern of Mike at any time of his life.

“It’s gone.”  Don shook his head.  

“Huh?!”


“We are ladies now.”

“Oh, fuck off!  It has to just be inside or something.”  Mike said hopefully.

“Of course it is, dumbass.  Now come on.”

Mike breathed easy.  “Good… I almost just lost my cool there… Lead on.”

The banter, while unnecessary, hopefully would keep Mike’s head at bay.

Now that the two were both together, they moved carefully down the corridors to leave the area of the ship.  Don led Mike to the lobby past the three dead scientists by the large open door.  Looking around at a map on the wall of the ship, Don tried to make sense of all of the labels and directional lines that ran along the layout of the ship.  There were several sectors of the ship nearby including ‘Bio-Study’, the sector they just were in, along with ‘Mechanical Research’ and “Artifact Cataloging.’  Don soon made out that the hallway to their right lead towards the Bridge, running through one of the three Hangar areas of the ship.  Before they began to move, the sound of gunfire in the distance that had seemingly tapped out started up again, this time closer than it had been.  

“Who are these people fighting?”  Mike asked quietly, half lifting his weapon.

“I have no idea.”

“It’s right where we want to be going, right?”

“Yup.”  Don sighed.  “Let’s be careful.”

“You take forward and left like always.”

“Yup.”  Don said, lifting his weapon at the ready before leading them on down the corridor.

The two moved together down the hallway, keeping their eyes up and around as they kept every direction covered.  The two had done this many times in the years in the military and for Skylark, and as Mike had mentioned, Don would take the front position and scan between the left and forward directions as Mike would sweep the rear and right.  The keeping the same smooth but cautious pace with one another, they made good ground on their route towards the Hangar.  After an intersection, they were slowed by the sound of a few explosions alongside with the fighting.  They soon heard the rushing of feet to the left in the next intersection, causing the two to stop and stack up against the wall.

“This is Nick and Isaiah!”  One of the voices shouted.  “We are coming through Hall 7B towards the breach zone!  Hang in there, guys!”

As the two armed and geared up men dashed around the corner of the intersection, they only barely noticed Don and Mike.  By the time that the men had started to slow down, the two had open fired on them.  While the bullets riddled off several of the ONI men’s armor pieces, several of the bullets from their weapons tore through each of the men’s bodies.  They toppled over and collapsed to the floor.  The ship suddenly shook again firmly.  Pipes and conduits above lurched heavily and things seemed to shake for several moments more; one of the pipes burst in the hallway ahead of them, shooting steam all over the corridor.  Once the shaking had stopped, the two situated themselves and took stock before continuing on, Don took a fresh mag off of one of the men before heading down the right through the intersection.  Up ahead they ran into a closed blast door at the end of the corridor, stopping them in their tracks.

“What the hell.”  Don grumbled.  “The Hangar is just past the hallway past this door.”

“You sure?”  Mike asked.

“Yes.  I memorized the map.”  

“I don’t doubt it… Just.  Let me think.”  Mike said, looking around.

“What are you gonna’ do?”

“Don.  This is a ship.  So it should be built like ships like we’ve been on right?”

“I mean… I guess?”

“That.”  He pointed to a sign next to a doorway a few paces from the blast doors.  “Mess halls usually are built between at least two hallways for maximum populous flow, right?”

“God damn, you might be right.”

“Yeah.  They must use it in these ships to slow down boarders… Or escapees like us.  Let’s try it.”

“Roger that.  Come on.”  Don said with a slight sense of enthusiasm before heading to the door.

Don walked up to one of the mess hall doors, the door opening as he entered its proximity.  The two of them walked in and looked around only to find a large group of more scientists together on the other side of the mess hall.  They must have been using the place as a backup assembly place with all of the fighting going on.  The group, being twelve to fifteen strong, stood and stared at Don and Mike as the two came to a halt and stared back.  Don lightly lifted his weapon at his side and held it towards them but didn’t do anything quite yet.  Mike kinda glanced between Don and the group once or twice at the awkwardness of the encounter.  Don kinda wanted to just go back into the hallway and forget about this group to find another way, but he wasn’t sure at the hostilities these people would have.

“They can’t stop all of us.” One in the group whispered at a just barely audible level after a moment.

Don pulled the trigger of his rifle with a frown, firing the rifle without hesitation into the group in front of them.  He slowly swayed the barrel from side to side to make sure than he would hit everyone in the quickly falling bodies of the group.  Due to their lack of armor, most of the people were cut down with two or three bullets from the rifle.  By the time he reached the last round, everyone in the group had collapsed to the floor, leaving only maybe one or two of them still barely alive.  Don scowled slightly at himself as he felt the weapon shaking in his hands at what he had just done.

“Woah…”  Mike said quietly.  “Alright.  That’s enough, man.”  He said, leaving over and lightly lowering Don’s barrel to the floor.  “You good?”  Mike asked with honest concern.

Don grimaced to himself; he was starting to get jumpy.  This is just like Afghanistan all over again. He thought in shock.  “Let’s just get out of here.”

“Sure... But if you need a minute...”

“I’m fine.”  Don said, taking the magazine out of his gun and slamming a full one firmly.

“Alright.  Let’s keep going.  I got your back…”  Mike assured him.  “Always, man.”

Leaving the other side mess hall, they would find that Mike’s theory was correct.  There was another corridor seemingly leading right to a walkway that ran over the Hangar bay.  While there was signage for stairs down to the Hangar on the other side of the walkway, they came to a stop once they could see down onto the floor below.  There was a pair of large transports docked near the inner wall of the two vehicle wide hangar and a trio of even stranger crafts sort of mounted into whatever barrier was serving as the film between the Hangar and outer space.  There was a frantic fight between the ONI personnel and a scattered group of man sized, armored avian-esc aliens.  Don remembered them as ‘Jackal’s from the games; his mind partially remembering how much of a pain in the ass their shields were on the harder difficulties.  There was more ONI guys than the Jackals, but it seemed like the sci-fi plasma and ‘zippy’ weapons that the Jackal’s were using seemed to be a lot more effective than their opposition’s weapons.  The two lowered their barrels and watched for a second, bewildered.

“Well…” Mike grunted.  “Fuck…  What do we do now?”

There was a sudden flurry of ‘yips!’ and squawk noises behind them.  They both quickly turned to see a swiftly advancing group of the Jackals coming up the corridor past the Mess Hall.  They had moved so quick and quiet than neither of them had even heard the Avians rushing at them.  The Jackals came to a halt a few paces from Don and Mike, their weapons already raised sternly to them.

“We give up.”  Don said, presenting his hand slowly before lowering the rifle towards the ground.  Mike quickly followed suit.