The Chief was a force of nature. Time after time in those corridors I saw him do things that shouldn’t have been possible. Outgunned, out numbered, and even hand-to-hand, it didn’t matter what the situation. He made sure we won every fight we encountered. I kept thinking to myself He can’t be the only one left. We need as many men like him as we can get. I had to shake the awe off though. I was no slouch myself and this was a running fight.

The adrenalin was starting to wear off. I could feel a deep hurt aching under my arm where I landed on the Wraith after that Hunter tossed me like bottle cap. I couldn’t let it slow me down though. I popped a stim to take the edge off. I hated taking those stims because they made it hard to focus at long range. I had to compromise though. I was fighting next to the finest soldier Earth’s military may have ever produced and I’d be damned if I couldn’t pull my own weight.

The Spartan halted us at a door.

“Cortana says the Shuttle Bay is on the other side of this hatch.” He said kneeling down.

“Take this.” He said handing me a Covie plasma rifle. “I like my MA5B better too, but this’ll bring down the Elites shields faster and you can finish them off with your Magnum.”

“What’s it look like in there, Cortana?” I asked the A.I.

“The bay has three levels. The Shuttle Bay’s control deck is on the second. We can get to the Brig from the third. We’ll have to pass through the Ship’s Command Center to get to the Brig.”

“Sounds like a walk in the park.” The Spartan jabbed a syringe of biofoam under one of the plates of his armor on his torso. He must have been a little worse for wear too.

“I’m ready.” He said when he was finished.

We ran into the Shuttle Bay ****ed, locked and ready to rock. I had to dodge a plasma grenade almost before I made it inside. Two Elites and a Grunt were standing guard at the edge of the bay. I tossed a frag grenade to teach them a lesson about bunching up during a firefight. We were taking fire from a gaggle of Jackals from up on level two. The Master Chief finally had room to put that M19 he’d been lugging around to good use. Another Elite rushed into the Shuttle Bay from a hatch. I hosed it down with plasma until its shield went down then I switched to my Magnum and put three rounds in its chest. The Chief blasted the hell out of the Jackals on level two that were taking pot shots at us with the Jackhammer.

Just like that the first floor was all ours. We weren’t out of the woods yet though. An Elite that was an excellent shot with a plasma rifle had us pent to the base of the Shuttle Bay’s control deck.

“It’s one of those hard ass special ops squiddies that are done up in black. ****er almost hit me with a plasma grenade as soon as we got in here. How many rounds you got left for that Jackhammer?”

“Two, but I got no angle on him down here.”

“Bastards damn sure got an angle on us. Besides. You slow down long enough to prime that Jackhammer and he’ll have a plasma grenade attached to your ass before you can even look through the site.”

“So let’s beat him at his own game.” The Chief said tossing me a plasma grenade.

“I like it.” I said understanding. The Chief took off toward the center of the Shuttle Bay.

I was in the stands when Kaz Yoshida shattered the record for the 100 meters. I was a recruit and the Olympics were being held on Reach. That record stands to this day. The Chief’s sprint would have put Kaz to shame.

He needed every ounce of speed he had, too. The Elite was peppering his tracks with plasma. The Chief made it to a maze of Covenant storage containers for cover. From cover, he peeked out and returned fire. The Chief had no shot from there and the Elite knew it so it opened up. 

That was my opening. I was only going to get one shot. With its back turned I primed the grenade and heaved it. It lobbed over the rail and stuck to the back of that son of a bitch’s head. The Elite roared in outrage just before the grenade exploded and splattered his ass all over the Bay.

On the other side of the Shuttle Bay the resistance was less organized. A mixed group of Jackals and Grunts was fool enough to walk right into an ambush the Chief and I threw together on instinct. When you’ve been fighting as long as we have, combat gets so far down into your bones that setting up an “L” shaped ambush gets to be like riding a bike. You can’t remember not knowing how to do it.

“Hassan! Do you read me?” I asked over the comm. I could tell the Chief was conferring with the Cortana when he started to look up into space. We were stalled and Cortana was our way out of that bay. I took advantage of the lull by popping another stim and checking in with my men.

“Yessir!” Hassan replied.

“How’s my exit looking?”

“Whatever you guys are up to seems to be the only thing the Covies are thinking about right now. We had a couple of attempts to breach the lift room, but it was only a couple of rookies and a few grunts. They haven’t given it another go in twenty minutes, sir.”

“Glad to hear it. Hold tight. We outta be heading your way within the hour.”

“Aye,aye, sir!”

Just then another hatch opened up and a couple of Hunters lumbered into the bay. The Chief shouldered his Jackhammer and fired two times. The Hunters didn’t even get a chance to power up their guns.

“What happened to your trick with the Magnum?” I asked the Spartan.

“I like this way…better.” The Chief deadpanned.

“Got it!” Cortana said over the onboard speakers. And with that another hatch opened up. “Everyone should move through the door now. I can’t guarantee that it won’t lock behind you when it closes.”

“Sounds like an R.S.V.P party to me!”

“Follow me!” The Chief said.

In we went. Back into the ****. More corridors. More close calls. More dead Covenant. It was turning out to be a real nice day. That pain under my arm was getting worse by the second, though. I wasn’t going to take another stim. Couldn’t afford to get too wired. I was just going to have to live with it for now.

“The Captains signal is strong. He must be close.” Cortana said to us through the Chief’s onboard speakers. We had finally made it to the Brig. We went door to door until one of the hatches opened up into a cellblock. We ran inside looking for the Captain.  The Chief deactivated the force fields that had sealed off the holding cells. They were all empty save one.

And there I was, standing over the beaten, broken corpse of PFC William C. Reynolds. I was in the brig of an alien vessel that I boarded with less than a platoon of men. If I didn’t get medical attention pretty soon, I was going to wind up with a punctured lung and I would die.

 I thought I’d kept my injury from the Master Chief. Then he said, “Are you up for this?”

“I could ask you the same thing. You’re probably busted up a lot worse than me under those metal britches of yours.” I said shrugging off my pain. “But, yeah, I’m up for it. Besides, I got a couple of reasons to make it through this one.”

“Yeah?” the Chief asked as he chambered a round into his MA5B. “What’s that?”

“A bottle of scotch and this pretty little medic that’s going to have her hands all over me when we get back to Alpha Base.” I grinned.

“The Captains signal is extremely strong from here. My guess is that he’s down the hall.” Cortana informed us.

Sure enough, there were two Jackals around the next bend standing guard outside of a hatch. The Chief rushed them. He was down the hall and splitting their skulls with the butt of his rifle in an instant. I caught up with him and we entered the room together. There were two Grunts, both sleeping against opposite pillars. Down at the end of the cellblock, a black clad Elite stood at the control panel for the holding cells. Experience spoke volumes as to how we were going to handle this. We didn’t need to confer. We practically pulled our combat knives at the same time.

We bled the Grunts and unslung our rifles. Simultaneously we wheeled around the pillars converging our fire on the Elite. It was on the ground before he even had a chance to reach for his Needler.

“Alright, Big Green!” One of the captive Marines shouted from his holding cell.

I was looking for Keyes’s cell when another Marine shouted, “Sarge! Look out!” I turned and saw the Chief was pointing his rifle in my direction!

I dove, tucked, and rolled. The Chief fired over my head. I looked back from the ground and caught sight of what he was shooting at. Another one of those camouflaged bastards was trying to get the drop on me. Then, I looked back at the Chief and behind him saw what looked like heat waves. The Covie Needler the black Elite had dropped was laying down in front of me. I picked it up and sent a stream of crystals at those heat waves. This time it was the Chiefs turn to dive, tuck, and roll, just before those needles exploded ripping the Elite to shreds.

“Damn! I love this ****ing job! Oorah!” I shouted. The other Marines erupted in cheers as the Chief ran up to the control panel and opened up the cells.

“Coming here was reckless. You two know better than this.” The Captain said to us. “Thanks.”

“Anytime, sir.”

“Can we find our way out?” the Captain asked.

“Oh, I think we’ll be able to manage, sir.” I said looking at the Chief.

“The corridors of this ship are like a maze.” the Captain said, sounding concerned.

“It shouldn’t be too difficult.” The Master Chief replied. “All we have to do is follow the bodies.”