Vindicates Chapter 6

Chapter 6 of Vindicates.

## Story

**Location: Centre of Unknown Facility**
- 2183, Aug 7

The two strike teams split up at the middle of the facility where they first encountered the Xenomorphs. By the time they made their way back, it was quiet. No Xenos, no Androids, no Cerberus, but plenty of dead bodies of the aforementioned factions. There were definitely Cerberus troopers ransacking the labs nearby, though. Rhodey, Samus and Sam turned left, up the way the Federation Troopers came in, whilst Ben, Isaac and Nomad continued straight, where the Xenomorphs emerged from.

After the two teams split up, Rhodey's team, which she dubbed team B, ran into some trouble. A couple of cloaked Androids tried to jump out at them, but Rhodey and Samus's visors spotted them before they could be any trouble. When the three of them exited the door to the east wing, they were greeted to an open space, a giant satellite to their right, and a small operating building to their left. The three of them spread out, Rhodey flew up to the top of the satellite to scan its materials, whilst Sam switched off the power down below, Samus stood watch. Then, it happened. It started as a low hiss. Sam turned to Samus and asked her if she heard it too, she nodded, and a Xenomorph jumped out from the platform under them.

Rhodey was done with the radar dish and started looking around for any more cloaked enemies, when a transmission broke through from Isaac.

"He's here! The damn thing's here! We need backup ASAP! The whole damn hive is coming down on us and that telekinetic Yautja!"

Rhodey replied "Hang on Isaac, we're on our way," as she looked down and saw dozens of Xenomorphs swarming Samus and Sam, she immediately flew down to their position to help ward off the beasts, whilst firmly speaking out into the headphones,

"Ben's team is in trouble, the Yautja found them over there."

Sam shouted back "Yeah well, so are we!"

"Don't fight, just run!" Rhodey shouted back hovering over them, blasting repulsor beams at their swarming enemies "Go!"

Samus turned and morphed into a ball again, rolling back towards the corridor as Sam blasted his way alongside her on his rear end. Rhodey kept up easily with both of them, flying to the group's left, and Xenomorphs were now coming out of the vents in-front of them. Sam and Rhodey managed to blast most out of the way whilst avoiding the rest.

"Make a hard left at the end of the corridor, team B needs extraction."

As they entered the centre area of the base, they were greeted by an ambush of Cerberus soldiers, Sam had to stop for a moment for his suit to recharge, and took cover while Samus unrolled, and both his female companions fired upon the troopers. Rhodey "tsk"ed at the inefficiency of his suit's energy system, but it wasn't long before it recharged, and only just in time, as the hordes upon hordes of Xenomorphs exited the corridor behind them. The team high tailed it to their left at top speed as the beasts spread out, most of them breaking off to hit the Cerberus troopers.

As they approached the east wing, they heard screams of desperation.

**Location: East Wing, Team A**
- 2183, Aug 7

Ben, Nomad, and Isaac made their way to the corridor leading to the east wing after separating from Rhodey's team A. The team encountered some surprise attacks from Weyland stealth androids still lingering about in the darkness. When they reached the entrance to the outer east wing, all was quiet. When Isaac opened the door they were greeted by a large empty room. The reactor laid beyond a door at the far end of the room, and most probably so did the Xenomorph nest. Ben signalled Nomad to scout ahead alone whilst he stayed back with Isaac; Nomad was the stealthiest of the group with his lighter feet and active camouflage. After he reconnoitered the area, he came back to the group to deliver a report to Ben and give the all clear.

"I didn't spot anything out of the ordinary except for a few acid burns here and there, so it looks like someone put up a fight here once. Once. Also, motion sensor's clear."

Ben replied "Good job, but stay sharp and alert, these things are known for jumping out at people."

The team made their way to the middle of the room, and that's where it happened.

Hisssss...

The damn motion sensors lit up like wild fire as black, slimy bodies fell from the shadowy ceiling.

Isaac went straight for his pistol, keeping his Plasma Cutter in his right hand, in case any of them got in close, and he spotted the biggest one yet unfold from the manifolds of the the bulkhead and start walking towards them. Nomad was ready with his assault rifle as Ben spun around to the sound of an energy bladed weapon activating.

Ktssshhhhh...

The Yautja stood at the entrance to their escape, blocking them in.

Ben had his AR ready to fire at the hunter as the other two opened up on the Xenos to his back, but Ben was hesitant on attacking it just yet. He'd seen what it'd done to the Vindicator before. Nomad commented on their situation "Welp, looks like we've got ourselves a stand-off. The Predator mustn't have appreciated us getting in the way of the nest."

Isaac responded "If only we knew he was gonna do our job for us."

Nomad switched his armour mode to speed, and ran at the hunter who outstretched its hand, and was then picked up by some unseen force and flung across the room to the Yautja's right.

"Isaac, call for backup. Now."  said Ben, as he fired his rifle at the Yautja, but the bullets were absorbed by a Jackal's shield which protruded from the Yautja's wrist gauntlet. "What... the fu-" Ben couldn't finish his sentence, as a wave of energy washed over him as he was pushed back into the wall covered with the monsters. A Xeno's tail came down on him to impale his chest, but his lightning quick Spartan reflexes and strength caught the tail by the blade, with adrenaline fuelled strength he ripped the tail, flinging the creature into another one which was bearing down on him to his right, each letting out an annoying screech

Isaac was already shouting into his comm, "He's here! The damn thing's here! We need backup ASAP! The whole damn hive is coming down on us and that telekinetic Yautja!" the engineer was being swarmed by Xenomorphs as Ben looked up, and there was no Yautja to be seen. Luckily, Ben still had his own Magnum attached to his hip and he used it to help keep the Xenomorphs off of Isaac, who was running and gunning with the big one bearing down on him. Nomad was already back on his feet and was rushing into the fight guns blazing, his attention broke momentarily to ask a question to Ben "Whose side is that damn thing on anyway?!"
"Its own." was Ben's sharp reply, back on his feet as well, dodging an acid spit aimed at his face from a Xeno less than a meter away.

"Just hold out until backup comes!"

Paya watched with amusement and subtle curiosity. He had heard stories of humans who, through cunning and strategy, managed to defeat the serpents, and others of them even defeating his own kind. Humans were one of the most frequent groups of aliens who would thwart Yautja hunting parties, yet there was nothing special about them. In fact most were so unremarkable that it hurt to think about them dominating any member of his own kind... perhaps those few were merely weak?

The spirit spoke to him again, offering its wisdom. "That's your culture ssssspeakingss, think deeper; there mussssst be a reason as to why humanity, dessspite being so unremarkable, yet attainssss ssssso much victory?"

Paya responded to the spirit with his thoughts.

"I found humans in your galaxy too... why are they spread out so much throughout the Stars? Who created them? Some say the Engineers, Isu, Forerunnners, or the Protheans, or species even further back tha those, ones we haven't discovered yet. Why are they in other galaxies?"

The spirit shifted its presence, it was more sharp and... loud.

"Focus, these lines of questions have no relevancy to your huuuntssss for the moment. Asssk not where they come from, but what makes the humansss ssspecial now?"

Paya thought on this for a moment, as the three humans ran around almost in circles, dodging and firing precisely at the swarming Xenomorphs. The tall one was strong and resilient. If he remembered correctly, they called these humans Spartans, and they were different. Paya did not know why or how they were different, just that they were. They were much taller and stronger than other humans, and even most Yautja, and wore armour that was plasma resistant, or at least, the shielding was.

The other two were smaller, but one of them was much faster than the other, and stronger too. It must of been his suit's technology; it wasn't as advanced or powerful as the bigger one, but it was augmenting his abilities nonetheless.

The one with the short-range plasma pistol, which looked more like a tool than a gun, was unremarkable in every way, yet he persisted, and contributed to areas of the fight below the skillset of the others. Paya decided this was why humanity was so admirable; persistence and diversity. They never gave up, it was like this in all of the stories, some of his kind had even decided to fight alongside them honourably, and there was so much variety among their species as far as skills went. Maybe these ones would make worthy allies against this horde... but it was humans who caused this problem in the first place.

The spirit voiced his wisdom once again.

"Humansss are resssilient, and adaptable. It'sssss in what we sssee as their flaw isssss their greatest strength. What makesss them, as a whole, unremarkable, creates extremely versssatile, remarkable individualsss. My ssssspecies hunted many humanoidsss in the galaxy, ssso did I before I became a Jedi, but humansss there were always plentiful, and there wasss alwayssss one in a group that rose above the resssst."

Paya considered for a moment his predicament. The humans could aid him in his quest to destroy the station. It was then that a Praetorian, a big one, came down upon the strongest of the three, the Spartan, and knocked him off of his feet. As the creature was about to strike a killing blow, the Yautja came down, appearing out of nowhere, and sliced off its tail. He turned to see the Spartan was already wielding its smaller weapon. The Yautja calculated that it actually had enough time to remove itself, he had underestimated its advanced reflexes. It truly was not like other humans.

The Spartan though, had his weapon aimed at the Yautja, who in turn had it's plasma caster aimed at him, the three dot site target on his forehead, but the standoff couldn't last long. The serpents were closing in on them. The Yautja pointed his cannon at another serpent coming up behind the Spartan, and the two of them began firing simultaneously at the enemies behind each other. It was then that each turned their backs on each other to face the coming horde. The other two humans were beginning to retreat back into the hallway, when suddenly three blazing blurs of fire exploded into the room with crazy acrobatics, driving full force into the hoard of dozens upon dozens of serpents infesting the space around them all.

The Yautja was glad the other three didn't shoot at him, he had assumed it was because the Spartan was telling them not too, at least that's what it sounded like, from what little he knew of human tongue.

""Donuout shoht da Yoohja, h'es ah fiendly""

Sounded like jibberish to him, though.

**Location: East Wing, Team A and B**
- 2183, Aug 7

Rhodey stopped to stare when Ben told them not to shoot the Yautja, but she could see that it indeed wasn't causing harm to the team...

She wasn't completely surprised, though. This had happened before. She had considered trying to prove to the alien that she was worthy to fight alongside, but alas, it seemed Ben had done that for her already. When the three of them burst into the room, they threw themselves into the horde of Xenos to cover there exhausted and fatigued companions. Samus charged into a Praetorian to stop it from impaling Isaac, her shields were depleted by a large quantity of acid that fell on her from shooting a point blank shot at the large Xeno with her plasma cannon. It then burst apart and some of the team had to dodge the acidic chunks. Rhodey yelled for Samus to be more careful, and for Isaac to pull back as the team continued to drive the swarm of Xenos back. Isaac thanked Samus for the assistance. Samus's suit recharged by absorbing the kinetic energy of her foes, she had to stand back and blast a few more from a short distance for her shields to fill back up a bit as she remarked "If that stuff can stunt my shields, it'll kill all of you instantly. Stay away from it." She said it not as a gloat, but as an objective warning. Rhodey hovered above in the air like a watchful guardian, always on defence, watching out for the team and shooting any Xenos that got too close. Eventually the swarm died down though, when they were done, Rhodey quickly scanned the area and determined that they had killed a total rough estimate of forty altogether, including what the other four killed before Rhodey's team showed up.

"That's more than a sixth of the estimated hive size that we've killed since we've been here!"

The Yautja looked upon the team for a moment of pause, watching to see if any would betray his honour. He watched as Samus, Sam and Nomad raised their weapons to it for a moment, Rhodey raised her hand in the universal gesture of "calm the fuck down" or "lower your weapons" if you prefer. The Yautja recognised this, and nodded towards Rhodey before turning and walking away, deeper into the hive. Rhodey then began speaking in a tongue no one could quite understand, with lots of clicks, "ch'ks" and "t'hks'' and other strange sounds when the Yautja froze and turned to her. It tilted its head, probably a sign of amazement.

He then spoke back to her.

"Dtai'k-dte sa-de nav'g-kon dtain'aun bpide/Nau'gkon dtain'aun bpi-de, m-di mar'ct thar'n-da s' yin'tekai, r'ka ui'stbi's setg'in."

Ben asked "What did you say, what did it say?"

"I asked him why he didn't kill us"

"And...?"

"He said 'The fight that has begun would not end until the end, no killing for strength and honour, the Xenomorph's are deadly.' It means he considers us worthy to fight the r'ka's, I mean, Xenos, alongside him."

Ben considered for a moment "Does that mean if we don't finish the fight with him he'll turn on us?"

"Not necessarily..." Rhodey pondered for a moment as the Yautja stood there, still a little stunned by the fact that one of the humans could speak his tongue.

Rhodey spoke again in her clicks and clacks, the Yautja was visibly displeased, body language was universal. The two exchanged words for a little bit, and then the Yautja walked off during its last response and continued towards the hive.

Rhodey turned to the team "I told him that the rest of us need to help our survivors escape, but that I'd follow him to the queen. He said he'd tolerate my presence, but considers those of you who run to be cowardly and pathetic. Protecting those who are weaker than you, he finds our culture odd. I tried to tell him we value family and camaraderie deeply, but he said 'if they can't escape with their lives they don't deserve to have them' were his exact words. Yautja are strange like that, they're very similar to Sangheili in a lot of ways."

Samus chimed in and stepped forward "I'm going with you" "No, you're not." Rhodey retorted "I need everyone to go meet up with the Shepards to escort the survivors, I'll make sure the station-" Samus laughed "Do you really think you can stop me? The others can handle it, they're strong enough together without us." Rhodey sighed. Ben spoke up again "Don't worry Vindicator, we can handle it. The Shepards should already be on the move, we better hurry."

**Location: Facility Reactor**
- 2183, Aug 7

The odd trio walked into the large reactor room quietly, Samus's glow was controllable by her internally, and so she was no longer lit up like a Christmas tree. All of their lights were turned off and their steps were quiet. There were stacks and stacks of eggs piled up around the three of them, and dead hosts lay the scene on grotesque green slime that was shaped almost like a gooey web. All of their chests were burst open. The three of them stopped when they heard the growl of something... big.

Dozens of Praetorians and hundreds of warrior class Xenomorphs filled the scene as they all disengaged their stealth systems. Samus's glow came back bright, signalling her immense power, Rhodey's suit shone hues of blue, and the Predator activated his plasma wrist-blades and mask lights. They were squared up for the showdown of the century. As they stood before the queen and her hive, Rhodey spotted the core reactor behind her, and relayed its position to her teammates in both English and the Yautja language. She then said that she needed a minute to set it to overload, just a minute. When the fighting started, she raced around behind the queen to the control panel, syncing Jarvis with the isolated CPU as acid seemingly rained from the sky from the bloodshed of the serpents.

Commander Rupert had relieved command to Commander John Shepard. Out of the two Shepards, when both were present, he was usually the one to take command. Though they usually found themselves splitting up and taking different squads, that was not the case this time. The twins disagreed on much, but Jane knew that John was the better leader of the two of them. She was more of an attack dog, but still, he always listened to her advice when she gave it, and that was enough for her. Rupert wanted to put himself at the back of the group as he said that they had a habit of ambushing from behind. Jane was in the middle, whilst John lead the large group from the front. The rest of the team was late for the rondezvous, so they pressed on without them. When they reached the labs, they discovered that all the Cerberus troopers were either dead or gone, and the same went for the Weyland Androids. Suddenly the facility started to shake.

"They did it, they set the reactor to blow, it's time to hustle!" Said Jane, confidently and without a smudge of fear in her voice.

It wasn't until they reached the corridor which led to the exit of the facility at the end of the labs that there was trouble. It was as if the Xenos were trying to stop them from leaving. Suddenly, all hell broke lose as Xenos plummeted from the vents and rooftops. Jane focused on using her biotics to keep the things away from as many soldiers as she could. This kept her relatively still, as the rest of the group kept moving and screams echoed down the corridor. The source was a Naval guard that had been penetrated through the chest by a Xenomorph's tail. The creature was soon destroyed via a bullet to the head, with its tail still lodged in the guard.

John got on the comlink to yell at the other teams to hurry up, and to his surprise, most of them were already on their way and coming up behind them. Ben made it first due to his enhancements and suit, followed closely by Nomad and Sam, Isaac not far behind them but running at his full speed, exhausted by the time he caught up.

They only lost two marines and one Naval Guard by the time they reached the exit/entrance of the facility, which meant their total number of soldiers dropped to twenty six, excluding Ben's team and the Vindicates. As the men all ran towards the end of the platform, the Shepards and Rupert stayed with Ben at the entrance. They heard a rapidly approaching commotion, and saw it was Rhodey and Samus racing through the corridoors with what must of been over two hundred Xenomorphs approaching, with no sign of the Yautja.

"RUN!" shouted Rhodey over the comm, and they all turned and ran, but Rhodey and Samus were fast enough to overtake them before they reached the middle of the large plateform.

**Location: Facility Entrance/Landing Pad**
- 2183, Aug 7

The Vindicates and Ben's team were all at the back of the large group as they exited the station, and once they reached the middle ground, they all turned around in a semi-firing formation, each spaced so that they could discharge their weapons without hitting each other.

"Where's the Yautja?!" shouted Ben at Rhodey through the comms.

"His name is Paya, and I don't know, took off after I set the reactor to blow, the Queen and all of her hive-"

She was interrupted by a screeching roar. The entire base was swarming with hundreds of Xenomorphs scurrying over the facility. The Queen's head was beginning to rise from the depths of the base's opening from which they all had run from.

"They're all coming, so get ready to defend yourselves!"

The Xenomorphs seemed to envelop the base like a dark, black slimy blanket. The Cerberus cruiser could be seen in the distance behind them, and it suddenly changed course towards the facility. Rhodey yelled to the Federation General,

"Malkovich, it's time to call in that backup!"

"Already on its way, we just have to wait for it."

Rhodey started eyeing the Atlas Titans .

"I want those Titans online, Jarvis!"

"Ma'am, the power fluctuation from overheating reactor has drained a lot of non-essential systems and those Titans are hooked to the mainframe, both are low on power-"

"Re-route everything you can to the suit on my right, open it up for me." Rhodey turned her attention to the group and quickly did the math in her head in a nanosecond.

"2 pilots, 3 N7s, 4 ODSTs, 10 Marines, 7 Naval Guards, 26 UNSC troopers, then 6 Federation Troopers, 5 Vindicates and 3 of the ONI team, that's 66 fucking people I need to fit into two shuttles, and each only have 12 seats including pilot and co-pilot... fuck me, a lot of people are going to be standing..."

"I'm going to buy you all some time, unload all of the rounds you have in your chambers than get onboard the shuttles!"

"You'll belay that order, men," barked back General Malkovich "Our transport is on its way."

"I hope so, because we aren't going to be waiting for anybody." as soon as she saw the Titan open up, she propelled herself through the air as fast as Newtonian physics would allow her, and slammed into the cockpit.

"Ma'am, are you sure you don't want to vacate the Titan for one of the surviving pilots?" inquired Jarvis.

"Not a chance." She grinned as she stepped forward with the huge mech, focusing all of her remaining attention on that large Xeno Queen, challenging it with every machanized footstep.

"Get away from them, you bitch."

Rhodey had read in the Weyland files that the Queen they were breeding, intentionally, was larger than most Queens and biologically advanced. Its acid was way more potent, its reflexes faster, its strikes stronger than anything she had ever faced before, even the combined might of herself, Samus and the telekinetic Yautja were not enough to bring her down amongst her hive army and numerous Praetorians, though Samus had remarked if they weren't in a react room with allies close by, she possibly could of tried a "power bomb" which was her strongest attack, but it was too unsafe. None of their other ranged attacks hurt it, and it was too difficult to get in closer. The trio managed to destroy all of her eggs and kill all of the Praetorians, but she still had a force of hundreds when they began to retreat and all they had managed to do was make her mad. The Yautja disappeared in the chase as he had done before.

Suddenly, a small fleet of Federation ships came through an FTL rupture, and began firing upon the single Cerberus cruiser as Rhodey stood between the two armies waiting on the large platform to charge each other. Rhodey's Spectral emerged from active camouflage to take troops on board alongside the ONI Stealth Pelican, with the Federation Transport still on the way.

She launched forward with a mechanised punch at the Mother Alien, and was followed by all of her allies opening up with a firing volley at the Xenos. Xenomorph Warriors began jumping onto her mech's frame and spitting acid into the joints. John ordered the two remaining Titan Pilots to jump onto her Titan and fend them off. The pilots mounted the Titan, firing at the aliens with their automatic rifles, but it was not enough to keep all of the Aliens off. That was, until Paya had reappeared, coming down on the Titan with his lightsaber activated. In twirls of light so fast they seemed like bluish blurs, he assaulted all of the Xenomorphs trying to get on board the Titan as Ben shouted orders at the Pilots not to shoot the Yautja.

The three of them managed to keep the Titan clean of Xenos as the metallic goliath punched and dodged the massive Queen, larger than it by a few feet. The punches were enough to hurt the beast, but it just came back harder with every strike, getting more and more enraged as the fight continued. The Federation transport touched down just as the others were getting full. The six Federation Troopers including Adam got on board as the Vindicates, Ben's team and a few remaining UNSC personnel continued the fight against the horde. The remaining survivors would have to stand upright in the transports, and so they made their way into the ships, even the Pilots began their fast paced sprints into the ships, whilst the higher caliber warriors held what ground they could, the swarm seemingly dominating more than 60% of the platform and gaining more. The Federation transport ship holding Malkovich didn't run straight away though, they held position above the platform and gave covering fire whilst the rest were clambering onto the over-cramped transports.

Rhodey was locked in a death drip with the Xeno Queen, only Paya left on her chassis to defend against the smaller soldiers still trying to clamber on her mech. She communed with him in his native tongue again, telling him to retreat. He considered it an insult until Rhodey explained that the machine she drove had a reactor in it and that the "hunt" would be won when she self destructed, killing the Queen and all Xenos in the area. Besides that the facility was about to blow in less than two minutes anyway, destroying everything.

The Yautja complimented her on her sacrifice, to which she responded "I'll live... maybe". He found himself confused, as he left her alone with Queen, relatively alone, she was still shouting at the rest of her team and Ben's to get onboard the transports and get out.

In the end, they were all soldiers, they knew that sometimes there wasn't enough time for explanations, and that sometimes risks, or sacrifices needed to be made, and this was one of those times where all three applied.

The Queen's tail came around piercing the torso of chassis and into her cabin. It went through her shields, kinetic barriers and armour, slicing through the left side of her abdomen, below her ribs, two inches deep. She winced in pain, and her mech was covered in slimy serpents, hissing and spitting acid all over her, and the transports were already taking off.

There was just one problem: the console that would be used to trigger the self destruct sequence was on her left, destroyed by the Queens tail. This usually happened when other Titans punched a hole through another Titan to rip out the pilot. The console within the Titan was destroyed, and this meant no self-destruct sequence could be initiated.

But she had Jarvis in its systems, so she could voice activate it:

"Jarvis, can you activate this Titans self destruct sequence?! ASAP!"

"Initiated."

She leaned forward to pull the lever, as the Queen tried ripping her tail from the mech, obviously clued in to what was happening, she was smart. But her tail didn't quite get dislodged from the Titan as Rhodey found herself grabbing the tail with her mech hands instead of reaching for the lever. It was like some suicidal impulse she had done without even thinking, a subconscious, self destructive act. Then again, it may be that the pain in her side and stress of the situation was affecting her reasoning skills.

She held onto the tail defiantly as her expression turned from fear to determination and anger.

"Jarvis, clamp this down, lock the joints!"

"Done."

She lunged forward for the lever again, opening her wound more as she yanked it down. She was propelled out of her cockpit at dangerous speeds, were it not for her armour's inertial dampeners she would have felt tremendous G-force, but it still wasn't enough to get away from the explosion in time. She had to increase her speed with her suit's thrusters to get away from the chasing flames. The Queen was stuck with its tail lodged into the Titan, its hands clamped down automatically locked into a deathgrip with her, and she sung out her last cry of life. When Rhodey made it past the energy shield surrounding the base she was exposed to the hazards of space, the shield was what was keeping the oxygenated air inside and thus made the explosion possible, and because her suit was broken and cut open, she had to propel herself quickly. She aimed herself towards the Spectral, which opened up for her, with Samus standing on the edge of the door, a hand outstretched to grab her.

The facility was beginning to break apart, the Titan she detonated activated a chain of explosions, and the main reactor hadn't even blown yet. The Federation had severely damaged and disabled the Cerberus cruiser as they were leaving, making the Federation the clear victors of this battle. She outstretched her hand to Samus, barely hanging onto consciousness from the loss of blood, the Gs she was pulling, and exposure to the vacuum. Samus quickly pulled her inside the ship, and it closed and pressurized so she could breath again. She took in a huge gasps for air before she slowly stood up.

"We did it." she managed a smile as she winced in pain "Jarvis, can you do anything about that?"

"You didn't have time to install biofoam injectors, I recommend making the necessary upgrades when you ca-"

"Don't lecture me, but it's noted."

Samus stepped forward to assist her "Do you need any help?"

"No, I'll be alright."

Ben was the one to voice his concerns next, but not in the way Rhodey hoped "You should really get that wound checked, the UNSC has some of the best docto-" to which she interrupted

"I am the best doctor, and I can patch myself up when we get back to our base... what the hell are you even doing on this ship anyway?"

"There wasn't enough room on the other ship, that's why we-" he indicated the other UNSC servicemen onboard as well "had to jump onboard your private craft."

"Who's piloting?"

Isaac Clarke's head popped out from the cockpit, sitting alongside an ODST. "I have you covered boss, and Rupert's piloting the Pelican, since we have Ben, he's going to follow us where we go."

Ben replied sternly "We all got mixed up, some of your crew got on board the Pelican, I got onboard here, it was the closest to me in the evacuation..."

"Looks like we have a problem here then..." said Rhodey, her expression turning grim

"I suggest a neutral port..." Ben's voice trailed off into silence, he was going to say more but as he read her expression he knew something was wrong.

"My wounds won't hold up that long, I need to get this fixed now, I'm bleeding internally and I've lost a lot of blood already, I'm sorry Ben..." she looked up at Samus as she fell into her arms "Do what needs to be done" Samus put her down on the only empty space there was on the floor gently. "Sorry, Ben.." she said as she raised her arm cannon to his face.

"You've got to be bloody kidding me!?" He raised his assault rifle as did most of the other UNSC personnel.

"Samus, c'mon."

She simply ignored him and leaned over to her side to get a view of Isaac, who was turned around in his chair, hands still on the controls, freaking out about the situation "What the hell's going on!?"

"Take us home, Isaac, there are some cells we can put these guys in if we need to, until we get Rhodey fixed and sort this out." she glanced around "And by the way, boys, this armour is more than enough to hold up against what you have, and believe me; you don't want to be on the receiving end of this cannon."

## Trivia

Chapter 6 was originally part of Chapter 5, but was split after the reuploading.