Welcome to Gaia! ::

Steven had just picked off a jackle that was trying to flank him when he heard Danes shouting again. Glancing around to check his possision relative to the ship's, he began to edge back to the shuttle. He ducked out of the way as a grunt fired a plasma pistol at him,and he rolled into a dead marine who was missing a leg.
"Poor guy, don't even want to know how you lost a leg," Steven said to the corpse as he took the man's dog tags. He looked over his shoulder to the shuttle again. Tucking away the dog tags into a pocket, Steven stood up and sprinted for the shuttle and the rest of his squad while ducking past plasma bursts.

Danes crouched and pulled Corey by his collar farther away from the airlock. The last thing he needed was a dead medic. Those were never pretty, and killed squad morale faster than anything short of a dead commander. Neither of those was going to happen so long as Danes was in charge.

"Then this isn't a fight we want to be a part of," Danes replied, and moved toward the airlock, but did not reveal himself. "Everyone in now! We're getting the hell out! Last one in, shut the door!" Then he looked over at Corey. "Can you walk on your own?"

Steven was now sprinting for safety. He was barely eight feet from the airlock when a bolt of plasma skimmed along the edge of his boot. "Son of a b***h that burns!" he shouted as his boot began to melt and the intense heat seeped through to his skin. He ground his teeth and kept on running for the airlock.

"I'm here Sir!" Steven said as he limped through the airlocks and gave a shaky salute to Sargent Danes, "I gonna go sit down now if ya don't mind Sir, my foot has just been cooked well done." Slowly, Steven shuffled over to the nearest place to sit, and sank downwards. Looking down at his hurt foot, Steven couldn't believe how close he had been to losing his foot; the bolt of plasma had thankfully only nicked the boot on his right foot, and the boot had since then melted around his foot.

Danes nodded to them and sat beside Steven on the bench. He reached up and touched the side of his helmet. It was a habit when he was talking over the com links. "This is Squad Bravo. Any updates, sir? More specifically, a destination?"

"We're making a jump, soldier. I'd reco-shhhk-rapping in and prepping for a rough shhhk-ding. We've just received a report from Pillar of Autumn. They found something, and are being pursued."

After a few seconds, in which Danes briefly felt beside himself, the voice returned. "Holy s**t. You might want to come see this..."

Danes rose from the bench and looked at the other two. "You heard the man. Let's get moving. Maybe we can get you all properly treated as well."

"To the bridge, soldier. Let's go!" He offered his arm to help him up, and then began moving at the quickest pace Steven could manage. Whatever it was, it must be big to elicit that sort of reaction. So he hurried, with Steven as the only hindrance to the possibility of sprinting.

When they arrived, he found out just what was up. "Holy s**t," Danes muttered. Out the front view port, there floating in space was an enormous ring, reflecting the nearby star's light. It was the size of a large moon in diameter, but empty in the middle; a perfect ring, floating like a halo over the nearby planet.

Now that he focused, he could also see a small battle raging. The Pillar of Autumn was under assault, and star's light glancing off the hull of boarding ships revealed to him a whole world of troubles. "How long until we link up with them?" Danes inquired.

"They're making an emergency landing on the ring, and you're going to join up with them while we try to hold off the attackers," the comm master replied.

Danes welled up with a deep pride and appreciation for these men and women. Going into a battle solo like that was damned near suicide, and they were going to do it to buy his team, and the teams aboard the Autumn some time to get a head start on the Covenant. He nodded slowly. "Alright. Which drop ship?"

"Umm, that's a problem."

"What?" Danes was unsure where this was going.

"You're going to have to go in Helljumper style." The comm master was entirely serious.

"Are..." Danes sighed. "Wow. Do you have extra jumpsuits?"

"Down by the launch pods we do."

Danes nodded again. "Alright, then we'll get suited up, and make that jump... But if I don't hit planetside, I'm haunting your a**. Sir." He smiled, and the comms master chuckled. At least they could maintain something of a light humor.

Steven braced against Danes for support as they went as fast they could. Upon reaching the destination Steven's foot was aching from the effort. But the feeling was nothing compared to what he felt when he look outside the ship. He was awestruck by the sight of the giant ring floating in space, almost enough to where he almost missed the word Helljumper.
"Uh Sir, I got a bad feeling about this, and not just because my foot is still healing from that burn," Steven said to Danes without looking away from the ring, from the Halo.