Halo: T.O.Z.O.A. Ch. 1

Chapter 6

Tozoa sat in the cockpit of the ship, flying through the last layer of earth's atmospheric conditions. Tozoa turned to Pace "Now we're off the planet, but we still need a ship with slipspace capability." Tozoa rasped, his voiced seemed to be getting better. Tozoa opened up the onboard computer. "There's a ship 'The Intent of Main' Docked at one of the space elevators," Tozoa continued "We can highjack that, seems the crew is on leave, we will have no trouble taking it." Tozoa smiled in his helmet; finally peace was so close he could taste it.

"this is gunna be fun" said Pace he walked up and tried to unlock the ship...nothing, he pulled out his side arm and unloaded a clip into the outer door, and then kicked it with all his force...that should work, the two of them walked into the ship and Tozoa jammed his hand into the center AI and overrode it and HE used HIS AI to run the ship, and they took off it took hours, but Daniel finally picked the lock of his cell door. The brutes had already evacuated the ship due to a false alarm, so he had no worry of that rather large guard that was there earlier. However, he wanted to make sure that no one had stayed behind. Daniel noticed a glint from the corner of his left eye. It seemed that one of the brutes forgot to take his plasma rifle.

Daniel picked up the weapon and moved onto the bridge. His hearing was not the best (he did work with explosives after all) but he could still hear voices through the door leading to the main cockpit. Daniel rubbed his plasma rifle for luck and kicked the door down.

"Whoa, whoa!" Pace yelled out at Daniel as he burst into the door with a plasma rifle pointed right at his face. Pace responded by pointing his assault rifle right at Daniel. Tozoa lost his focus for a moment, causing the ship to jerk and Daniel to fall on top of Pace.

"What the hell? What are you doing here?" Daniel yelled, trying to regain his bearings.

"We should ask you the same thing, Guy!" Pace barks as he gets up as well.

"I'm a prisoner of war, what's your excuse?"

"We're fighting this damn war! Is that a good enough excuse, or do I need to tell you my life story?"

"Don't go into labor at the same time, you two," Tozoa joked under his breath.

"You're right. Sorry, man. My names Daniel by the way," Daniel said.

"My name's Pace. Since you're already on here, you might as well come along. Don't think that means we trust you. For all we know, you could be a brute in a marine suit just waiting to rip our throats out. So, what do you do; anyway?" Pace asked.

"I blow crap up. Grenades, charges, rocket launchers, you name it," Daniel said. "So, where's this ash pot headed, anyway?"

"Havana," Tozoa replied.

"Hell, as long as I don't have to go back in that cell. You can tell me what's going on later, that floor was not easy to sleep on," Daniel yawned right before crashing in Pace's seat.

"*Sigh,* it's gonna be a long ride," Pace breathed.

Pace shook Dan "you blow crap up, huh?" Pace asked "well I guess you can come along then, but you gotta get outta my damn chair..." Dan stood up and walked back to the bedrooms. "Thank you." Pace said retaking his place in the front of the ship.

"I like the guy, he could help us" Pace said to Tozoa.

Daniel quickly fell asleep on one of the convenient beds. It wasn't quite as soft as the beds on his old ship, "The Bounty of Loyalty;" but a bed is a bed. Still thinking about his old ship, he soon went into a dream.

"Danny, I find it hard to believe you've grown this much from when you were a rookie," Lieutenant Richard Shayman; Daniel's longtime friend and mentor; exclaimed proudly.

"Don't forget, Ritchie, I had a good grower," Daniel happily replied.

"What the hell does that mean?" Richard asked.

"You made me what I am today, Ritch," Daniel explained. "Without you I would probably be stuck to the bottom of a Wraith by now."

"Daniel, I know you look up to me, but a lot of that was you. I only helped it along. If I died right now..."

"Don't say that. I can't imagine what it would be like without you. Who else would I drag myself to if you got hit?"

Before Richard could answer, a loud rumbling suddenly arose as red lights suddenly filled the bridge. Both the bellowing voices of brutes and the bloodcurdling screams of UNSC troops could be heard from all around.

"Daniel, get out now, I'm going to kill as many of these Brutes as I can," Richard yelled before lowering his visor and cocked his SMG.

"I can't leave you behind, Richard!" Daniel yelled back as two large brutes in gold armor stepped through one of the doors.

"That's a damn order, trooper! Get out NOW!" Richard screamed with his SMG spraying bullets at the brutes coming toward him. However, that didn't stop the one on the left from grabbing his helmet and holding him up in the air.

"I've heard humans can be pretty rubbery, want to do a hands-on experiment?" the brute laughed while Richard flailed around aimlessly in his giant hand. The brute grabbed onto the lieutenant's legs with his free hand, then began holding him up and pushing both hands closer and closer to each other. Richard's stomach went upwards as he screamed in agony until a frightening *rip* was heard and his torso exploded with red.

"You monsters!" Daniel screamed charging blindly at the brutes while firing with his magnum as fast as his finger would allow. The brute on the right responded by delivering a full body attack directly to Daniel's body, knocking him unconscious.

Daniel woke up from his dream in a cold sweat on the ground.

"*Sigh,* it was just a dream," he whispered. However, the brute's body slam seemed to have felt a little too real. Then, he was flung into the air and heard an explosion nearby. Tozoa sat in the Med bay, his armor lay on the table next to him, Tozoa was wearing a standard UNSC cabin suit, Though it took him a minute to find one that would fit, Tozoa sat in the chair as his AI fixed his suit, he was reading off of a hollow pad checking the specks of the ship, Tozoa was keeping an eye on Pace and Dan with the ships cameras, Pace was asleep sitting up, and Dan lay in a bed, jerking sometimes. Tozoa smiled, he was about to get answers for everything. "You think you know everything? Remember everything?" a voice echoed inside Tozoa's head, he looked around the room, the voice sounded female. "You have only hit the tip of your memory, your world is about to change, Havana will open up your full brains potential. All the people you know, have befriended, have seen, and will seem extremely different." she spoke. "Who are you?" Tozoa whispered. "I? I am you. Your memory. Your sins." she said. Tozoa stood up, a sudden burst in air pressure, Tozoa saw that deck 3 was expelling atmosphere, He looked through the external cameras. Covenant.