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~Chapter 15: Touchdown~ Caelin and Frank approached the landing zone, where a crashed Longsword laid broken in the sand. Black smoke trailed off from behind and into the sky. Ash noticed blood stain in the sand, as well as a trooper who laid over on a dune. Passed out. Caelin landed the Pelican first. The thrusters stirred the sand up and paved out a nice area to land on. Frank followed up and landed the Falcon a few hundred feet away from the Pelican. However, he stayed inside the Falcon. As well as Magnus and Runner stayed on their turrets. Ash, Junior, and Michael exited the Pelican and headed over to the soldier, he didn’t appear wounded but he was unconscious. Ash and Junior picked him up and carried him back to the Pelican. Michael took point, just in case of any threats that hid in the crashed Longsword. Ash and Junior set Jackson in one of the Pelican’s seats. Junior took over and began to do his best. Hopefully Jackson would recover and wake up. “He has a pulse, but I don’t know for how long.” Junior said as he cleaned up an infectious wound on his left cheek. Appeared to be a cut from a Brute spiker. Ash sat there and watched as Junior cleaned him, everyone else was on the lookout for enemy movement. So-far, there was none. “Any idea where the others are?” Junior asked Ash without looking over as he continued to clean up Jackson’s wounds. “No, but one of them must have been killed or even ate by the Brutes. With all that blood out there, I’m guessing they were ate. The third one? No clue, I’m as clueless as you are. Maybe Jackson will know when he wakes up.” Ash responded to Junior, with a little worrisome in her voice. She cared for these guys as much as they all did. They were like family to her, since she had none left. They were all killed by insurrectionists. Her desire to find those Innies and kill them, was unbelievable. She couldn’t do it yet, not now when her friend’s were missing and they were trying to find the murderer who lead them through all of this. Ash heard a cough, she looked over. Jackson was awake, he had troubles with having them keep open. Dehydration nonetheless. She watched as Junior gave him some water, not too much. He was going to ease him on little by little. Jackson breathed with relief, “Thanks Junior, I thought I was done for.” Jackson coughed after that, must have been because of the water. “No problem sir, we came to find you after all. UNSC Warlord and the others are out of orbit. However we’re expecting them to hopefully be back in three to four days.” Junior responded as he put his supplies away. “They took Archangel.” Jackson said. “Who did?” Ash jumped quickly with her question, concerned. That also means Dexter was the one who was killed, and if they didn’t take him. Then that must have meant he was ate. “The Brutes. An Elite was going to kill him, but they decided against it and used him as bait for the Brutes. All I know is they called the one Verite. He’s next in command with Lan Chorus, except he wasn’t here. Only Verite was, but he was soon to flee. His Banshees were nearly two hundred meters away.” Jackson said, he paused to take a deep breath. “So if the Brute’s took Archangel, would that have meant they could have taken Joseph as well?” Ash questioned. “We need to find them.” “I watched the Brutes eat Dexter. It was a horrible sight, and I watched them take Archangel. If what you think is true about Joseph, then that can only mean one thing. They are baiting us into coming to rescue them. To take us all in.” Jackson stated, this was only just his theory. He didn’t really know. He was too exhausted to remember. “If that’s true, we have to save them. We need them. We have nothing else to do, we’re stranded. We all might die here, even the troopers at the LZ camp. We’re short on food. Our time isn’t long, it’s already been almost two days since we’ve been here.” Ash said. “Well we can go get them, but just be careful. They do have Vampire’s. Probably not very many overall, but they brought four of them here when the Chieftain arrived. I suppose this Chieftain is the Brute tribe leader of all the Brutes in the area. We have to be careful if we want to do this. Now tell me, what do we have that we can use against the Brutes back at the camp?” Jackson asked, thinking about a plan. “We have everything we would need. Combat wise, that is.” Ash told him. “Is there a Mammoth and heavy vehicles we could use?” Jackson started to put his plan together. “Yes, but only one. There are a few Scorpions. No more than five in total though.” Ash said. The Falcon’s turrets shot for about five seconds outside before they went silent again. They listened as two banshee’s rammed into the ground and exploded. “As I was saying before we were interrupted, UNSC Warlord was forced to leave so they sent down as much as they could before they left. Which was almost nothing. Surviving fighters fled here. Surprisingly, none were chased by Lan Chorus’s troops. Those who didn’t flee, died.” Ash said. “Well in that case, we got a small military. Enough to take back our troops. We’ll need all the air support we can get, but that Mammoth will be our one way ticket to giving the final push. The MAC gun and the rocket turrets will support us against any aerial vehicle as well as take out any Vampires that come after our Falcon or any other air support we need.” Jackson said, his plan sounded pretty good to everyone. “I can probably talk a few of the others into helping out.” Caelin said. “And who are you?” Jackson said, not knowing about the new pilot that joined their team. “My name is Caelin, and this is my Pelican you are sitting in.” Caelin said, a smile on her face. “Well Caelin, hopefully you can do your best. We’ll need you.” Jackson said. He stood up and waved at Frank to get his Falcon back and up into the air. “Good, I sure hope we can as well.” Caelin said. “Anything you need at the moment?” “Yes, take us back to the camp.” Jackson said. He stood up and walked towards the back of the door and stopped at the edge. “Alrighty sir. Will do.” Caelin said, she headed up and started the thrusters. “Jackson, I like what you’re doing but I don’t know how this is going to workout for us. We’re going to lose some of our friends.” Ash told him, she stood beside him on the edge. Looking at him through her visor. “Don’t worry, I have it all planned out.” Jackson said. He pulled down the machine gun turret and destroyed a Ghost that was headed their way, probably a scout. “Sure, whatever you say.” Ash said, then walked into the cockpit. Caelin had the Pelican up in the air, she punched the thrusters. Frank followed up. ~End of Chapter 15~