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The Toa of the Earth.

Part four. Reunion.

Present Day.

Derian sighed as he recalled what had happened on the planet Earth. Although his time there was short, it was truly eventful. He stared again at the cylinder in front of him, wondering again if it truly was what he thought it was. He heard footsteps behind him, one foot sounded organic and soft, the other, heavy and mechanical.
Lieutenant Catherine McClain walked up behind him and gasped at the sight of the cylinder. He noticed she was getting better on her new mechanical leg. The tourniquet had indeed stopped her from bleeding to death that day, but it had deadened the leg as well, causing it to be amputated. A slight hissing noise emanating from the pod caused him to snap his focus back onto it. The door was turning, and opening. At first nothing moved, but then a familiar gruff voice said,
"That was the worst airline flight I've ever been on."
Sergeant Davis stumbled out of the pod, still a bit disoriented. Then out climbed the Corpsman, then Corporal Masterson, who made a sarcastic comment about how he loved the taste of vomit, courtesy of inter-dimensional travel. Then out climbed Lieutenant Peters, clutching his side with one hand, and gripping an EU weapon in the other. When Catherine saw him, she gave a cry of relief and embraced him tightly. Peters winced at this, but patted her on the back anyway. Derian was truly amazed. How had they managed to survive? I must ask them, he thought to himself as he welcomed his old allies. "So, these are the famed humans I keep hearing about," Called a deep voice.
There stood a figure in red and golden armor, with a flaming sword, and a kanohi hau. "Toa Tahu!"
Exclaimed Derian.
"Yes, these are indeed the humans that you've heard of. They saved the lives of both me and this human female here,"
He said pointing to Catherine, who had her arm around Peters' shoulders. Now that he looked carefully, Derian realized he was in poor shape. He had been shot in one leg, a massive bullet had obviously hit him in the ribs, his eye was blackened by a bruise, and there was a large cut along his arm. He must've been in a fight to escape here, thought Derian. There was a look of recognition in Peters' eyes when he saw Tahu.
"You're the Toa from the satellite image!"
He exclaimed in surprise. The Toa was confused by this, but waved it aside and said, "Let us get you to Toa Gali, she can heal you, and you're in sorry need of it."
Peters nodded and followed the Toa of Fire to a large village, where he was treated with suspicion. At first Peters was bewildered. He had saved the life of Derian for goodness sake! But then he remembered the fight with the Toa outside of Tesara.
These people have every right to be suspicious of me,
he thought to himself. Tahu directed him to a blue house, in which sat cross legged a figure that Peters assumed was Toa Gali. She was different from the other Toa he had seen. For one, she had more armor. Secondly, she had a strange symbol carved into her axes, which Tahu later explained was her "Nuva Symbol" and, "Nuva Armor". Third, she treated the humans with kindness.
"Sister," Tahu began.
"This one is in need of healing, and perhaps you can help?"
Gali looked carefully over the battered form of First Lieutenant John Peters with the eyes of a nurturing healer. She made a cup with her hands, and glowing water appeared inside of them, she pushed the water, and it floated in mid-air to Peters' form, which soothed his pain on contact. He sighed in relief, and looked down to find that his wounds had closed, and his bruises and scrapes were no longer visible.
"Thank you, Ma'am,"
He said gratefully to Toa Gali. She smiled and said,
"It is my pleasure to help you, after what you've done for Toa Derian."
Peters nodded, smiled, and was escorted out of the hut. He felt a million times better and more refreshed. Catherine was the first to notice he no longer walked with a limp, but instead the strong, confident gait of a Marine Officer. Toa Derian welcomed him back and walked the humans into his hut, where they sat down at a large table.
"So Peters," began Derian, "You must tell me, how did you escape?"
Peters responded gravely,
"It's a long story, but it sounds like we have some time, so I'll get right into it." Derian nodded and waited for Peters to begin.
"It started yesterday, at about 4:00 A.M…"

Yesterday…

It has to be today.
That thought repeated itself through Peters' mind as he woke up to another nightmare in his prison cell. An alarm went off, signaling to the guards he was awake. They approached his cell, unlocked it, and marched him out to the interrogation chamber. For three years, he had been sleep deprived because of his PTSD, starved to make him talk, beaten, electrocuted, drugged, and a number of other things, just to get him to talk about the planet he had been on three years ago. He had of course refused to do so and only spoke three things: his name, his rank, and his serial number. For three years he had lived in hell. For three years he had watched his men suffer on his behalf. For three years he had waited for rescue and word from Spherus Magna, only to slowly realize day by day that there would be no rescue. This did nothing but harden his resolve to escape, or die trying. He had spent weeks scheming, thinking, and conceiving a plan sufficient to break him out.
Finally, he had it. He would do what he hoped nobody would be expecting: he would give in. The problem was the one-hundred to one chance that it would blow up in his face terribly, and the timing, and the being right in his guess of when the next pod was going up. The door to the torture chamber was opened, to reveal a pained Davis with a car battery being used to electrocute him. The Director noticed Peters, and shut off the flow of electricity, letting Davis collapse to the floor panting and spasming in agony. The Director grinned visciously and said with a malicious grin,
"If you don't start talking soon, I shall be forced to play a dangerous little game."
Davis looked up with a look of disgust on his face and spat,
"You go right ahead sweetheart, I'll be right here when you're done playing patty cake." "Get him out of here,"
The Director said sharply to the guards. The guards nodded and picked up Davis and began walking his smoking form back to his cell. He nodded to Peters on his way out. This was it, the five minute window without the guards to fake giving in.
"Let's start, shall we?"
The Director cackled holding the jumper cables from the car battery in the threatening fashion of a madman who loved to inflict pain. He lunged in and shocked Peters with around 300 volts of electricity, causing a scream to escape his lips. "Now," said the Director, "Tell me what you saw on that planet, and your suffering will finally end." Peters' response was to spit at him.
"Fine, have it your way!"
He shouted in his face. Again and again he shocked and beat Peters, but to no avail. One minute left before the guards come back, he thought carefully. If he broke now, it would be believable. Intense pain, three years in captivity, a madman greeting him every day, it would be no surprise at this point.
"Enough!" Peters cried.
The Director paused and lowered his instruments of torture.
"At last, Mr. Peters, everyone cracks, you just took longer. Now tell me, what did you see?"
"We saw, a race of savages, armed with explosive projectile weapons and various types of swords; they were more organic than the Toa. There was also a city in the jungle; it was home to the Toa and some little guys too. That's all I remember."
It wasn't much, but it was good enough for the Director.
"Now will you please let me go?"
Peters asked, choking up in fake emotion. The Director was quite unfazed by the theatrics,
"I'm afraid I can't let you go, you've just seen too much,"
The Director drew a revolver and held it up to Peters' chest.
"Goodbye, Mr. Peters."
At the last second, he kicked the Director hard in the shins, causing him to jump back in pain and discharge the weapon into Peters' kneecap, sending waves of white pain through his body. But there was no time; instead he head butted him sharply, knocking the Director unconscious. Peters snatched up the revolver, and used a bullet to sever the chain on his handcuffs, leaving two very ugly bracelets instead of iron restraints. The guards burst into the room, only to receive a bullet in the chest each. A third guard ran around the corner, only to have a hole put into his heart.
Out of ammo, Peters thought as he snatched up the pistols of the guards. He charged down the hallway to the cells where he found the Marines staring amazed at the sight of their freed leader. He fired a bullet into each door, opening them with ease. He distributed the three pistols among the Marines, leaving himself armed with a knife he picked up from the third guard he encountered.
"Listen up! We've got five minutes before they get wise to us and lock us down. The only place we can go is Spherus Magna. There's a pod prepped and ready to go for a launch planned later today, let's have an early launch, shall we?"
The Marines nodded and slowly jogged down the hallway, slowing down to account for Peters' severe limp. There was one guard in the launch control room, who surrendered upon seeing the free and armed prisoners. Corporal Masterson walked up and prepared to shoot him but was stopped by a sharp,
"Stand down!"
Peters then turned to David Wetherbey, who was cowering in the corner and said,
"I know you hate the Director as much as I do. Consider this your chance to get back at him. Set the shuttle for launch in one minute, and delay any guards who might try to stop us. Will you do it?"
David tentatively nodded and moved for the controls, typing in some commands, and a one minute timer appeared on the screen.
"T-this is you chance, y-yank. T-take it while you c-can."
Peters nodded and moved the Marines outside to the launch pad.
"This time, we're all going, okay guys?"
Peters said to his men, scanning the doors leading to the launch pad for hostiles intent on stopping him. None appeared, for now. Peters was the last to enter the shuttle, and with only ten seconds remaining, he entered and sealed the door behind him. "Ten, nine, eight," Came the monotone voice over the PA. Peters sighed and looked into the ceiling of the craft. Spherus Magna, here I come.

************************************************************************

"So that's how you got out?"
Asked Derian. Peters nodded and said,
"Yes, that's how we got out. Unfortunately, the Director probably has forces inbound already, so we should make preparations."
"Like what?" Replied the Toa of Earth.
"Warn the people, get the other Toa ready. Set up a watch, and see what you can do to tick off the Bone Hunters, get them nice and savage for when the enemy arrives."
"But," began Catherine warily, "How can we fight them? All of our weapons and equipment is back on earth at Black Widow HQ. I don't suppose we can just go back can we?"
Peters shook his head,
"No, we can't go back without being shot out of the sky as soon as we teleport. However, one thing I left out was that we managed to recover all of our gear and then some. It's back in the shuttle, so we should empty that and get ready as soon as possible."
Peters stood up to do so, but started sweating, and then fell to his knees. His breathing sounded labored, and his face was pale. The Corpsman dashed up to him, checking his pulse.
"Okay, here's the problem. You've still got the bullets lodged in your stomach, knee, and shoulder from when we escaped. You sort of understated how many times you were shot, and I'll be honest here, I'm amazed you're still conscious. The real problem, is that whatever voodoo magic the blue Toa used on you, just closed the wounds and made you feel better physically, you're still really messed up inside. So, I'm going to have to operate to get the lead out of you."
Peters nodded slightly, and made a shaky attempt to get up, which didn't fare very well at all for him.
"Okay, operating time," The Corpsman muttered as he jabbed Peters with a sedative. One, two, three seconds, he struggled to retain consciousness, but eventually, blissful, medicinally induced sleep, overtook him.

1 hour later…

The world seemed blurry, distorted, and almost hallucination-generated. But no, it was only the heavy morphine and sedative wearing off on him. He groggily sat up, noting that he was on a slightly bloodstained stretcher with an IV tube in his arm. A door opened, and the Corpsman entered, checking his vitals, and then recording it on a stone slab with what appeared to be a fireball on a stick with a metal casing on the end.
"Okay, your vitals are looking good, all the bullets and shrapnel are out of you, and you look like you've been in a car wreck going 90 MPH."
Peters cleared his thoughts and paused before responding in a reassuring tone,
"I've been worse."
This wasn't true, as these were some serious injuries, alone he had sustained them, but together, well, it wasn't a pretty sight.
"If you really feel all right, I can discharge you, but you have to promise to take it easy, okay?"
Peters slowly nodded his head, throwing his feet off the side of the stretcher and saying, "Understood."
I'll take it easy when I'm dead, Peters thought to himself, but quickly correcting his thoughts, as his confidence had indeed gotten him into trouble before. He walked out of the room, attempting to look confident and on top of the world for his squad. It worked, in a way, but did not really convince anyone.
"If anyone doesn't mind, I'll go relieve whoever's on watch duty."
This comment did not surprise anyone. So like Peters to try to get back in action, no matter how small the, "Action," really was, all while maintaining that icy mask that he let down for almost nobody. And even then, he was hard, careful, and professional. As soon as he was outside, he decided to pace around the premises, get acquainted with the terrain, and besides, if everything was on schedule, he still had about 10 minutes before the watchman was due to be relieved. It had been three years last he did a proper PT session, which he did in a, "Take it easy," Sort of manner.
It left him slightly tired, but satisfied that he was back on track. He checked his watch, which seemed to be off in time, because Spherus Magna has a different rotation and revolution cycle then Earth does.
One minute, better get a move on. He jogged over to where he suspected the watchman to be, and his guess was correct, in a tree, cleverly disguised, was Catherine, and armed with an M-7 Light Marksman Rifle. She had already retrieved her gear from the pod, as Peters had done right before PT. He knocked on the tree, almost cracking a smile when Catherine jumped.
"What are you doing up this late? It's 3 AM. You should be resting."
Peters climbed up unto an adjacent branch on the tree saying,
"When did I ever start listening to you?"
She huffed, and swung over to his branch on the tree to sit next to him.
"So what's up?"
He shrugged and adjusted his Kevlar and titanium vest.
"Shrug? What's that supposed to mean? I thought the men were supposed to try and fail at being mind readers in a relationship while the women get to shrug all day!"
This time, he did smile, a truly rare sight.
"What's that?"
She said pointing to a picture taped to his forearm armor padding.
"I thought you would remember, Catherine. After all, it was our wedding day."
Her eyes widened as she took hold of the picture and looked at it with tears of joy in her eyes at the memory.
"You would not believe the strings I had to pull to get you reassigned to my unit,"
He said in a calm tone as he put his arm around her. It would've been a strange sight to a Toa, had they been able to pierce the deception of the ghillie suit netting that surrounded them like a tiny hunting blind. However, as invisible to the naked eye as they were, James Masterson had managed to get his hands on a pair of thermal vision goggles from the pod, so as Peters started leaning to kiss his wife and second in command, he began laughing loud enough to wake up everything for a mile around. There was a rustle and the sound of Catherine yelping in surprise and almost falling out of the tree. He didn't stop laughing even when he noted that there were two laser sights on his heart that didn't exactly go away when the owners realized who they were pointing them at.
"Peters and McClain, sitting in a tree-" He began before he was cut off by an under barrel tazer from Peters, who's turn it was now to laugh as Masterson spasmodically attempted to resume speaking, which produced hilarious results,
"E-gaah-petr-gih-ow!"
"What's that Corporal? I can't hear you over your own stupidity!"
Catherine called while suppressing a laugh. He finally managed to drag himself back to Derian's large apartment-house, his lesson learned. As soon as he was back inside, the two began laughing.
"I don't think he knew," Catherine said in-between breaths.
"He knew I was married, he'd seen the photo, he just didn't know it was you."
Peters sighed and loaded another Tazer slug into his under barrel launcher, shifting restlessly on the tree branch that supported him and Catherine.
"Remember how I proposed to you?"
Catherine grimaced and nodded.
"It wasn't under the most pleasant of circumstances, I'll say that much."
Peters recalled briefly, it had been a massive fight with an enemy he could barely remember, Yemen insurrectionists; he'd tried to find her, mowing down everything that wasn't wearing the American Flag. Finally he found her, right in the middle of shooting out the knees of a man armed with an AK-117, and then executing him with a quick headshot. In the time it took her to shoot out his knees and execute him, Peters was fighting with a Ka-bar knife and a suppressed pistol, stabbing and shooting furiously. They were being overrun, and he knew it.
It's now or never, he thought to himself, chucking a smoke grenade to signal for evacuation and yanking a small black-painted box out of his pocket, dropping on one knee, and shouting over the noise of gunfire and explosions,
"Catherine McClain, will you marry me?"
She almost didn't follow through with a quick jab to a man's throat that crushed his windpipe, leaving him to a slow and painful death.
"What did you say?"
She asked with a shocked look on her face.
"I said, 'will you marry me'?"
She almost looked like she was going to cry. She nodded and said,
"Ye-"
But that was all she got out before a mortar came whistling down, Peters noticing it just in time and tackled her to the ground, using himself as a human shield, the resulting blast caused both to lose consciousness almost instantly. The next thing Peters knew, he was in a medical helicopter, attempting to evacuate the wounded survivors from the combat zone. Miraculously, Catherine was unhurt, but the same could not be said for Peters. He had several broken bones, shrapnel wounds, and a minor concussion. The medics said he had used his body as a human shield, his Kevlar and titanium vest and helmet were the only things that kept him alive.
Somehow, he was awake and manning the machine gun on the side of the Z-559 Black Raven Helicopter, the gunner shot through the head. However, it's hard to aim from a helicopter going over 100 MPH with targets so far below him he could barely make them out. Eventually though, they managed to land in a safe zone, and the rest was history.
"That was some ride," Peters said.
"You saved my life," Catherine began, "The least I could do was say yes."
She removed his mirrored shades, and stared at the scar below his eye, the shrapnel wound that almost blinded him but barely missed his eye.
"You could've had that scar repaired you know."
Peters shrugged and muttered, "I don't like to forget."
He sighed and leaned back into the tree, and put his arm around Catherine's shoulders again. Then he noticed something in the sky, it looked like a shooting star, a shooting star heading for the ground.
"They're here," Peters whispered.
He quickly kissed Catherine on the cheek and leaped down from the tree, a 20 foot fall that he managed to survive by rolling when he hit the ground and dashing to the city of Tesara. Catherine gripped her rifle tightly, grim determination in her eyes, and a faint smile anticipating the battle to come.

Description
The Toa of the Earth.

Part four. Reunion.

Present Day.

Derian sighed as he recalled what had happened on the planet Earth. Although his time there was short, it was truly eventful. He stared again at the cylinder in front of him, wondering again if it truly was what he thought it was. He heard footsteps behind him, one foot sounded organic and soft, the other, heavy and mechanical.
Lieutenant Catherine McClain walked up behind him and gasped at the sight of the cylinder. He noticed she was getting better on her new mechanical leg. The tourniquet had indeed stopped her from bleeding to death that day, but it had deadened the leg as well, causing it to be amputated. A slight hissing noise emanating from the pod caused him to snap his focus back onto it. The door was turning, and opening. At first nothing moved, but then a familiar gruff voice said,
"That was the worst airline flight I've ever been on."
Sergeant Davis stumbled out of the pod, still a bit disoriented. Then out climbed the Corpsman, then Corporal Masterson, who made a sarcastic comment about how he loved the taste of vomit, courtesy of inter-dimensional travel. Then out climbed Lieutenant Peters, clutching his side with one hand, and gripping an EU weapon in the other. When Catherine saw him, she gave a cry of relief and embraced him tightly. Peters winced at this, but patted her on the back anyway. Derian was truly amazed. How had they managed to survive? I must ask them, he thought to himself as he welcomed his old allies. "So, these are the famed humans I keep hearing about," Called a deep voice.
There stood a figure in red and golden armor, with a flaming sword, and a kanohi hau. "Toa Tahu!"
Exclaimed Derian.
"Yes, these are indeed the humans that you've heard of. They saved the lives of both me and this human female here,"
He said pointing to Catherine, who had her arm around Peters' shoulders. Now that he looked carefully, Derian realized he was in poor shape. He had been shot in one leg, a massive bullet had obviously hit him in the ribs, his eye was blackened by a bruise, and there was a large cut along his arm. He must've been in a fight to escape here, thought Derian. There was a look of recognition in Peters' eyes when he saw Tahu.
"You're the Toa from the satellite image!"
He exclaimed in surprise. The Toa was confused by this, but waved it aside and said, "Let us get you to Toa Gali, she can heal you, and you're in sorry need of it."
Peters nodded and followed the Toa of Fire to a large village, where he was treated with suspicion. At first Peters was bewildered. He had saved the life of Derian for goodness sake! But then he remembered the fight with the Toa outside of Tesara.
These people have every right to be suspicious of me,
he thought to himself. Tahu directed him to a blue house, in which sat cross legged a figure that Peters assumed was Toa Gali. She was different from the other Toa he had seen. For one, she had more armor. Secondly, she had a strange symbol carved into her axes, which Tahu later explained was her "Nuva Symbol" and, "Nuva Armor". Third, she treated the humans with kindness.
"Sister," Tahu began.
"This one is in need of healing, and perhaps you can help?"
Gali looked carefully over the battered form of First Lieutenant John Peters with the eyes of a nurturing healer. She made a cup with her hands, and glowing water appeared inside of them, she pushed the water, and it floated in mid-air to Peters' form, which soothed his pain on contact. He sighed in relief, and looked down to find that his wounds had closed, and his bruises and scrapes were no longer visible.
"Thank you, Ma'am,"
He said gratefully to Toa Gali. She smiled and said,
"It is my pleasure to help you, after what you've done for Toa Derian."
Peters nodded, smiled, and was escorted out of the hut. He felt a million times better and more refreshed. Catherine was the first to notice he no longer walked with a limp, but instead the strong, confident gait of a Marine Officer. Toa Derian welcomed him back and walked the humans into his hut, where they sat down at a large table.
"So Peters," began Derian, "You must tell me, how did you escape?"
Peters responded gravely,
"It's a long story, but it sounds like we have some time, so I'll get right into it." Derian nodded and waited for Peters to begin.
"It started yesterday, at about 4:00 A.M…"

Yesterday…

It has to be today.
That thought repeated itself through Peters' mind as he woke up to another nightmare in his prison cell. An alarm went off, signaling to the guards he was awake. They approached his cell, unlocked it, and marched him out to the interrogation chamber. For three years, he had been sleep deprived because of his PTSD, starved to make him talk, beaten, electrocuted, drugged, and a number of other things, just to get him to talk about the planet he had been on three years ago. He had of course refused to do so and only spoke three things: his name, his rank, and his serial number. For three years he had lived in hell. For three years he had watched his men suffer on his behalf. For three years he had waited for rescue and word from Spherus Magna, only to slowly realize day by day that there would be no rescue. This did nothing but harden his resolve to escape, or die trying. He had spent weeks scheming, thinking, and conceiving a plan sufficient to break him out.
Finally, he had it. He would do what he hoped nobody would be expecting: he would give in. The problem was the one-hundred to one chance that it would blow up in his face terribly, and the timing, and the being right in his guess of when the next pod was going up. The door to the torture chamber was opened, to reveal a pained Davis with a car battery being used to electrocute him. The Director noticed Peters, and shut off the flow of electricity, letting Davis collapse to the floor panting and spasming in agony. The Director grinned visciously and said with a malicious grin,
"If you don't start talking soon, I shall be forced to play a dangerous little game."
Davis looked up with a look of disgust on his face and spat,
"You go right ahead sweetheart, I'll be right here when you're done playing patty cake." "Get him out of here,"
The Director said sharply to the guards. The guards nodded and picked up Davis and began walking his smoking form back to his cell. He nodded to Peters on his way out. This was it, the five minute window without the guards to fake giving in.
"Let's start, shall we?"
The Director cackled holding the jumper cables from the car battery in the threatening fashion of a madman who loved to inflict pain. He lunged in and shocked Peters with around 300 volts of electricity, causing a scream to escape his lips. "Now," said the Director, "Tell me what you saw on that planet, and your suffering will finally end." Peters' response was to spit at him.
"Fine, have it your way!"
He shouted in his face. Again and again he shocked and beat Peters, but to no avail. One minute left before the guards come back, he thought carefully. If he broke now, it would be believable. Intense pain, three years in captivity, a madman greeting him every day, it would be no surprise at this point.
"Enough!" Peters cried.
The Director paused and lowered his instruments of torture.
"At last, Mr. Peters, everyone cracks, you just took longer. Now tell me, what did you see?"
"We saw, a race of savages, armed with explosive projectile weapons and various types of swords; they were more organic than the Toa. There was also a city in the jungle; it was home to the Toa and some little guys too. That's all I remember."
It wasn't much, but it was good enough for the Director.
"Now will you please let me go?"
Peters asked, choking up in fake emotion. The Director was quite unfazed by the theatrics,
"I'm afraid I can't let you go, you've just seen too much,"
The Director drew a revolver and held it up to Peters' chest.
"Goodbye, Mr. Peters."
At the last second, he kicked the Director hard in the shins, causing him to jump back in pain and discharge the weapon into Peters' kneecap, sending waves of white pain through his body. But there was no time; instead he head butted him sharply, knocking the Director unconscious. Peters snatched up the revolver, and used a bullet to sever the chain on his handcuffs, leaving two very ugly bracelets instead of iron restraints. The guards burst into the room, only to receive a bullet in the chest each. A third guard ran around the corner, only to have a hole put into his heart.
Out of ammo, Peters thought as he snatched up the pistols of the guards. He charged down the hallway to the cells where he found the Marines staring amazed at the sight of their freed leader. He fired a bullet into each door, opening them with ease. He distributed the three pistols among the Marines, leaving himself armed with a knife he picked up from the third guard he encountered.
"Listen up! We've got five minutes before they get wise to us and lock us down. The only place we can go is Spherus Magna. There's a pod prepped and ready to go for a launch planned later today, let's have an early launch, shall we?"
The Marines nodded and slowly jogged down the hallway, slowing down to account for Peters' severe limp. There was one guard in the launch control room, who surrendered upon seeing the free and armed prisoners. Corporal Masterson walked up and prepared to shoot him but was stopped by a sharp,
"Stand down!"
Peters then turned to David Wetherbey, who was cowering in the corner and said,
"I know you hate the Director as much as I do. Consider this your chance to get back at him. Set the shuttle for launch in one minute, and delay any guards who might try to stop us. Will you do it?"
David tentatively nodded and moved for the controls, typing in some commands, and a one minute timer appeared on the screen.
"T-this is you chance, y-yank. T-take it while you c-can."
Peters nodded and moved the Marines outside to the launch pad.
"This time, we're all going, okay guys?"
Peters said to his men, scanning the doors leading to the launch pad for hostiles intent on stopping him. None appeared, for now. Peters was the last to enter the shuttle, and with only ten seconds remaining, he entered and sealed the door behind him. "Ten, nine, eight," Came the monotone voice over the PA. Peters sighed and looked into the ceiling of the craft. Spherus Magna, here I come.

************************************************************************

"So that's how you got out?"
Asked Derian. Peters nodded and said,
"Yes, that's how we got out. Unfortunately, the Director probably has forces inbound already, so we should make preparations."
"Like what?" Replied the Toa of Earth.
"Warn the people, get the other Toa ready. Set up a watch, and see what you can do to tick off the Bone Hunters, get them nice and savage for when the enemy arrives."
"But," began Catherine warily, "How can we fight them? All of our weapons and equipment is back on earth at Black Widow HQ. I don't suppose we can just go back can we?"
Peters shook his head,
"No, we can't go back without being shot out of the sky as soon as we teleport. However, one thing I left out was that we managed to recover all of our gear and then some. It's back in the shuttle, so we should empty that and get ready as soon as possible."
Peters stood up to do so, but started sweating, and then fell to his knees. His breathing sounded labored, and his face was pale. The Corpsman dashed up to him, checking his pulse.
"Okay, here's the problem. You've still got the bullets lodged in your stomach, knee, and shoulder from when we escaped. You sort of understated how many times you were shot, and I'll be honest here, I'm amazed you're still conscious. The real problem, is that whatever voodoo magic the blue Toa used on you, just closed the wounds and made you feel better physically, you're still really messed up inside. So, I'm going to have to operate to get the lead out of you."
Peters nodded slightly, and made a shaky attempt to get up, which didn't fare very well at all for him.
"Okay, operating time," The Corpsman muttered as he jabbed Peters with a sedative. One, two, three seconds, he struggled to retain consciousness, but eventually, blissful, medicinally induced sleep, overtook him.

1 hour later…

The world seemed blurry, distorted, and almost hallucination-generated. But no, it was only the heavy morphine and sedative wearing off on him. He groggily sat up, noting that he was on a slightly bloodstained stretcher with an IV tube in his arm. A door opened, and the Corpsman entered, checking his vitals, and then recording it on a stone slab with what appeared to be a fireball on a stick with a metal casing on the end.
"Okay, your vitals are looking good, all the bullets and shrapnel are out of you, and you look like you've been in a car wreck going 90 MPH."
Peters cleared his thoughts and paused before responding in a reassuring tone,
"I've been worse."
This wasn't true, as these were some serious injuries, alone he had sustained them, but together, well, it wasn't a pretty sight.
"If you really feel all right, I can discharge you, but you have to promise to take it easy, okay?"
Peters slowly nodded his head, throwing his feet off the side of the stretcher and saying, "Understood."
I'll take it easy when I'm dead, Peters thought to himself, but quickly correcting his thoughts, as his confidence had indeed gotten him into trouble before. He walked out of the room, attempting to look confident and on top of the world for his squad. It worked, in a way, but did not really convince anyone.
"If anyone doesn't mind, I'll go relieve whoever's on watch duty."
This comment did not surprise anyone. So like Peters to try to get back in action, no matter how small the, "Action," really was, all while maintaining that icy mask that he let down for almost nobody. And even then, he was hard, careful, and professional. As soon as he was outside, he decided to pace around the premises, get acquainted with the terrain, and besides, if everything was on schedule, he still had about 10 minutes before the watchman was due to be relieved. It had been three years last he did a proper PT session, which he did in a, "Take it easy," Sort of manner.
It left him slightly tired, but satisfied that he was back on track. He checked his watch, which seemed to be off in time, because Spherus Magna has a different rotation and revolution cycle then Earth does.
One minute, better get a move on. He jogged over to where he suspected the watchman to be, and his guess was correct, in a tree, cleverly disguised, was Catherine, and armed with an M-7 Light Marksman Rifle. She had already retrieved her gear from the pod, as Peters had done right before PT. He knocked on the tree, almost cracking a smile when Catherine jumped.
"What are you doing up this late? It's 3 AM. You should be resting."
Peters climbed up unto an adjacent branch on the tree saying,
"When did I ever start listening to you?"
She huffed, and swung over to his branch on the tree to sit next to him.
"So what's up?"
He shrugged and adjusted his Kevlar and titanium vest.
"Shrug? What's that supposed to mean? I thought the men were supposed to try and fail at being mind readers in a relationship while the women get to shrug all day!"
This time, he did smile, a truly rare sight.
"What's that?"
She said pointing to a picture taped to his forearm armor padding.
"I thought you would remember, Catherine. After all, it was our wedding day."
Her eyes widened as she took hold of the picture and looked at it with tears of joy in her eyes at the memory.
"You would not believe the strings I had to pull to get you reassigned to my unit,"
He said in a calm tone as he put his arm around her. It would've been a strange sight to a Toa, had they been able to pierce the deception of the ghillie suit netting that surrounded them like a tiny hunting blind. However, as invisible to the naked eye as they were, James Masterson had managed to get his hands on a pair of thermal vision goggles from the pod, so as Peters started leaning to kiss his wife and second in command, he began laughing loud enough to wake up everything for a mile around. There was a rustle and the sound of Catherine yelping in surprise and almost falling out of the tree. He didn't stop laughing even when he noted that there were two laser sights on his heart that didn't exactly go away when the owners realized who they were pointing them at.
"Peters and McClain, sitting in a tree-" He began before he was cut off by an under barrel tazer from Peters, who's turn it was now to laugh as Masterson spasmodically attempted to resume speaking, which produced hilarious results,
"E-gaah-petr-gih-ow!"
"What's that Corporal? I can't hear you over your own stupidity!"
Catherine called while suppressing a laugh. He finally managed to drag himself back to Derian's large apartment-house, his lesson learned. As soon as he was back inside, the two began laughing.
"I don't think he knew," Catherine said in-between breaths.
"He knew I was married, he'd seen the photo, he just didn't know it was you."
Peters sighed and loaded another Tazer slug into his under barrel launcher, shifting restlessly on the tree branch that supported him and Catherine.
"Remember how I proposed to you?"
Catherine grimaced and nodded.
"It wasn't under the most pleasant of circumstances, I'll say that much."
Peters recalled briefly, it had been a massive fight with an enemy he could barely remember, Yemen insurrectionists; he'd tried to find her, mowing down everything that wasn't wearing the American Flag. Finally he found her, right in the middle of shooting out the knees of a man armed with an AK-117, and then executing him with a quick headshot. In the time it took her to shoot out his knees and execute him, Peters was fighting with a Ka-bar knife and a suppressed pistol, stabbing and shooting furiously. They were being overrun, and he knew it.
It's now or never, he thought to himself, chucking a smoke grenade to signal for evacuation and yanking a small black-painted box out of his pocket, dropping on one knee, and shouting over the noise of gunfire and explosions,
"Catherine McClain, will you marry me?"
She almost didn't follow through with a quick jab to a man's throat that crushed his windpipe, leaving him to a slow and painful death.
"What did you say?"
She asked with a shocked look on her face.
"I said, 'will you marry me'?"
She almost looked like she was going to cry. She nodded and said,
"Ye-"
But that was all she got out before a mortar came whistling down, Peters noticing it just in time and tackled her to the ground, using himself as a human shield, the resulting blast caused both to lose consciousness almost instantly. The next thing Peters knew, he was in a medical helicopter, attempting to evacuate the wounded survivors from the combat zone. Miraculously, Catherine was unhurt, but the same could not be said for Peters. He had several broken bones, shrapnel wounds, and a minor concussion. The medics said he had used his body as a human shield, his Kevlar and titanium vest and helmet were the only things that kept him alive.
Somehow, he was awake and manning the machine gun on the side of the Z-559 Black Raven Helicopter, the gunner shot through the head. However, it's hard to aim from a helicopter going over 100 MPH with targets so far below him he could barely make them out. Eventually though, they managed to land in a safe zone, and the rest was history.
"That was some ride," Peters said.
"You saved my life," Catherine began, "The least I could do was say yes."
She removed his mirrored shades, and stared at the scar below his eye, the shrapnel wound that almost blinded him but barely missed his eye.
"You could've had that scar repaired you know."
Peters shrugged and muttered, "I don't like to forget."
He sighed and leaned back into the tree, and put his arm around Catherine's shoulders again. Then he noticed something in the sky, it looked like a shooting star, a shooting star heading for the ground.
"They're here," Peters whispered.
He quickly kissed Catherine on the cheek and leaped down from the tree, a 20 foot fall that he managed to survive by rolling when he hit the ground and dashing to the city of Tesara. Catherine gripped her rifle tightly, grim determination in her eyes, and a faint smile anticipating the battle to come.