| abstract | - Lieutenant, Junior Grade Aleksandra Zaytseva blinked her eyes open, looking about her surroundings. Blinking again to clear her head, the blurry vision that had greeted her sharpened into a crisp image of where she was and, looking down, she realized that was a good ten feet above the ground. As she looked back up, Sasha momentarily thought her vision had faded out again, when the coughing drawn out of her throat allowed for the truth to dawn on her, she was in the middle of a plume of smoke, blowing her way. That must be her crashed Longsword, which she had just managed to pull free of before it hit the ground, pulling her chute, before that tree branch rose up to meet her in the head. That must be what was holding her in the hair, and it made sense. She had attempted to land in the jungles on the Sironan mainland, and the tropical nature of the area she was trapped in was confirmed by the humid air pressing down on her. Struggling through the tangling branches around her, she finally managed to draw her combat knife, reaching up above her head and setting to work cutting the chute. The fall certainly wouldn’t kill her, if she made sure to land correctly, but that was the tricky part. There were still two feet of branches between her feet and the open air to the ground, and any sort of twisting could ruin the drop she’d need to safely make the way to the ground. No matter, she had to get down from the tree. The planet was under siege, and she wasn’t going to be caught hanging in the forest to become easy pickings for the Covenant forces she was sure were patrolling around. Sawing her way through the cables holding her to her chute, the final snap took her by surprise as the knife blade slipped free and she started falling. She felt blood drip onto her face from somewhere, and the stinging pain from her left palm confirmed that she had managed to cut herself with the motion. Swearing, she threw the knife away as she fell, unwilling to stab herself, and braced against the stinging branches for the first few seconds, before dropping suddenly as her head cleared the lower levels of the trees, wincing in pain as she felt her left leg hit the ground a moment before her right, her ankle rolling as she fell onto her side. So much for a good landing. Taking a moment to steady herself, Sasha used her good hand to push herself up to sit against the tree, laying her legs out in front of her. Closing her eyes, she spent the next few seconds just getting used to the pain, before jolting them back open. She looked down to the cut on her hand, grimacing at the darkened glove, the tear ripping right through it deep into her palm. She'd have to seal that wound. As Sasha removed the container of biofoam from her flightsuit, she swore again. Due to her stupidity in trusting the fall, she'd gone from being stuck in a concealed position, waiting for her distress call to be answered, to being stuck wide open on the ground. At the very least she still had her M6, strapped to her thigh, not that it'd due her much good against any Covenant beyond a Grunt that came looking for her. With the wound on her hand sealed, Aleksandra took a moment to look around the area, when a pattern in the smoke from her crashed ship, about twenty meters away, caught her attention. Drawing her sidearm slowly, Sasha's heart skipped a beat as her brain processed what she was seeing, the distinct distortion of a Covenant Elite's active camouflage unit. Racking the slide back slowly with her shaking left hand, she saw the underbrush bend back through the distortion, and stop. In front of her eyes, the branch disappeared behind the hulking mass of the Elite, clad in the armor of the Covenant's special operations troops, deactivated its camouflage, turning towards her. A blade of blue energy sprung from the silver emitter in its right, claw-like hand, and, with a roar, the alien charged towards Sasha. Steadying her breath, Sasha flicked the Magnum towards the hand of the charging Elite, hovering the smart linked reticle in her (luckily still intact) flight helmet towards the beast, unloading half the magazine until her efforts were awarded with a shimmer as the Elite's shields failed, and a shower of sparks and purple blood flying from the hand of the Elite as its energy sword's hilt was torn apart by the AP bullets. Shifting her aim towards the center of the Elite's body, she emptied the rest of the clip into the alien's chest, releasing the magazine at the click as the final trigger pull struck the empty chamber, and, shakily, slid another one home. Too late. The Elite was on top of her, pinning her right hand down on the ground, reaching back with its own in a motion like it was preparing to punch her in her face. But not even a second later, Sasha's eyes widened as she saw the situation was far worse, a blue blade of plasma extending towards her helmet, the tip touching against the visor, globs of the material melting onto her face and burning into her left cheek. Letting out a scream as the alien pulled its arm back further, preparing to plunge the blade through her skull, Sasha willed her left arm to come in front of the strike, screaming again as she felt the searing plasma tear through the biofoam she had so recently applied and, with all her remaining strength, pulling to the left, her scream only intensifying as the Elite fell off balance, swinging the blade through the left side of her helmet, the vision in her left eye fading out, and plunged it into her left shoulder. Aleksandra's elbow shattered as it bent further than it was ever meant to under the Elite's brute strength, and, miraculously, freeing up her right hand. Not wasting a second, Sasha flung her Magnum up below the Elite's jaw, letting out a silent thank you to whatever gods their may be as she met no resistance and new the alien's shields had faltered, and pulled the trigger, again and again. Her screams continued to sound, whether it was an echo through the forest of Sasha continuing to cry out in pain, she didn't even care. The blood sprayed over her split visor and face, mixing with her own as it ran out of her eye and forehead, and the alien warrior slumped on top of her. It was only when she heard the click of her sidearm's pin against an empty chamber that she stopped pulling the trigger, letting her right arm fall to her side, limp, as she breathed heavily, slowly fading into unconsciousness. The last thing that crossed her mind was the question of why there was only one Elite in the area. As the sound of a Pelican's chain guns answered that for her, she slipped out of the world of consciousness.
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