Chapter Four Blood, Sweat, and Tears.

Chapter Four Blood, Sweat, and Tears.

"That's the last one." I said to myself as I removed the dog tags of Captain Cromwell's body. Adding his to the rest of the tags I had collected. The captain's body was the one I had been saving for last. Gently picking it up, I carried it to the cargo bay where the rest of his crew members had been relocated to. All of the bodies were basically just bone at this point, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to treat the dead with respect. After I reached the cargo bay, I placed his body in the body bag I had placed for him and draped a SLDF flag over his body as I had the rest of them.

I looked over the hundreds of bodies I had collected and clenched the dog tags in my hand. I stood there silently for several reverent moments. Then I made my way to the exit and switched off the lights. I had looked into the crew manifest to see where the individual crew members had come from and made a note of it. I vowed to myself that I would see to it that the dead would have a proper burial.

After the somber moment, I made my way to the Bridge. I was working on trying to slave all of the controls for the CIC to one console. I would have to multitask like never before but I was only one man trying to control a Warship that was intended for over one hundred and eighty people to man at a time. I had been working on it off and on since the first successful jump and now that I was a couple of months in to my year long journey I was trying to refine everything that I knew. When I wasn't working on the programming language of the SLDF or working out; I was in the simulators. I knew that I needed to be able to pilot a 'Mech or one of the ASF's in the bays.

After being on the ship for half a year now, it was second nature to navigate wherever I was headed. Currently, this was to the engine room to do routine maintenance on the Fusion and K-F drives. While I was still not an expert on either system, I could do what was necessary for the Manassas to remain functional. I had even gotten to test fire some of the energy weapons, that had been fun though I didn't want to use anything that used ammunition that I wasn't sure I could replenish.

After working non stop for months, it was time for a break. I had been on my journey for long enough that I was ready to have a break and sit down to watch something. Thankfully, there was a very nice entertainment system on board pre-loaded with a lot of Tri-Vid shows and movies. I may have spent a couple of days vegging out on the nice leather seats and watching trashy rom-coms and other assorted media. The ship also had a firing range which I had made religious use of in order to maintain accuracy with my handgun and the other firearms that I had taken to try out from the armory.

The armory was a gun nut's wet dream. Lines of Carbines, Assault rifles, and anything else you might need for a boarding party or landing an infantry squad to support the rest of the force that you dropped onto a planet. And the real dream that was in there was in a hidden back panel. I only knew about it because I had found the Intelligence officer and used his codes to access everything that he had access to. This included the two BlackWatch officers that had been placed among the crew. These two officers had access to the armory because there was one Nighthawk suit in there along with spare parts for it.

Of course, the inner Spartan in me made me want to try it on immediately, but the common sense and paranoia that I had developed made me check it for any booby traps before I locked myself into the tin can. Part of my reading assignment before climbing into the suit of Power armor was to read the manual on it from front to back. I spent weeks memorizing all of the command prompts and everything that could possibly go wrong while I was in there.

"Nighthawk piloting test one." I said facing the camera I had found. I then climbed in and sealed it around me. "Let's start with a simple walk." I said before closing the face plate on it. I proceeded to take one step forward. "Alright!" I chuckled a little bit. "That's one small step… Ahh dammit turn the jump jets off! Turn them off!" I screamed as I pinwheeled around the armory, ramming into everything before finally coming to a stop when it ran out of fuel.

"Nighthawk piloting test two." I said from within the suit a couple of days later. "I read over the problem and I think I figured out what I did wrong. Let's start this over again with a single step." I took a step like I had in the first test, and when the jump jets didn't trigger I breathed a sigh of relief. "Proceeding with a slow walk forward." I said and upon taking my second step I promptly face-planted. "Houston… I've fallen and can't get up" I groaned.

"Nighthawk Piloting test twenty-five. I seem to finally have the hang of this and am now able to move at a slow jog before screwing myself over in some way." I said as I did a small wave to the camera. "In a few weeks I should be able to move onto using weapons and trying moving and shooting."

"Nighthawk piloting testing complete." I said to the camera as I took off the suit. "I've accomplished everything I wanted to in the suit for now and I now have some newfound appreciation for what the Master Chief went through every time he locked himself into Mjolnir." I placed the suit back on the rack it came from and flicked it off as I walked away. "Ease of use… My ass." I muttered while walking away quoting how the manual made the suit seem easy to use.

Maybe it was my newness to neurohelmets but I had a lot of trouble with both the sims and the Nighthawk in the beginning with them interpreting the signals the right way. Thankfully, now that I had had a lot of time to practice that had gone away for the most part. With only a few months left of the first leg of my trip I had a lot of prep work to do if I wanted the plan to work right