[b]I Once Killed a Man in a Tanzanian Bar...[/b] [i]Ko Rudo Mountains, ???[/i] Lieutenant Mark Render cautiously unstrapped himself from the pilot's seat of the Pelican, and took his helmet off for a long yawn. Just like the rest of his team, he needed sleep: he'd already gone 33 hours without it, and his eyelids had begun to feel like lead. Back in New Mombasa, he'd been able to court insomnia through combat, fighting the Covenant nonstop from deployment at 0600 Tuesday, to 0800 Wednesday. His armor was slick with a collage of iridescent alien blood, and occasionally tattered strips of wing membrane could be found tucked within the crevices of his armor. He couldn't imagine taking his armor off now though. They'd been through hell together. He took a second to gaze out the cockpit, looking out onto the strangely familiar landscape surrounding him, and then began to walk down the ship to wake his crew. Ever since their NCO had fallen, his men had turned to him as a de-facto leader, so in acceptance of his temporary position, he'd allowed them rest on the ride out of New Mombasa. What happened between then and now was... Fuzzy. The first sign of danger happened when Hawking radiation levels had begun to spike beneath their position. They were flying above a massive portal that had been unearthed by Covenant excavation the previous day, merely because of the fact that flying back towards the city was suicide. There'd been a flash of light, and some kind of discharge from the portal... He didn't remember what happened after that, but he didn't feel rested if he had been knocked out. Quite the opposite, in fact. He unholstered his M6C/SOCOM, and banged its frame against the side of the Pelican twice, the sound echoing throughout the hold. That would be enough to wake his crew. They'd set up camp here, and then get ready to scout the area out by dawn. [spoiler]Open to Ver/Sonic. [/spoiler]