Noble seven squeezed the trigger on his sniper rifle, the round tore through the elites shields and lodged itself into the creatures shields, it fell to the ground with a gurgle and blood flooded out.
He was kneeling down on top of a small platform of sorts in a covenant corvette known as the ardent prayer.
Noble Seven saw a grunt ultra pops its head out from behind a wall and he instantly put a bullet between its eyes.
Hearing the tell-tale click he fumbled for a new magazine, found it and slammed it into the rifle. His HUD displayed that it was the last one, he had to make every shot count.
On the ground floor Jorge spooled his chaingun, etilka, suppressing the alien forces and hammering the covenant metals.
BANG!, another rifle round tore into a zealot, the force from the weapon knocked its head from its shoulders.
BANG! BANG! the two high calibre bullets tore into, and fatally wounded a hunter.
BANG! his last round destroyed a banshee that an elite had just hopped into.
With a grunt he threw the rifle like a javelin, it struck a grunt in the head, knocking it unconscious at least.
Noble seven brought up his pistol from a mag-lock and jumped of the platform when he heard the engineers calling from the pelican. Noticing Jorge and the marines were already there he started to run.
When B312 came under a hail of withering plasma fire he rolled and threw himself behind a pillar, he managed to identify that it was coming from a large platform, there was too much cover to get a clean line of sight but judging from the rate of fire it was a type-52 plasma cannon. Another burst of light blue energy came towards him and he ducked back behind the pillar, a couple of the shots hit him and made his shields flare.
The MJOLNIR picked up on his plan and created a holographic decoy, showing of his black armour with a light blue trim, the hologram started to run towards another pillar.
The plasma fire followed. Before long the covenant thought he had left his pillar and started suppressing the decoy.
Seven quickly rolled to a pillar away from the decoy, kneeled and fired two shots towards a cluster of plasma batteries to the right of the gun emplacement, the grunt firing that turret had made a big mistake in its placement and it was about to pay for it.
His first magnum round had no visible effect, likely because of the shields, the second popped said inconveniences.
BANG! BANG! two more of his shots rang out, the first made a small crack in the glass and the second ignited the escaping fumes.
The explosion caused a minor shockwave which made him stumble but he kept going, with pistol in one hand.
A stealth elite disabled its cloaking right in front of him, preparing to gut him with an energy sword, without a second thought B312 moved low to the ground and slid between the Sangheli's legs but not before sticking a plasma grenade to it's iliopsoas essentially the base of its leg.
He cleared the blast range and began sprinting towards the pelican, whilst he had been preoccupied the pelican had lifted itself and turned around, ready for take-off.
He saw Jorge holding onto the side of the pelican with one hand and reaching out to him with the other.
"Come on Sev" Jorge shouted, using the shortened version of his Callsign, which also happened to be his name.
Noble Seven put on a burst of speed, reaching something near 36 MPH he knew he wasn't the fastest, that title belonged to Kelly, a two but he was still practiced at it.
In a short time he had made to the pelican and Jorge clasped his finger around Sev's wrist, pulling him up into the pelican with a jolt.
Before long everyone was strapped into a seat except Noble seven and five, the door was still open, giving them a view of the Ardent Prayer docking with the Long Night Of Solace.
"Wanna do the honours?" Jorge said, handing six a small detonator.
"Thanks Jorge" He replied.
B312 stared at the detonator in his hand, it comprised of a stick with a red button protected by a plastic cap.
With his thumb he flicked of the safety cap.
"Five" Jorge stated
"Four"
"Three... Two"
"One..."
It seemed like an eternity between the two words, an eternity between the corvette docking with the carrier.
"Detonate" Jorge finished dramatically.
Seven obliged and slammed his finger on the neon red button, it almost destroyed the detonator.
A soft purple wave emanated from the supercarrier, it overtook their shuttle and B312's HUD shut down.
"What happened?" Jorge shouted over the backup radio.
"Minor EMP sir" Replied the pilot "I'm just rebooting our systems"
Suddenly the whole pelican saw the purple wave recall to the carrier...
And it did... absolutely nothing.
"You're telling me" said one of the marines "we came all this way, risked life and limb, lost squadmates on a near suicidal mission... AND THE BOMB! DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING BLOW UP-"
The marine didn't even get to finish as a huge shock wave burst from the ship again, it was ripped apart and in the place of the center decks a massive slipspace rupture appeared.
"You were saying?" The two members of noble said simultaneously.
Thom-A293 slowly strode down the stairs of Caracalla Park in New Alexandria, his DMR was lowered and a jetpack was strapped to his back.
He looked up to the ruins of the covenant Super Carrier, looks like Jorge and the new guy had actually done it, they had defended Reach from the covenant.
The first planet the UNSC had successfully defended with minimal casualties, it was a major boost for humanity's morale.
Every single civilian and soldier in the city was outside somewhere cheering their hearts out.
Speak of the devil, He thought as he looked at the sage green aircraft coming down towards the roof of the building housing the makeshift HQ And he shall appear.
Thom sighed as he began to walk back up the stairs... they all needed some rest.