As it turned out, descending into a ship graveyard that, not even ten minutes earlier had been the site of a massive skirmish between desperate human forces and a near endless onslaught of alien warriors was a really stupid idea. Even more so when you had managed to piss off the victorious aliens and stir them into a violent frenzy by knocking one of their ships out of the air and directly on top of them.
Six scrambled into cover as searing bolts of white-hot plasma impacted the aging and rusted frame of a decommissioned cruiser he had ducked into in an attempt to lose his pursuers. Needless to say, it was pretty much a wasted effort; the Covenant had swarmed the lot almost as soon as he had arrived, and they had brought a surprisingly sizable hunting party.
Infantry from nearly every member species had dogged him from one derelict to another, in addition to various rapid and light assault craft ranging from the pesky Ghost to the rarer but much more intimidating Brute Chopper. Actually, considering how mad the aliens seemed, Six was a little surprised that they hadn't brought in heavier units like Hunters or their massive walker platforms yet.
Six stooped into a low crouch and coiled the muscles in his legs, ready to bolt down the corridor lit only by the discharge of energy weaponry the moment one of the fanatical aliens overheated their weapons. As expected, an Elite Minor was a little too zealous in its attempt to slay the Spartan, its plasma repeater fizzling out as the cooling veins and panels opened along the frame to prevent the weapon from detonating in its operator's hands. Not willing to waste the opportunity, Six pushed off the ground with all his might, sprinting down the empty hallway and tossing a grenade over his shoulder to buy himself a little more time.
Judging by the numerous detonations, he did a little more than slow down his pursuers. If he had to guess, his grenade had managed to set off at least two or three of the alien soldiers' own explosives. If his luck held out, he had wiped out the entire squad, buying himself maybe two minutes to find a new place to hole up before the next squad tracked him down.
He had made several admittedly stupid decisions over the course of the day. He wasn't afraid to admit that. He also knew that attempting to hide and wait for his unwanted pursuers to lose interest was a complete waste of time. Instead, he was putting as much distance between himself and the Covenant as he could to try and devise a plan of escape. At the moment, his best bet was to try and hijack a vehicle and run like hell. But even then, the only options available would leave him exposed to attack while careening wildly along the uneven terrain.
Six's planning came to a screeching halt as a pair of Elite Ultras walked out of an adjoining hallway. Unable to stop before running into them, he shouldered Emile's shotgun and sighted on the closer of the two, pulling the trigger once in range. The resulting kick from the weapon violently dropped Six onto his ass, the Elite had it much worse, its entire torso vanishing in a fine purple mist. Emile's favorite gun had clearly seen more than its fair share of aftermarket modifications—all of which were, knowing Noble Four, probably illegal. Propping himself back up, he was met with the sight of one Ultra, painted purple with the entrails of his comrade.
The Elite recovered first, belting out a roar as it leveled its plasma rifle and pulled the trigger. Six braced himself, expecting to be bathing in plasma, but instead the weapon sparked violently in the hands of its owner, prompting it to toss the weapon across the corridor before it detonated in a spectacular flash that blinded both warriors.
This time Six recovered first, thanks in part to his helmet polarizing to compensate for the harsh light. Quickly rolling back over his shoulder, Six fell into a crouch to better compensate for the insane recoil of Emile's weapon, he pumped another shell into the chamber and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately the Elite was also quick to recover and rolled out of the way of the buckshot. Six cursed under his breath as he once again pumped the shotgun, and once again, the Elite leapt out of the way of the spread, using its species' powerful digitigrade legs to quickly evade and close the distance with the Spartan.
With a flick of the wrist, the Ultra ignited its energy dagger, a small energy blade more compact than the two-pronged sword Elites were known to utilize. The Elite swung and Six leapt back, managing to skirt just out of reach of the blade. Unfortunately the Elite was able to connect with Emile's shotgun, and Six found himself holding two halves of a once-mighty weapon. He wasn't entirely sure, but Six guessed that the creature had its species' equivalent of a triumphant smirk on its face as it backed out of reach, choosing caution over aggression in its duel with the Spartan.
Tossing the now useless weapon aside, Six drew the knife from the sheath bolted onto his chest plate and held it before him in a defensive stance. This action elicited a change in the Elite's body language, the saurian warrior looking almost excited at the prospect of a proper duel. However, this confrontation was not meant to be, as the bulkhead beside the Elite exploded, sending the alien flying into the opposite wall where it fell into a broken heap, its neck clearly broken by the impact.
Six managed a surprised blink before slowly sheathing his knife and cautiously approaching the new hole in the wall, the edges still glowing from what was probably an impact by a powerful energy weapon. A series of blasts rocked the derelict cruiser, prompting Six to abandon caution in favor of investigating this new hurdle in his attempts to plan an escape.
Casting his gaze out over the ship graveyard, Six saw a dozen blue spheres, each roughly the size of a car arching toward him over the shell of a rusted out passenger liner. Six bolted out of the cruiser, sprinting with all his might toward the next available derelict vessel as multiple plasma mortars struck the side of the ship, collapsing multiple decks of the empty vessel.
Not even halfway to the next temporary shelter, a distinctive, low-pitched droning noise filled Six's ears. From the East, a quartet of Banshees swooped in, strafing the ground around him and forcing him to retreat back to the cruiser.
Pushing further into the ship, he cast a glance to his motion tracker, not willing to be blindsided again. Satisfied that he was clear for now, he stooped low as he tried to catch his breath, while adding these new variables into his escape plan. The Wraith mortar tanks would have made a ground escape incredibly dangerous and difficult to pull off, but nowhere near impossible. The Banshees, though? Those did make ground escape impossible.
Of course they also granted him an opportunity. Hijacking one would be child's play for him, assuming they stuck to established patterns and he could get his hands on a working plasma pistol, and because of his experience as a pilot, he was confident he could eliminate the other three Banshees without too much trouble. The altitude and speed the strike craft could achieve would effectively negate nearly any threat from the ground that was currently deployed.
The only hiccup with this forming plan was that, no matter how high or how fast he flew, all any of the Covenant on the ground had to do was report his heading and he would run into the entire goddamned fleet. If he was going to make it out of here, he would need to either A) Kill everything else in the boneyard, or B) Somehow obscure his escape from prying eyes. If he was being honest, neither of those options were really feasible. Sure, with air superiority he could wipe out all ground forces with minimal risk to himself. However, once he started, the Covenant would call for more air support or start dropping off anti-air units. As for escaping unseen, he would basically need to blanket the area in enough smoke to choke a small city, something he couldn't do with the resources he had on hand.
Another series of detonations rocked the derelict as the Wraiths fired another volley in an attempt to flush him out. Outside the ship, a loud crash sounded as a section of the barren vessel fell to the ground and Six's eyes widened as an idea struck him.
After he had knocked the Covenant Battlecruiser out of the air, it had kicked up a massive amount of dust and sand. The resulting cloud hadn't stayed in the air very long, but it had stretched for miles very quickly. The rapidly deteriorating derelict he was huddled in wouldn't generate a cloud of quite the same scale, but if enough of the superstructure collapsed, it might just be enough to disguise his escape. There was no way for him to do the damage himself, even with a Banshee's heavy fuel rod cannon, but the Wraiths' constant bombardment would be more than enough. Judging by the relatively constant volleys, they would bring his temporary shelter down in minutes, meaning he had to move fast.
With his plan set, he retraced his steps back to where he had last seen a Covenant squad and began scavenging their supplies. Their entire stock of grenades was, as expected, gone, but he did manage to find a working plasma pistol. The charge level was…really low, actually. He'd have one, maybe two good shots, but he was confident that he could hit a Banshee with an overcharge and disable it. Another series of detonations signaled Six's rapidly depleting time frame, forcing him to make do with what he had.
Working his way out of the ship, he drew his M6G service pistol and started scanning the sky for his quarry. Once he spotted one of the Banshees, he emptied the magazine at it to draw its attention. He didn't have to wait long before it angled toward him and began strafing his position with its medium plasma cannons.
Backing as far as he could into cover while still remaining in the pilot's sight, he drew his salvaged plasma pistol and held the trigger. Between the two prongs of the weapon, a brilliant green orb of energy manifested and began growing, growing more unstable as more and more energy poured into it. When the charging bolt reached peak brilliance, he spun out of cover and fired the shot. The Banshee, unable to avoid in time, flew right into it and the moment the unstable bolt made contact with the ship, the magnetic field surrounding the plasma detonated, washing over the craft and overloading all of its systems.
Six took off in a dead sprint towards the Banshee. The EMP from the overcharge would only last a few seconds, and he needed to be in position before it wore off. When he was within reach of the disabled craft, he put everything he had into his legs and jumped, grabbing one of the Banshee's wing struts as it passed overhead. A strangled cry escaped his throat as the Banshee's momentum nearly pulled his arm out of the socket, but he maintained his grip as power was finally restored to the craft and the pilot pulled up in time to avoid colliding with the massively compromised cruiser.
As the pilot pulled away, the Wraiths let loose another volley, and finally the old derelict had had enough. Deck after deck collapsed in on each other as pieces of the once mighty vessel fell heavily to the earth, kicking up a massive artificial dust storm that shrouded everything in darkness. Not willing to let the opportunity pass, Six swung himself up onto the main body of the craft and hit the external canopy release. The surprised look on the Elite pilot's face was extremely gratifying as Six planted his boot into its face, swinging himself into the Banshee and closing the canopy before gunning the throttle. By the time the dust settled, the Covenant would only find a collapsed frame of a decommissioned warship, two dozen squads of their own dead soldiers, and an Elite pilot killed by a high fall.
Six was kilometers away before he allowed himself to breathe easy again. After flying as fast as he dared for ten minutes, he hadn't seen a single hostile contact on radar, at least none that were taking an obvious interest in him. Six dropped altitude and speed after he was sure he was relatively safe. Checking his HUD, he found himself unfortunately flying in the exact opposite direction of CASTLE Base, and let loose a heavy frustrated sigh. It would be a pain in the ass, but he could swing wide around the area he had just come from and avoid the Covenant forces probably still searching for him.
Just as he was about to change course, the dashboard exploded, and he found himself plummeting out of the air. The craft's display was ruined, but whatever had hit him had left a decent sized hole in the front of the craft, allowing him an excellent view of the mountain he was now careening into. Six jostled the controls and was unsurprised to find them completely unresponsive. That left him with one option: Bail out.
Popping the canopy, he leapt out of the doomed aircraft and collided heavily into the slope of a foothill, rolling painfully until he finally came to a hard stop against a rock. Six let out a low groan as he lay there, waiting for his vision to stop spinning and cursed his luck for the thousandth time. It seemed like every time things started to go well for him, the universe threw a wrench into the works and everything went to shit.
"Hey! You alive over there, Spartan?" a garbled, feminine voice crackled over his radio and Six jolted to his feet, arms automatically rising into a standard guard, though slightly unbalanced due to his disorientation. "Still got some life in you? That's good. Look, I realize you probably have some hang ups about helping people that shoot at you, sorry about that, but we could really use a hand. My team and I are holed up in an ONI bunker about a click north of you, and the Covenant are hitting us hard. We need you to help us repel these guys. ONI Security may have a bunch of fancy toys, but they're next to useless in a straight fight, so haul ass." Before Six could say a word, the mysterious caller disconnected, and he was left to contemplate the unusual situation he now found himself in.
He was stranded in the mountains surrounding Asźod hundreds of kilometers from CASTLE Base after an unknown party had destroyed his only method of transport, though apparently unintentionally. This unknown party apparently had access to UNSC encrypted comms and were in critical danger from Covenant forces. And the cherry on top was that the individual that had shot him down was asking for his help. Either this was a legitimate request for aid and he could rest and resupply in a semi-secure ONI site, or this was an elaborate trap set up by desperate survivors who intended to kill him and claim what little he had.
Six shook his head at the thought; if these people had wanted him dead, they would have shot him while he was dazed after his fall. However, he also knew exactly what people stranded on Covenant occupied worlds were capable of. Regardless, he could hear the sounds of battle coming from the direction that had been pointed out, so that part at least seemed true. Ultimately though, he knew what he should do.
Jogging as quickly as he could along the uneven terrain toward the battle, he hoped that he wasn't making a mistake by getting involved. For now, he decided, it would be prudent to at least scope out the battle. Besides, now that he really thought about it, there was something about the speaker's voice that was nagging at him. She sounded…familiar.