(Onboard the covenant CRS-class light cruiser Unrelenting intolerance)
When he awoke, spartan 125 was surprised that he was still alive. He was in a covenant holding cell, most likely aboard one of their ship's judging by a light almost silent hum in the floor and walls. Then he heard a familiar voice come from the cell to the left of his. "Boss… Psst. Hey. You up yet?", It was Tanner.
"Yea. What happened while I was out? and where are the others?" he asked as he looked in the row of holding cells across the room.
"After we crashed, Anton and I were still conscious, but he was pinned under a hinge head's foot before he could get up, same with me, one of them said something to you. Then we were dragged out and brought to the ship. I don't exactly know where Anton is, but I think I know were Chelsy and Kacy are. Also I think Liz is being held just down the hall about fifty meters or so." 297 explained. "So what's the plan boss?" he asked. Nash stood in his cell for a moment before realizing one major mistake the covenant made before putting him in the cell. They had taken his helmet but not the rest of his armor. "We wait." He responded calmly as he sat in the corner of his cell. A few hours passed before an eliet minor walked into the cell block. It walked straight to the control panel in the back of the room without looking at the imprisoned spartans. "Hey! Hinge head! When's dinner? I'm starving!" Tanner called out to get the elite's attention.
"Be quiet demon! You will get no food." It said, clearly agitated as it went back to working on the console.
"Why? Us humans get hungry too." Tanner said, now trying to annoy the guard. "I said silence!" It yelled back.
"Yea? Make me. Bet you can't." 297 taunted as he gestured towards himself. The elite stopped what he was doing and walked over to the cell. "You dare challenge me human!? I will have to teach you respect." The guard stormed over to Tanner's cell, and reached for the cell control panel, but then he stopped before he touched the controls. The elite through his head back and guffawed loudly. "Clever human. For a moment you had me fooled." It said as it drew its arm back. Then something caught his eye. "What are you doing with your hand?" he questioned as he began to look over his shoulder. Suddenly the cell force fields began to fade. "What!?" The guard said dumfounded as he reached for his plasma rifle, but he was to late. A cascade of purple blood spewed from the elite's neck. The alien fell to the floor, revealing his killer.
"Nice work Ghost! Hey how'd you get out?" Tanner asked.
"Once they separated us, they only assigned one guard to escort me to the cell block, and when I thought they couldn't get any more stupid, the guard was also carrying my helmet." Anton chuckled.
"Nice work. Now where do you suppose the armory is?" Nash asked as he knelt down and picked up the plasma rifle. "We need to find you two weapons" He said looking at the spartans in front of him.
"It's a few corridors down right past another cell block, that one's more heavily guarded though." Anton replied.
"Okay then that's priority. Here's the plan, get weapons, and find our helmets, then rescue the rest of the team." Nash said as he moved towards the door. " Anton you'll sneak past those guards and head for the armory. Tanner and I will cover you, then bring back a few extra weapons for the girls. Understood?" "Yes sir, one question though what if our helmets aren't in the armory?" Tanner asked, following Nash to the door. "We'll improvise.", He responded as they took positions next to the door.
The door opened to a short hallway with a fourway intersection at the end. "Alright let's get to work." Nash said as he cleared the hall to the left and right. The lone spartan III made his way down the hall until reached reached the next intersection. There was two elites standing guard outside the cell block entrance. "Humph, this is too easy.", Anton muttered under his breath, as he activated his active camouflage, and continued on towards the armory he spotted on the way to the cell blocks.
Nash and Tanner followed the spartan Anton up to the cell block but, because of their armor situation, couldn't sneak past the guards the same way Anton did. So they waited until he was out of sight, and then a few seconds after that. He then drew his combat knife. Nash tapped the wall with the knife in patterns. It was thirty seconds before he heard one of the guards say something in sangheili to the other. Nash cept tapping. One of the elite guards started to walk towards Nash, and as soon as the elite turned the corner Nash thrusted the knife up between its mandibles, and into its skull. The other guard, followed and was also quickly dispatched with a swift thrust of the blade into its neck, then another into its head. Nash and Tanner heaved the bodies out of sight, then they took up a defencive position until their fellow spartans returned, hopefully with some fire power.
A few minutes later the spartan III appeared down the hall, carrying a few Covenant carbines, and plasma rifles. Anton was also carrying Nash's helmet. "Here, Boss." Anton said tossing the Spartan II's helmet to him. "I couldn't find the other helmets, but I think I saw some kind of control pannel down the hall. Mabey Liz could hack it, and find another armory." Anton Suggested. "Good idea, I think it's time we freed the rest of the squad." Nash answered, pointing to the cell block door. Nash donned his helmet. "Here's the plan, you two will activate your camo and, sneak in while I…", before Nash could finish, the cell block door opened. Two grunts took one more step before they froze, dumbstruck with fear, realizing what was in front of them.
"Never mind. Open fire!", Nash ordered. Tanner, and Anton both scored a headshot on both grunts simultaneously. Behind them at the cell block controls was one elite guard who, at the sight of the spartans, pulled out his plasma rifle and began to fire wildly at them, but he was hopelessly outnumbered, and quickly dispatched with multiple carbine shots and plasma rounds in quick succession from the three spartans.
"Took you long enough.", Kacy said as she stood up and moved to the front of her cell.
"Yea, Lt what took you?", Chelsy asked.
"You good?" Nash asked her as he signaled Anton to open the cells.
"It still hurts alittle, but I can manage.", she replied holding her wound.
"Hey where's Liz?" Nash asked as he looked around the cell block.
"She was taken by a couple of hingeheads a few minutes ago." Kacy said.
The shields went down and as soon as they did an alarm sounded.
"Anton! What did you do?!", Nash exclaimed as he went to full alert and trained his weapon on the door.
"Wasn't me Boss!", Anton replied.
Just then a sangheili voice came over the ship's intercom, the message sounded urgent. "Boss, my sangheili is a little rusty, but I think he just said that a demon has escaped. He also said something about… oh crap, sir we better get moving.", Kacy said with a tense tone.
Just then the door to the cell block opened, and in walked a spartan II holding three spartan III helmets. "I think I may have made a few... no make that a lot of covies angry." Liz joked as she tossed the helmets to their respective owners. As they donned their helmets, Chelsy noticed a new dent on the top of her helmet, and the fact that it was splattered purple. "Liz, did you use my helmet to bash up a hinge head?", She asked in a light joking tone.
"How did you guess?", Liz replied in a similar playful tone.
"All right cut the chatter, Tanner, Anton secure the door way, Kacy stay close to Chelsy, Liz hack the covenant battle net and see if the pilots are still alive, then find us a way off this ship." Nash ordered. All the spartans instantly followed the orders with quick efficiency.
"Sir we need to find a control console , from there I can find the pilots, get us a map, and from there a ride.", Liz suggested as she took a defensive position.
"From here on we go silent. No radio chatter unless absolutely necessary. Move out." Nash ordered, and received five green acknowledgment lights. The six spartans quickly made their way through the crisscrossing hallways of the covenant ship as they searched for a control interface panel. The team ran into, and eliminated several small patrols before finally finding the right interface control panel. Liz immediately got to work hacking the console while the rest of the spartans took defensive positions. She taped the icons on the screen with lightning speed, and after a few seconds Liz raised her right hand and gave a quick thumbs up. She continued to tap the screen for another fifteen seconds, another patrol found them, but met the same fate as the others. Nash glanced back at Liz to see if she was done, and he noticed that her shoulders were moving up and down as if she were chuckling. She finished a few seconds later and turned around giving a "spartan smile". Nash then saw a new icon in his HUD. He opened it to find a real time map of the ship, which included up to second updates on troop and crew movements, and ship status, all in UEG standard. Nash scrolled through the map and marked three locations, The nearest hangar bay, a life pod jetson bay as a secondary escape plan, and the cell block that the pilots were in. He then got curious of what Liz had done, he checked the ship status readings to find that she had started the ship's self-destruct sequence on a ten minute delay, while simultaneously stopping the ship's alarm system from acknowledging the sequence. Nash clicked his green light then his amber light twice, asking the squad if they had the map and the objectives He then used a few hand signals to tell the spartan IIIs to head for the hanger while he and liz would go get the pilots. In response he got five green lights. Nash signaled the squad to move out, and as he did he returned the "spartan smile" to Liz.
Without the IIIs, the two spartan IIs made it to their objective within a minute. "You clear left, I'll clear right.", Nash said as they prepared to breach the door. Liz nodded her head.
The two spartans rushed the room finding that it was devoid of guards. "Get these cells open." Nash ordered as he looked through the cells.
"Found them." Liz reported, pointing to the cell in the far right side of the room.
When the shield faded Nash knelt down beside the two. The copilot was holding her now deceased partner in her arms. "Hey, we're here to get you out." Nash said as he offered his hand to her.
"Please… I can't leave him… just… just go…" She sobbed, keeping her gaze on her partner's face.
Nash glanced at the names on the pilots uniforms. "Ma'am we're not leaving you or Mr. Spence." He told her, "We need to go right now, my team mate and I are going to carry you both out."
"...Okay." she finally said, wiping the tears from her eyes. Nash picked up Lieutenant Spence's body, and Lieutenant Telka allowed Liz to carry her. As soon as they were both in hand the spartans took off for the hanger.
It didn't take long before all six spartans reached the hangar, and to their surprise there was one phantom dropship, and two seraphs still docked. Nash motioned for the team to open a secure Com. Channel, "Threes, take the pilots and secure the Phantom, Liz and I will take the Seraphs. Move.", He ordered, and started to make his way towards a Seraph. Before long the spartans had secured their vehicles, "So. How much time is left?" Anton asked over the Com. as he took the controls of the phantom.
"About thirty seconds.", Liz replied.
"Well then why are we just sitting around here?" Kacy asked rhetorically as she took the copilot seat of the Phantom.
"Punch it shadows!" Nash exclaimed as he throttled up his vehicle.
"Way ahead of you Boss." Liz said as her craft flew out of the hanger and into open space.
"Yea Boss try to keep up." Anton said as undocked and followed Liz.
Nash undocked his Seraph and set the throttle to full.
Just after they were clear of the covenant cruiser it started to buckle, then a huge explosion ripped the stern section apart while a string of smaller explosions tore through the rest of the ship.
"So what now?" Tanner asked over the Com.
Then another familiar voice joined the Com. frequency, "Shadow team, this is shadow actual, thanks for saving us the trouble of rescuing you. I'm transmitting coordinates to you now. Rendezvous with the UNSC Point of No Return. I expect a full report when you get here. Out." the ONI Officer said.
"Nice work spartans." Nash complemented his team, as the three spacecraft set a course for the rendezvous.
TBC...
(Don't forget to PM me if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this chapter or any other chapters. Thanks.)