Sometimes I ask myself, if this is was all a dream. Like one big bad dream, that the Covenant never really invaded, that my world wasn't actually the prison of a one hundred thousand year old man-god and that I didn't almost die fighting him.
I mean, here I am…leading a team of Spartan supersoldiers.
How long has it been…since I felt normal…since I stopped being a girl with super powers and became…this? Too long.
Capella
Underneath a NCA Facility
Circle One
Fireteam Osiris's elevator stopped, they were in Circle One of the underground complex. "Looks like the rebels have really amped up their budget." Buck said, the NCA was no simple insurrectionist group. They were a formidable military force, and the UNSC has just started treating it just like it. "50 cR that it's all stolen."
"I'll take that bet." Tanaka replied, "Not much of a presence here, boss."
"Check your corners, these guys like to fight guerrilla warfare." Korra stated, "Turn on your VISRs."
The team slowly walked into the immense area, it looked like a cargo maintenance area. Understandable since this was the first floor and supplies were organized here. But because of the alarm that the Colonel had established, the workers were already gone. The entire room was full of crates of stolen vehicles and the like. Warthogs and Gungooses for the most part. No heavy artillery, most likely to keep outside because of the size.
"I don't like the look of this, it's too quiet." Vale said, as the team tried to locate the elevator down to the next level. Korra slid behind a forklift, she peeked over it to see if the area was clear. As soon as she did, a sniper round rushed past her, hitting the side of her helmet chipping some of the black paint off.
"Sniper!" Korra shouted getting back into cover.
"Can't get a good look!" Buck said, "Where's the bastard?" The former ODST was behind the cover of a steel column, he was armed with a shotgun so he was ill-prepared to face against a sniper in a long hall.
Korra looked around with her VISR, the lights had been turned off, and so the nightvision of the VISR would come in handy. The small light that the sniper rifle's scope made when the user illuminated the scope to see clearer was picked up easily by Korra's VISR. She aimed her battle rifle at the sniper, but to her surprise the sniper shoot first. Korra dodged back into cover. "The guy is fast." She said. "Tanaka, you and Buck flank him. Vale and I will give you covering fire!"
"Got it!" Tanaka acknowledged.
Tanaka and Buck ran through the steel columns, not giving the sniper a clear target. Then Korra and Vale opened fire at the sniper's position forcing him to go into cover. As soon as Tanaka and Buck made it to the sniper's position they were pushed away like ragdolls.
"Agh!" Buck grunted as his shields flickered.
Out of the cover came out an armored SPARTAN-IV, most likely one of Ilsa Zane's remnant followers. "Rogue Spartan! Take him down!" Vale shouted. Korra fired her battle rifle at the rogue Spartan's right leg, the shot had broken through the Rogue Spartan's energy shields and into his body armor. The shot wounded him but did not stop him at all and jumped into the other side of the room, behind several metal crates.
"What was that?" Tanaka asked, recovering from the surprise attack.
"SPARTAN-IV, most likely. Black INFILTRATOR-class MJOLNIR armor with green lines. Locus-class helmet." Korra had noticed every bit of the enemy's armor.
"He hits hard." Buck said, "Once I get my hands on that creep…"
The team noticed the enemy in their motion trackers, he was still moving behind cover, possibly trying to get a better sniping position. Korra motioned to Vale to cut him off on the other side of the crate line that he had hidden behind off. She motioned to Buck to follow his movement while she and Tanaka attacked from the rogue's six.
Slowly but surely they were ready and the rogue was surrounded. Buck readied to attack. Korra and Tanaka fired their weapons at the intruder prompting Buck to jump over the crates and crush the rogue Spartan. But to his surprise, there was nothing there. The bullets had also hit nothing but the metal of the crates.
"Where is he?" Buck asked.
Then something hit Vale on the back of her head, knocking her out. The Rogue Spartan then came out of Active Camouflage. "Looking for me?" The rogue asked before returning back into active camo.
"Alright, you know the drill when facing against these guys. Just like the Covenant." Korra said, turning her VISR from night vision to be able to recognize the silhouette of the environment around her, that way she could spot anyone in active camo, no matter how advanced it were.
The remaining 3 conscious SPARTANs of Osiris were on alert, this guy were as good as they were individually and knew how to use stealth to his advantage. "There!" Korra saw a silhouette move in between Buck and her. She fired her battle rifle at the moving silhouette, one of her bullets hitting the target.
"Well played." The Rogue Spartan was forced out of active camo when his shields flashed. "But a true soldier has more than one trick up his sleeve." The rogue threw several flashbangs towards Osiris.
The flashbang grenades exploded, temporarily blinding the team. "Dammit!" Tanaka yelled.
Re-gaining their sight, Korra saw that the enemy was gone. Buck was helping Vale get back up, "What the hell was that? I thought that there were only regular old innies here." Buck said, "Nothing about one of those traitors running loose."
"You know how Command works…full of secrets within secrets." Vale replied, "We gotta report it in anyway."
Korra sighed, she then activated her radio. "Command, this is Osiris-One, over."
"We…." There was an interference with her radio. Korra wasn't able to hear anything coming from Command.
"Command's not responding right." Korra said.
"Try Control, they're closer to us." Tanaka replied, Korra nodded in agreement.
"Osiris Actual, this is Osiris-One, do you copy over?"
"I hear you, Korra, yeah I'm getting the same problem up here." The voice of Spartan Thorne could be heard on the other side of the radio. "There is a long-range jammer deep in the facility you're currently in. Its blocking all long range radio signals, activated just a couple of minutes ago."
"That bastard, Lockhart, he somehow had planned this." Tanaka said.
"He knew that Command was going to send a team out for him sooner or later." Buck replied, "Didn't know he was this good at prepping."
"Can you pin-point the location of these jammers?" Korra asked her contact in the surface.
"The long range jammer's blocking signal is deeper into the facility like I said, but my scanners can't get a good look thanks to all that metal and sediment. Once you get pass the third floor you'll be on your own." Thorne reported.
"Got it. Once we get them out we will contact Command and tell them to let you know our status." Korra said, "See you in the morning, Thorne."
"Good hunting, Osiris Actual out."
The team approached the now unguarded elevator, "It was a good idea in getting Thorne into our little team. Good kid." Buck said.
"Yeah, you should've seen him back in the south pole years ago. Heh, he can get easily flustered around women." Korra said as she pressed the button to call the elevator up.
"Makes you wonder why he would even accept this job." Tanaka said, "You must be good friends with him."
"Mhm." Korra replied while they waited for the elevator to arrive. Then the speakers turned back online, but instead of being taunted by Lockhart they were met with the voice of their rogue attacker.
"The muscle. The speed. The experience…and the young leader. A well rounded team of individuals that alone would be unable to defeat a strong opponent but together be almost unstoppable." The rogue said. "Soldiers, in different types of degrees."
"Then come fight us again, we'll be sure to get you without your disappearing trick." Buck responded.
The rogue seemed to be amused by Buck's comment, "In due time, Helljumper. First, I need to see you all at your peak."
A small siren replaced his voice, the siren was loud enough that it made the team close their helmets' outside audio receivers just to not hear it. But to their ignorance, some of the crates began to move.
They began to be dented from the inside out, something was awoken by the loud siren. Crack! The metallic crate's top was pushed off, with several others doing the same thing. Out of it came out a Promethean Knight, which had been rendered dormant ever since the Battle of Installation 03 over Requiem several years ago.
"Knights!" Vale yelled. More Knights began to come out of their prisons, having been strangely awoken by the sound of the high-pitched siren. The team rolled out of the way of an attack Knight that had fired an Incineration Cannon towards them.
"Alright, Knights…haven't fought against them in a while." Korra said, "These look bigger somehow."
"Modified versions." Tanaka replied, "Seen these before. Just hit them hard enough so their armor falls off."
Korra took out a grenade and threw at the group of incoming Knights. The explosion only merely shook them. "Damn!" Korra cursed, "We need bigger firepower. There must be something in one of these crates that can help us."
"We'll keep them busy, find anything that can aid us fight the Knights, ma'am!" Tanaka said. Korra ran towards some of the crates littered around, ripping the tops off as if they were cardboard. Some contained assault rifles, while other had the occasional SMG. Nothing good enough to take out these Knights with. Until she found a large crate, not vehicle large, but big enough.
Tanaka was running out of ammo for her DMR, "We've only took one down with team shots, but I don't…" She was cut short once Korra re-appeared next to her holding a Whiplash-class Railgun. Korra aimed and fired the Railgun. The Whiplash-class Railgun was unique among its magnetized cannon cousins in that it could hold two slugs inside its chamber at once. Allowing the wielder to fire two rounds in quick succession, with the added bonus of the firing mechanism being a lot more potent. The first slug ripped through one of the Knights, killing it instantly. Korra fired again at the following Knight, this one being a Knight Battlewagon. It tanked the slug, but not without its armor being weakened.
The others took advantage of this and team-shot the Knight until it was nothing more than digital dust. Korra reloaded the Whiplash, and aimed at the last Knight, this one was a Commander. It was using an Incineration Cannon. The Knight seeing the danger of the Railgun, teleported away. "It's gone, watch your backs!" Korra yelled.
Everyone huddled together and watched their sixes. If this thing re-appeared it would be met with hell. Then they heard the all familiar sound of the Knight teleporting back…but where was it?
"Dodge!" Vale yelled, they rolled out of the way as the Knight fell on the spot they were standing on. Boooom! It made a quite large dent in the metallic floor. It quickly fired its cannon, but the shots missed as Osiris was moving in circles not giving the Knight an immobile target. Korra, as she ran, aimed the Whiplash back on the Knight, charged it and fired! The first slug hit the Knight hard on its head, blowing off its armored covering.
Angered, the Knight quickly sprinted towards the moving Spartans. Vale wasn't able to see the Knight coming since it was moving faster than they were thanks to its hard-light propulsions systems. She got hit hard by the Knight's hard-light axe.
She hit a nearby metal crate, her energy shields were depleted. But nevertheless she stood back up. Buck jumped onto the Knight's back and noticed that it had no armor on its head. Taking out his combat knife, he buried deep into the Knight's glowing skull-like face. It roared in pain before falling on the floor and disintegrating into nothingness. Buck picked up his knife from the ground and placed it back in its sheath. "Everyone okay?" He asked.
"Yeah…I'll be fine." Vale said looking at her armor's shielding system.
"Wasn't expecting Knights." Tanaka said, "Surprises after another."
"Well now we know what we may have ahead, aside from regular soldiers." Korra stated, throwing the Whiplash on the floor. "Grab anything you can find here. Splinter grenades. Weapons and ammo before we go."
"Hey Korra." Buck called his fireteam leader. "Got a second?"
"What's up?" She replied, while she was quite shorter and younger than Buck, he respected her a lot since their first meeting years ago. Although they weren't really friends back then, the past several months they had become to grow closer and Buck had started to see her as a younger sister. And as any brother would do, he was always there to guide their younger siblings.
"I think we may be getting a bit ahead of ourselves in this one." He said.
"Seems like a standard op to me." Korra replied.
"Just look at it. Who builds a military base in the middle of nowhere space in a forgotten planet that has little to no valuable resources aside from possible vacation resorts? Not even the Covenant came to attack it during the war." Buck said, "Remember the dossiers on this planet, the ones that Command gave us before dropping?"
"Lots of black lines."
"Well I asked Vale to find out what those black lines were hiding." Buck revealed. "Turns out that most of the UNSC top brass was on the dark about this place…but not ONI."
"Come on, Buck, you might be looking at this a bit too deeply." Korra tried to brush off Buck's suspicions.
"Just listen. Whatever ONI had here may be what the innies are looking for, buried." Buck said, "I mean, what would they even steal Knights and bring them here? I have a bad feeling about this mission."
Korra began to think on Buck's words as the elevator arrived. "We'll see once we go down into sub-level two, then." Korra said walking towards the elevator, Buck just sighed and followed.
"Whatcha' get Vale?" Tanaka asked as the elevator went down.
"Found one of those silenced SMGs that ODSTs use." Vale said, "Bring any good memories, Buck?"
"Yeah, you could say that." Buck replied in an amused tone.
Deeper inside the facility, in sub-level nine, Colonel Lockhart was looking at the security feeds that showed him a hidden complex in the caverns below the human facility. The rebel Spartan entered to what seem to be his office, a small dimly lit room with a single mahogany desk in the middle. There were pictures of kids on it next to the computer that Lockhart was looking at.
"The targets are moving deeper into the facility." The rebel Spartan said.
"The teams in the caverns won't be able to keep containment for long." Lockhart said as he rubbed his eyes. "Tell me, mercenary, what do you recommend?"
"Seal the complex. Gather your soldiers and leave this place." He replied. "Places like these shouldn't be trifled with."
"Is that so? I guess that you see things in the now rather than ahead." Lockhart replied, "With the technologies hidden inside that complex we could completely retaliate against the UNSC and declare complete and utter independence. Freedom from the fascists over at Earth."
"You seek freedom, but following this path you will only find death." The rogue Spartan responded, "Once my mission is done here, my employer will be expecting a full report."
"Tell the Chairman that he will get his part." Lockhart said. "And…Locus?"
The rogue Spartan, known now as Locus, stopped before opening the door out of Lockhart's office. "What?"
"Death is but a small price to pay for the reward ahead." Lockhart said. Locus ignored the foolish words of the Colonel and went on his way, closing the door behind him.
