(3)
Edgar and I found ourselves in the Covenant carrier's enormous hangar bay, where Norman and Anthony had stayed put to delay our hosts until we got back. It seemed as if we had come back just in the nick of time. I spotted an Engineer practically butting up against the wide arched ceiling, floating way, way high up above us. Every few seconds a luminescent pulse emanated from the its core, casting a radiant purple overshield on every covie I could see.
This included, but was not limited to: the Grunt squad manning the mounted plasma cannons on the upper tiers across from us; a handful Jackals protecting the Grunts with carbines and needle rifles; and of course, the deadly Hunter pair down on the ground level with us. One of the Hunters was wearing the distinguished gold-clad armor of a Mgalekgolo General. Both of them were gigantic. All of these Covenant responders were heavily bearing down on just two Spartans.
Even odds, I figured, but what the hell.
The Grunts and Jackals both had trouble tracking Anthony as he jet-packed up to them. He flew with grace and style, fierce like a hawk with precise MA37 fire, yet swift as a hummingbird as he maneuvered naturally through the air. His brown-and-white armor and shock trooper helmet were a throwback to his time in the ODST Bullfrog jumper brigade. A reminder to all that the Bullfrogs were still on Reach, and were still a force to be reckoned with.
Meanwhile, the Hunter pair fired at Norman, who was launching grenades from behind an oval-shaped plasma barrier via M319. The first of the Hunter's projectiles exploded against the barrier and turned it from translucent red to a strained orange. The second blast obliterated it. Norman dove away from the collapsed barrier and, mid-air, launched a second grenade that skipped like a river stone off the floor and exploded just inches from the subordinate Hunter.
It must have been his last grenade because instead of launching a third one, he tossed the M319 aside and threw something hard on the ground directly in front of him like he was spiking a football. The Hunter pair groaned and fired at him at the same time. Just before Norman was blown to smoking smithereens, an aqua tinted domed energy shield expanded completely around Norman before impact and denied their projectiles.
I felt tapping on my shoulder and turned. Edgar silently pointed at himself, then jabbed a thumb somewhere off to the right. I nodded in a agreement. Bread and butter. A classic maneuver, and it always works on big, slow, hulking targets like these. One person goes one way, the other goes the other way, like spreading butter on bread with a knife. In this case, I would simply have to get their attention and he would slip in behind them for the flank. Edgar disappeared into thin air and I jumped into my act.
I reached back and equipped my own MA37 and began alternately peppering both Hunters. Bullets deflected uselessly off their thick metal armor and both roared in irritation as they faced me.
"He yo!" I shouted. "You need summa this?!"
Their cannons glowed hot green as they charged up. Not one to back down, I shook my hands and rolled my shoulders to loosen up before pulling a piece of equipment out of a soft canvas pack strapped to my thigh. As opposed to the dome shield in Norman's instance or the jet pack in Anthony's, the equipment I carried enabled my armor to go into lockdown. Standard, must-have equipment for an EOD.
The equipment came in the form of disposable modules which were one time use. They allowed the user to reach nearly invincible levels of shielding. However, there were several drawbacks to the modules that at times made me reconsider my dedication to them in the first place. One thing that could be a problem was, just like the dome shield modules, the casing around the armor locking equipment was an incredibly tough coat of steel and polymer, and had to be cracked open with pure blunt force. Which meant I had to smash it open in order for the damned thing to work. A second drawback was that the shielding would only last up to five seconds max, for the entirety of which I had remain immobile. Yet those five seconds had saved my life more times than I cared to admit.
The Hunter General blasted off a shot. I bounced readily from foot to foot as the green glob grew larger and larger. I had to wait for just the right moment. Too soon and they might stall, too late and no more me.
C'mon...almost...
"Yaaaauugh!"
I screamed and slammed my fist into the ground for all I was worth. I felt the coating of the module I was gripping crack just as the green projectile slammed into me with the smacking power of a wrecking ball. Hurt like a bitch, but my armor stayed firmly locked in place. I couldn't see anything, and everything sounded incredibly distant whenever I was in my armor energy shell, but I could feel the thumping vibrations of dual explosions rocking the hangar. I knew I'd done my part, now I was trusting Edgar to do his.