Three pods drifted free from the Black wing ten seconds after Jason left the ship. Nate was the last to go. He ran to his pod and prepped it for launch. He quickly typed in orders to have the pod to his right release at the same time his would. He pulled the lever in front of him and the pod detached from the Black wing and slowly drifted away.
They couldn't afford to turn on the engines as they exited the craft or it would have compromised its stealth ability. The six pods drifted towards the planet at a slow pace of 5 m/h. Jason went over the plan one more time infiltrate a Covenant base, find out how to open the gate the U.N.S.C. personnel went through, rescue them and get out alive, all before Earth was overrun.
Jason clicked his mic on and off three times, this was the signal to start the pods afterburners. He waited until three pods passed him on radar then he hit his thrusters to. All six pods raced towards the Planet in a loose formation.
Red warning lights started to scream in Jason's ear as his radar picked up two contacts pulling into a kill spot behind them. The first three-drop pods had just entered the outer atmosphere and Jason would enter it in about ten seconds. He pulled down the monitor in front of him and scrolled it down to a three dimensional image of the rear of the ship.
On screen two pods shot back and fourth as two Seraph fighters chased them. One of the pods launched back at the Seraphs and was singed by some plasma. The second pod then turned and tried the same maneuver. It was struck by two dead on plasma bolts and launched away smoking. Jason knew that Nate had been in one of those two pods. He hoped for the best but expected the worst. The Seraphs pulled off as Jason's pod broke into the atmosphere. Even a Seraph couldn't keep up with an in atmosphere drop pod.
The first three pods and Jason's had made the entrance exactly as they should have but the surviving pod that had attacked the Seraphs spiraled out of control. Jason plotted out their planned landing zone and doubled checked the coordinates. They were going to land at 96 N 76 W. This landing zone was supposed to be full of hostiles but it was the only place that the Sentinels hadn't patrolled.
The reverse thrusters engaged and Jason was pulled tight against his harness. On his tactical display the three pods in front of him had already started to slow down, but the pod behind him just spiraled towards the ground. He tried to raise Nate over his Com but the craft proved too much resistance for a signal to escape from.
Nick, Steph and Spach all prepared for the impact as their ships rocketed towards the ground. Their altimeters ready 5000 feet and their current speeds were about 500 km per hour. At their current speed the landing would kill them, Nick knew he had to engage the secondary reverse thrusters to slow them down enough. He pulled down on the lever and the pod bounced up for a split second then started its descent. The others copied him and their speed dropped to about 300 km per hour. This speed was within parameters for a landing so nick sat leaned back against the backrest.
Jason watched as the surviving pod stopped spiraling and started plummeting towards the ground at upwards of 1000 km per hour. He readied his secondary thruster and hit them as he passed the 5000 ft mark. He hoped that if Nate was in the surviving pod that he had some plan to slow down his descent our his team would be down to four before the mission really even started.
Jason's head turned frantically as alarms sounded again in his ears. His Tac map flashed red as four enemy targets closed on him from below. The display zoomed in and Jason made out four Covenant banshees heading on an intercept course for his slow moving pod. He had to react there was no time to think. He wondered if his reverse thruster would fire again if he turned them off. Probably not, these things are only made for one trip. He reached down between his legs and his hand ran over a glass case. That's it.
Jason shut down all reverse thrusters and punched in the command to overflow the engines. The pod shot forward and started to catch up to the others. He hoped that Nate was in the other pod and was thinking the same thing as him. The four banshees altered their course but Jason knew they wouldn't be fast enough to get them.
He had to be steady though because he had to get the message to the rest of his team. He figured the radios would only work in close proximity. His computer plotted out the time until his pod passed the others. Three seconds he spoke quickly and packed the message into a burst transmission. He sent the message as the timer hit zero and he hoped they had received it.
Nick's alarm started screaming as his radar picked up the four banshees closing in behind them. Jason's pod flew by his pod missing it only by a few feet. Nick opened the transmission Jason had sent him and listened to it.
"Omega team, turn off reverse thrusters. Four Covenant banshees in pursuit. Only possible escape is to speed up. Over flow engines and proceed to landing area at best speed. To counter speed you will try to restart your entire reverse thruster system then you will deploy the ballistic landing gel. Omega one out."
Nick typed in the commands to shut down his reverse thruster and overflow his main engine. The plan was almost a suicide order. Jason had just ordered them to pick up as much speed as possible and then to use a prototype landing gel as their only way of surviving the impact. It didn't matter either way though because Jason was in command and they all trusted him with their lives.
Just as Jason hoped, far below him the surviving pod launched the landing gel. Jason let a small smile cross his face, as he knew for sure that Nate was still alive. He readied his landing to, he checked his Br 23's clip and slid it back into the feed satisfied it was full. He then set his computer to launch the reverse thruster at the last second to possibly slow down the craft before he launched the gel.
Jason grabbed the handrail as the reverse thrusters tried to fire. They never did but they slowed the craft down, which greatly increased his chance of survival. Jason reached down and punched through the glass protecting the button that launched the ballistic gel. He stood back up and bent his knees preparing for the impact as the canister shot from the bottom of the pod towards the ground.
The canister hit three seconds later and burst open into a Jell-O like mound twenty feet deep and twelve feet wide. The pod impacted it two seconds after that and slide into the center slowing down he farther it went until it slammed to a halt as it hit the ground underneath the mound.
The inside of the pod was pitch black, the only light came from sparks that emitted from broken equipment. Jason's H.U.D. automatically switched to night vision and he looked at his surroundings. His head felt like it weighed a ton. His vision was blurry and he couldn't stand up. He tasted the metallic flavor of blood in his mouth. His harness had broken from the impact and he had launched forward into the metal door causing a half-foot dent in it. A siren was screaming in his ears and he realized that his shields were completely empty. He slowly got to his feet and punched the door release with so much force that it broke off.
He stood their holding onto the railing as his shields restored and realized that he wouldn't have been alive if the reverse thrusters hadn't semi fired. The door opened with a loud his and sunlight washed into the pod. Jason leveled his gun and leapt out the door and landed on the ground. All around him the gel was dissolving into nothing. He was ready for an attack and he expected one, but none came. He walked over to a near by tree and lowered himself down slowly.
He checked his bio signs. His blood pressure was a bit high and so was his heart rate but they were all within acceptable parameters. It seemed like he had a concussion to because everything kept spinning to him.
