Jorge was having quite the time telling jokes and playing some honest cards with Ceta. He wouldn't go for anything other than hand dealt cards. Electronic cards just seemed like a bad idea to him. He picked this game up from a Marine unit that had an ethnic German with them. Called "Mau-Mau", it's similar to Spanish "Uno", only faster, and with fewer cards. Sure Jorge had to shuffle the deck each time, but he'd rather be doing this than getting cheated on. Jack of hearts is on the pile, serving as a wild card.
"Diamonds" calls Ceta. The holographic avatar he projected shifted, making himself more comfortable.
Jorge examines his hand. No diamonds. The Jack. Do I use it, or save it for a rainy day..? No. He picks up a card with one hand and stabs a hunk of grilled meat dabbed in sauce with his fork with the other one. "Ceta" took a sip of wine and played his next card, the ten of Diamonds. Finally! he thinks to himself as he chews on the delicious steak Ceta had the bots grill. He plays the ten of Spades. Ceta picks up a card from the draw pile, and Jorge plays the seven of Spades. Ceta shoots him a glare as he lays down the seven of Diamonds. Damn, I almost had 'im. Jorge draws four cards from the pile and sits back, examining his new cards, strategizing. He looked around at the three other tables. To each their own poison his mind whispered and he chuckled. Ceta looked up.
"Something up Jorge?" he asks. Jorge shakes his head.
"Just something I heard on a planet a long time ago" he replied. He looked up to see Rosenda and Emile laughing. He smiled at their enjoyment of each other as he played his Jack of Diamonds.
"Bloody Spades," he growled, pretending to be frustrated.
Rosenda found herself laughing as Emile went about describing some of his antics as a trainee under Kurt.
"…And so then this trainer walks over to Geoff and says 'What the HELL are you doing?! Geoff then says 'I'm doing what the hell I fucking want to cocksucker' " Emile and Rosenda roared with laughter. He takes another bite out of the steak that Ceta prepped. God, it's about as awesome as Rosenda's cooking.
"Attention Noble Team, we will be arriving out of Slipspace in three days, twenty hours, five minutes, three and a half seconds from now. Destination: Oblivion," Ceta remarked chillingly over the Comms system.
"Go to hell Ceta!" Emile cried in mock frustration, feeling the effects of the wine they were served. Rosenda laughed so hard Emile had to reach over and hold her steady. They laughed harder and harder into the evening before Ceta sent them to their quarters. The Team did not rouse until late the next morning; For Spartans, at least.
The three days went by without much going on. Noble turned out for meals, some exercise and a little target practice and sparring to keep their skills sharp. Carter, Kat, Rosenda and Emile were the rarest to be seen. Jorge tended to the equipment in his down time, and Jun spent time learning to better fight up close with Erica, and Erica found herself growing fond of the anti-social sniper.
When the Bramblefin exited Slip-space when Ceta predicted, they emerged on the fringes of a nebulae overlooking a desert planet. Everyone was on the bridge, save for Six and Jorge in the engine room, making sure everything went according to plan.
"All a head full, let's see where we are," Carter ordered from the captain's position. Kat clicked her acknowledgement light and set course for a patrol through the system. The Spartans of Noble Team were fully outfitted for anything. Suits sealed, weapons cleaned and loaded in arms reach, and ship on lock down with MAC cannon and other weapons systems at 75% readiness.
A shadow hung back in the nebulae, out of range of the limited sensor suite that the UNSC Corvette had. The large ship, silver and triangular, crept along to the edge of the nebulae before engaging the hyper-drive, and fleeing the scene. Unfortunately, as all ships here are shielded against back lash, the Bramblefin was not.
"Jorge! Six! Ceta! SOMEONE GET THOSE GENERATORS BACK ONLINE," Carter roared above the klaxons. Jorge, Six and Ceta were scrambling to get the generators back online, but it was no use. The planet loomed large in the viewscreens as Carter made a decision.
"Load everything you can into a Pelican and fly it out of here. Each of us takes a Pelican, maximize our cargo capacity, and everyone takes a hog. I don't care what type of hog, but a hog nonetheless. Move Noble! Ceta, I'll be pulling you before I launch. Mark an LZ for us to rendezvous at." With that, he jogged down the corridor to the cargo and launch bays, where Noble was scrambling to get everything set.
Jorge and Jun gave Erica a hand loading ammo and food onto her Pelican, and then the favor was returned. The big man strapped his machinegun to a part of the cargo bay where he could get it before bailing from the Pelican. The others thought this was a good idea and followed suit. Kat got her precious electronics aboard, and Carter gave her the AI to hang on to. Her Pelican was the first to get kicked off the ship.
Next up was Emile. His had been loaded with ammo for every kind of weapon Noble fought with, and lots of food and water. He sealed the VTOL up and then it joined Kat's bird heading in-atmosphere. Rosenda, then Jorge, then Erica, and finally Carter ejected from the Bramblefin before it hit atmosphere. A copied subroutine of Ceta's was piloting the ship now. The seven Pelicans formed up on Carter's location and command, then they entered atmosphere to follow the Corvette down into the dirt to see if they would be able to either
A) Set up camp in the ship itself, or
B) If they could find a suitable place to put down and make camp before moving on to find a settlement.
Carter hoped for the best as the cockpit began to glow re-entry orange.
They set down on the planet without much difficulty, breaking over sand dunes en route to the crash site and having lost only two of the seven hogs in re-entry. Jun spotted the Bramblefin. She was lying upright and mostly out of the sand, even after crashing and burning.
When Noble arrived at the site of the wreck after caching most of their gear and a Pelican at a secret location (it's in the middle of a flipping desert, for everyone to see) , the ship had burned considerably, rendering most of the equipment on board inoperable. Oh, wait. Starships are built with the intention to NOT burn. But this one did anyways.
Erica and Jun were patrolling the barracks to see if any spare clothing made it through the fire. So far, after having gone through about half the rooms, there was nothing but soot and ash.
"Jun, do you have any clue as to what kind of plan Carter is going to have?" she asked, breaking the silence between them.
"No, I don't. It's hard to tell these days what is Carter's and what is Kat's. But, I do have a feeling that we're going to make out on the pelicans in pairs until we die, heading in each direction. That's about all I can think of at the moment," he replied, rummaging through the remnants of a charred footlocker.
"Find anything?" she asked at length.
"Nada. Time to bail," he said with a hint of sorrow. Things just got a little worse, and they weren't looking up.