A/N: Well, here's chapter 4, the longest yet at 1700 words! (Frankly, that's pitiful, I'll try to get longer chapters. Or would you rather have shorter chapters more frequently?)
Anyway,

Enjoy the insanity!

Billybobjoe47s

Run classrec001216974. … Authorization confirmed. Beginning playback…..

CLASSIFIED: Well, now that that particular crisis was solved, we can continue with the debriefing. Also, your experience would be much appreciated within the (CLASSIFIED). Would you consider joining (CLASSIFIED)? The pay's good.

NOBLE 6: No.

CLASSIFIED: Very well, we'll just continue where we left off then.

NOBLE 6: Fine.

After Noble 6 had gotten his armor repaired, he walked out to find that the makeshift camp was already mostly packed, waiting in a pile net to the cargo truck.

Jun looked up from his cleaning of his sniper rifle. "Good, you're done. We're moving out. Help me get all this into the truck."

After several minutes of packing, Jun threw the last package into the truck. Even with the vast amount of material there, including the MJOLNIR repair unit, the size of a shipping crate, the massive vehicle was still only slightly more than half full.

"Alright," Jun said, walking to the front of the truck and climbing in. "We have a possible shelter about 200 klicks away, so we'd better get moving. He shut the door, the sound echoing through the cave.

Noble 6 climbed into the other side, sitting next to Jun in the silence.

They had been driving for roughly half an hour, when Jun slowed. "Looks like a homestead up ahead. Maybe they'll have survivors….. or most likely a host of dead bodies and supplies."

The truck stopped, and they disembarked. They walked into the homestead, which was relatively intact. Sure enough, several dead bodies were there, but to their surprise, weapons and the occasional Grunt were strewn around the building.

"Looks like these colonists put up a fight. Wonder why they didn't run?"

Ducking into a half-collapsed doorway, Jun stopped dead. "Son of a *****," he said slightly admiringly. This room held around a dozen dead colonists…. As well as two dead Elites. "Well, that's a surprise. Civvies taking out a couple of Elites? What were they guarding that needed to have a dozen men, who could have escaped, throw themselves at the Covvies?"

Noble 6 kicked aside the body of one Elite, searching it for any grenades. Finding one, he scooped it up and attached it to his waist, magnetically locking it there. However, kicking the Elite aside had also discovered something else: A trapdoor, welded shut…. from the inside.

"Jun, trapdoor here. And it looks like it's been welded from the inside."

Jun rushed over. "We might have survivors then, let's get this open." However, the welds had been good, and the leverage was awkward. The two SPARTANS were unable to open the trapdoor.

Jun shrugged. "I doubt this is the only entrance. Must be another around here. Even civvies aren't so stupid as to run into a place with only one exit, and then shut the exit permanently."

Leaving the room behind, after taking all the weapons and grenades strewn about the room, Noble 6 glanced at the pile of weapons in the main room. Quite substantial, for such a were even a few Covenant weapons mixed in, though they were mostly the nearly-useless plasma pistols preferred by Grunt infantry.

"Jun, second floor." Noble 6 had noticed a discolored spot on the ceiling, too regular to be simply a stain. Reaching up, he could just brush the bottom of the ceiling, and so with a jump, he thrust his fist through the ceiling.

Sure enough, the stain was a door, as evidenced by the fact that the piece of ceiling which it occupied had seperated from the rest with a squeal of breaking hinges. Casting that aside, Noble 6 saw a ladder just within the door. Jumping again and gently grabbing hold of the ladder, he pulled it down. However, the ladder was ramshackle and flimsy, obviously made by someone with little woodworking experience.

Gingerly, Noble 6 put a fraction of his half-ton weight on the ladder. It creaked alarmingly, and a sharp crack was heard.

"Jun, we have an attic, but there's no way up. Suggestions?"

"Six, you really need to think outside of the box, be creative. Watch." Jun exited to the next room over, and returned dragging a thick metal table. Dropping it with a clang to the floor, he jumped on it and then jumped into the hole in the low roof, the table only bending slightly.

Six followed his lead, but this time, the table bent alarmingly as he leapt off of the table, now bent nearly in half. Ignoring that fact, he looked around the attic. Dusty crates, a few more weapons strewn about, and a solitary window, shards of glass the only remnant of the window.

After collecting the weapons and throwing them back down the hole, Noble 6 walked over to the window while Jun broke open the crates and inspected the contents, which were just personal effects of no great value. However, a much more interesting sight greeted Noble 6 as he looked out the window.

On the opposite side of the house from the cargo truck, there was a great blackened crater, the surface glass. It was obviously the work of a concentrated Wraith barrage for many minutes.

"Jun, I think I found what the Covvies were searching for. It's under that crater."

"Good work Six, let's check it out."

Breaking the few glass shards left in the pane, Six leapt out the window, landing on one knee outside. Straightening, he walked to the center of the blackened crater, tapping at the ground. "Looks like they didn't get through before they left. See another entrance, Jun?"

Jun walked over to him. "No, no sign of an entrance. Maybe it was here, and they hit it so hard it melted."

However, that thought was broken as the ground crumbled underneath them, sending them 50 feet to a slamming stop.

"Agh!" Six groaned as he stood. "Jun, you green?"

"Yeah Six, but our armor's all dented again. Looks like another trip into the MJOLNIR repair unit later. Anyway, looks like we found what the trapdoor led to. Let's take a look around, shall we?"

The room in question was dimly lit, crates stacked 20 feet high in places, full of supplies. A handful of bodies lay dead in the room. Six checked one, and found he had died when he inhaled too much superheated air, destroying his alveoli.

Jun whistled. "There are a lot of supplies here, Six. If we took some, we could fill up the truck."

Six nodded. "Do it." As he walked over to check the contents of a crate, he saw a dusty panel of metal on one stone wall. Curious, he walked over and brushed the dust off of the panel, revealing a familiar map, a map of Reach. Dots of various sizes, painted a bright red to the grey of metal, were strewn about the map, and a circle surrounded one particular location, a place that corresponded roughly to the homestead above them.

"Jun, I found a map. Looks like there's more of these hidden caches. If we can find one that hasn't been compromised, we could stay there."

Jun looked over. "A map? Grab it. We'll throw it in the truck so we can look at it later. Then, come help me check these crates."

Six nodded, and proceeded to grip the sides of the metal map. However, the map was bolted into the wall, and there wasn't enough room for his hands to get a good grip, meaning he couldn't wrench it off the wall. However, Six chose another option, moving to the side of the map and delivering a powerful kick to the side of the map. That side dented slightly, but the entire map moved as well, and several kicks later, two of the bolts broke with a crack. Six proceeded to insert his hands into the gap left and pried the map off the wall.

He tossed that to the center of the room, then proceeded to start checking crates.

After cataloguing the remaining supplies, including a vast amount of dehydrated food and ammunition, the two main things they needed desperately, they had finished with their task here.

Jun walked to the edge of the perimeter, where a door was located. As Six followed, Jun tried the handle, to find it locked. Kicking the door in, they continued into a hallway, a staircase located at the other end. At the top of the staircase, another locked door resided, soon also kicked in.

The last room was a small one, with the trapdoor they had found at the top of the room, with a platform just below it, with sturdy metal ladders connecting the floor, platform, and trapdoor.

Climbing the ladders, which held surprisingly well, they stood on the platform. The trapdoor was only about 6 feet above them, and so crouching, they easily broke the welds from this side, with much more leverage available to crack the weld beads.

Clambering out of the trapdoor, they soon returned to the hidden cavern, returning dragging the first load of supplies out to the cargo truck. After several such loads, they closed the trapdoor, with Six holding the map under one arm.

As they boarded the cargo truck, and began to leave the homestead, Jun said thoughtfully, "How did these civilians get so much ammunition and food?"

CLASSIFIED: Well, that was our most productive session yet, but I'm afraid I'll have to cut it short. The doctors have recommended that you get a good deal of sleep, and it's getting late.

NOBLE SIX: Whatever you say. Sir, is (CLASSIFIED?)

CLASSIFIED: Well, (CLASSIFIED), and since (CLASSIFIED), it's (CLASSIFIED)

NOBLE SIX: Good.

CLASSIFIED: End recording.

*END RECORDING*

Replay? Y/N