-Part Seven; The Mission Is Officially FUBAR

Alex-2 had just gotten his M7 sub reloaded and was about to belt out the contents of the fresh mag into the face of a Grunt when a Jackal stepped in front of the alien and his bullets were deflected off the Jackal's shields. He ceased fire and ducked back around his cover, a support pylon under a ventilation chute that was up against the wall. Anywhere else in the immediate vicinity was flanked, and the situation had turned into a free-for-all spree with everyone running helter skelter every which way trying not to get shot.

More often than not, the runs ended in sudden death that the deceased never got to identify the source of. Thankfully, the only one to drop so far on their own team was Alex-1, but the circumstances surrounding that incident had more saved him than condemned him; the spike holes in his armor had funneled the plasma blast on his chest down under the armor, and it knocked him flat so all the rest of the bullets meant to end him flew on past harmlessly.

He still thrashed and clawed at his armor while howling agonizingly, but he was still alive and really not that badly hurt. Unwilling to try to engage the Jackal - or the Grunt, for that matter - again immediately, Alex-2 glanced the other way around his cover and then bolted from it, darting halfway across the room to come up behind an Elite as it was turning around.

He reached up and socked the alien in the mandibles with the butt of his gun, startling it and knocking it backwards a step. As it righted itself, Alex-2 darted away, circling the freestanding block to come around behind the Elite yet again. Somehow, it knew to turn back around, only to get socked yet again in the mandibles with the same gun. That time it bleated a wort as it jerked backwards, still quite disoriented by what was happening to it.

Alex-2 just disengaged and ran away again.

The Elite turned around again, this time with its plasma rifle up and mentally prepared for a sock to the jaws, only to swing its face right into the choke of a shotgun. Alex-2 didn't stay to watch as the Elite's brains slicked off the block before moving on, but he stumbled right into Amanda on her way up towards him. The two hooked shoulders, spun around one another and went at a ninety-degree angle from their original vectors. Amanda found Connor and Alex-2 met up with Andrew, and the two pairs stepped out together to mow down a small huddle of Grunts coming down the middle.

Plasma rained in from the back, but before much damage could be done, Alex-1 appeared next to the farthest Elite on the left and stuck his monomolecular combat knife up through the base of the alien's face into its brain. Jerking the blade out again, he circled the falling alien with a spin, coming around and up with the knife into the shield generator on the back of the second.

He got elbowed by that one when its shields spluttered and died, but from the floor he whipped up his magnum and emptied the clip into the alien's head. Rather than falling, that one was grabbed and shoved out of the way, to collapse dead against the wall in an awkward fold. Alex-1 had to roll over his own head in a quick tuck to avoid being kicked by the incoming Elite, but his evasion didn't get him far enough. He got to his knees and had leapt upwards when his leap was cut short by a hand closing around his trailing arm and jerking him backwards.

He dropped the empty magnum in an attempt to bring the combat knife back around, but it was swatted from his hand by the hot, glowing end of the plasma rifle. "Ngah!" Alex-1 protested, bringing a leg up to kick the elbow attached to the hand that had ahold of him. "Let go of me, you split-chinned bastard!"

The Elite just snarled and hauled back to throw him overhanded at the wall. Alex-1 choked when he hit, tumbling to the floor in a gasping heap. The Elite stalked after him, closed a hand around his helmet and hauled upwards, tucking the business end of his plasma rifle up under Alex-1's chin. The firing stud depressed and the knife embedded in the side of the Elite's neck at the exact same moment, causing Alex-1 to get dropped at an angle with a plasma burn across the side of his neck. The Elite grabbed the handle of the knife protruding from its own neck, and turned to see where it had come from, only to take a double-three-round burst in the face, putting it down. Elliott dropped the aim of his BR and darted to where Alex-1 sat crumpled over, pushing him against the wall to look him over. "Hey, you alright?"

Alex-1 got in a pained wheeze, but said nothing.

"Hold on, Connor found an empty side exit, we're taking it. I'll get you out of here." Pulling one of Alex-1's arms over his shoulders, Elliott stood up, and retreated back the way he'd come.

On her way through the same area, Amanda bent mid-step to yank the knife from the Elite's neck, before following the men through the tangled maze and to the hidden passageway. It dipped low into a bridge that went under an energy beam that looked like a power conduit of some advanced kind, then rose up towards another landing that was hung over a deep chasm that didn't have a visible bottom.

While at first none of the surviving Covenant followed their stealthy retreat, the beleaguered team found more of the same once they came out the other end. The majority were Jackals and Grunts, but the architecture here was more to the tune of a long, broad corridor punctuated in the middle by matching pylons that looked like tuning forks. At the top of each tuning fork was suspended another of the tubeless energy conduits. This did not necessarily leave a whole lot of room for cover or maneuvering.

Out ahead, Connor blew down the first rank of Jackals with their shields in the wrong positions with his M7 submachine guns, but as the rest of the Grunts fled in mock terror, he dropped both in favor of hauling the SPNKr over his head off his back when he saw something bigger.

Hunters.

The rocket launcher met his shoulder in both hands with the zoom lens flipped out before the lancing branch of energy swept him away.

"Connor!" Amanda screamed, jumping out into the middle of the fray to snatch the flying ODST out of the path of the beam, and tucked around him for the tumble to the floor. He grabbed her, choking and smoking at once, but the rocket launcher had spun out in the other direction. Coming hastily around the other side of the first tuning fork, Alex-2 scooped it up even before it had quit spinning around and shouldered it. He leveled the aim as he came around the corner of the second tuning fork, so the instant he got the Hunters in sight, he lit out both rockets, then ducked away before the responding beam could sweep him away, too.

The first beam was interrupted when the rockets hit home, the blast shredding the fore of the first Hunter and causing the back half to topple and shred onto the floor in a writhing mass of orange worms.

"Elliott! Give me some cover!" Amanda called, grabbing Connor by his web gear and hauling upwards on the bigger trooper. She began a backwards shuffle towards the backside of the first tuning fork as Elliott and Alex-2 peppered the remaining Hunter with distracting fire. They danced right and left, right and left, trying to close the gap as they went.

Finally, Elliott came around the side of the symbiotic alien and as it turned to face him, the main gun aglow, Alex-2 popped out behind it and shot it nearly point-blank with the only rocket he'd taken the time to reload. Empty again, he ducked away, the Hunter wounded but still active.

Realizing this, Elliott backed off too, tucking around the corner of the first available tuning fork to quickly reload his battle rifle. "Make it fast, Alex!" He called. He looked up in time to see the Hunter had followed him, and ducked straight flat to the floor in time to miss being swiped off his boots by the metal shield in the Hunter's other hand. "Alex! Make it right now!" He tucked quick and rolled to the side, scrambling from his knees back to his feet and running flat out for all he was worth. "Alex! Now, man, now!"

The sound of the Hunter's massive gun warming all the way up and starting to belch the first couple of terrawatts sounded through the chamber, and then the Hunter exploded in fire and orange worm-bits, the gun's aim twisting off to one side and lancing a gouge in one of the tuning forks' upper branches.

"Is that all of them?" Amanda called out.

"Looks like it for now. I can't say what this chamber really looks like on the blueprints though, so I don't wanna linger." Alex-2 answered, trotting back. "How's Connor?"

She looked up as he and Elliott arrived at the same time. "Bleeding, but I got foam in him so he'll last." Propped against the foot of the second tuning fork, Connor waved a hand weakly at the others. "One of you get Alex, I don't want any more surprises."

"Have any of you tried to radio the Sarge yet?" Alex-2 asked, as he took an arm and Elliott took the other of Alex-1 and lifted. Beside them, Andrew kept vigil, his assault rifle held tightly at the ready in his hands.

"I did, it's all static down here. I couldn't even get the Covenant frequencies to play anymore." Amanda reported. She pulled Connor to his feet and tucked one of his arms around her shoulders to keep him there. "Let's move."