Chapter seven:

Detonation

For the second time in an hour Luke found himself climbing up the floating buildings hovering around the stronghold. But while previously he had been taking pot-shots at the Vex below, he was now trying his best to avoid their attention. Smith had held a void-sphere in his hand and used it to burn through an outer wall, and they were now jumping from building to building in an attempt to reach the caves roof, where they would attach grenades, heavy weapons ammo, and their sole remote detonation explosive from Luke's kit to various points on the roof. Theta expressed a high degree of confidence that if they placed them where he requested, at various high points on the structure and sometimes magnetised to the roof itself, they would have more than enough explosive power to bring the roof down.

"However," The AI had warned, "There is limited range on the detonator you plan to use. You will need to remain in the cave for the detonation request to go through. How do you intend to get out without being buried?"

"Simple." Smith had said. "We set the charges, get to the edge of the cave, set down the detonator, and set up a simple pulley system so we can pull a string and hit the big red button when we're halfway up our exit route." Their 'exit route' being the hole they had jumped down to get in, which they were all fairly confident that they could climb, especially with the support of their jet-packs. The important part was the "remain undetected" bit.

Bishop, hampered down by his Titan armour, was the slowest to place his explosives. He had set his last charge to detonate under enough pressure, and was trying to connect it to the magnet he had thrown onto the roof. But the magnet could have hit anywhere and would have adhered to the surface. He just had to throw the device at the same place, or even close, and the magnet would do its job. Easy. He swung his arm back, then forward, losing the explosive, which flew up towards the ceiling… and completely missed. It then proceeded to crack loudly against the ceiling, fall down, past Bishops outstretched hand, and down, 200 metres where it landed with a thump on the head of a Vex robot. Bishop got the eerie sight of two dozen Vex eyes, previously engaged with unlocking the door, swivel up to him. "Uuuuh, hi?" He called down. Then the explosive, triggered by the force of the fall, blew.

The explosion killed a dozen or so Vex, which was good, and didn't activate the other bombs strapped to the ceiling, which was better. Unfortunately, it let all the Vex know that their targets were available and practically asking to be shot, which was horrifically, bone chillingly, incomprehensibly bad. The three jumped off simultaneously, using their jetpacks to angle themselves towards their escape route, whilst firing whatever ammo they had left at the robots running towards them from around the building. Luke landed first, rolling into a crouch and turning to unleash sniper fire at the incoming Vex, which allowed Bishop to land second, and under Smiths orders sprint towards the cliff they had to climb and start climbing it. Smith himself didn't land at all, so Luke knew he was pulling a void power trick and creating a vacuum above his head to stay floating. He called down "LUKE! GET OUT OF HERE! NO SENSE BOTH OF US DYING TO BRING DOWN THIS HELLHOLE!" Luke smiled grimly under his helmet, and replied "I'D CATCH A PLASMA BLAST FOR YOU SMITH. GIMME THE DETONATOR, YOU KNOW I'VE GOT A BETTER CHANCE OF GETTING OUT WHEN THIS THING BLOWS." The two exchanged another round of fire with the increasing number of Vex firing at them before Smith decided to land beside his comrade. He passed across the detonator. "Don't die or I'm gonna kill you." He stated, before sprinting back to join Bishop in the climb up to survival.

Luke got behind cover and used up all his ammo on the Vex ranks, then summoned a fiery pistol and squeezed off as many shots as he could. He even hurled his dagger at one's eye before sprinting back towards his team-mates. At the foot of the cliff he halted and checked the detonator. No connection, it read. Luke sighed, noted the position of the button, and threw it into the Vex ranks before leaping up to the cliff face. His aim was always far better than Bishops. The detonator flew, propelled by Luke's armour enhanced strength, past the laser-fire and the Robotic soldiers. It flew through the tunnel and out into the main cave. Anyone paying attention would have heard a beep, and seen words scrolling across its interface saying: connection regained, detonation available, as it hit the eye of a lagging Vex robot, the button compressed… and the explosives attached to the building's roof exploded.

I loved, and i lost, i loved, and i lost, Exploooooooosioooons!

Review if you have any clue what song those lyrics were from. Have fun imagining large amounts of fire and debris while i finish up 8: Our plans and theirs. See y'all!