Chapter 7
A few minutes later, within the prophet's safe room, the creature sat in its gravity defying chair, its frail body with its drooping neck sat silently as it faced a series of data screens, dressed in extensively ornate robes and flanked by 20 elite honor guards armed with ceremonial energy pikes. A lone elite dressed in golden armor knelt behind the prophet as he began to speak in the gruff and warbled voice of the elites.
"The human vessel took us completely by surprise minister, we have been left completely disabled and unable to use any of our ships weapon systems, or to retreat into slipspace. I urge you holy one, please allow my crew to activate the Divinity's self destruct device so we can complete the great journey."
The prophet interrupted him with a wave of its wrinkled little hand, turning around his anti gravity chair to face the elite, his chair floating well over the height of the average of an elite, giving the decrepit old alien a small bit of an imposing nature. "Let us not be too hasty Shipmaster, the hierarchs have proclaimed that needlessly wasted lives will not be joining the rest on the path to absolution."
"I understand that minister, yet we cannot raise communications with the rest of the fleet, and our onboard AI has been unresponsive for almost an hour now, the humans have massed even more ships around us, now is our chance to self destruct and wipe away their heresy ourselves."
"My direct orders will not be swayed by your words Shipmaster 'Lodamee, now return to your duties and continue to attempt to raise communications with the fleet, or I will have you jettisoned into the abyss for heresy and treason, is that clear?"
The shipmaster growled and rose to his feet. "Your word is my command minister….may the forerunners guide us."
"That they shall, now leave me to my thoughts."
As the shipmaster turned to leave, there was a commotion in the hallway outside of the sealed blast door leading into the safe room. A small muffled uproar could be heard, followed by the sound of covenant weapons and gunfire drowning out most of the voices. The shipmaster ran up to the door, hearing the sounds of shouting and gunfire outside he activated a communications device on his wrist armor.
"Soldier, what's going on out there?"
"It's the humans…..they've boarded the carrier…..and the demons, they're here, we're being overru…"
His voice cut out as the muffled sound of a shotgun blast rang out on the other side of the door, followed by the sound of something large being slammed into the door, leaving a small dent. The shipmaster drew a pair of energy swords and activated them as he slowly backed away from the door. The honor guard dropped their ceremonial pikes, drawing a pair of plasma rifles each as 2 of them moved to shield the Minister. Hardly a moment passed before the doors were blown clean off their magnetic hinges. Hans and Lydia standing there with weapons shouldered. Hans let off a pair of three round bursts, tearing through the shields of one of the two honor guardsmen shielding the Minister, knocking them back dead into his anti gravity chair and knocking it over, sending the prophet crashing to the floor with his chair and the elites landing on top of him.
Hans and Lydia both quickly dashed behind the room's overarching pillars for cover as a hail of plasma rounds from the honor guardsmen kept them pinned down. Lydia stepping out of cover for a moment, sidearm draw and letting lose a few rounds at the elites before one of the stray plasma bolts struck her in the shoulder, the shot dispersing across her shields but forcing her back into cover to recharge them. Hans drew his magnum sidearm in his free hand, brandishing his rifle in the other as he activated his squad comm.
"Indigo, cut the lights!"
Indigo immediately shut off all lighting in the safe room, plunging it into total darkness. Hans then gave the signal to the rest of his squad to begin now that he and Lydia had gotten the guard's attention. With that both Jessie and Marshall dropped from the vents above, landing on either side of the raised platform the prophet and his guards stood. Hans and Lydia then stepped out of cover, their visors' night vision settings activated, and all four opened fire on the group. Hans methodically ripping three round bursts into his targets before snapping to another with machine-like efficiency. Lydia turning to deal with the shipmaster, thanks to the glowing blue light of his swords, Shipmaster 'Lodamee could still see the spartan. He thrusted forward one of his blades which Lydia expertly sidestepped before bringing her armored elbow down on the elite's forearm, snapping it like a wishbone before a boot to his chest sent him sprawling backwards. The shipmaster roared before charging forward and taking a wild downward swing at her, Lydia moved her arm and caught his wrist with her left hand, she gave him a crazy grin from under her amber visor as she squeezed, the servos in her gauntlet as well as her own augmented strength crumpled the armor around the elites wrist and crushing the bones in his hand to near powder, forcing him to drop his sword. Lydia then threw his arm to the side and followed with an uppercut to the shipmaster's mandibled jaw, lifting the 350 pound alien off its feet and onto the floor. She stepped over him, placing the barrel of her shotgun into the creature's mouth and pulled the trigger, sending purple blood spraying across the floor in an arch behind it, as she began slowly walking forward, firing her shotgun from the hip as she blasted down 2 more honor guards that were searching frantically through the darkness for her. At this point the honor guard had begun to recover from the surprise, focusing their fire at the point of Yellow team's muzzle flashes.
"Check your targets before you fire, we need the package alive" Hans spoke in a monotone voice as he judo threw an elite over his shoulder, drawing his sidearm and emptying a magazine into the alien's back. Turning back toward the platform just in time to spray down another elite with his battle rifle fired from the hip.
Jessie and Marshall both leaped up onto the prophet's platform, mowing down the majority of the elites still standing on the platform until Jessie's weapon was shot from his hands, the plasma melting his shotgun in half. Jessie dropped the back half, taking the front half and whipping it at the nearest elite, before ducking down and drawing his combat knife as he tackled one to the ground, slashing its throat as he tore his plasma rifle from its hands. Grasping the dead elite by its bleeding throat, Jessie lifted it up to use it as cover, firing the stolen weapon over the elite's shoulder, the plasma striking and searing the flesh of three more bodyguards.
As the fighting died down now, with Yellow Team now moving to comb through the bodies and finish off any survivors. Hans spoke up over the squad comm as he turning over an elite peppered with bullet holes with the muzzle of his rifle. "Indigo, get the lights back on, we need to get the package moving."
The purplish blue lights returned to operation as the squad continued searching through the bodies. Marshall searching up by the platform, rolling the bodies off the sides until he turned one over, cursing to himself silently as he drew his sidearm and pointed it down at something on the ground. "Hans, I found the package...but I'm pretty sure we broke it."
"Oh you have got to be kidding me, what happened?" Hans spoke as he climbed up onto the platform as Jessie and Lydia stayed behind to continue combing through the bodies. As they reached the top, he pointed his weapon as well at something on the floor. "Well shit, looks like he isn't walking." Below them the prophet cowered, his legs mangled and crushed under the weight of his broken anti-gravity chair and one of his dead guardsmen.
"This is Yellow Leader, come in Queen Bee, we have recovered the package, returning to hangar for exfil, how copy?"
"This is Strieger, and drop the callsigns Yellow Leader, things are getting a bit tense on our end, we're running short on time. I'm sending a Pelican with some of my ODSTs onboard to get you out of there, see that their LZ is clear Petty Officer."
"Aye Captain, returning to the LZ with the package."
Over the radio Hans could hear a sudden commotion on Captain Striegers end, a timid sounding voice shouting out to him. "Captain Strieger, slipspace ruptures, two of them! It looks like vanguard forces, they're engaging us!"
"Karlsson, maneuver us into position to fire! Wilson, Pollard, arm the rest of our Shivas and scramble our fighters! Wright, get on the horn with the Dragoon and Artemis, tell them to retreat into the debris field to draw the enemy into the mines again!"
Another staticky voice shouted in the background. "Incoming plasma torpedo, brace for impact!"
A rumble and crash could be heard on the other end of his long distance comm as Hans shouted into his end. "Captain Strieger! Captain are you there!?"
"Son, please don't shout in my ear when I'm trying to think. The covvie bastards grazed us. But it was enough of an impact to throw me from my seat."
"Captain, we're suffered a few dozen hull breaches on our port decks, casualty reports are coming in slowly."
"More losses….damn these alien bastards to hell. Yellow Team, you need to hurry, we won't be able to hold off the covenant for long. Iago, coordinate our fire with the destroyers, focus on the ship closest." The comm was cut off then by Strieger, with Hans standing there reholstering his sidearm.
"We need to double time it back to Victoria and make sure our way out is clear; Jessie, Lydia, you take the lead, Marshall, you're carrying our new friend."
"So be it then." Marshall slung his rifle over his shoulder, leaning down he tossed the chair and elite to the side like he was brushing aside toy blocks, grabbing the prophet around the throat as he tried to squirm away and pulling him up to eye level with him. Speaking to him in the electronic voice made by his helmet. "You're coming with me."
