Once again, I apologize for the rushed nature of the previous chapter. In addition, I forgot to mention that the "Keyship" is actually based off the Orion/Aurora, not the Halo Forerunner Dreadnought. You can probably guess what the Ark will be at this point.
October 15, 2552 - High Charity
The gateroom was empty except for the Stargate, the dialing console located in a room forward and above, similar to the layout of the Earth SGC. After thousands of years of inactivity, the symbols began to light up blue in sequence, the chevrons lighting as the adjacent symbols became lit. The entire room was lit blue as it activated, the unstable vortex almost touching the wall.
A MALP robot probe was the first through. A moment later, the four SPARTANs emerged.
"Huh," said Daniel as he moved away from the Stargate, making way for the remaining troops.
"What is it?" asked Carter, "Oh, the gate. Wow, it's different. I mean, the basic design is the same, and so are the symbols, but-"
"It's blue, and it doesn't seem to be capable of rotating."
"Forget it," said Mitchell, a hint of regret in his voice, "We have a mission to accomplish."
"All right, everyone here? You know what to do, move out!" Carter began to head forward with Sheppard, Zelenka and a few SG teams worth of troops. They would fan out, Carter, Sheppard and Zelenka heading to the bridge, control room, or whatever it was, McKay and the remaining SPARTANs heading for what passed for engineering, and the rest securing the ship.
They had almost made it to the control room when the sound of gunfire came from down the corridor. "Contact, contact! Three of the little ones, but I think they've managed to get word out!" The ship was mostly deserted, but not completely empty. Alarms began blaring outside the ship, and the team began to run toward the bridge.
"Doctor McKay, what's your status?" Carter's voice crackled over the radio.
"Well, we have power, coming from some zero-point device, other than that I don't know! Look, I just got here, okay? Why couldn't they get an AI for this mission?" There was gunfire in the background. Not a good sign.
"Damn it, everything's dead!" Carter observed. Only the lights were on in the bridge- the consoles were all dead. She removed a panel to get to the crystal circuitry behind it. Before she could do anything, the room sprang to life.
"Wonder what Rodney did," said Sheppard.
"What did you do up there?" his voice crackled over the radio, "Because everything is on now! Not on as in it can fly now, but I mean, everything's powering up!"
"Don't look at me!" Sheppard protested, "All I did was lean against this console!"
"Well, you did something," Carter said, her fingers flying over the console, "Bringing internal sensors online- damn! Lots of them, swarming the ship! I'm going to try to seal it off, but the damage is pretty extensive. McKay, we need power, we need the shields up, and we need to get this ship out of here!"
"Look, I'm trying! The Covenant are right outside my door and this ship has taken a lot of damage! They prettied it up but a lot of systems are down, a lot of power conduits are- what the hell is this? Oh no, no, no! They've jury rigged some sort of system to power the city. It's very crude and it's sapping power away from the engines!"
"All right. You get the engines online, I'll work on the shields. Be advised, the Covenant are swarming the aft end of the ship, probably due to it's physical location- no, hull breach below the engines."
"Is this going to take a while? Because if it is, I'm going to sit down." Sheppard gestured to the chair. He was joking, of course.
"Go ahead. Maybe it'll bring these shields online."
He did, if only as a retort. As soon as he sat down, the chair lit up and angled backward. It wasn't comfortable for a SPARTAN. For that matter, it probably wasn't a very comfortable chair period.
"I can't believe it! Shields are up!" McKay sputtered, "I still can't deactivate the power link- but the engines are powering up!"
"Okay, this is weird," Sheppard said from the chair, "It feels like I'm connected with the ship somehow."
"Well, it was you that brought the shields online. Try thinking of- damn it! Covenant, closing on our position!" Sheppard began to get out of the chair, but Carter objected. "No, stay in that, it's obvious that you're controlling the ship. Try thinking of taking off, pilot it with your mind." She held an SMG in one hand and a captured and recharged plasma rifle in the other. Dual-wielding wasn't exactly accurate, but the volume of fire was effective in close quarters.
"We're taking off!" McKay yelled, a lot of gunfire in the background, "But the energy link is still engaged! I'm trying to disable- damn it! They're right outside the door and cutting through!"
"SG-4 and -5, pull back to engineering and reinforce-" The door to the bridge blew off, narrowly missing Carter's head. Immediately she rolled to the right and opened fire, taking down three Grunts and an Elite in less than five seconds. There were a lot of them, but only one narrow doorway. Two Elites attempted to barge in, plasma bolts hitting her shields as she mowed them down. A plasma grenade flew in and detonated only a foot away.
A whining alarm made Carter painfully aware that her shields were down. The trinium alloy was a lot tougher than Titanium-A, but the plasma bolts still began to burn through it. She took cover behind a console and reloaded her SMG, firing blindly in the general direction of the door. A lucky shot from a Grunt's needler smashed into the weapon and exploded, rendering it completely useless.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" McKay had to get the energy beam disabled, and quickly. Although the damage it was doing to the city wasn't necessarily a bad thing, the ship was beginning to poke out of High Charity, and they needed the power for the shields and to engage the hyperdrive. There was an entire Covenant fleet outside, and with that much power being wasted there was no way they'd survive. "Damn it!" The ship shook violently as plasma began impacting the shields at the bow. "Wait- yes!" It was disabled, and the power was now being diverted to the shields. He ducked behind the console nervously pulling out his pistol as three Elites barged in.
Carter was now down to Sheppard's assault rifle and her pistol. Whoever said it was impossible to use both at the same time never tried it. The recoil made it horribly inaccurate, but it was fairly effective at point blank. But they were still coming, and she was down to her last magazines. Maybe she could get to one of the Covenant weapons-
Gunfire erupted from behind the group of Covenant, tearing them to pieces. SG-7 began pushing them back, their numbers few but their adrenaline high. A brilliant blue-white beam erupted from a Covenant carrier, hitting roughly amidships but being completely deflected by their shields.
"Weapons, this ship has got to have some!" Carter yelled at Sheppard, "McKay, get that hyperdrive online! The shields won't last forever."
Almost as if by magic, brilliant yellow projectiles began streaming from the ship, arcing toward the carrier and High Charity. They swarmed around the city, ripping through it in seconds. The remaining drones joined up with ones streaming out of the ship and began tearing up the Covenant fleet. It was beautiful in a twisted way. Some of the ships exploded, but most simply lost power and became lifeless, drifting hulks, ripped to pieces. Behind the ship, the pieces of High Charity drifted apart.
"Opening a hyperspace window in three... two... one..." Less than an hour after the mission began, the Covenant holy city was ripped to pieces, its defensive fleet decimated.
ATA FTW! It kind of felt cheap to have the ship rip through the fleet like that, but the heavily damaged Orion destroyed a hive-ship, and this one is in much better condition and has something the Orion didn't (should be obvious what).
As you can tell by the first paragraph, I am horrible at describing stuff. This chapter felt too short and rushed, but I think it turned out okay- not great, but okay. As always, please review. No one seems to do so, and it makes me wonder if people are actually reading this.
