It has been a week since I last updated, but please bear wih me. I'll try to update as often as I can, between all my schoolwork and other things I like to do besides writing.
Disclaimer: id ono townt eentit ansno rha lo.
Chapter 8:
THE SILENT CARTOGRAPHER
Above the vast expanse of the clear, blue, yet artificial, ocean, the two pelican dropships were flying towards a small island. The sun was shining very brightly overhead, and no clouds were in sight. It was a perfect day for killing aliens.
"The Covenant believe that what they call the Silent Cartographer is somewhere under this island," briefed Raven. A strong gust of wind swayed the dropships sidewards, which battered on the passengers a bit, but they could still hold on.
"The Cartographer is a map room that will lead us to Halo's control center," Raven continued, "The island has multiple structures and installations. One of them... contains the map room."
Cyborg loaded a clip into his assault rifle. Unfortunately, this time he wasn't given a sniper rifle. All of the sniper rifles were being used by another group of Marines, who needed the rifles more. Beast Boy wasn't with him this time. He was with another group. Cyborg still couldn't believe what Robin told him earlier. This was going to be a suicide mission.
"Hey Rob," Cyborg asked him on the radio, "Are you absolutely sure this is necessary?"
Robin answered, "Yes, I'm sure. Once you find the Cartographer, locate Halo's control center. You know what do next."
"Roger," replied Cyborg. Finally, the dropship was landing. Already, plasma fire shot up from below."
Starfire announced, "We are approaching the landing zone. It is going to be hot. Please get set to come out swinging! Touchdown! Hit it, Marines!"
Cyborg couldn't hold in a grin. Starfire talking like that was really weird. Then, just as the pelican hit the dirt, he jumped out and began firing at the Covenant position, which was on a small sand dune on the beach. The other Marines in his dropship followed him down, and also assaulted the enemy encampment. Cyborg looked to his left and saw Robin and more Marines drop down the other pelican, then begin firing at the aliens.
The Marines used grenades to soften up the enemy troops a bit, followed by burst from their assault rifles. Robin also turned out to be a good shot. His accuracy even rivaled Cyborg's targeting computer's.
After the area was clear, they all ran up the hill to regroup. The position was reinforced with large crates and shields that provided good cover. They used this cover after they saw more Covenant forces moving in from behind a large structure. The elites were charging in first, shooting plasma from their weapons that quickly depleted the defensive shields on the hill. Cyborg and Robin ran towards the elites for better accuracy, then fired their assault rifles into them. After they were down, they cleared out the rest of the Covenant. A few more clips later, all the Covenant in the area were dead, and they were ready to find the map room.
"The area is secure, all hostiles have been eliminated," Robin spoke through the radio.
Starfire replied, "Affirmative. Echo 419 inbound. Did somebody order a Warthog?"
Robin smiled, "I didn't know you made house calls, Star."
"You know our motto," replied Starfire, giggling, "We deliver."
Immediately they saw the pelican fly in and descend vertically to the ground. A few meters above the ground, the pelican released its clamps, and the Warthog in its back dropped down and bounced around on its suspension once it hit the ground. Cyborg hopped in the driver's seat and turned on the engine. Two other Marines occupied the passenger and gunner seats.
"You coming?" Cyborg asked Robin.
Robin replied, "I'll stay here to keep our extraction point secure. You focus on activating the Silent Cartographer to find Halo's control room."
"Fine, but you'll be missing out on all the fun," teased Cyborg.
With that, Cyborg pushed his foot against the accelerator and the Warthog sped along the coastline of the island. The island was circular, so navigating around it was simple enough. After they had covered some distance, they saw a few jackals walking around. Cyborg drove the Warthog at maximum speed toward the jackals on the beach. Eventually, the jackals realized the danger, but it was too late. Cyborg ran over two of them with the jeep, while the gunner took care of the other one. More jackals emerged from behind a large rock, but the gunner was accurate enough to get them. Then Cyborg continued on around the island.
Some distance away, an elite spotted the Warthog and warned the other Covenant of the the danger. Five grunts waddled out of their hiding spots and readied themselves for their enemy. As the Warthog got nearer, its gunner fired at the aliens, but two grunts threw two plasma grenades right into the Warthog's path. Cyborg knew the jeep wouldn't be able to stop in time, so he instead made it go faster and turned right. One grenade blew harmlessly a few meters away, but the other exploded right under the Warthog.
The Warthog jumped up into the air, and its passengers held on tight, but it the plasma explosion completely turned the Warthog upside down. Cyborg and his passenger were now seated upside down in the jeep, but the gunner was able to jump-roll before the crash and started to fire at the Covenant, using the Warthog as cover. Meanwhile, Cyborg tried to get out of the crashed Warthog, but had difficulty because of the plasma shots directed at him. But soon he was able to climb out and joined the battle.
After they had dispatched of the Covenant, Cyborg turned around and looked at the upside down Warthog. It seemed intact, but he couldn't figure out a way to turn it right side up again. After he had exhausted himself thinking, he finally asked.
"Raven, have any bright ideas?"
Cyborg sensed Raven was thinking thoroughly about the situation, and waited. Raven let out several hmmm's and mmhmmm's, but finally arrived at an Aha!
"According to the Warthog's schematics, you can just barely lift its weight."
Cyborg nodded and approached the upturned jeep. He crouched under it and pushed it up with his shoulder. It took quite an effort, but he was able to push the Warthog back onto its wheels.
"Phew!" Cyborg gasped, falling onto his hands and knees and breathing heavily, "You were right when you said barely!"
Somehow Robin was able to hear this on the radio and said, "No time to rest Cyborg, you need to find the Silent Cartographer."
"Yeah, just a minute," Cyborg replied. Then he got back up and entered the Warthog. His gunner and passenger were already in it.
"Floor it!" the gunner yelled, and Cyborg did. After the Warthog had gone up a hill, he turned left and saw a tall structure up ahead, being guarded by a lot of Covenant.
Raven said, "That could be the map room. Lets check it out."
He immediately knew what to do, and drove the Warthog toward the three guarding elites. A grunt was in the way, but it saw the jeep and jumped out of its path. As the Warthog got closer to the elites, which had now noticed the threat, Cyborg turned the wheel very slightly to the right. Then, he suddenly turned the wheel left and stepped on the brakes. The Warthog turned 90 degrees to the left, exposing its wider side to the elites. The jeep slid across the smooth metal surface of the structure, and collided with all three elites, instantly killing them from the impact.
Meanwhile, the gunner and passenger made short work of the other Covenant grunts. After the area was secure, Cyborg dismounted the Warthog and walked toward the structure's entrance to check it out. He walked down a ramp and turned left through the door, went down another ramp, then saw a red elite and a couple grunts. He threw a frag into the group, which alarmed the aliens and they tried to get out of the way, but the tight space offered no chance of evading the shrapnel, and the single frag took all of them out.
Cyborg ran the rest of the way down the ramp and into the room and went for the door at the end. But behind it was a gold-armored elite with a plasma sword, fiddling something on a panel by the door.
"Don't let them..."
Raven was interrupted by the sound of the doors sliding shut.
"...lock the doors..." Raven said in dismay, "I'm afraid I've underestimated the Covenant's understanding of Halo's subsystems. Looks like they were able to figure out how to open and close doors."
Then Raven opened up the radio channel.
"Raven to Keyes," she contacted. After a brief second of static, the Captain replied.
"Go ahead, Cortana, have you found the control room?"
"Negative, Captain, the Covenant have impeded our progress. We can't proceed unless we can disable this installation's security system."
"Understood," Keyes replied, "Were still en route to the objective. I may be out of contact when we get there. Here are your orders: I want you to use any means necessary to force your way in to the facility and find Halo's control center. We have to get to the center before the Covenant. Failure, people, is not an option." He ended the statement with a grim tone.
Then Starfire spoke through the radio, "Echo 419 to ground teams: I will stay on station and inform you of any Covenant."
"Second squad is ready to roll as soon as everyone's topside," Robin informed Raven and Cyborg. Then a Marine said that the area was secure.
"Good luck, people. Keyes out."
Cyborg backtracked back to the Warthog and got into the driver seat. He drove it down an incline beside a high cliff down to the beach. The gunner and passenger Marines took down a few jackals, then Cyborg drove the Warthog along the shoreline. As they were cruising along, Cyborg spotted a large object by a rock. When he got a bit nearer, he found out that it was actually a Warthog, upside down with dead Marines and ammo scattered around it.
Cyborg parked his Warthog by the crash, and got down to retrieve some supplies. After he did, though, he noticed a large group of Covenant in the middle of a clearing nearby, surrounded by tall trees and high cliffs. Quickly, he ducked down to avoid being detected, and crouched behind a log just on the edge of the clearing, his back against the bark. He armed some grenades and tossed them over his shoulder towards the aliens. Two explosions resounded off the cliff walls, and grunt and jackal bodies flew up into the air. One of the elite had its shields depleted, and the other's were almost gone. Cyborg, in one smooth motion, turned on his heel while standing back up and aimed his rifle. After spending one clip, the whole group of Covenant was wiped out.
"There's a path into that cliff wall," Raven poitned out, "Let's check it out."
Cyborg reloaded and jumped over the log, then entered the entrance to the passage etched into the cliff. As he went up the path, Cyborg saw grunts patrolling the area. They were on all fours and walking like chimpanzees. Cyborg armed a plasma grenade and threw it at one. The grenade found itself stuck to the grunt's arm.
The grunt realized its dilemma, and ran all over the place, screaming, "Not again!"
The other grunts began retreating deeper up the path, trying to get out of the blast radius of the grenade. But the doomed grunt just followed them up. One of the grunts even started to hyperventilate.
"Little people first!" one of the retreating grunts shrieked. Cyborg knew they wouldn't be running for long, so he proceeded up the passage, barely seeing the plasma grenade explode. None of the grunts were able to save themselves, but the blast alerted the elites around a bend. The tall aliens – one blue and one red – charged toward Cyborg, who began firing at them. But then the red one stopped, while the other turned around and ran away. Cyborg didn't understand what happened, until the red one armed a grenade and threw it at Cyborg. Cyborg had no time to react. The grenade got stuck onto his assault rifle.
"Yow!" Cyborg exclaimed. He was so surprised he couldn't think of just throwing away the rifle.
Ravn started screaming at the top of her lungs, "What are you waiting for! Throw it before we both get fried!"
Cyborg came to his senses, and threw aside the rifle. He then leaped the opposite way and barely escaped the grenade's wrath. The force increased his velocity forwards, sending him crashing into the rock wall, his face flat against it.
As Cyborg slid down to the ground, Raven was sure Cyborg must've lost a tooth or two. But of course, it was impossible, since Cyborg was a cyborg.
"Err..." Raven muttered, "You okay?"
Cyborg put a hand over his nose and mouth and groaned in pain.
"Ow..."
But then the two elites returned and began firing at Cyborg. Raven warned him of the danger.
"Get up! Since that plasma grenade didn't kill us, then those elites will!"
"Easy for you to say," grunted Cyborg as he drew his sidearm and got up to face his opponents.
"You're just a computer program."
Cyborg crouched down and let his targeting computer aim for the aliens' heads. He fired all twelve shots from his pistol in rapid succession. The red elite was down. Now for the blue one. Cyborg strafed left to the other rock wall to dodge the elite's plasma shots while reloading. After this he rolled to the right then immediately afterwards fired the pistol at the elite. Five shots and it was down.
Cyborg reloaded again, then picked up the fallen elite's plasma rifle. His assault rifle was completely vaporized by the plasma grenade. Then, he moved on to the end of the passage. He rounded a corner, saw two hunters with their cannons already charging and aimed at him, and almost fell backwards as he recoiled in horror. The cannons fired, but Cyborg hid behind the rocky wall.
"I hate these hunters!" Cyborg proclaimed. Green plasma blob bombs exploded behind him.
Thinking quickly, Cyborg took a frag grenade and got ready to throw it at the hunters. He then left his hiding place, at the same time throwing his second last frag grenade toward the hunters. It was going to land right in front of them. The hunters turned to run from the grenade, a stupid move, as it gave Cyborg enough time to aim at their exposed orange backs and fire at them with his pistol.
Once the hunters had been taken care of, Cyborg moved onward. The hunters were guarding another strange metal structure, circular in shape. Cyborg thought it wasn't really an unusual sight to see on the ring world, and just moved on. Up ahead on an elevated portion of the area, Cyborg saw more Covenant. He could just see two jackals, but knew there would be more. He zoomed in with his pistol and killed the jackals with headshots, before they knew he was even there.
Another jackal appeared to see what happened to its companions, but when it saw the dead bodies, it was immediately three times in the torso. Then, two more jackals came into view, but they were smarter this time, since they were hiding behind their plasma shields. Cyborg used the plasma rifle he got earlier from the elite to take care of the jackals, the moved to the next area.
The next area was another clearing among some trees. There were about four jackals, three grunts and an elite. They had already spotted him. Cyborg took care of the elite first with his last frag and a shot from his sidearm, then moved on to the other Covenant.
After clearing the clearing of all the enemies, Cyborg looked around and saw a path out. He followed his instincts and went toward it. While he was doing so, he heard several grunts conversing amongst each other in their own language. Cyborg readied his plasma rifle, then surprised the grunts by jumping out of a corner and immediately firing. An elite joined in the battle, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.
Cyborg secured the area, then went inside the structure the Covenant he had just fought were guarding. After he entered, he saw a lot of purple crates in the room.
"This must be a supply stash," said Raven, "Which probably means there are more Covenant guarding this. Most probably..."
Cyborg noticed a green glow coming from somewhere within the room.
"Hunters?" he asked.
Raven confirmed, "Yes."
Then plasma bombs fired and hit the wall behind Cyborg. Cyborg began firing at the hunter nearest to him with his plasma rifle while charging at it. The hunter charged its cannon again, but stopped when Cyborg got too close. Then it tried to ram him with its shield, but it missed. Cyborg sidestepped, took out his sidearm and fired. He repeated the same procedure for the other hunter.
Cyborg walked over to the other side of the room and followed some corridors into some strange room with a panel in the middle. It must've been the security room.
"Use the holopanel to shut down the security system," Raven told Cyborg.
Cyborg examined the holopanel a bit, but in the end he just pushed randomly on it. He then heard a loud 'click', signaling the security system shutting down.
"Good. That should open the door that leads to the main shaft."
"Good? I don't think so," Cyborg replied.
"What do you mean?"
"We're not even half done yet. We still have to activate the Silent Cartographer, then go to the control center. I hope we don't have to deactivate the security system for the control center next time, this is complicated enough as it is."
I don't have much to say this time, just the title for the next chapter (It's Quiet...) and that I'd like you to take note that the purpose for finding the control center according to Robin was not really stated.
Once again, thanks for the reviews, and please review some more.
