Author's Note: I am back. I think. Well, greetings from college, ladies and gentlemen. I won't update that frequently, but I'll do my best to pull off one a fortnight (Don't know what that is? Use a dictionary).
It's been a tough few weeks in the Halo Universe, with basic principles of canon challenged at every level. A lot of it is just minor, but with regards to future writing, I have to thank general MB for illuminating something I had previously overlooked: The humble Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, so long in the shadow of the nuclear warhead, will take its place in my fics as THE most destructive weapon in the UNSC's arsenal. This really shouldn't affect my stories all that much, but I figured I should give everyone a heads-up before the reviews come rolling in quoting Nylund against me. Don't like the change/don't believe me/think I've lost my marbles/just wanna argue? PM me, and I'll give you a rundown on the math. You have been warned.
Anyway, enough with the gloomy stuff. It's great to be updating again. Enjoy, folks!
CHAPTER 08
1502 HOURS, 18 DECEMBER 2551 (REVISED TIMESTAMP; UNSC MILITARY CALENDAR)
TARGET AREA NOVEMBER, COVENANT-CONTROLLED PLANET 'FAITHFUL OBSERVANCE', UNCHARTED STAR SYSTEM
The purple door slid aside obligingly for Logan and David, and the two joined Sierra and Celia on the inside as the conflagration caused by an ANVIL missile raged outside. Sierra removed a certain sliver of data crystal from her pack and slotted it into the data port of the door's control panel. After a split second, a green three-dimensional image came into focus. It was a woman, wearing a bronze breastplate, a leather tunic and Corinthian helmet. A bow was strapped across her back, and her right hand held a spear. An Amazon. Her eyes flashed as she took stock of the situation.
"This isn't the Covenant Battle Net," she said matter-of-factly.
"We need directions to the main terminal," said Sierra, cutting straight to the chase. "Access the building layout and relay via COM. Understood?"
Behind the nosepiece and cheek guards of the helmet, David could see the AI's eyes flash as she frowned. Apparently, taking orders from field operatives hadn't been in the job description. A second later-
"I'll see what I can do."
"Good enough," Sierra replied, yanking the data crystal out. Siriana's avatar didn't disappear, though- she'd downloaded herself into the Covenant system. Clever, David thought. Just then, lights in the side corridors simply died out, and sliding doors linking to the corridor they were traveling down began to close and lock.
"Moving you in a straight line towards the main data terminal. Follow the lights."
"Acknowledged."
A shudder ran through the ground, and one of the lights in the hallway flickered. Sierra was on the COM in under a second. "Three, give me a sitrep! What was that?"
"Missile Two fired- Graves hit the motor pool; that should buy you some time. Get moving."
"Acknowledged. Actual out."
The team advanced through the complex, not encountering any resistance whatsoever. While it made sense, as Siriana had locked the Elite forces into their respective areas of the building, it was still slightly unnerving. They came to a branching path before too long.
"Two targets," Siriana's disembodied voice declared. "NAV database straight ahead, tactical assets archive to the right. Suggest you take the TAA first."
Sierra nodded. "No surprises," she told the AI, and the door leading into the hallway straight ahead quickly closed.
"There's no unapproved wireless connection with either terminal - I'll need hard contact," Siriana told them as they sprinted towards the archive. "If you see a data port, pick me up." Scavenger didn't respond- they just kept running, only pausing outside an open set of triple doors. A console was mounted on the wall, complete with viewscreen and keypad. Also present was a slot for some sort of access card. Sierra rammed the empty data crystal into the Covenant system, removing it after an instant. Siriana broadcasted across TEAMCOM through Sierra's suit.
"Not crushing me into pieces would be nice, thanks."
"Pipe down," Sierra ordered. David was almost sure that he heard the artificial intelligence sniff.
Just then, the doors began to close, albeit slowly, and it was no challenge for Scavenger to slip inside. Seven seconds and a dozen point-blank range headshots later, the four Spartans stood in an otherwise deserted data center. The cavernous room's only prominent feature was a raised platform in its center with a ramp leading up to it, but the ramp was located on the opposite side of the platform from the door. From every other direction, a meter-deep trench encircled the data terminal, making the three meter tall platform quite defensible.
At the console, Sierra slotted the shard of crystal into a data port on one of the consoles, which instantly assumed a monotone blue hue. Siriana's Amazon avatar blossomed into shape, half a meter tall, atop the holographic displays.
"Ah, much better," she sighed, relief evident in her tone, before her voice became steely again. "Retrieving information. Be advised- I'm on an isolated server, so I can't lock down this structure's controls while I'm in here. Fair warning." She disappeared, but the blue displays began to flash in multicolored tones.
Almost immediately, heavy footfalls sounded from outside the room. Without an AI to keep the electronic locks in place, it would have been a simple matter to open the doors. Quieter, but no less alarming, was an imperious series of words in the Covenant language. Without his Covenant-English translator active, David was unsure what it meant, but he didn't need to.
After several seconds, the door to the data terminal crawled open. A lone Elite cautiously entered, and upon seeing Scavenger it raised its carbine and opened its mandibles, but the warning yell hadn't even cleared its throat when two Spartans leapt onto it from three meters above, dashing it to the floor. Its shields flashed and collapsed as they took the brunt of the impact, leaving David free to use his knife.
Almost immediately afterwards, calls sounded down the corridor, albeit in a questioning tone. David and Logan hauled the Elite corpses aside while Celia and Sierra watched the door.
"Ten percent of data retrieved," a disembodied voice said.
"Just tell us when you're done!" Sierra barked.
Just then, a green speaker icon appeared next to Hayden's name. A TEAMCOM ping.
"Sierra, hurry! They're sending reinforcements into your building- I'm going in, but I don't know how much time I can give you."
"Confirmed, Six. Good luck."
Hayden against dozens of Covenant troops. David felt a small stab of pity for the latter, but dismissed it as he, Celia, Sierra and Logan depressed themselves against the floor of the raised dais, leaving only the muzzles of their rifles and the tops of their helmets visible from the door.
Four Elites charged into the room, but then halted at the seeming lack of enemies. They spotted the four Spartans just as Scavenger pulled the triggers on their weapons. Four MA5Bs blazed to life, sending white-hot 7.62mm tracer rounds into the quartet of blue-armored Covenant warriors, and the air rippled as their shields stopped the rounds dead. In response, plasma rifles launched searing bolts of azure plasma at the prone Spartans, for the most part either splattering on the platform and scoring blast marks on the metal, or flying just above Scavenger's heads. One shot, though, burned through the front of David's assault rifle, leaving only the handle and magazine intact in David's right hand.
Resisting the urge to indulge in several of the choicer curses he'd heard Marines use over the years, David brought up his M7 submachine gun and, in one move, rose to his feet and leapt towards the Elites.
His feet hit the alien soldier first, and its shields flared silver, not quite depleted. David's M7 kicked as it spat rounds into the weakened energy field, collapsing it after only an instant of firing. Blue blood splattered on the ground a moment before the Elite it came from. The other three aliens in the fire team turned to David, but they only faced him in the milliseconds it took for the rest of Scavenger to slam into their exposed backs, toppling all three to the ground. A trio of wet slicing sounds announced their deaths.
Except for the sounds of quiet breathing, everything was almost silent. Almost. It was a few seconds before David noticed a slightly muffled noise coming from the dead Elites. More specifically, he noticed a noise coming from their combat helmets.
Sierra nodded, pointing at the corpses as Logan and Celia covered the door.
"Two- record and translate. Four, Five- seal the exit."
David unlatched the headpiece and listened to the Elites' COM chatter. The ONI translation software in his helmet booted up, translating the audio he heard into text on his heads-up display. His eyes flew from left to right, scanning the readout.
"… Security Lance One, what do you have to report? Security Lance One, have you located any additional demons?"
"Field Master, we have discovered the location of the demon sharpshooter- he is moving, and quickly. Do we have permission to engage him?"
"Go with the blessings of the gods, Major."
"Sierra, you need to hear this," David said into TEAMCOM, sending the audio package wirelessly.
Sierra didn't waste time responding to him. "Three- the Covenant has you in their sights- move!"
Despite a crackle of static and the sound of a distant explosion, Jacob's reply was crystal clear.
"No kidding! Repositioning now- I'll contact you when things have cooled down!"
"Copy, Three. Good luck. Six, are you there?"
Hayden's voice was much less clear. Static flooded the channel, and Hayden's words were punctuated by significant pauses, either by static or the fact that he kept waiting in between words, although David was never quite sure which it was.
"Yeah… here! What's going… Sierra, what's- what's happening?"
"Three's on the move, so you'll be without sniper support until he can shake the Covenant off, do you copy?"
"Got it. Just get… -formation and get- aaargh! Get out of there!"
"Six! Are you hit?" At this, David's eyebrows furrowed. Hayden's bio signs weren't even flickering, with the exception of his pulse, which was sky-high.
"Do I sound…Just get… damn job done!"
Sierra cut off the channel, sighing.
"Data retrieved," a crystalline female voice chimed. "Viral Packages One through Three inserted- that should be enough for this system."
"Are you transferred?" Sierra demanded of the AI.
Siriana nodded. With that, Sierra pulled the data crystal from its slot and clipped it onto her belt.
"All right, Scavenger, move to the NAV database. Five, are the shaped charges ready?"
The only answer was a resounding boom.
David took point, cautiously stepping into the corridor. A dozen Elites stood beyond him, including a pair headed directly towards him. Without a second thought, David dropped to one knee, primed a flashbang grenade and rolled it down the hallway. As the small metal cylinder clinked on its way across the floor, time seemed to slow to a crawl. The time between bounces stretched on, and the Elites whirled around to face him in what seemed like slow motion. David pushed his visor's tint up to its maximum level and muted his audio sensors, all the while bringing up his M7.
The world filled with white, although from David's perspective, it seemed almost gray. He wasted no time, firing off bursts from his submachine gun at the dazed and incoherent Elites. From behind him, Scavenger followed suit, and before long the walls were spattered blue.
David reset his visor's viewing systems and checked the motion tracker- three yellow blips behind him, and no red in sight. David bit his lip- the technology that allowed Elite active camouflage suits to warp light around them also made them undetectable to the MJOLNIR's motion sensors. All the same, they needed to get moving. As good as Hayden and Jacob were, they couldn't hold the Covenant up forever.
Scavenger doubled back along the corridors, encountering only Grunts on their way back to the T-junction in the corridor, which they quickly dispatched. This time, though, instead of moving directly back they way they'd came, they took a right hand turn, which would lead them to the Covenant NAV database. The four Spartans arrived at a large door, distinct from every other door in the installation for the sole reason that at least a dozen Elites were standing in front of it.
David didn't even think. Three grenades cleared his belt- a flashbang grenade, a smoke emitter, and a fragmentation grenade. Less than a quarter of a second later, the three were on their way down towards the floor. Thunder and fire rippled through the floor as they went off, with a thousand points of light, a thousand needles of sound, and a thousand shards of razor-sharp metal flying towards everything within range.
Steel pinged and whizzed as it struck and ricocheted off David's armor and that of his teammates, and it created swirls and flashes in midair as the Elites' shields repulsed the storm of fragments, but the force of the blast had forced the aliens back. What was more, the Spartans' visors polarized immediately as the world went white thanks to the flashbang. The Elites, without visors in their helmets, blinked and shook their heads as their retinas overloaded, momentarily disoriented. And in combat, a moment was all an enemy would need to inflict a kill, which Scavenger did without remorse.
The unlocked door to the NAV center practically flew open. David, Celia, Logan and Sierra flooded in, opening fire immediately as they acquired targets. A score of Grunts rushed them as Jackals got into position, overlapping shields forming an impenetrable glowing wall against Scavenger's fire. Behind them, fire teams of blue-armored Elite Minors leveled their plasma rifles in the Spartans' direction, while a duo of Majors, bedecked in crimson, attended to a large, bulbous object in the room's center, just in front of the data consoles.
The device was at least five meters across, and sported the same purple color scheme as most Covenant ships. Long spines protruded from the main body, extending roughly a meter into the surrounding space.
"Stop them from arming that charge!" Sierra barked as she broke off to the left. Two of the Jackals, following her movement, turned right, and in so doing, broke their shield wall. David put three holes in each Jackal's head with the last rounds in his M7's magazine, and Logan rushed through the gap.
"Cover me!" he hissed to Celia over TEAMCOM, falling back a step. Scavenger Five immediately moved forward and rolled a primed plasma grenade towards the Jackals. The brilliant azure ball stopped right at their feet. For a single moment, the world seemed to freeze.
And then a dozen Jackals all dove backwards at once. David and Celia rushed forward as a pair when the grenade went off. Heat washed over the plates of his MJOLNIR armor, and the internal temperature alarmed blared for half a second before quieting. Two of the Elites turned towards him and opened fire half an instant before David and Celia slammed into them shoulders-first, draining the shields with sheer kinetic energy. Lethality, not elegance, was the rule here. Staccato bursts of fire from an MA5B brought the shieldless Elites, and as the two corpses fell, David inclined his head towards Sierra before moving on.
Meanwhile, Logan was trying to fend off the rest of the Elites. He stood over the corpse of the two Majors and held one's energy sword in his right hand, while keeping the other's plasma pistol in his left, although he wasn't firing it. With tight, lightning-fast swings with the white crackling blade, he kept the Elites back- and occupied. By the time the Elites were aware that Sierra, David and Celia were behind them, they also noticed that six-inch steel blades were entering the smalls of their necks.
As the last Covenant warriors dropped to the floor, the four Spartans ran to the antimatter charge and examined its display. A three-digit hologram constantly flashed as the icons on it shifted and changed. The second digit changed every seven seconds, while the third digit changed every second. Sierra didn't wait for the first digit to change.
"Okay, we don't have time to get the data out, and we can't risk setting this thing off. Move out."
David gritted his teeth. It wasn't even a scorched earth tactic that had driven Scavenger back- it had just been the threat of the same, and while Celia was good with explosives, her abilities with UNSC- and Insurrectionist-manufactured ordnance were far superior to her skills in dealing with Covenant explosives. All the same, though, partial data retrieval was better than nothing.
"Two, you and Four lock down that door," Sierra commanded. "Five, find us a way out. Think laterally."
David nodded, and ran to the door just as it slammed shut. For several seconds, he and Logan planted several Antilon antipersonnel mines in front of the door, before moving several Grunt corpses in front of the door, making sure to check the methane tanks first. A ruptured tank was basically useless for their purposes.
The floor beneath his feet rumbled, accompanied by a huge bam behind him. As he and Logan spun around, David noticed a gaping hole in the wall, only partially obscured by the sight of Celia standing in front of the breach, one of the tubes of her SPNKr launcher smoking. Two Grunts lay against the opposite wall of the corridor ahead, their limbs and heads scorched black. Tiny fires burned over their armor as the last residue from their respirator tanks combusted.
"All right, Scavenger, let's move!" Sierra roared as she moved towards the gap in the wall. Following her lead, David, Logan and Celia walked cautiously into the now-adjoining corridor, weapons raised.
David took point, advancing at a measured pace through the innards of the Covenant complex. Considering that four Spartans had just attacked a Covenant data center and retrieved what was likely terabytes worth of tactical intelligence, the fact that all Scavenger encountered was a single Elite patrol struck David as odd. Either they were being deliberately ignored, or Jacob and Hayden were creating a good deal more havoc than anticipates. While David had no reason to doubt his teammates, something deep in him, in the very furthest corners of his mind, told him that something was wrong.
As they passed the two corpses that had formerly composed the patrol, Sierra opened a TEAMCOM channel.
"Three, Six, we've retrieved the data. Covenant forces have set a charge inside the target structure and we're outbound now. Prepare for backup."
"This is Three, acknowledging. Sending the third ANVIL down now. Brace for impact."
"All right, get out here soon; I've got the whole Covenant Empire on my- gah-stay down!- tail!"
The channel cut out, and David frowned at Jacob's pronouncement.
"Brace for impact?"
The words were barely out of his mouth when a three-meter section of the wall caved in, followed by a curtain of fire and twisted metal. The alloy and masonry on either side of the explosion buckled and crumpled inward, the supports rent by explosive pressure. Heavy as he and Scavenger were, David was forced back a step by a titanic rush of air which emanated from the impact. The effect, though, was momentary. As the gale subsided, David and his team ran for it. Only familiarity with Hayden stopped David's jaw from dropping at the sight of what awaited them as they left the building.
Out of all the words in the English dictionary, if one had to be selected to describe the Covenant base, it would be pandemonium. It went beyond chaos by a long way. Multiple buildings lay in flaming ruins, and dozens of Ghost recon vehicles, Banshee flyers, Wraith Tanks, and Revenant attack craft were strewn, burning, broken and twisted, across the area. A good twenty Elite corpses littered the ground, either bleeding from multiple penetration wounds across their bodies or on fire as their prone forms lay just beyond the vehicles they failed to jump out of. One, though, was missing its head, which lay at the foot of another of the dead. The Jackal and Grunt dead were even more ubiquitous.
In the midst of the carnage ran Hayden. As he moved, any still-living Covenant tried to scramble out of his path, all the while either pursuing him or trying to line up a shot. With almost practiced ease, Hayden scooped up two plasma pistols, spun on one heel, and unleashed two overcharged shots at the nearest Elite. Twin crackling emerald globes slammed into the unfortunate soldier, who shook at the first hit, and doubled over as the second roiling bolt connected with its now-shieldless armor.
As the four other members of Scavenger made their way towards Hayden, the Covenant parted before them, a wave of scrambling and running forms. In the confusion, David managed to pick off several of the Covenant fighters who were still effectively resisting, who were mostly Elites by this point. Several seconds into their run, a gray-black blur, riding an orange jet of flame, screamed and roared as it hammered into the ground half a meter away from a gold-armored Elite Field Master, who was flung five meters by the resulting blast, and did not get up. Scavenger slipped out of the installation unhindered, and the few Covenant troops that did have the mind to follow were gunned down, courtesy of Jacob.
Several minutes later, in a dense section of underbrush on the island, Team Scavenger conferred.
"Sitrep," Sierra ordered.
"I'm fine," Hayden said with a sigh, "but you cut it close- if they brought the hammer down any harder you'd have had no support."
"Noted," David's team leader bit back, before turning to Jacob. "What about you, Three?"
Jacob shrugged. "All hostiles dropped, and no injuries sustained." His breathing harsh, Scavenger Three tossed the meter-long rifle barrel in his left hand into the grass at his feet and rested the MA5B in his right hand on his right shoulder.
"Let it go," David suggested. "We have to get off this rock first."
Jacob's only response was a sigh.
"Two's right," Sierra said before opening an E-band channel. "Dead of Night, come in, this is Scavenger Actual, requesting pickup, over. I say again, Dead of Night, come in, this is Scavenger Actual, requesting pickup, over."
"This is Graves- Scavenger, is the package secure?"
"Affirmative, but retrieval is only partial- the Covenant destroyed the navigation database before we could acquire any useful intelligence."
"Acknowledged, Scavenger- designate your pickup zone now."
"Look for our IFF tags- we'll be forming a perimeter. Land in the center of the cleared zone, how copy?"
"Loud and clear, Scavenger. Bravo Three One Two has detached and is en route now, over."
"Hurry- we need evac before the Covenant can bring in aerial reinforcements."
"Understood, Scavenger. See you on the other side. Graves out."
Even before the channel had been closed, David, Logan, Celia and Hayden had moved to positions one hundred meters apart, forming a square. Jacob stood in the center. Despite the fact that his sniper rifle was no more, Scavenger Three still had the best long-distance optics of the team, thanks to his helmet.
Sierra pulled back the bolt on her MA5B as she walked away from the center of the perimeter Scavenger had formed.
"Scavenger, hold position until Bravo Three One Two approaches. Three is on overwatch, I'm on patrol. IFF tags on extreme low power and com silence unless we're engaged. Challenge on approach is 'Darkline', countersign is 'Umbra'. Copy?"
David blinked his acknowledgement light green, and watched the team's four other lights flash emerald on his heads-up display. He crouched, scanning the scrubland for movement. He watched Sierra's green-outlined silhouette skirt the landscape, and as her tag moved out of range, the outline disappeared, and soon thereafter, he lost sight of her.
The next half hour would have been supremely boring if David's senses had not been on a knife's edge. His eyes darted back and forth at every sway and shift of nearby leaves, and his ears heard every rustle and whisper of the wind. His muscles tensed, coiled springs that would be ready at a moment's notice, but years of fighting the Covenant had eliminated his nervous tension. He was a weapon with the safety clicked off, but with a steady hand at the trigger. His pulse was only a few beats above the resting rate, as he noted from TEAMBIO.
Suddenly, a rustle in front of him spurred him to action. He sprang forward, launching himself through meter-high grass until he slid to a dirt-spraying halt right in front of a figure that was as large as he was, the muzzle of his submachine gun inches from its face. The IFF reader on his heads-up display was blank.
"Darkline," he growled.
"Umbra," the silhouette whispered back.
"Move on through," David hissed in reply. Sierra rushed past him, towards Jacob. That she had deactivated her IFF tag came as no surprise to David. Both the UNSC and Covenant had devices that could scan for electronic signals, and the IFF system that allowed human forces to identify each other also lit them up on Covenant scanners. Stealth had a price, and so did communication.
Just then, the stars began to disappear and reappear in a pattern. A patch of pitch-dark sky moved across the heavens ahead of two small yellow trails. Bravo Three One Two. Their ticket out.
Behind the Pelican dropship, though, came a more menacing sight. At least a dozen oblique, bulbous forms also flew the skies, their purple metal hulls illuminated by the lights from each other's anti-gravity engines. They held a 'double wedge' flying pattern, with seven Banshee attack flyers leading in an inverted 'V' shape, with a convoy of Spirit dropships following close behind. After several seconds of simply flying in the general direction of their location, the Banshees seemed to spot- or sense- something, and accelerated, racing ahead of the Spirit transports on an intercept course towards the ONI Pelican.
Sierra was on TEAMCOM in under a second.
"Scavenger- protect Bravo Three One Two! Engage and destroy as many of the Banshees as you can- and draw their attention!"
Bravo Three One Two roared as it swooped low over the ground, the air displaced by its jet thrusters flattening grass and bushes, and even forcing David to take a step to steady himself. After an instant, the Pelican passed inside Scavenger's perimeter, and the six Spartans opened fire.
A rocket from Celia's SPNKr launcher impacted the lead Banshee, and sent it tumbling into the ground in a ball of black oily smoke and spectacular vermillion flames. At the same time, Jacob, Hayden, Logan, Sierra and David all fired their weapons, on full automatic, and the second and third flyers. Sparks erupted over the aircrafts' metal skins as the submachine gun rounds bounced off. The rounds from the MA5B assault rifles, though, scarred and dented the alloy, and before long, blood was spraying in small spurts from the back of the Banshee's canopy. A second later, the Elite pilot tumbled, dead, from the now-riderless craft, which promptly plummeted to the ground, the crash twisting and deforming its wings and body.
The remaining five Banshees broke off their chase, circled Scavenger's perimeter once, and then pounced, filling the night with hundreds of fist-sized brilliant blue stars as they fired at the Spartans.
David rolled to one side as a Banshee strafed his position, and let off a burst of fire from his M7 at its shrinking silhouette as it attempted to ascend. The Elite pilot, not to be deterred, spun his Banshee around on a dime and let off a burst from the fuel rod launcher mounted on the underside of his vehicle from only five meters in the air, and barely fifty away from David. As the sparking green bulb of energy raced towards him, David shifted his weight onto his back foot, gouging the dirt he stood on as his muscles tensed, waiting…
Half a second later, he sprang forward- just as the world exploded beneath his armored feet.
