Another chapter. Please review. Yadda Yadda and all that. Back to the story.
A banshee bomb went off, rocking the ground near the group and sending debris flying. The seven Spartans instantly went back into combat mode.
"This never ends does it?" Thorn groaned. He picked his sniper rifle up and took aim. A banshee flew into his sights and exploded as a super heated metal projectile ripped through its energy core. Two more banshees went down in this way.
A Gauss hog drove up and a marine jumped out of the driver's seat. "She's all yours."
Kat, Jake, and Landen jumped in. Kat manned the turret while Jake drove. Landen sat in the passenger seat holding rocket launcher. The gauss hog spit gravel as it tore off towards the destroyed wall. As it left, a transport hog drove up and Sara, Kimberly, Thorn, and Jacob jumped on board. Their hog followed the gauss hog until they reached the Wraith that had been abandoned. Kimberly and Sara jumped out of the Transport hog and into the Wraith. Thorn looked back to see nine banshees converging on their location. Kimberly turned the Wraith around fired a shell into the midst of the banshees. The shell ripped off one wing of a banshee and crashed into another, sending the dead pilot flying. Kat turned the Gauss turret towards the oncoming banshees and opened fire. Three more went down in quick succession. A banshee bomb arced down and struck right beside the warthog, flipping it over. Landen flipped it back over and the trio jumped back in. Landen fired two rockets into a banshee, and then Kat fired a gauss round into one of the rockets. It exploded as the round pierced its casing, sending shrapnel into the remaining banshees. The other rocket struck one, with the expected result.
The remaining banshees bugged out. Thorn killed the pilot of one with an expertly placed bullet through the leg. It entered at the foot and left at the shoulder. Kat fired again. Now only two banshees remained. Sara jumped out of the turret of the Wraith and jumped towards one of the banshees.
"Hold your fire!" she instructed the other Spartans. She activated her jet pack and soared up beside one of the banshees. The pilot didn't notice her until it was too late. She grabbed onto the banshee and pulled the canopy open. The Brute looked up in alarm, and screamed as she kicked him into the air. She lowered herself into the pilot's position and closed the canopy. "Banshee secured," she crowed. She turned the banshee into an expert barrel roll and lined up her sights behind the last banshee. A green bolt flew from her banshee and into the other. The opposing banshee spiraled to the ground and exploded on impact, sending flames high into the air. Sara brought the banshee around and landed beside the Wraith. She jumped out and walked up to the transport hog. Thorn pulled her up into the back.
"Nice flying," he complimented her.
The Gauss hog drove up beside them.
"Let's get back to base," Jake said. "Sara, can you fly that thing back?"
"Yeah, shouldn't be a problem."
"What about you Kimberly? Can you drive the Wraith back?'
"Sure."
The four vehicles headed back to the base, their passengers in high spirits. They drove through a hole in the wall and parked outside the command building. Out of the whole base, it had been hit the hardest. The seven Spartans walked through the demolished building, looking for survivors. They walked into the communications part of the building and found that the ceiling had fallen in. Lying under the concrete slab with his arm and head sticking out was General Robert Fortree.
"Help me," he groaned.
Thorn motioned for the team to get on the sides of the slab. Six of them lifted the ceiling while Sara pulled the General out. She held him in her arms like a baby and ran towards the infirmary with the rest of the team trailing after her.
As soon as they entered the infirmary, Sara set the General down on a gurney and wheeled him into the ICU. Thorn ran out to fetch a doctor.
Once Fortree was in the safe care of the doctors, the group went to find Maverick and Kreft. They searched all over the infirmary and finally ran into them as they were walking out the door. Maverick was on crutches and had a cast over his chest, but otherwise he was fine.
"Oh, hey. We were just about to come and find you. Doc says I'll be fine. What've ya'll been up to?"
"You wouldn't believe what we've been up to," Jacob said, punching the air.
The team filled Maverick in on what had gone on in his short absence.
"Sounds like ya'll have been busy," he said when they were done. "Let's go check out the banshee and wraith you captured. I hear that they've made some major improvements to the technology."
The group walked over to the courtyard where they had left the two enemy vehicles. The two hogs had been removed. Maverick limped over to the banshee first.
"Wow. Looks like they've added a limited shield component," he commented.
"What? Where?" Sara asked. "I could have used that when I was up there."
"I'm surprised they didn't use them. See this small transmitter," he said, pointing to a small disc implanted in the bottom of the banshee. "It's a lot like the shield the Kig-Yar use. However, it seems to be more advanced in the fact that it covers the whole banshee. Jake, get in the banshee and power it up. I want you to activate the shields so I can see how they work."
Jake did as he was told. As soon as he turned on the shields, a blue purple skin incased the banshee. Kreft tried to touch it and received a nasty shock for his troubles.
"Well, apparently it's a pretty strong shield," he growled, holding his smarting hand.
"Power it down now," Maverick instructed him.
The banshee touched back down, but the shield was still up.
"Power the shields down too."
The shields faded away. Jake got out and looked at Kreft, who was still grumbling to himself.
"What happened to you?" he asked.
"Shield has an electric pulse in it. I touched it and got shocked."
"Oh," Jake said. "Sorry."
"S'not your fault."
"Ok. Let's look at this Wraith," Maverick said. "Kimberly, get in and power it up."
She jumped in and turned the Wraith on.
"Now, fire a round at the wall of bodies."
A blue arc hit the wall and sent the dead covenant flying.
"Hey Maverick. The view screen comes up with a charging symbol when I pull the trigger. You want me to hold it down and fire?" Kimberly asked.
"Sure."
The team watched as a Wraith shot started to fire then stopped. They could see energy feeding into the plasma bolt. It changed from blue to purple then changed to a bloody crimson color. Finally it turned white.
"Fire."
Kimberly fired. The bolt shot straight out and struck the wall, vaporizing the bodies and kept on going. It finally hit the ground and put a six foot deep crater in the ground outside the base. A mushroom cloud of green smoke rose from the crater.
"Well then. I would say that they've made improvements, but that would be an understatement. By the way, where is Offensive?" Maverick asked.
"I don't know. Last I saw he was onboard the Dreadnought," Landen said.
Maverick opened up his comm. channel. "Engineer. Is Offensive Bias nearby?"
"Yes sir," the engineer responded.
"Tell him to bring the Dreadnought back down to the surface. We need his assistance."
"Will do, sir."
Maverick switched the comm. channel back off.
They waited until they saw the Dreadnought land and went out to greet the returning troops and Offensive. Maverick guided Offensive and the two most experienced engineers over to the two captured vehicles. Offensive scanned the Banshee first.
"I see significant power readings coming from this. This craft has about four times the power it needs to run all of its functions including this shield for several years. The power supply seems to be coming from this little package at the bottom." He scanned the little box. "The power is being transferred to this banshee from another site. I am attempting to trace the origin of the energy transmissions. Kimberly, bring Edinex over here to help me."
Kimberly plugged Edinex's chip into the base of Offensive's casing.
"The power source is twenty to thirty miles northeast of our current position. If I am not mistaken, that is where the original landing point for the troops that attacked us was. We should send a convoy out there to salvage whatever we can. Maverick, please order a reconnaissance flyover to make sure that there are no more Covenant at the landing point."
Maverick punched in a code on his wrist screen and mumbled something into his headset.
They all watched as a modified Longsword launched from a cruiser floating in the planet's orbit. A bright flash and a rumbling sound preceded the Longsword's flyover. A few minutes later a voice crackled into life in the Spartans' headsets.
"There are two or three Jiralhanae down there, along with a small garrison of Unggoy and Kig-Yar. In addition, there are two or three Huragok down there."
"Thank you, admiral. We'll take it from here," Maverick told him.
Maverick limped over to the courtyard where twenty or thirty marines were sitting around, idly chatting about nothing.
"On your feet. We are going on a retrieve and destroy mission. We know the exact location of our item of interest. However there is a small force of Covenant around it. I want two Scorpions up front. I also need a transport truck ready to move the item. We don't know how big it is. I need three gauss hogs to escort the transport truck and a falcon or two to cover us from above."
The marines scrambled to do as they were told. After a few minutes had passed, the retrieval team was ready to launch. Jake, Kimberly, Landen, and Thorn all jumped on the transport truck. Maverick stayed behind. Kat, Jacob, Sara, and Kreft kept him company. Offensive floated up beside Kimberly and stayed there.
The team drove out of the complex in the direction Offensive had indicated. It did not take them long to get to the target location.
As soon as they topped the rise shielding the drop site, the Scorpions fired. The only Wraith in the clearing was instantly vaporized. The two Jiralhanae Chieftains scattered. The Unggoy screamed and ran. A handful of Kig-Yar troopers stood up to them but were quickly mowed down by the Gauss hogs.
"Aw, come on. I just cleaned this thing," one marine groaned.
When all the hostile forces had been eliminated, the transport truck pulled into the clearing. Offensive scanned the area, and then flew over to a small tower like structure that had been planted in the ground.
"This is the location of the power beacon. Please do be careful while loading this onto the truck. I detect forerunner influences in this piece of technology."
The four Spartans lifted the tower out of the ground and carried it over to the truck. It was only about twelve feet tall, and was very light. Once the pillar had been strapped down, the truck took off. This time they traveled very slowly. It was almost dark by the time the convoy arrived back at the base. Only parts of the base had been repaired. The command building's roof had been repaired and engineers were going back and forth inside of it, fixing whatever they could.
The transport truck parked outside the research facility entrance. It had been built into the ground and so it was not damaged. The pillar was loaded into the cargo elevator and sent down. Offensive accompanied it.
"Well," Maverick said, rubbing his hands together, "We've had a busy day. Why don't we go to bed and find out what Offensive knows about this thing tomorrow."
The rest of the team agreed. They walked to their barracks, which was another of the buildings not severely damaged. Each Spartan removed their armor and took showers, then went to sleep.
Maverick was the only one not asleep. He put on his helmet and brought up a secure comm. link. He called the head.
"They did well today sir. I was impressed."
"That is good to hear. Please keep me informed of anything that happens."
Maverick filled the Head in on the events of the day.
"You have been busy. I'm glad to see you're up and fighting. Go to bed. You can send me another message in the morning. Chang is creating new Spartans as we speak. Good night."
The screen went dark. Maverick removed his helmet and sighed. He rolled over on his good side and went to sleep.
Ooh. Maverick knows more than he's telling. Thanks for reading. Review!