The Pelican stormed in to the sinking Manta, deploying two SMS SPARTANs. They rapped on our troop bay and I punched the door controls. The hydraulics groaned, revealing dark blue skies. It was raining lightly, but getting heavier all the time. A golden visor poked down from the Manta's roof, and a SPARTAN peered down into the gaping hole.
We had gotten prepared. I had my sniper rifle carried in my arms, an MA5 strapped firmly to my back, and a DMR awkwardly slotted behind the assault rifle. Cutter still wielded his M7 submachine gun, with a SPNKR rocket launcher in its stowed form. Harris scrambled to his feet and picked up his MA5K carbine and M6D Magnum. Serena carried a DMR and a carbine, while Grafton had a M7 and a M6D. Morales, recently recovered, carried a Magnum and a SMG, a break from his usual equipment, which would put too much strain on his arm.
The SPARTAN nodded at us, and motioned to his friend up top. Another SPARTAN jumped down into the hold, carrying a strange device, which resembled a long tube with a folded metal oval at one end, with a scope and trigger at the other. He raised it at the Pelican and fired. There was a pneumatic thump, and a cord blasted out of the tube with a hiss of steam. The rope was carried by the swirling wind, but another SPARTAN in the Pelican reached up and snatched it, doing something to it and attaching a piece of machinery.
The first SPARTAN knelt on the floor and attached a pulley, then wrapped the rope held by the second soldier around it. Taking out a stack of metal handles, he clipped one onto the rope and motioned for Serena to go. The girl took the handles unsteadily, and she was whisked off into the storm. In this fashion, all of us were carried through the battering rain into the hold of the Pelican, the SPARTANs coming last.
Now that I was dry and safe inside the metal hold of the green transport, I could see the oval in the tube was actually a deployable steel claw, which would rappel up and clutch or dig into any surface. One of the SMS SPARTANs cut the steel rope, and the Pelican was off. I handed my custom sniper rifle to one of the SPARTANs, saying, "Keep it safe. I can't use it inside the ship."
The armoured giant took the big gun from my hands and looked at it quizzically. "This rifle, it is customised, right?"
"Yeah."
"Mm. Too bad you're stuck with that piece of crap now." he pointed to my assault rifle. The SPARTAN pulled a SPNKR rocket launcher out of his rack. Attaching it to the magnetic stripes on his back, he yanked a DMR out of the rack, pulled something off, and handed it to me. "This is all I can spare." It was a laser sight, infra-red, meaning it was invisible to the naked eye, and could only be seen using the ODST and SPARTAN visors.
Nodding my thanks, I clicked the laser sight onto the MA5 and sat down next to the SPARTAN. The other massive soldiers stared down at me. I was more than slightly intimidated. "Them." the first SPARTAN began, "do they use attachments?" he jerked a thumb at the rest of my squad, who were sitting together away from the SPARTANs, discussing something animatedly. "Nope."
"Mm." I ran over the short briefing the SMS operator had given us only a few minutes before. SMS Shark Squadrons One and Two were to be escorted past the Carrier's shields by SMS Scythe and Spark Squadrons. SMS Scythe Squadrons, a mixture of AA Pelicans and Hornets, were primarily air-to-air units. SMS Spark Squadron Five was a pure ground and anti-ship attack, flying Sparrowhawks and AG Pelicans. They would clear the way for us by eliminating a section of the Covenant air defences, and us, an SMS Skull, Sword and Shark combine, would penetrate their hangar bay from two different locations and fight our way into the Covenant Cruiser. We would meet up in the primary reactor and attempt to destroy the delicate glassing mechanism, preventing the Covenant ship from destroying the vital landing areas.
As soon as that was complete, SMS Skull Squads would move up to the plasma torpedo launch bays and destroy or neutralise those, while SMS Sword, the SPARTANs, would penetrate the command centre and download all files to the SMS and UNSC database. As soon as both operations were complete, we were to return to the hangar and wait for evac by Shark Squadron. If Shark Squadron had been eliminated, or was unable to land, we were to follow the SPARTANs, who were thoroughly versed in handling Covenant equipment and vehicles.
As soon as we were off the ship, UNSC forces would either send in four Frigates to destroy the cruiser, or a squadron of Longswords equipped with Shiva nukes. "SMS Shark to SMS Spark and Scythe Squadrons, we'll follow your lead."
"Roger, SMS Shark. Keep close to our 12 o'clock." The Pelican tilted into a steep turn, and I grabbed a strut for support. The SPARTANs stood up, snatching their weaponry off the walls. They were all equipped with SPNKR launchers, a curious laser-like device with the words "GALILEAN LASER" imprinted on their sides, or simply rammed a clip into their weapons and waited. The SPARTAN who had given me the laser attachment pointed to Grafton, then at the turret waiting for him.
The ODST nodded, and gripped both handles of the machinegun tightly. "Banshees inbound!" shouted someone over the radio, and seconds later they were all over us. Grafton was hunched over his turret, blasting away at the blurry purple shapes whizzing past us. It was hard to see over the pounding rain. The SPARTANs kicked open peepholes in the side of the Pelican and aimed their weapons. Two of the super-soldiers clanked over beside Grafton and hefted their Spartan Lasers. One of them found a bead on a Banshee, and pressed on the trigger. The weapon emitted a high-pitched whine and a bright red glow, then erupted in a red and white beam that lanced across the sky, destroying no more than six Banshees as they whirred over the point of impact. A SPARTAN next to me lifted his rocket launcher from the recoil and simply pressed it to his shoulder and fired his second rocket.
Every time one of the SPARTANs fired his weapon, nearly all of the times later, there was the distinctive crunch or explosion of a Banshee getting nailed. The pilot wrenched the Pelican into another evasive turn, a fraction too late. The Pelican shook as something big hit the right side. "Starboard rear engine just took a hit! I'm gonna have to jettison it!" here was a heavy clunk, and I saw the olive green, crumpled mess of a turbine dropping away into the mist. A Pelican swooped in behind us, and the pilots gave us a thumbs-up.
Several plasma shots raked the front end of the Pelican, and someone cried out. The Pelican began to list to the side. "Pilot's hit! Shit! Does anyone know how to fly?" I dashed up to the cockpit, and hauled the pilot's burnt body out of the chair. The Windscreen was punctured where the plasma round had gone past, and cold wind was spraying into the cramped space. I slid into the bulky pilot's seat and examined the controls. In front of me was another fly-by-wire control unit, with a flashing HUD. I grasped the column and heaved it left, bringing the Pelican back into level flight. "Watch the engine power!" warned the man in the back seat. The Pelican was beginning to slew to the right, on account of the destroyed right engine. I pushed the Pelican back on course and re-calibrated the fly-by wire systems.
In front of me was a dim shape, the Cruiser. Much closer was the squadron of AA Pelicans and Hornets, rolling steadily towards our objective. Lighting flashed behind the cruiser, revealing the distinctive whale shape in a black and white flash. Banshees whirled around us, vying to get another shot at the exposed cockpit. A Hornet suddenly decelerated, and we blew past it. I snapped my head right, to see it was holding position off my right flank! "Thought you could use some help."
"Roger." The Hornet suddenly dived across my line of vision, banking into the path of green fuel rod cannon shot. The round hit, but the Hornet's armoured flanks took the beating without as much as a dent. The Hornet replied with a salvo of heat-seeking Sidewinder III missiles, blowing the Banshee to bits. "Stay alert, SMS Skull." I refocused my gaze, and thought with renewed clarity. I pushed all throttles forward, spooling the engines up to maximum speed. A rocket burst in front of a Banshee, causing the Brute inside to enter its berserker state. The Banshee tore itself apart as the Brute flailed wildly. The co-pilot snickered.
We pushed on through the Banshees swirling around in the storm, steadily approaching the Covenant Cruiser. "Three-Zero seconds to launch!" announced a Pelican pilot. I followed the green UNSC aircraft in front of me as it twisted and turned to avoid the blue plasma fire lashing out from the Banshee's plasma cannon. We screamed past the final swarm of Covenant aircraft, and abruptly, all of the two Scythe Squadrons peeled away, leaving us alone with Spark Squadron. I could see the slight distortions of the shield barriers as they flickered up, preventing us from entering.
A Spark AG Pelican released a large fat missile from its weapon bays, the pilot calling out "Spark Two-Six, magnum!" The missile streaked out from the aircraft, impacting against the shields and sending tendrils of blue energy fizzling out to all sides. "Everyone, through the gap!" I pulled the Pelican into a hard right turn, dodging bursts of plasma energy, then hauled it again into a tight move to the left, grunting against the G-Forces.
We passed through the gap in the flickering shields, in the middle of a cluster of forty or so Pelicans and Sparrowhawks that set a beeline towards the open hangar bay. A Pelican behind us attempted to follow, but the shields snapped shut a split-second earlier. The jet crunched into the shimmering barrier and detonated in a bright orange and white explosion. The other jets pulled up just in time and turned back. The Covenant AA defences on the Cruiser opened up, shooting bright blue beams of plasma that lingered in the air before dissipating. Another Pelican was hit, shooting flames out of its fuselage and peeled away, smashing against the armoured hull of the Covenant starship.
The rest of us slowed as the Sparrowhawks and Spark Pelicans raced ahead, wreaking havoc on a designated sector of Covenant guns for us. "Go in low, we're out of arrows but we managed to hit most of them."
"Roger!" Spark Squadron pulled out of the fight, screaming for home. SMS Shark Two-One nudged his Pelican into a trench, lined with burning gun emplacements. The occasional gun did survive and manage to shoot at us, scoring another hit on my fuselage. The Pelican wobbled unsteadily as pieces the size of dinner plates started to peel away from the damaged area. Two-One took a hard left, and I barely managed to follow him, me and the co-pilot pulling together on the stiffening control columns. The Pelican was losing altitude- and speed.
We ballooned over a ridge sprinkled generously with fuel rod cannons, and the opened up as we flew past. Shark Two-One's Pelican took a clip from a green glowing projectile, and hit its damaged wing on the barrel of an AA plasma cannon. The wing sheared right off, spinning the Pelican around, spouting flames from its wing-root, but Two-One managed to recover in time. He made a sloppy right turn, and we were approaching the open hangar doors, the last of its Banshees sitting pilotless on the metal floor started to disappear as the Hangar doors started to grind shut!
"All pilots hit the throttles!" The Pelican I was following lunged forward, and I shoved all three working throttles into Zone 5 afterburners. The whole squadron scraped in just in time, the last Pelican's tail assembly crushed to pieces as the doors slammed closed! The damaged Pelican fish-tailed wildly, slamming into another, sending both sliding to the ground with a metallic shriek. I couldn't keep my one up for too long as well. Holes started to appear in the floor as Covenant small arms fire started to penetrate the armour. The co-pilot took a Spiker round through the chest as I ducked, and slumped over his console.
I wrestled with the controls, raising the nose and rushing in towards a sizeable force of Covenant. I rushed out the cockpit and shouted, "Get ready to jump!" Everyone made sure their armour and helmets were on tight, and stowed their weapons. The purple metal floor blurred beneath me as the transport picked up speed. When we were about a metre off the ground, I hurled myself off, landing on the hard metal floor on my shoulder with a clang. I got up painfully and rubbed my arm. It wasn't too damaged, a scrape maybe.
The rest of my squad was picking themselves off the floor, but the SPARTANs were still inside the Pelican! The transport hit something on the floor, turned over onto its roof, and skidded the last twenty metres into the Covenant, ploughing into them like a shovel. I glimpsed the SPARTANs stepping calmly off from the troop bay, and immediately setting up a defensive posture, guns trained in all directions. The Pelican detonated in a giant explosion, killing off any Covenant survivors.
Most of the Pelicans had landed, or rather crash-landed, but the people inside were still safe. I raised the MA5 rifle and swept the huge hangar room for any resistance. There was a small firefight in the corner between SPARTANs and Elites, but the SPARTANs seemed to have it under control. Brutes were making their way down to come up behind SMS Skull Two, who were just stepping off from their Pelican, which crashed into the left wall, killing the pilots. I pointed at the Brutes and motioned at Cutter. The leader knelt down, raised the sights of the launcher, and fired.
There was a white puff of smoke, then the yellow glow of the rocket motor as the missile streaked across the room, wiping out the six or so Brutes just jumping down to the Pelican. Two's men gave us a thumbs-up, then pointed over our shoulders. I was the last man between our squad and theirs so I raised my fist and spun round, feeling the shock as my hand connected with a Brute's stomach. Grafton's combat instincts kicked in, and he rushed forward at the second Brute, tossing his M7 SMG into the air and snatching up the first ape's weapon as it staggered backwards. A quick slash, and the Brute's armour as peeled away, and Grafton snatched his SMG out of the air and emptied half the magazine into the Brute's chest. The Brute roared, ready to enter its berserker stage, but Grafton slashed the Spiker over its neck and killed it. Meanwhile I had kicked the winded Brute in the crotch, and as it doubled over, I raised my leg and stomped on its head, cracking the ornamental helmet.
I blasted the Brute's head open with three shots from the DMR, then hefted its belt and extracted two Spike Grenades. Four Brutes were swarming Harris, so I rushed forward, pressing the tips of the grenades and slashed the serrated edges into the Brute's thick fur. The grenades stuck fast, and I hurled my body over Harris's. The grenades went off and several objects thucked into my grey backpack. I pulled one out- it was a ten centimetre long spike.
Another alien attacked me, an Elite, with a plasma rifle. I spun round and jammed the spike into the head of the Covenant gun, then kicked the Elite's fingers as hard as I dared. The animal howled, raising its four mandibles. I followed it up with a knee to the chest, breaking through the shielding. The Elite doubled over, and I pulled off the backpack and impaled the twenty or so needles stuck in it on the Elite's back. I stomped on the bag once, driving something through a vital organ. The Elite jerked and died. I pulled out the spikes from my backpack and wiped the blood off it, slinging it back over the shoulder. My eyes flicked from one situation to the next.
An Elite had Serena pinned up against the wall. The girl had managed to cut through his shields, and they had yet to recharge. I extracted a combat knife from my shoulder sheath, and tossed it with a flicking motion towards the Elite. The knife spun across the room and cut into the lizard's brain. Serena nodded her thanks, and rolled under the swipe of an energy sword.
It was all over in a few minutes. The hangar bay was relatively safe for the time being, and we were able to stock up on ammunition from the surviving Pelicans. "SMS Special Squad One has secured hangar bay one."
"SMS Special Squad Two has secured the second hangar bay." The two squads were made up of a combination of SMS Sword SPARTANs and SMS Skull ODST Squads. "Affirmative, all units. Push through to the objective point." came the order. One of the SPARTAN super-soldiers raised an electronic device and pointed at a door on the right wall. There was a brief bolt of electricity, and the doors hissed open with a ping.
We moved swiftly through the ship, eliminating the sparse resistance we encountered in the hallways. The first trouble we found was in the form of no less than four Hunters. MA5 fire bouncing harmlessly off their armour-plated bodies, they methodically began to batter at our small group. They managed to kill one SPARTAN and two ODSTs from Skull Four's unit before SMS Skull Two got their act together and finally got the Hunters out in the open with their heavy weapons.
Rockets shoomed out of their launchers, slamming into the Hunters and knocking them backwards at speed. The bodies hit the floor with a shudder, and the smell of burning flesh penetrated my helmet. I sneezed and followed the others onward. From there, our losses steadily mounted as the Covenant forces began to seriously mobilize, and by the time we reached the lift that would take us deep down into the belly of the ship, we were at 70% capacity.
One of the SPARTANs spoke into his radio. "SMS Special Squad one is at checkpoint. Mission capacity is at 70%."
"SMS Special Squad Two is approaching checkpoint now, capacity is at 79%."
"Affirmative, SMS units, we are sending in additional reinforcements of SMS Shadow Teams six and seven after you finish. Continue to the objective and execute mission instructions. Cruiser is now two-seven kilos from Point Orchard, ETA to VTOL Pads one half hours." We destroyed a battalion of Grunts led by four Elites that came down on the gravity lift, and stepped into the stream of purple particles. I had travelled on a gravity lift many times, but the sudden jolt and the sensation that you were floating still startled me. Every cell in my body cried out I was supposed to fall and to stop resisting Newton's laws, and it took quite a bit of reminding to stop me from flailing wildly.
The gravity stream jolted again, pushing us down with frightening speed. We rushed past nearly four levels of Covenant metal, then we rushed past a maybe thirty metre tall cylinder of light that forced us to turn off our visors. Then it was dark again, and I switched the night-vision back on. We were still falling, only that there was next to no light in this environment, only two or three dim grey Covenant lights suspended high above us.
The SPARTANs activated night-vision with a barely audible click. The gravity stream dumped us silently in the middle of a large empty room. The three lights overhead offered absolutely no help at all, and the helmet's computer calculated the new level of light magnification. The visor hummed as it increased power, and suddenly we were in a chamber lined with cages. Most of them were empty, but some housed decaying bodies. Human bodies. I shuddered. The SPARTANs, unaffected by the horror around us, simply looked around, and clanked towards the far end of the chambers.
We hurried after them, stomachs turning. There was a locked door at the end of the wall, and the hacker offered no way out. The SPARTAN holding it shrugged, put it back on his belt, wedged his massive fingers between the two sheets of metal, and barely grunting from the effort, forced the door wide open. He held one back while the rest of us went through, then let go. The doors hissed closed and locked, but they were sure to document the illegal access to the Covenant computers. Now the enemy knew what we were here for.
We were in another chamber, this one not as a prison, but a supply centre. It was much better lit than before, and crates upon crates of weapons, grenades, fuel and food sat around the massive room. Small creatures flitted around in the gloom, and bigger, hairy ones skittered on the floor. We pushed through another locked door, emerging in a massive, brightly lit chamber. Steam hissed from purple pipes, massive turbines roared, glowing blue liquid rush around in clear tubes. It was the engine room. Somewhere in here was the reactor that powered the glassing weapon.
Bloated, floating creatures hovered around in the air, energetically poking around the reactors, conducting minor repairs. One of them floated down to one of the SPARTANs, cackling oddly. The soldier reacted in a puzzled way, but didn't attack the Covenant. The alien floated around behind him, snorting in an exasperated tone when he turned to face it again, gun raised in case it did something strange. The alien floated round again, and shot something out of a blue glowing tentacle. Sparks danced over the SPARTAN's back, which had been damaged by a Hunter's horns, and suddenly, the metal creases folded over each other, perfect.
The alien went on to the next SPARTAN, methodically fixing minor details with ease. The humans looked at the relatively friendly alien with some kind of reserved gratitude. One of the SPARTANs reached out to touch the thing, but the alien suddenly withdrew with a startled squeal and floated quickly away to attend to something. We spun round to see the cause. Sixty Elites and four Hunters stood ready at the doors to the engine room. "Shit!" yelled someone from Skull Two as green energy spat out of the Hunter's cannons. The Elites split up, dashing around the hissing machinery to appear again, surrounding us. The first of the beams hit us, scattering the humans like bowling pins. The Elites pounced. A silver one jumped on top of me, growling as it fired up its Energy Sword.
I kicked it in the chest with both my feet, driving the beast off me and rolling my body to its feet. The Elite, unperturbed, lunged at me. I sidestepped neatly and grasped the Elite's wrist. I twisted it, causing bone to sprout out from the armour. The Elite dropped the sword. I snatched it up, leaving the DMR on the ground. I slashed across the Elite's chest, killing it. More Elites came at me, and a Hunter beam as well.
I rolled under the attacks, barely scraping past them all. This was not going well for us. We could deal with twenty Elites plus Hunters, but sixty was way too many. Two more SPARTANs fell, and SMS Skull Three was almost completely wiped out, with only two people left. We dashed across the rooms, ducking under bits of machinery as they exploded. The weird aliens that floated and repaired stuff went into a frenzy, furiously attacking anything damaged. I ducked behind a spinning reactor as I allowed one to restore my damaged visor, splintered from a Hunter's Assault Cannon.
We were down to half forces when suddenly, a Hunter was blown clean off its back by a rocket. As the aliens floated down squeaking and squealing anxiously, I took a look into the gloom. SMS Special Squad Two stood triumphantly in the ammunition room, a mixture of Sword SPARTANs and SMS Skull One, Five and Six. They went to work immediately. "Go! We'll hold them off while you get the reactor!" A waypoint appeared on my HUD- the objective. Everyone rushed towards it, leaping over burning machines and dead bodies.
The reactor was a giant spinning pool of superheated plasma, ready to discharge. A SPARTAN reached it before me, and smashed through the protective glass with a gloved fist. However, and Elite tackled him before he could prime a grenade and they both fell into the swirling orange and white liquid with a splash. I was second closest. "Five!" yelled Cutter. I looked up to see his rocket launcher spinning through the air, knocked clean of his hands by an Elite tackle.
I dashed onto of a humming metal reactor, jumped up, slid on the side of large pipe transporting coolant, and pushed off, snatching the tubes from the air. I was falling, but I aimed the rocket at the steamy pool of plasma and fired off two shots. I threw the bulky weapon away and grasped a thick rubbery rope pumping coolant to the reactors. I let go a metre from the end of the pipe and landed on an Elite, pushing to the ground. I caved its head in with a bash from the butt of the MA5, then turned around as my rockets hit the container of plasma. The first projectile missed, but the second shot was perfect. Instead of splashing into the liquid, the rocket hit the side of the round container, driving a side downwards. The swirling plasma liquid oozed out into the open, melting the floors with a hiss and exposing cold air. More plasma trickled out, dripping into the ocean below us.
"Run!" someone from SMS Skull Two screamed. The UNSC forces bolted for the doors, and a few seconds later, we were inside the ammunition chamber. I was one of the last ones out and as we ran through the doors leading out to the prisons, I turned around and grinned evilly at the Covenant forces giving chase. I dropped the grenade I had in my hand and bolted.