Stranger In Their World

Chapter 11

Escape

AN: One month ago, I started this story. I'd expected to have given up a long time ago. Thanks for your support so far. I've also went through the previous chapters and corrected any spelling, grammar or punctuation mistake I made.

Covenant Base, outskirts of Pirth City, Arcadia

As soon as the door opened, I knew we had made a mistake. The room we were looking into wasn't the reactor room. That was much further on. The room we saw was an enormous auditorium. And that wasn't the worst part. The room was packed with Covenant, all of them aiming their weapons at us. My suspicions had been correct. The Covenant knew we had infiltrated their base and set up an ambush along the path we needed to take.

Immediately they opened fire on us. Thankfully, our enhanced speed meant we managed to get into cover at either side of the door. Some of the shots flew through the door as we stayed against the wall. From what I saw, the aliens were using a mixture of plasma rifles, plasma pistols, needlers and carbines. They had a good, well rounded force attacking us.

Thankfully, Jerome hadn't been forced into a panic by this turn of events. "Toss some smoke grenades out there!" he shouted over the sound of plasma. Each one of us grabbed a smoke grenade off our belts and tossed them in the room. We activated our visor's infra-red mode and headed in. The smoke cloud was huge, easily able to hide ten fully armoured SPARTAN-IIs. I got a good look at the room then. The room had two levels. One was a large rectangular space on the bottom, while a balcony ran around three of the walls. We had came in on the bottom floor with the balcony surrounding us.

"Get some grenades up on that balcony! Squad Four get up there!" Jerome ordered. We wasted no time. While Squad Two tossed grenades up to the balcony, Three took care of the aliens on the bottom floor and One took pot-shots at the aliens on the balcony, we rushed up a ramp at the side of the room. In two seconds we had reached the ramp, one second after that we had reached the balcony. Immediately we opened fire on the aliens. Three battle rifle wielding Spartans quickly took down a few Elites and some Brutes. The aliens on the other side of the balcony quickly switched their attention from the Spartans on the ground floor to us.

I rushed forward to the half-height wall running along the edge of the balcony and ducked behind it. The rest of Squad Four followed my lead. Hiding behind the wall, I watched the shots flying overhead. Taking into account the direction they were headed, I was able to build up a fairly accurate estimation of where the enemies were on the other side.

"Focus on the ones with carbines! On my mark!" I shouted to my squad over the constant sound of plasma and the bullets from the other Spartans. The acknowledgement lights of Squad Four winked green. I waited a few seconds for the stream of plasma to lessen. As soon as it did I yelled "Mark!" and we got to our feet and started firing at the aliens. We took a few of the Brutes down before being forced back into cover. We repeated this tactic a few more times. Then I spoke to my squad again.

"They probably won't fall for that again," I told them. "Use blind-fire while I sneak around the side."

"Got it," Keiichi replied, as Isaac took out his dual SMGs. The pair then raised their arms over the wall and began firing. As I made my way round the balcony, I heard some of the aliens roar in pain as the SMG rounds tore into them. It didn't take long to reach the Covenant side. I drew my SMGs, checked that I had full clips in them and swung out of cover. I opened up with the SMGs immediately, taking down a few Brutes with my sudden attack. I saw a few Elites there and swung my weapons towards them. The shields of the first one didn't last long under the punishing barrage of fire. The alien itself fell quickly afterwards. At that moment, my SMGs ran dry. I quickly dashed back into cover to reload. Thankfully my assault had distracted the aliens from my squad-mates, who took the chance to launch their own attack on the aliens, giving me time to reload. As soon as that was done, I jumped back out to resume my assault on the aliens. I took down another few Brutes and a pair of Elites with my attack. There were almost no aliens left up here and they were taken down quickly my a combination of two Spartans with battle rifles and me with my dual SMGs. As soon as we were down, I heard a loud roar from behind me. Turning to face the source of the cry, my face paled under my helmet as I saw a Zealot Elite charge me with an Energy Sword. It made a wild swing for me, one that I easily dodged. I swung my SMGs round to face the alien and unloaded all my ammo into its shields. The effect was minimal. From what I had peviously seen of Zealots in the war, I had taken off maybe a quarter of its shields. There was not time for me to reload. I tossed my SMGs at the alien to try and slow it down. It had virtually no effect. Its shield flared up at the force of the impact but it kept coming. I was starting to panic. Drawing my battle rifle, I unloaded the remaining rounds into the advancing alien's shields. Once my clip ran dry, I guessed the Zealot's shields were at half strength. This was not good! The Elite jumped forwards and made another swing for me. I raised my empty battle rifle to block the attack, moving backwards at the same time. The Energy Sword sliced through the weapon easily, my backwards movement letting me narrowly avoid the blade. I dropped the useless halves of my weapon and drew my combat knife, settling into a hand-to-hand combat stance. I was at a clear disadvantage here. The Elite had powerful shields and a longer reach with his Energy Sword, while I had a small knife and no shields at all. The Elite's mandibles twitched into what could be considered a smile. It had the upper hand and it knew it. Then it spoke in a broken form of English.

"Today you die, Demon," it growled, and lunged at me. Time slowed to a crawl. Acting purely on instinct, I dived to the right, rolling as I landed. I was back on my feet in an instant and turned to face the Elite. It was just as fast, facing me and making another lunge for me. I made another diving roll to avoid this strike. I wasn't going to be able to keep this up forever. I had to end this. Now! I had a plan. An insanely suicidal plan, but it was my best shot. To start with, I returned my combat knife to it's sheath. The Elite turned to face me again and made another lunge. This time I stood my ground until the last possible moment before making a quick step to the side to avoid the incoming blade. The Elite was surprised by this sudden change of tactics, and I seized my opportunity. I rushed forward and gave the Elite a strong punch to the jaw. The Elite stumbled back, taken off guard by my sudden offensive. I rushed forwards again, this time gripping the Elite's sword arm tightly, before squeezing hard. I heard the Elite roar in pain as the bones in its wrist snapped. It dropped the Energy Sword. As soon as the sword started to fall, I reached out and grabbed it. At the same time I swung my head forward, smashing into the Elite's head. It grunted in surprise and stumbled back even further. It was time to end this. Gripping the Energy Sword tightly in my right hand, I jumped forward, swinging the sword horizontally. The Elite's headless body fell to the floor while its head flew back over the edge of the balcony. I dropped the sword and let myself relax. I'd just beaten an Energy Sword wielding Zealot Elite in hand-to-hand combat. It wasn't and experience I wanted to repeat too soon. Taking a brief look around, I opened a com channel to Jerome.

"Red Four here, balcony is secure," I said.

"Copy that," Jerome replied. "We've just finished up down here. Get your squad and regroup at my position."

"On my way," I answered, and shut off my radio. I grabbed a carbine and some ammo from one of the dead Elites. On my return to my squad, I shared out my remaining battle rifle ammo. I wasn't going to be needing it any more.

We made our way down to regroup with the rest of the Spartans. As soon as we arrived, we started moving towards a door at the other end of the room. Behind this one was a hallway that eventually led us to the reactor room. The Covenant had posted most of their forces in the auditorium for the ambush, meaning that there were very few soldiers guarding the reactors. They were quickly dealt with. As soon as we had finished off the room's defenders, Squad Two got to work setting the explosives. The blast would destabilise the reactors and cause the destruction of the command centre. We'd have to move fast through. When the explosives went off, we would only have five minutes to escape the base or we'd be dead. One destroyed Covenant base wasn't worth the lives of ten SPARTAN-IIs.

"OK, we set the explosives on a five minute timer, so we have about ten minutes to get out of the blast radius," Douglas said as we started our escape.

"Then let's not waste any time," Jerome ordered. "Only engage any Covenant if necessary. Otherwise, just keep moving."

No-one needed telling twice. For most of the escape, things went smoothly. We didn't run into any Covenant until we were halfway there. Then, an Energy Sword wielding Elite jumped out of nowhere and swung at Isaac. The blade passed through his legs, cleanly chopping them off. The Elite didn't last long. Co-ordinated fire from nine Spartans tend to have that effect. As soon as the Elite was dead, Keiichi and myself moved towards the downed Spartan.

"Just leave me," he tried to tell us. "I'll just slow you down." We weren't having any of it. I grabbed the Spartan by his right arm and slung it round my neck, while Keiichi did the same with his left arm.

"Never leave a Spartan behind," I told him. "Not unless we have to. We'll get you out of here."

We quickly resumed our escape. Just then Forge spoke over the radio.

"Spartans, We've finished up with the enemies out here. Where the hell are you?" he asked.

"On our way, Sergeant," Jerome told him. "Get your forces out of here, this base is about to go up in flames. Keep a couple of Pelicans waiting for us though."

We ran into a few more Covenant soldiers, but they weren't a threat. Jerome and the others quickly took care of them. Eventually, there was only two minutes left on the timer. The explosives had gone off about three minutes ago. Just as I was about to give up hope, the door ahead of us opened and we saw daylight. There were a pair of Pelicans waiting for us. We split into two groups. Squads One and Three got on one Pelican, while Squads Two and Four got on the other. As soon as we were all on board, I moved to the cockpit and told the pilot to get us out of here. He didn't need me to repeat myself. As we flew away from the doomed base, I decided to check out Isaac's injuries. He'd blacked out during our escape. Thankfully, he wasn't in any immediate danger. The heat of the plasma that made up the sword had cauterised the wound, stopping any blood loss. He'd be out of the fight for a while, but he'd survive.

Then Vinh spoke over the radio. She'd started a countdown from ten. I looked back at the base, remembering how close I'd came to death in my fight with the Zealot Elite. She reached zero, and the base exploded in a huge purple fireball.

We'd survived yet another battle.

Review Responses

The Other Guy: While you're correct in saying that the ODSTs were angry about not being the UNSC's elite soldiers any more, the death of three ODSTs at John-117's hands also contributed to the anger the ODST's felt towards the Spartans

xerox: Set up a profile here and message me. I'll see what I can do about your request.