A/N: Why is it I always get inspired to write at almost 11 o'clock at night? It's weird. Anyway, enjoy this next chapter!
Ch. 12: Orders? We Don't Need No Stinking Orders!
Carter sat uncomfortably on the medical table in Enterprise's sickbay. The bay was busy with patients recovering from the battle with the supercube some days before, but not that busy. The battle had caused no superficial damage, but the ship rocking around, at times violently, got people hurt. Carter rolled his eyes as people complained about things he wouldn't notice.
After ten minutes of waiting, Dr. Crusher walked to him, a PADD in her hand. (A/N: a padd is pretty much an iPad) She read the file, then examined Carter's arm. Carter's armor had been removed soon after the evac team had been beamed to Enterprise, and he soon felt like he was underdressed or almost naked without his armor.
Crusher prodded his arm in places. Pain arose, but Carter made no face. Blocking out pain had been an integral part in the SPARTAN training program. She noticed his stolidity.
"Is this a Spartan thing?" she asked.
"What?"
"The whole 'no pain ever' thing."
Carter shrugged. "How else are you to be the perfect soldier? Don't be hurt by pain."
Carter squeezed a delicate part of his arm, to which Carter winced.
"Uh-huh." She said sarcastically.
"And I'm to believe you heal people?"
Crusher rolled her eyes and picked up what Carter learned to be a hypospray, which she pressed into his arm – delicately- and injected the antibiotics.
"There. That should take care of mostly everything. Just be careful with that. The bone still has to reset, but with the hypospray it'll happen faster."
"How long till I'm back in the field?"
Crusher re-examined her padd. "Maybe around a week."
Carter shook his head. "No. That's not an option. I need to be in the field in three days, at the most."
"The physician's orders supersede the commanding officer's, in this case."
Carter inwardly sighed. What was he going to do for a week? He had hardly been out of his armor for more than a week since he got it those sixteen years ago. Time flies when you fight innumerable battles.
Crusher cleared Carter, who left sickbay with nothing left to do. He walked to the transporter room, where Miles O'Brien was minding the transporter controls.
"Where to, sir?" He asked casually.
"The Pillar of Autumn, please. And have the engineers in the cargo bay beam down my armor as soon as possible."
"Yes, sir."
Carter nodded and stepped onto the transporter pad. O'Brien initiated the beaming process. One second Carter was in orbit. The next he was planetside, instantaneous. Carter sought out Captain Keyes.
Keyes was in the conference room, overlooking reports and reviewing news, mostly from the elites' aggressive expansion move. Keyes looked like he approved of it; it was getting a bit crowded.
Carter entered the room and saluted. Keyes looked up and stared at Carter. He smiled and stood. "Sorry son. I almost didn't recognize you without your armor." Keyes extended his hand. Carter took it gingerly.
"Damn doctor's got me on a leash for a week."
"Doctors know what they're talking about, Carter. They save lives."
"We'd be saving more if I was out there."
"We'd lose more if you were to die because of some stupid injury that would have taken a week to heal." Keyes returned to his work. "What do you need?"
"Permission to start a new initiative."
Keyes looked up. "Initiative for what?"
"New strike against the Borg. The elites have already caused terrible, terrible damage to the Borg, and now it's our turn."
"We blew up their supercube three days ago. What more do you want?"
"An effective way to end a war is to keep the pressure going."
"I'll give you that. But what are you suggesting?"
"Send my team to the remains of New Alexandria. Maybe there're some things we can scoop from under the wreckage."
"New Alexandria's a wasteland. You know what a nuclear explosion will do to a city, let alone two."
"The Borg might be doing the same thing as we speak. We can stop them in the process and extract additional information."
"We already have the information, Carter. We saved it onto our military database before the Alexandria net was purged."
"Then just a scouting mission."
"I can send a pair of falcons."
"My team will handle that."
Keyes waved his hand. "Check with Colonel Hamilton."
Carter saluted and thanked Keyes for his time. After leaving the room, Carter got on the comlink to the rest of his team, telling them to meet him at the hangar bay ASAP. When he arrived, half the team was already there.
"What's up, boss?" Jun asked.
"Doing a little recon over New Alexandria."
"Alexandria?" Kat asked, just arriving. "We're scouting over a pile of dust and echoes?"
"Why wouldn't we be?" Emile countered. "It's not in our territory, so there's no one to check up on it. The Borg could be up to mischievous things, after all."
"Because there might be nothing out there. The city was destroyed by a pair of the biggest nukes we have. The Borg know that there isn't anything of importance there."
"There's a chance something survived." Carter offered. "But still, we need to make sure the Borg is not involved in the ruins."
John and Noble Six arrived and were filled in on the mission. Both agreed that reconnaissance must be made from time to time.
They found the flight chief, Colonel Hamilton, and requested permission to borrow a pair of falcons for the mission.
"Why would you want to recon a wasteland?"
"That's what I was thinking." Kat muttered.
Carter explained his theory to the Colonel, who was skeptical.
"I doubt there're Borg there, and that there's nothing out there to scavenge from the rubble. Permission denied." Hamilton turned and addressed some engineers waiting for him.
Emile sagged. "And I thought that we were actually going to do something other than just sit around."
Carter surveyed the hangar and found two unused falcons. A pilot was leaning on one, asleep or daydreaming. Carter approached the pilot, who did not raise his head.
"Excuse me." Carter said.
The pilot lifted her head and removed her helmet. Long brunette hair flowed from it and settled nicely on her shoulders and on her back. She had a pale complexion, and she had a remarkable beauty. (A/N: Am I saying that right? I wanna say she was white and beautiful, but I suck at physical descriptions.)
"How can I help you, sir?"
"Do you pilot this falcon?"
"As a matter of fact, I do."
Carter examined the two falcons. They had seen action, evident of their plasma burns and scratches.
"Thank you." Carter turned and walked away, his team following him.
"Hey!" The pilot called. Carter turned.
"You need something?" she asked.
Carter shook his head and walked back. "Just entertaining an idea."
"What kind of idea?" asked the pilot.
Carter put his hand on the falcon's bulkhead and tapped fingers against it. "Nothing, just that I'd take these out for a spin. I've always wanted to fly one." Carter had flown a falcon dozens of times. Tapping his finger on the bulkhead, Carter spelled out meet us in the hangar tonight at midnight. Make sure no guards. Prepare for takeoff in Morse code.
The pilot blinked a few times, translating the message. "I can arrange that, if you want."
"You would? Thank you." Carter replied.
"Anytime."
Carter turned and walked back to his team, staring at Carter. "What was that about?" Kat asked.
"Getting us a ride." Carter said. He heard Emile chuckle behind him.
"Get your armor on and equip camo packs." Carter ordered his assembled team of five members. He called them in in the dead of night for his mission.
"Where are we sneaking to, sir?" Jun asked.
"We're getting that ride, remember?"
"Won't that be stealing?"
"Call it…reallocation of resources."
"As long as we get to kill stuff." Emile suggested.
Noble Team, excluding Carter, and John equipped their MK V Armor and their camouflage packs.
"Go to the hanger. I'll direct you from there." The team nodded and filed out. Carter started the computer in his room and put on his headset.
"Get me a readout of the Pillar of Autumn and the location of Noble team."
"What are you doing up, Commander?" Auntie Dot asked.
"Dot, stay out of this."
"But you didn't answer my question. What are five camouflaged Spartans going to do in the hangar with a pilot waiting for them with two falcons ready to take off with rumors of a Spartan reconnaissance mission?"
Carter was still surprised at how Dot had found out his activity. She's a damned AI, , for god sakes.Carter reminded himself. She's practically the ship.
"Dot, I order you not to leak this information to anyone."
"You have my word, Commander." Dot replied with a hint of mischeviousness.
Carter ignored Dot and concentrated on his team of Spartans. They were almost to the hangar by now.
"Approaching hangar. Single entity on motion detection." Noble Six reported, in the lead.
"That's our pilot, Six. I'll let her know." Carter opened a secure com line to the pilot's helmet.
"Pilot."
The readout of the pilot straightened. "Commander?" she asked.
"My team is coming, camouflaged. Prep the falcons."
"They've been prepped for fifteen minutes, sir."
"Good." Carter closed the line. "I need your help, Dot."
"How can I be of assistance, Noble One?"
"Give us sensor readouts of New Alexandria. And open the hangar doors as quietly as you can."
"The latter will be more difficult than the former, sir."
"Do it as best you can." Carter switched to his team's comm frequency. "Doors are opening. Saddle up."
"By the way, sir," Jun asked, taking one of the gunner positions. "What do we call this pilot?"
"Pilot. Do you have a call sign?" Carter asked.
"Call me Spook." She replied.
"Everyone, meet Spook. She will be attending our flight this evening." Carter announced. Spook gave a two-fingered salute to the other falcon as she climbed into the cockpit.
"Where's our heading, boss?" Spook asked.
"Head to New Alexandria."
"New Alexandria?" Spook asked. "There's nothing out there."
"You have your orders, lieutenant." Carter replied.
The falcons left the hangar, their rotors spinning furiously as their jet engines started and gave them additional forward thrust. After not long they were out of sight.
"Dot, keep those falcons on screen. Bring up the mission map as well."
Auntie Dot obliged by creating a top-down view of a map from the Pillar of Autumn to New Alexandria, with the falcons highlighted. A timer showed the ETA, or Estimated Time Arrival, of the falcons, which was about two hours.
"Here comes the boring part, team." Carter said.
Spook tried her best not to tell someone that she was ferrying two Spartans on her falcon. The two Spartans that had taken the turrets, wearing light green and cyan armor, were unusually quiet. They're probably chatting up a storm in their isolated comm channels.
She looked to her left to the other falcon, piloted by the Spartan in dark green armor. She knew that Spartan anywhere. Her CO is not going to believe any of this…Spook shook the thought. Colonel Hamilton was her Commanding Officer, and he had disapproved of this operation in the first place.
She accessed her ODST database for the rest of the Spartans' IDs. Kat was the cyan/light blue armor, Emile in the tan, Jun in green, and…there wasn't a name registered for Noble Six. At least, not for her command level. The ODST helmet automatically outlined her allies with green and displayed their callsigns on Spook's HUD.
Spook accessed her radar in the falcon as a routine check. The light green line swept across the circle as it always does, quietly emitting a beep once per revolution. Spook turned to visual scanning, which wasn't as helpful. It was dark out, and cloudy. The falcons were flying right through the thick of it, which increased stealth, but lowered visibility by just as much.
One of her consoles started to beep rapidly in a deep tone. In the clouds ahead a faint purple glow could be seen, rising in brightness.
"Bank hard left!" John called on the comm. Spook obeyed immediately as a plasma mortar flew into her previous position.
"Son of a bitch!" Spook cursed. "How did they know we were coming?"
"The Borg have remarkable radar, lieutenant. It's no surprise they saw us before we saw them." Carter said over the comm.
"Here comes another!" John yelled.
Spook angled the falcon's nose down to get them out of the clouds. Below, three Borg wraiths were stationary, their mortar guns pointed up and no one in the plasma gunner position.
"Open season, boys. Have fun." Spook announced. She flew her falcon in between two wraiths allowing Jun and Kat to inflict damage with their Gatling guns. After the first pass and swinging around again, the wraiths rose from the ground on their anti-grav engines, turning and opening fire from their gunner port.
"What the hell? There's no one in the gunner! How can it be shooting?" Spook asked to no one in particular.
"The Borg must have reprogrammed them to either be completely autonomous and register targets on its own or there's a drone in there controlling both." Kat offered.
"Either way team, take 'em down." Carter ordered.
John's falcon now joining them, the two falcons easily evaded the mortar shells and had difficulty dodging the plasma shots from the gunner. But two extra machine guns did help Noble Team's cause.
"Motion detection's picking something up." Carter said. "Looks like banshees coming in from the north."
"Spook, I'll handle the banshees. You finish up these wraiths." John said.
"You got it."
Time frame 138248
Local Time 02:48
Two hostile entities registered entering friendly airspace
Initiate recording of Drone 4985318 for memory archive
Enemies registered as Human "Falcons"
Scramble "Banshees" 1-8 and initiate "Wraith"1-3 static defenses
Fire
Fire
Fire
Targets sighted
"Banshees" on approach
"Wraith" unit 2 disabled
Initiate air defenses
"Banshees" arrived
Intercepting Human communications
"Spook, I'll handle the banshees. You finish up these wraiths."
Human Male Voice identified. Coded J2174
Analyzing
Analyzing
Forming counterstrategy
Scramble "ghosts" and "seraphs"
"Wraith" unit 3 disabled
"Banshee" unit 7 disabled
Scrambling "banshees" 9-12
"ghosts" arriving
"Damnit! Ghosts! This is going to be tricky."
Human Female voice identified. Coded S957
"Nothing a little grenade launcher can't handle!"
Human Male voice identified. Coded E2793
Analyzing "Grenade launcher"
Analyzing
Tactics adjusted
Ghosts 1, 3, and 4 unresponsive
"Banshees" 1, 4, 5, 7, disabled
"Wraiths" 1 and 3 disabled
"Seraph" entrance imminent
"Ah shit… I'm picking up a few seraphs on an intercept course." S957
"We're going to need reinforcements for that."
Human Female Voice identified. Coded K486
"There's no time. We have to hold out and stick it to these bastards." J2174
"Hang on team, I'll get us some help."
Human male voice identified. Coded C582
All "Ghosts" disabled
"That's the last of those ghosts!" E2793
"Seraphs"1-3 opening fire
"Those things are fast!" S957
Picking up third enemy craft on approach
Scanning
Scanning
Identified as human "Longsword"
Altering Tactics
Enemy "falcon" damaged
"Damn! That's going to leave a mark!" S957
"Keep it up! Our help's almost here!" C582
End recording
"This is Captain Max Haralson. ETA one minute."
Max adjusted the speed on his Longsword, synchronizing it with his prediction. The motion tracker/radar showed three seraphs, five banshees, and two falcons battling it out. Should provide a bit of a challenge.
Max had logged in over five hundred hours of active combat flight, and was a flying ace over one hundred times, an ace having five kills. In other words, Max had considerable skill kicking covenant ass.
"Noble Team, reinforcements have arrived."
"Much obliged, Longsword. Feel free to get to work."
"That's a 10-4."
Max switched off the combat safety on his longsword's weapons, switching to machine guns first. He fired on the nearest seraph, damaging its shields long enough to disable them, then fired his missiles to score the kill.
That's another one to mark on the board. Max thought, referring to the whiteboard keeping track of his kills. One more to add to the seraph counter.
"One seraph down, two to go." Max brought the Longsword around, trying to lose the banshee on his tail. Luckily, the Longsword is much faster than the non-space combat banshee, and with one tight turn to the left, the odds were turned. Seconds later the banshee was reduced to scrap, its doom contributed by bullets.
"Noble team, I'll handle the seraphs. Focus your fire on the rest of the hostiles and I'll join you when I'm done."
"What if we get done before you do?" One of the falcon pilots asked, a female voice.
Max snorted. "Fat chance."
Max went into a high rise, bringing the seraphs along with him above the cloud cover, with minimal light. He switched to infrared tracking, closing the viewports and activating the display.
One seraphs had overshot and was smack in Max's gun sights. Max pulled the trigger for his machine guns, some hit, but the seraph was hot on its feet and quickly veered off. Max swung around and pursued, peppering the Borg-ified Covenant fighter with more bullets.
The other seraph was hot on Max's tail, occasionally glancing a shot off him. Max was evading most of the seraph's shots well, but he couldn't dodge them all. By the time he had destroyed the other seraph, one of the starboard thrusters was out.
You want some, you little bitch?
Max applied the brakes hard, sending the Longsword into a steep climb, the seraph zooming under him. Max regained control of the Longsword and opened fire.
This seraph was the best out of the three, which was still not very good. The seraph was fast and jinked often. Max had to sacrifice accuracy just to keep up with the bastard.
The seraph made its first mistake when it mimicked Max's move before of braking, with the same result. In response, Max pulled hard on the joystick and angled the Longsword in a loop-de-loop, the seraph firing not far behind.
Max smiled as he his prey wandered unknowingly into his trap. Inverted, max again pulled on the brakes, finishing the loop much faster than the seraph. The seraph continued its speed, putting it in front of Max. The seraph later exploded with purple fire after being hit by two missiles.
"Noble Team, how are you doing?" Max asked, heading below the cloud cover.
"We could use a little help." The female pilot replied.
More wraiths had arrived, and dozens of banshees had joined the fight as well.
Max smiled. Time to try.
End Ch. 12
Let me know what you think of the Borg drone POV, if you didn't figure out that's what it was. It's hard to write something where the character is part of a collective consciousness, and i want to know if I conveyed that well enough. Also, some of the dogfighting was inspired by Top Gun. And, yes. The chapter title was an epic reference to Blazing Saddles. Until Next time!~