Chapter 21:

Green Team

"So, I've decided what this reminds me of," Kelly-087 remarked, side-stepping an Elite with an energy sword. Quickly, before it had a chance to react, she grabbed the wrist holding the sword and snapped the arm back, breaking the whatever-these-creatures-had-instead-of-an-elbow joint and driving the blade into its owner's neck. The creature roared at her in fury, but she was already gone, sprinting off again.

"What does this remind you of?" Linda-063 asked distractedly over the private com channel the two women were using.

Kelly heard the crack of Linda's sniper rifle and another sword-wielding Elite in her path fell. "Thanks," she said cheerfully. "And it's like one of the Capture the Flag games they used to make us play with the Drill Instructors back in training, remember? Those were so much fun. Vinh always made it her personal goal to disable the cameras whenever they tried to film us and see how we were beating them, remember? Good times."

"Kelly, focus," Linda ordered. "We're not playing Capture the Flag and the Elites aren't DIs. They will kill you. They're not going for a flag, they're going for you. Keep your mind now, not five years ago."

"I am," Kelly retorted lightly. She quickly raised her pistol, not bothering to sight down its scope as she shot two suicide Grunts in the head before they could get too close. As the bullets neatly impacted their heads, she imagined a spray of confetti and cheers. One time, long years ago, Sam had rigged the practice dummies to explode into brightly colored paper when they were shot in the head. From then on, Kelly had been unable to get a perfect headshot without remembering that incident. Now, though, her memory was tinged with sorrow. If only Sam was here… Focus, she reminded herself, forcing her thoughts out of the past and onto her mission. She was on the ground nearly alone (at least for now) and she was running, running as fast as she could. Kelly was proud of her title as the fastest Spartan, but she rarely was given the chance to reach her top speed. Racing the others was one thing, but out here, with enemies that promised to shoot her should she remain in one place for too long… The adrenaline rush combined with her formidable skills nearly gave her wings. Kelly switched to her assault rifle and quickly riddled an Elite with bullets before speeding on again.

The planet Reception. It looked beautiful, or at least, it had before the Covenant landed. Kelly wasn't here to sightsee though. She was paying someone a visit instead. Apparently ONI had intercepted some transmission that when translated, said some big-shot Covvie was going to be on the planet. Kelly didn't know why and she didn't know any more about this leader than that it was called a "Prophet" and was ugly as hell. But it was supposedly here, and the Spartans were going to try to capture it or—failing that—kill it. Hence the similarities to Capture the Flag. Only the Spartans were trying to capture one of the enemies, not a flag which could be used to beat down enemies if the situation got really desperate. But Kelly was on her typical CTF duty, which meant being the rabbit and creating a diversion while Linda sniped, covering her. They were the designated Green team for the mission, even though Linda couldn't really move from where she was posted on a rooftop. She had a Marine "bodyguard" with her, and a Hornet for getting her, the Marine, and Kelly back to the Pelicans when this was all over. Isaac and Vinh (Red team) were also distracting, only to a different degree. They had captured two of the Banshee fliers and were creating hell for everything else in the air. The rest of the Spartans (Blue team) were trying to go in silently from another point. If Kelly, Linda, Isaac, and Vinh were successful, the others would hopefully be able to at least get in without being noticed. Extraction would be a little bit more of a problem, but the Spartans were prepared to fight their way out if nothing else worked. Their target was on one of the huge ships blocking out the sky above the city. Surveillance reported that it was anchored to the planet with some kind of "gravity lift," which the Spartans would theoretically use to board the ship. Once they were on board, they would locate this "Prophet," kidnap it, and (again, theoretically) commandeer one of the Covenant's small fighters in the hangar bay that had to be on the ship. That was Plan A. Plan B was to simply kill the Prophet and fight their way out. It probably wouldn't work very well, but it would suffice. Blue team was to keep radio silence in case the Covenant had figured out how to hack into the signal. Green and Red teams, on the other hand, had been told to use as much radio chatter as they could. That was why Kelly was bothering Linda, who usually hated to be disturbed while sniping.

"I mean, it really is like old time CTF," Kelly continued, slowing her step to glance around the corner of a partially destroyed building. A Grunt was seated at a turret, and Kelly waited for Linda to take it out before she rounded the corner, guns blazing. "We're Green team, well, I mean, you and I are especially, but all of us are Green team. And these uglies-," Kelly punctuated the word by pistol-whipping a Jackal, killing both it and its shield, "are Red team. Some of them even look like the DIs used to."

"Isn't it supposed to be Blue team and Red team?" Linda asked, sounding unfocused.

"Well, yeah, but we can't just say we're blue now, I mean, look at our lovely green armor," Kelly pointed out. "I have to say, I rather like the color. It's better than some of the outfits we've had to wear for undercover missions. We're a lot more stylish than the ODSTs, too."

"Kelly…" Linda sighed.

"I mean, especially for you. The whole green armor, green eyes thing. You're totally gonna stun some soldier some day when you save his ass and he comes over to thank you and you pull off your helmet and he figures out that you're a woman, and he'll fall in love with you instantly and you'll get married and live happily ever after." Kelly glanced quickly back in Linda's direction and swiped her pistol across her faceplate in a Spartan smile.

"Kelly, don't you dare do that again." For the first time, Linda's voice had emotion in it. "You know that pistol could go off and shield or no shield, at point blank, we would have no more Rabbit. I know I hate you sometimes, but I would miss you if you died." The sniper sighed, and when she spoke again, it was once again in her standard cool tone. "And it was a nice story, but you know the truth as well as I do. Spartans can't live happily ever after." The finality of her sentence was emphasized by the sound of another clip snapping into her sniper rifle.

Kelly growled in frustration. "I wouldn't have shot myself and you know it," she said. "And if Spartans can't live happily ever after, what's John doing with the lieutenant?" There was silence over the com, punctuated by the crack of the rifle. "Linda?"

"I honestly don't know," the other Spartan admitted after another minute of silence. "But whatever he's doing, it's his choice. As long as it doesn't endanger the team or the mission, we shouldn't interfere."

"Understood," Kelly agreed, not sure what to think about that. Instead, she linked com channels with Isaac and Vinh for a moment. They were both laughing when Kelly tuned in. "How goes it, Red team?" she asked.

"It goes great, Rabbit," Vinh replied, sounding cheerful. "How goes rabbitting?"

"Rabbitting goes wonderfully, uh, Air Strike?" Kelly suggested.

"I'll take it," Vinh decided.

There was a slight pop of static as Linda joined the channel. "Red team, Rabbit, you three are altogether too carefree about com chatter on missions," she said, sounding slightly annoyed.

"I know," Isaac agreed. "I make sure Vinh stays on track just like you do for Kelly, don't worry, Green-Eyed Ghost."

"That's good," Kelly mused.

Vinh laughed. "Definitely."

Kelly paused to glance around another building, grimacing as she noticed the blue-grey tank-like creature. "Green-2, I have Hunters," she reported.

"We'll let you focus then," Isaac suggested.

Kelly flashed her acknowledgement light. "Good luck, Red team."

"Same," Vinh replied quickly, and Kelly and Linda switched back to their own channel.

"You know what to do," Linda said, sounding entirely focused.

Kelly's light flashed again in agreement, and she burst out from her cover, firing rapidly to draw the Hunter pair's attention. They turned as one to face her, hunkering down behind their massive shields. Feeling dangerous, Kelly darted close enough to kick one before zipping back out of range. The Hunters' eerie silence kept her from trying that again. She knew Linda would disapprove, too. Kelly kept moving, firing in bursts to keep the pair's attention on her. The eerie green glow of a plasma cannon charging emanated from behind one's shield, and Kelly instinctively threw herself out of the way, hitting the ground and rolling. When she stood again, she spared a glance over to see a smoking, charred circle on the ground where she had been standing. The Hunters turned to face her new location, presenting the orange stripes of unprotected skin on their backs to Linda. Her sniper rifle cracked once, twice, three times, then four, and the second target barely had time to howl in pain before it met its brother in death. "Nice shooting," Kelly said appreciatively before Fred's voice came over the com.

"This is Blue-1. We have reached our targeted location. Red-1 and -2, Green-1, make your way to us ASAP. Green-2, meet up with the Pelican and get back to the Commonwealth."

"Understood," Kelly, Linda, Isaac, and Vinh all said at the same time.

"Man, are we well-trained or what?" Kelly joked.

Fred did not sound amused. "Cut the unnecessary chatter, Green-1." Kelly sighed to herself. Fred was fun off the field, but while on a mission… "New number designations," he continued. "Green-1, Red-1, and Red-2, you are now Blue-28, -29, and -30, respectively. We'll be waiting when you get here."

"Roger that," Kelly replied. She turned, zooming her HUD to see Linda climbing into the cockpit of the Hornet. As soon as she had taken off, Marine riding on the runner, Kelly turned towards the marker Fred had dropped on their location. She rolled her shoulders, clearing her mind before taking off. Unlike her previous run, now Kelly didn't stop to shoot. She dodged anything—and anyone—in her path, racing to beat Isaac and Vinh to the rest of Blue team. Glancing up for a second, she saw two Banshees swoop down towards her. Kelly automatically checked her stride, and was rewarded when the clutch of Grunts and Elite leader blocking her path were hosed down with plasma fire. She nodded in thanks to her teammates, pushing off from the ground again. After about fifteen seconds of solid sprinting, a break in the buildings revealed a glowing pink-purple column of light. Kelly pushed herself around one more corner before seeing the tell-tale green armor. She slowed to a stop, breathing hard. Fred nodded at her from his position next to the light column. "Good work, Blue-28," he told the female Spartan. Kelly nodded back, still trying to catch her breath. Two Banshees clumsily landed and skidded to a halt, Vinh and Isaac jumping out. Fred issued a series of commands, and the rest of Blue team returned from patrolling the small area the Spartans had cleared. "Let's go," he ordered, stepping into the beam of light. The others immediately followed him, some looking more reluctant than others. Kelly was a member of the second party; as a rabbit, she loved having her feet on the ground and hated zero-gee situations. Orders were orders though, and the thing looked perfectly safe, lifting the Spartans off the ground and raising them higher and higher until they disappeared into the belly of the ship above them. Kelly was put in mind of a monster swallowing its prey. As her feet lifted off the ground, she couldn't shake the sudden feeling that something was going to go wrong. Something didn't feel right, and the Spartans were headed into a place as close to hell as they could get. The ship grew until she could no longer see past its edges to the sky behind it. Darkness enveloped her as she was swallowed up, and Kelly instinctively brought her rifle to its ready position. "Close your eyes at the top," Fred's voice came over the com, but the order came a second too late for Kelly. A bright flash obscured her vision.

"It's empty," Grace stated, sounding confused. Kelly blinked, trying to clear her vision. Once she could see again, she noted that the other Spartan was right. The large room the Spartan team was in was, in fact, eerily empty.

Will spoke up next. "Listen." The Spartans obeyed, and Kelly could barely pick out the sound of the engines—increasing in volume. The purplish glow from the end of the gravity lift abruptly disappeared, and the ship jerked upward.

"Not very good drivers, are they?" Kelly muttered.

Vinh laughed softly, but Fred ignored her, issuing orders again. "We're on a schedule now. We cannot be on the ship when they move into Slipstream Space. If the Covenant doesn't know we're here, they will soon." He pulled out his datapad and accessed a map on it. "The bridge is in the center of the ship, and the Prophet will most likely be there. We'll split into two groups. I'll lead the first team, and Will, you lead the second." Fred highlighted a list of names and assigned each Spartan a group. Kelly was under Will's command, and she wondered for a second if it was because she had been annoying Fred so much lately. But no, he wouldn't be that unprofessional. "Let's move out, Spartans." The two teams moved towards at a door at one end of the room, which silently slid open for them. A large, dimly-lit passageway was revealed, and Fred's team went right while Will and his group went left. Kelly took point without needing to be told, making sure the way was clear for the Spartans. She needn't have bothered, however. The walkways were empty, disturbingly so. After nearly two minutes of silently moving through deserted hallways, Fred's voice came over the com. "We've reached the bridge. Will, have you run into any Covvies on the ship?"

"Negative-," Will responded, but was cut off by a flurry of other voices, Fred's louder than the others.

"The entire ship is deserted, the bridge is no different. It's a trap, they must have realized we would be sent in if we thought there was a Prophet in reach-."

"They laid a trap for us?" Will exclaimed in disbelief.

A nav marker appeared, flashing, on all of the Spartans' HUDs. As one, the team broke into a run. Knowing where they were going now, they reached the bridge in seconds. Fred had stationed a few on the doors in case any Covvies did show up, but that looked doubtful. The bridge was indeed devoid of life, red warning signs flashing on the holographic screens. Kelly took the whole situation in instantaneously, uncharacteristic fear rising in her for the first time on that entire mission. Most of the symbols were completely alien to the Spartan, but she recognized one from the lessons the lieutenant had been giving them: self-destruct. "You might run into this one on a few of the weapons," she had explained, holographically projecting the character into the air. "Many of them will self-destruct when their owners drop them. We believe their ships have self-destruct mechanisms too, although it is less likely that you will run into this symbol in that situation. It is a good one to know, however." Less likely, but unfortunately not impossible, Kelly thought, disbelief coloring the thought. The Covenant had laid a trap for the Spartans. Harder to believe, it had worked. They had blindly walked right in.

Fred was already talking to John via video link through the datapad. Kelly could see his face and hear the two men conversing quickly. The world around her seemed almost blurry for a second. How had this happened? Were they really all going to die here? John suddenly broke into a yell, turning away from the camera on his end. "Someone go get Kelly! Go, now!"

At the sound of his voice, Kelly snapped out of it, surveying the stations around her. She moved over to the closest one, analyzing it for any more Covenant symbols she knew. Speed, Altitude, no, wrong station. She went over to another, noticing Maria, Grace, Will, and Isaac doing the same thing she was. "Found it," Isaac called after a long minute. Fred was almost instantly at his side, and Kelly and the others joined the men. "I don't see any Stop or Reverse, or anything," Isaac said helplessly.

"Kelly's here," John's voice came quickly from the datapad, and the woman's face filled the screen.

"Point the camera at the symbols," she ordered, sounding as tense as Kelly felt. Fred obeyed silently. The lieutenant could be heard mumbling under her breath, reading symbols off. "Dammit, no, there's nothing here. Let me see the view screens." Fred turned the datapad again, and the lieutenant cursed again. "Get out of here now. It still registers having escape pods-."

A dull thump resounded through the ship, and the symbols on the screen changed. Panic tried to fill Kelly, but she took a deep breath, forcing it down. "So, no escape pods," she said calmly.

The other Kelly assented. "Probably whoever set this up getting off the ship. There might be something in the hangar, but it's doubtful. I would suggest heading that way, even if there isn't anything there, you can get off the ship that way. You're outside of the atmosphere now. Your suits have zero-gee, just get off the ship as soon as you can in whatever way you can, and we can send out a Pelican to pick you up?" The lieutenant made it sound like a question, looking back at John for confirmation. He must have nodded, because she repeated the end of her sentence again, sounding more sure of herself this time. "Who's the fastest?"

Kelly stepped forward as Fred acknowledged her. "Give her the datapad," the lieutenant ordered. "087 can give me more time to look around and see if we can stop this still. If not, she should still be able to get off of the ship in time."

"Kelly?" Fred asked. He was giving her the chance to back out, Kelly understood. She would be cutting it close if she did this, closer than any of the other Spartans. There was a very real chance she might not make it. But if she could help preserve the ship… They might be able to save so many others…

"Give me the datapad," she told him. "And get out of here."

Fred nodded, handing over the device. "Let's move out," he ordered, and the Spartans sprinted off the bridge, leaving Kelly alone, her only company thousands of miles away.

"Show me some of the other stations," the lieutenant said, and Kelly obeyed numbly.

"You'll need to tell me when I have to get off here," she informed the woman. "I want to go out with a bang, sure, but this wasn't quite the way I had it planned."

Kelly recognized the sound of John letting out a bark of laughter in the background, but the lieutenant didn't even crack a grin, just nodding seriously. She was focused on her work, which Kelly realized she should probably be grateful for. If the agent didn't give her full attention to translating, Kelly was more than likely going to die here. And she hadn't lied, either. This wasn't how she wanted to die. The Spartan slowly moved the camera on the datapad to point at different stations, giving the lieutenant time to translate. At two minutes, Fred dropped a nav marker on the hangar bay for Kelly to get to when she was done on the bridge. At just over five minutes, the lieutenant shook her head. "There's nothing," she said helplessly. "They must have a different system, there's no way of going back from self-destruct. Thanks for trying, but get out of here, now."

"Understood," Kelly responded. She took one last look at the device's screen before abandoning it and running. If she was going to die now, she wanted to have John's face fresh in her memory. It seemed unfair any other way.

The frequent ninety-degree turns in the passageways of the ship kept Kelly from reaching her full speed, and even at a slightly slower rate, she slammed into a couple of walls, unable to keep from skidding. After almost half a minute, Kelly reached the doors to the hangar. The ship's engines, which had been steadily working on pushing the ship into space, suddenly began to roar, overloading as they were designed to be able to do. Kelly felt the floor shudder as explosions began to tear through the ship. The hangar was a flat, open stretch of floor, though, and Kelly did what she was designed to do: run. She pushed off the ground as hard as she could, sprinting as if her life depended on it towards the open doors to space—and her life did, in fact, depend on it. Time seemed to slow as she reached the edge. Heat blossomed behind her, and rather than push off, Kelly was thrown into space. Her armor heated and cracked, shields overloading. At the last second before the heart of the explosion enveloped her, the Spartan triggered the overshield the lieutenant had installed on her armor. Then the noiseless heat and fire washed over her. The green bar drained in an instant, but Kelly didn't want to know what would have happened if she hadn't used it. The fire receded quickly, and Kelly waited an agonizing second to see if her armor was still airtight. Miraculously it was, and she could finally catch her breath, unable to do more than float helplessly. The alien ship drifted dead in space, being pulled back into Reception's gravity now that the engines no longer guided its actions. Kelly looked around to see the rest of the Spartans, and quickly counted to thirty before she realized she had been holding her breath again. They had all made it out alive. No one had been left behind like Sam. Kelly slowly relaxed, watching as two Pelicans sped out from the Commonwealth's hangar bay and began to collect the Spartans. Their mission had been a trap, revealing intelligence that they had formerly believed the Covenant did not possess. This would change how the Spartans did everything. There would be plans rethought, transmissions reanalyzed, and traps laid for Covenant troops in the future. For now, though, the Spartans were all alive, and that was the only thing that mattered to Kelly.