Trent let out a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding. The last Black Ops troop had fallen. The number of corpses on the field in front of the outpost and even as close as the instacrete landing pad had nearly tripled. The second wave had been a lot bigger, but with N's help up top they had slaughtered them at a good pace.
"Check the perimeter," Trent said.
The others moved to comply with his order. They had managed to get all of the shutters closed and the emergency bulkheads in place just before the second wave had showed up. Now, the only way into the base was through the front. At least not without some serious firepower. Trent hoped he wouldn't have to worry about that, but knew this hope to be hollow immediately. The others began reporting in a few moments later.
They were clear. No survivors, no bad guys in sight for the moment.
"All right, Jorge, Chips, Blake, get to that armory and see what you can come up with for defenses. I get the feeling we're going to be holding out here for a little while. Banks, meet me in the radio room," he said.
There were a string of affirmative replies. Trent headed back through the base and found Banks waiting for him in the long-abandoned comms room. It was little more than a closet. A desk with a radio atop it, flanked on either side by a mess of equipment and a single swivel chair. Banks took a seat in the chair and attempted to fire up the comms. It flared to life, the equipment around them whispering as the ghost returned to haunt the machine.
"Hmm," Banks murmured, staring into the comms display.
"What?" Trent asked.
"Just one moment..."
His hands flew over the keyboard, working as quickly as he could. Trent saw the screen flare and cycle through several different images and backgrounds. Finally, after a long moment, the only sounds that of the other men banging things around in the armory, Banks sat back.
"Well, the good news is that this works, the bad news is that the signal is being blocked, the best news it that the blocking method looks pretty rudimentary and I might be able to break through it if I head up top and make a few modifications to the comms array," he explained.
"Excellent. Do it, quick as you can," Trent replied.
"Already on it."
Banks stood and left the room. Trent headed down to the armory, hoping they could get the hell out of this situation as quickly as possible. This was supposed to be easy: pick up Jorge and be on their way. He hated this time-suck that these missions were becoming. Every minute they wasted was another minute Black Ops continued on with their plan...whatever the hell that plan was. He hoped there was some more relevant data in whatever Eric pulled from the asteroid-based research station. He found Jorge carrying a pair of heavy machine gun turrets from the armory.
"Got an idea?" Trent asked.
"A couple...gonna put these up on the roof. Was also thinking of maybe spreading some weapons out across the base at viable entry points, in case we needed to get there fast and grab a new weapon," he replied.
"Sounds like a plan. Need any help with those?" Trent asked.
"No. But I do need help with something else. Follow me."
They headed up to the roof. Banks was already hard at work on the array, a tall tower of glistening steel and machinery, and N was keeping watch. Jorge set down the pair of turrets and began setting up their tripods.
"So, what's up?" Trent asked.
"My team. Noble. What happened? The last I saw of Noble was throwing Six from orbit," Jorge replied without looking up, still working. Trent frowned. He'd made sure to look into Noble Team before coming here.
"Everyone but Jun is dead," he replied bluntly. He felt it might be the best way to handle the bulky Spartan. Jorge paused, briefly, then kept working.
"And Reach?"
"Mostly glass, but there's restoration going on. The others died protecting Reach and...well...man, I have so much to explain to you. A lot more happened. I guess, the best I can do to sum it up is say that near the end, it wasn't just us versus the Covenant anymore."
"Who else got involved? Innies?"
"No..." Trent spent a few moments briefly detailing the Halos, the Forerunners and the Flood. To all this, Jorge only said, "Huh." He quickly finished up and rose to his feet, then played with the turrets, making sure they worked. "What about the other Spartan Twos, how many are left? What about Master Chief?"
"Missing in action. Really missing in action, none of this Spartans never die shit," Trent replied. Jorge snorted and chuckled. "Linda is still alive," Trent added.
"I remember her. She still kicking ass?"
"Yeah, I guess you could say that. She's a Survivor. Chances are you'll meet her after we get off Core," Trent replied.
"That would be nice," Jorge said. He looked at Banks. "Would you like help with that? I've picked up some tech training in my time."
"Yeah, sure," Banks replied. Jorge walked over and knelt by the array. Trent decided head back downstairs and see what was what. He ran into Blake on the way back to the armory. They walked back to it together.
"How have you been? We haven't really had time to talk," Trent said as they began to sort through the weapons.
"I've been...getting better, I think," Blake replied hesitantly. "It was ugly after the Erebus. I was...well, it wasn't good. But I got through the worst of it. Took some R and R. Went to see what was left of my family...had a fling with a girl on Earth. It was really nice. Took her down to a beach in Greece. Rented a cabin. It was like paradise. I think that went a long way towards helping me. I needed time to just...relax."
"I feel you there. Shit...I could use some relaxation after all this," Trent replied.
"What about you?"
"Same old road, I'm afraid. Killing Black Ops and more Black Ops."
Trent selected a battle rifle and a shotgun for a reason he couldn't quite put his finger on. A shotgun wouldn't be an ideal weapon for a long-range firefight. But something made him hang onto it. He shrugged, shoveled magazines and fat red shells into his pockets, as well as a few grenades. He grabbed a pair of crates, one for ammo, one for grenades.
"Let's go set up shop," he said.
Blake grabbed another pair of crates and they headed back to the main lobby, where they found Chips playing with the sights of a sniper rifle.
"Hey fellas, I used to be quite the sniper. Did I ever tell you about my time back on the original Halo? Or Delta Halo? Or the Ark?" he asked.
"You've told me plenty of times," Blake complained. The pair set down their crates in easily accessible positions.
"Halo was a real, genuine beauty," Chips continued. "The first one, anyway. Second one was, too, don't get me wrong...and the Ark...but nothing really compared to that first time, when you first stepped foot onto the first Halo..." He was soon interrupted by Banks, who had come down from the roof with bad news.
"We've got company," he said. Trent listened. He could hear the low drone of more engines. The third wave. He grabbed one of Chips' sniper rifles and peered into the distance. Yes, there were more ships coming for them. Four. But something was different about these ships. They were nothing like Pelicans, instead more closely resembling the bulbous hull of a Phantom dropship. There was something sinister about them.
"Something new," Trent murmured. "Get ready everyone. I don't like this."
Everyone moved into position. Trent let the sniper rifle lay back against the wall and grabbed his battle rifle, ready for anything. Or so he thought. A long moment of disquieting tension passed as the ships drew closer. Finally, they stopped, coming to hover about twenty feet over the ground maybe ten meters from the edge of the cracked landing pad. After a long moment, the sides of the bulbous ships opened.
All hell spilled out.
Trent couldn't believe what he was seeing. Even after all the shit he'd seen, after all the madness and blood and terror. The monsters and the horrors. This...this was just too weird. He watched in absolute, mind-numbing terror as giant spiders and scorpions dropped from the large cargo bays of the Black Ops ship.
They hit the ground and immediately began to advance on the base, making all kinds of horrible noises that sounded like the stuff of nightmares. Trent continued staring in paralyzed horror. It was the bark of machine gun fire from above, Jorge, he imagined, that finally broke the spell. Trent aimed his battle rifle and fired.
For several seconds, there was nothing but the staccato rattle of gunfire, the screaming of the men and the sound of spent brass. And then it came, a cacophonous shriek of inhuman voices, rising up, infected with vicious pain and insane fury. Trent watched in unmitigated horror as he emptied his magazine and hastily reloaded: they bled black. Like tar or oil, gushes and sprays of black as night blood flew from their huge bodies.
Trent put the inhuman face of one of the spiders, a titanic brown tarantula, in his sights. He shuddered involuntary at the ugly crimson eyes that seemed lit from within, then squeezed the trigger. The three-round burst destroyed the face, causing the spider to topple over as plume of black gore flew from its face. He kept firing, staring in stark terror at the huge fangs, the gigantic, barbed stingers. The alien eyes.
Soon, the landing pad and the grassy field beyond it were littered with huge bug corpses and black gore. Trent knew that Jorge and N were up there doing most of the damage, spraying the battlefield with overlapping waves of turret fire. When the last bug fell, a deathly silence descended across the area. Trent realized that the ships had gone. Off to get more? What other nightmares were coming for them?
"Report," Trent said, his voice shaking slightly.
"Good up here," Jorge said over the short-wave. "Everything looks dead. But we'll need a lot more ammo for these things, and probably a third one."
"All right...Banks, get that radio working. I have a feeling this is going to get a hell of a lot uglier before it gets better," Trent replied.
The men got to work.
