"How are we going to stop?" Six said loudly, the pressure of the ship's acceleration making it difficult for him to talk normally.
"Do I have to think of everything?" Cortana asked, sighing. The hatch in the back of the ship sealed itself, and the light sound of the hiss that the hatch released echoed through the ship as sound returned, previously lost in the vacuum of space. The pull of the ship's internal pressure died down, leaving Six and John to float freely again without risking being sucked outside.
"Cortana, turn our gravity back on?" John asked.
Six and John fell back to the ground feet first.
Six let go of the bar, cracking his neck as he steadied his stance. "Did they notice any of that?" He asked.
One of the sleek Covenant cruisers slowed and turned toward them. "Picking up increased scanning signal activity and strength. They suspect something, but as long as we keep up this speed, they might think that we're space junk." Cortana reported.
"Still..." John said, hand hovered over the weapons system console. "... Can't be too careful."
It would take only a few seconds for the weapons to power up. The rotary cannons could fire immediately, but the mounted missiles would have to wait for their target-lock to boot up and activate. By then, the cruiser, which outgunned them about one hundred to one, would turn the Longsword into actual space junk in about a second.
Or less.
"Attempting to jam their scanners." Cortana said. "That may buy us some time."
The Covenant cruiser scanned the Longsword and the surrounding area. It looked as if they hadn't been seen yet, but they had to be careful. One wrong move, and they were dead, end of story.
"Cortana, can you clarify our scan?" John asked.
The display resolved into a clearer image. It was definitely a cryo-pod, no doubt about it now. Six walked over to the screen to get a closer look. A small asteroid hit the cryo-pod, and it tumbled, showing the sides.
"That isn't one cryo-pod, there are three of them." Six said. He was right. Three pods, side by side, connected to one another.
Three survivors out of the Pillar of Autumn's hundreds. At least, that's where Six had guessed they were from. Many of the Autumn's crew were still in cryogenic sleep when the Covenant attacked. Hell, he was sure there had been at least one to two hundred pods, empty or occupied. He hoped that all three of them were occupied in this case.
"John, route more power to Cortana. We're going to need her at full operability if we're going to make to through this." Six said. "Go slow."
John slowly turned a dial on the dashboard, increasing the power output on the terminal that Cortana was inserted into.
"New contact," Cortana said. "I think it is, anyway. Whatever it is, it's stuck onto a chunk of rock half a kilometer in diameter."
"Can you I.D. it?" John asked.
"If I had a few seconds... damn. It just rotated out of my view." Cortana said.
On the display, Cortana replayed a silhouette of an oddly angled shape on the surface of the rock. She highlighted its outline, rotated it, and overlaid it onto a schematic of a Pelican dropship.
"Match with a tolerance of fifty-eight percent." She said. "They might have parked there to avoid detection, as you suggested."
"Lucky guess?" John asked under his breath.
"Or..." Cortana said. "...more likely, the craft crashed there."
"I don't think so. The position of that wing indicates that it is nose-out..." John said, pointing at the display. "...ready for takeoff. If it had crash-landed, it would be faced the other way."
"Of course, that would only matter depending on wether or not the crew is alive." Six said. "But I agree with John."
Another Covenant cruiser turned away from the group, scanning the area around where the Pelican was.
"Now's our chance. Let's get those pods." Cortana said.
The Longsword slowed to a stop, around forty meters away from the trio of cryo-pods. John walked towards the back of the ship. He grabbed a tether and clipped one end to his suit, the other to the bulkhead of the Longsword.
"We need to turn ourselves around." He said. "Face the aft end of the ship at the pods."
Six nodded, walked to the ship's control panel and jerked the control stick to the side, rotating the Longsword in a full one-eighty. "Be fast, John." He said. "The Covenant won't give us long."
"Decompression in three seconds," Cortana said.
John inhaled deeply, tensing his muscles. He felt like he was about to explode, like there was something inside of him that was ready to crawl out of his chest at any given moment.
Of course, there was nothing to worry about. He always felt like that.
Cortana opened the door, and all oxygen in the ship flew once again into the vacuum of space. John's feet lifted an inch off of the ground, and he grabbed on to the empty weapons locker to keep himself straight. He stayed at the ready, waiting for Cortana's cue for him to jump out. If he had read the terminals correctly, she would give him the signal right about-
"Now!" She said. John flung himself into open space, headed directly towards the trio of pods. Cortana set a navigation point on his helmet's HUD, showing the pods' exact location.
Six watched from the Longsword's scanners as a silhouette of John floated closer to the cryo-pods. At most, he was probably thirty five meters away from the pods themselves, and nearly dead-on with his trajectory. But the Covenant cruisers were scanning smaller, more specific portions of the area now. Every second wasted was another second that they could be found, and then they would be history.
Twenty meters to go...
Ten meters...
John rotated himself relative to the pods, as to get a better angle.
Three...
The Covenant's scan strength increased. All that John needed was a couple more seconds, just a few. "Come on!" Six said under his breath, glancing at the Covenant cruisers and raising his two fingers to his helmet. "John, you need to move faster. I think they're picking up our scent!"
John's fingers made contact with the first pod, but his hand slipped. "I'm... trying!" He replied, his hand making a grab for the middle pod. Just barely missed that one. He scratched the surface of the third pod, his last hope at recovering them...
And he grabbed hold of it. He pulled himself towards the pod and hooked part of the tether on to it.
"I've got it!" He said. Six hit the switch to reel the tether back in and raced back to the front so he could look out of the windshield of the Longsword.
Oh, fuck.
"Cortana, those aren't flying towards us at high speed, are they?" Six asked.
"Hurry, Chief!" Cortana said. "We've got trouble!"
John looked to his left and saw exactly what the trouble was. Two Covenant cruisers were accelerating at neck-break speed towards the Spartans and the Longsword. The enormous and easily base-destroying cannons visibly hummed and whirred as they aimed at their newfound targets. Six readied the weapons systems while Cortana gunned the engines, warming them up and paying no mind to stealthy approach; they had already been discovered, so why be sitting ducks?
Unfortunately, they would have to sit until John was fully reeled in. If the engines were to start up at this moment, the propulsion, along with the wash from the thrusters, would either whip both John and the pods around or cook him in his suit.
The cruisers were ready to fire. In a couple more seconds, the Longsword would be space slag.
"C'mon!" John said, clutching the tether even tighter than before.
Suddenly, a group of four missiles shot through the rubble and trash of the zero-gravity environment. They streaked into the closest Covenant cruiser, hitting its starboard side. The shimmering shockwave that emanated from where the missiles struck the cruiser indicated the enormously thick hard light shield that surrounded it. Six ran to the aft end of the Longsword once more to find out where the missiles had come from, as the Cruiser turned to meet the attacker.
The Pelican, previously mounted on the asteroid where it had been hiding, now shot towards the group of cruisers with amazing speed. Whoever the driver of the Pelican was, Six believed that they were either stupid, suicidal or both.
As the cruisers focused their cannons on new prey, John flew into the aft hatch of the Longsword, pods attached to his tether. Six hugged the wall as he flew in, and Cortana shut the hatch immediately, firing the engines in the meantime. John stood up, using the pods for support, as they lurched forward, accelerating towards the cruisers with their weapons hot.
The Covenant cruiser that had been struck with the missiles and another just like it were now following the Pelican, searching through the dense field of foreign metals and rock with their plasma. However, the pilot that was flying the Pelican had been carefully edging downward, completely out of sight as they circled around.
"Whoever is piloting that Pelican certainly knows their stuff!" Cortana said.
"We owe them a favor." John said. He sat in the pilot's seat of the Longsword, gripping the weapons controls, and began to fire the 110 millimeter cannons directly at the nearest cruiser's shields. The cannon blasts hit the side of the cruiser without even a scratch, surely confusing the Covenant inside. They wouldn't have a clue who to target.
"You realize that we really can't damage those Covenant ships, don't you?" Cortana asked.
"Well, it's worth the distraction." John said. "Besides, I think I have an idea."
"Care to share?" Six asked, keeping an eye on the MORAY system. Just in case.
"It's simple. Cortana, I'll give you control of the missile systems. I want you to target their plasma turrets just before they fire. They have to drop a section of their shields for a fraction of a second." John said. "We can hit one of the cannons if we time the shot correctly."
"That could actually work." Six replied. "You heard the man, Cortana. It's just as good of a plan as anything else."
"Without precise data, I'll have to base my calculations on several assumptions..." Cortana said. "But I think I can do it. Give me fire control."
John lifted a finger and pushed down on a square shaped blue button next to the weapons controls. "All yours." He said.
The Covenant cruisers were now targeting both the Pelican and the Longsword, guns warming up to a bright orange color.
"Firing!" Cortana said, and every available missile fired at one of the second cruiser's guns.
"Let's move!" John said, firing the engines and launching the Longsword into the debris field. The missiles were flying quickly and steadily towards the Covenant cruiser. The cruisers were equipped with anti-missile lasers, firing and destroying three of the missiles in mid-flight. The turrets on the cruiser got ready to fire, glowing white-hot, and the shields dropped for a fraction of a second.
It was enough.
The turret exploded with white and yellow-hot fire, spreading around a decent chunk of that section of the cruiser. The shields went back up just as the missiles connected, flattening the explosion and giving it an even larger surface area.
"That should keep them busy for a while." Cortana said, obviously proud of her handiwork.
John jerked the control stick, sending the Longsword into a barrel roll. An enormous blast of plasma from one of the other undamaged cannons slung past the ship at lighting speed, which would have surely killed them had John not acted. As he steadied the ship, a large piece of alien metal struck the windshield. It cracked slightly.
Six nearly fell over from the impact. All things considered, he was doing fantastic, but not even Spartans had superhuman healing powers. Six, being a SPARTAN-III, didn't heal very fast, and the painful souvenirs that he had acquired on the Pillar of Autumn filled him with fresh pain. He looked down at his stomach wound. Right in the split of his armor, between his supplemental chestguard and his grenade belt - the latter of which was currently empty - was a four or five inch deep stab wound made by his own knife. Whoever those Enclave were, they were almost better at fighting that the Covenant.
"Or not." Cortana muttered. "Better let me drive, too."
"Yeah." John said, exhaling as he activated the autopilot.
Cortana took control of the Longsword's flight, evening out the ship's trajectory. Six could feel the difference immediately, the Longsword soaring so evenly that it felt almost mechanical, like a well oiled machine. He rose to his feet, stumbling against the pilot's seat and John as he straightened his legs.
"You okay?" John asked.
"I'm sore as shit, but... yeah." Six exhaled. "I'll be fine."
John leaned forward towards the monitors. The two cruisers were closing in on the Pelican and them, effectively sandwiching them. The two Spartans had faith in Cortana, but after a little while, they would have to start worrying. The cruisers could easily shoot the Longsword and the Pelican down if they focused their aim, and that wouldn't take much time. It wasn't like they could just fly away either, as the Longsword was not equipped with translight engines. Besides, they didn't have the fuel to get far at all, and there was no way that they were leaving behind the Pelican or its passengers.
"Six, run a scan of our surroundings. We need to even the odds." John said.
"I usually wouldn't take orders from a subordinate, but..." Six said, beginning the scan.
"Just look for something - anything - that could give us an edge." John said.
The ship's sonar scanned the environment for the eighth time that hour. Six narrowed the search, ignoring all asteroids and space matter. The scanner scanned metals, ice, the Pelican, the cruisers, the flagship...
Wait a minute. The flagship. Maybe...
Both John and Six spoke at once. "I have an idea." They said simultaneously.
"Flagship?" Six asked.
"Bingo." John said. Six attempted to hail the Pelican, the communication channels clicking as they synchronized.
"This is Noble Six, SPARTAN Bravo-Three-One-Two and Master Chief, SPARTAN One-One-Seven. Recognition code Tango Alpha Three Four Zero. Copy."
"Copy." A female voice answered. "Warrant Officer Polaski here. Damn good to hear you, Noble Six."
"Polaski, proceed at maximum burn to this position." Six said. He dropped a navigation point on the screen nearest to him and sent it to the Pelican. "Copy?"
"I copy. Plotting course now, sir." She replied. Six could hear voices arguing in the background. They were loud, but Six didn't recognize any of the voices. "I hope you know what you're doing. Polaski out."
"Get us there, Cortana," John said, tapping the navigation point that Six had placed. The two Spartans had the same plan. "As fast as you can make this thing fly."
The Longsword rolled and banked in the direction of the nearby moon. "You do know what you're doing?" Cortana asked. "I mean, we're headed straight toward the largest and most dangerous Covenant ship in this system. I assume this is part of some daring and brutally simplistic plan you've both cooked up?"
"Yes." The Spartans said in unison.
"Oh, good." Cortana said. "Hang on tight."
The ship rolled again, dodging balls of ice, metal and lasers alike. An explosion detonated near the back of the ship, almost knocking Six off of his feet once again.
"God damn!" Six exclaimed. "Looks like we have their attention!"
"I'm reading all Covenant cruisers moving to overtake us at flank speed." Cortana said.
"And the Pelican?" John asked.
"Still there." Cortana replied. "Taking heavy fire, but on trajectory to the NAV point... moving slower than us, of course."
"Adjust our speed so we arrive at the same time. When you're in range for a secure system link, let me know." John said.
"You know," Cortana said, slowing the ship's flight speed. "You never told me precisely what your plan is."
John smirked under his helmet.
"Something Captain Keyes would approve of." He replied.