"August 30 2552"
A terrifying silence fell over Luke as he followed Claymore out the back of life pod towards the Hoplite. All that he could hear was his calm and focused breathing coupled with the air scrubber in his suit providing him with oxygen from the C02 he exhaled. For a split second he was hit with incredible nausea from the contents of his stomach beginning to bounce around but he was able to get control of and he focused on the nearing hull of the Cruiser. Already there was incoming plasma fire from the Elite Rangers who wore a full space suit equipped with a thruster back pack to make moving about easier. Most of the fire was errant and unfocused, probably due to the range and Luke was able to ignore it and focus on his landing. He shifted his weight so that he wasn't directly beyond Claymore and positioned himself so that it looked like he was crawling in the air and held rigid but was ready to get limber if he was going to need to scramble if he missed it. As the dark gray metal got closer and closer he reached out with his magnetic grips and latched onto the hull without problem and remained in the crouched position as he looked over at Claymore who landed as well. It took a moment for him to get his bearings while he set up a new horizon with the hull of the ship and started to spot the Elites.
From a distance the hulls all looked smooth but in fact there were bumps and valleys all over from various auxiliary units that sat on top of the armor plating and other designs built into the superstructure. This made it difficult to spot someone for long when they disappeared behind one of this protrusions.
"Nathan, mark up some of the link up points for these hardlines, I want to know where they're headed. Alert them if they don't already know." Luke pulled his rifle off his back and stood up to make his way towards the first squad of Elites, four of them who were making quick time towards their location. Moving in zero-g was incredibly difficult and there was no way that you could make quick movements or easily get out of the way of danger which made Luke feel as if he was in molasses while he moved across the hull. In between the two groups was a gun battery that was firing rounds larger than artillery shells at a machine gun rate without an ounce of sound coming from the double barreled behemoth. A testament to the Marathon-class's destructive power was the fact that it's hull was lined with these guns and they weren't even the largest bore that it had. What was even more frightening was that these guns had little effect on the Covenant's shields. Ducking down from some more plasma fire, he raised his rifle and fired off a few rounds in return and he was a little shaken when there was no sound and the kickback felt almost non-existent. He couldn't help but notice as the three shell casings tumbled lazily away from the gun off into space. With the access points visible on his HUD and his IFF picking up the Covenant troops, Luke was able to get a better picture of what was going on and was able to start coming up with a plan. "Head south on the hull and get towards that cover over there while I head north. Keep the pressure on them and we'll take the bastards out."
"Sounds good," Claymore replied and he split away from Luke towards a box further down the hull. Luke continued to make his way towards the gun battery where the Elites had taken up positions. One of the Elites popped out on his jetpack and unleashed hell with two Plasma Rifles. He was able to avoid most of the fire but it was disheartening to see that the sub-zero temperatures of space were keeping their guns much cooler than normal which in turn led to more incoming fire. He cursed under his breath and fired back some more, hitting the Elite in the chest causing his shields to flare while he jumped back into cover. A small acknowledgement light popped up on his HUD and a moment later Claymore was firing with his SAW at the Elites. The four of them shifted their fire towards Claymore and that allowed Luke to push up towards them unmolested but they had taken refuge in some of the support structure of the gun and he couldn't get a bead on them. Pulling out a grenade he primed it and prayed his idea would work. Basically shotputting it, he sent it on a straight trajectory towards their hiding spot and got his rifle ready and put the bead of his scope on the spinning green device. When he thought it was close enough he fired off a few rounds at it and watched it explode. With no atmosphere to create a concussion wave he hoped the shrapnel would do the job as he took a hold of a lip on the armor and thrusted himself forward over the hull, careful to stay within arm's reach in case he needed to stop himself. Reaching one of the two pillars that made up the gun's axis and fed it ammo, he arrested himself and fired at the Elites who were still recharging their shields. Sticking to headshots, he took one of them down, blowing open their bug-eyed helmet as the Elite thrashed back and forth from his entire body trying to force itself out through the three holes in the helmet. Claymore caught another one as it tried to escape to the backside of the gun but the Elite wasn't fast enough and he took a long burst in the chest and felt the same pain as his blood literally sprayed out in globs around him. The remaining two Rangers remained hidden and Luke kept an eye on his motion tracker but there was nothing showing up.
"Do you see them?" he asked Claymore.
"Uh, negative on that one boss," he replied quickly and he saw his tag moving across the hull to get into a better position. Activating his stealth, he stepped into the area underneath the gun and moved slowly in the dark area keep his eyes peeled for the glowing orange eyes of the Rangers or the other lights on their weapons and armor. There were nooks and crannies all around him but none of them seemed small enough to provide cover for an Elite but he was proven wrong when all of the sudden there was a powerful blow against his head and he fell forward and lost his magnetic grip. He was still shaken from the hit but he quickly recovered by putting his hands out and latching on with the magnets and preventing him from flying off the hull. His legs were still coming over his head and so he basically did a handstand and landed back onto his feet near the other side of the turret and hopping behind cover.
"How the fuck did they see me?" he asked rhetorically, waiting for them to come around after him. Finally one of them popped out with Plasma Rifles blazing and he took a full barrage, instantly blow his shields off. Alarms were screaming in his ears and he ducked out of the stream of energy and began to pump burst after burst into the Elite. He made sure to stay mobile while the plasma continued to rake back and forth around him but he avoided it long enough for his shields to recover as he slapped a new magazine into his rifle. The Elite finally succumbed and floated off when a few more bursts tore open his armor and he died instantly.
"Got him," Claymore said, confusing Luke.
"What was that?"
"Got one of the Elites." Without sound he had no way of knowing that his teammate had engaged the other Elite.
"Copy that. Let's move onto the other squads, hopefully they haven't gotten to the access points yet."
"They haven't," Nathan injected. "One team is still en route and the other has reached it but they're still trying to get through the armor to the hardlines. Once in they'll still have to deal with the firewalls that protect the various systems. This should provide us more time since evidence suggests the Covenant have very rudimentary AI algorithms and they seem to only be able to track our communications, not listen in on them."
"That's good but I still don't want to bank on that. Drop a waypoint on the team that's closest to getting in." A triangle popped up on his HUD near a squad that was on the top of the ship which wasn't too far from their location. Claymore fell in around Luke and they began to hike up the side of the Hoplite towards her spine. This gave Luke a moment to look around him and the view was terrifyingly beautiful. Golden tracers were filling space around and were mixing with the plasma torpedoes as they sailed through the air lazily, encapsulated in their magnetic fields. Longswords, Shortswords, and Seraphs were all fighting with each other as small wings of fighters chased after each other, dodging the ship-to-ship weapons that were constantly moving back and forth to track their targets. Remains of ships, mostly UNSC, were floating through space or getting hit from stray fire while they glowed orange from explosions and vented what atmosphere they still had inside of their hulls. A few lifepods were flying towards the nearest UNSC ships to be rescued. There was no longer a front line or a separation of forces as Covenant ships few directly into clusters of UNSC Destroyers and began to fire every single one of their weapons at close range, a few seconds later the UNSC ships would be engulfed in flames as their hulls were breached and their atmosphere vented while magazines detonated. Off in the distance a new nukes exploded on the shields of the Assault Carrier that was still devastating the UNSC fleet. As far as Luke could tell, the Cruisers and the Eon, which had turned so that it's side was facing the main battle so that it's main batteries could fire,were the only ships holding their own and that seemed to be because there had been no coordinated attack on them. But with fewer and fewer small ships to pick off that was likely to change. It was all very depressing as they traveled through the darkness on the port side of the Hoplite, the star back behind the planet again because of their position, finally reached the spine of the ship. The access point was in the middle of a depressed gap between two ledges, one connecting the engine housings to the rest of the ship while the other was near the swollen mid-section of the ship that housed most of the hangars and some of the bigger guns. Hanging over the area were two larger pylons of sorts that extended out from the engine compartment and towered over a smaller depression below them where the Elites had assembled. To the left of Luke and Claymore was a ramp of sorts that grew up till it plateaued just in front of them where it overlooked the gap. Staying near it, they made their way to ledge and looked down on the Elites. Three of them were standing guard away from two more who had out cutting tools and another crate near them that he guessed had whatever equipment they would need to get in and take control of the system.
"I don't understand why they're doing all of this," Claymore said as they looked on.
"The Cole Protocol is too effective for them. Right now they have to hope for a ship to not wipe it's database or for one of theirs to get lucky and jump right to us. So far we've been winning that little game and I think they're getting tired of it."
"I concur," Nathan said. "This ship's database has been purged of all non-essential information and it's waiting on a final word on it's security before completing the Cole Protocol. Obviously the Covenant have gained at least a working knowledge of the Marathon-class and they're attempting to exploit this flaw." Readying his rifle, he took aim on one of the Elites who was trying to cut into the armor when the entire hull began to flex and ripple. A shockwave rolled past them and he lost the grip on his rifle and he watched it float away from him, just out of reach.
"Shit!" he called out and looked back to see what had happened. Molten debris was spray out from an enormous hole in the ship near the bow and he could see atmosphere leaking out into space. A few secondary explosions threw more junk into space but the ship held and changed course as some Archer pods fired off. "What just happened?"
"A direct hit from a Plasma Torpedo. Reports seem to suggest that it's largely superficial and it missed most of the vital superstructure components and all of the seals worked, however the MAC cannon does seem to be damaged although they're not sure to what extent." Losing that weapon would be a severe blow to the ship's effectiveness and with more and more ships falling every second he was beginning to question the sanity of staying and fighting. He knew that wasn't a call that he was going to make and so he refocused on the Covenant. He pulled out his pistol and motioned for Claymore to give him his as well. With both of the guns and a few clips of ammunition for both he would be able to put out a lot of fire at once while Claymore would be able to use his SAW to keep them down. Their only chance, though, was that they hold the element of surprise and so they both activated their stealth and began to creep up on them. He made sure that everything was actually camouflaged before they got any closer. Both of them picked one of the guards and got close to them with their weapons ready, waiting on Luke's order to open fire which he gave only after a moment's hesitation. With both triggers pulled the two pistols shredded the Elite before he even knew what had happened to him and his limp body floated into the air while organs and blood came out of the bullet ridden corpse. Claymore's didn't last much longer and without the sound of their weapons it took a few seconds before the other Elites had realized what happened and their normally stern demeanor was replaced with a noticeably more panicked body language. The two who were cutting into the hull stopped what they were doing and tossed their tools to the ground and pulled out their Plasma Rifles. Scanning back and forth, one of them sprayed some fire in a vain attempt to hit one of them but he wasn't even close and Luke and Claymore took advantage of this to get closer to them. Replacing his clips which had been emptied in only a matter of seconds, he picked his new victim and took aim.
"I've got the one on the right," he radioed to Claymore.
"Then the one of the left is mine," he replied back, leaving the Elite in the middle for the both of them. Huddled only twenty or so feet from the Covenant forces, he counted to three in his head and gave the go command. Once again the two pistols came to life and demolished the Elite who he was aiming at, literally sawing him in half when he shredded his thin stomach area as the top half floated backwards and the legs remained standing straight up. With his remaining bullets he emptied his clips out into the center Elite who's shields remained intact and was now focused on Luke. He pressed the two pistols onto the hull where they stayed put and he rushed at the Elite with his combat knife out while Claymore's SAW peppered the other Elite with bullets before he finally succumbed to his wounds. He changed his fire to the third Elite and this drew his attention long enough for Luke to plunge his combat knife into the Elite's neck as blood began to spray out of the wound. It was a gruesome site watching the alien decompress and Luke pushed his body away from him into space, not wanting to watch it any longer. He turned back to the hole that they had cut and saw that most of the Titanium-A plating in the small area had been burned away and a thick black fiber optic line was visible at the bottom. He shook his head slightly at the serious design flaw.
"Time to get the final group?" Claymore asked.
"Yeah," he said, looking behind them and down the side of the hull where they were located. "Crap, you go ahead. I need to get my pistols."
"Hey…don't forget one of those is mine," he shot back with a laugh and Claymore began to move towards the edge of the hull while Luke hurried over towards the two guns that were still in place. As he reached down for them he was momentarily blinded when the sun erupted from the horizon of Ballast and bathed them all in a golden light. It took a moment for his suit to adjust to the sudden change in temperature and for his visor to polarize but when it did he couldn't help but be amazed at the beauty of the scene as the silhouettes of ships flew around in front of it, the enormous golden rays of light dancing around as the Hoplite positioned itself. "Check this out, it's beautiful," Luke said as he turned to face Claymore. For a second he was confused by what he saw but it quickly registered as he stared at the enormous blue and white plasma torpedo streaking towards their position. Without a moment's hesitation he started running as fast as he could towards the ramp that they had originally been scouting from. "GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE!" he screamed into his helmet and he saw Claymore scrambling back up the side of the ship and onto the flat top but he wasn't going to make it. A moment later the torpedo crashed into the engines of the Hoplite and all hell broke loose. Ionized Deuterium gas began to spray everywhere as the engines exploded and their vents collapsed, plasma tearing the entire area apart. Explosions blew out the rear compartments and Luke watched as the two pylons were dislodged and hurled through the air like two spears while Titanium plating went everywhere. He looked down at Claymore as explosions travelled the length of the ship towards his position.
"Oh shit…oh shit…oh shit…" he kept saying in between quick breaths and Luke could tell that he was running as fast as he could but it wasn't enough. Suddenly a dark red explosion tore the area that they had just been standing on apart and it consumed Claymore as his scream called out over the radio for a moment before being cut out in static.
"CLAYMORE!" Luke yelled, spit flying against his visor. Looking at the debris he could see Claymore in the flames and molten metal, still moving. "I've got to do something!" He yelled out and started running with him as he watched Claymore travel over his head and keep moving away. Tears had begun to stream down his face but he kept chasing after him as more parts of the ship exploded.
"Soldier! There's nothing you can do! The core has been destroyed and the rest of the ship is going down with it. I've radioed for an evac now."
"No! I'm going to get him!" Nearly skipping across the hull now he spotted a tower that he could get on top of that might be close enough to get a hold of Claymore.
"Sword? Can you hear me?" Claymore's voice was filled with static and he sounded distressed. Luke brought up his vitals and could see that his heartbeat was erratic and he was suffering from significant blood loss.
"I can hear you buddy," he replied back, choking back some tears as he kept following him. More explosions tore up through the ship's spine and he had to stop to avoid them but he started back again.
"Stop coming after me. There's no need for both of us to die." When he heard this he coughed back sudden convulsion in his chest and had to swallow the spit that was filling his mouth.
"Don't say that, I'm almost there." Tossing his pistols to the side and tearing off his load bearing vest he became even more nimble as he kept an eye on the debris field that was already too high above the tower for him to grab hold. Stopping, he collapsed to his knees and tried to catch his breath.
"You're right though, this view is," he stopped and Luke could hear a wet cough through the static. "The view is beautiful." He smiled a little when he heard this and he tried to look too but his eyes were blurred from crying and he blinked a few times to try and clear them but to no avail. "Hey Sword?"
"Yeah?" he whispered back.
"What's your real name?" This was almost too much to handle and he had to take a deep breath before he spoke.
"Luke…Luke Wards."
"Thanks boss."
"You're not going to tell me yours?" All he heard was static as he watched his friend's body float off into space.
Luke's eyes were focused on a small scratch on the Titanium-A plating as he sat with his legs in front of him, cocked inwards with his hands resting on his inner thighs. Hunched over, he hadn't moved an inch as he zoned out, the Hoplite slowly destroying itself around him, a few times he hoped it's ammunition would go off and he could get rid of the feeling that had set over him but he stopped them quickly even though it didn't make him feel much better afterwards.
"Sword, Bugle here, time to get you home," the comforting voice drawled in his ear and he looked on as a black Pelican flew in near him with it's rear compartment opened up for him. He didn't move for a moment but finally he pushed himself up from the plating and got into the Pelican where he dropped into a seat while the door shut. The ride was a short one and they arrived into the hangar of the Kamiak in only a minute or two. The door to the cockpit opened up and Bugle crouched through and looked over at him. "Ya ready for this? We're the only ones who know right now so take your time if you wanna wait." He looked sympathetic and Luke was thankful for it but he just stood up and made his way to the rear door. Bugle didn't say anything as he punched a button and it opened up slowly. The medical crew was waiting for him, something that had become standard procedure but he was fine. Further back he saw Dagger and Katana standing in their undersuits with smiles on their face. Luke still hadn't removed his as he walked off by himself and he could see their smiles disappear when he was the only one who left. He didn't say a word when he walked hunched over past them both. Katana began to cry and he could hear her sobbing but he didn't feel like speaking to either one of them.
"The Captain wants to see you before you go to your quarters. It's not about Claymore." Changing direction, he headed to the bridge through the oddly empty hallways and was waved in by the Marines who were standing guard in front. Looking through the windows he could see that the battle was no longer there, replaced with the blackness of space. Only the navigators were still on deck with Ambresio.
"I'm not going to discuss what just happened, at least not yet. What you do need to know is that Winter Contingency has been declared."
"What's that? Luke said as he removed his helmet, exposing his swollen eyes and stained cheeks.
"Winter Contingency was a plan put in place in case Reach was destroyed. The entire UNSC fleet is being recalled to Earth and is being assigned to the Home Fleet to defend the planet."
"Reach is destroyed?"
"If it isn't already, it will be. The Covenant attacked it with over three hundred ships and overwhelmed the fleet that was stationed there. They held their own for a while but the Super MACs were taken out one by one as troops were landed on the surface. Rumor has it most of the Spartans were wiped out but the Pillar of Autumn was last seen making a jump into Slipspace but there's no word on how many of the Spartans actually made it aboard." Luke didn't say anything for a bit, trying to process everything. Reach was one of the, if not the strongest Human colony outside of Earth. With it gone most of the UNSC's military strength was gone and all that they had left was whoever could get back to Earth. "That's all for now. We'll speak later."
"Aye, sir."