Chapter 45 We are boned in every sense of the word.
Despite the fact all of Noble team went up to the surface Six was the only one to leave the cave to scout out the area, mostly because she was the smallest and could summon a suit of power armour to protect her.
Six suspected that if the town hadn't been raided recently it would have been a very nice place to be, even if it was a bit cramped, every building looked just a little to close together, a lot of the stalls seamed jammed in the most unusual places. It was odd to say the least.
Although the elements that made it more unusual where defiantly the Covenant Forces Six knew weren't meant to be there.
Most of them where congregated near the centre of town. Specifically underneath the giant ship that had shot them down.
If Six had to guess (based on what little information she'd been able to pick up about them) She would say this was probably a Forerunner ship.
It was huge, shaped like a giant sword floating in the air, with the 'Hilt' acting as the back end with the tip of the blade as the front, also judging by the glowing orange energy pipes Six suspected that was wear the gun was.
Most of the Covenant forces where guarding the gravity well the ship was producing. Occasionally moving out of the way to allow A Brute to throw in a prisoner.
Six's first instincts where to run out and try to kill of the forces but Seven had several arguments against that.
"Six no! I know you want to help but if you cause a panic down here the ship will leave and we will not be able to save the ones already on board, we have to be careful."
"Then what do you suggest I do? I can't just watch this!" Six hissed as a screaming child with a scaly tail was thrown into the lift in the same way one might discard the wrapper for a snack bar of some kind.
"We save them later, We need Emile and to warn the other survivors." Seven said.
Growling Six nodded and looked to Seven.
"Okay, where is Emile, you got a position on him?" Six asked as the AI nodded.
"Yes, He's in the jungle. Specifically he's here." Seven said, a series of cordinets and an icon appearing on her hud's maps.
"Okay Noble, Six find Emile and help everyone still on the ground." Carter said over the radio.
"Sir, what are you planing?"
"Me, Kat and Jorge are going to get on board that carrier, they need the prisoners alive so they should be safe, if we can get on the ship and take it over we can save them, but we don't know how much time we have so we need to move in quickly."
"But, we came here together to save him..." Six muttered.
"Six, Emile would hate us if we left these people behind, go find him, we'll get on board that ship and save them." Kat said.
"I, Okay, We'll take back the island, Seven give me Emile's location, they need you more than I do."
"Six..." Jorge began.
"Jorge, its an unknown ship and Seven can map it out, take her and get going!" Six said, retreating back to the cave.
"You really want to be flying blind down here?" Carter asked Six as she pulled of her helmet and handed it to him.
"I'll be fine, now get going, Like you said we don't have much time."
Six then darted out of the cave, she needed to find Emile fast.
…
"So how are we getting on board?" Jorge asked as him Kat and Carter crept towards the gravity well.
Carter didn't speak, he just pointed to a set of Banshee's lying on the ground a way from the ship.
"If you stay low before making a loop around we should be able to get on board without being noticed." Seven explained, the helmet being worn by Kat as they moved forward.
"Okay, Noble team lets save those people." Carter said as he slipped into one of the banshees and took off.
…
Six did not feel safe.
As a Spartan she was used to this feeling but being used to it didn't make it better.
Every time she put a foot down wrong, every branch she crushed, she was sure it was going to cause a panic. She looked over her shoulder, in the very far distance she could see three banshee's flying away; with any luck she'd be able to help out soon.
Six knew the main thing she needed to do was be quite and discreet.
"No, no, someone help! Please!"
We need to.
No, just no.
Six burst into the trees her hammer raised... Only to not see anything other than a small device sending out audio and an Elite with a knife rammed though its neck.
"I, what?" Six said, looking down at the body.
"Do we need to get the knife back?" A small voice asked from behind a bush.
"Does that thing look alien to you?" Another one said.
"How do we know it's not a trap?" Yet another voice whispered.
"I can hear you." Six said bluntly, turning towards where she could here the voices.
"Gah!"
"Well you suck."
"Guys she's coming near!"
Six pulled the bush back, looking down and her heart half broke and half laughed.
The group which had set this 'Trap' where children, if Six had to guess then they where barley older than ten.
There where three of them, two boys and one girl, all of them where dirty and looked scared.
"I'm not going to hurt you." Six said simply, bending down to be more on there level. "What happened here?"
"You're not going to hurt us?" One of the boys asked.
"Of course she is, she's a human!" The girl scowled.
"You don't know that!" The other Boy blurted.
"Yes I do!"
"No you don't!"
"Yes I..."
"Word of advice." Six said, sticking her hands over their mouths while their other friend looked on. "When in a dangerous situation, keep quite unless you want to be found, now, I know their taking people, when did this start? Has the ship left yet? And do you know anyone called Emile?"
"Why should we..." The girl started to say.
"Because I want to help." Six said simply.
"They came a week ago!" the First boy blurted.
"Traitor." The girl muttered darkly.
"They just started taking people, we had to run as fast as we could to get away." The second boy added.
"I understand. I want names, I cant keep thinking of you by physical characteristics, I need more than that."
"I'm Sam, and why do you want Emile!?" The first boy blurted. Now knowing he was called Sam Six took a closer look at him. He was heavily tanned and had a pair of bird wings growing out of his back, even if they clearly weren't big or strong enough to allow for flight.
"Yeah why do you want Emile!" The girl cried.
Six looked over to the other boy, a clear: 'For the love of god what is her deal?' Look on her face.
"I'm Tom, and she's Angela." He explained.
Tom was a dark skinned boy with a set of razor sharp fangs and weird patches of black fur growing on the back of his hands and neck.
Angela was short, her hair a dark shade of green and had a scaly tail bursting out from underneath her skirt.
"Why do you want Emile!" Angela cried.
"I'm a friend." Six shot back. "Also I want to help everyone on this island because even if I did hate Faunus, which I don't; I defiantly hate the Covenant more."
"Hang on, only Emile calls them that." Tom said, looking at Six in shock.
"Yeah, we know each other, do you know where he is?" Six asked, concerned over how much Angela was growling at her (Revealing she had fangs while she did it.)
"Why do you!"
"Where is he!" Six cried, grabbing her head in frustration.
"We don't know, we got separated..." Sam explained. "He was teaching a class when they arrived, he told us to run..."
"So you did, good. But we need to find him, will you come with me or do I have to abandon you?" Six asked, not wanting to leave the children behind, she couldn't say she knew them but given how most of them looked like they hadn't eaten in the week since the ship arrived and would probably fall into any given trap that was set for them. In fact she suspected that was exactly what had happened, although she had to praise whoever had used the knife.
"I'll go." Tom said in an instant.
"Tom!" Angela cried just as Sam said.
"I'll also go."
"Okay, lets move." Six said, standing up to continue towards where Seven had said Emile last was.
"Hey, I'm not going with you!" Angela cried. Six turned to look at her.
"We're really doing this?" Six asked, groaning as she took a step back.
"Angela we need to go, we stand a better chance with someone bigger than us." Tom said.
"Yeah I'm with Tom, come on we need to move." Sam said, scowling as Angela stopped the ground angrily.
"No, I'm not, Hey!" Angela cried as Six rolled her eyes and grabbed Angela under her arms and throwing her over her shoulders.
"Someone get the knife." Six said as she summoned her armor to her body, giving Angela the shock of her life as She was suddenly jolted a foot into the air.
"Hey no one touches my Knife!" Angela cried from six's back. Six her head to look at her.
"Then will you come with us?" She asked.
Angela pouted but nodded.
"Good, now lets go, the longer it takes to find Emile the harder it's going to be." Six said, it was unreasonable to assume he was going to stay where he was when she started, the less time he had to move the easier he was to find.
Six headed off as the small kids followed her. Tom was looking up at her with big eyes, his focus given entirely to her, Sam kept glancing at Angela, who was giving Six a death glare.
Just want to check that knife can't get through the suit can it?
Erm, lets not find out... And no it can't, doesn't mean we should give her a reason to try.
I completely agree with that sentiment.
…
Meanwhile in the air the rest of Noble team was still on track and had landed on the top deck of the ship.
"Okay, we need to get in, Seven any idea where we can get in?" Carter asked.
"If this is the ship I think it is; yes, move approximately five hundred feet forwards and twenty feet to the left." She said in an instant, as if she already knew exactly what she was on about.
"Have you been on this ship before?" Carter asked as they moved towards the hatch, which was where Seven had thought it would be.
"Erm yes I have, This is the ship Project Ostium used went hey made the first gate jump." She explained.
"I thought you used it to bring people through?" Kat asked as Jorge and Carter grabbed ontot he doors hatch and began to pull.
"Well that was the idea, but in a ship, Remanent just happened to be the nearest habitable planet to where we came out. Trying to do it without a ship tends to lead to complications..." Seven trailed off.
"Would those complications happen to be big scaly and genocidal?" Carter asked as the hatch finally opened.
"Yes, sorry about that, I swear I was only trying to get you, but the precision in the design was for making sure you landed in the right spot, not a precise location to leave from."
"Shouldn't it be precise on both ends?" Jorge asked as they jumped down.
"Yes, but it was made in like a month, They where kinda desperate to get out. It's not like this ship, Wow I missed this place." Seven said, a dreamy smile adorning her face as they moved down the corridor.
"Where you the ship board AI for this thing?" Kat inquired as they moved along.
"Yeah, I might need a map..." Seven said as they hit a solid wall of crudely fitted in metal.
"Well fuck." She swore as she looked at it.
"What's wrong?" Jorge asked.
"This isn't meant to be here, I was on this ship for ten years, granted they where a while ago but this is most definitely not what's supposed to be here."
"Okay, so we need to find a terminal?" Kat asked. It made sense to her, give the AI a new map of the ship and she should be fine.
"We can try, although I doubt bodges like this appear on the schematics." The AI explained.
"This doesn't change anything, we need to find the prisoners and get them off." Carter said.
In theory the plan was simple, get in, break the cells open, take out the guards, reverse the gravity well and get off. However, this was a Noble Mission, so off course things where going to go wrong, but that was the thing, even if the plan changed the goal was normally the same.
"Okay, I'll try to think of another route, I can..." Seven began before Kat walked over to the patch job and fired up her energy sword, driving it through the metal and slicing a hole big enough to climb through.
"Knew I gave you that for a reason." Seven said with a smile as Carter clambered through and aimed his battle rifle around, scanning for a target. When none presented he gestured for Jorge and Kat to follow.
The team moved as fast as they could, managing by some astronomical feet of pure dumb luck to avoid being detected as they moved (the fact Seven was hacking the motion detectors and camera's helped enormously.)
"Guys hide!" Seven cried suddenly, the team instantly dived to the wall (With the exception of Jorge who was forced to hide around a corner due to his size.)
They didn't need to ask what they where hiding from, a second after they had hidden themselves the figure stomped down the corridor.
It was a cold metal, half its limbs didn't seam to be attached as it stomped along. A large triangular rifle held in it's hands. The metallic skull like face looking around as it walked. For a second it stopped, turning to look down the corridor where the Spartans where hiding.
The group tensed as it stood there, it was gassing down the corridor, however it turned away and left.
"The fuck was that?" Kat hissed, having never seen anything like it before.
"What they want to turn everyone they've captured into, come on we need to move." Seven said and the group ran like crazy.
"Although... Something's not right." Seven said as they bolted around another corner.
"What do you mean?" Kat asked, wondering if they where being too loud (Even though Seven insisted they weren't)
"That thing, theirs the DNA of someone in it, but there not meant to be... That designs for an AI to use..." Seven explained as she instructed them to move around the corner.
"Why is this important!?" Kat inquired as they pulled open a hatch in the floor and jumped down to the prison level.
"Because it means Salem has no fucking clue what she's doing." Seven explained as she began to hack the door leading to the prison bay.
"Who is this Salem person? you mentioned her in the cave but I don't think you explained further." Carter inquired.
"That's because I don't know much more about what or who she is, all I found was what she was planing and..." Seven shuddered like crazy, her model flickering like crazy. "...Look as soon as I can I'm getting all the information I've got to Ozpin, I have no idea what that man is but if he hates Salem as much as she hates him then he needs to know everything I've found."
"What do you mean?" Jorge slowly asked as the door beeped and began opening.
"This Salem has plans, and worryingly I think she can pull them off."
"Can we stop her?"
"That's what we're here for; part one of this pan involves making her forces bigger, she's already got those frigging aliens on her side but apparently she needs more on her side." Seven said, rolling her eyes as the door opened up.
"Okay we don't let her get the reinforcements." Carter said, letting Jorge enter the corridor with the cells.
He let Jorge in first for a very simple reason, He had a chain gun and the prison likely had guards. Given a few seconds with Jorge and his gun and the prison no longer had any guards.
The captured Faunus looked around as the Spartans entered.
"We're here to help." Carter said as Kat moved over to the controls and slashed her sword across one of the control panels.
"Thank you." The first person out of the cell said. Carter looked at him, he was big, big enough that he could stand next to Jorge and be on eye level. With a massive black beard and chest hair, his purple robe looking a little worse for wear and his metal shoulder plate was defiantly battered and looked like it had taken quite a few plasma hits.
"My name is Ghira Belladonna, I'm the leader of Menagerie." He said, offering Carter a hand.
"Carter, I'm from Beacon, this is Kat and he's Jorge." Carter explained, pointing to each member of his squad as he named them.
"Wait, you're Ursus friends?" He asked, looking down at the group. "I thought there where four of you coming?"
"Six is on the ground." Carter explained. "She's looking for our friend and helping deal with the ground forces."
"Are you sure he'll be okay on the ground alone?" Ghira asked as he began beckoning the Faunus held in the cells as Kat opened them.
"She'll be fine, let me put it this way. We're Spartans, back home we where the best of the best, only two Spartans in history have been given the ranking of 'Hyper lethal' The highest rank we can be given, Six is one of them. Trust me, once she finds Emile your islands back, now all we need to do is get off..." Carter began as the ship suddenly shock.
"Guys..." Seven said, re-appearing and looking awkward as she rubbed the back of her head. "They may have worked out I was hacking the security systems, their powering up the ship..."
"We need to get off now." Jorge said.
"That would be insanely dangerous." Seven said. "For one thing the gravity wells off and even if you hit water bailing out form this hight will get you killed."
"Then what do you suggest?" Kat asked as Seven smiled.
"I suggest we take the ship."
