Just take the food, Morgan!
What's the matter, Morgan? Need something?
You disappeared on me, Morgan.
I'll take that, Morgan. Not your domain.
Morgan.
Morgan.
Morgan!
Crack
In a dark room, lit by the fires that had been set during the destruction of Crow's Nest, Morgan-B312 drew air into her lungs in a gasp, the voice of a woman long buried ringing in her ears. Hot, still air passed over her face and her nose wrinkled in reaction. The feeling of a trickle of warm liquid crawling down her left eye, nose, and across her lips was an ever present irritant as the sole survivor of Noble felt reality take hold of her once more. Her break was over.
Flickering flames caused long shadows to creep across the concrete walls, and then a bright light scared away the darkness, nearly blinding her heavily enhanced eyes. Blinking them shut against the light, she shook her head, a hand reaching out on instinct to push whatever held the light away, to make her safe once more in the darkness that kept the war at bay. She wanted so badly to lay there, to let the darkness consume her, but she knew deep in her heart that it wasn't time for that. The war wouldn't be much longer, and she needed to be there when it finished. Either it would end with Humanity as the victor, or it suddenly wouldn't be her problem anymore.
A grunt and a weary cheer went up as something was pushed into her hand, something that weighed a decent amount. A voice, Human, called out in the darkness. "Sarge! She's waking up!"
Six's mind began to register everything that was going on. After the first jolt of alert and the realization she wasn't in danger, she felt groggy, lethargic, as if she was waking from a deep sleep. Green eyes took in their surroundings as she sat up on her own. No Marines would be able to lift Mjolnir and her together without a winch or a dozen pairs of hands.
The object in her hand, her helmet, looked back at her in silent judgment. How dare she let it get away from her? Thoughts of her own mirrored the helmet's golden glare. She had lost it some time after the fall, after being knocked out.
Lit by the fires, she could see the opened wound on her forehead, leaking blood. She almost brought her hand up to wipe it away, when a familiar face came down next to her helmet, face lighting up as it came closer.
Gunnery Sergeant Reynolds gave her a halfhearted smile. "Glad to see you made it, ma'am. When that elevator brought you down on it, scared all of us half to death thinking you'd bought the farm." In his hand was a first aid kit, opened and missing most of its materials. A cloth and a bandage came out of it in his other hand, holding them out for Six.
Six appreciated his help, nodding and taking the cloth and wiping away some of the blood, before she bandaged the wound with one of the larger square adhesives. The rest of the blood followed after, but she still felt it on her skin, some of the blood having dried on her with the rest of the dirt and grime. Mjolnir was getting an endurance test again. Same shit, different planet.
"No rest for the wicked, Gunny," she responded, looking around at the other figures that sat in the underground motor pool of Crow's Nest. Marines sat in various states of health. Some sat resting against the wall, bandaged all over, and others with less luck lay covered in whatever cloth or tarp could be found. "Looks like you boys have been through hell."
Reynolds shrugged, looking around at the Marines he had left. "'Bout as much as anybody else has been today. All part of the job."
Six snorted, despite herself. "They get you with the whole 'see the universe' spiel too?" A lie cloaked in humor, something Six had picked up during her time with Noble, but she had come to find that it soothed the morale of those around her, and took some of the edge of a Spartan off. Still a killing machine, a freak, but one they could relate to.
"Naw, they gave me the choice between this or prison," he responded dryly, half a smirk on his dirty features.
"Prison, huh? What'd you do to get jail time?"
White teeth shined in the darkness as the Gunnery Sergeant let the smirk grow into a full smile. He had been through too much today, they all had, and a smile was the first step to things improving. "Slept with the district governor's daughter. Made it about a hundred yards before they got me. Left one of my favorite shirts behind. Never got it back after, but I guess that's the price of doing business."
Six had a similar smile on her face, the model like features that Spartans had been graced with by dint of genetics taking on an Amazonian look under the soot that had fallen on her face after the fall. "Let's get up and moving then, we'll find you another one on the way."
Rising up from her seated position, Reynolds held out a hand to pull her up. She let him pull and tug, not moving an inch until she saw the strain on his features. He opened his mouth to say something, but a female Marine just off to the side, wearing the red on white medical cross painted on her helmet and shoulder pauldrons beat him to it. "Don't say anything about a lady's weight now, Sarge!"
Reynolds looked over at the corpsman, seemingly helpless, and shut his mouth as Six got to her feet on her own, the soot covered blue helmet in her hand finally going back onto her head.
Rolling her neck to work the seal back together, she started to test the joints in her armor, diagnostics already running as the shield system completed itself once more in a golden lattice that lightened the dirty faces of the surviving Marines before disappearing.
Satisfied that she was good to go, she looked around. Nine Marines in total had survived the fall, with Reynolds and the corpsman being two, and three of them being heavily wounded. Reynolds was the only NCO that had made it, however, and the corpsman wasn't a Marine at all, belonging to the Navy.
Six heard static in her ear before a high toned ping sounded, connecting her to the UNSC network again. A hail directed with her authentication code had been picked up by the armor, and with the helmet being powered up again, she held up a hand to quiet the Marines before broadcasting it out loud for those that didn't have Mjolnir's powerful comms suite. "This is Noble Six, does anyone read?"
A few moments of static that seemed to weaken, picking up for the last time before the familiar voice of Commander Keyes sounded through the helmet speakers, fighting to be heard through the dense static. "Noble Six, thank God you're alive. When your transponder winked out, we thought we'd lost you. What's your status?"
Six looked around, taking count of the Marines. "I'm up. Several Marines survived the base's demolition, but we've got wounded." Looking to Reynolds, she continued. "Gunny, what's our vehicle status?"
Keyes kept silent, hearing Reynolds reply. "We've got two Warthogs combat effective, one armed with an LAAG and the other for troop transportation. The rest are all dead in the water with no way to fix them."
Keyes hummed as the armor transmitted the Gunny's report, likely looking over maps of the area. "Understood. Head for the town of Voi, link up with Marine forces there. Be advised, heavy Covenant ground presence is between you and them. Be careful. Keyes out."
The static stopped as the channel cut, and Six took the weapon that Reynolds had pulled from a pile for her, checking the magazine for ammunition. With a full mag of ammo, she slid it onto her back. "You heard her, Marines. We load up and get out of here before the Covenant comes looking. If we survived, then so did some of them. Load whatever wounded we can transport into the troop carrier. Reynolds, you'll drive that, and the corpsman will be with you. I'll need a driver for the M41. It'll leave me the most exposed, but my armor can take the hits. Everybody else pile into the troop carrier, it'll need the protection the most. Everyone clear?" Nobody said anything except for the corpsman muttering to one of the wounded. "Good, get up, gear up, roll out."
The Marines, with guidance on what to do, leaped into action, splitting up to carry those that were wounded to the motor pool on the opposite side of the elevator. Six led the way through, spotting the lighting control panel on the wall and slapping it. Lights fluttered on, some remaining dim, others flickering, and one not coming on at all. A weapons crate held more ammunition and a shotgun, which Six made sure to grab. She was still in possession of the shells picked up before the fight in the ops center, and they would serve her well.
The M41 and the troop carrier Hogs sat waiting, hulls gleaming in the low light. Six climbed up onto the rear gunner's platform, spinning the barrels and checking for linkage failures. The gun seemed to be alright, and she nodded, pleased to see that not everything was going entirely badly.
Reynolds hit the switch to the massive blast door that led to the outside, before starting up his own Warthog, the Marines carrying the wounded to the transport bay for the other. Climbing in the back with them, the corpsman stabilized them however she could, before giving Reynolds the okay.
The Marine in her own Warthog started it, the big LRV growling to life and shuddering as the power plant did its job. Six opened a channel to the Marines, Reynolds having taken a small earpiece to act as his connection to her. She frowned at his lack of protective helmet, but said nothing about it. "Alright, roll out, keep a spacing of ten meters. If we get engaged, keep the troop hog back and prepare weapons in case anything gets by or tries to flee in your direction."
A chorus of affirmatives went up and the Warthogs started moving, the convoy rolling up onto the raised midsection and out of the motor pool. A cave system was between the base and the outside world, and it was lit by lights strung throughout them. Six didn't know what was powering the lights, but it kept them from having to use the Warthog's floodlight assembly for now. The caves zigzagged several times, before natural light started to pour in.
At the end of the tunnel system, a squad of Grunts and several Jackals were milling about, searching a small gatekeeping section that led back into the destroyed base. Six, finger on the trigger, pulled it back and opened fire. Heavy rounds meant to pull aircraft out of the sky butchered the infantry, ripping limbs off of the thin bodies of the Jackals and Grunts. Even those that had their shields in place before they got hit suffered broken bones from the force of the fire, and when the shields went down, were shredded just as their allies had been.
Six let off as the enemy infantry was wiped out. "Conserve ammo, the LAAG has enough for sustained use. Rifles only when I'm dealing with a priority target or they get within fifty meters."
The Warthog growled as the driver pushed the pedal down a bit further, and the two LRVs emerged into the midday sun. Six noticed something was amiss, however, giant rings scattered across the landscape, partially buried from the weight and force they had come down with. Trenches had been torn into the earth as whatever didn't settle had bounced or rolled.
"Space elevator collapsed when that carrier jumped out last month, Lieutenant." Reynolds was the first to respond, the sound of the wind carrying through the channel.
"It came down all the way out here?" It was a space elevator, so of course it was big, but Voi was over a hundred kilometers away from the elevator's tether point.
"Yeah, damn thing is scattered all across the Savannah now. Got transmissions from the city, some people survived the EMP pulse, but with the elevator coming down, a lot got smashed under it. Cable didn't go very far, but the stabilizing rings landed everywhere."
Six frowned. The Covenant had taken only a day to destroy one of the most prosperous cities on the planet, and one of the six orbital elevators. Here, nearly a month later, she could see the devastation that had been brought to Humanity's cradle. Massive swaths of land had been burned away as the Covenant's cruisers glassed the African landscape, and with the UNSC Home Fleet in ruins above Earth, they would continue to dig and glass unhindered.
The dirt beneath their tires gave way to paved road, albeit cracked and covered in holes. Voi was nearly ten miles away. There were detours, routes with more cover, but would nearly double the trip's length at the least. The Tsavo Highway would get them to the rendezvous point quickly, and whatever decided to harass them would become well acquainted with Six's gunnery skills.
In the distance, she could see the cruisers hanging in the sky, energy projectors firing in increments, as if they were being precise rather than just trying to glass the place. It confused her. They were on their enemy's homeworld, with nothing stopping them from glassing it completely, like all the other worlds. Like Reach. Why weren't they finishing it?
It didn't matter in the end. She was a gun on legs, meant to kill whatever wasn't Human or, as of recently, Elites. The cruisers were the Navy's job, not hers.
The Marines chattered on the frequency they had claimed as their own. It wasn't secured, but then again, nothing was at this point. Six kept herself keyed into it, listening to them to pass the time as she continued to scan the skies for Banshees or more Phantoms, but a command channel opening, or a hail, would hit her ears immediately.
"See anything coming, Lieutenant?" Reynolds, twenty feet back, asked.
"Nothing, Gunny. If we're lucky, we'll be able to link up with the others without being spotted, but you know how it goes."
"Copy that."
Silence fell over them as they passed by a burned out Warthog, laying on its side with a wheel missing. There were no bodies left, but there were several trails in the soil where something had been dragged. Weapons had been left behind, but Six spotted the blood that had stained the soil, and the anger began to heat up once more. The furnace deep inside of her was smoldering, but never completely out.
They all knew what had happened, and a muttered curse went up over the radio, but nobody reprimanded the speaker for it. The Brutes were animals, the worst of the aliens that had been fought. Elites had, over the years, been seen as the height of the Covenant's military prowess, and had butchered as many Humans as the rest, but they didn't eat their enemy alive.
Six would work with the Elites if it meant Humanity made it through the end of this war, but she would never work with Brutes, never let one continue to draw breath in her presence. Things had always been personal for her, owing the loss of everything in her life to the alien menace, but the Brutes were something else. They would be treated as they had treated Humanity. She would make sure of it.
A flight of Hornets passed overhead, the turbofans screeching loudly as they moved towards Voi. Six watched them go, sighing in relief. Hornets moving that way were likely moving to provide close air support, or to hunt down Covenant air assets. That they kept on their route without changing course meant that there was nothing nearby to bother the small convoy. She would take everything she could get at this point. Her Marines would make it through this, if she had anything to say about it.
A new channel came to life, filled with static and a familiar voice. "-eat, my convoy's been hit, I've got wounded-" Six tried to dial in, straining to hear the rest through the static as she searched for identity tags at maximum range. "We're on the Tsavo Highway about… east of Voi. Someone, anyone, please, respond!"
The channel cut out, the static washing over it completely as Six left it manually. Given that she could hear Keyes even beneath Crowe's nest, that meant the convoy's radio had been damaged. "Reynolds, you hear all that?"
"That's a big affirm, Spartan. You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Great minds and all that, Gunny. I'll clear the way." Cutting her communicator, she leaned forward, one hand still on the gun, and tapped her driver, identity tag reading as Private Montoya, Will A. "Step on it, Private. We're gonna bail that convoy out."
"Yes, ma'am!" With a whoop, he pressed the pedal down, the Warthog leaping forward as he fed more power to the massive hydrogen engine inside. The engine roared loudly, taking the potholes and cracks in the road with elegance only a vehicle like it could.
Checking over her shoulder, she saw Reynolds keeping pace, but avoiding some of the heavier potholes. It wouldn't do to keep bouncing the wounded more than they already did on this crumbling road.
Looking to the front, she could see the black smoke rising up ahead. One of the vehicles in that convoy had to have been destroyed. They were going as fast as the Warthogs could go, but it still wasn't enough. They'd take a few more minutes to arrive. Checking the ammunition load for the M41, she had around a thousand rounds left in the container, and another ammo can hung next to the jerry cans filled with water. Things would be fine for now, but if they ran into a Covenant blocking force, she wasn't sure how long it'd hold up.
The rest of the trip was taken in silence, until they came around a large hill off to the left and spotted the convoy, under siege by a Covenant line. "Montoya, bust through the bastards."
"With pleasure!" The Warthog growled loudly, drowned out by the sound of the M41 opening up as Six fired at the far side of the line. If she fired at the center, it would increase the risk of friendly fire. Tracer rounds were still coming from the Warthogs that had been placed like an old wagon train.
The Covenant were caught unaware at first, several light infantry getting ripped to shreds as the heavy rounds tore into their undefended rear. The Brutes were the first to respond, and spiker rounds burrowed into the windshield. Montoya didn't flinch, seeming to grow even more inspired under the heavy fire as they ran straight into the Covenant's line.
A Brute that hadn't been able to move in time was sucked under the wheels, nearly gored by the tusks that flanked the Warthog's winch system. A whoop sounded as he passed over the new speed bump, and Reynolds pushed through right behind them as the M41 went into a drift that had the vehicle moving nearly sideways, the cannon spitting rounds the whole time.
Covenant were laid low as Six's marksmanship was spot on, more spiker rounds glancing off the windshield and hood armor. Plasma splashed against the gun shield on the M41, others hitting her armor and dropping her shields bit by bit from near misses.
The troop hog behind her had stopped, completing the circle the hogs had made as the wounded were pulled out and into the interior of the circle. The Marines inside went prone and fired under the roll cage, using the sides of the cargo bed as cover.
Montoya turned the wheel to the right, heading for the end of the line, and gunned it. The first Covenant were once again sucked under the massive tires, and adjustments to the wheel had him following the Covenant's whole force, making speed bumps of the whole group as Six weakened whatever was ahead with the gun.
The final Brute and his squad fell back from the line, firing as they went, and the three red hot barrels of the M41 made sure they never made it home. They had invaded this world, and they would die on it.
Montoya turned back towards the convoy that had been halted, and Six saw the voice that she had heard on the radio. Gunnery Sergeant Stacker was talking to Reynolds, looking relieved to have been as close as he was. "Take us over, Montoya, park us up on this side of the circle and take a drink from your canteen while we're stopped. You hit?"
"No, ma'am, I'm all good. Windshield is a bit messed up though."
"Good, as long as it's holed and not you."
Montoya did as he was told, and Six held onto the gun as the Warthog parked, the barrels cooling down already. Stacker waved at the Spartan, Reynolds moving off to help the corpsman stabilize any wounded in Stacker's convoy.
"Damn good thing you showed up when you did. We were about to get overrun. Only thing missing from that whole ordeal was a horn playing Dixie."
Six smiled beneath her helmet. "You know me, always happy to pull you out of the fire. You good to move? Rendevouz point is at Voi. We can evac the wounded there if the skies stay clear, but the sooner we get there the better."
"One of the troop carriers got wrecked, lost some of our wounded, but the rest are still good to move. We get loaded back up and we can roll out immediately, ma'am."
"Good, do it."
Stacker went to work getting everything loaded up, and Six scanned through the channels that were still broadcasting. Mostly Marine distress signals and the E-band was still blaring the same warning signal that everybody had heard when the Nest had fallen. Keyes still hadn't sent anything out, likely trying to keep herself from being tracked.
Panning the gun from left to right along the highway, Six frowned. Crow's Nest had been filled with wounded, rather than able bodied men. Either it had been used as a staging point for the area and taken heavy casualties, or as a medical point for wounded patrols to evacuate to. The Marine forces in the area around Voi had likely been smashed against a brick wall repeatedly. The massive storm that was forming off in the distance only made things worse. Fighting in heavy storm conditions was never good, and with wounded present in high numbers, they would need shelter.
A tap came at her boot, and she looked down to see Montoya offering his opened canteen to her. She stared for a moment, taken aback, and after a quick glance around, she took a knee and took the canteen into her hands. Unsealing her helmet with one hand, she pulled it up just far enough to expose her nose and mouth. Taking a deep swig of the canteen, she felt the still-cold water travel down her throat. It was more satisfying than she had expected it to be. Her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her she hadn't eaten in a couple days. She could subsist off of whatever Mjolnir recycled, and water would keep her going for up to two weeks at a time, but the thought of solid food in her gut sounded like heaven right now. Another small drink from it and she put the cap back on, handing it back to the Private with a nod of thanks before her helmet came back down over her pale features.
Static sounded in her ears as Stacker and his men joined the channel. "Ready to go, ma'am, on your order."
"Copy, Gunny. Montoya, get us moving. Keep convoy spacing and be ready. Stacker, have your other M41 take up the rear, in case anything comes from behind us. Designating M41s as Alpha 1 and 2, transports are Bravo 1 through 4 in order of the convoy. Keep your numbers, people."
"Copy all, Bravo 1 out."
The convoy got under way quickly, moving as fast as they had before the distress call had gone out. A tunnel burrowed through a hill up ahead, and Six couldn't see the other end as the tunnel curved around to the left. Montoya kept going, not slowing down without Six's order.
They passed into the shade, the heat doing little for the Marines with the humidity in the air. Six was grateful Mjolnir had climate control. Even now, her temperature gauge read just over 100 degrees, having fallen only a few degrees passing into the tunnel. Six kept an eye out for armor lights in the darkness, the Brute's equipment would give them away in the low light.
They made it through without incident, however, but the sound of engines nearly deafened the convoy as something large passed over them. A Covenant CCS Class Battlecruiser blocked the sun behind its massive silver hull, the displacement of air around it buffeting the Warthogs and forcing the drivers to fight against the wind pushing them.
The command channel beeped three times quickly, a priority hail to Commander Keyes herself. "Commander, this is ONI Recon One-Eleven, the cruisers have found something!"
Keyes was quick to answer, voice still wreathed in static, but Six understood what she said. "Copy your last, One-Eleven. Go ahead."
"They're digging something up, ma'am. Something is beneath the storm, inside the crater. Doesn't look natural."
"Roger One-Eleven. Can you maintain position?"
"Negative, ma'am. Greer is calling us back now. We'll upload whatever we can, but we have limited bandwidth. One-Eleven, out."
Six frowned, looking back towards the crater for a moment. She could see shapes forming along the massive construct that was steadily coming into view. Long, thin bars that met each other near the middle. They were immune to the low yield of the energy projectors, the heavy plasma bombardment merely burning away the dirt and stone, but leaving no marks on whatever was below.
Montoya began slowing down, calling out. "Ma'am! Road's out ahead!"
With a look back to the front, Six saw that he was right. A break in the road kept them from going forward. The M41s could make the jump easily, but the troop carriers being as loaded down as they were with wounded, she wasn't chancing an attempt at having all of them jump the gap. Looking off to the left, she spotted a hole in the steel safety railing on the side of the road, leading into a dried up riverbed wide enough for them to make it through. "Convoy, Alpha 1. Road's out ahead. We're offroading it again. Dried up riverbed should take us where we need to go."
Stacker and Reynolds both honked their horns. They had received her message, and the rest would follow along without issues. At her pointing over his shoulder, Montoya saw the river bed and pulled the wheel to the left, all of the Marines more than happy to be off of the open road.
The Warthog moved slowly through the initial bumpy terrain, before it caught traction on the cracked dirt of the river bed. It was a winding route that offered cover on both sides by hills. In the distance ahead, more smoke could be seen, and the sound of gunfire was picking up, the staccato chatter of rifles fighting against the whine of plasma and the meaty thunk of the Brute's brutal weapons.
Six checked the gun, making sure it was ready to go again. She had just used it, but she wasn't going to leave things to chance when they had wounded. She would be fine, her armor taking the hits, but the others would be more exposed, and if they lost one or even both of their heavy weapons, things would get a lot worse before they got better.
With the convoy trundling along, the sounds of war grew louder, and the Marines began to smell the acrid scent of spent gunpowder, felt the air chill as the ionization in the air went up with every passing moment. The humidity had risen quickly, the storm and plasma discharge contributing more and more to the rapid degradation of the weather.
There was no more chatter, the battle picking up in intensity. "Alpha 1 to all victors, combat conditions ahead. Bravos hang back, Alpha 2 on me. Stacker, you have command."
A chorus of affirmatives met her and the roar of another Warthog's engine hit her ears as Alpha 2 gunned the throttle and caught up quickly, following close behind. The troop carriers of Bravo peeled off to the sides, hiding in some of the trees that remained. Marines were already taking positions as they 'circled the wagons'.
The M41s carried on, out of the river bed and over a small ridge. A UNSC FOB was in place along a cliffside that bordered it in the rear and sides, spreading out and sloping down as the terrain moved away from the structure. Brutes, led by a golden armored War Chieftain, were peppering the base with plasma and spiker fire. The War Chieftain himself had a brute shot, lobbing grenades in with the bladed grenade launcher.
One, on the edge of the line, turned as the sound of engines picked up in his primitive ears. The sharp crack of a sniper rifle sounded, and his head was taken from his shoulders before he could warn the rest.
Six pulled back on the trigger and the M41 went to work, spitting lead all over the Covenant line as the second Warthog turned right and moved across the valley. Yellow tracer fire cut into the aliens, Grunts falling all over themselves trying to flee their certain death, but in the crossfire, they stood little chance. Jackals took to the ground, finding whatever holes or ditches they could and covering their heads with the glowing blue and yellow shields. Brute leaders tried their hardest to get their troopers back into the fight, but with heavy rounds coming in all over the line, they had their work cut out for them. Most adjusted fire to aim at the vehicles, while others continued to fire at the Marines holding the base.
Six shifted her sights, setting them on the Brute War Chieftain. Shields flared as his armor started taking hits, and with a roar, the War Chieftain returned fire with the monstrous grenade launcher in his hands. One of the grenades sailed over Six's shoulder, the other hitting the dirt far to the front of the Hog, but then one made its mark.
An explosion on the left side of the vehicle brought the wheels up into the air, the Warthog steadily tipping onto its side as Montoya fought to keep it on the move. He was fighting a losing battle and Six knew it. "Bail out!"
Even while the Marine dove clear, Six had her eyes set directly on the War Chieftain, still firing his grenade launcher at her. One more round came sailing in as Montoya fell from his seat and rolled through the dirt, finalizing the Warthog's rollover, but Six wasn't finished yet.
Waiting until the last possible second, she pushed off with her powerful legs. The Warthog's momentum had carried it through, and it would slide off to the rear of the Covenant's position, but Six could control where she went, and Marines watched through their sights as a Spartan took flight, seemingly in slow motion. Noble Six hurtled through the air, ripping her knife from its scabbard on her hip, and hit the Brute with all the force she could at a speed that would have left massive dents in steel.
The knife burrowed into the War Chieftain's neck, stumbling him, and Six held onto it as an anchor point, before grabbing the Chieftain's helmet and hoisting herself up to stand on his shoulders. With the weight of a fully armored Spartan on his shoulders, the War Chieftain gave a choked roar and struggled to maintain his balance, fingers firing his brute shot in a vain attempt at bringing her down with him.
With a grunt, Six's leg came up, stomping on the hilt of her knife and sending it deep into the War Chieftain's unarmored neck, until the hilt had disappeared completely. Dropping from his shoulders, the mortally wounded Brute stumbled back and clawed uselessly at the hole in his neck and the broken collar bone that Six's stomp had caused, gurgling as the knife ripped through his insides. His brute shot was already scooped up in Six's hands, and she used it to good effect, pulling the trigger and blowing the Covenant leader to pieces. They had stood still in shock at what they had seen, but now the Brutes had gone berserk, all of them charging the new War Chieftain as she ran the ammo dry. Now, with the Brutes closing, she turned the brute shot around and swung it like a club, the massive curved blade on its rear being used as a sword due to its size.
One Brute was cut deep, even through his armor, and fell off to the side with his chest carved up. Gunfire went up as the Marines inside and the M41 on the Alpha 2's Warthog suppressed those that still cowered, preventing them from aiding the Brutes in taking down Noble Six. Another Brute charged and Six pointed the bayonet at it, spearing the Brute through his midsection. As he went to his knees, Six kicked him in the back, driving the blade out through the rear of his armor. The shotgun still hooked to her back was out in a flash, shoved into a third Brute's face. The shotgun shell was still in the air as the now headless Brute went down, the barrel of the weapon smoking in the choked air.
A roar behind Six and she turned, the pump working, and had almost pointed the weapon at him when another shot cracked out, lancing through the Brute's skull as the Marine sniper once again mentally carved another notch into his rifle. Six stepped out of the way as the corpse kept going, nodding to the Marines in the FOB.
What Grunts and Jackals were left kept hiding, with Six making her way down the line and finishing them off one by one. When the area fell silent once more, Marines began coming out of the FOB with muttering between them, all eyes on the Spartan as the adrenaline slowly drained out of her system. It would be back soon.
The subtle sound of a Phantom's impulse drives could be heard in the distance, growing closer, and Six moved before the rest did. "Get back to cover! Phantom inbound, move!"
The marines high tailed it back, kicking up fantails of dirt as they ran. Montoya, still hidden under the overturned Warthog, was dragged out by his armor, Six holding him in one hand as she put him back on his feet. At Six's prodding, he ran as fast as he could, the Spartan hanging back and slipping into her own cover behind a concrete barrier.
The Phantom swooped in, spewing plasma fire at the FOB from its nose mounted cannon. No infantry dismounted, but the bulbous shape hanging beneath it was a bad sign. A Wraith, one of the Covenant's hover tanks, dropped in with the whine of its hover drives spooling up. Keying her comm, Six gave her orders.
"Alpha 2, fall back to Bravo, you'll get shredded by this Wraith if it gets a bead on you."
"Yes ma'am, Alpha 2, displacing."
With the Warthog hauling itself out of the battle area and the Marines in cover distracting the Wraith, Six slung her shotgun and started running. A Brute sitting in the machine gunner's position above the Wraith's cockpit saw her while she was still on the move, and swung his plasma cannon to bear. Barking an order, the Wraith began to turn on its axis, ready to hit her with the plasma mortar.
She was too quick for that, leaping through the air and kicking off of the smooth, rounded nose of the Wraith. The Brute opened up as he got his target, and heavy plasma fire splashed over her shields. They whined in protest, dropping to empty as she got within arm's reach. With a heave, she brought her leg back and kicked with all her might, hitting the Brute in the chin with enough force to snap his neck back and fling him down into the machine gunner's compartment, limp as a ragdoll.
Beneath her, the hatch to the driver's compartment remained sealed, and she ducked down onto all fours. Clenching her fists together in what would act as an armored hammer, the Spartan started beating the hatch, the metal hull deforming with every blow, until it was ripped asunder by its newly found edges. The Brute inside looked alarmed, but he had already drawn his spiker with Six's attack on his hatch starting.
With spikes glancing off of her rapidly draining shields, Six primed a grenade and dropped it into the cockpit, sans pin. Leaping back and sliding against the loose soil, Six stood back up, the Wraith blowing with the grenade inside. The plasma mortar started leaking plasma over the hull and the ground below, dirt turning into glass as the plasma hit it.
The Phantom had bugged out immediately, and Six didn't detect anything else incoming. She was going to call the convoy to move up, when another voice cut in first.
"Hoo-whee! Damn, Lieutenant! I could see that from here!"
Six smiled inside her helmet, the drawl that Hocus had spoken with sounding against her enhanced ears.
"The Commander sent me out to get you, we're taking the fight further towards the old Katanga Dockyards. Anti-Air Wraiths in the area are preventing close air support from ferrying troops to the big AA gun they set up. Commander's also hoping to get you on the horn with a clear channel."
With the Pelicans hovering into place, the three war birds touched down. With the sight of Pelicans coming in, the vehicles from Six's convoy came roaring into the clearing, one of the Pelicans opening its bay to the wounded as the Marines helped move them over. Hocus' own bird sat down with its bay facing Six. On the side, the Spartan saw something freshly painted, white paint in the blocky UNSC stencil reading "Hocus Pocus".
Shaking her head, Six stepped into the bay, Gunnery Sergeants Stacker and Reynolds taking other Pelicans. Looking back, she saw Montoya and two other Marines jogging for her, all stepping in and getting seated as Six moved into the cockpit, the bay closing up and the three birds lifting off.
Hocus sat in the pilot's seat, and another Marine had taken the co-pilot's seat, features hidden behind the dark visor of the aviator's helmet. "Hocus, what do you have for me?"
"Got the Commander on the line, waiting for you on 110.1, ma'am."
Switching to the frequency, Six heard the static and a pop. "Sierra-B312, reporting."
"It's good to have you back on a proper footing with us, Lieutenant. Good work getting those Marines out, by the way. ONI Recon One-Eleven has sent in more data about whatever the Covenant is doing. Scans from the Ode to Autumn and Forward Unto Dawn have made it clear that they've been digging up a Forerunner artifact. We have to assume it's the Ark." Keyes' voice rang in Six's ears, and the gears started to turn.
"No confirmation then?"
"Negative. All we have to go off of is the composition of the materials. That giant ship that you came in on touched down on some sort of platform in the center of the structure, sank inside of it about fifty feet."
Six frowned, looking out the cockpit windows at the artifact that the Covenant were digging up. The Ark. In the center, the massive three legged ship that Truth had brought from High Charity sat in place, pointing directly up at the center of the spiraling clouds that made up the storm above. "What do you need me to do, Commander?"
"You'll lead a ground convoy through the Industrial District, link up with cut off Marines, and finish off the mobile anti-air batteries in the area. When those have been cleared, we'll send a larger strike force in on Pelicans and smash the anti-ship plasma battery they set up in this sector. With it out of the way, Admiral Hood's strike group will be able to engage Truth's ship, and hopefully we can put an end to this war."
"I'll get it done, ma'am."
"I know you will. You'll receive more orders as you go." Keyes voice cut out and Six thought the channel had died, but the quiet background static never stopped. "One more thing, Noble Six. Captain Greer put you forward for Lieutenant Commander, given your efforts on Reach during the Fall and the last few weeks of combat. Hood himself put his name on the dotted line for it. If we make it through this, I'll put you in contact with him. Until then, congratulations, and good luck. Keyes out."
The channel cut out completely this time, and Six pressed her chin against the internal controls in her helmet. Noble Team's roster was gone, lost with the change to the Mark VI Mjolnir, and instead only her name remained as an active duty Spartan Operator. Her status had changed, now showing her rank as having been elevated to that of a Lieutenant Commander, the abbreviation reading LCDR nexto to her name. With the roster clearing, but her callsign remaining under Noble, it had changed her designation to Noble One, and she frowned at having left it for so long before manually changing the designation back to Noble Six. There would never be another after Carter.
Closing out of it, she put her hand on the pilot's seat, Hocus only glancing up before she returned her eyes to the terrain. The Pelican had stayed low to the ground, avoiding Covenant targeting systems. The aliens, advanced as they were, still used radar signatures to track the UNSC's aerial assets. The brownish-orange terrain passed by quickly, patches of green giving way every now and again, and the cracked asphalt snaking its way through the area in a dark trail. In the distance, Six could see the anti-air battery firing again, lobbing a massive green ball of plasma into the heavens before disappearing into the dark clouds of the storm.
"That's your target, Lieutenant, er… Lieutenant Commander," Hocus responded, correcting herself as she remembered Six's new rank.
"I'm familiar with the model, Hocus. It'll be easy enough to take down if I can get underneath it. How far out is the rally point from the gun?"
"Three klicks, give or take. Path ain't gonna be direct either, or clear, so it might as well be a hundred. We'll be touching down in just a few minutes."
Frowning, Six nodded and put her gauntlet against the pilot's shoulder in acknowledgment, before she disappeared back into the blood tray where Montoya and the other Marines sat. They looked up at her, giving a nod of greeting, and she returned it. The flooring of the Pelican swayed beneath her as she grabbed one of the handholds near the rear and gazed out at the terrain passing by. The two Pelicans following close behind were keeping a tight formation, drifting ever so slightly in Hocus Pocus' slipstream.
The trip didn't last much longer, the flight of Pelicans touching down on cracked asphalt where two troop carrier Warthogs and an M41 sat idling, waiting for their new passengers. The bay door opened and Six stepped back out into the sunlight. Stacker and Reynolds didn't come out, but Montoya and the others in her own bird followed suit. Wounded remained inside for medivac, and the stubby UNSC craft lifted back off into the setting sun.
A two toned beep sounded in her ears, the wide band command channel registering a high level actor entering it. "UNSC Forces in and around Voi, this is Admiral Hood. Prepare for the final push. Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, all of you, this is it. The Prophet of Truth has spent the last two weeks digging his own grave, and this war will end with him and all of his followers buried in it. Today, this war will be brought to an end and we will begin to rebuild, thanks to the efforts of all of you and those that came before. We will not go quietly into that good night."
Silence flooded the channel, save for the dim white noise of static. Six began to walk for the M41, ready to swing up to the gun, when she remembered something that Carter had once said during the Fall. Pulling the charging handle back on her battle rifle with a loud crack, all of the Marines sitting in their Warthogs and standing around her letting their eyes land on the battered blue armor, taking in the silhouette that would go down in Human history as one that had a powerful presence on the final battlefields of the Human-Covenant War.
"This is Sierra-B312. You've got a Spartan on the ground, Sir. We'll break that gun in half."
Marines began to cheer, a roar going up loud enough that Six could hear other scattered pockets and their own voices ringing through the hills and off of the buildings deeper into the industrial zone and docks.
Onboard a battered but airborne Forward Unto Dawn, Admiral Hood muted the channel, chuckling, and he let the cries echo for a few moments before his voice sounded again. "Give 'em hell, Noble Six. Admiral Hood, out."
Climbing up onto the gun and hanging onto the firing studs for the M41, Six could feel the air nearly humming with energy as the Marines around her gained the massive morale boost a Spartan deployment brought.
Unbeknownst to Six, a camera drone operated by combat photographers near the Marine HQ several miles to the west had recorded every moment of it. Years later, with ONI censors slackening on the war and Spartan information being unclassified, that moment would be immortalized in the eyes of the public, spreading like wildfire across the internet. Some of the final words of the war had been uttered, and they would be some of the most famous as well.
Zooming in and taking several pictures of the only Spartan on the ground during the fighting at Voi, the camera drone's controller could barely contain his excitement at the shots he had just taken, rivaling that of US Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima, of the first picture of an Earthrise taken by William Anders, and even those pictures taken by a crippled and fleeing UNSC destroyer as it ran from the first Covenant ships seen by the public eye.
The camera drone skittered off quickly, transmitting the files as it went, and returning to the deployment zone to offload higher resolution copies from its internal drives.
Spartan-B312, heading the opposite direction, had just cemented her place in history, her existence never to be forgotten by Humanity. Once upon a time, her story had ended with nothing but a burned and cracked helmet buried in the dirt, a tombstone that was all too fitting for a woman that died alone on a dead world. Now, her helmet remained firmly on her head, protecting her from all that may come out of the screaming dark that would encompass the next several days of her life, until the screeching halt of the end put a period to more than just the war.