The warthog rolled to a stop at the peak of a hill. The Marines sat staring at the black object in the center of the field. It was clearly marked on their viewscreens and on the warthog's console as their NAV point, but the ship was strange. The ship, which was about twice the size of a Pelican, was like nothing of the sort the Marines had seen previously. The ship was black, jet black. Staring at the ship was similar to staring into the void of space. It seemed to draw light into it, and its edges were blurred. They were blurred, except for the bottom part of the organically-shaped ship, where it had collided with the field. Another oddity about this vessel was that, though it was marked with a NAV beacon, the ship itself had no radar signature. It would be virtually invisible in space.
All these aspects brought the Marines to one conclusion: they were looking at an ONI ship.
"Oh man, I thought we—we were after like a dropship or something. Not this ONI shit," said Glassbrook worriedly.
"Let's just get the survivors and get out. And let's hope they got a 'hog down there," replied Baker.
Baker walked around the crashed ship, trying to find an entrance hatch. He motioned to Glassbrook to take the warthog and find a defensible position in case of an attack. While watching the warthog drive up the hill they had just descended, a message came across Baker's private comm. channel.
"Sergeant Baker, is that you? This is Colonel Luci Butcher, captain of Tango 546." The voice sounded female.
"Colonel, sir. Ma'am, are you okay? Are you in need of assistance?"
"Nah, just a few bruises. These ships are like Volvos. I bet it's less damaged than I am. But for all I've tried, I can't get this junk-heap off the ground."
"Sir, it seems imbedded in the ground pretty far. Might that be the problem?"
"It may be, let me go check. I've stayed in here since I landed. Those Covies are awfully curious."
A hatch unfolded from the ship and a woman stepped down it. She was of average height, very thin with long black hair. Baker stood erect and saluted her, and was dismissed with a nonchalant wave of the Colonel's hand as she stepped to the opposite side of the abnormally black ship.
"Ah, yes. That would be a problem…" she said regarding the crumpled from of the ship. "This thing isn't gonna move. She might be worth the salvage, though." She then stood, glaring, at Sergeant Baker, as if he were doing something wrong.
"Aren't you going to radio command or your dropship, or something?" she said in an agitated fashion.
"Actually, sir, all the dropships are all out on runs. Command didn't tell us any details; we thought we were going to find a downed dropship, not an intel ship. We actually thought you'd have a warthog," replied Baker.
"Hah. That's command for you. Where's your squad, soldier?"
"Oh, they're up on that hill, over there, sir," he said, gesturing towards the warthog."
"Why's that? Thought I couldn't take care of myself?" She laughed slightly.
"No, sir. Er—yes. Wait, um…. We didn't know how many survivors there were, or if there were Covenant in the area, sir."
This time, the Colonel couldn't contain her laughter. But her laughter was cut short by a bolt of plasma vaporizing the ground near her. The sergeant dove to the ground, shouting "Colonel! Down!" He glanced up and saw a flash of purple in the air: a banshee. Colonel Butcher stood, though, grinning. Suddenly, with a faint thud, the banshee was gone, replaced by a cloud of purple metal. There was also a rod of some sort extending from the top of the ONI vessel and a faint contrail from this protrusion to the remnants of the banshee, which had already begun to rain down on the surrounding trees.
"Nice one, soldier. I told you I could take care of myself. This ship," she said, patting its hull, "Has the best armament you can fit on a ship this size. What you just saw was a high-velocity hollow-shell MAC impact. It's just a little MAC gun, nothing like the ones on Capital vessels, but it does its job. Quite well."
"Yes, sir," he said, Baker said, surprised at power of the small ship.
"Get your squad down here, and I'll get us extracted. I trust you have some sort of explosive on that thing."
"Yes, sir, we have M9 fragmentation grenades and 102 mm shaped high-explosive rocket rounds."
"Those rockets'll suffice."
Baker pressed a button located on his temple, and spoke into the microphone suspended in front of his mouth, "Glassbrook, come to my location. With the 'hog." A faint "Yes, sir" could be heard through the sergeant's earpiece.
The warthog rolled down the hill, braking five feet from the black vessel.
"Good. Now…private," Colonel Butcher said, glancing at Glassbrook's rank insignia, "I need an M19 rocket. You may want to get away from the ship. Glassbrook handed Butcher the rocket, and she disappeared inside the ship. Soon she came out, with a small chip in her hand and without the explosive. She walked away 20 or so feet and thumbed a button on the chip. Flames erupted from inside her ship with a roar. The marines were astounded someone would so such a thing to a ship as obviously expensive as that one.
"Don't worry. Only making sure the Covies can't get any of the data on it. Everything's flame-proof, excepting the computers. Private, your radio?"
Glassbrook unclipped the radio from the divider between the front seats and handed it to Colonel Butcher. She fiddled with a few dials on the radio, then pressed the call button and relayed her message. "Jim, this is Luci. My ship was downed, and the boys Alpha sent don't have a spare seat. I need a dropship. Leave the 'hog on the cruiser. Butcher out."
She tossed the radio back to Glassbrook and told him, "Relay the coordinates of my ship to ship code UNSC ONI1073."
The soldier did as ordered, and within 10 minutes, a solid black sort of box-with-wings ship flew down and landed in the field. It was merely painted black, unlike Colonel Butcher's ship. It was different than the Pelican dropships. Instead of being aerodynamic, it looked like a crate with a flat ship attached to the top. Its wings extended over the side of the box, and that is where the VTOL engines were mounted. The box itself looked as if it may be detachable, though. The rear of the crate unfolded, showing two rows of seats as on the Pelican dropships, and indentations in the center that were aligned perfectly to hold warthog wheels, with straps affixed at each side to hold the axles in place. The pilots climbed out of the cockpit on the top of the ship by ladders that extended simultaneously with the hatch on the rear of the ship.
One of the technicians shouted over the roar of the engines, "Colonel! Come with us! Marines, the warthog goes in the back. Don't forget to the strap it down!" The Marines took their seats in the dropship after affixing the warthog to the ship, and the colonel sat between the two pilots in the cockpit. With a rumble, the rear door closed, and the ship took off. The Marines had no idea where they were going, but the Colonel outranked even the highest-ranking officer at Alpha post. She had jurisdiction.
