CHAPTER FOUR¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
0600 Hours, January 26, 2535 (Military Calendar)/ Lambda Serpentis System, Covenant Ship near Jericho III
'Plague'
Plague closed the com channel and immediately leveled his sniper rifle at the now open door. He fire two shots into it and they both found targets, exposing them for a second before they would vanish again. However, a second was all that Plague needed. He fired another shot into one elite's head and it fell. He turned to the other, but it rolled away and disappeared.
Plague took out his assault rifle and took a few steps back. He didn't want any of the aliens to make it around him and get a shot at his backside. He saw a shimmer of movement to his left and gave it a quick three round burst. An elite appeared, and Plague opened fire. He had let out no more that about seven rounds when an invisible force hit him in the side.
He nearly fell over, but put his foot back to stabilize himself. Without hesitation, he began pouring bullets into the air where he knew the elite must have been. He hit it, and was exposed. The elite tried to raise its plasma rifle, but Plague continued firing and after a second the elite gave a cry and collapsed.
However, the elite he had shot earlier was now firing. Small plasma spheres sped toward him and hit his armor, causing the shield to flare up. The plasma stunned him for a second, and by the time he could bring his rifle up, his shields were depleted. He rolled to the side, crouched and fired at the elite from a different angle.
After a few rounds to the chest, plague angled his rifle up, and fired a burst into the alien's head. It died and fell to the ground, and as it did Plague's shields began to recharge. It didn't do him much good, because before they were half way up, another elite appeared out of thin air, firing its weapon and running straight toward him.
The enemy launched itself into the air and before Plague could move or aim, it came down on top of him, knocking his rifle out of his hand and across the floor. The elite slammed its plasma rifle in Plague's visor and pulled the trigger. Energy exploded across the surface of his face plate, and his shield once again drained.
Fortunately for Plague just as this happened, the energy weapon overheated. Blue steam poured out of the sides of the rifle, and he reached up and grabbed it. He pushed it up and hit the alien in the face with it. It fell back onto the floor and disappeared again. Plague stood up. He had the gun.
He aimed at the ground where he knew the alien was, but before he could squeeze the firing mechanism, he was attacked yet again. This time he was hit in the back, and he flew forward, right on top of the elite he had knocked over a second ago. It appeared under him and let out a muffled yell as it was literally crushed to death by the massive MJOLNIR armor.
Plague rolled over, and saw a shimmer in the air above him. He fired the plasma rifle, which he was still holding, and the elite became visible as it flew down toward him. Landing on top of him, it pulled its fist back and struck Plague's helmet. He heard static them silence as it broke his comm. unit.
Plague returned the blow with two quick jabs to the enemy's stomach. It hesitated a moment, recovering from the hits, and in that time Plague managed to reach up and rip off the alien's camo unit. The elite quickly grabbed at the Spartan's stolen weapon. He held on, and they both struggled to win it.
They began rolling over the floor toward the drop to the first story. It wouldn't hurt either of them, but it would complicate the fight. They came to a stop right at the edge, with Plague on the bottom, and his enemy on top. Plague's head hung over the side of the floor. The elite couldn't beat him at hand to hand combat though. He pulled one hand away from the weapon, and the elite took the opportunity to grab it away from him.
The alien though, had overlooked the Spartan's other hand. It came up with lightning speed and hit him in the side. The enemy groaned with pain, and Plague forced it to roll over, so that he would be on top. The elite's head now hung over the edge, and before it could see what was happening, he had pulled back his fist and delivered a punch straight to its face. The elite's head was knocked off, and it tumbled to the first floor below where Wrench and Brute were desperately trying to reach him through the comm. system.
'Brute'
Brute was yelling for Plague over the comm. when the elite's head fell from above and landed a few feet in front of him, bouncing twice and coming to rest at his feet. Brute looked up and saw Plague withdraw from the edge of the second story. A few seconds later, he was back, assault rifle in hand.
Without a moment's hesitation he jumped the short distance to the first floor, landing in a crouched position and one hand on the ground between his feet for support.
"Worried about me?" he said over the external speakers.
"No," replied Brute, "not really."
"We figured you could take care of yourself." Said Wrench, but he knew he couldn't fool Plague.
Plague remained silent for a moment then said, "The elite ripped apart my comm. system. I got him back though."
"We can see that," said Brute, gazing down at the head by his feet.
Wrench however, looked at the situation a little more seriously. He said, "You know that this means we won't be able talk privately any more. We can't be as stealthy."
"You're right," said Brute, "Very well, hand signals only from now on."
Plague and Wrench acknowledged this with slight nods. The Spartans didn't need to talk to communicate tactical information during battle. They had worked out a very complex system of hand signals known only to them. Not even their trainers had figured them out. It was one of the things that made them indefinitely the most powerful fighting force in the history of the UNSC.
Brute pointed to his wrist where he would have worn a watch, and made a quick circular movement with his finger, then pointed at the ghost they hadn't yet loaded.
He saw Plague and Wrench's acknowledgement lights blink on to show they understood. Less than two minutes later, the other ghost was loaded, and they were ready to make their way to the engine room.
Unfortunately, a covenant ship had never been captured, or in any other way been mapped out, so the Spartans really had no idea where they were supposed to go. However, they did know in what direction the engines were, so they left the launch bay through a door in that general direction.
After a few turns, they were all lost, so they made their way back to the launch bay and started again, using multiple nav points to help them plot where they had come from. Before long, they came upon a room full of holo panels and covenant computers. Brute stepped up to one and pressed one of the calligraphic symbols. A new screen appeared with even more alien writing.
Brute couldn't understand any of it, so he activated the translation software in his suit. It wasn't very developed and only knew parts of a few dialects, but it could record information and learn new things so that in time it would become better.
It was able to translate a hand full of the symbols, including one that read "map". Brute pressed it, and it opened a map of the ship. He looked over it for a few seconds then spotted the engine room near the back of the ship. He figured that the map might come in handy, so he downloaded it to his helmet's memory. Plague and Wrench were examining the other computers when he turned around.
He pointed to the computer he had been working at, spread out his hands, palms to the ground, then pointed to his helmet's memory slot. They nodded and followed him out of the room.
Brute erased all of the previous nav points they had placed, sent a copy of the file to his teammates then placed a new nav point at the engine room. Two acknowledgement light blinked on, and the three Spartans headed down the corridor toward the new destination.
'Wrench'
It took them the better part of 20 minutes to find the room. The nav point easily showed them where it was, but they constantly had to reference the covenant map in order to find their way. The ship was very complex, Wrench thought. A human ship was laid out so that every part was easily accessible from every other part. The covenant ship however, seemed to be designed a little differently. There were a lot of hallways, many of which seemed unnecessary.
When they finally made it, they were on the second story of a four story room. It was completely open, and had catwalks that seemed suspended in mid air. No supports were visible. The engine was also amazing. It spanned all four levels, and was a rough cylinder. It had many places where view screens or computers were sticking out, or odd control panels with alien writing. Wrench knew that the UNSC scientists would love to examine it. Too bad they had to destroy it.
Wrench himself had never seen a covenant engine. He would have loved to look it over carefully, but he knew they were short on time. They would have to blow it, and hope to catch a different engine sometime later.
He signaled for the others to watch for visitors while he went to one of the holo panels extruding from the engine. As he walked across a catwalk toward the large machine, he scanned the area for hostiles with his rifle. There were none.
He took the last few steps to the panel, and began hacking into the computer using the hardly helpful intrusion software built into his armor. It took him a few minutes, but he got in, and he began looking for a way to destroy the massive ship. There didn't seem to be any way to accomplish it.
He did find the engine's self destruct command, but accessing it would take half a million different codes and passwords. Hacking it would take so long that it would be faster to destroy the ship by shooting it with a pistol.
He was searching the files for a third time, when he accidentally opened the engine blueprints. He almost closed them, but then decided that they might prove useful. He looked over them for a minute or two and soon found what he was looking for. There were two access hatches to the engine's inner parts. There were codes required, but they were surprisingly simpler than the others.
Wrench had it hacked in five minutes and just as he finished two hatches on the first and fourth floor opened on the outside of the engine. He signaled for Plague to take the fourth floor one while he climbed down to the first. Wrench lightly touched his fingers to the other palm then curled that hand into a fist.
Plague nodded and made for the fourth floor hatch. Wrench made his way to the first floor, and entered the small hole in the engines side. The inside was extremely complex. Pipes and wires ran everywhere, and there were at least ten different tanks holding different substances.
Wrench didn't pause for a moment to look at any of it though. He just pulled out a sticky bomb, rigged it, and stuck it to the inside wall of the engine. Without any hesitation, he backed out of the hatch, and closed the door. It locked into place. A few second later, he heard Plague's door do the same.
No sooner had he begun to climb back to the second floor, than Brute yelled over his external speakers, "Hunters! Fourth floor!"
Wrench looked up, and saw six of the behemoth soldiers standing on catwalks high above him. Every one of them had a charged fuel rod gun. One let his loose, and it came straight down on Wrench.
