CHAPTER SIX¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

0705 Hours, January 26, 2535 (Military Calendar)/ Lambda Serpentis System, Covenant Ship near Jericho III

'Plague'

Plague waited for a few seconds as his shields recharged. He heard the familiar noise of their energy being brought up, and then checked his HUD and made sure they were fully charged. They were at 100, and he was ready to fight.

He spun around to the other side of the engine, where most of the battle had taken place. Leveling his assault rifle, he prepared to fire on any threat. He saw Brute standing in front of him, among the wreckage from a broken catwalk. Looking up, he saw Wrench peeking over the edge of a walkway on the fourth floor.

Catwalks wound this way and that way throughout the room, nearly every one covered with covenant blood. The remains of the battle showed just how powerful a small team of Spartans were. They were only 3 men, and they had completely destroyed six hunters, and a small group of other hostile ground forces, all within 5 minutes.

"We should get going," said Plague, "I'm sure they'll send more, and this time they won't be so few."

"You're right," replied Brute, "Besides we have to blow this thing soon."

"All the exits are on the second level, lets take the same one we came in through," suggested Wrench.

Plague flipped on his acknowledgement light, and proceeded to jump, grab a second level catwalk, and pull himself up. Wrench was already waiting at the door. Brute arrived a few seconds later.

Plague took point, and motioned for the others to follow him. He expected to encounter a lot more opposition getting back to the docking bay. Surprisingly they met little resistance until they were only a few rooms away from it. They came to a door at the end of a purple hallway, as was common in Covenant architecture. Plague moved toward it and it opened as most doors did, but the room was not empty like most of the others they had entered.

There were at least ten elites, accompanied by a few jackals, and a large number of grunts. The room was large, and because of its circular design and many holopanels, Plague guessed that is was some sort of a control room, possibly for the docking bay.

He knew that if they moved into the room and engaged them at close range, the enemy would easily win. They had to find another strategy. He stepped back, out of the doorway, and made a fist to his teammates. They all lobbed grenades into the room at once, and the Covenant had no time to react. The explosions killed three elites, every one of the grunts, and all but two of the jackals.

Plague realized that his shields had been drained by the explosion and backed around the side of the door for cover. He saw that Brute already had his rocket launcher out, and within two seconds of the first explosion, one of his rockets created another. This one nearly swept the room clean of life. It left all but two elites standing, shields drained.

At that point, Wrench ran into the room. The elites fired, but all their shots missed wildly as they were disoriented from the explosions. Wrench simply fired a small burst into each of their chests, and they fell.

"That was close," said Plague, "everyone be sure to check their motion trackers more often."

Two acknowledgement lights blinked on.

"Alright," he said, "Let's go."

The rest of the journey was uneventful. They passed through a few more rooms, and two or three identical hallways, and finally came out onto the third story of the launch bay. However, the bay was not empty as they had expected.

The number of Covenant spread throughout the once empty launch bay certainly made up for the lack of hostiles on their way to it. Elites, jackals, grunts, and even a few hunters were everywhere, on every level. Shade turrets had been set up in multiple locations, and every single one of them was aiming their weapon right at the Spartans.

'Brute'

It seemed like eternity before either side opened fire. They all seemed to just stand there, staring at them, daring them to move. In reality, it took less than a second for the Spartans to react. Brute didn't bother looking to see what his teammates were doing. He dove behind a support pillar, and readied his rocket. Turning to his right he realized that there was a shade and a number of elites only twenty feet away that had clear shots at him.

The shade had already opened fire, and the elites followed soon after. As wave after wave of plasma washed over Brute's armor, his shields quickly dropped. He turned, fired, and prayed that the he would survive.

The rocket flew straight toward the shade. The turrets fire ceased as the terrified grunt gunner attempted to abandon his weapon. He wasn't quick enough however, and the shade was destroyed, sending the grunt's dead body flying across the room. Two of the elites had survived the explosion though.

They continued their fire, and Brute's shields dropped dangerously low. He was running out of time. He adjusted his aim as quickly as he could, and fired again. There was a delay between the rockets, but after a second, the shell fired, and exploded on the wall a foot or two behind the elites. The splash damage killed them and threw them forward, causing one to land almost right on top of Brute. He quickly threw it off him, and looked around. There were no more hostiles that had a clear shot at him.

He took a second to glance to his left at his teammates. They too had both taken cover behind support pillars. Plague was peeking from around one of them and sniping. Brute knew he didn't have enough ammo to even take out the majority of the hostiles though, even if he managed a one shot kill for every one.

Wrench was leaning out then taking cover again every few seconds, firing his pistol. Brute opened a com channel, then realizing that it was pointless, as Plague's com was destroyed, closed it and just yelled, "What's the plan? There's no way we can take out all of them!"

"I know," replied Plague, "I'm not sure what we can do."

"All we need to do," said Wrench, taking cover again behind the pillar and reloading his pistol, "is get to that drop ship. If we can get there, its armor should stand up to their fire until I can get us out of here."

"Yeah," said Brute, "but the ship's on the first floor."

"That's an easy problem to solve. Wait here." said Wrench, and with that, he spun around the side of the pillar, and dropped to the first story.

Brute peeked over the edge and saw Wrench running toward the drop ship, trying to dodge incoming fire, and being partially successful. At the last second, he dove into the troop bay, and disappeared into the ship.

"Why won't he ever tell us what he's doing?" asked Plague.

"Just trust him," said Brute, "He's never failed before."

At that second, the drop ship's engines roared to life, and a second later, it was level with the third story and the troop bay door was open.

"That worked out well," commented Brute.

"Just get in," said Plague.

Both Spartans climbed into the troop bay, and attempted to close the door. The drop ship shielded them from most of the Covenant fire, but there were a few on the second story who still had a good shot.

"You get the door closed," Plague said to Brute, "I'll take them out."

Brute continued trying to close the door, but he just couldn't figure it out. He searched for some sort of panel or key pad, but there was nothing. All the sudden, the sound of the ship's engines changed tone, and the ship began to move, preparing to leave.

"Hurry!" yelled Plague.

"I'm trying!" said Brute, looking around unsuccessfully for the way to close the door.

He looked up, and Plague was reloading his rifle. The hostiles had been eliminated. Brute still didn't have the door closed, and the drop ship accelerated, banking slightly as it did. Both Brute and Plague were sent falling out of the drop ship. As Wrench's newly acquired ship flew away, they were left falling to the floor of the Covenant launch bay.

'Wrench'

Wrench accelerated the drop ship out of the launch bay, and into space. He tapped a control, and a camera view from the rear of the ship materialized out of thin air in front of him. The plasma cannons on the side of the Covenant ship behind him were beginning to glow. He prepared to maneuver his small vessel.

Half of the cannons fired, and deadly, super-heated plasma raced toward him and his stolen craft. He jerked the controls up, and made a half loop, putting his drop ship upside down in relation to the enemy ship. He looked around the cockpit for a second, and spotted a likely control. He activated it, and the plasma turret mounted on the underside activated. Wrench looked around for the controls to operate it then realized that it must be automatic.

Of course, that was useless as it wasn't programmed to be able to fire at the Covenant ship. He could change that though. He quickly tapped a series of controls, and a screen full of alien symbols appeared before him. He activated the translation software in his suit. It was limited, but it worked to decipher some of the strange calligraphy-like writing.

After a few seconds, he had it figured out, and he tapped a few of the symbols. For a second, nothing happened. Wrench realized that the turret was facing away from the ship. He quickly grabbed the controls and forced the ship into a half barrel roll. The turret, which he could see in a new camera view he had opened, now sprung to life, and began to fire at the large enemy ship as his small craft passed right over it.

There were only a small number of plasma cannons on the top of the ship, and they all charged as he flew past. A second later, they fired. Again, Wrench grabbed the controls, and violently sent the ship spinning downward, causing the first shot to miss. The second one, a ways behind the first, tracked his motion, and nearly hit him. However, he pulled up at the last second, and the plasma sped under him. The other shots were unable to keep up, and they were sent off in other directions.

Wrench looked around for a quick way away from the ship. If he stayed too close for too long, he would be hit eventually. He found a button that looked promising, and pushed it. The ship accelerated a great deal, and he was send speeding away from the hostile ship.

Unfortunately, as Wrench could see in the rear camera, the ship was turning, and preparing to give chase. He knew that his ship couldn't outrun it. However, now that he was a safe distance away, he had a plan.

He reached into one of the storage pockets on his belt, and withdrew a small device with two buttons, and a small slot. Attached to it with a thin chord, was a thin metal cylinder with one flattened end. Wrench inserted the cylindrical key into the slot, and held down one of the buttons. Looking up, he saw in the rear camera that the ship had turned to face him.

Without looking down at the device, he used his thumb to press the second button, and a moment later, the entire back portion of the ship exploded silently in the vacuum. He had remote detonate his stick bomb that he had placed inside the engine. It had worked.

With half the ship destroyed, and no means to move itself, the Covenant ship would slowly be sucked in by Jericho III's gravity. Soon, it would burn up in the atmosphere. However, Wrench reasoned, the Covenant could attempt to get their survivors off the ship using escape pods, or whatever the Covenant equivalent was.

So, he set a flight course that would take them into the atmosphere, and set them down a little ways away from where the ship would crash according to Wrench's hasty calculations. He could always adjust it later to make sure they weren't crushed by it.

After that, he got up and moved into the troop bay. He was surprised to find that neither Brute nor Plague was there and the hatch was open. He considered for a moment what could have happened. No. That wasn't possible, he told himself. He quickly closed and sealed the door, using control panel hidden in the wall.

After that, he checked the other troop bay, and discovered that they were not there either. At that point, he was forced to accept the reality of the situation. He had left without his team, having foolishly failed to check with them before leaving. He had left them trapped aboard the Covenant ship, in launch bay that was very close to the engine which he had just destroyed.

He had killed his own team. However, even worse was the fact that two Spartans had been lost on one mission, a record for sure, and they hadn't even been killed by the enemy. Their destruction was his fault, and now he knew he would never forgive himself.