Chapter 6

'Bringing out the big guns'

On board the Forerunner Vessel

Earth

'Praise the Demon!' shouted the Elites as the last Brute in the chamber below had slumped lifeless to the floor. John felt awkward as he stood surrounded by Elites, his new allies. His hatred for them had been forgotten in the past hour and been replaced with the urge to survive, and to save Earth. But as peace returned, so did his anger. These beasts he had just fought along side had killed thousands, maybe even millions of humans. Women, Children, Marines and even his fellow Spartans had fallen before their relentless onslaught. Yet they had been fooled by the Prophets, deceived for centuries, generations tricked by the treachery of their leaders. Was it their fault or had they just been puppets of their former masters? He then remembered his original mission, to capture a Covenant leader. His family, his squad, had been all but destroyed trying to reach this goal, it was the mission they had trained all those years for, and John would honour his fallen brothers and sisters by fulfilling the objective they could not. John suddenly felt anger at the thought of his fallen squad mates. It had been this prophets doing, the prophet who was at that very moment, on the same ship as John. Now, it was time for revenge.

He turned on his heel and stormed off, ignoring the baffled looks given to him by Elites.

'Hold position here.' He shouted as he broke into a jog and headed for the door he thought would lead him to the Prophet. If his thoughts were right, the prophet would be on the bridge, most likely in the centre of the nose of the ship.He stopped outside the first door, took a deep breath and pumped a shell into his M90 Shotgun. He could not let vengeance cloud his judgement. He was to capture the prophet, not kill him. He walked closer to the door and it opened, revealing a sloped corridor. He scanned it quickly before moving inside the door, ducking into the shadows. When he reached the end of the slope, there was a 180-degree turn in the corridor, still sloping upwards. He made a quick glance around the corner and saw the patrol of Jackals, guarding an intersection in the corridors about 20 metres away. He armed a plasma grenade and threw it into the centre of the group before sprinting into the fray with his shotgun. The grenade split the jackals up, forcing them into the corridors surrounding their post. The lone jackal that ran in John's direction was the 1st to be dispatched as John put a boot into the fleeing jackals head with a force that could dent a tank. The body of the jackal skidded to a halt a few metres away, the head limply completely missing. He picked up the plasma grenades from the body and ran through the crossroads, throwing one grenade each way before charging forward at the remaining Jackal. He shot a shell into its shield before swinging the gun in a massive arc and swiping the Jackal from its feet. It hit the wall with a thud and slumped lifeless to the floor. As he turned to move on, he heard a slight noise behind him and turned around, facing his shotgun back down the corridor. Nothing.

He stayed there, scanning the corridor before claiming the plasma grenades the jackals had dropped, turning and racing up the corridor in his original direction. He made it to the end of the corridor within a few seconds and scanned where to go next. Just beyond him was a fork in the path. He went right, came to a door and entered. Straight in front of him was a group of Brutes in Honour Guard armor.

'There he is.' Shouted one, pointing to the demon as he threw a plasma grenade into the group with lightning speed, sticking a Brute in the chest. His squad mates shouted and pushed him away as he screamed and pulled at the grenade, which detached from his chest, sticking to the hand he had ripped it off with. The explosion echoed throughout the room as the grenade blew, Brutes diving for cover and Jackals hiding behind their shields. The Master Chief, outnumbered greatly, turned to run as the Brutes closed on him. He ran back down the corridor the way he had came, looking for cover. He passed the spot where the group of Jackals lay, bloody and mangled. Reaching the end of the corridor, he turned around and planted his feet firmly on the deck, bracing himself for the oncoming assault. It was a few seconds before the Brutes reached the other end of the corridor, spotted the Spartan and charged, dropping to all fours and pounding down the corridor. The Master Chief levelled his shotgun and prepared to fire when he noticed a quick flash to the left of the corridor. It was then that he figured out what the noise had been behind him on his way to the prophet's chamber.

As the brutes reached the junction where the jackals had previously been stationed, another flash on the right side of the corridor was visible and within an instant, four invisible Elites had sprung the trap, their Plasma blades held out as the Brutes charged down the corridor. Their momentum was their downfall as the force of each Brutes charge drove the plasma blades into them. The Master Chief charged forwards, shotgun levelled as the last 2 brutes roared at him. The Elites cut one down as the other leapt through the group, knocking them flying, and charging straight at the Spartan. The Master Chief waited for the Brute to get closer before raising the shotgun and releasing a shell into the charging Brutes face. He dived to the side as inertia pushed the lifeless form down the corridor, skidding to a halt meters away.

With the brutes taken care of, the Master Chief turned to the Elites who were gaining their composure and helping each other to their feet. They eyed the Chief carefully as he approached until the leader of the group clicked his mandibles angrily and they all dropped to one knee. The Chief merely nodded and moved past the Elites, hardly acknowledging the fact that they had probably just saved his life. He then returned to the bridge, pacing quickly up the corridor and towards the Prophet. The Elites watched him walk for a moment before hesitantly following him to face the enemy.

Admiral Hood stood on the bridge of the Cairo, watching as the covenant fleet continued to pound the orbital defence grid as well as the many ships stationed around earth. He knew it would take a miracle to win this war and all he could do was wait for it.

'Sir, this is Lieutenant Jacobs, we have a problem down here.'

'Ok Lieutenant, give it to me.' Replied Hood.

'The covenant are releasing large drop pods, aimed straight at earth. We don't know what they are but they are big. Bigger then any pods we have encountered so far.'

'Roger that Lieutenant, how many are there?'

'Around 100 sir, my squad can't take all of them out.'

'Well try your best,' replied the Admiral. 'Hopefully the ground teams can take whatever those pods dish out.'

'Affirmative sir, Jacobs out.'

'Lets rock and roll people.' Said Jacobs as he closed the comm. link with Lord Hood. 'You heard the man, take out as many bastards as possible.'

'Roger that,' said the squadron in unison.

'The pilot with the least kills gets to clean my ride,' said Jacobs as he rocketed ahead of his squadron.

'Ok Jacobs, you can clean mine too,' said Evans, activating her afterburners to catch up.

'Haha, your on,' said Jacobs. 'Now lets cut the crap and earn our paycheques.'

With that, Jacobs slowed his longsword down and took a steep dive, hurtling past the now derelict Stockholm MAC Station. It had taken a direct hit to the MAC during the earlier stages of the battle and had been evacuated once all archer missiles had been fired. Jacobs then hit the afterburners, signalling his squad to do the same and plummeted toward the atmosphere, steadily gaining on the enemy pods.

'Set afterburners to maximum power,' said Jacobs to his squadron. 'We have to catch as many of these tubs as we can before they hit the atmosphere.'

Jacobs was the first to reach the wave of pods and was amazed at how big they were. Each was at least twice the size of his longsword and pyramid shaped with a large cubic pod at the back. The rounded edges of the pods were the dull covenant purple and the nose was a metallic silver, obviously made from the same alloy as the infantry drop pods used by Elites.

'Ok people, let's get to work.' Said Jacobs, opening a comm. channel to his squadron. 'Me, Evans, Page and Matthews will take the right flank. Patrick, Anders and Tomsac take left flank. All remaining fighters provide cover, things will get hot pretty quickly. Just keep any Seraphs off out backs so we can get the job done. Jacobs out.'

'Don't we get a pep-talk El Tee?' asked Evans sarcastically from her position above Jacobs.

'Well you can listen to me talk all day or you can blow stuff up, what's it gunna be?'

'Ah, good point. Evans out.'

The Lieutenant laughed, more to himself then to Evans, before spiralling to the right and letting loose on the first pod. It took a beating from his 110mm auto cannons but soon succumbed to the hail of lead sent its way, rupturing its fuel tank and incinerating it.

'Booyah, that's one for the El Tee,' shouted Jacobs.

'One down over here too,' shouted Evans.

'Good to see your providing me a challenge today Evans. It'll make it more entertaining to see you scrubbing my bird.'

'Keep dreaming Jacobs,' retorted Evans over an explosion in the background. 'Oh, there's number 2 down. Keep up sir.'

'Cheeky bitch,' thought Jacobs as he chased down another pod, dodging debris from his first kill. This time the pod split down the middle, giving Jacobs a clear view at the contents of the pod as it was sucked out with the pressure. Jacobs caught a glimpse of a large, pointed head inside, silently screaming as its air supplies were sucked out. But the pod blew before Jacobs got a good look at it. The little that he has seen had scared him.

'Ok people, listen up. There is something in these pods, I don't know what it is but its not Elites or Brutes. If enough of these things make ground fall, all the marines on the planet wont be enough. Its up to us now.'

'You may have won the fight demon, but you have lost the war.' Said the Prophet of Truth, looking the Master Chief dead in the eye. 'You may kill me now, but even you will not be enough to save your kind from the forces of the covenant. Forces are landing on the surface as we speak, killing and burning. The Females, the children, all will fall before our mighty onslaught.'

The Master Chief eyed the prophet carefully from behind his visor, debating on how much the Prophet spoke was truth. He thought of Fred, Linda and Will. They would need him if they were to win this battle, if they were to defeat the forces soon to land on the surface.

'Your squad mates are out there aren't they.' Said the prophet, seemingly reading the Master Chief's thoughts. It was more a statement then a question. 'It's a shame you didn't stay in high charity any longer. You could have seen one of them. The flood will have him by now.'

A million thoughts raced through John's head, what was the prophet talking about? There were no other living Spartans except for Linda, Fred and Will. Unless Kelly had somehow been captured. But the prophet said 'him.'

'The flood will have consumed him by now. Unfortunate that I didn't get to execute him myself.' The Prophet looked up, acting as if he had just noticed the Spartan standing there. 'Why are you still here demon? Do you not have a Planet to defend?'

The Master Chief nodded at the Elite captain next to him.

'Watch him, ill be back when this is over.'

The Elite nodded.

'Run Demon, the Sharqoui come.'

At the same moment, Fred's voice came through his helmets speakers, a large explosion could be heard in the background.

'Sir we need backup down here ASAP. Bring all the help you can. We've got trouble. Lots of trouble.'