Rilu 'Tamulsi walked across the control room looking from panel to panel. As he walked past checking the engine status he saw that the slip space drive was offline. He ordered it to be fixed as he checked the video feed from the cameras. What he saw made him shiver. There were around 100 Grunts unloading plasma into the engine coils. He briefly considered venting the atmosphere where the grunts were but decided instead to just send a strike team down there. 'The explosive decompression could tear the fragile coils apart', he thought to himself. As he quickly searched through the cameras for more Grunt activity he had just enough time to say "Lock the do..." before it burst open and a wave of plasma destroyed his shields and melted his flesh.
All over the ship Grunts were attacking. Most of the attacks were held off long enough so the Elites could escape while the Jackals took the fire.
"Sir, we control the engines, control room, hangers 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8. We also have begun to depart and already 150 of our brothers are away."
"Thank you Timel." Yimep said as he viewed the screens Rilu 'Tamulsi was moments before his death. "Order all Grunts to evacuate the ship and head for this point here..", pointing to a location on the map display. "That area has a large building that we can use to hold back the Elites." As Timel left the room he began to regret this whole idea. Already he had seen carnage worse than he had ever heard of, the walls painted a awful black, purple, green, and blue. He quickly departed for Hanger 3, which had a Phantom loaded with a faster-that-normal engine. If he was going into hell, he wanted to get there fast.
"How did I get stuck up here..." Yiyap asked himself as he walked down to the hanger. He had been tasked with leading the 150 Grunts that had to hold the ship until the others got off. Even when they did leave, he had to stay and put the ship into a collision course with the planet. At least then the Covenant might think they just crashed. He was about to ask Yimep as he walked by if he had anything else for him to do when he saw the green glow.
Tilon Hasn Pansu launched a plasma bolt at the leader of the rebellion but another of the vermin got in the way. He was about to fire again but he heard his bond brother, Dulet Hasn Messa, roar out in pain. His stream of plasma lanced across the hallway and right into a row of boxed along the wall. Tilon turned to see the culprit but only saw his brothers corpse. He slowly made his way to a hanger not controlled by the vermin and swore his revenge on Yimep.
Yemep, feeling the blast from the Hunter's arm mounted gun on his back rushed to the Phantom as it roared to life and launched out of the bay. The space around Peaceful Cooperation was on fire with plasma blasts from Phantoms and Seraph fighters. Every now and then long streaks of white hot gas reached out from the ship and cut down a battle formation the Elites were using. As he watched all this he noticed something else. 300 Orbital Insertion pods were being launched from the ship, all headed for the location he had pointed out. He told the pilot to gun the engines until they gave out if he had too, but Yimep needed to get to the surface.
The close call with the Hunters was too close, and the sooner he got on solid ground the better.
The battle on the surface had started already between small groups of Grunts and Elites.
Some of the more foolish Elites rushed out of the drop ships and died by suffocating on the methane atmosphere. The ones wearing breathing gear quickly radioed for assistance and were rewarded by 300 crop pods cutting through the air. They were in a tough position though. Out numbered 400 to 1500 in an environment they had never fought in, with no information on the enemy's situation, and with only a limited supply of weapons and air and no way to get more.
But somewhere else a different battle was being waged with even worse odds. On side outnumbered the other 20,000 to 1. And the sentinels losing to the waves of Flood.