-1The Master Chief sat and stared at the new stripes he had earned after protecting Earth from the failed covenant assault. It was a difficult battle, and one that cost humanity dearly in lives. He had been promoted before, to Major, so his previous rank didn't seem to fit anymore. He was so used to it though. He had been a Master Chief ever since the Spartans were brought into the lime light of the media. Now that he had been promoted, the yell outs of marines nearby were somehow not fitting him. "Mornin Commander" or "Good to see you Major" or even a Navy Master Chief Grissen saluting him was somewhat odd. He would eventually have to get used to it just like his last rank. Due in fact that the UNSC was entirely a mixed bag of Navy, Marines and Army, all ranks were merged together and reorganized, allowing him to continue up in ground command and still not gain a desk job.
"Something wrong? You're being abnormally quiet today. Normally you're asking me about any new info from the covenant com channels to assist in your next mission" Cortana piped up in his mind. He was brought out of whatever fantasy world he was in and brought back on track. "What? Oh, nothing. Never mind it. What's the current situation on the station?" Cortana spoke up after a few seconds of reading through some data logs. "It appears that the covenant is trying to gain any new data on artifacts from the forerunners from us. As if we knew any that is, otherwise we'd be using them on the alien bastards." The Spartan was stunned for a moment. He had never really heard Cortana swear, or maybe he never noticed it. "Have they found anything though?" He suddenly asked after a second or two of the AI pausing. "Nothing that I can be certain, but you can bet they aren't going to leave the station either. It's a critical staging point for at least three major supply routes to the reestablished colonies, and that could mean a blockade for as many as seven to twelve planets in need. We need to bring that station under control soon, or those new colonies are going to be toast."
He poked his head up from the seat he was in and looked out one of the Albatross's windows. The Albatross was a larger, boxier version of the Pelican that carried two extra missile launchers and no chin gun, but also carried a turret flak gun on top and chaff launchers in the rear. The cargo space was also increased to carry up to sixty marines, but no vehicles. The Albatross was designed for delivering reinforcements in space, and was never intended for atmospheric flight.
The station was coming closer now, and the other drop ships were moving right along side him and his forty five heavily armored ODSTs. "Lock and load people, get ready for some tunnel running!" yelled a Sergeant in the back. The Major brought his gun up, loaded a clip, turned off the safety and got ready for docking. The station was just a few meters away, and then suddenly, they were there. They landed in what was labeled cargo bay six E.
The Major and the rest of the marines saw twelve Echo IX missiles flare and scrap a few shade turrets that the covenant had set up in the area, and then landed. The rest of the drop ships landed in other corresponding bays to spread out the enemies defenses. The Major jumped out and ran, already training his gun on a nearby Brute and letting loose. The ODSTs were also following suite, making quick work of what was guarding that area. Once the guards were downed, the marines were capable of evaluating there situation. They had lost three men so far, and they had to link up with sister teams two and four, then move toward power cores two, five and nine then disable them. Once that was done, Cortana would download what she could of the covenant access codes and disable any internal defenses and anything else the covenant could use.
"Okay, I've isolated six areas in the station where most of the covenant are stationed, so unless you want a fire fight, I suggest you don't open those doors. The enemy should stay contained in those areas until a better equipped force comes to deal with them. For now, head into the hall and turn left, then look for and access hatch to the personnel lifts and head down. Once at the bottom I can break the locking systems and get us to core six" Cortana piped up.
The armored man acknowledged and ran toward the door to the hallway, picking up a needler and a few plasma grenades. He scouted out the hallway then entered, followed by the rest of his team. As he neared the access hatch, he heard something on the other side. He opened the hatch to find a lift go right by. "You didn't tell me the lifts were still functioning Cortana" He grumbled. "Well, you never asked, and I haven't had much time to stop them now have I?" The Major shook his head slightly then moved in. "That was the only one in this pathway, and it was going up, so you shouldn't have any trouble with it unless you dawdle." The Major jumped in and grabbed onto the ladder leading down. He had to go twenty floors before reaching the hatch he needed for core number six, and he didn't want the lift saying hello again. The rest of the marines followed suite and came right above the Spartan.
As they reached the bottom and the hatch as well, the marines started to hear something up above. The lift was coming down! The Spartan smashed the hatch open to find two jackals startled and bump into each other as they saw the armored behemoth. He quickly shot his hands out and grabbed the two aliens, then threw them in through the hatch and down another twenty floors. He jumped through and heard clambering of marines down the ladder, some sliding to better move out quicker. When the last marine got out, the lift floated by again. "Jesus Christ! That was a close one!" A New Yorker an accent startled out. The Major moved further down the hallway and to a door marked "Power control: C6" and got the marines into position. He opened the door and found twelve Brutes, four hunters that looked like they were wearing some sort of odd helmet (potentially mind control) and a group of about sixteen jackals in the area, all oblivious to the door just opening. The Major pulled out three frag grenades and a couple of plasmas and stuck the plasmas to a few jackals that ran right at the Brutes. The frags detonated and the remaining jackals and Brutes blew up to the second level of the control room, but the hunters were raving mad and firing everything they had at the door.
The marines pulled back and waited for a moment to get at the backs of the giants, and the opportunity presented itself. One of the hunters walked out and tried to smash a marine into the wall, but he dived out of the way and got a clip of AP rounds in his fleshy orange back. A low groan was heard by the thing as it went down, and the other hunters inside moaned a low warble, then shelled the door a few more times. The marines and the major were not going to lose anymore people in this mission, so they threw together whatever grenades they had spare and a block of CN20 plastique with some locking tape, and then threw the package into the room. Most of the electronics was reinforced from explosions and spatial decompression, so it almost all survived, but the flesh of the hunters couldn't with stand the blast of the explosion and they didn't have the strength to keep their armor in place when the blast wave hit. Their shields were blown out of the way of vulnerable areas, and the fragmentation shards impacted. After waiting three seconds, the marines entered and found three ragged large forms lying on the ground.
They immediately got to work. Five marines were posted to guard the door and laid sensor mines nearby in the hallway, and then engaged the IFF coding to differentiate between ally and covenant. The rest became busy with cutting wires and moving circuits around. Cortana began analyzing what she could from the covenant com holds and rewiring attempts. Her form appeared on one of the control panels, with a new look now. Ever since captured covenant technology was being retrofitted, things for the humans had been slightly improving, and that meant good things for smart AIs like Cortana. She no longer had the seven to eight year insanity descent that she might have had without the upgrades. She also had a far more human look, and no longer had data floating through her body, only her eyes when gaining information. She now wore clothing, a short skirt with a black tube top and a bluish vest. She had on high heels as well, given her a slightly taller look, even when she was six inches on a control panel. "I think I have something… wait a minute. Give me a chance to access…" She said hesitantly. The visored human took a look around the area. The core room was huge, easily dwarfing that of an engine room in a large cruiser, and to think that there were fifteen of them on this station…
"I think I have it… the reason why the covenant came here is to gain information about a colony we hadn't lost in the outer establishment areas. They're looking for a secret cache from an old prophecy… hang on… it appears the marines there have been fighting a trench war. The covenant hasn't been able to break through with ground forces and is too afraid to bombard the planet and lose the cache… but what is in that cache that they want so bad?" The Major shrugged. "Anyway, we have to get to the other cores before we can deal with this. Let us continue… there, the core is brought to a new control router. Isis should be allowed to retake control of the systems here." Isis was the onboard AI that the station had and could not be destroyed or taken apart without the place engaging all defenses and losing life support, plus engaging a lock down to seal in everything. It was provided as a safety precaution in case all of the crew was killed and the covenant tried to take any information from her.
The Major plugged Cortana back into his neck like it was routine now, which it just so happened to be. The Major had been given her as an official partner now, and they were almost inseparable. Cortana seemed a little bit more intimate these past few months, though, and listened intently on just about everything John said. He of course thought it was to ascertain what could be done at a later time for another given situation, but lately she seemed a bit more… caring. The rest of the marines clipped off their portable CAD Mainframes and got ready to rumble again. "On to core two…" he said to himself.
(So the Chief is now the Major and the covenant have a new quest to defeat the humans with a cache of… what? Weapons? Technology? Information? Or maybe Pink panty hose and chocolate covered Cornflakes? Ignore that last one. CAD Mainframe: a portable NNet capable of compiling and cracking vast amounts of data in a rather short period of time. They are not AIs per se, but can read and write data at a far faster rate, as that is mostly their main function. They don't need to interact with humans, and therefore do not need voice convergence cluttering up their entry systems. They are still capable of being cracked easily by AIs, however, and are usually isolated from outside connections and wiped clean once the work is done.)