Garrett awoke with his head hurting like crazy. His eyelids slowly opened and he heard water rushing around him. His eyes fully opened and he snapped his right hand to his forehead. He felt something wet that wasn't water. He ignored the blood for that moment and looked to his right groggily to suddenly have his eyes snap wide open and stare in surprise. There, in the passenger seat of the wrecked warthog he was in, was a large sharp stalagmite shoved straight through the bottom of the vehicle. He looked backward to find Jack draped over the damaged turret. He checked his neck for a pulse. He sighed. "Jack, wake up!" Jack stirred slightly. "Wake up Marine!" Jack snapped queasily to life, uttering "Yes sir! Sergeant sir!" In a pubescent cracking voice. "Snap out of it! Are you alright?" Jack checked what the situation was and where he was twice, then uttered something Garrett couldn't hear. "What was that? I can't hear you." Jack responded again. "I'm fine, but oh man… my head…" He put his left hand to his temples and massaged them. Garrett remembered what had happened. The missiles hitting the bridge, the explosion, and before they could be toast, Garrett used a special psionic ability he had learned. Rupture Shield was what it was called, and it temporarily made the being using it invincible to all outside damage for a certain period of time. Unfortunately for Garrett and Jack, Garrett was fairly rusty with his abilities, so that time was roughly one second. The side effects, however, were it protected only against damage, not against movement physics, specifically, if an outside force acts against an object in a specific direction, that object will probably move in that direction, most notably the warthog blown off the bridge. The other side effect is that the Shield will nullify all sensors or beacons of a life form being there for about a week, which could be an advantage against the enemy, and a disadvantage if friendlies tried to find him, like Ilana.
Garrett could smell gas running from the warthog, and sparks were popping from broken electronics. "Jack, we have to move! Let's get out of this thing!" Jack cleared his head as Garrett groggily leapt from the vehicle to find himself rushed away from the vehicle in the river. Jack heard a yelp, saw Garrett get rushed away, and grumbled, then leapt as well. He remembered to grab the packs before he did so, however, although they had lost some of their explosives, most notably the mines and C20. "YAAHHHH!" Jack yelled as he struggled to keep above the water. Garrett swirled around, trying to keep facing in one direction. He slammed into a rock from behind, flipped around, and wacked into another. His shoulder hurt a lot, but the armor dulled the damage. He was suddenly pulled under and down a small waterfall, to land in a lake below. The water dulled somewhat, and Garrett swam upward.
Garrett looked around at the top for the edge, found it was closer than he expected, and struggled to swim to the side with the gear he had. He eventually found grounding under his feet, and stomped slowly to the land nearby. Jack soon followed, although the gear he was carrying dropped him to the bottom like a rock. Jack held his breath long enough to the drop the packs in the lake and swim to shore. "You alright?" Garrett gasped as he struggled for more air. "Just peachy." Garrett Bent over and coughed a few times, water dripping from him. His shoes were filled with water, and his socks were soggily irritating him. "Where's the stuff?" Garrett asked. "At the bottom. We'll get it later. Rest time for a sec?" Jack asked. "Ah… uh… yah… why not…" Garrett said as both collapsed onto the ground and panted. "Huh… that… that really hurt… I hate rocks… I really do… especially the big ones…" Garrett said. "Yah… but the water wasn't too… friendly either… was it?" Jack said. "Nope. It wasn't."
Garrett looked around, hearing explosions in the distance. "Well… from the looks of things… we may be close to the server main station. Assuming they… haven't evacuated just yet, and erased the data or copied it, we may be able to finish this mission." Jack looked around at the trees. "Okay… but how do we get off this place?" He asked. "Ilana, do you read me?" Garrett asked into his ear piece. It squealed heavily, Garrett ripping it from his ear. "Damn… broken… real cliché…" he said. He looked at Jack, who agreed as he pulled his own ear piece away, the thing sputtering and glitching. "Time to move?" Jack asked. Garrett sighed. "Yah…" And he got up and dove into the water, pulling the packs off the bottom and swimming back. "Let's move."
Ilana watched the fleet futiley attack her as she decimated the battle groups. They would pay for doing what they had done, and she was going to tear them apart. She checked the secondary shields to make sure they were in full operating performance, switched them on and swapped the primaries so that they could recharge. After the Nova strike, the primary shield was heavily lowered, making her actually consider the humans here a threat. She only hoped that they didn't have another one of those bombs to use against her. Nevertheless, if she died, at least she could be with someone else she believed to be in the underworld. She continued to rain hell upon the fleet, and didn't notice the evacuation ships on the ground. It would be another twenty minutes before they could leave, and the battle fleet above was doing everything it could to hold her off. Mines were being detonated around her, and fighters were launching anything and everything, doing little to no effect. The MAC platforms were launching heavy rounds once every ten seconds, trying desperately to take down the shields. Ilana was emotionless at the time, however, and didn't care how much death she dealt. She was quite cold and heartless at that moment, her heart trying to find the one she cared about. She targeted five more frigates. "Targets locked" she mumbled to herself in a cold voice, her eyes reddened and dead. There was no sparkle, no cheerfulness, just pain and suffering, something she intended to deliver to her targets…
Garrett climbed up the cliff with his gear, wiggling up over the side with Jack close behind. He huffed as they reach the top, yet again, and stared. There, before their eyes, was the biggest City Dome they had ever seen. It was easily fifty miles across, and roughly one mile high. Garrett's eyes bulged. "Well, let's find the main access points into the server stations." Garrett ran toward the thing, Jack in tow, hearing gun fire and explosions somewhat nearby. Garrett activated the active camo only to find the thing malfunction and have him flicker in and out of visibility. "Shit… this thing's busted too…" He grumbled, and continued to run. As they just reached an entrance, a flood combat form jumped into view, a rocket launcher in hand. "Get down!" Garrett yelled as it fired a rocket straight at them. Garrett leapt to the left, Jack dropping to the ground where he was. The rocket flew right over Jack's head, and Garrett unloaded burst after burst from his BR55P, while Jack hosed it with SMG fire. The thing buckled and collapsed from the spray, firing a rocket straight into the air. Garrett let go of the breath he didn't realize he had been holding, Jack slowly standing up, keeping his uzi checked on the body. The thing twitched slightly, then stopped moving. Garrett stood up as well, walking slowly toward where the rocket launcher was laying. It was empty, but an extra case was nearby, giving two rockets to use. He picked it up and Jack walked over. "Let's get inside and get this shit over with… now!" He yelled as Jack nodded.
They both ran toward the dome, Garrett bringing the rocket launcher to bear on the bulkhead door. He saw a soldier running backward as two flood forms jumped him, ripping his left arm off and punching a hand through his chest just as he pulled a grenade, blowing the ball of bodies into pieces in another second. Garrett fired a rocket at the door, blowing a hole into it that was fairly small. He fired the next rocket, making the hole wider. He dropped the rocket launcher and primed a grenade in one fell move, throwing it into the hole and pulling the pin at the same time. The grenade flew in, blew, and screams were heard on the other side. They leapt through and checked for more targets. Two soldiers were still alive, but the smoke from the blast kept them from firing. Garrett took advantage of that and fired two quick bursts, a head shot on one and a neck shot on another. The area quieted down somewhat, but gunfire was heard just down the hallway. "Which way?" Jack asked. Garrett checked his PDA, and it showed the map towards the server room, slightly glitching in the transmission. He hit it a few times, and it fixed the display slightly. "Right down this hall. What luck… We're nearby. About a quarter of a click from here." Garrett and Jack moved down the hallway carefully, keeping their guns ready, a rifle in one and a shotgun in another.
They eventually made it to the server rooms after three battles with flood, one of them causing Garrett to block with a phase wall to keep them at bay long enough to prime a concussion grenade. They entered and checked for hostiles. Fortunately for them, the battle in the area was already over, as the place was littered with bodies, some scientists, some soldiers, mostly flood. Broken display terminals were all over, and pipes and walls were smashed. "there" Garrett said as he found a terminal in working order. He snapped his PDA to the terminal and downloaded everything, popping in new MO crystals when one was full. The entire process took five minutes, the longest five minutes he had ever felt. The download was complete, and the PDA was holding up. He pulled all the crystals just to be safe, and nodded to Jack. "We got it. And it doesn't look good. They've found out a way to isolate the weapon targeting systems on a halo and condense the blast into a pocket beam, allowing them to pinpoint targets… or planets. They'd be considered heroes if they took out the covenant, or they could hold us ransom if we didn't like them controlling some big weapon. A new government could then be appointed." Garrett said. "Death by covenant, or controlled by megalomaniacs." Jack groaned. "What about the flood soldiers?" Jack asked. "Useful for controlling the halos, not to mention if fixed, would be a force to be reckoned with, even against Spartans." Garrett got up and put his PDA in his pocket. "And they're damned close. I'd say maybe another couple of hours and they might have gotten a break through with all of them. So far, they seem to have control over about a few hundred, which they are loading onto transport assault carriers. The rest, as we've seen, are rampaging. At least they did the job of killing the scientists for us, but I think they already copied the research. There's a second duplication report popping up. We have to stop this and get that copy back."
Jack nodded and both of them ran out of the room to come smack dab in front of a group of flood. "Shit!" Jack yelled as he fired the preloaded grenade launcher almost at point blank. Garrett grabbed him and leapt as the grenade flew forward then blew, Garrett pulling back into the server room. He looked around for another exit, sighted a maintenance elevator, and rushed toward it. Jack fired burst after burst as he retreated toward Garrett and the elevator, Garrett closing the door right as a tentacled hand shot through to attack him and Jack. "Shit!" Jack yelled as he fire a point blank burst from hisrifle that he swapped with Garrettinto the arm. The arm was cut off because of the elevator door, but it was still wiggling and writhing. The cargo elevator started to go up, not exactly where Garrett had planned it to go. "Wait a minute… why… what the hell?" He said as he checked the controls, which he soon realized to be malfunctioning, as well as the sign next to it saying "Out of order. Maintenance on Thursday." "What's today?" Garrett asked Jack. "Tuesday" He replied confused. "Just checking" He said as the elevator came to a stop. The doors opened and both men had their weapons up and ready. A huge battle seemed to be going on, and it was all on the roof of a large building they had been in. The soldiers were fortunate enough to have had a Pelican drop a tank on the top as well as crash land because of flood jumping into the back.
Garrett inched through, firing shell after shell into the area and dropping grenades where he could. Jack emptied three clips lightning quick from his BR55P and switched to the SMG because it seemed to have more of an effect against the mass of tentacles and troops. "Jack, pull in for the Pelican. We may be able to get out of here."
Ilana detected multiple jump coordinates being locked in from escape ships on the ground as well as in orbit, but she seemed to be too occupied with annihilating the battle forces in orbit. She didn't have to worry; she would find them later and finish her revenge. She did seem to hear some interesting com chatter coming from a small shipyard however. "This is security station one to all troops! We have boarders! Somehow the experiments got on board! Lock down all systems! Engage auto defense systems! Keep them at bay!" "We have a malfunction! The experiments hit the connection grid for locking down the ship in bay 2B! She's drifting out!" "Anybody on board!" "Negative! No crew yet! We gotta get it back!" Ilana smiled. One less escape vessel to hunt down she thought. She quickly realized her mistake of not destroying the shipyards nearby, as a MAC round tore through space that seemed to be charged with an inverted Soliton field. It wasn't much, but it could actually lower her shields. Well, these dogs can actually defend themselves. Intriguing. I wish Garrett could have gotten a chance to defend himself against that missile… she thought, her lower lip trembled slightly. She immediately fired a salvo of anionic warheads towards the shipyards and then thought nothing about it anymore. The missiles hit, and plumes of debris appeared where they were. The empty ship floated away slowly, seeming to not be touched by the explosions, as if it cared. She finished the last ship that could fight her off, and noticed all of the escape vessels had left. They would leave most of their troops groundside to die against the flood? How truly monstrous. She checked her list of coordinates, watched for a strike pattern to move through all the targets in a single line, and jumped the ship. Checking my list… checking it twice… going to see whose naughty or nice… she thought. She always enjoyed the idea of the Christmas holiday that humans had, but she never would be able to celebrate it cheerfully now. Not ever.
Garrett and Jack thinned out the group fighting and Jack managed to take a Gauss Warthog from the enemy, which he pulled toward the Pelican. The remainder tried to rush the Pelican, but Jack kept them at bay while Garrett checked the systems. The group was finally finished off, for now. "Is it working? Come on! Hurry up! We gotta get out of here before these bastards realized we're up here! Or maybe the flood want to say hello again!" Jack yelled. Garrett pressed a few buttons, found a map nearby of the dome, and got the Pelican to whine to life. "Hey, what do you know! It's a fully loaded assault Pelican! Jack! Inside now!" Jack jumped from the warthog and ran, only to find that the Pelican didn't have the traditional machine gun mounted in the back, but a gauss cannon. Twin rocket pods were on each wing, and the chin gun was double barreled. What seemed very odd was two ghosts cargo mounted under the wings as well as in interesting looking carriages. Damn Scavengers he thought to himself. Jack climbed aboard and the craft lifted off. Garrett maneuvered the Pelican around a little bit to shake off any debris around, then noticed a squad of skyhawks heading toward them. "OH SHIT!" Jack yelled as Garrett dove between the buildings. He piloted like a pro, even further than anyone could push the thing. Jack stumbled back towards the gauss turret in the back and strapped himself into a harness, then manned the turret and fired behind. Garrett suddenly flew parallel with a building, and a skyhawk smashed its wing into the side. Garrett barrel rolled and suddenly flipped backwards, bringing the thrusters on the tail down and right onto a passing skyhawk's cockpit. The exhaust shattered the windshield and fried the pilot, then Garrett shot straight up, flipped again, and dropped the Pelican like a brick straight down, three skyhawks right behind him. The Pelican's chin gun roared to life in a vertical line, and the skyhawks were almost cut down the middle, aside from the last which lost its left wing. The Pelican strained under the maneuvers and idiot warning lights flickered all around Garrett. Jack was being tumbled around in back, but still got off a few shots.
The Pelican was close to the ground when Garrett pulled all thrusters to maximum to stop the drop, and spun the craft over the ground, burning quite a few infantry he didn't know were there. He pushed the ship around a corner to find anti-air missiles launch right at him. Anti-air… he thought and engaged the landing gear and dropped the pelican to the ground, driving it forward like a warthog. The missiles didn't get a chance to compensate and flew right over him. He fired his own rockets to take down the grouping of turrets there, each rocket made to count. The pods were now empty, and he could easily eject them. What he noticed next were two Scorpions firing as fast as they could at a rushing group of flood. He boosted straight over them, ejected the pods right over them, and as one fired, the pod in a stroke of luck fell right in front of the cannon barrel. The explosive round hit, blew, and knocked the turret clean off, to cartwheel through the air and smash into the other tank, smashing in the cockpit. "Nice flying. Stop the world I'd like to get off now" Jack moaned in the back as he tried to keep his lunch in.
Garrett looked for an exit from the dome, found one, and shot the Pelican straight through as the emergency doors closed. He lifted the ship up and towards orbit. Both pods that carried the ghost snapped clean off, and suddenly gave the Pelican a push upward from less weight, making Garrett struggle to keep her steady. They eventually cleared the atmosphere to find death everywhere. Ships destroyed all over, bodies floating in space, all flash frozen, and debris was starting to become a concern. He then wondered where Ilana was, and found that the Nexus was nowhere in sight. "Crap! What the hell did she do!" He grumbled to himself as Jack got back into the cockpit. "Whoa… I thought we were suppose to go in ala stealth? What brought this on?" He stared at the shambles around him. A body bounced off the windshield, blonde hair, female, her dogtags floating around her neck. An arm was held onto her left hand, holding on for dear life, but no body was connected to it. "Shit… are we stuck here?" Garrett asked. "Ilana. This is Garrett. Can you read me?" He asked into the communications systems. Nothing responded back. "Well, we can't go back, and I pretty much knocked our fuel down to fumes with those maneuvers, so unless we find someone to pick us up, we're hosed." Jack sighed, already knowing that no one would come to find them, unless they were going to destroy the pelican. The flood would eventually find its way to the other pelicans, if the troops didn't sabotage all of the vehicles to stop them. At that moment, an explosion was seen on the planet that was quite large. "Was that… no way… a self destruct?" Jack said in disbelief. "Wow… hang on… I've got a beacon. It's a frigate, and brand new… no crew?" He more asked then explained as he checked the scanners. "Are you kidding me? No one on board?" Jack asked. "Ya… um…" Garrett became confused. "Let's bag it" Jack said suddenly. "Are you nuts!" Garrett yelped. "Hey, we're almost out of fuel, no backup to pick us up right now, might as well grab it." Garrett rolled his eyes up and closed them tight. "First off, two crew members is not very sufficient for a frigate ship. I can pilot, and you maybe able to fire the weapons, but no one controlling locks and maintenance systems will have us making a popcorn imitation from spatial decompression." Jack stretched. "So what? We still have a fighting chance. You have a better idea?"
Garrett mumbled something, then shrugged. He maneuvered the small craft under the ship and engaged lock down procedures to enter the ship. The bay doors automatically opened with the crack decryption systems Garrett had, and Auron interfaced with the ship. "Glad to see we might have three people working this thing's innards" Garrett chuckled as Auron brought all systems online. "This thing is completely empty. It's equipped… but was still barely in launch phase" Garrett said. "Jesus. You'd expect at least maintenance crews or a skeleton crew to be on this thing huh?" Jack asked. "As I said, something is weird about this. Maybe they were groundside at the time?" Garrett said. "Yah… maybe… Alright. Fire control is warmed up, archer pods are green, and… DAMN! This thing actually has a MAC gun on the front! It's a light rounder, but still…" Jack became estatic. "Main engines are cleared, thrusters on pull lock 3, alright Auron, standby for burn…" Garrett said. "Acknowledged. Main engines on. Clearing engine tubes 2-9. All systems on full." The engines could be heard throughout the ship, and the loud whine as they charged up then lowered to idle woke both men up. "Alright. Now what do we do?" Garrett asked. "Well, let's find out where Ilana went. After all, the info you gave me about her not seeing us with that psi ability you did means she might think we're dead." Garrett's eyes widened. So that must be why she obliterated the fleet here. She thought we bought the farm. "Auron, do you have a signal lock on where she might have gone?" He asked. "Acknowledged. She is following a group of escaping ships toward these coordinates…" And the coordinates were displayed on a holoscreen. "Holy… these are… Fuck me…" Garrett said and keyed in the coordinates. It would take them about six hours from their present position to get to the area, and that place was Earth.