Chapter 9: It's the Little Things that Count

Cairo

"Well this will be a great story to tell your grandkids." Paccone smiled. "I personally met and fought beside the one and only Master Chief, and he completely ignored me."

"Yeah, I was sort of wishing he would've bashed your face in. It would've made the story much more colorful."

"You're almost there, Captain. The station's sensors aren't picking anything up, so things should be quite for a while." Cortana chimed in on Karla's radio.

"Just shout when you see something." Karla replied, and then began directing troops to defensible positions.

The Cairo's Damage Control Center was located in the heart of the station. Its main purpose was to monitor the data from the core functions and conditions of the entire station, such as hull integrity, life support, and disaster control. As a result, the Damage Control Center had the capability to control many of the station's functions, as well as override the bridge should the need arise. In the hands of the enemy, they could potentially take control of most of the station, or cripple it beyond repair. The possibilities were endless, such as sealing blast doors, venting the station's atmosphere, or even overload its fusion reactor.

Unfortunately, the person who had designed the station put little thought into actually defending such a position. The DCC was accessible through three different routes. Two hallways from either side of the center, and one large gallery connecting with a major station artery. The Covenant would be able to pour troops onto their position, while at the same time, the Marines had to divide their strength to make sure all entrances were adequately protected. Karla could only hope that reinforcements would arrive soon, or that the Master Chief would finish whatever the hell he was doing.

Cairo Computer Systems

With the sudden Covenant attack on the Cairo, Cortana had suddenly found herself managing just about everything on the station, from station defense, MAC fire control, and fleet direction, as well as guiding the Chief's every move. She suddenly received a ping from the station's sensors. Several more contacts had appeared on the screen, but compared to the capital ships, they were miniscule. Intrigued, Cortana allocated some of her processing power to investigate. She quickly realized that the new contacts the sensors were picking up were a squad of Elite-sized objects. She took a quick look at the Chief's location, and saw that he was spacewalking to the section of the station holding the bomb. She couldn't let the Chief be distracted by those Elites. Though she had absolutely confident that the Chief could deal with them, time was of the essence, and she needed him to get to that bomb as soon as possible. It was then that the logistics system pinged and informed her of the arrival of Pelican Z-34, pilot callsign: Barf Bag. If she were visible, Cortana would have frowned at such a crude nickname. Not wasting a microsecond, she scanned the Pelican's payload. It had the standard 150mm cannon, four Marines, and even vac-suits. Perfect. One of the Marines was also a certified sniper. Even better.

Cairo

Junior Marshal Mako Ralamee ordered his troops to halt. He and his small unit had orders to take a section of the Human station and secure it to ensure that another Covenant team could finish arming the bomb. His superiors warned that that section was probably very heavily guarded, and that it would take a crack force to take it. Mako snorted. His meager forces were hardly the caliber of normal Covenant troops. Mako had the unenviable job of leading a Displaced Individual Unit. Their main purpose was to operate on missions deemed too dangerous or costly for normal Covenant units. Basically, they were suicide shock troops. Their duty was very much like that of the Arbiter, though they didn't receive nearly as much fame, and were often stuck with dead end missions even worse than what the Arbiters usually had to do.

Also, like the Arbiters, troops in the DIUs were often Covenant soldiers disgraced at home or in battle. Many of the DIUs included, but were not limited to, cowards, suspected heretics, criminals, washouts, dissidents, draftees, and all kinds of lowlife scum.

However, Mako was different from them. He was the worst of them all. He had the misfortune and dishonor of being directly related to a proven and infamous heretic, Holy Ralamee, friend, fellow soldier, traitor, and heretic.

And also brother.

Mako could still remember that time. When Holy tried to stage a revolution, causing great damage and many deaths. When he was captured and declared a heretic, Mako and his family had to endure the investigations carried out by the secretive and ruthless Inquisitors, the Prophets' personal police force. Fortunately, Mako was not considered a heretic due to the loyalty he showed in his past service. Unfortunately, Holy had the exact same service record as Mako, so, feeling that it was better to be safe than sorry, the Prophets decided to dump him into a DIU in order to "atone for his sins". A load of Grunt dung, Mako thought.

However, the ultimate irony was that Mako actually agreed with his brother's ideals. Like Holy, Mako doubted the Prophet's divinity, but the both of them had different ideas on how to carry it out.

Suddenly, one of the Grunts squealed. Mako looked up and saw grenades roll onto the decking in front of them.

"Don't just stand there, you idiots!" He roared, "Pick them up and throw them back!"

One quick thinking Jackal immediately leapt to his feet and ran to pick up one of the grenades, but a rifle round blew his brains out the minute he touched the metallic object. One of the braver Grunts managed to pick two of them, but before he could do anything, a flurry of bullets shredded his legs. The Grunt squealed in pain and fell to his knees. He tried to throw the grenades, but it was too late. The moment he threw them, both exploded.

Mako winced as his shields were peppered with shrapnel and Grunt flesh. He took a quick count and saw that five of his troops were just paint stains on the decking. Mako sighed. Not that it mattered. Once that bomb went off, he and his entire troop were dead anyway.

Damage Control Center

"Did you really have to do that?" Karla looked at what was left of the braver-than-average Grunt. "A headshot would've worked just fine."

"I like seeing the looks on their faces when that happens." Paccone laughed sadistically.

"Bullshit. You just can't aim." Karla unpinned another grenade and lobbed it into the doorway.

"With this thing," Paccone patted the heavy plasma cannon, "I don't really need to."

"Ugh, let's just get this over with." Paccone waved to her fireteam of eight Marines. "Forward!"

During her time in officer training, one of the crucial lessons she had learned was that whenever on the defensive, try to turn the tables and go on the offensive against the attackers. It was a tactic that usually caught most attacking armies off guard, and sure as hell beat the ugliness of siege warfare. This little station scuffle, though much smaller in scope, was no different. The Covenant in the hall would still be disoriented by the grenade blasts, giving the Marines a chance to wipe it clean and wait for the next wave of Covenant.

One of the Marines, Mclellan, entered the hall and fell over as he was hit several times in the chest by plasma fire. Sadies and Korfen quickly took his place and began pouring fire in the massed Covenant down the hall. As Karla entered, she caught sight of an Elite on the ground aiming an overcharged plasma pistol. Thinking quickly, she kicked the pistol out of its hands. The pistol discharged massive green plasma bolt hit the ceiling, making molten steel drip down and sizzle on the Elite's shielding. Karla pumped several plasma rounds into the Elite, disabling its shields, but before she could bring her needler in line to finish it off, the Elite sent an armored fist into her chest. She could feel her chest compressing, and hoped that bone-crunching sound wasn't actually her bones.

The next thing she knew, Karla was looking at the ceiling gasping for air. Meanwhile, Paccone was firing his heavy plasma cannon down the hall, incinerating Covenant left and right. Finally, the plasma cannon gave a stubborn whine and shut down as its barrel melted from overheating. Cursing, Paccone dropped the cannon and began firing a "borrowed' Covenant carbine.

Karla slowly began to heave herself back up, and winced as her chest began to burn and ache. She coughed and tasted blood in her mouth. That punch must have broken several ribs and ruptured some minor blood vessels. It was certainly debilitating, and hurt like hell, but it certainly wasn't crippling. She managed to pick up her dropped plasma rifle and pour fire down the hall.

Mako growled. His shields were down and they were not recharging. He also noticed that some of his suit's systems weren't working very well either. That accursed female human must have hit his suit's power unit.

"Lagat! Shwir!" He yelled at two of his Jackals. "Use your shields and advance down the hallway! Kamamee and Yemekee, stay behind them and provide supporting fire!"

Unlike what some of his fellow officers would do, Mako was not about to force his troops into a suicide charge down a narrow alley. Better to think his way around a problem than use brute force. Holy also fought in a similar fashion-

Mako shook his head. He would have to concentrate if he was to complete this mission. Even if it meant getting blown up by his own bomb for the greater good.

Pelican Z-34

"I'm feeling queasy." Leo whined, though most of his voice was filtered through the vac-suit's comm, negating most of its strength. "This was such a bad idea."

"Leo, when something fifty million times smarter than you asks you to do something, you don't tell them to screw themselves." Sam replied as she set up her sniper rifle. "Though when you think of it, it'd be pretty amusing to see what happens when an AI gets pissed."

"Lets not." Leo peered through his rangefinders. "Okay, I think I spotted them. About six degrees to the right."

Sam aimed her rifle. Due to the large and obtrusive helmet she was wearing, she was unable to use a conventional sniper scope and instead had to opt for a high-resolution camera transmitting visual data directly to her helmet's HUD.

Besides the helmet, sniping in vacuum provided a lot of challenges. Unlike being on a planet, Sam didn't have to worry about physical forces such as gravity and air resistance, which basically meant that she could literally point and shoot and still hit her target. However, the problems were much larger. The vacuum of space was one of the harshest environments imaginable. Only the hardiest weapons could even remotely work, and the severe cold and lack of air required the use of large and bulky vac-suits for survival. Also, with the lack of gravity, firing a rifle could send the gunner flying. Fortunately, Sam was braced to the Pelican's hull with magnetic boots. She had lots of training with space combat, and was actually very good at it. Didn't mean she had to like any of it, however.

"What's the count?"

"About twelve Elites." Leo worked the rangefinders and gasped. "Holy shit… is that who I think it is?"

"What?" Sam scanned her HUD. "I don't see anything."

"Three o' clock, about thirty degrees up."

"I don't see- well hey, what do you know." Sam smirked as she saw a small green blob flitting about in her crosshairs.

"That's the Master Chief, isn't it? Holy shit, it's actually him."

"Mmmmm, he's shorter than I thought."

"I think it's a good time to start doing some shooting. It would be a shame to have his pretty face get wrinkles from dealing with those Elites." The smooth, artificial voice of Cortana quipped.

"Don't rush an artist." Sam aimed and fired. The lead Elite's head disappeared in a cloud of gore and shattered bone. The blood formed into perfect spheres that hung in the air like miniature planets. Before the rest of the Elites had a chance to act, another head exploded and an Elite's breather mask was severed. The Elite squirmed and writhed as it tried to breathe.

"So what's it feel like?"

"Like trying to hold on to a goddamn cannon." Sam fired her last round and quickly reloaded, noting the floating bullet casings bouncing off her visor.

"So how does it feel to be saving the Master Chief's ass?"

"Slightly rewarding." Sam shot an Elite's thrust pack, making it explode and sending several other Elites spinning away helplessly in the void of space.

"Worried about your sis? Heard she was on the Cairo." Leo adjusted his sights. "Oh, there's another one just a few degrees down, next to that comm dish.

"I'm more worried about the Chief getting his ass kicked by the Elites you miss." Sam said as she loaded her third clip. "Just keep finding them and I'll keep shooting. Besides, she with the Sarge, and you know that nothing can kill him."

"He that tough?" Barf Bag quipped. Sam frowned. She didn't know he was listening in on their conversations.

Leo retorted, risking having his visor bashed in by Sam. "No, he's just smart enough to stand behind her sister when the Covvies start shooting back."

Freedom

"Six Covenant cruisers inbound on our location." Joshua warned. "It seems like they've finally noticed us."

Rogers looked at the red blips on the tactical screen. "Which one should I be the most concerned about?"

"Frankly speaking sir?" Joshua's chess pieces shifted around rapidly. "All of them."

"Tell our support ships to form up." Rogers ordered. "And tell them to-"

Suddenly, warning sirens blared and Joshua's avatar flickered on and off.

"What the hell is that?" Rogers yelled.

"Sir, a foreign signal is attempting to hack into our computers systems." Joshua generated a image to three squares. Two of them blue and one mostly red and labeled with the names of the secondary AIs. "It was some sort of covert program, and it has already taken total control of Balthasar. I've only noticed it when it tried to issue an unauthorized self-destruct command and was rejected by Caspar and Melchior. As long as they can maintain a consensus, the foreign program can't do anything, but it's already beginning to subvert Melchior and it won't take long for it to control Caspar after that."

"Where is it coming from?"

"Unknown. The signal is being transmitted through our comm systems, but I cannot determine the point of origin. My best guess is a Covenant prowler hiding in the battle. "

"Solutions?"

"We can cut off all of our comm channels."

"Unacceptable. If we can't stay in contact with the rest of the fleet, there's no way we can coordinate with them. I thought we had excellent counter-hacking software."

"We do, but those were for conventional ship systems. We've never had any system that ran four AIs at once. Backdoors and security breaches are bound to happen, and the program has already obtained a firm foothold in Balthasar. I can slow down its advance, but that's all I can do."

"Our other options?"

"Find and destroy the ship generating the signal."

Rogers frowned. "This gets better and better."

Freedom Computer Network

Joshua eyed the advancing hordes of the Covenant hacker program and was ready to repel it. His VR programs translated the data into visual media he preferred. Setting up his defense programs, Joshua could see walls rising from the ground, and thousands of miniature soldiers materialize out of nowhere. When they came, he would be ready.

Taking a closer look at the advancing enemy, he noticed that the enemy forces were not acting rigidly, but were actually responding to his movements. Strange, since most programs usually followed a single or limited course of action to carry out their objective. This implied that the Covenant had their own AI.

Interesting.

"Game on." Joshua said to himself, knowing that the mysterious Covenant AI would hear. "Game on."