Broken glass crunched under Jorge's boots as the lights in his helmet swept the hall in front of him. A number of doorways, darker even than the hallway that lead to them, making the building something of a nightmare. Ambush could come from anywhere at any time.
The Gears seemed to agree with his unspoken thoughts: two to a side, they methodically checked room after room, one covering from the doorway while the other went in and poked around the rooms themselves. There was no sound but the shuffling of detritus by their boots, their breathing, and the muted clinks and clanks of their weaponry and equipment. The very same vibes that had Jorge cautious, walking through the settlements and hearing about strange monsters lurking in the crops from scared civvies.
It felt like years since that ride in with the rest of Noble, investigating a simple downed comms relay.
Something shuffled through the darkness up ahead, breaking Jorge from his thoughts. The gun, a Retro Lancer, the Gears had called it, was against his shoulder in an instant. He'd felt that the shorter, easier-to-handle assault rifle would be better for these cramped CQC conditions when he'd picked it up a number of rooms back, not to mention the more powerful ammunition and the broad-bladed, savage-looking bayonet had both highly appealed to him.
A short whistle, and all four guns were trained forward, sweeping the darkness. Jorge indicated 'forward' and 'follow' with two fingers, and four separate radio clicks acknowledged him. His helmet lantern flicked off and his night vision came up, giving him slightly better visibility in these darkened conditions as the systems in his suit turned up the UV lamps and compensated as best they could for the darkness. After a moment, he moved forward into the dark, near-silent despite his armour and weapons.
A line of trash a little further down the darkened hall had been disturbed. As Jorge crouched slightly, getting a better look, he noted that the steps had been light and stumbling- the path itself wasn't a straight line from one doorway to another, but a slightly meandering trail. Part of him wanted to believe that this was some miracle survivor, but the rest of him was wearily reminded of the uncountable times where such a situation had turned out almost immediately to be a trap, first with the Insurgents, and then with the Covvies. So, when he pushed himself to his armoured feet and followed the trail, he was even more alert than he had been before.
Thus, when he stepped through the door and sighted a hunched human figure crouched in a corner, he neither approached it nor let his guard down.
"Hello? Are you-" Jorge didn't get any farther than that. The figure snapped around, and Jorge caught a glimpse of yellow luminescent eyes and mouth before it leaped at him like an animal.
Most would have panicked, having something akin to a zombie leaping at them from the darkness. Jorge, by merit of being one of the most expensive supersoldiers in human history, was nowhere near most people. Therefore, his entire response to the shrieking creature was a slight narrowing of his eyes behind the opaque polarized visor, and a twitch of his trigger finger.
He blinked with slight surprise as, a moment later, he was showered with fine grey and yellow ash. He frowned as he reviewed his recollection of the last few seconds, confirming it with a quick replay of the record from his helmet's cameras.
The creature had leaped at him. In midair, he'd squeezed the trigger of the retro lancer, which had thrown a five-round burst into the face of said creature, completely obliterating its head from its shoulders. There was the briefest moment of response, the body reeling backward in response to the kinetic energy that had destroyed the head and then, quite suddenly, it had simply… dissolved. Jorge heard the sound of fingers tightening around metal, and glanced behind him to find Baird staring at the ash.
"What in hell was-"
That was as far as he got. Another scream rang out from farther into the building, and it was followed in turn by a number of answering screams. Jorge's motion detector lit up with red, his auditory sensors suddenly full of rapid shuffling and scrabbling, clearly from an entire hoard of these things. Typically, Jorge would have gratefully and gladly left the reigns of leadership in the capable hands of one Damon Baird, but in this specific case…
"In here! Quickly!" Jorge shouted behind him at the others, before quickly moving to the back wall. A desk was there, and he paused a moment to clip the lancer to the magnetic locks on the back of his armour before bodily grabbing the thing and lifting it off the floor, carrying it back to the front of the room. The moment that the last of the Gears was through the door, he dropped the desk, blocking the lower half of the entrance. That would slow anything getting into the room, as well as limit the amount of open entrance, allowing them to concentrate their collective fire against an easy target.
He didn't even manage to get to the back of the room before the Gears opened fire. Jorge spun on his axis, ripping the retro lancer off the magnetics, pointing it and pulling the trigger completely on instinct. A tide of the glowing humans evaporated under concentrated fire from all five of them, ash spreading itself across the surface of the makeshift barricade as a small horde of the monsters tried to force their way into the room.
"Shit! They're lambent, fucking lambent humans!" Baird yelled from one side. A single lambent made it over the desk, fell to the floor, only to be met with a burst from Baird's weapon. "It jumped the damn species barrier!"
"Talk later, shoot now!" Paduk replied, slamming a fresh magazine into his rifle and working the bolt.
As it was, the situation was hectic, though not dire. The desk, the limited open space and the single entrance bottlenecked the flow of lambent humans- Jorge could hear them scratching at the doorframe and the walls, trying to push their way in. Only one or two could fit through at a time, and each of them had to vault or crawl over the makeshift barricade, meaning that occasionally three or more would occasionally stick themselves in the opening, giving Jorge and the Gears a good chance for a quick breather before killing them.
Jorge shuddered slightly to think what this would have been like out in the hall, lambent coming from all sides, nothing to slow them down or hide behind. Sure, he'd make it out just fine- he was a SPARTAN- but the Gears might not be so lucky. The lambent might be weak, but so were grunts, and grunts could be a very real threat given enough numbers or the right weapons. Even the best and the brightest, armed with the best weapons and protected by the best MJOLNIR had to offer, could be overwhelmed.
In another time and place, this was exactly what finally brought down Noble Six, though Jorge knew nothing of the appropriateness of his statement.
With massed fire and an easily defensible position, it became something of a war of attrition: namely, whether or not the Gear's ammo would hold out longer than the lambent's numbers. Paduk had started using his large, snub-nosed pistol, while Baird had switched to a curved lever-action shotgun that released a cloud of shrapnel with every shot, shredding yet more of the lambent to naught more than ash.
Eventually, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the tide of lambent slowed… then stopped. One last particularly sickly looking one awkwardly shoved itself half over the desk, only to be ended by one final shotgun blast. Jorge waited a moment, two… he let thirty seconds pass before he cautiously made his way to the ruined doorway. Jorge leaned out over the desk, pointing the barrel of his rifle into the hallway.
Just on the other side of the desk was was a lambent, only one arm left, lower half missing, and half of its other arm shredded. Jorge took a moment, assured himself that there was no ambush, then vaulted the desk, armoured boot crushing the thing's skull with a satisfying crunch and reducing the thing to ash.
He waited a moment more, there, standing in a pile of ashes that was all that was left of the lambent horde, pointing his rifle first one way, then the other, waiting for a sudden surge of enemies. When none was forthcoming, he turned his head back towards the Gears, waiting in the room.
"All clear!"
There was an audible four-part sigh of relief, as the rest of the Gears lowered their weapons and tromped to the front of the little room, one by one following Jorge's lead over the desk. Jorge noted that the desk itself had apparently splintered quite a bit when he'd leaped over it, even the fraction of his weight that he'd exerted on the piece of furniture through his hand being more than the poor old thing could handle. Internally, he admonished himself: he needed to avoid drawing the suspicion of his companions, and providing evidence that he was carrying enough weight to crush most humans would most definitely draw said unwanted attention.
Thankfully, the Gears seemed more preoccupied with their dusted enemies. Clayton was shifting the ashes with the barrel of his gun, muttering to himself, low enough that only Jorge could hear him, mainly thanks to the auditory sensors built into his helmet.
"Fucking lambent fucking humans, goddamn thing jumped the rails… how the hell…"
A quick glance, hidden by Jorge's opaque visor, revealed that the rest of the squad wasn't doing much better. Paduk hung at the edge of the group, fidgeting slightly, veiled concern hinted in his scarred appearance, Cole adjusting his grip on his weapon, eyes sweeping the building. Baird had gone down on one knee, rubbing a pinch of the yellow-grey ash between his fingertips. A moment of deliberation, then the SPARTAN turned bodily towards Baird.
"Not something you've seen before, then?"
Baird frowned, wiping his fingers on his armour and standing. "Yeah, I think I'd know if I'd seen a damn glowey human. Didn't even know it was possible for a human to go lambent." Baird paused, shock flickering across his face, glancing in Paduk's direction. "Ah, crap… look, Paduk, maybe some of them made it out…"
Paduk cut him off with a gesture. "We'll move farther in. If they are here, or if they left a clue, we'll find it. If not…" He shook his head. "Let's get moving."
Baird took point, as ever, leading the group down the hall. Cole and Clayton followed behind, Paduk and Jorge bringing up the rear. A quick adjustment made sure that the soundproof helmet of Jorge's MJOLNIR suit was well and truly sealed; he didn't want to tip his hand just yet, and he needed information.
"Baird!" Jorge waited a moment, but the Gear hadn't heard him, and continued down the hall without any reaction. Jorge nodded to himself, satisfied. "DOT, sitrep."
"All systems nominal, Noble Five. ODST Arroyo following from high altitude with a type 52 Phantom, prepared to render assistance if need be. Repairs to ship systems continuing." DOT's emotionless, synthetic voice came through his comms.
"I've had ta drop a few loads back at the Ardent Prayer, but everything's green across the board- I'm ready to lay down some sweet, heavy plasma fire if you need it, sir."
Jorge suppressed the desire to nod. Pointless over auditory comms, not to mention the whole 'tipping his hand' thing. "Thermals and scans show any remaining hostiles?"
"Hold on, sir, running the scan…"
DOT spoke up instead of the Corporal this time. "Sensor data indicates concentration of enemies in the area is high." Jorge's HUD flickered, pinpointing the locations of things tagged as 'hostile', detected with a combination of the Ardent Prayer's broad-spectrum sensors from orbit and the narrowly focused sensors of the Phantom. "Hostiles divided into two distinct groups: Locust, with lower body temperatures, and Unknown. Unknown targets have internal temperatures in excess of 66 Celsius, far higher than normal human operating temperature. Positing these targets designate 'lambent human', consistent with results observed from sensor data pertaining to lambent wretches encountered prior."
Jorge made a humming noise. "Any idea what caused this?"
"Apologies, Noble Five. Insufficient data to posit theory. Require samples to be gathered and returned to Ardent Prayer medical bay for analysis."
Jorge grunted. "Corporal. Up for a field trip?"
Ian groaned through the comms. "I'm on it, sir." Jorge smiled slightly in amusement.
"Kiváló. Jó fiú." With that done, Jorge addressed DOT again. "Sensor data indicate any survivors?"
"Processing… negative for survivors in close proximity. Expanding range… possible match, ninety six percent consistent with baseline human physiology. Large group inhabiting mansion near the edge of the city, with heavy fortifications. Heat sources indicate a large number of normal humans, in addition to generators and vehicles, including aircraft."
Jorge tightened his grip on his weapon, the metal creaking slightly in protest, as Baird reached the doors on the far end of the hall and checked for hostiles through the window. Relieved as he was that Paduk's people seemed to be mostly alive and well, he now had an entirely different issue: whether to tell the rest of the group about them or not. On one hand, it would prevent them from investigating the large washed-up rig that formed the center of the base, which, according to sensor data he was being fed, was crawling with lambent humans and Locust. On the other hand, it would mean that he would have to provide an explanation for his knowledge, which would mean revealing that he wasn't from this planet, outing himself entirely.
Jorge was used to making snap decisions. He was, after all, a SPARTAN II, the best the UNSC had to offer. While he'd spent much time with Noble and had enjoyed it, he had been in command positions before, though nothing like this. It occurred to him that, lacking an officer of higher rank than himself, he was technically the captain of the Ardent Prayer. He'd never thought he'd one day be the officer in charge of a ship, but, well, here he was.
And now, he had to make a decision regarding operational safety. Yes, there were many advantages to revealing the ship in orbit and his own extra-planetary origins, including trade with the locals and a steady source of supplies, weapons and ammo… but there were also the downsides, the caveats: these Gears were fighting a desperate resistance against what remained of the Locust, as well as the Lambent. Did Jorge really want to commit himself fully to a campaign that he only joined, albeit in a very limited fashion, because he needed information?
Baird and Cole prepared to kick the doors open, and Jorge made his decision. To hell with operational security. He'd gone down defending Reach, defending humanity, and he'd be damned if he let this second chance to help save human lives, even if they weren't UNSC. With the resources and tech of the Ardent Prayer, maybe he could even help them get a civilization back on track.
He held up a hand. "Wait."
Cole and Baird paused, glancing back at him. Behind Jorge, he could hear Paduk turn towards him, while Clayton turned his helmeted head in Jorge's direction. He made sure he had their attention, then began pointing with his fingers.
"Large amount of hostile in the area, Locust and more lambent humans. Many of them. It will be a firefight the moment we step through these doors and alert them." He pointed in the direction of the derrick. "No survivors in the structure, only lambent and Locust… but there is a large encampment in the… Seahorse Hills area?" He flicked his eyes back to the small text in his HUD to check, confirming. "Recommend we wait here, while I call for evac."
Cole turned back towards the doors, leaning over to the window. "Yeah, there's glowies and grubs- motherfuckers are hidin', didn't see them 'till you mentioned it…" Cole nodded. "'Preciate it."
Baird, on the other hand, looked highly suspicious. "And how do you know these things, exactly? Hardly think your fairy godmother is whispering inside that helmet of yours."
Jorge adjusted his weapon in his hands, considering how to say what he wanted to say.
"Orbital sensor readings combined with those from a craft currently hovering in a bank of clouds a few hundred meters above our heads."
Baird's suspicion deepened, eyes narrowing slightly. "Now, I know that there's not enough of the Cog's orbital up there to provide a clear anything, if you could communicate it and if you could even access its functions. So, how exactly do you have enough resolution to tell exactly where and what people and grubs are?"
"Ah, hogyan magyarázom meg... I have a craft in orbit, as well. I am not... from around here. Ended up here by complete accident, thought that this was a lost UNSC colony... though I am less and less sure of that the more information we gather."
"And when, exactly were you going to tell us that?" Clayton said.
Jorge spared him a glance, turning his head to make it clear. "When it became relevant. Which it did."
"You mentioned a large encampment…" Paduk stepped closer, cautious hope veiled behind suspicion. Jorge turned his visor in his direction, nodding.
"Large. Couple hundred people, and definitely people, not lambent. Healthy, safe, alive." Paduk let out a sigh of relief.
"Okay, sure, let's say I believe you. You mentioned evac?" Baird asked. Jorge nodded again.
"I can call in the craft to pull us out. It will easily carry all of us."
"The hell are you waiting for then? A written invitation from the grubs!?"
Jorge chuckled, activating his comms, though leaving his external speakers on this time. "Corporal Arroyo, change of plans. RV at current coordinates for evac. Confirm."
"Hard copy, sir. ETA three minutes. Stand by."
Jorge glanced at Paduk. "Any way to get onto the roof?"
Paduk indicated back where they'd come from with his chin. "Ladder behind a concealed door."
Jorge nodded. "Much obliged." He spoke into the radio again; "LZ will be indicated by green smoke."
"Affirmative, Noble Five. Will VTOL in two minutes."
They left the doors behind, following Paduk's lead down the hall and into one of the rooms. Paduk stepped to the back wall and hit a small catch, swinging open a door in the wall, revealing a small maintenance room and a ladder, leading up to a sealed door to the roof. Paduk went first, slamming the door back on its hinges and climbing up onto the roof. The other Gears stepped behind Jorge, obviously looking to be behind him, but Jorge gave the flimsy, rusted ladder one look and waved them in first.
"My armour weighs half a ton. I suspect that the ladder won't hold me for very long."
Baird cocked his head slightly. "How do you even carry all that weight?"
Jorge grinned beneath his helmet. "Classified." That got a groan of frustration Jorge well recognized from UNSC Marines back home.
Muttering invectives under his breath about militaries and information, Baird followed Paduk up the ladder. Cole went right after, though Clayton paused before following as well, turning back towards Jorge.
"If you're planning to stab us in the back, or if this is a trap of some kind…"
Jorge waved a hand in a placating manner. "I am aware: you will shoot me yourself."
"Damn right I will." With that parting shot, Clayton hauled himself up the ladder.
Jorge took a moment to pull the concealed door closed behind him, better to delay the lambent and Locust that might be alerted to what they were doing and might choose to try to follow after, then tried his weight on the first rung. The steel screeched horribly and the metal bent somewhat, but it seemed to hold, so Jorge put his boot on the next rung and pulled himself quickly up and to the roof. Hold it might, but that didn't mean that he should take any risks.
By the time he got to the roof, the Gears were already spaced out on the rough roofing, monopolizing cover and ensuring that they had a defensive firing line in all directions. Thankfully, the building seemed to have adequately contained the noises of their brief, hair-raising firefight, as the indicators on Jorge's HUD pertaining to the enemies in the area were making no move of any sort towards their position.
Of course, Jorge thought to himself as he popped green smoke on the rooftop, they'd have to be braindead not to notice this and get a little curious. Of course, the lambent might very well be braindead, given that they seemed to generally not make many more sounds than hissing and shrieking, but Jorge wasn't exactly a medical professional. Most of the medical procedures that Jorge carried out were closer to trepanning, and were typically done with the help of a high-caliber rifle.
Unfortunately, Jorge had been right about the curiosity thing.
"GROUNDWALKERS!"
"Shit." Baird muttered under his breath, pulling those strange frag grenades once again. This time, he pressed a couple of recessed buttons, then ran forward and planted the thing in the roof, before changing course and whipping out another. The first beeped, but didn't explode.
Frag grenades that turned into… proximity mines, Jorge guessed. Brutal and handy. He approved.
Baird just managed to vault back over the piece of ductwork he was using as cover before grappling hooks came over the edge of the roof and lodged themselves in the tarmac. Locust snipers climbed nearby buildings, taking potshots and trying to keep Jorge and the Gear's heads down, so that other Locust could climb the ropes attached to the grappling hooks.
Jorge wasn't having it. He slipped the retro lancer onto his back, the inaccurate but powerful weapon sadly inappropriate for this particular use, then went for the magnum clipped to his belt. As the ammunition indicator on his weapon switched from a blank NO CONNECTION to reading the ammunition of the pistol, he noted that it had only a half a magazine left: checking his belt revealed only one other magazine. He'd have to make his shots count.
Thankfully, his modified MJOLNIR suit was more than up for the task. Zooming in and calculating trajectories, his helmet's HUD allowed him to line up a shot in a matter of seconds, every bullet met with the satisfying explosion of red as the large explosive rounds found their homes in Locust eye sockets. The Gears had their hands full sinking rounds into the grappling hooks, forcing them to lose their grip on the roof and send the climbing Locust to the ground, but Jorge thought they were doing rather well.
He was halfway through his spare magazine when a hail of bright purple plasma projectiles slammed into the Locust, exploding violently as contact with objects caused the unstable balls of plasma to lose containment and release all their energy at once. Glancing up, Jorge watched as the Phantom swung its way to the black roof, coming to a rest with one side's troop doors opening wide.
Jorge popped one more sniper, then made a run for the open troop transport, flipping to his retro lancer and laying down a spray of covering fire for the Gears, who, after a moment, followed behind.
"LZ's a bit hotter than I'd like it to be, sir!" Corporal Arroyo yelled back from the pilot's seat, just as Jorge stepped into the empty area behind the cockpit.
"The Locust don't seem to be happy that we're leaving the party early." Arroyo chuckled at that.
Then, as the rest of the Gears came skidding into the vehicle, the armoured side panels hinged closed, sealing the space from incoming fire as the craft lifted from the roof and moved off, smoothly sliding away from the fight and into the open air. Suddenly, the craft jerked to the right, Arroyo cursing from the cockpit.
"What's wrong!?" Jorge yelled up, voice amplified by the speakers in his helmet.
"Some big flying monstrosity on our tail! I can't outrun it; these things weren't made for speed! Should be thankful I can fly it at all!" Another lurch, this time to the other side. "It's too fast for me to draw a bead with the heavy plasma, and it keeps lobbing rockets at us!"
"Open the side turrets!"
The armoured walls ground open again, though this time it was only the platforms the turrets lay on. Jorge stepped through the opening, mindful of the drop, making a sound of annoyance as a few stray rounds from their pursuers sparked against the armoured hull of the Phantom. Glancing back as his fingers tightened around the grips of the turret, swinging towards the back, Jorge noted Baird moving to take the other turret before Jorge focused on their pursuers.
There were three large, tentacled creatures. With the zoom in his helmet, Jorge could make out two Locust riding each one, one the driver or pilot and the other holding a rifle, firing forwards at them. Occasionally, part of the creature's harness would light up red, and a rocket would come streaking towards them, prompting Ian to jerk the Phantom to the side to avoid it.
Thankfully, the rockets appeared to be just that: crudely manufactured rockets with no guidance system, just an explosive warhead stuck on the end of an engine. Given the looks of equipment Jorge had seen thus far, he doubted that the rockets even had the AP qualities that would allow them to penetrate the Phantom's armour. Still, he reflected as he wrapped his hands around the triggers of the plasma turret, Ian had the right idea in dodging them. No telling what the Locust put in their rockets.
Plasma arced from his turret, blue bolts speeding through the empty air and impacted against the chasing creatures, hot blue plasma splashing across the skin, metal and leather gear. The creature shrieked in pain, one of the Locust riders dying instantly, and the other vaporized as a stray plasma bolt struck the rocket magazine, causing the warheads to detonate from the heat. The creature itself spiraled down to the ground, trailing smoke from propellant set alight by the bolt and the ensuing explosion.
"Hot damn! I love this thing!" Baird's shout was audible even above the wind and plasma fire.
The other creatures and Locust, now wary of an unknown craft with weapons they didn't understand, withdrew to the edge of their weapon's effective range, reducing themselves to taking inaccurate potshots. They'd stopped firing rockets entirely, the unguided things far more likely to miss than get even the most grazing of hits against the armoured skin of the Phantom.
Jorge shifted on his feet as he felt the craft angle itself upward, the engine throttling up as Ian aimed it for space. He checked the condition of the pursuit one last time, then stepped back into the interior of the Phantom as the turret retracted flat against the armoured door panel, the entire thing swinging up the moment he was off it and settling into place. He took a moment to listen to the slight hiss of the seals, barely picked up by his helmet's systems, then turned to the Gears.
"And there wasn't any recoil! I'm thinking magnetically contained plasma, though I'm not sure-" Baird was excitedly talking to Paduk and Cole, hands nearly a blur as they made lightning-quick gestures, words flowing from his mouth in a rapid pace. It reminded Jorge a little of Kat in those relaxed moments when Noble was off-duty, and she'd found something interesting or new, or just needed to vent the intellectual pressure. A pang of emotion flickered, and he brushed it aside automatically, turning his attention to the others.
Cole was nodding and saying 'yeah' and 'alright' at all the right moments, but given how his fingers played over his equipment and how his eyes were glazed over, Jorge suspected that he'd long grown used to Baird's quirks, and was now simply resigned to riding them out. Paduk, on the other hand, was alert. In a moment, Jorge read him, training and experience making judgements in a moment.
He was alert, yes, but that wasn't all. He stood with his back to the armoured hatch, and whenever he shifted, neither Jorge nor the cockpit of the Phantom were out of his field of vision. His pistol was holstered, and his rifle had been stuck to the magnetic locks on the back of his armour, but the holster was loose around the sidearm, a buckle obviously designed to hold the weapon where it was hanging casually loose. Paduk glanced at Jorge, a quick flick of the eyes that might easily be missed by anyone who was not a SPARTAN, and Jorge knew that he was watching constantly.
Jorge had never considered himself the smart one, as it were, but the truth was that compared to the SPARTAN II's, most of the human race was a little stupid. This came out in a number of ways, the intentional being their prodigious combat performance and capability, their mastery of tactics, a high aptitude for math, always a necessity for moving in space and firing ballistic weaponry, and their ability to read situations and people so well as almost to appear precognitive. It also meant that they were more than a little odd, to a man. John 117, the accepted leader of the SPARTAN II's and a man Jorge had nothing but respect and admiration for, showed it in his nearly obsessive-compulsive desire for his people to be razor sharp, and the fact that John had something of a hero complex.
Thus, when he saw all the little bits of how Paduk acted, Jorge's mind assembled the puzzle. Paduk was a survivor, Jorge surmised, had been for perhaps his entire life. Scar tissue on the neck and face- burns, instead of anything else. Combat wounds, most likely, so an old soldier. His hair was gray, and Jorge would guess that he was perhaps forty or fifty. He was more than just someone who had looted a weapon and survived in a combat zone, Jorge could see that in the way that he held himself. Paduk was most definitely a veteran, not just one of those Stranded the Gears had mentioned. Disciplined, ready, vigilant. This was a man that Jorge could respect, a man Jorge could fight besides.
When Paduk sensed the attention and glanced his way, Jorge gave him a respectful nod, and was pleased when he received one in kind.
Then, there was the last member of the group of four, Clayton. The man had not removed his helmet even now, and a mere glance told Jorge why: a few marks on the front and sides, scars in the metal from bullets that had failed to penetrate the armour and had ricochet. Like Paduk, his back was to a wall, though in Clayton's case this was the back of the Phantom itself, from which he could clearly see both sides and the front. The bow in his hands seemed an impractical battlefield weapon at first glance, but a second revealed the razor sharp arms coated in faded bloodstains, and the coils in the barrel. 'GRUB KILLER' was emblazoned proudly on the front of his chestplate, crimson, a large and intentional stand-out mark.
Clayton's helmeted head twitched, ever so slightly, in Jorge's direction. Jorge, in return, simply nodded again. Internally, he felt surprised and slightly impressed that the Gear had noticed his attention, the thought rolling around in the back of his head that Paduk and Clayton were something of birds of a feather, even down to their sour attitudes and impenetrable countenances. Back on Reach, Jorge would have assumed that the two of them were members of one of the three SPARTAN generations.
Clayton, for his part, didn't seem perturbed by the attention, instead angling himself more in the SPARTAN's general direction. Given the soldier's body language, Jorge assumed that this action was somewhat of a challenge to him, something like a physical representation of someone saying 'anything you like', or perhaps 'go ahead. Take a good, long look.' Confidence, self-assuredness, and perhaps something of a rebellious streak.
Jorge allowed his visor to linger in Clayton's direction for a few moments more, scrutinizing him again and taking his time, sending the clear signal that he wasn't worried or rushed. After what his intimidation and interrogation training said was an appropriate amount of time, he turned his helmet back towards the fore of the Phantom and pressed a hand to the side of his helmet.
"Sitrep?" He stated simply.
It didn't take long for Ian to reply. "We're moving at a good clip, sir- no damage to our ride, s'far as I can tell. Entering stable low orbit in seventeen minutes." He hesitated. "Sir… are we taking our, uh… guests, back to base?"
Jorge quietly suppressed the desire to glance at the Gears. "Hogyan kell..." He tapped the side of his visor absent-mindedly.
He'd like to just take the Gears to the Prayer and get this over with, if only to have full access to the resources and weapons at his disposal, and he had no doubt that they might have started suspecting something was up when a ship created with technology they'd never seen before had swooped down out of the sky to save their collective bacon. However, there was operational security to consider. Certainly, Jorge was rather fixed on assisting these soldiers with their mission, partially out of need for weapons, equipment and resources, partially out of something of a… shared desire, as it were. He knew what it was like to be up against impossible, insurmountable odds, with barely enough equipment to get the job done. Pokol, he'd gotten here in the first place by helping stick a makeshift slipspace bomb onto a stolen corvette and then setting it off manually because it was so full of plasma damage and shrapnel that the timer had fried. He'd be damned if he left them to fend for themselves.
"So…" Jorge half-turned, realizing that Baird seemed to have finished with gushing over the plasma turrets, and had stepped up to the SPARTAN. The other Gears had moved, almost subconsciously, to back Baird. Further support for the idea that baird had been the commanding officer of the bunch. "I think this is the part of the ride where we get to ask questions."
Jorge weighed his response for a long moment. "You are currently aboard a Type 52 Phantom, a troop carrier and gunship."
"So, UFO. Do you have a secret city in the hollow Sera?" Baird said, an eyebrow raised in incredulousness. Jorge waved an armoured hand.
"Ah, no, nothing of the sort- we're more… out of towners?" Inaccurate? Yes, definitely. A lie? Not as such. Jorge was going to play it safe for now, try to bring out the big guns only when they really needed them. "We, that is myself, Corporal Arroyo- the pilot- and… another person, thought that this was a planet aligned with our allies. We were looting the military base when you happened to roll into town. I followed behind you for a time, observing, but I ended up giving you a hand anyway."
Cole nodded. "Believe me, baby, we 'preciate it."
"Yeah, sure, I'm ecstatic about the idea of being followed without my knowledge…" Clayton muttered.
Jorge chuckled. "Ah, well, if you didn't want my help, you could have just said so. Though I think we all appreciated getting out of there in one piece."
"Still." Baird looked skeptical. Not that Jorge could blame him: the existence of beings outside of his own planet had most likely been not much more than a though experiment to him earlier today. "A craft in orbit? You mentioned that you're not from here, and something about… UNSB?"
"UNSC." Jorge corrected reflexively. "United nations space command, the primary military force of Earth and her colonies. Of course, this" he gestured to the inside of the Phantom, "is most definitely not UNSC in make or origin. You could say that we're borrowing it, but that might imply that we intend to give it back."
"Hah!" Cole laughed aloud, slapping Jorge's shoulder in good humour. "Yeah, we understand THAT! Borrowing stuff from the grubs is my favorite pastime!"
"So, uh, the 'craft?'" Baird said, waving Cole away a little, trying to get the conversation back on track.
"Ah… something else we borrowed. Heavy corvette, about… nine hundred meters in length."
The eyebrows of each of the Gears shot up to their hairlines, impressive as the three that Jorge could see either had a hairline that was pretty far back or didn't have hair at all.
"Nine… that's almost a klick long- and you said that you were 'borrowing' it!?"
Jorge shifted. "Well, directly and violently appropriated, would be more accurate. And it was from the Covenant, who deserve more grief than me stealing a single corvette."
Baird looked… concerned. "If that's how big the other guy's ships are… how big's a UNSC ship?"
"Ah, well…" Jorge glanced away, recalling the numbers. "Generally… destroyers are about five hundred meters, with cruisers being over a klick long-" He was cut off by a loud clatter as Baird sat down heavily in the middle of the troop bay, looking quite shellshocked.
Jorge took that as his cue to move to the cockpit and help the Corporal guide the Phantom into dock with the Ardent Prayer.