New Addie, Providence
November 29, 2557
Nothing like having a Thruster Pack burn out while still three thousand feet above the dorsal side of a moving Covenant frigate. All that with its shields still up.
Both Spartans discovered this while descending and firing the tiny jet on their backs to slow their descent. Go figure, when you use equipment from the damaged Kuching.
Austal knew that the energy inside was very limited, so he had spread out his arms, sacrificing his rifle in the process to help slow his descent. To his left, Fowler did the same.
In the Venom Wing coup in New Corsica a couple of months back, the team had done a similar stunt instead using debris of a falling slipspace elevator to cover their approach. Their Thruster Packs worked, but they had some pretty close calls in the past as well. Austal in particular had hit a piece on the way down.
Panic began to flow into his veins when he saw that the shields still hadn't been lowered. At the current rate they were going, they could hit the shield and bounce upwards in seconds. They wouldn't survive a second impact, being splattered on the hull like an insect. He wasn't a fan of being crushed inside his perfectly intact armor either.
"We're going to be bouncing on a very heavy trampoline if you don't hurry!" Fowler yelled.
Now a five hundred feet and closing. Austal readied his Thruster Pack, praying that it wouldn't let him down now.
Both he and Fowler shifted their positions in the air, curling in a ball with their upper bodies and bending their knees out to absorb the most shock possible. This was going to hurt.
The shield looked close enough to touch and they both breathed a sigh of relief when it began to slowly fade out. A split second later, they passed the air where the shield had once stood.
At the same time, the Spartans purged their jetpacks at maximum output. A jolt and a brief feeling of nausea took over as the sudden change in movement took over. The Thrusters were turned on and off in several sequences burning out the last of their reserves until they were thirty feet from the hull. By now, they were in complete freefall.
"This won't hurt a bit." Fowler assured him.
Before Austal could retort, they slammed into the top side of the purple hull.
"Hades here." The AI reported, "Fowler and Austal had successfully boarded."
Pine still had his fingers jammed on the controls having lowered the shields a split second before the Spartans had impacted, "That was a little too close." He had been holding his breath the entire time after disabling.
"Tell me about it." Bowman tossed the pins towards the mangled chieftain before him. The spike grenades on his belt were armed since the Captain managed to swipe the pins in the proceeding struggle. The end result was gory and definitely not pretty at all.
Not that the brutes were pretty to begin with…
"Fowler, this is Eon Lead. Do you read?"
There was a bit of groaning on the other end, "Eon Lead? Yeah, I hear you. Still trying to work out the soreness in my arms and legs."
"Can we take a five?" Austal butted in.
"Sure." Bowman agreed, "I'll give you guys a run in on what we're up against. Our objective is to take control of the frigate's weapons and fire on its fleet seen higher up. The bridge is at the ship's center and has multiple avenues of attack. My idea was to breach from both sides in succession, so that one of us will have the attention from most of the crew while the other can eliminate a lot of them. We're going to have to assume that they've locked themselves in since they may know we're here. Once we're in, Hades is going to acquire weapon safeties and I will relay targets from Admiral Brady. We'll exfil via the gravity lift once we're done. Can't stay here long, as the Covenant will target her once they find her guns warming up."
"We've landed by the starboard hangars. I have visuals on enemy foot mobiles and we're kind of unarmed."
Bowman's eyes widened, "Unarmed? Where the hell are your guns?"
"We sort of had to ditch them in order to survive our freefall."
"Aren't you going to need guns to fight?"
"Look Cap," Fowler snapped, "As much as I love getting lectured on how we used barely functioning jetpacks in a freefall, this ain't the time for discussing that. Like what you said, mission still goes on."
"Fowler, watch your tone."
"You're not my dad. I can handle it."
"Kids, that's enough." Pine cut in, "Make your way over to the bridge and we'll do likewise. We're going over our plan once again when both of us are in position."
"Roger that."
When they severed the link, Bowman turned over, "How can you get Fowler to shut up like that?"
The sniper shrugged, "I guess showing your prowess in combat has its perks and others can see it. Even the unruly ones. Kick some ass and just about anybody will fall in."
In camouflage, Fowler and Austal crept along the upper deck of the hangar bay. The shields were still downed and personnel were milling about in a normal manner. The commander of the ship had likely believed that their attack was simply an isolated incident.
"Freakin Captain gets on my nerves." Fowler muttered through gritted teeth, "I swear he doesn't like me…"
"You've kinda showed him that he isn't your favorite either. So I'm not surprised he's being cold back."
"Whatever."
"You know he's just trying to make sure everyone returns from the mission alive. That's his reputation. How else do you think he got in? It certainly wasn't the relationship regulation."
Fowler snorted, "Oh you're going to go reputation again. Told you he was just doing his time and feeding off us for that."
Austal was about to come to his Captain's defense when they both picked up a pair of contacts approaching. Simultaneously, their camouflage modules activated and they shrank into the darker corners of the deck area.
Two brutes, one dressed in captain armor and another in a shaman harness were approaching their position. They were armed with brute shot grenade launchers and had a few spike grenades hanging off their belts. Neither of them had spotted the Spartans just yet, but give an attentive look at their position could compromise their stealth advantage fairly quickly.
Fowler unholstered his pistol, the only gun between the two of them that had successfully survived the trip and within their grasp. Looking over at his partner, the younger Spartan reached down to his hips and unsheathed a pair of jet black knives with symmetrical double-edges and had an angular streamlined appearance. At the handles was a large emblem of a wasp insect.
He casually flipped the custom Sting knives in his hands until he had them in a switchblade hold. Making the first move, he lit a green light and cocked an arm back. Whipping it out, he sending one of his knives down to the shaman at blinding speed.
Being one of the fastest Spartan-IVs, Austal had his hopes of challenging the legendary SPARTAN-087 or SPARTAN-104 in a one vs one hand to hand fight. Both Tyrant and Bowman had agreed upon getting word that while he was very good, he'd lose to both Kelly and Fred before he could get a single blow in. Fred was unbelievable at knife fighting and Kelly was simply too fast. However that did nothing to change his mind. In a similar manner, Ross Pine was itching to get tricks from Linda-058.
His speed was extremely impressive and the velocity of the knife was enough to punch straight through the shields and high-density armor. The blade buried itself in the shaman's breastplate.
It must've hurt because the brute bellowed in the low shrill roar that UNSC intel stated that shamans made. Both Spartans felt a chill run down their backs.
The captain turned to his partner.
Just as Fowler darted behind and delivered a devastating blow to the backside, instantly breaking his spine.
The shaman yanked the knife out and tossed it away in disgust. Austal used the distraction, charging in a shoulder barge that knocked the two of them over. He held the second Sting knife and slashed quickly, aiming for the shaman's exposed throat.
The skin was tough and calloused, adorned with tribal tattoos. The leathery hide was already hard enough to pierce with bullets. However the Sting knife was sharp as any scalpel and ripped it straight open.
The brute made some wet gurgling sounds, managing to grab ahold of Marcus to toss him off. The Spartan was prepared, exhaling upon impact and rolling to his feet. By now, the shaman had a good sized puddle of blood pumping out of his wound and went limp within five seconds.
Austal accepted the discarded knife from his partner and they both retrieved the fallen brute shot launchers with all the grenades they could find.
"Eon Lead, this is Eon Two. Austal and I are in position ready to breach from the left entrance."
Bowman tossed another spike grenade, effectively sticking one of the grunts in the fleeing group. The explosive detonated, sending razor spikes everywhere and shredding the entire lance.
"Roger that." The Captain took out a brute shot of his own. "You got explosives?"
"Yeah. Brute shots."
"Good. We'll break down the doors." Bowman had a bad feeling if they had outright opened the doors.
He flashed a green light and then gave Pine a nod. At the same time, the two teams fired their grenade launchers directly at the doorframes. The first pair of explosives on either side did little damage and then the second caused them to buckle slightly. The third barrage blasted them completely open and an explosive on the other side quickly amplified the breaching blast.
Bowman was right. The Covenant had planted counter breaching charges, small plasma blocks that detonated after a prior entry was detected. Designed to specifically destroy the intruders making the invasion, they could easily make short work of shields and while survivable by a Spartan-IV, the opponents waiting on the other side would be more than ready to pump enough gunfire in that direction to kill them.
At Bowman's feet, there was a detached spike cannon, looted from an armory they had come across. As soon as the visibility had cleared, he raised it up, targeting the nearest baddie on his crosshair and opening up.
The spike cannon kicked like a restless bronco, jerking wildly thanks to the extremely high rate of fire. On the other hand, the results it produced was pleasing. His first target was an unfortunate grunt who was processed into a ground pile of metal and flesh within a second. The foot long spikes buried themselves into a few jackals, giving them a similar fate.
Austal and Fowler saw the majority of the Covenant bridge crew turn their attention to Bowman and his new toy, but they had some enemies notice their entrance as well.
They fired a volley of grenades from their brute shots, causing an endless roll of thunder. A pair of brutes had been blown apart by their assault and the splash damage from their grenades caused electric sparks to dance about, keeping their defenders at bay.
"Watch the left side." Bowman brought the cannon to that direction, shredding a brute about to throw a grenade.
All within a minute, Fowler's magnum echoed the final shot, followed by the sound of a jackal hitting the ground. The entire floor was dirty with mixing blood of the different races of corpses, burn marks and empty casings of spent ammunition.
"Clear!"
"Clear!"
The team all rushed up to the bridge area. The command spot was elevated by a ramp that towered over a handful of other stations towards the back of the room. Being leader, Bowman moved over to the shipmaster's seat, a new addition to jiralhanae vessels. The chair was a bit too big for him, but he still had a good view of all the displays. Normally, it would be a bunch of jargon and indescribable array of symbols that would make any translator scratch their heads in frustration. Their armor instantly translated the Covenant languages in this case, sangheili in both verbal and written form.
The three other Spartans rushed to the other essential stations, helm, weapons and ops.
Bowman had never commanded a ship in his life, well except for the mini-yacht he and his buddies had borrowed for a friend's bachelor party.
"Austal, ease us forward on a twenty vector at a low speed."
"Roger."
Fowler tapped a few buttons at his station, "All instruments and essential ship functions nominal."
"Plasma torpedoes are ready and waiting."
"Boss, we got a problem." Austal waved. He had been occasionally watching the locators on the ship's console next to navigation. "We got troops inbound to the reactor."
"Seal and depressurize it."
Fowler cast a wary eye over, "If they have suits, that won't stop them."
He had a point there. The grunts already had harnesses to give them their essential methane, but the remaining species breathed oxygen and didn't require the pressurization.
He had to take a chance, at least for the next five minutes, then the Council of Chieftains could do whatever the hell they wanted with the giant purple tub.
Bowman keyed his comms, "Admiral Brady, Eon Lead, sending Marker Whiskey over."
A second later the admiral responded, having taken over from his own ship's comm station. "I copy, Marker Whiskey over."
"I have control of the Covenant frigate and am warming up the plasma payload."
"Grid coordinates follow Lima Oscar seven five zero nine Two, Kilo X-Ray six six three, Victor Bravo one zero nine six and Delta Uniform seven nine three nine. All Covenant ships in the vicinity. Send those bastards to hell."
Fowler finished punching in commands on his end, assisted by his HUD translation software and with synchronization from Bowman, triggered the weapon arming sequence.
"Admiral, plasma payload armed and away."
"Roger that. Now get your asses out of there. We're picking up hostile triple-A heading in your direction!"
"You heard the man." Bowman shouted to his team, "Eon, let's hustle!"
"You don't have to tell me twice." Pine quipped. The Spartans regrouped at the bridge ramp and headed for the door.
Just as it pinged open and revealed two enormous figures, towering over the brutes.
Any UNSC force knew that this foe was one not to underestimate lightly. Covered in virtually impenetrable armor and armed with an incendiary fuel rod gun on their arm, mgalekgolo, or hunters were deployed as ultra heavy troops.
Blasts from their fuel rod gun in their arms was enough to incinerate titanium-A battleplate armor and they also carried a super-dense shield that shrugged off any attack and also served as a devastating melee weapon. They also always approached in pairs, having "bond brothers" from intelligence suggesting that the two were once a single colonial entity of worms, which actually made up the creature itself. Despite a hunter's weight of nearly six tons, they were surprisingly nimble, especially when one would witness its bond brother's death.
ONI sources stated that they associated with any other species of the Covenant, save for the elites and had no qualms of assaulting other members if necessary.
At once, the Spartans ditched their weapons and sprinted straight for the opposite exit.
The hunters saw their plan and had already been warming up their weapons. A pair of green spheres of energy spat out from the muzzle, slamming into the door and knocked out its power. Bowman knew that the doors themselves were immobile in the current trashed state and relayed only one option.
"Run! Get to the hangar!"
Austal was in the lead sprinting with Eon straight for the hunters with a plan already made. Anyone witnessing this would render it as suicide.
The closer hunter saw the move and swung his shield out, fully intent on smashing the Spartan into the floor.
At the last moment, Austal dodged the blow, crouching and moving his body into a perfect roll that easily juked. The hunter must've been so satisfied at his future kill, neither he nor his bond brother could react as the Spartans dashed in between them.
Ross Pine was last and he had slid low underneath. As he passed, he armed a spike grenade and slapped it inside the closest hunter's orange fleshy gap. By the time he and the others had exited, the grenade exploded, the armor of the hunter keeping the spikes inside as they ricocheted all inside its body, killing it.
"There's a grav lift we can use to get to the top!" Bowman hit the nearby panel and they were suddenly lifted upwards. Flying for only a second, they emerged on the frigate's roof, all satisfied that they were on control of their bodies again.
The reprieve was temporary.
As bad as the situation looked inside the massive frigate, the night skyline of New Addie was an even bigger hellhole.
This chapter was supposed to be out a couple of days ago, but I was distracted by one thing that I've been waiting six months for. NFL FOOTBALL!
I'll continue to update as much as I can while still having enough time for work, school, football and more writing of course! I have a new idea for another Halo series, but it's still in the process and probably won't get much toying around with until I am close to finishing this, plus my next project.
Speaking of which, I've already summarized a fifth installment for the Blades and this one will be different from the others. More details? In time.
Go Niners!
Thanks for reading and reviewing. You give my writing purpose.