CNRD facility codenamed: RAINDROP
Two miles northwest of Sierno
November 29, 2557
As soon as they finished contact with their package, the mission had started to go downhill.
Austal was on point and he noticed an unmistakable but brief static on his HUD. For a mere second, his displays were obscured. "We're getting some patchy interference."
"Me too." Pine added.
"What's the problem Tyrant?"
"We're receiving it on your Spartan tag transmitters as well. Unknown Eon. We'll see if we can clean it up on our end."
"Roger that."
"Could be the terrain." Pine suggested.
"Or a trap." Austal added.
Fowler rolled his eyes, "Don't say that, you'll jinx it."
The main entrance's security wall was locked down by two heavy shade turrets and a hunter pair. They faced the larger building and kept their guns trained straight towards it. Whoever commanded them must've set them to guard the back door in case any human prey tried to escape. No way were they getting through without going loud.
"We'll head to the right of the compound. Cut a way through the fence."
Eon steadily moved around the facility. They could see an open courtyard with a half melted statue in the center. Water gushed from a basin outwards and spewed from the statue. In the background there was a small parking garage area and beyond lay a single black five story building. The gloomy weather reminded them of Cyrus Seven.
They used a set of inhibitors on a predetermined section of the metal fence to divert any active electrical current and then snipped away at the mesh with a pair of cutters. The process took little time and any noise made by jostling would not be heard over the sound of the pounding rain.
Gunfire suddenly erupted from the other end of the compound. The sounds instantly alerted all four Spartans even further when they heard brute war cries and saw a red shaded spectre vehicle head in the direction of the facility.
The Covenant had found Agent Adrian.
Bowman activated the link despite the risk of open comms, "Agent Adrian, what's your status?"
"Engaging and falling back!" She shouted. Eon heard the sound of a battle rifle combined with plasma shots, "I have multiple hostiles following!"
"We're on the way." Bowman gestured to the three others, "Double time!"
Quickly moving through the fence, Eon stayed out of sight as they saw yet another group of Covenant troops head towards the skirmish. Pine stayed slightly behind while the other three moved up to a wall overlooking the primary building.
Austal tossed the moth drone up, controlling it with a smaller handheld datapad in one hand as he moved with the team. The tiny drone fluttered into the sky and was out of sight. Its dull color scheme would make it nearly invisible from above, blending perfectly with the grayish sky.
Immediately he saw at least a dozen hostiles, nearly half of them brutes laying siege to the primary building's entrance. They were accompanied by a multitude of jackals and grunts.
Up on the third floor, he saw a figure lean out from the side and shoot back at the Covenant attackers. The bullets splattered uselessly against a jackal's shield causing it to hiss in a mocking manner.
Adrian leaned out again this time snapping off a single shot that caught the same jackal in its hand. The wound pumped blood and it had let its shield down just long enough for her to fire three bullets that easily bypassed its armored helmet. As soon as the brutes saw their comrade go down, they instantly shifted fire to her position, peppering it with spikes, plasma bolts and a couple brute shot grenades.
If Eon didn't take the pressure off, she'd be dead and they couldn't get a completion with a dead package.
"Agent Adrian, we have a visual on the skirmish." Bowman reported, "We're approaching from the east."
"Roger that."
He sent a green light to the three other Spartans who all winked in acknowledgement. Immediately, Austal set the drone into standby, relaying the hostile positions on the HUD. He and Fowler crept up, still in camo. They kept their eyes on their predetermined target.
At least for now, the brutes had no idea of their appearance. Fowler moved behind one of the brutes, more towards the left with Austal. Bowman began spotting for Pine, who already trained his weapon on the attackers on the right.
"Hostile Spectre incoming." No sooner had Fowler said the words, the gate on the courtyard's left opened and the red repulsor vehicle came hurtling around, its plasma turret adding to the barrage headed to Ms. Adrian's floor.
"Change of plan." Ross took his eyes away from his thermal optic and shifted his aim straight for the brute manning the plasma turret.
Austal's green light blinked and at the same time, he and Fowler leapt out of their cover to shoulder barge one of the brutes attacking with the brute shot. They had decided to go after the biggest threat. Their efforts managed to topple him over, giving the two Spartans plenty of time to put at least twenty rounds past the overloaded shields straight into the chest. Fowler had already turned away, but Austal saw it continuing to move, albeit slower and put it down for good with a smash of his rifle's butt. "He's history."
Bowman saw Pine jerk from the sniper's recoil, the ghostly trail leading straight to the Spectre's turret. The operator lay just behind the vehicle, half his head torn off by the shot.
Now the brutes were questioning who their new foe was and some of them took their guns away from Adrian's position. A captain bellowed orders in his native tongue at the others, who were still questioning the death of their fallen brother.
Fowler struck out at the captain, delivering a punch that merely made the enormous creature flinch. The brute snarled, swinging a hammering arm down, but he quickly ducked the blow and used his gun to amplify his next melee attack. This time, the power armor buckled and collapsed, leaving the fur underneath exposed. Tribal tattoos adorned its chest along with a couple of metal piercings.
He emptied his clip into the captain as it growled at him. The bullets seemed to lazily penetrate its thick hide and it showed no signs of pain whatsoever. Lunging faster than lightning, it smashed its thick skull straight into his midsection, the blow powerful enough to send him flying back. He hit a nearby concrete barrier causing blunt pain to flare straight up his back.
He fumbled for his sidearm, at least hoping to put a round into the ugly bastard's head as the brute reared its arms back in its stereotypical berserk stage.
It flinched as a battle rifle burst halted it from moving and then a second one, this time from another angle slowed its movements before it toppled to the ground.
Pine's sniper bullet whizzed overhead, taking out the final brute. Fowler hadn't realized that the remainder of his team had been eliminating the Covenant.
"Clear!"
"Clear!" Bowman reported. "Agent Adrian, are you alright?"
"Yes," She replied breathlessly, "I'm o-" The team heard a whistling sound and saw a brief green flash atop a building, followed by a sparkling buildup. That looked a lot like…
"Fuel Rod!" Austal yelled.
The canister of green explosives, standard issue for the T-33 LAAW smashed into the unmanned Spectre, blowing it apart in a split second. Austal saw another rod fired skyward and exploded in midair. A second later, his HUD lit up with a warning that his moth drone had lost connection with his suit. "Shit! I lost the moth!"
He and Bowman trained their weapons atop where they presumed the shots had come from. It was a rooftop that joined the facility's primary entrance and it was empty.
"I lost contact."
"No Thermal sig detected." Pine added.
"Agent Adrian do you read?" No response. "Agent Adrian?"
The comms remained silent, "Shit." Bowman cursed, "Tyrant this is Eon Lead. We've lost contact with our package."
The rest of Eon regrouped by the destroyed spectre, they all kept their guns trained on the surrounding buildings in case their fuel rod gun toting friend showed up again.
"Eon, let's get inside." Bowman ordered, "Up to the third floor."
They entered the atrium of the building, where the front desk must've weighed at least a thousand pounds and it was shoved down as a makeshift barricade. There were no bodies behind it but there were dried stains of red blood, most likely shed by whoever else was defending this place. It must've looked like a fairly lavish administrative area given the expensive marble and destroyed fountain. The CNRD logo, the capital letters behind a blue diamond tipped with black, dark blue, green and white had been disfigured by a couple of spikes lodged in the center. Must've been a brute makeshift dartboard.
The elevator didn't work, so they instead took an emergency staircase to their right and ascended it to head roughly to Adrian's position before they had lost contact with her.
Austal took out his datapad, replaying the drone footage from earlier. Despite it being lost, the camera automatically saved his recordings every five seconds and he was easily able to pick it back up, rewinding the recording from the last transmission.
His eyes found her within seconds of the firefight. Third floor, about thirty feet to the left of the main entrance above the centerline of the giant U shaped building.
The entire windowpanes were long, extending nearly ten feet between columns and the shards indicated that it was polarized, most likely to deter prying eyes. Bowman spotted a small pile of spent ammunition, M634s, a special armor piercing round designed specifically for the BR series made by Misriah.
"Eon Lead confirms. VIP is absent."
The Spartans encountered more interference, this time stronger and it lasted for three seconds, distorting their displays viewed inside their helmet.
"Shit." Austal cursed, "There is something not right."
"No shit kid." Fowler shot back.
"Lock it down Spartans." Bowman reprimanded. "We're going to search the area."
Eon got up and slowly moved deeper into the building.
"Hey look." Fowler whispered.
The team had been moving inside for ten minutes when Eon Two had called for the halt. He knelt down to a dark object and pointed to three more nearby. "CN Agents?"
Pine rolled one of the bodies over; the man had died from his wounds hours ago and suffered a nasty death. Slivers of the pink needler rounds had penetrated his breastplates and detonated inside, the shards being blocked from exiting upon explosion and further damaging tissue.
"Looks like it." Bowman said, taking out a small thumb sized GPS marker. "We'll let their men know where they are to be put to rest."
"I hope we didn't come all this way to have Adrian in a similar fate." Austal darkly added.
"Dead or alive, we're going to walk her out."
They left through a maintenance wing, flipping on their VISRs for enhanced vision inside the darkened area. The air hung thick with tension as all four of them were ready for potential attackers to lash right out of their shadowy corners. They rounded new areas in a professional manner, always aiming down their weapon's sight, prepared in a hair to fire.
More interference showed up, lasting much longer. All Spartans cursed, seeing their entire displays fuzz out into indescribable lines. The one good thing they had from it was that their energy shields and conditioning firmware were unaffected, as were their active camo modules integrated into their suits power supply.
"Ah hell." The HUD finally returned after forty seconds of static and there were bold letters displayed in the top left corner. VISRs shorted out in the static, falling completely out of control. The rest of them didn't need to inspect his helmet to know what was going on. The same problem was making its presence known all around.
SPARTAN-IV HUD SYSTEM FIRMWARE HACKED
"Tyrant, what is the issue?"
The Spartan commander replied just a minute later, "We just ran a security diagnostic over all of the unit's firmware. There is no indication of breached security, but we are still getting interference that's tampering with the VISRs."
"Any luck on zeroing our VIP's location?" He asked. With Austal's drone out of the equation, their aerial recon of terrain and opposition would be severely limited. At the same time, Eon had exited the building through a side entrance and now cautiously approaching an intersection that began the small city area. All was clear for now.
However the sign of brute presence was very evident. Crates of plasma munitions and weapons were clustered together at spots. There were also charred remains of UNSC and Covenant vehicles plus bodies. The battle had taken place in the Sierno limits and judging by the enemy presence here, it was clear who the victor of the battle was. No smoke trailed off into the sky and the lack of distant gunfire or even brute howls was eerie.
"Eon, we have a fix on the VIP. She's been moved to the city hall by a group of hostile humans just a block south of your position. These guys are impeding our primary objective so you have a green light to engage. My guess is that whoever's holding her is going to ask some questions and then smoke her."
"We've got the waypoint."
"What's your ETA?" Tyrant asked.
Bowman's eyes narrowed, "Before they smoke her."
Damn right. Eon's on their way to rescue their new ally, but their hardware's getting messed with. What could it be?
Thanks for reading and reviewing. You give my writing purpose.