Enough with the disclaimers.
Chapter 5: Pack Light
"Well, fuck me sideways." Spade said from underneath the Warthog. "Looks like that big rock just punctured the fuel cell." The SPARTAN pushed himself out from beneath the Warthog and stood up.
"You mean you can't fix it?" Sarge questioned out loud. Spade shrugged and cocked his head. "With the supplies we have at this immediate time, no. We'll have to hoof it from here."
Grif moaned in protest.
"Oh come on, buck up Dex! It's only five more miles straight ahead, and then we've found O'Malley." Spade said mock-cheerfully. Grif didn't move; at least until Sarge "gently" prodded the orange soldier forward with the barrel of his shotgun.
After about six minutes, the group came across their first obstacle. "Well, it looks like we've been stopped. Time to turn back." Grif said, and turned on his heel, only to have Sarge snap him up and turn him back towards the natural limestone wall that formed the obstacle. The barest signs of the water treatment plant atop it showed over the wall in the form of an overhanging observation post.
"Sister, can you climb up that?" Spade inquired.
"No, I'm double jointed; I'm not a freaking monkey." Sister retorted.
"I might be able to do it!" Donut said, heading right up to the wall. After a few seconds of contemplative silence, the pink armored, effeminate Gulcher abruptly shouted, "Saut de bras!" and leapt straight up to a handhold well out of normal reach. He pulled himself up onto a ledge, then yelled, "Saut de détente!" and covered a four foot gap in the rock face, then grabbed on to the rock face on the other size.
After about two minutes of open-mouth gaping and announcements of French jumping maneuvers, Donut stood triumphantly atop the rock wall, standing on the artificial overhang. Grif looked upward in amazement. "Donut, what the hell was that ninja stuff you just pulled?"
"I took parkour classes in high school!" Donut returned as he let down a series of steel ladders.
"What the hell is parkour?" Grif shouted back. Simmons turned towards his fellow red and explained, "Parkour, or the art of displacement, is a form of physical training invented by the French stuntman David Belle as a form of getting from Point A to Point B as fast as possible in a dangerous situation."
Grif was quiet for a second in thought as he moved towards the ladder, then he said, "So Donut is a French gymnast?" Simmons slapped his forehead in exasperation. "No, what I mean is-!" Simmons was cut off with Spade's quick command, equivalent to "Cut the chatter and move up!"
Another ten minutes of walking brought them to the broadcast center. A UNSC radio set was attached to a few plugs in the tower nearby which was sticking out of a glass-domed distillery at an awkward angle. Generators and power cables were everywhere. "Hmm. Seems deserted." Sarge took a step forward, but simultaneous hands from Tex and Spade stopped him. Tex took a half-pace forward, crouched and swept the dust off the floor, revealing a few tiles on the floor. The freelancer lifted the tile carefully and pulled out a fist-sized mine, easily packing enough explosives to take out a tank. Scanning the ground, Tex quickly turned back to the group and said, "Mines. Every third tile in a diagonal line across the courtyard is hiding a mine. Step on one and you get blown sky high, and I mean that literally."
Spade turned around a few seconds later to see Simmons and Grif still conversing. "Oh, so you say that parkour is like free running only French?" Grif said.
"Finally, you get it." Simmons raised his hands to Heaven and cried out in triumph.
"Meheheheh… Already expressing your surrender, Richard?" Simmons quickly put his arms down and look towards one of the sheds around the distillery to find a man dressed in grey Mark V armor, speaking in a cheesy English accent.
"Omega. Pleasure to finally meet you." Spade said, pulling the BR55 HB SR Battle Rifle off his back. "For the first, and probably the last, time." He fired a burst at the AI-controlled armor, which-
-Dived right under the bullets and straight into him. The feeling of a 7-ton MJOLNIR armor diving right at him full force wasn't at all pleasant, and neither was being pinned under it. Spade planted a boot on O'Malley's chest and heaved the armor off, but the AI recovered impossibly fast. His battle rifle out of reach, Spade did the first thing that came to mind- and punched O'Malley square in the visor.
The orange, reflective visor shattered on impact, revealing… Revealing nothing at all behind it. Spade's fist careened right through the interior of the helmet and bashed harmlessly against the other side. "What the hell!?" Spade shouted, half in panic, half in surprise.
"You mean you didn't know?" O'Malley taunted. "I've possessed this armor and modified it for my own personal gain. This way, neither you, Tex, or you, Alvin, or anyone from the UNSC or otherwise, will be able to kill me! Mwuahahahahaa!"
Alvin pulled his fist out of O'Malley's helmet but grabbed the mandible and yanked it as hard as he could, tearing the Mark V helmet right off the armor's chassis. Holding it triumphantly, Spade threw it to the ground, curb stomped it, and watched as the armor fell apart. "Piece of shit." He said triumphantly. Then, all of a sudden, his radio shut down and his HUD flickered. It lasted for all of a second, then it came back online. "Well, that was weird." He said nonchalantly. "Now, let's take out that radio tower."
The rest of the team, Spade included, sprinted over to the radio tower inside the distillery, only to find a locked door. Spade went first, knocking heavily against the door.
"Password." Said an echoic voice from inside the distillery.
"You're kidding me. O'Malley put a password lock on the door?" Spade thought for a moment, then said, "The password is, Nevada."
There was a second of contemplation, then, "Password denied." Spade growled.
"Freelancer?"
"Password denied."
"Alison?"
"Password denied."
"I'm going to destroy the earth, enslave the entire human race and rule the universe?"
"Password denied." Sarge sighed and moved up to the door. "Step aside, rookie," He said as he strode past Spade.
"The password is… Password."
"Password approved. Welcome back, O'Malley." The door swung open and Spade stood staring at Sarge, who shrugged.
"I use that word for all of my passwords back at Blood Gulch. It's a perfectly sound tactical decision to use the same word as the question, as the answer. Psychological warfare. Messes with their minds on a subliminal level. Why do you think Grif is always the one getting locked out of the base? He has such a low IQ he can't even guess that the question and answer are the exact same thing, heh heh heh."
Sarge was still stroking his ego when Spade said, "Just shut up and get inside the building." After a few second, the group arrived in front of the leaning radio tower. Spade looked at the stack of radio equipment. "Alright, who has the bomb?" He said as he turned around.
No-one answered.
"Alright, I seriously remember giving the bomb to one of the blue guys, so cough it up." First Spade went to Church.
"You got the bomb?"
"Actually, no. I think Tucker had it for a while." Spade then moved over to Tucker.
"PFC Tucker, do you have the bomb?"
"Nah, that thing was too big to carry around all the time. I wasn't going to drag it through the jungle all day, so I gave it to Tex." Now slightly angry, Spade moved to Tex.
"Freelancer, do you-." Spade was cut off with Tex's soft "no".
"What do you mean, no? You're the most combat worthy member of the whole damn Blue Team and you can't carry a bomb the size of a soccer ball?"
"It's too heavy."
"WHAT?!" Spade yelled.
"I don't have the upper body strength to carry that kind of weaponry, it's made of a super dense miniature nuclear fusion core capable of putting out ten megatons of explosive power and-."
"Who did you give it to?" Spade asked, sighing.
"I gave it to Caboose. Turns out he's the only one with the upper body strength to lug that thing around."
"FINALLY!" Spade's visor flickered again. Spade, now more annoyed than ever, tore off the helmet and threw it into the rucksack he was carrying on his back filled with supplies, ammunition, etc. and walked over to Caboose.
"Caboose, do you have the bomb?"
"Yes I do, Commander Two-of-Hearts!"
"What?" Spade asked, annoyed, only to have Church answer, "Caboose doesn't do names! When he forgets someone's name, he just makes one up!"
"Well then, Caboose, give me the bomb."
"Sorry Major Diamond, I can't do that."
Spade almost tore his own hair out. "Why… Not?"
"Because the Sergeant guy in the duck helmet told Church not to give the bomb to anyone not dressed in armor that wasn't any of our colors, or him, and you aren't the duck helmet guy."
"Oh god damnit!" Spade shouted, then hauled the helmet out of his backpack and put it on. "Private Caboose, give me the damned bomb!"
"No, Sergeant Ducky."
"Why the hell not!?" Spade yelled over the comm.
"You didn't say the magic word." Caboose said in a low, almost annoyed monotone.
"Give me the bomb now?" Spade said, gritting his teeth.
"Nope."
"Now, damnit?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Now, please?"
"Okay!" Caboose gave the bomb a gentle toss to Spade, who caught it in both hands and stomped back over to the radio set. He was muttering angrily when he got to the radio set about "incompetent bastards not being able to do anything right" and "Sarge and Tex are the only good soldiers in the damn squad" and "why didn't I transfer when I had the chance" and that kind of thing while he put the bomb together.
After an extended segment of cursing and bomb deployment, Spade pressed the charge primer into the bomb's interior and walked away from it.
"We have a minute. Pelican's waiting outside. I suggest we start running." Spade bolted first, and everyone else followed.
Caboose stepped on the floor of the Pelican just as the timer on the bomb hit :30, and the door immediately swung shut.
"Time to go, pilot! Move it!" Spade said, pounding the Marine in the back of his head.
"Twenty-five seconds!" Sarge said loudly from the passenger's cabin. The Pelican jerked awkwardly into the air.
"Twenty seconds!" Sarge yelled as the Pelican swooped low over the water treatment facility.
"Sarge! You're late by ten seconds!" Grif shouted. "We only have ten seconds left!"
By now Spade was becoming very nervous. Usually hot evacs like this one never took as long as they did. "Pilot, hurry it up!" Spade shouted from the co-pilot's seat.
"I'll do my best, sergeant, but something is keeping me over the treatment plant!" The pilot shouted. "Some sort of interference with the control surfaces!"
"Three! Two! One! Contact!"
There was a shockwave, the Pelican shook hard, and Spade blacked out.