Now For Chapter 3, Sam's POV!
Our Pelican docked aboard the UNSC Infinity, or to us, home and the biggest darn ship humans have ever made. After debriefing with Spartan Miller and Palmer, we headed to Spartan Town. This portion of the ship, located in the underside of the hull, was the residential quarters, armory, and armor fitting room for all Spartans aboard Infinity. In other words, home aboard home.
I always liked this place. As soon as our team exited the shipwide tram, we were greeted by the armor room. This massive space housed hundreds of robotic rings designed specifically for the putting on and taking off of MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor. As we each marched to our own rings, a few of the specialists activated the robo-halos. The arms got to work, unhinging or screwing all the latches, and packing the armor away to be sent to our quarters. All except for Jacob, who had his special-order E.O.D. Armor sent to the ship's reserve. As the armor came off, I couldn't help but feel refreshed in the cool air of the room.
This was one of the more brightly lit portions of Infinity, never dim, but bright and often busy. Now, though, there was not much activity. Our mission with the Needle carrier was the reason Infinity was in this system, aside from a few isolated operations, there was no one currently deployed. As soon as our remaining Spartans got back from the planet, Infinity would exit it's hiding place from behind the planet's moon and make a trip back to earth.
After unarming, we went back to our quarters. Though compact, they were comfortable. I shared a room with Mick, mainly due to personal preferences. He and I were good friends. While he went immediately into the bathroom to take a shower, I flopped down on our bunk bed, and picked up my holopad. Until further notice or our arrival at Earth, Fireteam Storm would be resting.
I activated the holopad, unlocked, and launched the program linked to the Infinity's Operations and status. Out of curiosity, I clicked on 'Spartan Deployment' and 'Operations In-Progress.' Hm, only 2 operatives active. One was Fireteam Castle, sent to set up a surveillance drone, and the other….. Instead of a Fireteam name, it said only 'S-Construct.' Wonder who that could be….
Switching To S-Construct POV...
Well this was not how I expected my day to go. Stuck in the left bay of a Spirit dropship, captured by Covenant. Thank goodness that they didn't notice my Warthog, located only a hundred feet away.
I had been on a stealth mission, supposed to eliminate a small plasma stock not too far from a larger outpost. Unlucky for me, a jackal had gotten separated from his patrol – and run into me, crawling around in the rocks. And of course, this jackal had a hidden com unit, and by the time he laid dead, the alarm was out. Before I knew it, I suddenly had a squad of elites and a whole mess of grunts after me. All of which were told to take me alive. Not to mention a pair of aforementioned Spirits. So much for stealth, darn Jackal.
I figured that rather than blast through them and bring more attention from the outpost to me, I would let them take me with little resistance, in which I made sure to eliminate no one but the few jackals in the group. I knew that they were already riled up about anything human, based on Fireteam Storm's mission I had heard about, and the muffled BOOM I heard an hour ago.
The Spirit's deployment bay was dark, and a little cramped. Sure, I had plenty of headroom, as it was designed to hold even taller Elites, but there was little room to move around, especially as I was confined. From the looks of it, this Spirit was modified to hold prisoners. I had activated my ROGUE helmet's tracking, and radioed in to Infinity, telling them I may be a bit late. I looked out my tiny viewport, and saw we were approaching a small purple building. Well, hey, was that plasma stacked up outside? Looks like the Covies had ferried me straight to my target, perfect! The hatch opened, and I was roughly shoved into the building. Great, yet another dim and depressing purple space.