Author's Note: Happy Bungie Day, folks! Enjoy this one!
CHAPTER 07
DATE/TIME UNKNOWN, ESTIMATED TIMESTAMP 1348 HOURS, 18 DECEMBER 2551 (UNSC MILITARY CALENDAR)
SLIPSPACE, EN ROUTE TO UNCHARTED CONVENANT-CONTROLLED SYSTEM
ON BOARD PROWLER UNSC DEAD OF NIGHT
Non-feeling was a curious sensation to experience, David decided as he opened his eyes. He blinked the stiff muscles of his eyelids at the illogic of the conclusion, but then shelved it at the back of his mind. There was only one reason to call Scavenger out of cryo. They were needed.
As the transparent lid of his pod opened, David fought the urge to retch for just an instant- and then spent the next five seconds hacking and coughing as he coughed out a very specific chemical anti-freeze compound designed to prevent the moisture in living tissue from freezing and crystallizing inside the cryo chambers. While it worked unfailingly, the method in which it was to be expelled was… unpleasant, even to Spartans.
His lungs clear, he moved to a clothes rack and quickly pulled on a PR top and leggings, all the while making sure his eyes were focused anywhere but the side of the room where he'd come from. Years of waking up from cryo had made dressing a throughly nondescript experience, but Sierra, ever the regulations hawk, had insisted that every member of Scavenger be as discreet as possible. As such, David made sure his eyes were averted.
Now clothed, he walked, with Scavenger at his back, to the prowler's tiny armory. Most UNSC warships had, at this point, a dedicated room with apparatus designed for the attachment and removal of MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor. Prowlers, though, being the smallest of all UNSC warships, did not have such facilities. As such, two dozen technicians stood, tools in hand, around the room. Within such a cramped space, David very much doubted that donning the armor would be the one- or two-minute business it usually was.
Slipping on the form-fitting skinsuit was no problem for Scavenger, and neither were the gel layer or the titanium ballistic layer. The two-hundred-twenty-four kilogram titanium outer layer, though, was a different story.
The ONI technicians worked as quickly and efficiently as they could in the cramped space of Dead of Night's armory, fitting and sealing each component of the self-sustaining, vacuum-capable armor with only a minimal number of collisions. Within five minutes, the suit was assembled and powered up, and David flexed his armored fingers, adjusting himself to the slight difference in force necessary to accomplish certain tasks, caused by the force-multiplying system the armor possessed. Slipping on and sealing his helmet, he silently left the room with the rest of his fire team, his helmet occasionally brushing the low ceilings. He counted himself lucky- Celia had to bend her knees to move through the ship's tight corridors.
Shortly thereafter, the six Spartans appeared on the stealth ship's command deck. As it was, space was limited. With Scavenger in the room, everyone attempted to make do as well as they could without moving around. David was reminded of a phrase a Marine had used once, "tight as a can of sardines", if he remembered correctly.
"Ah, Lieutenant," the ship's captain said in greeting, "good to see you and your team are up. We've arrived."
"Yes, sir," Sierra replied after a split-second's hesitation. Only the previous month, a field commission had been granted to Sierra, making her a Lieutenant, Junior Grade in the Navy's Special Warfare branch. David's IFF tag now identified him as an Ensign, while the rest of Scavenger had been promoted to Chief Petty Officers. While David hadn't questioned it, it struck him as odd that the Class-I Spartans had fought in the UNSC for the better part of twenty-six years without a single one becoming an officer. Someone in ONI had to be pulling strings, and David accepted that, although the new rank took a little getting used to after five years of responding to 'Petty Officer'.
"Put the feed from camera One on the main," the captain ordered, and a planet, mostly white in color with interspersed patches of blue and yellow-green, appeared on the bridge's largest viewscreen.
"Intercepted and decrypted Covenant transmissions identify this planet as 'Faithful Observance'," he continued, pausing only for a breath, "and we were lucky enough to track a Covenant ship here with a Slipspace telemetry probe. There is a Covenant military presence on the planet, although its exact size and status remain unconfirmed. But that's not why you're all here. TACMAP, please."
The image flashed, replaced by a three-dimensional grid that covered the planet, which zoomed in to focus on a small landmass in the southern hemisphere, a yellow-green patch surrounded by blue. The view closed in further, until the bulbous, rounded shapes of Covenant military structures could be individually picked out, the paths between them laid out like a spider's web. David squinted ever so slightly, and he saw the individual Elites and Grunts moving between the buildings, frozen in time at the moment of the snapshot.
"Target Area November," the captain announced, "is the largest military base on the planet. The base is protected by its own battle group- a carrier and three frigates move in geosynchronous orbit over the installation. That's enough firepower to take out anything you'd care to cram into that space, and then some. The base itself has all the defensive measures we've seen in our engagements against the Covenant, and it's quite possible that there will be some that we haven't seen. Zoom further."
The buildings and the ground around it grew in size and detail, until only one was visible. David could actually make out distinct weathering patterns and scratched on the masonry.
"November Four. Triangulation of Covenant communications signals has singled out this building as their equivalent of a UNSC NAV database and more. Deployment orders, force strength, locations of Covenant and human-controlled systems that they have identified- November Four is, put simply, a gold mine. This is your target, and given its status, you will not be destroying it."
David blinked in surprise, the motion hidden behind his polarized visor. Spartans and destruction tended to go hand in hand; while the association irked him slightly, he had to admit that it was fairly accurate.
"You will be delivering this," the captain held up a sliver of data crystal, "into the Covenant system. This is a fourth-generation 'smart' AI, answering to the name Siriana. She is a virtual saboteur- she'll hack through their systems and take that intel. That much you can count on." He held out the crystal. Sierra took it between two fingers, then moved to slot the crystal into her helmet's data port, but the captain placed his hand on hers, stopping her.
"I wouldn't."
"Sir?"
"Your armor hasn't been tested for full systems support- it can read a mission log or data card fine, but you might blow out your systems putting an AI in there. Besides, Siriana's carrying an Armageddon's worth of viruses behind a few firewalls in there- you don't want that around your software."
"Viruses, sir?"
"Siriana will release them into the Covenant Battle Net once that intel is downloaded. If any computerized system even attempts to make remote contact with Covenant forces on the planet once they're about, it will go down. Now, ordnance…" at this, Hayden's head snapped from staring straight ahead to look directly at the captain's lined face, "You'll be equipped with an additional weapons system to assist in your insertion."
David frowned. Weapons system? Unless it crashed directly into something on the ground, a Long-Range Single Occupant Exo-atmospheric Covert Insertion Vehicle, or stealth pod for short, could not be counted as a weapon.
"Once we're in high orbit," the officer continued, "Dead of Night will be releasing a single F102 Condor drone into the atmosphere. The drone will be piloted from the ship, and it will be carrying four ANVIL-II air-to-surface missiles for use against a mark of your choice. Pick your targets carefully. As for extraction… you saw it on your way in. Any questions?"
Scavenger might as well have been six marble statues.
"Good. Get to your pods- you'll be dropping in ten. Good luck, and godspeed."
At a nod from Sierra, Scavenger left the room as quietly as they had entered, and made a beeline for the Dead of Night's drop bay.
Four HEVs sat in their clamps on each side of the room, doors open, but with weapons already secured to holders in the pods' sides. Each member of Scavenger went to the the pod with weapons they had selected. David clambered into the slightly cramped pod. To his left, an MA5B rested comfortably in its holder, and on his right, an M7S suppressed submachine gun. David frowned as he took his measure of the weapon. Logan had always been more inclined towards the SMG than him, but Sierra had insisted (with ONI's backing) on weapons that allowed for what she called 'controlled target suppression'. As such, he'd had to leave his M90 shotgun behind.
"Systems check," said a familiar voice from the pod's internal speaker, albeit one that David hadn't heard in years.
"Graves?" David asked out loud.
"We meet again, Scavenger. Good to see you all. Now- sound off."
"Scavenger One, all lights are green."
"Two, ready to go," David said.
"Two-Five-Seven, all set."
"Scavenger Four here."
"Five- everything looks good."
"This is Six- I am a-okay."
David smiled. Five years of open war had… tempered Hayden somewhat. While he was still quick to comment on many things, he was no longer as outwardly flippant as he'd been during training. It was good for the rest of Scavenger, especially considering he and Sierra no longer fought as much. Still, David thought… there was something different about him now, as if something was absent from the Hayden he now knew.
He pushed that thought aside. Reflections on how they had all changed could wait.
Graves' voice crackled through the speakers once again. "Launching in five… four… three… two… one… pods away."
There was a slight jerk as the metal teardrop was released from its perch inside the undersized drop bay, and the prowler's brown-gray hull rushed by in an instant. David looked out of his pod's front now- aside from the telltale blink of a single hull light, and the tiny spark of reflected illumination on the armor of the customized Pelican dropship David knew to be attached to the underside of their prowler, there was nothing except inky blackness.
After roughly two seconds, it kicked in. Logan's pod was the first to disappear, consumed by an instantaneous flash of white light. Then Celia's pod vanished too.
The transition to 'real' space hit David's pod with the force of a small bomb, bucking the tiny vehicle back and forth and crashing its occupant into the pod's front, in spite of safety restraints. Titanium foil and ceramic coatings sparked and peeled as they were tested by the tear between dimensions. The radiation counter in David's MJOLNIR armor clicked and beeped wildly as neutrinos bombarded the precise sensors. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. David and his relatively intact pod were now once again surrounded by inky darkness, only now a large round shape occupied most of the space below them. The line that represented the horizon was perfectly clear- night on one side, day on the other. It was as if someone had eaten half a pie off a jet black plate.
His COM crackled to life. It was Sierra. "Report in," Scavenger's leader ordered.
David's finger rested itself gently on the 'SPEAK' button. "Scavenger Two- made it out okay-" it was then that David noticed something. A slight hissing. He glanced quickly around the pod, checking for a breach or crack, but this rapid search did not reveal anything. But still, that hiss. He cleared his throat.
"My pod's leaking O2. Pressure sensors haven't registered it, so I doubt I'll run out."
"Good. Everyone else?"
"This is Three- I'm okay."
"Four- got a leak too. Half a percent every minute. I'll be fine."
"Scavenger Five- I'm all right."
Silence.
"Six? Scavenger Six, report in."
Still nothing. David looked out of his pod, craning his neck to try and get a better view. Aside from his own, he could only spot four other HEVs.
And then, as if for dramatic effect, a burst of purple-white light clove the darkness, and Hayden's pod leapt from the Slipstream to join his teammates.
"Don't know what the hell happened," was the first thing David heard, followed by, "but I'm here now."
"Good. All right, we'll just coast in. Follow standard drop procedure once we hit the atmosphere. Confirm."
David blinked his acknowledgement light green once. The rest of Scavenger repeated the move.
The next half hour passed uneventfully. True, Celia and Jacob had been forced to fire their maneuvering thrusters momentarily to avoid the Covenant warships holding position over their target, but David would have taken that over being inserted under heavy fire any day, preferring very much to have his feet on the ground before being shot at.
The boosters fired without a problem, and the chute engaged without much fuss. Before he knew it, David was stepping through the now-open doorway to his pod. The door itself lay several meters away, thrown there by the shaped charges mounted on its frame. David noted his acknowledgement light was green- he kept it that way. With a light tug, he pulled the M7S out of its rack and slapped it onto the magnetic panel on his left thigh. His MA5B soon sat in his hands, his grip on the rifle's handle tight.
Miraculously, the drop had not scattered Scavenger over a wide area. Lucky thing, David thought. Any more scatter and the pods would have landed in the sea surrounding the island, and they had cut it close as it was. David's boots sank slightly in dry sand as he turned on the spot. The water lapped back and forth in tiny waves not fifty meters away, punctuated by rumbling and crashing as larger breakers crested towards the shore.
David took off, running towards the IFF signatures that represented Scavenger, his four-hundred kilogram form making only light pats as they contacted the earth beneath him on his earth-gouging sprint. The twilight landscape seemed to part before him, endless night underneath a dark sky- there was no moon. After seven minutes of running at thirty-six kilometers per hour, bulbous structures rose in the distance, but of more immediate interest was a crouched figure in MJOLNIR just ahead, his armor almost completely hidden in the darkness and the light undergrowth. His IFF tag read SPARTAN-196.
David moved to Logan's side, stopping as his fellow Spartan raised his right fist, the side with his thumb facing forward.
"We're waiting until everyone's in position," he said in a low, gravelly whisper. David nodded his understanding. Three lights on his display were lit up: Logan's, Sierra's, and his own. As he waited, three more dots of green flickered to life. It was then that TEAMCOM crackled to life, but it wasn't a Spartan who spoke.
"Condor drone en route, ETA three minutes. Standby." Graves' voice then cut out, and Sierra spoke next.
"Set mission clocks to countdown mode, three minutes on my mark. Mark."
David blinked, confirming a three minute countdown on his heads-up display. He took the time to inspect his gear and weapons. No problems, as ever. One of the better things about older UNSC equipment models was that they rarely broke down in the field- stories flew about MA5B rifles that had been dumped in sewers, swamps, and even one that had been driven over by a Warthog, but could still be aimed and fired without a hitch.
When the timer read two minutes, TEAMCOM crackled to life again.
"Three, visual status. Go."
"Seven patrols, three Jackals and one Elite each. Video surveillance covers the area- I spot sixteen cameras, more may be out there, over."
"Ammo bunkers?"
"No guards, and I've got a clear line of effect."
"Good. Mark Tango One."
"Copy that."
"The barracks?"
"Negative, no visuals."
"We'll get it from closer in. Two, Four, Five, get set to move on my go. Out."
Graves' voice seemed to slide out of nowhere. "Ninety seconds. One target marker received."
Preparations continued. Hayden was next. "Six, are you in position?" Sierra asked over TEAMCOM.
"Locked, loaded and ready to go," was Hayden's reply.
"Good. Move on your time- you're not fixed."
"Best thing I've heard all day."
"Sixty seconds, Spartans."
This was it. "Two, Four, Five- go."
David and Logan rose and moved as one, running towards the cluster of buildings that was the Covenant military base. As they neared it, David clapped his rifle onto his back and pulled out the suppressed submachine gun, sighting the nearest Elite down the reflex scope mounted on its top railing. As he aimed for the creature's head, the image was enhanced to double its size.
"Nice," David murmured, without really thinking it.
"Yeah," came Logan's growling reply. "Beats those iron sights on the shotgun any day."
David blinked. Had he said that out loud?
As he and Logan sprinted, TEAMCOM came on.
"Thirty seconds."
"Three- clear a path."
"Copy that."
A series of muffled thumps sounded in the distance, four in all. In timing with those thumps was the sight of one of the patrols dropping into the dirt, one by one. There was a brief pause, and then another quartet of thumps, followed by four more Covenant troops hitting the ground.
"Fifteen seconds. One target marked."
David quickened his pace, and Logan did the same. Sweat actually gathered on the Spartan's brow as he reached, and then exceeded, forty kilometers per hour. This was going to be close.
"Ten seconds."
David felt his breathing quicken, and his hands tightened almost imperceptibly on the grip of his SMG.
"Five seconds. Firing one ANVIL missile."
David saw it. A small orange tail of fire erupted somewhere in the distance, making its way towards one of the Covenant structures, which was now highlighted in red on his heads-up display. In the span of several seconds, the missile streaked towards the Covenant ammunition depot, its armored head punching through the wall before its high explosive payload went off. The force of the blast ripped through wall, door and empty space alike, igniting fusion cores and plasma batteries inside the rounded building. Flames flew upwards towards the sky as a hundred thunderbolts split the silence and a wave of superheated air rippled outwards, distorting shapes and colors in the thousand-degree haze. Elites and Jackals, brandishing weapons, ran pell-mell towards the burning bunker, eyes wide and grips tight. They surrounded the building, looking for a perpetrator, their patrols around the base's perimeter forgotten, if only for a few seconds.
Their way clear, David and Logan charged, unnoticed, into the breach.