The large circular door on the bottom of the ship opened up and the five taskforce members hovered up through it into a large dimly lit rectangular shaped room with two doors along the wall ahead of them and another two on the wall behind them. One large light green door was on the left wall and another large light green door was on the right wall. Scattered around the room were several small shapes they could easily make out as ghosts.
Then, the door below them closed and, as if someone had flicked a switch, the five hovered down to the floor.
"Alright, we're in," Marcus said, looking around the dimly lit room, keeping his battle rifle close in case they were to be attacked. "Now we just have to find a way to their bridge and then there, we can look for any Intel on why they're here,"
"Question is: what door do we use?" Stinger asked him, looking around at all the doors of the room. "Any of them could lead anywhere,"
"We'll just have to guess," Alice piped up. "Guess and hope that the one we pick leads to the bridge,"
Whilst the three talked, Tanya and Tyler were glancing around them to make sure no Covenant were trying to sneak up on them. They had heard that if any marines had boarded a Covenant ship, they had very little chance of returning alive from it.
Then, a small beep echoed behind Tanya and she turned to see one of the doors on the forward wall, the one nearest the right wall, open up to reveal a corridor with a silver floor, pink walls and it was going up at a bit of an angle. Then, an object hovered into view from up the corridor, coming to a halt in the doorway, and Tanya lost her breath. It was an energy sword, but who was carrying it?
Then, as the object suddenly moved quickly towards them, it hit her.
"Watch out!" she shouted.
The others turned and saw the coming threat and fired at the air next to the sword. The sword suddenly rose up a little before going back down and a roar erupted from it. Crackles of electricity followed and a figure began to form. When it had formed, the group saw it was an Elite in silver armour. It had it's free hand over It's chest where purple blood was seeping through it's fingers. Marcus fired a final burst of ammo at the creature, hitting it the head and throwing the Elite backwards onto the floor, dead.
"Alright, where do we go now?" Tyler asked.
"Down there," Marcus replied, nodding towards the now open corridor the Elite had entered the room from.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tanya asked him. "What if there's more of them down there,"
"We'll just have to take the risk," Marcus told her. "This could be the only door that's unlocked here,"
He ran towards the door; the rest of the squad followed. When they reached the corridor, which led to a large corridor that went both ways, they ran up the corridor towards the end. When they reached it, they looked both left and right. Left led to another door and right led to a turning that went left, where to was unknown. More Covenant? A hanger? They did not know.
"Which way do we go now?" Tyler asked.
Marcus muttered under his breath as he looked left and right, trying to decide which way to go. Either one of them might lead to the bridge but there was going to be more Covenant on one way to it than the other.
Finally, Marcus made his decision. "Go right," he said and he ran down towards the turning; the rest of the squad followed. When they reached the turning, they ran right down into another corridor that was about half as long as the corridor they had just left. At the end was a circular shaped turning with a kind of metallic pipe that ran through the middle of the turning. The walls were purple with a silver ceiling and there were several C-like shaped pillars connected to the walls with holographic controls hovering between the top and bottom ends. Another corridor was visible on the right wall. The squad ran down the corridor to the turning.
"ENEMY!"
Suddenly, a barrage of light green blasts flew down the corridor towards them. Marcus and Tanya dived behind the large metallic pipe. Stinger and Alice hid behind one of the pillars to the left of the entrance to the next corridor and Tyler behind a pillar to the right of the entrance to the next corridor. Marcus poked his head out from behind the pipe and looked down the corridor to see that it had four smaller corridors leading off it, three on the left side and one of the right, with another door at the end. Also in the corridor was a minor Elite with four minor Grunts and they firing down the corridor to try and pin down their enemies and kill them.
"How many?" Tanya asked.
"One Elite and four Grunts," Marcus replied as he blind fired a burst of ammo down the corridor at the Covenant.
A roar erupted from down there somewhere, obviously being the Elite, but he dared not look out and see if the creature was down or not. A few more bursts of ammo exploded in the turning, followed by a high pitched yell. That was one Grunt dead, but the rest of the Covenant were not going to go down as easy.
"Look out! They're throwing a grenade!" Stinger shouted all of a sudden.
Marcus looked out from behind the pipe and saw a small blue object heading towards them. Panic instantly filled him. If that thing landed in this turning, then they were dead.
Then, before Marcus could react, Tyler swung his battle rifle at the deadly device, hitting it and launching it back down the corridor towards the Covenant, who immediately began to panic and dived for cover as the grenade landed in the corridor.
BOOM! A loud explosion filled the air, followed by a blinding light blue light that made the squad hide their heads behind the wall. A second passed before it finally faded and they looked out from behind their cover to see the minor Elite lying dead just in the turning that led into the second smaller left corridor along the left wall. Another Grunt, that had tried running down the corridor to get away from the grenade, had also been killed.
"AAAHHH! LEADER DEAD! RUN AWAY!" one of the last two Grunts screamed as they ran out of the corridor on the right wall down the corridor towards the door at the end. The squad fired on them, killing both of them.
The squad ran down the corridor towards the end. As they passed each of the smaller corridors, they saw that they were only about ten feet long with a locked door at their ends. No wonder why the Covenant had not tried to flee to get reinforcements, but then again, even if the doors were unlocked, they had probably had orders to hold their positions and they could not go against them or that would be seen as going against the orders of their superiors and they could well and truly be given a death sentence, or worse, named a heretic to the Covenant and that was, to them, a great sense of shame and dishonour.
When the squad reached the doorway, the door beeped loudly and opened, revealing a huge room that was also dimly lit with a pathway that ran along the left wall to a door at the end. Several pillars ran down from the ceiling and past the pathway to the floor below. The floor, about twenty five feet below, had several large shapes scattered across and along the walls on the ground floor of the room were several doors, two on the left wall and two on the right. As the squad moved onto the pathway, the door closing behind them and cutting off the last supply of light into the room, they saw several figures moving down on the floor below. By the looks of it, they looked like Elites and Grunts. Then, a figure with a green shield appeared from behind one of the large shapes. A Jackal.
"Looks like we're gonna have another fight on our hands," Tyler muttered.
"We'll have to surprise 'em," Marcus replied, whispering so as not to attract attention from the Covenant. "Tanya, Stinger and Alice, you stay up here and provide covering fire. Tyler, you come with me. We're gonna try and get down there and surprise them,"
Tyler nodded and followed Marcus down the pathway to the door at the end whilst Alice, Stinger and Tanya crouched down and aimed their weapons down at the Covenant on the floor, ready to fire when the order was given.
The door beeped loudly and opened as Marcus and Tyler approached it, revealing a shot corridor that went down at a bit of an angle towards a kind of intersection at the bottom about twenty feet away. The walls were a dark red/orange colour with a silver ceiling. The forward exit of the intersection led to a door that was locked, as did the left exit as Marcus and Tyler could see the edge of the door. To the right was a corridor. The two ran down the corridor and ran right into the next corridor, which went down at a bit of an angle, where another turning led right into another corridor. The two ran down the corridor to the end.
Suddenly, as they turned into the next corridor, they ran into a group of three Jackals. Before they could raise their weapons, one of the Jackals launched itself at them, pushing Marcus to the floor, knocking his weapon out of his hand, and pinning him down by placing It's sharp clawed feet on his arms and It's knee on his chest as it grabbed his neck and began to chock him. Tyler tried to intervene, but was knocked to the floor, also having his weapon knocked out of his hand, by another Jackal that also pinned him down and began to choke him. The third Jackal screeched loudly and raised a fist into the air, obviously encouraging his comrades to kill them.
Marcus tried to throw the creature off him but the Jackal dug It's claws into his shoulder, making him cry out. The Jackal let out a low and long screech as it clutched down tighter on Marcus' neck. His vision was fading and his breaths were getting weaker. He had to do something or he and Tyler were dead!
It was then he realised that he could still move his legs. The Jackal had not pinned them down so he had an advantage.
Bringing up his leg, he brought it back as hard as he could into the Jackal. The impact must have hurt the creature badly because as soon as he hit it, the Jackal screeched loudly and, immediately letting go of Marcus' neck, collapsed onto him. Seeing his chance, Marcus threw the Jackal off him into his comrade standing between him and Tyler, knocking them both to the floor. The Jackal on Tyler screeched in surprise but before it could react, Marcus grabbed his weapon and fired a burst of ammo at the Jackal, hitting it in the side and throwing it off Tyler onto the floor, leaving a pool of purple blood on the wall. Marcus then fired another two bursts of ammo at the other two Jackals as they tried to return fire, hitting and killing them both.
Tyler coughed loudly as he massaged his neck with his hand.
"You alright?" Marcus asked him.
"Y-(cough)-yea-(cough)-yeah," he replied, coughing slightly as he sat up and picked up his weapon. He took a deep breath and stood up. "What do you think they were doing?" he asked Marcus, looking down at the bodies of the Jackals.
"No idea," he replied, also standing up. "We better keep moving," he said.
"I just hope the Covenant didn't hear this,"
Marcus nodded in agreement. "So do I,"
The two ran down the corridor, which was going down at a bit of an angle, to a flat section of the corridor at the end.
When the two reached the flat area of the corridor, they saw it led to a door at the end with another corridor coming off on the right wall about half-way down the corridor. If the corridor layout was correct, then it would lead to one of the doors on the bottom floor of the room. The two ran down the corridor to the next corridor on the right wall and ran down that one. Ahead of them at the end was an open doorway that showed a large dimly lit room with a large shape about five metres from the doorway.
Marcus stopped a few feet from the doorway and motioned for Tyler to wait and he crept down the corridor to the doorway and looked around. He could see Alice, Stinger and Tanya standing on the top walkway and, looking ahead of him, he could see several large figures that he could make out as Elites and Grunts. Another Jackal was standing guard behind another object underneath the pathway, looking around the room. They were in perfect striking position. Now it was time to surprise the Covenant.
"Okay," Marcus said, stepping back a few paces and looking over his shoulder at Tyler. "The others are in position and the Covenant don't know we're here,"
"Good," Tyler replied, walking up next to Marcus. "Let's kill 'em,"
The two stepped towards the doorway and aimed out at the nearby Covenant. They placed their fingers on their weapons' triggers, chose their targets and fired.
A barrage of gunfire exploded in the air as Marcus and Tyler fired on the Covenant. Almost immediately afterwards, Stinger, Tanya and Alice open fired on the Covenant as well. The screams of the Elites and Grunts and the screeches of the Jackals filled the air, almost completely overtaking the noise of the gunfire, as they were hit and fell, riddled with bullets.
After about a minute, the gunfire died down and Marcus stepped out of the corridor into the room and looked up at his squad members above him.
"Nice work, guys," he called. "Come down here,"
The three nodded and ran down the pathway, disappearing from sight as they ran through the doorway.
When they had disappeared, Marcus began to look around the room at the doors to try and find a way out of this room. Where were they to go? Any one of these doors could lead anywhere and word of them boarding the ship would have spread all over it by now.
"Where do we go now?" Marcus muttered under his breath. "Where do we g-"
"LOOK OUT!" Tyler yelled and fired a burst of ammo past Marcus, hitting and killing a Jackal that had run out of the door nearest the right end along the wall ahead of them (the left wall of the room as the two had come out of the door nearest the front wall on the right wall). Marcus looked at the door where the Jackal had emerged from and saw it was now open, revealing the corridor on the other side.
"Alright, we'll go that way," he said.
"You guys alright?" a voice said from the corridor behind them and the two looked to see Stinger, Tanya and Alice emerge from the corridor.
"We heard shooting," Tanya said.
"It's alright, just a Jackal," Tyler replied. "We found a way out of here. Through there," he pointed over to the open doorway on the opposite wall ahead of them.
"Let's go," Marcus piped up and he ran over towards the doorway; the rest of the squad followed.
When they ran through the doorway into the corridor, which was about twenty feet long a silver floor and ceiling but had green walls and went down at a 110 degree angle to a longer corridor at the end that led both left and right, Marcus suddenly stopped and held up his hand, signalling the others to stop as well.
"What is it?" Stinger asked him.
"I hear something," Marcus replied. "Wait here,"
He crept down the corridor towards the end. When he reached it, he poked his head out from behind the wall and looked left but saw nothing but another locked door with the other corridor, on the left side of the corridor about ten feet from the door, leading up to the other door along the wall in the room. Nothing that way. He looked right and saw the source of the noise he had heard.
At the end of this corridor was another circle-like shaped turning with a metallic pipe running down the middle of the turning with more of the C-like shaped pillars placed along the purple walls. Another corridor led off left. However, there were three Grunts standing in the corridor, squeaking and muttering to each other. All were armed with plasma pistols and two of them were minor and the third was a major.
Marcus moved his head back behind the wall and looked back up the corridor at his squad. "Three Grunts, two minors and one major," he whispered to them.
"Should be easy," Alice replied, also whispering.
Marcus nodded and poked his head out from behind the wall again and aimed his battle rifle, aiming for the major. He rested his finger on his battle rifle's trigger and pressed down.
A burst of gunfire exploded in the air, followed by a high pitched yell as the major Grunt fell sideways to the floor, dead. The other two Grunts screamed and ran down the next corridor, waving their arms about in the air in terror. Marcus ran down the corridor to the turning, the rest of his squad following close behind. When they reached the next corridor, which was about fifteen feet long and led to a door, they fired down the corridor at the last two Grunts, hitting and killing them. Marcus then led the squad down the corridor towards the door, which beeped loudly and opened as they approached it, revealing a long corridor, about fifty feet long with a locked door at the end and three side corridors coming off it, two on the right and one on the left.
"HUMANS! KIL LTHEM!"
A barrage of light blue blasts flew down the corridor at the squad, hitting some of them and making their bodysuit's shield light up. The squad members either dived to the floor or into the small side corridor on the right wall a few feet down from them. Marcus, who was lying down on the floor with Tanya, looked up and saw a major Elite standing at the end of the corridor. He raised his battle rifle and fired a burst down the corridor at the creature. It hit the armour of the Elite and disabled It's shield, but before he could fire another burst of ammo to kill it, the creature dived into the other smaller corridor on the right side of the corridor.
"Damn it!" Marcus growled. "We won't be able to get him now,"
"We will if we pin him down long enough," Stinger replied. "Marcus, you and Tanya head down the corridor to the one on the left wall. We'll give you covering fire,"
"How can you be sure that this'll work?"
"Just trust us. Now get ready,"
Marcus sighed. This was a good idea of Stinger, he would admit, but he did not know if it would work. The Elite could easily try and fire down the corridor and see them coming and if it saw them coming, then it would fire on them and kill them. It was risky, but then again it was better than waiting here and trying to hit the Elite.
Marcus sat up and got into a crouching position. Tanya did the same. Marcus nodded at Stinger and he, Alice and Tyler fired down the corridor towards the Elite. Marcus and Tanya ran down the corridor as fast as they could, mentally praying that they would reach the corridor on the left wall before their comrades stopped firing. When they were a few feet from the left corridor, they dived into the corridor, just in time as well as the rest of the squad stopped firing.
Marcus breathed a sigh of relief as he sat up and rested his back against the wall of the corridor.
"That was close," he breathed.
Tanya nodded in agreement and looked past him down the corridor. Just as she did, the major Elite stuck his head out from the corridor to fire at the squad members and saw Tanya, but as he went to fire at her, a burst of ammo from further up the corridor hit him in the head and threw him to the floor, dead.
"Nice one," Tanya commented as Stinger, Alice and Tyler ran down the corridor to her and Marcus
"Thanks," Stinger replied.
Suddenly, a loud beep filled the air and the door at the end of the corridor opened and a Jackal ran in. It screeched loudly when it saw the squad but Marcus fired a burst of ammo at the creature, killing it. He lowered his weapon and looked through the open doorway into another corridor, that was about as half as long as the one they were in and led to another door at the end, though this one was locked. The only other way out through that corridor was another side corridor on the left wall near the locked door at the end.
"Let's go down there," Marcus said. "Try and find a way out of here,"
"And if there's no way out of here down there?" Tanya asked him.
"Then…" he began, but quickly trailed off. What were they to do if there was not another way out of here down there? Both of the doors down there could be locked or lead to nowhere. "Then…" he said again. "I don't know what we're gonna do," he paused for a moment as if trying to think of a final way out of this situation, but to no avail. "Let's go," he said finally and he ran down the corridor. The rest of the squad followed.
When they reached the side corridor, they ran down it towards the door, which beeped loudly and opened. Wow, that was some luck! Ahead of the squad was a dimly lit corridor that led to a dead end. On the right wall near the end was a kind of scanning device.
"Wonder what that is?" Tyler asked.
"A gravity lift," Alice told him. "I've studied the interior of a Covenant ship using stolen plans before. And if I remember correctly, that should take us to directly outside the bridge,"
"Well, we best use it then," Marcus piped up, walking down the corridor towards the end. "And we better be quick before the Covenant try and shut it down," he added.
He stopped in front of the scanning device and rested a hand on it. A loud whirring sound above him filled the corridor and he, along with the rest of his squad, looked up at the ceiling and saw, what looked like, a hole opening and an ever-stretching blackness on the other side of it.
"Anybody want to go first?" Marcus offered.
Nobody stepped forward. He sighed. "Alright, I'll go first," he said.
"Good luck," Stinger said, though not in an encouraging manner.
Marcus gave him an annoyed look and walked into the hole and turned to face his squad. He stood there still, waiting patiently for anything to happen. Nothing happened at first but then, just as he was about to move out from under the hole and rest a hand on the scanning device, he suddenly felt a lifting sensation and he began to hover slowly up into the tunnel as if he had been picked up by a pair of invisible hands. Then, as if he was being sucked into a hover, he shot up into the hole and disappeared from sight. Marcus closed his eyes as he shot up through a long tunnel. The sudden shooting of him up into the hole had made him feel sick. He mentally prayed that this would end soon.
Then, as if his prayers had been answered, he suddenly felt the shooting feeling stop and he felt himself falling again, though it stopped almost as quickly as it came. He opened his eyes and saw himself in a long corridor with silver a floor and ceiling, light green walls and two doors on the wall behind him. To his right, about twenty feet away, was another door that was locked. Left down the other end of the corridor was another corridor, meaning this one was joined onto a main one. Marcus looked down at the floor and saw that the hole had closed and become part of the floor again.
"What news has reached us?"
Marcus gasped and looked left down the corridor to see two large figures run from left to right. Elites. Marcus crept down the corridor to hear what they were saying, which he could make out clearly from even where his was, their deep voices ringing in his ears as they ran down the corridor.
"I have heard that the Human intruders have boarded the vessel," one of the Elites said as Marcus reached the end of the corridor, stopping just short of the turning into the main corridor. "Our shipmaster wants us to flee,"
"What of our sacred mission?" the other asked.
"The zealots have ordered him not to flee so we can still carry it out! I am thankful for doing so! I have heard this could take us to our greatest goal in our quest for the Great Journey!"
As they rounded the turning at the end of the corridor, Marcus began to think about what he had just heard them say. So they were here on some kind of sacred mission, but what did they mean by a Great Journey? And if they're entire mission to Reach was a sacred mission, including the last few days, then why were they looking at the outposts far from the bases? Something was definitely going on here and he had to find out what.
"Whoa!" a voice exclaimed from behind him and Marcus turned to see Tyler shoot up out of the hole and land gently on the floor next to the hole, which closed. "That was quick!" he said.
"Are the others on their way?" Marcus asked Tyler.
"Yeah," he replied. He turned and looked up and down the corridor. "I hope Alice is right. If she is, then the bridge should be around here somewhere,"
Suddenly, the hole opened up again and Tanya shot up and landed next to Tyler.
"Wow," she said, smiling a little as he looked down at the hole, which began to close up and become part of the floor again. "That was actually pretty fun,"
Marcus rolled his eyes and Tyler just smirked.
"What?" Tanya asked them, looking at the two when she saw the looks on their faces.
"Oh, nothing," Tyler replied, pretending to act as if nothing ever happened.
Suddenly, the hole opened again and a voice shouted: "Look out!" and Alice shot up through the hole. Tanya moved out of the way to allow Alice to land safely.
"Thanks," she said. "We must be near the bridge," she added, looking up and down the corridor.
"Must be," Tyler replied. "What do you think, Marcus?" no reply. "Marcus?"
The three looked at their squad leader and saw him looking ahead at the wall as if in a trance, a concerned expression on his face. He looked…worried about something?
"Are you alright, Marcus?" Tyler asked.
Marcus turned his head looked at them and shook his head slightly, blinking several times as if trying to shake himself out of his trance.
"Y-yeah I'm fine," he said.
"Are you sure? You looked worried,"
"Yeah, don't worry. I'm fine,"
"Watch it!"
The hole had opened up again and Stinger hovered out of it and gently floated down to the floor.
"Good, we're all here," Marcus said. "Now we can find the bri-"
A loud screech made them jump and the squad looked up the corridor towards the main one and saw a Jackal standing there. Quick as a flash, they fired a barrage at the creature, hitting it and throwing it to the floor.
"What was that?" a deep voice shouted from somewhere. "Go and find out what it was!"
"That sounded close," Marcus said.
He stepped towards one of the doors on the left wall of the corridor. It beeped loudly and opened. Just as it did, a minor Elite, that had been running over towards the door, suddenly stopped and roared at Marcus, raising It's weapon. Marcus was quicker and he fired two bursts of ammo at the Elite, hitting it in the chest. The bullets easily broke the armour's shield and embedded themselves in the creature's chest. The Elite roared weakly as it fell backwards onto the floor, dead. Marcus lowered his weapon and looked around the room as the other re-joined him.
"This the bridge?" he asked Alice.
"Yep," she replied. "This is it alright,"
The bridge was a large square shaped room with dark blue walls, floor and ceiling with four doors on It's walls, two on the same wall their door was on, one on the right wall and another in the same place as the door on the right wall but on the opposite side of the room. Hovering about fifteen feet in the air in the middle of the room was a large platform with a kind of ramp pathway going up to it from the front of it down to the floor. Around the sides of the platform were more of the C-like shaped purple coloured pillars, with holographic symbols going around the edge of the platform like a ring, stopping at the ends of each of the pillars, both of which were placed at the top of the ramp pathway. Below the platform were two ten foot deep and twenty foot long trenches driven deep into the floor.
"Okay," Marcus said. "Now we need to find out any info on what exactly they're doing here,"
"Let's try those holographic symbols," Alice told him, pointing up at the platform. "They should hold something,"
Marcus nodded and walked towards the platform, the rest of the squad following close behind. As the squad stepped reached the bottom of the ramp pathway, Marcus stopped suddenly, which made the others stop as well.
"What is it?" Stinger asked him.
"Something's not right," he said. "I…just have this feeling that-"
"DIE HUMAN MEDDLERS!"
Suddenly, a figure seemed to shoot up from the platform floor and fired a few light blue blasts at them. It was an Elite. The squad dived for cover, narrowly missing the barrage of deadly blasts and were quick to react. Tanya and Alice fired up at the Elite, hitting it in the chest and side. The Elite roared and fell backwards to the platform floor.
"Nice one, girls," Tyler commented as he, Marcus and Stinger got up and walked up the ramp pathway with Alice and Tanya joining them.
When the squad reached the platform at the top of the ramp pathway, they saw a small pool of purple blood on the floor a few feet from them with a trail leading away from it to the Elite Tanya and Alice had injured. It was dressed in silver armour, making Marcus think that this was the shipmaster he had heard the other two Elites in the corridor talk about. The Elite had the upper part of It's body being held up by It's arm. The other it was using to touch several of the holographic symbols on the ring going around the edge of the platform.
"Hey!" Tyler growled, stepping forward.
The Elite turned to face them and tried to raise It's arm with the plasma rifle, but Tyler fired a shot from his battle rifle, hitting the Elite in the arm. The creature roared in pain and dropped the weapon.
"You may as well give up," Marcus said to the Elite. "Tell us what you're doing here! Why were you digging in the side of that mountain outside the ship?"
The Elite only laughed. "You are too late to know that now," he said, coughing a little as blood began to drip from the wounds on It's chest and side, turning his armour purple. "We shall…complete our sacred mission and…we…will wipe your filth…from the universe! And we will start…with this planet!"
Tyler laughed a little at the Elites' words. "Well, you've got another thing coming, you split lip bastard," he said to the Elite. "You and your Covenant buddies are too late to invade Reach,"
The Elite laughed at Tyler's words and did not stop when it was breathing heavily and coughing slightly.
"N-no!" he laughed. "We…we are j-just…on time!"
The Elite then slammed his hand onto the holographic symbols. At once, a red light appeared at the point where his hand touched the symbol and it turned into a timer. The timer read: 01:50 and was counting down. 01:49. 01:48.
The squad went wide-eyed.
"Shit!" Alice exclaimed upon seeing the timer. "He's activated a timer! The ship's gonna blow!"
"We need to go, now!" Marcus said as he, Stinger and Tanya turned to run out of the room.
Alice joined them, but Tyler decided to finish the elite off. He fired a burst of ammo at the creature, hitting it in the chest, killing it. He then joined the squad as they ran towards the door to the left of the platform.
The door opened as the squad approached it and they ran into the corridor. Marcus ran right down the corridor towards the turning at the end; the squad followed. When they reached the turning, they ran left into a shorter corridor that led to another turning that went right.
"Marcus, do you have any idea where you're going?" Stinger shouted to him, as they turned right into the next corridor.
"I don't know a lot about the interior of a Covenant battle cruiser," he replied. "But if there's one thing I do know, It's that a corridor from the bridge always leads to a hanger,"
The group ran towards the door at the end. It beeped loudly and opened as they approached it and the squad ran through onto a large pathway that was in a large rectangular-like shaped hanger with two pathways going up the back wall, one about a third of the way up, and the second about two thirds of the way up the wall. Coming off the first pathway, which was about twenty five feet above the floor, was a large rectangular block with a pathway on the top of it. The block almost split the floor of the room in two, stopping about fifteen feet from the wall that separated the two large square shaped hanger entrances on the front wall. Four pillars, two on either side of the block ran down from the ceiling, connecting to the sides of the pathway, to the floor and between each pillar was another C-like shaped purple coloured pillar with a few holographic symbols hovering between the two ends.
"I hope there's one here," Marcus said, running across the pathway towards the edge.
"You hope there's one what here?" Tanya asked him as the rest of the squad followed.
"A Covenant drop ship," Marcus replied.
He stopped at the edge of the pathway and looked down…and breathed a sigh of relief.
There, hovering alongside the rectangular block, was a large craft with a large main section with two large L shaped sections sticking out of the sides with the ends pointing towards the hanger entrance. A light blue/green haze was hovering between the two ends. Sticking out of the bottom of the main section was a large sphere with three silver coloured pointed ends sticking out of the side of it. It was the drop ships' turrets. At the moment, it was locked in hovering position.
Marcus ran down the pathway to the pillar nearest him and rested a hand on one of the symbols. The drop ship jolted and hovered up towards the pathway, turning sideways. The side of the L shaped section nearest the pathway opened up.
"Get on board, quickly!" Marcus ordered.
The squad obeyed and ran on the craft. When they were all on, Marcus climbed on after them. The door closed behind him. Just in time as well as the door at the other end of the pathway opened up and a squad of a major Elite and four minor Grunts ran out and fired on the drop ship. A few more Covenant, a mixture of more Elites and Grunts with a few Jackals, appeared out of several other doors along the doors along the hanger floor or ran onto the rectangular block and also fired up at the craft.
Marcus and Alice ran down to the cog pit of the drop ship.
"I'll fly," Alice said.
"Are you sure you know how to fly this?" Marcus asked her as Stinger, Alice and Tyler joined them in the cog pit. Tanya sat down on one of the seats along the walls in front of a control panel that was connected to the ships' turret.
"Positive," Alice told Marcus.
She grabbed the controls and pulled back. The drop ship rose into the air. She then turned the controls left, making the drop ship do the same so the front was facing the hanger entrance. Then, she pushed the control forward and the drop ship flew forward out of the hanger and into the bright sky of the outside world, flying as fast as it could away from the Covenant ship.
On board the ship, the self-destruct timer began to count down to It's final seconds.
00:03…
00:02…
00:001…
As Marcus, Stinger and Tyler sat down on the seats, the squad heard an earth rumbling noise fill the air all of a sudden as if it were a volcano erupting. Then the ship shook slightly for a few seconds before it stopped.
"Well, that's the end for the battle cruiser," Stinger said.
The others laughed a little, all apart from Marcus. He was thinking again, about…about that cave and what the Elites had said. What were the Covenant looking for in that cave and what did those two Elites mean by completing a sacred mission in this 'Great Journey'? It just did not make any sense, at least not at the moment. The Covenant were definitely up to something here. They were looking for something, but if they were apparently getting close to whatever it was here, as Marcus had heard the Elites talk about it, then why did they attack those two outposts. None of that made any sense of what they were doing here as well.
He had to find out what they were doing here, and soon because when the Elite said "No, we are just on time," he could not help but think there were more Covenant coming for them.