Chapter 6: Thruf
So, In the last week I got two reviews in the last week. YAY!
So thanks to Harbinger the Reaper and Foley24 for their reviews. It's nice to have some degree of support.
Longsword fighter, Thruf Orbit, 30th of January 2553,
They cleared the Spearhead's shields and fell into chaos. Lasers and plasma whipped across their vision. Explosions occurred at random. The Master Chief gripped the control sticks of the long sword, executing an aileron roll. A splash of plasma whizzed by the longsword.
They dived into a gap between two cruisers. The cruisers concentrated their firepower apon them, but to no avail. The longsword plunged through and beyond, towards the surface of the planet. Seraph fighters pulled into a dive behind them.
"Enemy fighters locking on." Vala announced
The Chief pulled up and cut the thrusters. The squad of fighters whizzed by, and he reignited the engines and opened fire with the 75mm guns, ripping through the shields of the fighters and sending them spinning away, out of control.
A longsword generally had little space to sit during a flight, but it was faster and nimbler than a pelican, making in invaluable in the fight.
"How's the fight up above?" The Arbiter, Thel, asked.
"The Spearhead's shields are at 58% and the hull is holding. Cortana is still jamming surface communications." Vala replied.
Ever since the two had had the discussion about their past, John couldn't help but think of the Sangheili by his actual name, Thel. He wondered if the Sangheili felt the same.
Thel stood beside the Chief, who was sat in the longsword's pilot seat. There were the sounds of protesting and discomfort from the back, where the rest of the Squad (excluding the hunters) tried to get comfortable in the seatless back, being thrown around as the ship descended through the battle.
Three shots slammed into the aft shields. The impacts sent the beings in the back sprawling.
"Shields down to 74%" Vala announced.
"Dammit." The Spartan muttered, slamming the accelerator lever of the fighter.
The engines screamed and the fighter dived into the atmosphere. The vibrations sent anyone who wasn't strapped down flying. Thel yelled as he slammed into the ceiling and was then thrown to the rear of the longsword.
"Contact with the Spearhead has been lost." Vala announced.
"What?" The Master Chief asked.
"However, the shields were still holding at 24% prior to loss of contact. I'm guessing Cortana engaged the cloaking system." Vala replied.
"Ok. Good. Good... Wait. Is she still jamming the surface COMs?" He asked urgently.
"No. The fleet above is communicating with the bases of this planet. Messages are reg-" Vala suddenly stopped.
"What is it?" He asked, adrenaline spiking in his blood.
"Anti-Air defences across the planet are coming online. Multiple shade turrets locking on to us."
Several plasma shots whizzed by. The Spartan yanked back, executing a backwards roll, and then punching the afterburners and accelerating.
"Sensors have identified the main staging area for the fleet above, As well as multiple AA bases." Vala told him.
"Put us on course for the staging area." He ordered.
"Gladly. However, there is an AA base in between us and the staging area." Vala notified him.
"Then we'll blast our way through." John muttered grimly. "Hang on back there!"
He spared a quick glance back. Jimaenius had been slammed into an empty weapons locker, which didn't appear to have survived well. Zhab was holding on tightly to a sidebar. Thel was standing in the doorway down to lower deck of the fighter, his hands holding onto the frame tightly. The two grunts had been wedged to the ceiling by an impact or two.
The Spartan turned back before they responded. He pulled to the left as a pair of fuel rod shots whizzed by. He searched the ground and then located the AA base. It was a tall tower dotted with Shade turrets and Fuel Rod turrets.
"Arm missiles!" He ordered, lining up the fighter. "Target the base!"
"Nuclear or non-nuclear?" Asked Vala.
"Non-nuclear." The Spartan responded.
A couple of plasma slammed into the shields. The Spartan swore and pulled the craft into a roll.
"Missiles locked." Vala announced.
"Fire at will!" He yelled, and punched the afterburners.
The missiles broke off the wings of the fighter and fell towards the base below. The fighter exploded forward. Shots were fired more intensely at them, but few even came close.
"Time to impact?" John asked.
"Ten seconds." Vala replied. "All six missiles responding."
The fire around them stopped. The Chief activated a rear camera and watched the missiles. The Covenant loyalist turned full firepower towards the missiles, taking down two. The others, however, carrier on unimpeded. They slammed into the AA tower. There were four large explosions, then a series of small blue explosions, which ripped apart the decks of the base, and then plasma flowed from the broken pipes of the tower, dissolving large sections of it.
"Target completely destroyed. Tad bit overkill, but the result is the same." Vala noted.
The Chief was surprised by her comment. It was one of the first times that he'd heard her have any degree of personality. Maybe she wouldn't be a simple deadpan smart AI.
He turned his eyes back to the surface of the planet. He spotted a large flat area surrounded by Covenant walls, along with the occasional building strewn about. A few cruisers lay in the flat. It appeared to be the Covenant staging area or main base.
"Warning." Vala told him, "Enemy AA presence is much stronger here. I recommend landing and entering that way."
The Spartan growled slightly, a lack of professionalism, sure but he was under more stress than he had been in years. He'd never had to fly and longsword through an entire covenant fleet, and then land at their staging area, all the time trying to keep the other occupants of the longsword alive.
He pulled the longsword to the right, tying to avoid the AA from the Covenant base below. He spotted a couple of ships parked on this base, presumably being devices following the battle above. Suddenly, a pair of shots slammed into the shield. They exploded outwards, leaving a dull warning pulse sounding throughout the fighter.
"Shields offline." Vala announced.
An idea hit the Master Chief. It was almost suicidal, so he didn't bother running it through the rest of the Squad. He took the craft into a spin, venting the left afterburner to create the illusion of the craft spinning out of control. There were muffled cries and protests from the others as they were thrown around the back of the fighter.
The fighter angled towards the ground. There was very little AA fire coming after it now, the defences probably assumed that there was no point wasting shots to finish off the falling fighter.
"Vala," John growled over the G-forces, "Focus the shields to the fore to minimise the force of the impact."
Vala was silent for a second, which was worrying considering that AI experienced time at a much slower rate. A second for him was a roughly thousand for an AI.
"Vala?" He asked.
"Aye. On it. Fore shields maximised. Time to impact, 14 seconds." She responded.
She sounded distracted. The Chief wondered by what, but he didn't had the time to ponder it. After all, he had a longsword to 'land'. They tore towards the ground.
"5 seconds." Vala announced.
"Brace!" The Spartan yelled.
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Spearhead of Dawn, Thruf orbit. January 30th, 2553
Cortana was an incredible piece of machinery, being able to compute millions of tasks in a second, being capable of operating a starship with her eyes closed. Metaphorically, at least.
The only thing she was not good at was waiting. Which, ironically, was the one thing she had to do. As she ran another system scan, finding out once again that, guess what, all systems were nominal. Cloak and shields still holding at maximum capacity.
She turned the scanners towards the Covenant fleet drifting around her. She could destroy then all in an instant, but that would defeat the purpose of the exercise, which was to drive the Loyalist presence in the system away, not blow it to pieces. They would leave unaware of the Squad, which Cortana assumed was going to have to shadow the fleet when they left for Loyalist spaces.
The Spearhead was equipped with dozens BOWMEN torpedo pods, Helix AEA guns and two SMACs. The only reason she'd nearly lost the shields was because she'd had to hold back. The cloak was undetectable by the fleet, and the fleet thought they'd blown her up anyway.
They definitely were not ready for Cortana to reappear. Some of them hadn't even reloaded their plasma beams and torpedoes.
Amateurs, Cortana thought. Complete amateurs.
And indeed they were. Most of these brutes had no idea to pilot these ships, let alone fight in cooperation. She couldn't tap into their COMs without attracting attention from the fleet drifting around her. All that she could do was wait.
"Fine." She muttered, even though there was no one there to listen. "I will wait."
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Thruf, crashed longsword, January 30th, 2553
Thel shook his head as he rose from the end of the fighter. There were a number of grunts and groans from across the fighter.
"Sound off." A voice crackled over the COM.
He grunted an affirmative while the others did the same. The fighter seemed to have been wedged in a down and right facing direction.
"Any injuries?" A voice behind him asked.
He shook his head. "No."
"There's a mostly methane atmosphere out there." Vala announced.
"Switch to atmospheric mode." The Spartan ordered. "All except for Liyik and Limid."
Thel walked down a set of stairs and opened the undamaged weapons locker. He spotted his Eva helmet (which looked like Halo: Reach Ranger helmet) and pulled his current helmet off and replaced it with the EVA helmet. The HUD booted up and the combat harness' shields adjusted to their new dimensions.
Jimaenius had also only replaced his helmet as well. Zhab however, had donned a new set of armor. Nearly identical to his other set, when he donned this one, orange plastic coverings erupted from the metal chassis of the harness, sealing the gaps of the suit while still allowing good mobility. The Kig-yar finally donned a helmet with a clear visor. He did not look comfortable in the armor.
Liyid and Limid picked up their fuel rods and hobbled to the bay door of the fighter.
"Thel, Jimaenius, get the nukes." The Master Chief ordered.
Beneath his visor, the Sangheili raised an eyebrow. So he was on actual name calling with the Spartan? Very well.
"Very well, John." The Sangheili responded, picking up one of the two nukes and strapping it to the magnetic clips on his back waist.
Jimaenius gave a grunt of affirmative and did the same. The nukes were here for a single reason. Sabotage. The Squad would smuggle the nukes inside the Covenant base and then detonate. With luck, it would destroy the base, with the Covenant thinking it little more than a reactor failure.
"Everyone ready?" John asked.
Thel flashed his acknowledgement light. The others did the same. The Spartan reached into the console of the fighter and yanked Vala's chip and inserted it into the back of his helmet.
"Pop the hatch." Thel said.
The bay door of the longsword fell. Instantly there was an explosion of noise as the atmosphere of the longsword was replaced by the atmosphere of the planet they were on.
"Move out." John ordered. "Liyik, Limid, take point."
The two grunts shambled out of the fighter and jumped down and out of sight. Thel followed.
He jumped out of the rear of the fighter. His stomach twisted as the artificial gravity of the longsword was cancelled out and the gravity of the planet came into effect. The gravity was low enough to prevent Thel from slamming down into the ground. The Sangheili executed a roll as he touched down.
"What's this planet's gravity?" He asked.
There was a second's silence, and then Vala responded with:
"Gravity appears to be 0.38g. Roughly six times lesser than Sangheilios."
The rest of the Squad climbed out of the fighter. Most landed gracefully, while Zhab landed in a heap, but sprung up uninjured.
"Vala, establish an team COM." The Spartan ordered.
The planet's atmosphere allowed them to speak and hear each other, but the voices were distorted by the atmosphere.
"COM established." Vala notified.
"COM check." John muttered. "Okay. We're good. Vala, drop a waypoint on the Covenant Loyalist base."
She proceeded to do it. The waypoint appeared a few kilometers away.
"Time to stretch our legs." Thel snorted.
Liyik and Limid scuttled ahead with their weapons attached to the back of their methane packs, which weren't even in use, owing to the mostly methane atmosphere.
He followed about three meters behind. He moved slowly as not to bypass the grunts on the point. At normal pace, he could easily overtake them, but he close not to. Jimaenius and John could have done the same as well. He'd noticed something in the sims about them; They were faster than they looked.
Zhab, on the other hand, was also deceptive. He was slower than he looked. The Kig-yar in question stumbled along, clearly suffering in the makeshift EVA gear.
Cortana had done some modifications to their armors using nanites, but she'd only done Thel's and Jimaenius' ones. She'd increased shield strength and improved the body suit below the armor, She'd also added a makeshift neural port in Thel's so he could carry an AI if the situation called for it.
Jimaenius had his shield system changed to recharging energy layer instead of energised body armor, which fell off when overheated.
The air was still and quiet as the team headed towards the waypoint. It should be on the other side of this tall hill they were climbing. The lower gravity made it much easier to climb.
They reached the top of the hill. Below them stood the Covenant staging area. It was surrounded by purple three meter high walls, but was almost unguarded. The only guards were AA towers several meters behind the walls.
The group paused, examining the base below them. After a minute, the Spartan gestured for them to move. The Squad began a slow walk down the hill.
"Faster!" John suddenly growled over the COM. "Get to the walls."
Thel picked up his place, as did John and Jimaenius. The Jiralhanae stopped for a second and seized both Grunts at their shoulders and hefted them along. Thel glanced over for a second at Zhab as he ran full belt after the group, his smaller legs becoming his disadvantage as the rest of his group powered away. They reached the wall of the staging area after a minute. Zhab arrived thirty seconds later, wheezing heavily, clearly suffering from the suit and the exertion.
The rest of the Squad wasn't even winded by the run. Of course, Sangheili and Jiralhanae were naturally tough and John had the Spartan-II augmentations to put himself on par with the two. The Kig-yar simply could not compete with them. Thel decided that he would have to keep the jackal from falling behind. He neglected to tell the Kig-yar about this, though, because he knew that Zhab had a sense of pride and wouldn't take kindly to being hefted along someone.
"Now… How do we get over?" Jimaenius asked.
Thel glanced over at John. The human crouched slightly.
"Up and over." He said, and jumped over the wall.
Thel snorted. Zhab and the grunts attempted to jump over, but they couldn't even in the lesser gravity. Jimaenius reached forward and seized the two grunts over their shoulders again, and then jumped over the wall. Thel reached forward and grabbed the back of the Kig-yar's metal harness and jumped over the wall. They landed right beside the Brute. The Jackal snarled and shook himself free of the Sangheili's grasp.
"I didn't need any help." Zhab snarled.
"Sure." The Sangheili replied.
"Drop it." John warned.
The Sangheili sighed slightly, but let the Kig-yar off scot-free. He glance around the area that the Squad had landed in. It was obscured by a fuel tank from the rest of the staging area.
"Now. Vala, find us a way to the main plasma reactors or storage." The Spartan ordered.
"Working." Vala replied. "Searching through the blueprints collected by the Spearhead over the planet prior to insertion and what was collected by the Longsword prior to the crash. Three possible routes detected."
The Spartan paused. "How long is the quickest?"
"Twenty minutes, however there is a high risk of being seen along that route." Vala replied.
"Any others with not as much chance of being seen?"
A pause. "One other route. Low chance of being spotted during the majority of the route. There are a couple of spots where you may get spotted."
The Spartan paused, thinking. "We'll take that route." he finally said.
"Dropping a waypoint." Vala announced.
The waypoint appeared in the distance.
"That's the entry point." She added.
"Can you give a run down on this plan?" Zhab mumbled.
Thel agreed with the Kig-yar.
"Very well." Vala sounded slightly annoyed by them. "This is a permanent setup. Apparently the Loyalist have plans to stay for a while. Anyway, under this base is a series of tunnels for the brute soldiers. There are also a series of maintenance tunnels. We will go through these. There will be several Huragok in the tunnel, but they don't care about us, but the tunnels are wide enough to allow Brutes to go through."
The Squad made ready to move. The waypoint was about eight hundred meters away. The waypoint was on top of an airlock to what Thel assumed was the tunnels below. Zhab leaned out of a corner and searched for anyone who might be watching.
"Clear." He announced.
They flashed several acknowledgement lights.
"Go." John ordered.
The Squad made their move to the airlock. They made it without incident. The airlock was four meters high.
"Place your hand on the door lock. I can hack it then." Vala ordered.
The Spartan placed his hand upon the door lock. There was a pause, then the door slid open. The Squad walked into the room. It was an elevator. The Squad fit into the elevator comfortably. The doors closed and the elevator descended. After a minute, They reached a large corridor.
"Turn right after ten meters." Vala suddenly announced.
Thel turned and spotted a door on the right. John placed his hand upon the door, and it opened instantly. The hallway inside was dark. Thel drew his carbine and flicked on the light on. The corridor was empty and silent, only interrupted door closing behind him. The others lights flicked on behind him.
"Dropping a waypoint on the tunnel you should go down next." Vala announced, and did so immediately.
Thel walked into that corridor, having taken point as they headed down the maintenance hallways. There was silence in the group. The only thing that could be heard was the grunts breathing and the groups footsteps. The occasional Huragok passed by, but made no notice of any of them.
After ten minutes of going in a straight line down a hallway, they reached a closed door. The Master Chief enquired it to Vala.
"There's a main corridor on the other side. About a few meters away, you'll reach another corridor. There may be guards on the other side, however." Vala replied.
"Ok people. Weapons free. Liyik, Limid and Thel, check the right, Jimaenius and Zhab, left. Vala and I will open the door." John ordered. "Thel, open the door.
The Sangheili complied, delivering a powerful kick to the door. The door flew open with a clang. He immediately turned to the right with his carbine raised, with the grunts close behind him. The Jackal and the Brute did the same behind him.
"What the…" Came a gasp from a brute ahead of him.
Thel fired, and the Carbine spat several rounds into the brute. His armor shattered and the brute went down. Another on that had been standing beside him raised his brute shot. He fired a single shot, but the unggoy were faster and opened up with their plasma pistol, it being too close to use the fuel rods. The brute shot round exploded on Thel's right. One of the grunts screamed.
There was a yell from behind Thel and Jimaenius' spiker opned fired. There were several explosions behind him.
"Ambush!" The Master Chief yelled.
Thel turned to the right to find one of the grunts lying against a wall barely conscious, with the other standing over him. There was a roar as three brutes appeared from a corridor. Thel fired two shots into a brute, knocking off his armor. John finished with a triple shot the Jiralhanae's head. The other two fired and it slammed into the two's shields.
Behind them the firefight increased in ferocity. Jimaenius yelled as there was an explosion. A beam rifle fired several times.
"Fall back to the corridor!" The Spartan yelled.
"It would be advisable to not have any survivors see you, they don't seem to have alerted anyone who did not see the firefight." Vala replied.
Another two brutes fell. Thel turned to the fallen grunt beside him. His brother was holding him up and carring him to the unopened door. John turned and headed to the door, using Vala's hacking skills to open it. Cortana had taught her some things in Covenant hacking.
Thel turned back to spy about twenty brutes coming down the corridor, led by a chieftain. Jiralhanae hefted a huge gravity hammer. Jimaenius and Zhab suddenly took up positions behind him and opened fire. The Chieftan roared a challenge and entered a sprint. Thel parted his jaws and drew his energy sword to meet the challenge. He broke into a sprint as he did so. They closed the distance between them and the Chieftain raised the hammer. As the brute swung, the Sangheili sidestepped, and he felt the reverb of the hammer slamming into the floor as he swung his sword straight through the Brute's leg. The brute screamed in pain and swung horizontally this time. Thel rolled, evading the stroke and closed the Chieftan's range. He brought his sword straight up the Jiralhanae's chest, cutting straight through the armor. The Brute screamed again in pain.
Thel raised his sword and executed the finishing move on the Brute Chieftan. The corpse fell to the side. He slowly turned to the remainder of the pack, who stared at him in disbelief. He bellowed a challenge.
"Who's next?!" He roared.
Suddenly, something slammed him hard in the back. He flew into the wall with a loud bang. For a second, he thought that it was Jimaenius, but he quickly recognized that it was not the Brute on his team. This brute wore entirely grey chieftain armor. The crafty chieftain must have been waiting in a side corridor for him. He raised the hammer as he lunged forward. Thel pushed himself to the right of the swing as it fell and rose to his feet. The Brute growled and swung the hammer again. Thel ducked and got in close for a stoke, but this brute was crafty. The Brute reversed the strike. The blade on the opposite side of the hammer slammed into Thel's side.
His shields broke, and Thel was thrown into another wall with less force. He lay there for a second, stunned, until he felt something warm trickling down his side. He gave a quick glance and spotted blood running down his side. A year ago, this would have been his honour, but he had decided it no longer was. He rose to his hands and knees.
Zhab fired a round into the brute. It hit him in the chest, but the Brute roared and drew something from his belt and clamped it onto the front of his armor. White light shimmered across him. The invincibility power-up. Thel groaned slightly and tried to rise, but the brute swung across again. He struck the Sangheili hard in the side. With no shields to protect him this time, he slammed across the corridor hard. He came to a stop after what seemed like an eternity, but was only a few seconds. He tasted metallic blood in his mouth. The Brute, still invincible, advanced slowly but steadily, his weapons still raised and ready. Another beam rifle and spiker rounds slammed into him but to no effect.
"Now, little elite, Are you ready to die?" He laughed, and raised his hammer.
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Ohh... cliffy. First one i've done for this story .
Also a huge thanks to Manters for the Cover.