How long has it been since I updated? Surely it's just- Oh… Oh dear… Oh dear…
Well, thanks for all the support you guys have given this in the mean time. (I'm kinda almost feeling afraid of uploading these, I feel like some parts of this sotry aren't up to my standard…)
I've been on this chapter for months at this stage, always not finishing it or getting distracted before I can finish it. Feh. Here it is. (With luck the next part won't be a long coming)
Also, this Story is now over a year old… Wow… How time flies.
Chapter 19: A Rude awakening.
(Dat cliché title doe)
UNSC Spearhead of Dawn, Cargo bay E, March 2nd, 2553.
Thunderclap's crew was deceptively small. Only twenty operatives crowded into one of the frigate's smaller bays.
About half of the prowler's crew had injures, and they would have to be moved to the infirmary. The Spearhead had the capacity for a hundred and fifty eight personnel, so this extra twenty hardly made a difference.
John watched the crew climb through the docking port, along with Jimaenius and Zhab, into the small hangar bay. The crew didn't bat their eyes upon seeing the Jackal and the Brute. They just kept on going and eventfully sat down wherever they could. The captain of the prowler was last on board.
He was dressed in a darker captain's uniform, which had several burns dotted across it. His face was long and forlorn, but his eyes still had life in them, unlike most of his crew. You could tell the state of the crew by the fact that no one saluted of even called out his presence. Only a handful of the Thunderclap's crew even glanced the captain's way as he entered.
Behind him, the dual doors of the airlock sealed, and there was a loud clack, followed immediately by a faint grinding as the connecting bridge retracted.
"We have detached from the Thunderclap." Cortana announced.
The captain of the ship inspected his crew across the hangar before approaching the Chief. It was stunning for the Spartan to think that he actually outranked the captain, who technically stood at just below him. He immediately banished those thoughts from his head. He was a professional soldier, not a rank obsessed one. He shouldn't be focusing on those ranks, just on their ability to allow him carry out his orders. Plenty of time for reflection during retirement- or at least when he wasn't serving in active front line duty any more.
"Are you the commanding officer of this ship?" The captain asked.
"No." The Spartan replied, "I am second in command, however, captain."
The captain nodded. "Send my thanks to your captain. Also, can I request permission to take my crew to your infirmary?"
John nodded. "Granted."
The Spartan turned back to Zhab and Jimaenius.
"Help the captain take his injured crew to the infirmary." He ordered.
They both nodded in sequence at the order and moved forward, stepping around him. The Chief turned to watch the two working alongside to the Thunderclap's crew.
The would never had expected to ever see something like this half a year ago, and yet now it seemed almost normal to him.
Suddenly his earpiece came to life:
"Chief, you are requested on the bridge." Cortana said.
He pressed his finger into the earpiece.
"On my way." He reported, turning towards the main exit of the hangar bay.
The bridge was around one third of the ship's length away. The doorway led onto a long central corridor, three decks down from the bridge. UNSC ships rarely had horizontal elevators unless they were more than a kilometer long.
As a result, any smaller ships tended to have a central corridor with main rooms along the sides. At least, that's how it was for the upper and under carriage of the Spearhead.
It took the Spartan about four minutes to reach the bridge. As he reached the top floor, he became aware that the bridge was mostly silent.
Normally, there would have been some sounds from various stations or consoles, but now it was silent. The lift doors slid open, and the Spartan crossed onto the bridge.
"Reporting as requested." The Chief announced.
Thel was standing at the holotable, staring hard at a collection of coloured dots. He glanced up and John and gave him a nod of greeting.
"Good to have you." He replied.
Cortana materialized on the table.
"We're monitoring a UNSC Phoenix class colony ship drifting in system. It's attracted local Covenant and insurrectionist interest. From what we've monitored from their COMs, they seem to be preparing to board the ship."
The Spartan crossed the room and stood up beside the holotable. What struck him immediately was the combination of Insurrectionist and covenant frigates clustering around the ship.
"The ship hasn't been active in 21 years, according to my records. At their current speed, they've crossed four point one light years in that time." Cortana stated. "I'm having difficulty finding its registry in the records. Someone up high tried REALLY hard to get rid of all traces of this ship."
"Are there any signs of life aboard the ship?" The Spartan asked.
"There are a large compliment of cryo pods operating at standard capacity, although no life signs."
The Spartan examined the pinpricks of light.
"Are we going to help them?" He asked, understanding the risks.
He knew that it was risky, stupidly risky, but all the same, something inside him made him really want to go and help the crew.
But then again, they had no idea if the crew were even alive.
"The ship will cross sphere of Influence of an ice giant in ten minutes. It'll come within two hundred thousand kilometers from the planet a closest approach." The Shipmaster noted. "We could intercept it there."
The holotable pulled up a system map, projecting the colony ship's path past the planet.
The Spartan considered it, but still one thing nagged him.
"What about the covenant?" The chief asked.
"The local insurrectionists want parts from the ship, so the covenant won't destroy it." Cortana explained simply. "And they won't have finished searching the ship for a least half an hour."
John looked across at Thel. The Sangheili appeared deep in thought, his bottom left jaw occasionally twitching.
"Cortana." He finally muttered. "Open a ship-wide channel."
"Aye. Channel open." She replied, and there was a faint beep.
The Sangheili stepped forward and made a strange sound that sounded like a mix of both coughing and sneezing at the same time. It took the Spartan a second to realise that it was the Sangheili clearing his throat.
"All combat ready personnel..." The shipmaster began. "Arm up and report to the hangar and be ready for possible combat departure."
He turned to face Cortana.
"Cortana, close channel." He ordered.
A deeper click finished the message.
"Find us a place in system to hide that will be within proximity of the ship." The shipmaster concluded. "And jump to the system."
Cortana hesitated for a second; then she gave an affirmative.
The engines of the Spearhead roared to life, the frigate turned, aligning with the system vector.
"We are going?" The chief queried.
"Yes." Thel stated. "Cortana, when we arrive, head for the hiding place and stay there unless we end up needing cover."
"Aye. Automated systems ready."
"Your armor is prepped in the armory." Vala announced. "Updates for firmware complete. Awaiting only occupants."
The two glanced at each other, and headed for the lift. As they did, the screen around the Spearhead darkened for a split second as the ship dropped into slipspace for a mere second.
As the ship reappeared, Cortana activated the stealth systems, and the craft disappeared.
The lift went down to half of the ship's height, stopping them close to the armory. The two piled out and entered the room.
Their armor was waiting for them close to the door, standing in the automated robots used to put on the armors.
The bodysuits were hanging neatly folded beside the respective suits. The two stepped forward and began to undress prior to putting on the bodysuits. As soon as they had finished, they turned backwards and stepped towards the machine, which immediately began its task of applying their suits.
The Chief's was designed to come on with relative ease compared to Thel's. Which the Sangheili was still struggling with his white suit, John began the process of gathering ammo. Vala and Cortana had been thoughtful enough to have their prep robots apply some tape to several ammo clips, allowing the Spartan to attach them quickly and with ease. 12 MA5C Assault rifle clips, along with 8 extra in an ammo clip on his belt. He also grabbed a pair of SMGs, along with several additional clips of ammo, some of which he taped to his back.
Easy way to differentiate the ammo types, he found. Around this time the Sangheili had finished his suiting up process, and gathered his own weapons and clips. He grabbed his energy sword, Carbine and dual plasma rifles, complete an extra battery for each.
Upon them both collecting several grenades, they collected Vala's chip and returned to the lift to finish their journey.
Thel was wearing his EVA helmet instead of his regular helmet. Other than that, his armor remained unchanged.
"Cortana to Shipmaster." The AI announced over the COM.
"Yes?" The recipient asked.
"We're in position. The ship has entered system with eleven potential hostiles surrounding it." She stated.
The elevator doors opened, revealing the Squad standing around a modified pelican airframe. Jimaenius leaned heavily against the pelican, Zhab sat on a warthog tyre and twisted the plasma battery in his beam rifle. Liyik and Limid were in the process of playing each other in some kind of Unggoy rock game. John had no idea who was winning.
Interestingly enough, two men from the Thunderclap were also standing against a warthog, both wielding a battle rifle each.
The Chief and the Shipmaster crossed the hangar. Jimaenius approached.
"What are we here for?" He asked.
The two soldiers by the warthog moved towards the Squad.
"We've detected a human ship drifting in system. It's passing by this planet's gravity as we speak. However, it's attracted the attention of several covenant and human rebel ships. We could hijack a dropship docked to the human ship and stow away on a covenant ship, and from there..." Thel explained, raising his voice so that everyone in the hangar heard him; "We have free access to their base."
"What if we find any human survivors?" John asked.
Thel paused for a second.
"Then we take them back to the Spearhead." He growled. "Then we'll have to deal with the covenant ship-to-ship."
There was a pause when he finished.
"Everyone mount up!" John yelled across the hangar.
Everyone shifted into action. The Spartan increased his pace and stuck an arm out before the two Thunderclap soldiers.
"You good?" He asked.
The first one looked right at him.
"About ninety percent, sir." Came the reply.
"I'm afraid I can't let you come with us." The Spartan said.
"Why not?" The second asked, beginning to sound annoyed.
"We need you two to stay behind and watch the ship, and in the event that we are all killed and the ship boarded, we need you to defend your crew and initiate Cole Protocol." He explained.
"Understood, sir." The first soldier said slowly.
They turned and walked off, clearly disappointed about being ordered to stay behind.
John heard a heavy foot hit the ground behind him.
"What did you tell them?" Thel asked.
"I told them to stay here and protect their crew." The Master Chief replied.
The Sangheili nodded. "Let us make haste."
They both turned back to climb aboard the pelican. Just as the Spartan put his foot to the metal walkway at the rear of the dropship, Cortana opened a COM channel.
"The ship has drifted near enough to get a visual on. I've got the name." She announced.
"What is it?" The Spartan asked.
"Chief, it's the UNSC Spirit of Fire."
The name seemed familiar. He paused to ponder it. The Squad watched him with some degree of interest. Suddenly, a flash of neurons flared at the back of his brain.
2531.
Arcadia.
Red Team...
I+-+-+I
UNSC Spirit of Fire, Cryo Deck C, March 2nd, 2553
Douglas gasped as the door to the cryo pod opened, and he was hit by a blast of warm air. The naked man fell and hit the grated floor; from which he proceeded to begin coughing up the UNSC nourishment mixture.
He finished and looked up at those who had revived him. It was whom he had expected. Alice and Jerome, his squadmates, watched over the area while the waited for him to recover. Alice's hair was as short as Douglas remembered, and her thin face was also unchanged. Jerome too, was as he had been in Douglas' memory; with his shaven head and his moderately plump face, still standing forty centimetres or so taller than Alice.
They both had their weapons retrieved, and were carrying his. They hadn't gotten their suits, though.
As soon as he looked up at them, Alice offered him his undersuit for the MJOLNIR. He took it and immediately began the process of putting it on. There wasn't any embarrassment about being naked in front of his friends. They'd grown up together, so naturally they'd seen each other in such a state before. No one found this situation awkward in any way.
"Hurry." Jerome growled. "I don't know how much time we've got."
"What's going on?" Douglas asked, eager for intel.
The state of the ship left much to the imagination. There were no lights on across the corridor, and only their cryo pods were open.
The air seemed cold and stale; there was even ice leaking from the cryo pods the surrounding area, covering some of steel grating on the floor, and the ceiling too.
"The captain just roused us recently." Alice explained. "Serina just revived him and some marines. She said that some covenant ships in system had just taken interest in our ship and had landed some boarding parties on the lower decks. Shortly after, she initiated final dispensation. She was over twenty years old by that point. It's amazing she hadn't gone completely rampant by then."
Douglas nodded in understanding, yet another question came to mind.
"What... What year is it?" He asked, in the process of finishing the final zips.
"According to the captain, it's 2553." Jerome said.
Douglas stood up and accepted an assault rifle from Alice.
"Do we know if the covenant has won?"
Alice shook her head.
"No idea."
The three surveyed their surroundings. They knew the way from here straight to the armory, but they didn't know which area the covenant had taken, and which ones they hadn't.
"Is the armory under their control?" Douglas asked.
"We don't know. Sensors are offline throughout the ship. We don't know if we're being blocked or the circuitry has been destroyed by the ice." Jerome explained.
"So we're going to have to fight to get our MJOLNIR?"
"Yes. Everyone, move out!"
Douglas paused.
"What about the rest?" He asked, gesturing towards the unopened pods.
Alice looked down for a few seconds, then back up at Douglas.
"The Captain mentioned that as the years went on, Serina discovered that overspill from the ice was threatening the circuitry of the cryo pods. Initially she could prevent this by modulating currents through the cables to warm them up, but as the years went on and rampancy began to set in, she began becoming unable to do it for so many pods." She explained. "So Serina drafted a list of the crew as of their importance, which she tried her hardest to keep them alive in order. Only about a hundred or so, including us, were left when she woke us up."
"Any more questions?" Jerome asked, beginning to sound impatient.
"Hold on-" Alice suddenly interjected.
She pulled out a UNSC earpiece from her suit's pocket and handed it to Douglas. The Spartan took it and inserted it into his ear.
"I just gave Douglas his earpiece, sir." Alice announced over the COM.
"You there, son?" Captain Cutter asked, sounding somewhat tired.
"Yessir." Douglas replied.
"What's your status?"
"Green, sir. I am one hundred and ten percent."
"Good to hear, Spartan. I have some guys here who've been out of the freezer for ten minutes now and they're still suffering." The captain replied, some weariness draining from his voice.
"What's our plan, sir?" Douglas asked.
"As I'm sure your teammates have told you, we've been boarded. Serina just shut down, and we have no sensors. I want Red Team to sneak down to the armory and retrieve their armor, and then fall back to the bridge with the rest of us. Take it stealthily, Spartan's you're too valuable to lose. Cutter out."
"There's our orders." Jerome stated. "Let's get a move on, Spartans! Quiet as you can."
The three advanced down the corridor. The doorway led to a walkway that connected around five decks through stairways from either above or below.
The armory was three decks down, so unfortunately, they could go directly down onto its deck, they'd have to find another after this.
Jerome raised his hand and pointed to himself before pointing forward. This signified he was taking point. Alice assumed midguard, while Douglas brought up the rear.
The ship was quiet. As they progressed along the walkway, they heard nothing from any of the decks both above and below.
It was almost eerie. Emergency lights were the only sources of light, casting a few blue beams across the chamber.
They reached the first stairway soundlessly with no incident. Jerome continued to lead them down to the next deck below. The deck they had descended to was even less lit than the first one; many of the overhead walkways obscured the lights.
A faint groan echoed through the halls. The group switched on their helmet and weapon lights. The lights revealed several previously unseen corridors. Those corridors, fortunately, were empty.
Red Team swept around the walkways and started down the second staircase below. There were even less lights on the lower deck.
Jerome swept his lights across the deck. Suddenly, the light fell upon a pair of Brutes and grunts walking across the deck. Somehow, Jerome had missed them on his first sweep.
They immediately spun to face the Spartans.
"Humans!" One brute yelled.
The Spartans opened fire on the group. First the grunts went down, and the Spartans focused fire on one of the brutes.
Douglas vaulted over the bannister of the stairs, falling onto the deck below. Fortunately for Douglas, the deck below was the proper bottom of this stairwell, so he could immediately swing around the bottom bannister and open fire.
An explosion echoed from the stairway; one of the brutes must have had a brute shot. One brute cried out suddenly, followed by a sound of something heavy smashing the ground.
Douglas rounded the bottom of the stairway. One bridge was still standing, though he was taking a pounding from the Spartan's weapons. Douglas joined the barrage and the brute almost immediately went down.
Alice and Jerome joined him at the foot of the stairs. They seemed unharmed. There was silence as the reloaded their rifles.
Jerome reopened a Chanel to the captain.
"We've been engaged by a small group of covenant. We defeated them with no injuries."
"How close are you to the armory?" Cutter asked.
"About three hundred and fifty meters away."
"Keep your stealth up. Good luck."
The channel closed.
The team reformed and continued down a dark central hallway of the Spirit. This corridor would eventually open out at another stairway that would take them down the the armory's level.
A group of three elites suddenly walked out of a crossroads directly ahead of them.
"Contacts!" Douglas yelled, and Red Team raised weapons.
Two elites spotted them and moved to take cover, however the third was too slow and had his shields taken down before he took cover.
One elite threw himself out into the corridor with both plasma rifles firing. Red team scattered to avoid the superheated blasts.
Douglas covered Alice and Jerome, and a lucky shot of his hit the plasma rifle itself, bisecting the weapon. As the elite stared at his hand in shock, Alice and Jerome broke his shields and hit him several times in the head.
The elite went down. Jerome and Alice forced open a door to their right and took cover in the room. Douglas followed to cover and took a defensive position just inside the metal doorframe.
One elite poked his head out from behind the wall he was covering behind. Failing to notice Douglas, he revealed himself fully, cautiously advancing.
Holding his rifle in his left hand, he gestured to the other Spartans that a target had revealed themselves. A second later, he was tapped on the shoulder by one them. They were ready.
And without warning, the two Spartans lunged out, rifles up. The elite retreated immediately, but was hit by fire. Douglas opened up his own rifle and the elite went down.
Silence once again reigned.
The Spartans moved out and reached the end of the corridor. It opened out onto another walkway along a staircase.
The emergency lights blazed across the chamber. Douglas and Jerome combed the upper walkways for covenant, while Alice combed the decks below.
"Clear." She reported.
"Same here." Douglas stated.
They headed to the stairway and headed a deck down. Silence reigned. They were now on the armory deck. In fact, they were only a few meters away from it.
They were alone, encountering no resistance as they advanced.
They proceeded down the corridor parallel to it until they found a door. A quick hand scan and the door opened without resistance.
The armory was dark and foreboding. The three scanned the armory. Even with their enhanced eyesight, they detected no enemies.
Douglas felt rather disturbed by the silence and lack of enemies.
"Move out." Jerome whispered. "Hand signals from now on. Find the MJOLNIR."
They had a general idea where the suits where in the armory, and they headed in that direction.
Still no contacts. Not much of anything, really.
Eventually, the suits appeared out of the darkness.
"Alright, Douglas, you armor up first, we'll cover you, then you trade places with Alice, and then she trades with me." Jerome ordered.
"Yessir." Douglas replied, and lowered his rifle and stepped onto the elevated platform the suits were held on.
He withdrew the helmet. It was a bit dusty, but mostly it was the same state he'd left it.
He grinned slightly. Time to go to work.
I+-+-+I
UNSC Spirit of Fire, Corridor 16: Section 4, March 2nd, 2553.
The objective was simple; infiltrate and search, before detonating the reactor to destroy both the fleet and Human technology, and if possible, retrieve any survivors. Using the scanners would have attracted attention from the covenant, so they went in blind.
Given the modified state of the ship as well, blueprints were potentially useless to find the reactor, it would have to be located manually.
Two groups would cover more ground in general, and attract less attention. All the same, Zhab found surveying the area with Jimaenius, Liyik and Limid to be incredibly tedious.
Zhab also wasn't the biggest fan of the combat harness he'd been given either. There was a reason that Kig-yar usually wore a minimal harness; they're greatest strength was their agility, without that, even an Unggoy could probably best them in hand to hand.
The jackal had heard stories of such a thing. Of course, what made it even worse was the presence of the others. Jimaenius alone made more noise than a phantom, with his deep, heavy breathing and loud footsteps, and Liyik and Limid were not much better.
Being a former pirate, as most Kig-yar were or had been at some point, Zhab preferred silence when scouting; which was more or less proving impossible.
They hadn't ran into anyone yet, covenant or human; though they weren't far in from the airlock of the human ship. Or so it seemed, as these metal walls never seemed to change.
"Jackal, stop!" Yelled a voice from behind.
It was an elite. The harness was hard to make out in the darkness, but it was definitely not the shipmaster. Jimaenius glanced over at Zhab, seeing how he reacted before acting on his own.
"Come here, right now, all of you!" The Elite snarled.
"Shut your jaws." Zhab snapped back quietly, and raised his beam rifle and fired.
The shot smashed clean through the Elite shields and armor, but went through his shoulder without resistance, Zhab, seeing his shot fail to kill the target, spun and flattened himself against the wall.
The Elite drew a plasma rifle and fired. Liyik and Limid dived aside instinctively, but Jimaenius remained calm and collected. The Jiralhanae reached over his shoulder, drew a Brute shot, and fired. The round bounced once down the corridor, before impacting and tearing the Elite apart with an explosion.
"So much for silence." Jimaenius mused as he turned back to his group.
Zhab merely nodded.
He opened a COM channel to the rest of the Squad.
"We've kind of had to use loud lethal force on a target." Zhab announced quickly.
A pause, then the Spartan spoke quickly.
"Alright, change of plans. Everyone regroup at these coordinates and await further orders. Cortana?"
A waypoint appeared on Zhab's HUD.
"If you cross paths with survivors, feel free to guide them to the waypoint, but actively searching for them is no longer a side objective; do not deviate to search."
The group understood fine and set off, Jimaenius taking the lead, his hulking form taking up most of the corridor as they advanced.
They reached an open platform with stairs descending and ascending on either side of the platform. The waypoint was on the floor above them, so they headed across the walkway to the staircase upwards on the other side of the platform.
The silence continued. The group came around and began down the waypoint corridor. Dispite Zhab's increasing unease, they didn't encounter anything until the reacehed the waypoint, where the Commander and Shipmaster were waited.
"What now?" Jimaenius asked as he approached.
"Did you cross paths with any survivors?" The commander asked.
"Nah." Zhab shook his head.
A pause for a few seconds as the group surveyed the corridor opening behind the two they had just met.
"We go as a whole group now." The commander ordered. "We want to try heading to the center of the ship and search for engineering shafts."
A nod from the rest of the Squad.
"Take point." The commander said to the Shipmaster.
The Sangheili complied, while Zhab took up the rear. The commander and the Sangheili tended to take turns leading point. The corridors seemed to be getting smaller and colder as they walked on. Zhab could now see the breath of the Squad misting in front of them now.
They headed through a doorway that was frozen open. A collection of ice around the edges held it in place. It made Zhab feel uneasy looking at it. It led to a diverging path. Ahead opened a thin metal cavern that stretched off into the darkness. On the left was a collection of stairs. This in turn was followed by a walkway.
The right was also a walkway, but without stairs. Both seemed pretty unstable. The commander gestured to head to the left. The group proceeded to do so. The Sangheili took the lead, slowly stepping up each step in turn. He was more quiet with his approach, more relieving to the Kig-yar.
Jimaenius even scooped up the Unggoy as they climbed the stairs, evidently trying to keep the noise down, even if he wasn't the quietest thing himself. Zhab appreciated the gesture. There was a series of doors on the left as the group advanced down the corridor. They were all closed, but on there was a corridor directly ahead. Zhab was at the rear, so he didn't have to clear it or anything, but all the same it uneased him.
Something erupted from the hallway as the Arbiter examined it. The thing grabbed him and the two broke through the guard rails and fell onto the platform below. With a clang, the two began a closeup brawl on top of the other.
Zhab couldn't really see the two beneath the metal girder, and a collection of shadows began to cross a section of lights down around the doorway.
"Ambush!" Jimaenius roared, drawing his brute shot.
Zhab couldn't help but agree.