Chapter 17: What a Bumpy Ride
Puddlejumper
High orbit over Earth
"You do realize my reservations about this plan… and this ship." Halaan said rather cautiously. "It's always seemed to have some kind of malicious history."
"She'll do the job." Kyle assured Halaan. "She may have her kinks, but Puddlejumper is a reliable ship."
"You know," Kay scratched her head, "since we have the location of Earth now, why don't we just hop back to the fleet and call them in?"
"Because then they'd just be torn up by the same things that cut that Covenant ship apart." Lynn replied. "We've got to know more about what exactly those things are, and how to fight them."
At this point, John felt that this was quite similar to something he had seen before. Those golden beams reminded him of enemies he had fought before so long ago on Halo. However, he couldn't imagine those things being built to such a massive scale and he couldn't be sure as to their exact nature, so he decided to stay quiet.
"Okay, but I was just hoping somebody had a better idea on how to pull that off." Kay said nervously. "I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Well, if it's any consolation, we should be able to get past the Covenant blockade pretty easily. They usually don't scan for ships this size and the stealth systems should make us pretty much invisible to them." Kyle explained. "It's just that mystery enemy that's the wild card. We have no idea what their sensor capabilities are and whether they can pierce our stealth measures."
"Well we're just brimming with confidence, aren't we?" Kay sighed.
"I'm sure we can depend on Kyle's piloting skill to get us through." Lynn shrugged.
"Ah, that's the biggest snag of this plan." Kay shook her head.
"Hey, shut up!" Kyle growled. "We're past the blockade."
Lynn leaned past Kyle's head to get a clearer view out of the cockpit window and was rendered speechless. No matter how high quality the drone's spy camera was, it could never match the magnificent vista she saw before her eyes. Wispy white clouds were strewn across vivid blue oceans and verdant green continents. Upon more careful inspection, Lynn could even see splotches of grey and black. Those marks were definitely cities, evidence of human habitation.
"Ummm, I'm picking up energy signatures… and LOTS of them." Sanah's eyes suddenly lit up. "And they're getting closer."
"Well shit, it looks like our stealth doesn't work after all." Kyle frowned.
"We're getting some kind of transmission from the planet." Kay worked the communication console. "It's the same kind that got sent to the Covenant ship."
"Well that's great news." Halaan snorted. "We all know what happened that time."
"Multiple contacts approaching!" Sanah squealed. "Too many to count! They're everywhere!"
Lynn took another glance out the cockpit and saw that the view of Earth was slowly being obscured by clouds of black little dots swarming like a massive hive of insects. As the clouds drew closer, Lynn could begin to see individual units beginning to form, but still couldn't quite make out what they were.
"What are they?" Kyle yelled.
"I don't know, but they keep sending the same transmission over and over again!" Sanah cried.
"What is it?" Halaan asked.
"I don't know! It's some kind of query but it's in some kind of language or encryption that I'm not familiar with!" Sanah shook her head. "It's going to take time to try and decrypt and translate!"
"Something tells me that we won't have much of that!" Kyle saw several bright golden twinkles in the distance and instinctively rolled the ship away. A dozen golden beams stabbed through the space where Puddlejumper had just been a second before.
"They're shooting at us!" Halaan yelled.
"And it looks like the Covenant have noticed, too." Kay pointed to the distant Covenant blockade. Already, some of the capital ships were already breaking off from the main formation and carriers were beginning to scramble their fighters.
Meanwhile, Kyle was doing all he could to dodge the golden lances of energy reaching out to destroy Puddlejumper. Seeing as how stealth was a moot point now, Kyle shut it off in order to draw the extra power to more useful systems, such as the engines and shields. A golden beam nicked the aft end of the dropship, causing the entire craft to shudder and taking about thirteen percent of the ship's shield integrity along with it. Kyle gritted his teeth and put the ship in a gut wrenching spiral to try and throw off the steadily increasing volume of fire.
"I can't keep this up forever you know!" Kyle yanked hard on the stick to dodge another flurry of beams.
"Wait, I'm analyzing the attackers!" Sanah paused for a second and then spoke up again. "They're drones! They're all automated drones!"
"And that helps us how, exactly?"
"Their detection can be fooled!" Sanah pointed several distant grey specks in the distance. "Those are unmanned satellites and space stations left behind by us pre-Exodus. If we blow those, we can confuse the drones by riding down with the rest of the debris."
"You sure about this?" Kyle asked.
"It's the only plan we have." Kay shrugged and flipped the missile safeties off. "If you can just stay steady long enough to get a targeting solution…"
"Leave that to me." Lynn closed her eyes and exhaled. Since the drones were machines, she couldn't necessarily feel or read them, but she could predict their movements and actions for a brief second, which was more than enough to mentally prod Kyle into flying it the right direction. With Kyle flying and Lynn acting as an advance warning system, Puddlejumper weaved and juked effortlessly through the curtain of golden fire taking minimal damage. Finally, the targeting computer whined, signaling a clean lock and Kay hit the trigger. Six missiles spat out of Puddlejumper's dual missile pods and they spiraled off toward the distant station. Because none of the missiles were aimed at the drones themselves, none of the robotic defenders saw any reason to try and shoot down the missiles. Several seconds later, the missiles impacted, causing six miniature stars to materialize over the Earth sending hundreds and thousands of pieces of debris falling to the ground. The drones, confused at the sudden appearance of multiple incoming threats, suddenly diverted their attention, giving Kyle a brief window to boost through the gap in their defenses. However, as they charged through, the drones began to reform, putting up a wall of steel between Puddlejumper and Earth. Kyle only had time to focus maximum shield power to the front of the ship and increase speed, ramming his way through several drones. The silver automatons shattered like glass against the energy shield and Puddlejumer continued on.
"Well, that was easier than I thought." Kyle sighed.
Finally, the drones lost interest in the falling space debris and refocused their attention on Puddlejumper. It dropship was already at extreme range, so an accurate shot was unlikely. However, with millions of beams lancing in the dropship's direction, several hits were inevitable. Three beams lanced through Puddlejumper's unshielded aft section, blowing out an engine and compromising the ship's hull integrity. The entire ship shuddered and Kyle gritted his teeth as he tried to maintain control of the craft.
"We're going too fast!" Sanah yelled. "We'll burn up in the atmosphere if we don't regain control!"
"I know that!" Kyle struggled to reorient the ship with its remaining engine. Fortunately, Pelicans were notoriously hardy craft… when they felt like it. Today, it seemed that Puddlejumper was in no mood to be burnt to ash and managed to reorient itself into a more stable reentry position. However, despite that, the damage was severe enough to guarantee a less than comfortable landing. "Hold on!"
The ship jerked as Kyle fired the engines in full reverse in an attempt to slow the craft. As he looked out the cockpit window, he could see the ground quickly closing in. He saw that they were closing in on a gray blob which he quickly realized was a city. He veered to the side a bit and managed to find a large rectangle of green space in the middle of the cityscape. He maneuvered towards it, since it was common knowledge that dirt often proved to provide a significantly softer landing compared to reinforced concrete and steel. Then he hit the retro rockets and prayed.
Though the rockets significantly slowed Puddlejumper's rapid advance to Earth, the ship was still going at a speed that wasn't quite down to the safest level. The initial impact shook the entire dropship, but it wasn't enough to eliminate all of the momentum. The ship literally skipped off the ground like a stone skipping on water and repeated the process three more times before gouging a deep trench in a grass field and finally coming to a stop.
Halaan and John were the first to stumble out of the ship's loading ramp. With their enhanced physiologies, they were able to better weather the crash than the others, but were still suffering from the effects of sudden and massive G-forces. Sanah was next, carrying a stunned Lynn and Kay out without showing any signs of injury or discomfort at all. Kyle, being in the pilot's seat, was the last one out. He had managed to stay conscious after the crash, but wished he hadn't. Even with his armor, he still felt the pain of his street restraints biting into his body, as well as the massive headache from his helmet smashing into the flight stick.
"Damnit." Kyle groaned, dropping down next to Lynn and Kay, who were beginning to regain consciousness. "I hate it when that happens."
"You'd think you'd get used to crash landing." Lynn coughed and shook her head.
Meanwhile, Halaan and John stayed alert, keeping an eye out on the perimeter with weapons ready. There was no telling if the drones would follow them here.
"Clear." John said.
"I see nothing as well." Halaan confirmed.
"I'm detecting faint energy signatures around us." Sanah announced. "But nothing nearby or threatening."
"I can't believe it." Lynn knelt down and picked up a handful of dirt, squeezing it in her hand. "We're actually here, on Earth, touching the soil."
"That's nice and all." Kyle scratched his head, slightly put off by Lynn's glowing enthusiasm. "But it's not going to do us much good if our ride can't fly."
Kyle took one quick look at Puddlejumper and sighed. The good news was that despite the major beating it took, Puddlejumper looked structurally intact. However, Kyle knew that the worst kind of damage was always the kind that lurked under the surface. With Kay's help, he made a quick inspection of the ship's interior and didn't like what he saw.
"Bad news." Kyle said when he closed the maintenance hatch. "The drive coils are completely fried. There's no way we can get the ship flying without them."
"I suspected as much." Halaan sighed. "None of your schemes ever go according to plan."
"I'm not sure what you're so down about." Lynn scoffed. "We're in the middle of a city. It's not like we crash landed on an abandoned desert planet or anything."
"She's got a point." Kay nodded. "Remember why we got Puddlejumper in the first place? It was easy to find parts for it, and I'm sure we can use whatever we find here."
"True, but I'm worried about the fact that, you know, this place has been abandoned for two hundred years." Kyle pointed out. "There's a good chance any parts we can use are out of commission."
"You know, now that you mention it…" Lynn looked around at the cityscape that surrounded them. "This place looks surprisingly well kept for a city with nobody living in it."
"That's right." Halaan blinked. "Even Covenant engineering has its limits. I've never encountered a building that can withstand centuries of abuse without the necessary maintenance."
"That still doesn't solve the problem of actually finding a drive coil." John pointed out. "It's a big city, so where do we look?"
"Don't worry." Sanah smiled. "I was recording everything as the ship was going down and I managed to get a good view of the city from the sky. Judging from visual patterns and cues, I've identified three areas that look like landing fields or spaceports."
"Well, those are the most likely places to find ship parts." Kyle nodded. "Where do we go?"
"The closest one is several miles west of here." Sanah said.
"Then let's pack up and go." Kyle said, picking up his rifle and a pack full of supplies.
"Shouldn't we leave some people behind to watch the ship?" Sanah asked.
"I don't see the point." Kay shrugged. "There's nobody around here to steal the thing, and even if there are, what are they going to do? Fly it out of here?"
"True." Sanah conceded.
"There's definitely nobody out there. Well, nothing alive anyway." Lynn confirmed.
"What a comforting thought." Halaan grumbled.
The journey west eventually took the ragtag party the edge of the park they had crash landed in. There, separated by a simple iron fence was the concrete jungle of the anonymous city they had landed in. There was a stark contrast between the grey skyscrapers made of stone and steel with the lush greenery of the park behind. And, like the park, the cityscape was in perfect condition. Just as how every tree was clipped, every blade of grass was mowed, and every flower tended, all of the streets were clean, the concrete was without cracks, and paint was perfectly smooth, and the iron fence didn't have a single speck of rust on it. Lynn brushed her hand across one of the cars parked along the road and pulled the hood open. She glanced inside and noticed that even the cars were kept in perfect shape. If she had the means to activate it, Lynn swore that the car would run with as much vigor and energy as it did when it came out of the factory.
"Why's everything so… clean?" Kay asked aloud, just as perplexed as everybody else.
"That's a good question." John looked around cautiously when his motion sensor suddenly flickered to life. "Movement."
"Where?" Kyle readied his rifle.
"A few meters west of our position." John said.
"Sanah?" Kyle glanced at the android.
"Yeah, my sensors are picking it up too." Sanah confirmed.
"I'm getting squat." Lynn shook her head.
"Drones?" Kay surmised.
"Most likely." Kyle flipped the safety on his rifle off.
The small group slowly crept forward closer to the source of the movement, making sure to spread out and stay near or behind cover. John naturally took point and led the way, carefully scanning for any threats. So far, everything was quiet. His motion sensor still pinged with movement, but he still couldn't quite see anything. Finally, he stopped at the corner of what looked like a small café and stopped. He checked his sensor again and was absolutely sure that whatever was moving, it was right around the corner. He silently hand signaled to the rest of the team of the situation and counted down with his fingers. The moment his final finger went down, the entire team stormed around the corner, weapons ready, however, what they saw was one of the last things they had expected.
"Oh my, visitors!" A small, metallic floating orb spun around, examining John and the rest of the team with its singular blue "eye".
"What the hell is that?" Kay asked, fighting the urge to pull the trigger on the thing.
"Wait!" Lynn grabbed the barrel of Kay's rifle and forced it down. "It's not hostile."
John examined the floating orb more carefully, unable to suppress the urge that he had seen this machine somewhere before with a similarly grating, slightly pretentious accent. Then, it suddenly hit him like a MAC round.
"Guilty Spark!" John exclaimed, pointed his rifle at the Monitor.
"Oh dear, I think you have me confused with another Monitor." The Forerunner drone said, not even concerned with the weapon pointed at its face. "I am Silent Caretaker 949, tasked with ensuring that all Forerunner and associated facilities on this planet are properly maintained until they are properly Reclaimed."
"What the hell is that thing?" Kay asked suspiciously.
"It's a Monitor, a Forerunner artifact." Lynn answered. "Some of the Forerunner stuff we picked up mentioned some stuff about them, but I've never seen a working one in person."
"So I believe you have come to Reclaim this area?" Silent Caretaker asked curiously.
"Wait, what?" Kyle asked, slightly confused.
"Oh dear, have you forgotten already?" Silent Caretaker sighed. "I was specifically tasked by the Librarian that in the event all sentient life leave this planet, I would activate and carry out my primary function until such time the previous inhabitants return from the Ark to Reclaim the planet."
"The Ark? What the hell is that?" Kay raised an eyebrow. Meanwhile, Lynn silently turned around, deep in thought over something.
"You mean you haven't come from the Ark?" Silent Caretaker's eye dimmed slightly. "Hmmm, no wonder the Sentinels attacked you then. Then I do hope you at least know the answers to their puzzle."
The blank looks that Silent Caretaker received gave the Monitor all the response it needed.
"Well, we may have an issue then." Silent Caretaker mused. "If my memory about Sentinel tracking and protocol are correct, quite a number of them will be closing in on this position in exactly six minutes and nine seconds."
"Can't you call them off?" Halaan asked. "You appear to have some sort of authority here."
"I'm assigned for only one primary function, and given the necessary powers to carry out that function only." Silent Caretaker responded, which was pretty much a very fancy way of saying, "No."
"Sanah, how far is the port?" Kyle asked.
"Not close enough." Sanah shook her head.
"Oh, do you need something?" Silent Caretaker asked curiously.
"Uh, we need a drive coil." Kyle said. "It's a ship part we need to fix our ship and leave."
"Oh! Well I might know what you're looking for!" Silent Caretaker hummed for a few seconds before continuing. "I've already made the proper requisition. You may want to take a few steps back."
"What?" Kyle asked before Lynn quickly pulled him and Kay back as a small craft literally fell out of the sky. "What the hell was that for?"
"I do not have the necessary data to know what exactly this 'drive coil' of yours is." Silent Caretaker responded simply. "So rather than inefficiently taking a craft apart, I thought it would be more prudent to bring the entire craft to you."
"Pretty smart for a robot." Kay joked, earning a penetrating glance from Sanah.
"Less talking and more working." Kyle clambered up to the craft's cockpit. "This ship is a two-seater, which means we can't use it get off planet. Our only chance is for two of us to fly it to
Puddlejumper and fix it up while the rest make their way on back on foot"
"You realize why I have misgivings about this plan." Halaan grumbled.
"But it's the only one we got." John said. "I'm guessing that Kyle and Kay are the ones going back since they've got the most technical knowledge."
"Yeah." Kyle nodded. "You and Lynn will have to lead everybody else back on foot while we fix the ship.
"How long will that take?" John asked.
"Probably about two minutes. Drive coils are designed to be easily interchangeable. The problem is going to getting back on foot. It's going to take about four minutes to get back on full sprint, which is pushing the limit."
"Then I suggest we get moving." John armed his rifle.
"See you on the other side, then." Kyle waited for Kay to strap into the copilot seat and he powered up the small craft and blasted off back toward the crash site.
"I suggest you get moving right away." Silent Caretaker added. "The Sentinels will be here shortly."
"Oh no, you're coming with us." Lynn said sternly. "Sanah, bag him."
Sanah expertly grabbed the Monitor and held it under her left arm, pinning the small machine in place.
"You know, you could've just simply asked." Silent Caretaker complained.
"Let's get the hell out of here." John said. Already, his upgraded motion sensor was picking up movement on the fringe of its range, lots of movement.
With that, the team, with Silent Caretaker in tow, sprinted as fast as they could back to Puddlejumper's crash site. In the distance, they could hear the low humming of the Sentinels' little engines in the distance.
"How can they be on us already?" Halaan wondered, looking behind him.
"Oh, the Sentinels are still quite some distance away." Silent Caretaker said matter-of-factly. "What you are hearing now is the sound of two thousand combined propulsion drives, which
gives the illusion that a small number of Sentinels are closer than they actually are."
Everybody ignored Silent Caretaker's redundant over-explanation since they were all more concerned with the monstrous amount of Sentinels they would have to deal with if they weren't fast enough. As the park slowly came to view, Lynn keyed her radio.
"Kyle, do you have the ship fixed?"
"Just sealed up the hatch." Kyle said proudly. "We can leave any time."
"Good, because you'd better get the ship fired off and ready to go." Lynn looked up behind her. "Because we're going to have company real soon."
By this point, the leading elements of the Sentinel swarm had already caught up to them. Beams of golden light lanced down, cutting through concrete, steel, and whatever else just happened to be in their way.
"Oh dear, I will have to lodge a complaint against the entity in charge of security duties." Silent Caretaker said mournfully. "The amount of collateral damage these Sentinels are causing is just simply unacceptable."
When more and more beams started coming down, Halaan, Lynn, Sanah, and John had no choice but to turn around, stand their ground, and fight. Rail rounds and plasma bolts flew through the air, knocking Sentinels out of the air left and right. However, as one Sentinel fell, dozens more were on the way to take its place. John and Halaan moved forward to form a screen in front of Lynn, since their heavier armor provided significantly more protection, which was a blessing given how many hits they had taken from the Sentinel beams. Unfortunately, the Sentinels were growing smarter. With every Sentinel lost, the rest of the swarm gained another little piece of data they could use to create a counter to whatever the group was doing. Very soon, the Sentinels started to spread out and fly random paths, trying the aim of even the best marksman. Lynn's precognition and Sanah's computer assisted targeting were the only things giving them an edge, while John's superhuman combat abilities were being pushed to their limit. Halaan, being only a mere Sangheili, was relegated to just firing randomly in the air in an attempt to keep the Sentinels moving so they wouldn't have enough time to get a clean shot.
However, they could only fight on for so long. Very quickly, more and more Sentinels piled in. John now completely ignored his motion sensor, since now it was just a mass of solid red. Instead, he concentrated on knocking down Sentinels, which was getting harder now that they were figuring out how to slip out of his aim. Suddenly, he was hit straight in the chest by three golden beams, knocking his shield power to a dangerously low nineteen percent. He quickly
gauged the status of his other team members and noted that they weren't doing so well either. Halaan's shields were already completely expended and he crouched behind a slowly disintegrating car in an effort to stay out of the line of fire until his shields could recharge. Lynn so far hadn't taken any hits partially due to her abilities, and partially due to Sanah taking several damaging hits for her. Already, the android was starting to show signs of visible damage. Already, it seemed as if her right arm was non functional and about to fall off and her entire body was starting to twitch and convulse in a rather inhuman way as her control systems attempted to compensate for the repeated energy surges caused by the beam weapons. And finally, amidst all the chaos, Silent Caretaker floated there seemingly ambivalent to it all, just like his counterpart Guilty Spark.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a huge roar split the air and overwhelmed the humming of the Sentinels' engines. A gray blur shot by, firing rail rounds and missiles into the Sentinel mass and blowing dozens of the little drones to pieces. Caught by surprise by Puddlejumper's sudden appearance, the Sentinels paused in order to try and adapt their behavior to this new threat. The ancient Pelican dropship looped around, shot down another dozen or so Sentinels, and then hovered about a meter off the ground. The rear loading ramp opened up to reveal Kyle.
"Hurry up!" Kyle yelled. "Get in!"
None of the people on the ground needed any more prodding to get onto the ship. They all quickly piled in. Silent Caretaker then casually floated inside, as if it were a mere afterthought. Before Kyle could even slam the button to close the ramp, Kay hit the gas and Puddlejumper rocketed up through the sky, too fast for any Sentinel to catch.
"How the hell are we going so fast!" Sanah yelled, still jerking from the battle damage she suffered.
"RATO pods!" Kay grinned. "Rocket assisted takeoff!"
The G-forces mounted as the ship gained more speed and pushed up through the atmosphere. Within seconds, Puddlejumper burst through the Sentinel cordon around the planet. Once she was sure that they were clear of the Sentinels, Kay activated the cloaking system in order to elude the Covenant ships that would doubtless come investigate the disturbance.
"You do realize that this all could have been avoided if you'd simply just given the Sentinels the key." Silent Caretaker said cooly.
"Oh, shut up." Kyle said, now suddenly very tired.
"So, are you happy now that you got what you wanted?" Halaan grunted, still quite miffed that
he had nearly gotten killed on yet another one of Kyle's mad schemes.
"Yeah. We know where Earth is, so we can go get the Fleets and come get our home back." Kyle replied.
"That won't be so easy." Lynn sighed. "We still have to figure out how to get past those Sentinels. Even if we destroy the entire Covenant fleet, we still have to deal with them."
"Huh, I never took you to be the pessimistic type." Kyle said, raising an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"
"I'm just a little down from realizing that getting back Earth wasn't nearly as simple as I thought." Lynn looked at the slowly shrinking blue planet sadly. "We can't even step foot on our own home without getting shot to pieces."
"We'll figure a way out." Kyle said hopefully. "We've got a Monitor to help us out."
"And you've got me." John said.
The rest of the team turned curiously at the Spartan, who was now standing up.
"What are you talking about?" Halaan asked.
"This isn't the first time I've had to deal with Sentinels… and Monitors." John said. "I know what makes them tick."
"Interesting." Silent Caretaker mused. "I remember vaguely reading records on a Reclaimer similar to you in appearance quite some time ago…"
"Either way, it's not something we can do alone." Lynn stood up and turned to Halaan. "Halaan, thanks a ton for your help. We couldn't have done it without you."
"Your gratification is noted." Halaan sniffed, trying to hide a satisfied grin.
"Kyle, once we get back to Halaan's ship, open up a comm. link with the Fleet." Lynn said, her blue eyes blazing like twin suns. "I have a lot to tell Keyes."