The HRUNTING Mark IV exoskeleton looked alarmingly like giant headless Covenant elites, with their dull grey paint jobs and triple jointed legs. Dahl had seen Mark III Cyclops on the field before, but the damn things were bullet magnets and strapping more armour to them only reduced their range of motion even more.
The UNSC had therefore come up with the Mark IV, intended to be a vast improvement over its predecessor due to its more advanced leg servos and AI assisted controls.
Only, the same problems that had plagued the Cyclops came back to haunt its bastard child; the pilot had to use a counter-intuitive set of joysticks to move the arms, legs and torso, and the integration of an M41 LAAG to the right arm only added more buttons to an already crowded cockpit.
The Dumb AI integrated to every suit was supposed to assist the pilot by interpreting their intention and reacting accordingly, but, as it quickly was revealed, people don't think clearly when they are being shot at, this led to many where the driver's sidearm inadvertently went off a dozen times into the AI's memory chip.
There were only eight of the decommissioned exo suit in the hangar, but then, between Hammer 1-1 and 1-4, he had about four combat ready Rangers, twelve if you considered being lucid and having five fingers in total across both your hands as combat ready. The eight injured Rangers would drive the HRUNTING suits and carve a path for…
"Major, that's enough!" The voice thundered out of nowhere, almost causing Dahl to seek cover.
The General was speaking to him over the warehouse's intercom. Gregory froze. Unlike Blackburn, who'd shipped in from off planet specially at the General's request, Dahl was native from New Kheops, his loyalty lied with the people who lived here, not some disembodied voice with an attitude.
"Colonel Blackburn's RTB," Boomed the officer, clearly annoyed at the Ranger's attitude, "he doesn't need your help, but I do, I need your signal specialists in the situation room ASAP."
"There's a full enemy battalion out there ma'am, I'm not leaving my men behind…" That could get him court marshalled, but then, so did assaulting an ODST and commandeering Covenant vehicles without authorization.
He heard the General's mad giggle over the intercom and, though he'd stared down Hunters and Brutes throughout his career, that gave him Goosebumps, "The Covenant forces are falling back… I think the correct term is stampeding over one another, to get away from your Boss."
Everyone on the elevator had the same mental image of Blackburn, his Daffy Duck shotgun blazing, chasing after giant scaly monsters and bitching at them every step of the way.
"How?"
"Chlorine gas."
The humorous ambiance died right there. Blackburn had gassed enemy forces? Well, it had worked, but… Damn, that's cold, Joel…
With a deep sigh, he motioned everyone to stand down. Part of him was disappointed, felt like missing out on something, but that was just a small part, the rest was immensely relieve he wouldn't have to head back out there after all.
"On one condition!" He called, unstrapping his armour.
The General's disbelief was obvious in her tone, "Excuse me?!"
"There better be coffee ready when we get up there."
The General laughed again, this time not maniacally however.
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The tank rumbled to a stop ten steps from the base's front gate and Blackburn jumped off its turret, gas mask in one hand, shotgun in the other. They were followed by Victors one through five, the last being towed by the first, its front left wheel bent in such a way it attempted to wiggle its way to freedom.
Black went around the back of the Cobra and punched the rear hatch as hard as he would had it been a Covenant Elite. Casualties were piled in every available nook and cranny, bleeding over the autoloader, writhing in pain on the floor.
Kyle Beckett, fresh out of Ranger school, had saved his best friend, Simon Dubé, from an energy sword wielding Elite.
He took less place in the Victor than any of his friends did, thanks to the Elite chopping off his legs and both arms, so close to his torso there wasn't a stump to be seen.
Black grabbed the boy by his chest plate and lifted him off the floor with ease.
He'd carried LMGs that weighted more than the poor kid.
"Are we there yet?" Beckett scoffed, refusing to pass out from the massive amount of morphine he'd been injected with.
"Yeah, they're going to fix you right up, Kyle, I promise." Joel had always hated people called douche-ish names like Kyle, Todd or Blake. It seemed to the old vet that kids named after action movie heroes had a hard time realizing that, unlike movies, having a strong name did not mean you were meant for great things.
He'd met a kid once, A Spartan III name Bob, who could hit a target at any range with barely a split-second's shooting window.
Kyle here had likely fallen prey to that misguided conception as well, but he'd done it to save his buddy… Ultimately, his friend was killed and Kyle was now nothing more than a cauterized stump being carried around by a grumpy old man, but the kid meant well…
A bunch of Army medics came running from the nearest pillbox, carrying a stretcher and apparently heading for Black. Kyle was the one to send them away.
"The fuck you bitches think I need that for? I'm a fucking potato sack, guys!"
Joel shrugged and moved on, carrying one of his Rangers like a Spartan carries heavy weapons.
The pillbox was merely one of many staircase leading into Fort Aleksandre. The whole base was underground save for some checkpoints and fortifications meant to keep the civvies away more than anything else.
There were many more wounded to be brought down these stairs, so Black tried his best to hurry, but this steel and concrete spiraling structure had obviously not been built to par with hospital standards and he kept bumping Kyle's helmeted skull against the railing.
"Sorry." He said, after the third time.
"It's alright, brain damage isn't really high on my list right now…"
They entered a circle of dirty yellow light cast by a light bulb that had most likely not been changed since this base's youth. They said nothing until after they were back in the dark.
"You're taking this pretty well…" Remarked Joel, trying to break the silence, trying not to think about everything he'd done today.
Kyle chuckled. He sounded like a fun guy to drink with, Black thought bitterly, damn shame. "Morphine… Man, people like morphine for a reason…" He sighed like a disappointed kid denied the right to go play with his friends, then added, "They're not going to flash-clone me some new limbs, are they?"
Joel thought about it, but Beckett took his silence as an answer and shook his head, "Of course not, it's medicine, not magic… Fuck, they didn't mention that in the recruitment brochure…"
"If there's a way to fix you, you've got my word that they will." But Beckett was not with him anymore, his head went limp and the boy exhaled in relief as the pain finally stopped.
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Within Fort Aleksandre's Situation Room, West and his team were preparing for a long and intense decryption job.
The General had given them full access to Army Intelligence data about the planet's… Builders.
Forerunners. A species of alien believed to have gone extinct some hundred thousands of years prior. Ruins and archeological traces of their existence were found all over the galaxy, but unexplained things happened around them, so ONI had pushed hard to classify those sites.
Army Intelligence disagreed, but HIGHCOM being in ONI's pocket, there was not much they could do.
New Kheops, or Cheops, depending on who you asked, was a… Gas station?
West re-read the passage:
…Installation is believed to have been used for re-fueling and supply storage. The AI manning this Installation was recovered in 2454 and, after a brief activation, shut off permanently.
The Lieutenant removed his helmet and tossed it to the pencil pusher who's desk he had just confiscated. "Roja!"
A dark skinned blonde in full combat armour leaned out of the adjacent cubicle, "Yeah?"
"That chip, it's a standard UNSC A5, right?"
She disappeared, checked the memory crystal, then leaned back again, "Yeah, but I'm not seeing any brain patterns… It's stock full, but the program isn't an AI…"
"Throw me a peanut and call me Dumbo!" He leapt from his seat, "They backed up an alien AI!" Roja only watched as he snatched the thing from her desk and retrieved his helmet in one swift move.
He jammed the chip in his headset and adjusted the mic with his mouth. "Hey! I know you're in there, say something!"
There were dozens of highly trained hackers and programmers in the room all looking at him and not a single one of them thought he was sane.
"Something." The voice was mechanical, like a down syndrome lawyer speaking through a metal can.
Now transmitting straight to the base's inner Com channel, he asked, "What's your name?"
"I am 446 Vigilant Beacon, Monitor of this outpost. How may I be of assistance?"
West looked around for the General, but she was nowhere to be found. Suddenly, the Lieutenant felt very heavy, as though someone had just climbed on his shoulders. This AI, according to the General, could save all of New Kheops, somehow, and he'd just gotten it talking for the first time in a hundred years…
"Do you know what's going on?" Seemed like a good place to start.
"Religiously motivated individuals, calling themselves the Covenant, are currently attempting to terminate Reclaimer population, calling itself United Nation Space Command. Reclaimers are hoping I can activate this Installation's defences, thus negating the Covenant naval superiority."
West looked around, looking for help in the faces of the men under him, but they all simply watched, waiting for his next move.
"Can you? I mean, kill them but not our guys?"
"Yes, do you want me to terminate the invaders, Reclaimer?"
This might have been best answered with a solemn declaration, or by someone with medals pined on their chest and enough battle scars to make a burn victim look healthy. "Fuck yeah!" Was West's answer.