Chapter Four
1156 Hours, September 17,
2547 (Military Calendar)/
Aboard Covenant Vessel
The Hailstrom, near UNSC/Rebel held Arcadia
Spartan C026, Axton, jogged down the Covenant hallway, his assault rifle locked and loaded in his armored gloves. A shotgun used for emergencies only was slung over his back, ready for the dangerous assignment ahead. He was to infiltrate the cruiser, CCS class, and neutralize the shipmaster. Then make his way to the landing bay and be extracted by a small team of marines in a Pelican. All in a day's work for a Spartan.
A trio of grunts, or Unggoy as the aliens called them, waddled from around the corner, wielding plasma grenades in their knobby fingers. They primed the explosives, and charged the armored human. Suicide mission. He put a burst of armor-piercing bullets through each, as the plasma grenades exploded, sending the room spinning with blue light.
"Which way?" Axton asked his AI, Saratoga. He was quite the strange AI, but Axton somehow managed to put up with the AI's personality "quirks." Saratoga was annoying to others, but Axton found it easier to ignore him, and easier to work well together.
"Hang a left after seven meters, and proceed down the corridor until you find a blue door." Saratoga informed him. "And you may want to hurry; you must have the bay door open in eleven minutes."
"Noted." Axton acknowledged, increasing his speed. He crunched over the fallen grunts, his boots sinking to the floor from his immense weight. The MJOLNIR armor weighed half a ton, not to mention the hundred pounds of gear he carried. Axton followed the map that appeared in the upper left corner of his visor, along with a count-down timer that was now at ten minutes and twenty-seven seconds. The Spartan lengthened his strides.
Suddenly his shields dropped, and the warning alarm wailed in his ears. His motion sensor flashed, and he spun around to face half-a-dozen jackals, their circular energy shields lined up to overlap. The Spartan charged forward, his assault rifle blowing holes through the top of their shields, causing two jackals to fall with a scream. Axton smashed into the nearest one, blowing its shield and sending the jackal flying, crunching against the back wall. The human rolled out of the way as a green plasma bolt whizzed by him. He shoved the butt of his rifle through the forehead of the jackal, and the alien's head caved in. Axton grabbed the next jackal's energy shield, and sent it careening through the air at the other one. Its bird-like head dropped to the floor as the shield sliced through its scraggly neck. The Spartan spun on the last jackal, and crunched its chest in with one swift kick. He scanned his motion sensor, no signatures. Axton fastened one of the jackal's shield to his armored forearm and dumped out the old clip in his assault rifle. A new one clicked into place before the empty one hit the hard floor.
"Eight minutes. Speed it up leadfoot." Saratoga said quietly in his head. The cool presence of the AI's chip in the back of his armor was somewhat unnerving, but Axton had grown accustomed to it, even welcomed the security that the AI brought. Axton wondered how much farther to the shipmasters quarters, if he would even be there, and who he would have to fight through in order to get there. The more Covenant I kill now, he thought, the less I have to deal with later.
"This one," Saratoga said, placing a marker on the door to the human's right, that instantly slid open as he walked closer. The Spartan clicked the safety off and peered around the corner. Jackals, grunts, and two elites stood in the center of the chamber, staring up at the large window with a web of purple strands and strange markings. The chamber had a purple sheen to it with various columns protruded from the ground that almost seemed to pulse with life. A data center was located at the front, where monitor screens and strange mechanisms sat, buzzing with energy. Two of the aliens stood over three meters tall, stretching even taller than Axton. One of the elites wore gold plating, and an energy sword was poised in one of its paws. The other's armor was tinted a light blue shade, and it wielded a plasma rifle. They hadn't seen him yet, and soon would get a rude awakening.
Axton primed a frag grenade, cooked it for four seconds, and lobbed it into the middle of the group of jackals. The jackals squealed in surprise, their surprise soon turned to warbled gurgles as they were blown to pieces. The remaining grunts threw their hands up and scrambled for cover, squealing with fear. The Spartan entered the room and lunged to get behind one of the structures sticking from the floor. Plasma washed over both sides of the pillar, and Axton's shield lurched to 75%. A plasma grenade exploded, and then another, setting off a chain reaction. Debris rained down around him, and the deck shook with each explosion. Alarms wailed in the humans' ears, but he ignored them. Axton heard the throaty war cry of the Minor Elite, and stuck his rifle out from the protection of the pillar, moving his helmet to peer around the circular edge. The blue alien rushed towards him, the rifle shooting blue bolts of plasma. They missed wildly, but even an untrained soldier could land a lucky shot. The Spartan rolled from cover, firing a sustained burst between the alien's two sets of mandibles. Its blue shields sputtered and died, and the remaining shots blew through the front of the alien's head. Something exploded out the side of the helmet, and leaked down the side. It slumped to the floor, skidding until it stopped at the armored human's feet. Blue blood trickled from the fallen elite and pooled on the floor.
The shipmaster turned to face him, the energy sword buzzing with electricity. It stood a full meter tall than Axton, its maw flexed, revealing rows of razor sharp teeth. They stared at one another for a moment, before the gold elite's jaws unhooked, and it growled something unintelligible.
"You shall pay with your life for tainting this ship, your presence here disgraces the prophets!" Saratoga translated for him.
The shipmaster charged toward him, the sword pulled behind its back, preparing to shred the Spartan to ribbons. Axton yanked his shotgun from the strap on his back, discarding his assault rifle, and rushed to meet the gold elite. The distance between them closed rapidly, and the shipmaster thrust the sword towards the Spartans chest. Axton parried, the energy sword skimming his right shoulder and drawing blood. Pain bit into his skin, as the sword remained stuck in his flesh, while the two battled for leverage. The human pulled his shotgun up, and fired it point blank into the golden elite's twisted face. The shield sparked, flashing a bright white light that caused Axton's visor to automatically darken and then return to normal when the light faded.
The elite landed a hard blow to the center of the Spartans chest, boosting him backwards.
Axton slid a few meters back before rolling to his feet, slamming back into the elite and tumbling to the ground. The elite roared, swinging his energy sword, barely missing the humans head. Axton smashed his knee down onto the elite's chest, shoving the air from its lungs, while the elite pounded his torso with a clenched paw.
Four minutes and thirteen seconds remained on the timer.
The Spartan managed to pin the elite's wrist down, but the alien twisted its huge paw and sliced open Axton's right leg, cutting it to the bone. He didn't notice the pain, as he pulled the shotgun up to hover just above the elite's mandibles. He pulled the trigger. Blue blood splattered the outside of his faceplate, and a gurgled cry was cut off from leaving the elites throat. The golden shipmaster went slack, the energy sword clattering onto the ground. The Spartan reviewed his vital signs: elevated blood pressure, all internal organs intact, and minor blood loss. For now. A stream of blood continued to gush from his right leg, and dribbled over the outside of his MJOLNIR armor. Axton stood up from the elite's corpse and pulled out a medic bag. He sprayed biofoam into the open wound, staunching the blood and holding the wound closed. He then sprayed a small jet into his shoulder, and cold touched his flesh.
"Haul your iron ass out of there Spartan." Saratoga reminded him, the timer in the corner of his visor blinking red. Right, got to get moving, Axton thought.
He retrieved his assault rifle, slung his shotgun over his shoulder, and set out at a brisk jog from the now-dead shipmaster's quarters. According to the schematics, he had approximately half a click to cover in order to reach the drop bay. Time to get moving.
A small UNSC ship was on course to rendezvous with him in the Covenant bay, its doors opened and the shields already dropped. Axton had entered on the Pelican that would extract him in two minutes and fifty-two seconds, and then reunite with a UNSC ship that had a shaw-fujikawa drive. They would execute the cole-protocal, and proceed to return to earth.
He absentmindedly cut down a group of exposed and un-expecting grunts, clearing the path to the launch bay. Axton wound his way through the confusing hallways of the Covenant cruiser, often pausing to ask Saratoga where the next turn was.
Another group of jackals rounded a corner and opened fire on him. He powered up the jackal shield acquired earlier, seconds before the green plasma splashed against his own shields. He charged them, ramming his energy shield into the nearest jackal's exposed side. He disposed of the remaining bird-like creatures in a similar fashion.
The Spartan broke into a dead run when he saw the timer hit 60 seconds.
"Hang right lugnut!" Saratoga yelled, the door coming up faster than the AI had anticipated. The Spartan cut right and almost smashed into two massive closed doors. The hangar bay.
"S, I need this open now." The Spartan growled. Any setback now was beyond frustrating. Axton called Saratoga 'S' sometimes, as Saratoga was too long for quick-paced combat.
"Right, on it," Saratoga accessed the Covenant command codes, searching for the correct ones to open the hangar doors. Firewalls flared up, but Saratoga easily cut through them like butter. He was slightly amused; the Covenant were so rudimentary on occasion. He bypassed the security measures and forced the bay doors open.
"You do realize your suit's integrity has been breached? If the bay doors are open…" Saratoga said quietly.
"Open the doors," was Axton's annoyed response.
"Hangar bay doors opening."
The doors slowly slid back into the walls, the energy shields protecting the air pressure in the hallway disappeared. Axton could still feel his feet on the floor, so he guessed the hangar doors were thankfully closed. One Pelican sat idly in the center of the hangar bay, maneuvered precisely so it didn't hit any of the other Covenant vehicles. Ghosts, banshees, and seraphs were stashed here. The room had the same purple tinted floors and walls as the hallways and shipmasters quarters. A small group of marines held a perimeter around the Pelican, all their weapons trained on Axton's head. When they saw him, they immediately dropped their weapons and saluted, save for a few who stood gaping. He didn't blame them; a man standing at over two meters tall encased in half-a-ton of armor was quite mouth-dropping. Axton marched forward, metal clanking against metal as he walked.
"Good to see you, sir, cutting it kind of close. We were just about to pack up." the female pilot said. She wore olive fatigues with a small handgun tucked in a holster. He nodded to her as he thumped up the drop ramp into the back of the Pelican.
"Move it Marines!" one of the field officers barked, as the men filed into the aircraft. They gave the Spartan a wide birth. All the marines knew that death followed the Spartan like a shadow.
"Clear for departure. Going to be a hot exit, banshees and seraphs in position outside bay doors." The marines hung tight to metal loops hanging from the top of the craft, used as handles in rough situations. The pilot turned the Pelican around, and slowly guided it towards the hangar doors. Axton watched intently out the side window, knowing the last part of a mission was the most dangerous. CPO Mendez had taught him well. Axton remembered briefly his rigorous training on Reach, where he had been pushed to become the UNSC's most dangerous weapon. Axton snapped out of it, annoyed at how easily he had lost focus.
As the doors slid open, everyone was dumbstruck at the scene before them: the UNSC vessel that had brought them in was just a whisper of debris and pieces of shrapnel. Every bit of it covered in plasma burns. Dead marines floated in zero gravity, their mouths open in silent screams. Banshees flew like angry bees around the cruiser, waiting for the Pelican to re-emerge. Immediately after leaving the launch bay, all of them swarmed the Pelican. Green splashes of plasma erupted around the aircraft, and the marines were knocked to the floor. Axton simply gripped onto the metal loops tighter, careful not to dent the hand-holds. The craft shook violently, sparks sizzling from the controls. The pilot struggled to keep it upright, but evidently lost control when another swath of plasma bolts crashed into the side, knocking the Pelican towards the nearby planet. Too close.
The craft shuddered again, its titanium-A shell grinding from the pressure. The gravity of the planet below began to tug at the craft, pulling it closer and closer to its burning atmosphere.
"Spartan," Saratoga said, "lock your armor."