Chapter 12
Dark Wolf did not want to be doing this.
His current mission was to claim a Covenant Spire. A Spire.
Holland claimed that the new UNSC AI, Cortana, would be able to reprogram a Spire's shield to repel Covenant technology instead of USNC tech. She would also be able to reprogram its teleporter to destroy Covenant ships being sent to the surface, reducing some of the size of the Covenant army on Reach. This would make an excellent base for the reestablished human population on Reach.
Thus, the New Noble Team (minus one) would be heading in to capture a Spire and plug Cortana into it. Dr. Halsey had protested, but Cortana was currently their strongest AI- not to mention having been built on several pieces of Forerunner tech. She was the only one able to reprogram the Spire.
Speaking of Cortana, Dark Wolf had the AI strapped to his belt now. Seeing as she was to reprogram Covenant technology, a special casing had been designed for Cortana. It was the size of a hand grenade, and had a rather mean looking spike on one end. The spike was apparently for accessing computers - and nothing else, as the Noble Team had been repeatedly informed.
The team was in a Falcon now, flying full tilt for the nearest Spire. They were, of course, madly pursued by seven Banshees. Dark Wolf was also sitting in the left hand gunner seat, spraying machine gun bullets at one of them. As he watched, his target Banshee burst into purple flames and fell. Dark Wolf immediately focused on another Banshee, without stopping the flow of bullets from his machine gun.
Jewel was in the gun on the opposite side of the craft, she was also firing at the Banshees. Chris, Mage, and Holmes sat in the main hold of the Falcon.
Tim was absent.
Another reason for not wanting to do this mission: no sign of Noble Five had been found, and from the description given by the only surviving member of the strike team, Tim hadn't made it out alive. Their two past missions had been mixed successes, and Dark Wolf didn't want to test if this one would be as well. But, orders were orders, and the mission would have gone on with or without him. He could at least go along to make sure none of his team mates were killed.
Then Cortana was in his headpiece, "We're approaching the target, Nobles. Get ready."
Dark Wolf still didn't get how she could he hooked up to a piece of equipment made for hacking computers, and the whole teams comlinks at the same time.
But Dark Wolf did know that if the Falcon landed with several Banshees on its tail, then the craft would never take off again. So, he had three plasma grenades on his belt as well. Now, he decided, was an excellent time to use them.
He quickly grabbed one, popped its pin, and threw the now glowing sphere at one of the Banshees.
It took several seconds before the grenade erupted, destroying the Banshee, and throwing its debris towards several others. The flaming hull of the Banshee collided with another, the resulting explosion destroying both.
Dark Wolf smiled, snatched another grenade, and threw it at a new Banshee. The grenade caused even more chaos among the group of pursuers.
There was only one Banshee left now; Jewel had destroyed two more during Dark Wolf's grenade attack. Then the last Banshee exploded. Dark Wolf quickly looked across the Falcons holding bay at his partner.
Jewel gave him a thumbs up, "I can't let you have all the fun can I?"
"Attention Nobles!" said Cortana, "We will be landing shortly. Gunners, keep the ground clear!"
The Falcon was quickly closing in on a Spire, one of the two hundred foot tall Covenant force field generators. Several curving supports made up most of the Spire, the top being a small command center- which in turn was dominated by a crown of large spikes. The structure was made even taller by the by a beam of white energy that constantly streamed from its top. The beam spread out over the Spire and swept down back to the ground, covering the entire Spire and the ground surrounding it.
The force field prevented any long range tactical fire from hitting the Spire, and aircraft from reaching it- forcing opponents to go in and manually destroy it. This made Spires's extremely convenient troop bunkers, which was exactly why the UNSC wanted one.
There were several Spires set up in a row, spanning over two miles right through the landscape of Reach. The Falcon quickly dropped down close to the ground, avoiding radar and approaching the nearest Spire.
Just before it could pass through the energy field, the Falcon slowed, and its propellers quickly turned to point up. The craft came to a stop several dozen yards away from the force field.
"Everybody out!" said Dark Wolf and jumped out of the Falcon.
Already Covenant troops had noticed the helicopter and were calling alarms. Jewel and the rest of the team quickly exited the Falcon, which then swiftly took off.
An Elite raced forwards, bellowing in anticipation of battle.
"Come at me, big guy!" roared Mage. He raced forwards, giving the Elite an uppercut. As the Elite fell, Mage whipped out his shotgun, and blasted the alien in the face.
Then the rest of the Noble team charged past him, guns blazing.
Ra'shiid Eldum'ee was a purple Zealot class Elite. And he disliked his job now, seeing as the Spire under his command was being attacked by a team of humans. The worst part was how fast they were destroying his troops.
He stood at the purple field surrounding the main hub of his Spire, watching as the humans destroyed Grunt, Jackal, and the occasional Elite fell before the demons.
He turned to a Grunt nearby, "Throw grenades at the humans," he commanded. The Grunt nodded, popped one of its plasma grenades, and threw it down at the human strike team.
Ra'shiid marched back into the main hub of the Spire, to his post at the force feild generator. If the humans got past the grenade throwing Grunts, and every other troop on the ground, then they would have to be special humans indeed. Blay'de had called special humans 'Spartans,' but there were no more Spartans.
In any case, if the humans did get to the top of his Spire, Ra'shiid was one of the specially selected Energy Sword weilders. He would be able to dispose of a group of humans.
CRACK!
Ra'shiid turned at the sudden noise, in time to see one of the Grunts come flying in the door to the main hub. It was closely followed by a human in red armor. The human yelled something and charged.
Ra'shiid pulled out his Energy Sword and turned it on, just in time for the human to hit him right in the chest. Everything went black for a moment, and everything cleared in time for Ra'shiid to see the human sitting on his chest and pointing a gun at him.
The human fired several times, just enough, Ra'shiid's HUD told him, to deplete his shields. Then the human got of Ra'shiid's chest, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him out of the hub onto the surrounding field.
Then the human threw him off the edge.
Dark Wolf didn't even pause to watch the Elite hit the ground, instead, he turned around and marched back into the hub, and up to the main console.
"Get ready, Cortana," he said, and jammed her infiltration device into the computer. Then he turned to the rest of the team, who had been busy clearing the main hub of Covenant troops.
"Chris, Mage, secure the Outside of the Spire," he said, "Holmes and Jewel? help me defend the Spire while Cortana works on taking it."
Chris and Mage ran back to the outside of the Spire, and began to circle the perimiter of the purple field.
Mage was halfway around the Spire when he heard Chris scream.
Mage turned and sprinted back to the other side of the field, where he found a Phantom, and Chris's corpse blown against the wall. Mage looked at Chris, then back at the Phantom.
"YOU..." Mage began cursing and firing his shotgun at the Phantom, which (being a Phantom) simply withstood it.
Mage was considering throwing some grenades at it when the Phantom sparked, and fell out of the sky. Then Mage noticed that the Spire's force field had turned green.
"ABOUT TIME!" he roared as Dark Wolf exited the hub to check on them.
"Why... Oh..." said Dark Wolf, as he saw Chris's remains. "Cortana, find me a channel with Colonel Holland," he said, turning to go back inside, "I want to have a word with him."