(A/N) Hey guys, sorry that this is coming out late, finding it very difficult to keep juggling work, a social life and the collab, but I think I'm on top of things once again. Hopefully there won't be any other late updates for a good while, and the new X-Ray and Vav chapter will, of course, be going up tonight. Thanks to everyone for bearing with me.
Enjoy!
Chapter Sixty-Eight – The Covenant
The Director
Written by NicKenny
"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." – Murphy's Law
I reviewed the video yet again, replaying the battle royale that the freelancers had just partaken in over and over again. Carolina had emerged victorious, but that was no surprise to me. Indeed, the only surprise would be if she had failed.
I watched the footage again, as Carolina swiftly eliminated Georgia, but, once again, that was of little surprise to me. Georgia wasn't in this project due to his hand-to-hand combat abilities. I was much more interested in his brain that his brawn. Then, seconds later, Minnesota is taken down by Penn, who smashes a fist into his head, knocking him out instantly. Still, Agent Minnesota is a sniper. His skill lies in taking targets out from a distance, and, up close against Penn, he was never going to win. Nonetheless I make a mental note to broach the subject with him at some point in the near future. I cannot allow him to grow complacent, regardless of the skills that he does have. All of us, as individuals, must continue to improve and improve if we are ever to have a chance of winning this war.
Florida is then taking out at the far end a brief moment later as an enraged Agent Maine bats the blue agent away, sending him flying into the wall, ending Florida's brief alliance with Arkansas, who now has to take on Maine alone. Surprisingly, Ark manages to evade the clutches of the larger agent, and capitalises when Maine's attention wavers as Agent Pennsylvania abandons his fight with Wyoming and Virginia, and begins to make his way over. However, before he gets the chance, Arkansas tackles Maine to the ground, pummelling his EVA helmet over and over until Maine's armour lock activates, just after South Dakota is eliminated by Carolina, catching a wicked right hook to the temple.
The rest of the eliminations occur almost as quickly, as our most skilled agents rise to the challenge, and alliances are swiftly formed, and, just as swiftly, broken. Massachusetts is sent into armour lock, giving way before the combined assault of Michigan and California, and North is finished off by York, bringing their struggle to an end.
The training room floor is, by this point, littered with armour-locked bodies, and another is added when Virginia lands a snap-kick into Wyoming's chest, knocking the air out of his lungs and shutting his armour down. At the same time, Ark is confronted by both Alaska and Penn, and, while he manages to stand firm in the face of their combined onslaught for a few seconds, he is soon overcome by the two older agents.
Alaska and Penn's attention then turned to Michigan and California, and soon enough Michigan was down, leaving California to fight the two alone, just as Ark had previously. At the same time, Virginia charged into combat against York and Carolina, and was soon overcome, entering armour lock fractions of a second before California was taken down by Penn.
Another surprise was at hand, as Penn slammed into Alaska before the other agent had time to react, bringing their alliance to an end, and leaving Penn to face off against York and Carolina, alone. Despite the fact that I had already watched this video several times over, and already knew the outcome of this final battle, I couldn't help but lean forward as the three agents threw themselves into the fray.
York was soon out of the picture, foolishly allowing his emotions to cloud his judgement and taking the brunt force of an attack meant for Carolina, leaving it all down to Carolina and Penn. I smiled as I watched the two trade blows, Penn's more powerful but clumsier assault being evaded by Carolina, until he finally makes a mistake which she seizes on, knocking him to the ground, then putting him out of his misery.
I lean back with a smile of satisfaction on my face, pleased with the progress that our agents are showing. Agent Carolina and Pennsylvania, in particular, are exceeding the hopes that I had for them. I barely noticed the sudden cry of shock from the far end of the observation deck, and my attention flickers over to it for a moment, as I turn my head slightly, only to see a technician standing and waving excitedly in my direction.
"Sir!" he exclaimed, yelling across the room. "We've detected the same frequency used by the leader of the Insurrection in his transmission!"
I immediately rose, striding over across the room to where the beaming technician stood, feeling all of the eyes in the room fixating themselves on me. "Are you sure?" I asked slowly, in measured tones, as the technician nods furiously.
"I'm positive, sir. It's a perfect match."
I nod slowly, taking my glasses off and dusting them while my brain works furiously. "What are they transmitting?"
"A distress beacon, sir. Their ship appears to have run into trouble," the technician replied, gesturing to the machine next to him.
"Interesting," I murmured, then I pointed to the headset connected to the machine. "May I?"
He beamed, no doubt expecting a weighty bonus in his next pay check for his work today. "Of course, Director!"
I smiled back, and sat down in his chair, pulling on the headset. Immediately my ears filled with the underlying sounds of a blaring siren, gunfire, and one familiar voice repeating the same words over and over. "This is the URF flagship Hand of Fortune. We are under attack, I repeat, we are under attack! Calling on any nearby URF or UNSC vessels to aid us if you can. Please, send help."
The message then replayed over, and I realised where I recognised the voice from. The UNSC had sent us every file that they had on the Unified Revolutionary Front, and, in particular, Lieutenant Ian Harper, including voice recordings.
'Interesting,' I thought, 'If one of their highest ranking officials are issuing distress beacons, then exactly what sort of problem did they stumble across.'
I idly wondered whether or not whatever this mysterious problem that the Insurgents had stumbled across would have been so kind as to have rid us of the good lieutenant, but I had a feeling that fate wouldn't be so kind. A man like Lieutenant Harper had a knack for escaping deadly situations with his life intact, but this beacon finally provided us with our first fresh lead in weeks as to his, or their leader's, whereabouts.
"Have you been able to trace the transmission?" I asked the technician hovering by my shoulder, and he nodded enthusiastically in response.
"It's in a sector not too far from our current position, sir. We could probably make it in under an hour, depending on how accurately our slipspace engine is operating."
I nodded sagely, removing the headphones and returning them to their owner. "Very well then," I replied, making my way back to the top of the observation deck. "F.I.L.S.S., please set a waypoint at these coordinates, and prepare to activate the slipspace engine. Order all soldiers to battle positions, and inform the freelancers that they are required to make their way to the observation deck ASAP."
I sat down at my desk and opened up all of the files we had on the Unified Revolutionary Front, and this ship of theirs, the Hand of Fortune, as all around me, the denizens of the Mother of Invention heeded the call to arms.
We exited slipspace not too far from the transmission's coordinates, and quickly came across the ship that was issuing the distress beacon, drifting aimlessly just outside of a nearby asteroid field, it's hull scorched and blackened, bearing the traces of a recent, and brutal, attack.
"Agents," I began, turning to the assembled freelancers, who all started at my sudden words, as they had been waiting now for several minutes in complete silence as we neared out target. "We know that the Hand of Fortune was recently attacked, and that a distress beacon was transmitted, and is indeed still transmitting. We must acknowledge the fact that this might well be a trap, or, that the crew onboard the ship all perished during the attack. Regardless, we must investigate."
I gestured to the holographic table next to me, and a display of the Hand of Fortune appeared, using the UNSC blueprints of the vessel before it had been captured and claimed for the Insurrectionist cause.
"We believe that both Lieutenant Ian Harper and the Insurrectionist leader may be onboard, or have been onboard at some point during the attack, so the objective here is twofold. Your primary objective is to discover either the bodies or any information on the current whereabouts of Lieutenant Harper or the Insurrectionist leader, with the secondary objective being the discovery of the identity of the vessel's attacker."
Suddenly, several of the technicians at the other side of the observation deck began shouting at once, and, somewhere on the ship, sirens began to wail.
"Director," F.I.L.S.S. suddenly burst, "Our sensors have depicted an unknown vessel exiting slipspace near our current location. How should we respond?"
"It's a trap," I murmur, striding over to the window looking out onto the Hand of Fortune. "F.I.L.S.S., patch me through to the commander of the ship when they exit slipspace, if you will. I'd like to know the name of our would-be opponent, before we send him back to the scrap heap where he belongs."
There was a slight pause, and when F.I.L.S.S. finally spoke up once more, a note of confusion had entered the voice of the A.I. "I cannot, sir, I am not familiar with their communications technology. It appears to be…alien."
"Alien," I asked, just as the ship burst out of slipspace in front of us, its cannons already blazing as it fired round after round into our hull. The Mother of Invention rocked under this assault, and I almost lost my balance, grabbing hold of the holo-table just in time to prevent myself from falling.
"F.I.L.S.S., sound the alarm," I ordered, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. "We are under attack! Order all personnel into attack positions, and commence fire upon the alien vessel."
"As you command, Director," she replied, and her voice could be heard echoing throughout the corridors of the MoI, until she spoke up again a second later, her voice filling the observation deck.
"Director, I have detected the launch of several of what I can only assume to be boarding craft, and they seem to have pinpointed several locations to begin boarding, including an area near the ship's core, the loading bay, and several other locations."
The holographic table brought up another image, but this time it displayed the MoI itself, highlighting the targeted areas in a bright red.
I blinked, my brain already formulating a plan to combat this assault, but somewhere in the back of my mind I already knew that the odds were not in our favour. Few lone ships survived a Covenant attack, and this one had caught us unawares. However, I was not the sort to go down without a fight, and I turned to my freelancers, a stern but unconcerned expression on my face as I issued their orders in even tones.
"Carolina, I want you to take Pennsylvania, Maine and Alaska, and make way for the loading bay, taking charge of any and all personnel you meet along the way, and coordinate the defence there. It'll take them a while to disable our shields and breach our hull, so you will have a limited amount of time to organise some kind of defensive structure beforehand."
The four freelancers nodded and left, weapons in hand, making their way towards the loading bay with all available haste. I then turned to York, who stared back at me impassively, although I could tell that he wasn't entirely happy about being on a separate team to Carolina. But we did not have the time for such wasted sentiment here.
"York, you are to take agents California, Florida and Massachusetts, and take control of the groups of soldiers already organising the defence of the ship's core. I have no doubt that that is one of the most important, if not the primary, target of the enemy's assault. If they damage the core, we're as good as dead."
Without even waiting for the agents to leave, I then turn to North Dakota. "North, there is a long, straight corridor on the upper levels of the ship, near one of the main Covenant breaching attempts, which we will attempt to funnel the Covenant boarding parties through, by shutting the nearby blast doors. I'm placing you in charge of Wyoming, Virginia and Minnesota in the defence of this area. Unfortunately, it will just be the four of you being utilised in this defence, as we are too heavily pressed in other areas to spare any personnel in the defence of a relatively strategically un-important zone. Indeed, I would leave it to the Covenant, but if they manage to breach that corridor it will put much more pressure on our defences in other areas."
Like York, North also appeared to have some dissatisfaction about his team, clearly not wanting to be too far from his sister, but sometimes small sacrifices must be made for the greater good. The agents left, leaving me with the last four staring at me with mixed levels of apprehension.
I looked at them each in turn: Arkansas, coolly staring back at me, although his clenched fists betrayed his fear. Georgia, not meeting my gaze, evidently ill at ease in the position that he had just found himself. South Dakota, just turning back after watching her brother's retreating form exit the room, evidently displeased. Michigan, fidgeting slightly, betraying a sense of unease and worry that had only begun once Agent California had left the room.
Interesting.
"Agents, you are to provide support to any groups that request it, and to scout for further, undetected breaches in our defences. Arkansas, I am placing you in charge of the team, do not let me down. Two dozen of the men waiting outside this room will be placed under your command during the course of this defence. So get to it."
I waited for them to leave, but one of the agents didn't appear to be entirely happy with this announcement.
"You're placing Ark in charge of the team!" South angrily exclaimed, her disbelief evident in her tone. "I'm at a higher rank than he is! This is bullshit!"
"Leave personnel decisions to me, South," I replied, glaring at the protesting agent. "In case you haven't noticed, we have bigger problems to deal with at the moment."
"But sir!"
"This conversation is over, agent," I answered, motioning towards the door. "You have a job to do, now do it."
The four left, and I turned to stare out at the Covenant Destroyer still firing round after round into the MoI, the ship trembling at random intervals beneath the furious assault. I turned to the Counselor, who had been following me quietly ever since the attack had been sprung, and gestured for him to speak.
"Do you think we have a chance, sir?" he eventually offered, trembling slightly.
"I don't know, Counselor," I replied, turning away. "I just don't know."
