Chapter 9

"The Lieutenant's down!" One of the ODSTs shouted as the pelican finally lifted off the hangar floor.

Victoria came over tossing the crumpled remains of the chaingun off of her and dragging her away from the bay doors as they closed. Her armored torso was deformed from the heat and steaming, chunks of shrapnel from the chain gun lodged into her chest armor and helmet, a massive crack in her visor revealing part of her face, a trickle of blood coming from the top of her forehead. Victoria handed her to the ODSTs who quickly lifted her up and strapped her into one of the troop bay seats, removing her helmet as one of them moved to find the source of the blood.

They had succeeded in their mission, Victoria thought to herself as she turned to the other side of the pelican, the prophet quietly sat, strapped and locked into one of the harnesses, ODSTs sitting on either side of him with their weapons loaded. She should be happy about this but... She looked around her, watching as the two of the ODSTs were gently slipped into metallic-sheen body bags, at Jessie and Marshall as they stood over Hans, attempting to comfort him as he still wheezed and coughed, trying his hardest to keep breathing, at the Lieutenant sitting slumped over in her harness and at the pilot as he bit down on the collar of his uniform as another one of the ODSTs pulled a needler crystal shard out of his thigh. This didn't feel like much of a success, Victoria thought as she walked past the scene in the troop bay, making her way to the cockpit chamber.

As she entered the cockpit, she found Lydia sitting at the controls, she turned as she entered and silently nodded, words weren't necessary, she could tell she was probably feeling the same as her. As Victoria watched through the pelican's viewport, she could see the battle in the distance. She was quite amazed, whoever this "Captain Strieger" was, he sure knew what he was doing, since Yellow Team had been inside the Covenant Carrier, 10 covenant vessels had entered the system, 8 of which were currently disabled or otherwise not engaging, though it seemed this man's magic couldn't last forever, of the 2 destroyers that had arrived to assist the taskforce in this mission, one was drifting through the wreckage field, burning, it's MAC cannon had been hit straight on by a energy projector, ripping through the ships belt armor and splintering it's hull. The white name painted on the side reading Artemis only visible due to the internal deck fires. The other destroyer as well as the Seventh Son had both suffered some serious surface damage and were currently retreating deeper into the wreckage field for cover as the two covenant ships remaining pursued. Looking around, it looks like none of the Prowlers had been destroyed, and were probably hiding in cloak within the field.

Victoria leaned against the wall, her magnetized boots making sitting down at the moment unnecessary as she pressed her earpiece. "This is Spartan Yellow Team, come in Mother Bee."

"This is Captain Strieger, what did I tell you about the codenames Warrant Officer."

"This is Victoria-099 sir."

"What happened to Yellow Leader?"

"Yellow Leader...Hans-041 was critically wounded during our exfil, both our pilot and the Lieutenant were both hit as well, and two ODSTs were killed Captain, but the prophet is in our hands...mission successful sir."

There was a brief silence on the other end of the comm, Victoria could faintly hear a very deep sigh coming from the Captain's end

"Congratulations soldier, I know this might not feel like much of a victory, we've spent many lives today in an attempt to capture one, but if this alien holds the information we need, it might go a long way in bringing meaning to their deaths. Now return to the Son, our slipspace drive is primed and we'll get the hell out of here as soon as you land, take care of your squadmates Spartan, and please, give them my regards, Strieger out."

"Yes sir." Victoria cracked a small smile as she turned back to Lydia, who was also listening in through the squad comm.

"That turkey necked piece of shit better have what we need Tori, or I'll thrown it out the airlock myself." Lydia spoke coldly as her face remained forward.

"Relax Lydia, Hans is gonna be alright, all you have to do is get us back to the cruiser."

Lydia looked down for a moment, her facial expression hidden by her visor "I...I know I'm just worried...is all. I'll get us there, safe and sound, just go make sure he's alright, for me ok?"

"He'll be in good hands Lydia, I promise." She patted her on the shoulder and walked back into the troop bay, the door sealing itself shut behind her.

Lydia swiftly guided the ship through the debris field, silently veering through the wreckage as they approached the Seventh Son's port side hangar bay.

"How's he doing doc?" Victoria heard Jessie ask as she returned to the rest of the crew inside the troop bay, an shaved headed ODST with a medic's cross on his breastplate silently looked him over.

"There's not much I can do at the moment Spartan." The medic removed his armored gloves and began pulling on a pair of latex ones. "Judging by the depth of the indent, we can expect at least 5 shattered ribs, ruptured diaphragm, and with all the blood, massive internal bleeding. To be honest I'm not sure human anatomy applies to you Spartans, with all this blood loss he should be going through hypovolemic shock, but not only is he still breathing, he's still conscious. Unfortunately, I'm a doctor not an engineer, I have no idea how to get this suit off of him, and with how damaged it is it not sure they'd be able to get it off either, we need to get him back to the Son before we can operate on him."

"We're on approach to the hangar bay, prisoner transfer and medical teams should be ready and waiting for us." Lydia's voice came over the pelican's internal intercom.

"This is Spectre 309, now entering port side main hangar bay, how copy control?" Lydia spoke, looking at the air traffic control station inside the hangar

"Your landing is open, advised that the pelican deck is crowded at the moment, careful on approach Spectre 309, welcome home."

The Pelican carefully entered inside of the hangar bay, easing to a soft landing, a matter of moments after they landed, the Seventh Son launched into slipstream space. The rest of the hangar was filled to the brim with people, the Son's medical crew had assembled a full triage center on the hangar floor, hundreds of quick assembled cots held wounded crewmen and marines, with even more shuffling into the hangar and flooding the area, with the Son's doctors frantically trying to attend to them all. There were other crew members with welding torches, attempting to pry open a number of escape pods that were also resting inside the hangar, probably belonging to the Artemis.

Lydia watched as they managed to pry one of them open, a few men diving in and dragging out a number of crew members, their faces purple from near asphyxiation, other crews weren't so lucky, tearing open the pods, only for the lead man to look in and shake their heads before slowly climbing inside.

Yellow Team and the rest of the ODSTs gathered up the wounded and the dead as the Pelican's rear door opened, standing there waiting for them was Captain Strieger, his left arm in a sling, as well as Lieutenant Colonel Miles and a squad of MPs. Yellow Team and the ODSTs stood and saluted in the middle of the hangar bay, surrounded on all sides by the chaos of the triage.

"Welcome back Yellow Team, so this is our new guest?" Strieger spoke as he looked toward the prophet who was standing behind them, an ODST vice gripped around its arms, they handed him off to the MPs who quickly slapped a pair of shackles around its wrists. Strieger placed his hand on the shoulder of the MP sergeant to speak to him. "Toss him in the brig in one of the extra uncomfortable cells, once we exit slipspace, inform Petty Officer Perón that the package has been secured, we'll transfer him to her ship for interrogation once we shake any trace of a tail by the covenant." The MP sergeant nodded and gave a small salute before they dragged the prophet off to the cells.

"When the Artemis was destroyed, we tried to evacuate as many members of its crew as we could, in total, we saved about 400 men, Captain Fasano unfortunately decided to go down with his ship, but not before activating the Cole protocol. Lets hope this mission bears fruit, a lot of good men and women have died today."

Victoria silently nodded, handing off the wounded and the men in body bags to the marines, Miles personally taking Gabriels from Marshall's arms and placing her onto a stretcher.

"She fought well Colonel." Marshall suddenly spoke, as quiet and to the point as ever.

"She was the first one to Hans' side after he was hit, and she covered the unit personally as we made our evac." Jessie added, a bit more humble than his usual self.

"I appreciate your concerns and kind words Spartans, but I'm afraid it's unnecessary, you can all tell her it yourselves later. There's a reason the Lieutenant is my XO, Carrie's way too stubborn to die."

Yellow Team chuckled as the rest of the ODSTs shuffled off, helping carry Hans onto an industrial stretcher and bring him to the med bay, a team of engineers following briskly behind them. With Strieger staying for a while to try to comfort his men a bit, before returning to the bridge deck.