Covenant cruiser Ever Steadfast, Requiem
February 18, 2558
'Sevi guided the phantom inside the hangar bay before setting it to dock idly in the center.
"I will secure some exfil transport and then set you all at a rendezvous point where you can return to your ship." He stalked into the cabin, "You must hasten, as it will be easier that we are compromised the longer you stay here."
"Can't we just use this tub?" Fowler asked.
"I will have to abandon it once you have departed; otherwise it can look suspicious,"
Brett was about to make a comment on how absurd it sounded before Lusana had cut in once more, "Let's go Spartans,"
Austal was the first down the lift, his camouflage activating as his boots hit the metallic floor. Scanning around, oddly there were no guards or personnel around at all. Some equipment were strewn about the greater hangar, but for the most part, the entire place remained vacant.
"No hostiles detected," He reported over the comms, "We're still in the clear."
"This is definitely unusual," 'Sevi said, "Normally there is someone here to greet us,"
"I think we're walking into a trap,"
Lusana descended next and settled by Austal, "Then let's spring it."
He turned to their sangheili cohort, "How long can you secure exfil?"
"I don't think we can depart with a phantom, but there is an aft bay that houses escape vessels. If you can reach the mainframe of the cruiser and shut it down briefly, I can seal the bays shut and then open them from my side for you,"
"And fool any Covenant watching that we were just escaping crew," Bailey concluded, "That's actually quite an interesting tactic,"
"Impressive for figuring it out," The compliment stunned her, especially coming from 'Sevi, "I have proper codes for response if we are ever hailed, but when we reach the surface again, you will have to disappear quickly."
"Bailey, go with 'Sevi," Lusana ordered, "Provide support and assurance we have a way off here,"
"That is not necessary Spartan," He protested, "I am fully capable of caring for myself,"
"What happens when you're not supposed to be here and you can't talk your way out?" Eon Lead questioned, "While we do rely on you for extract, what's not to say that you'll just lock yourself inside and deny us an exit? We'd be dead."
"If I wanted to kill you, you all would likely be dead," He stood up, "Very well. Spartan Bailey yes? Come, the escape hatch is this way."
As the two groups separated, Lusana put out a hand and pulled Eon's nickel aside.
"If he as so much tips us off or does anything to compromise this mission, don't hesitate to put a bullet through his head,"
She nodded, "I will sir."
"Good luck Spartan,"
'Sevi had provided Eon's HUDs with a general layout of the cruiser. From its history, it was an older RCS model, which were more obsolete nowadays compared to previous Covenant starship classes. The ubiquitous design was identical to the CRS and CCS classes, but the variation of their capabilities and interiors were much different.
"Cruiser mainframe is just ahead," Fowler reported being on point, "Looks like the hinge head's intel was solid."
The doors parted and slowly, the Spartans entered. Inside was a room that had several tall bright blue walls with paragraphs of text scrolling down. There were four groups of walls in total.
"Here it is," Pine found the central command and hit a few buttons on the glowing console, "Mainframe is down, rebooting in ten,"
To Bailey's surprise, the ship was not as deserted as she thought it was. As they ventured closer to the bridge and reactor, they began to see some of the ship's crew. At first, it was just grunts and jackals. She remained in camouflage and kept a low profile until they either passed or left the vicinity. So far, 'Sevi was maintaining his cover.
"Escape pod bays are close," He calmly spoke, "From here we can secure a ride out."
The shaft was located on the ceiling, a large circular hatch that was shut by three metal clamps.
With a hiss, the sangheili's energy sword ignited to life and he carefully sliced the tips through them.
Bailey looked down both ways in the hall to watch his back.
When he was done, he jumped up, latching his fingers around the edges and pulling it free. After setting it down, he squatted before springing up, grabbing the edge and pulling himself through.
"You're up,"
It was a tad bit too high for Bailey to grab since she was smaller, but he reappeared from the opening and extended his four digit arm down.
She took a running start, stowing her assault rifle and reaching out.
Her hand rested itself firmly in 'Sevi's and her weight almost caused him to fall out too, however he braced himself against the top of the ceiling and hauled her up enough so she could support herself inside.
"You're a lot heavier than you look Spartan," He made a scoffing sound that almost sounded like a chuckle.
"Mainframe is down," Pine reported over the comms, "Rebooting in ten,"
There were six escape pods were lined up in a neat row with narrow hatches that looked large enough for anything the size of a sangheili to pass. Bailey suspected that there was no point in having and unggoy or kig-yar survivors which was likely why the hatch was so high and inaccessible.
'Sevi went to work on a console, "I got it. You will be able to use this one for exfiltration."
Bailey breathed out a sigh of relief, but now she was stuck with guard duty until the rest of her team got back, "Good news, we got our escape plan,"
There was silence over the comms.
"Eon Lead? Fowler? Pine? Austal? Does anyone read?"
No response.
"Spartans of Eon, come in." 'Sevi tried and shook his head, "Curses!" He spat, "I should have anticipated this!"
"What's wrong?"
"They're jamming all communications in response to the server going down and all attempts onboard have been tapped."
"What does that mean?"
"Every time we or they try to use their comms while on this ship, it is intercepted and sent to the shipmaster."
Blake gasped, it all made complete sense now. "This was a trap."
The second the door to the reactor shaft opened up, Eon was greeted with an intense volley of plasma fire.
"Shit!" Fowler cursed, scrambling for cover. The rest of Eon stacked up on either side. Automatically, Pine moved to their six to watch for any flanking foes.
Lusana and Austal took pot shots with their pistols, being able to kill a few of the grunts, but their shields drained upon the massive spraying plasma cannon in the center.
"We're about to have our hands full," Ross called out, "I got two weird looking elites with swords heading our way."
"We're running out of time," Austal said, pulling out a frag grenade, "We either get roasted by the cannon or cut to pieces,"
"I'll take my chances with the cannon thank you," Fowler broke cover and dashed left, unleashing a barrage of bullets with his SAW. As the unggoy gunner of the plasma turret pivoted to shoot Eon Two, Austal popped out of hiding to target the grunt with his A9. A pair of the pistol's M49 8.6 x 20mm cartridges flew straight past the little armor the tiny alien wore on his helmet, causing him to slump lifelessly against the emplacement.
"Go! Go! Inside!" Lusana urged, following Austal and opening fire on the last few defenders.
Fowler had emptied his SAW into the enemy and charged forward with his shotgun. Two jackals went down, missing several of their limbs and the surviving elite shrugged off the first blast with his entire shielding although a second one sent it packing to the floor. Austal and Lusana mopped up the rest of the grunts, who had thrown their weapons down and begun to panic.
Ross Pine appeared in the entrance just as the two elites pursing them rounded the corner. He took out a frag grenade and tossed it behind him while shutting the door and smashing the panel.
A dull thud reverberated off the door as it slammed shut, but the two growling voices coming from the other side indicated that both of them had survived.
"That won't hold them for long," Lusana said, taking out a demolition charge, "Let's blow this reactor,"
"It's shielded," Brett noted.
"Let's bring it down," Eon quickly opened fire with the shields flashing as the bullets struck, but it stubbornly refused to give.
Behind them, they heard a metallic screech as something huge and metal punctured straight through the heavy door. Moments later a second blade was plunged in.
"This isn't working," Austal looked around, "There must be a shield generator,"
But there was none and they were about to have two hulking sangheili up their asses and no cruiser destruction.
Ross must have thought of the same thing too as his eyes drifted to the plasma cannon.
It was facing the other way, but Pine was in the middle of trying to rip it off its mount when the door was thrown open.
The two sangheili had cut their way through.
Each one stood quite tall for their species, much taller than 'Sevi. They both wore vastly different armor than what the Covenant standardized.
It was mostly black with a dark crimson trim. Their faces were masked with a black helmet that covered their eyes in a reddish glow. Atop their heads was a curved golden crest that preceded a white manelike covering.
Along his shoulders were large black and red pads which slimmed out into cuffs, leaving part of their muscles exposed. A similar design were on their legs.
In their hands were the biggest swords any of Eon had ever seen.
They looked similar to traditional energy swords, but parts of it were more angular with barbs along the main blade to give it a serrated appearance. Heat waves radiated from them and it was no joke that they punched straight through the foot thick door like it was paper.
Ross opened fire with the cannon and at first the two juggernauts absorbed the hits before they brought their blades in front. The plasma rounds dissipated and they were completely undamaged.
"They must take vitamins," Ross grumbled, tearing the gun off the mount and spraying up at the reactor. This time the aid of the cannon had managed to break the shields. At that exact moment, Lusana and Fowler tossed their demo charges inside before it rebooted.
With a bloodthirsty snarl, one of them charged forward. Eon heard it and immediately began pouring as much brass in its direction as possible.
Its shields flickered and it raised its sword to deflect some of the rounds, but it overloaded and gave out. Austal turned to face the other one as Lusana led the attack on his partner.
Under the submachine gun barrage, spurts of purple blood plumed out of its chest cavity before it swung the enormous blade at Lusana. Eon Lead barely had time to slide to his left and the heavy weapon gave the Spartan a rather easy task of being able to maneuver behind it.
He grasped his final two frag grenades, priming and stuffing them in the joints of the back armor before the elite's free arm came around and tossed him off.
Lusana was able to roll onto his feet after hitting the ground and casually held up the strap that held the grenades.
Immediately the elite's arm went to his back and he let out a feral roar, charging forward in a last ditch hope to take out his foe.
The grenades detonated, a muffled banging sound that sprayed blood everywhere and miraculously kept the heavy armor intact. It staggered forward towards Eon before it collapsed with a heavy thud.
The second elite growled over the loss of its partner and swung his sword high for vengeance.
From behind, Austal shot in like a bullet, knocking the two of them off balance. He grasped the helmet and raised his fist, striking two blows at the jaw. The third one came as an uppercut that made a nasty bone crunching sound causing the rest of his team to cringe.
Marcus pulled out his battle rifle and aimed it down to finish it off.
The entire ship vibrated as its engines went critical and knocked both Spartans and sangheili off their feet. Austal quickly recovered and retrieved his battle rifle to finish off the elite.
"No!" Pine grabbed his shoulder, "We gotta go! This ship's about to be a supernova!"
He hesitated keeping the massive hinge-head in his crosshairs before slipping his gun on his back and joining the others in their run out.
Among the explosions, the elite taking a ferocious beating from Austal was on his knees. He wheezed and coughed up thick purple blood until a nasty splatter containing teeth splinters was regurgitated. The feeling was normal as sangheili broke teeth all the time and it could get stuck in their throats rather painfully, but having it beat into him by a Spartan made his blood boil.
He struggled, but eventually made it to his feet and limped after them.
Bailey hauled Lusana, the last of Eon up the shaft as they came to the escape pod bay with Ayit 'Sevi awaiting them.
"I have set up a rendezvous with ONI," He declared, "They will pick you up at the coordinates I am going to send to your feed,"
"Let's go," Lusana said as he was the last of them inside the rather cramped space. He turned to 'Sevi, "Come on, this cruiser isn't going to exist for much longer,"
"I have my own way out. You best get going Spartans,"
He waited a second to deduce his plan, "They may not buy it,"
"I have plenty of ways to keep my cover intact," 'Sevi informed them, "Besides, my work with these Covenant is not yet complete," He reached out with a hand, "Good luck to you Spartans. Perhaps we may meet again sometime."
Lusana hesitated before reaching out and shaking it, "You too 'Sevi."
He climbed back inside as Ayit shut the hatch and they quickly jettisoned out. A holographic display was at the front showing the Ever Steadfast as explosions bloomed all around its hull before it finally was consumed by an even bigger one that sent fiery debris flying everywhere.
"Look," Pine pointed just below the explosion.
Several other pods were released and they too were falling rapidly towards the surface, but also away from Eon's.
"So he was rather nice for an elite," Fowler said out loud.
"As long as they don't shoot on sight, I couldn't care less." Bailey added.
Everyone chuckled lightly at that.
"Still," Eon Lead breathed a sigh of relief, "I'm just glad we got out of there alive, considering what we fought,"
"Never again,"
"Amen,"
Another chuckle.
"When we get back to Infinity, I want to speak to Tyrant about everything we encountered. There's no doubt that the Covenant are up to something and we are a piece to the puzzle,"
Many miles from Eon's projected landing site, Ayit 'Sevi hauled the beaten armored sangheili out of the hatch just as a phantom crested the sky. He activated his sword just in case of any threats as well as a signal. The pilot saw it and shined the turret's light on him as he crossed over to the gravity lift.
Carried aboard, he set the wounded warrior down as the pilot came back to check on them.
"Are you alright?" The storm asked.
"Fine," 'Sevi waved him off, "There are several survivors landing to the east," That was the opposite direction of Eon's pod, "We should hasten to their rescue and regroup,"
The pilot nodded and headed back to the cockpit. Moments later they were heading eastbound.
'Sevi heard the other elite stir from unconsciousness and turned.
"Did they survive?"
A very generic question.
"Who survived?"
"Those demons," The "d" word came out with malice and intense hatred.
"I was able to corner them, but they found the escape hatches and managed to get away,"
"Those demons….same ones who killed 'Mdama's best zealots," He huffed, "I am going to hunt them down like the nishum they are,"
'Sevi didn't say anything for the rest of the ride as they picked up survivors of the cruiser. Had he said something, it would come back to bite him.
When you encountered such an ambitious elite that was this bloodthirsty, you stayed out of their way as much as possible.
This elite thirsted for human blood to sizzle from his blade and Eon would be the first of many that would be of his slaughter.
So Eon has gotten the attention of some dangerous elites and things are about to get rough on Requiem! The sangheili juggernauts they faced in the reactor room take inspiration of armor from Haka, a main character in the Duel. I will elaborate more very soon!
Thanks for reading and reviewing, you give my writing purpose.