1330 hours, 13th December, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Captured Phantom Dropship "Mombasa Cannonball"
Forest Canopy, Sector 167-4, The Ark

"Brace for impact!"

Sergeant Adam McMurtrie's helmet snapped around as the Phantom rolled around him. For a moment, panic rose in his gut. Brace against what? This wasn't a Pelican, there were no seats, and the Covenant didn't use restraints. All of the aliens were just standing in place. How-

The dropship struck the ground hard enough that it should have crumpled Adam's knees into his chest. Instead, the shock wave passed right through him.

'Inertia fields, on a craft this small? The 'ell?' Adam reached to scratch his head only to find his helmet blocking it before shrugging. "Not important," he muttered. "Time to earn my quid."

"We're down!" Dutch barked as he kicked the hatch open, the Rookie behind him with SMG in hand. "Let's secure the area."

"Come!" N'tho grinned as he beckoned to the Grunts. "There is a fight to be had!"

The Phantom had crashed into a tree and was hanging a couple of meters off the ground. The Grunts waddled around the door gunner and leaped to the ground. Adam was right behind them, but as he stepped into thin air, his jetpack roared. He flew out, up, and back, landing on the roof of the Phantom. He used the curvature to hide his figure as he deployed his bipod and started looking down the platform.

It wasn't one platform. As Adam booted up VISR, he saw that the Phantom had crashed into a… frankly, it looked like someone had built a castle in the sky, only for massive trees to grow up and around it. A two-level structure with a round top lay in the middle, flanked by towers to the four cardinal directions and connected by bridges.

With VISR active, Adam tagged the center platform as Courtyard, and the overgrown tower that the Phantom had crashed into as "LZ". The other towers were tagged "Tower East", "Tower West", and "Tower South"-

A lance of green light streaked out of Tower West and struck the Phantom's hull, close enough to spray the trooper's visor with glowing fragments.

"I see movement in the towers! Looks like the Brutes got here first," Adam barked into his radio as he renamed "Tower West" to "Sniper Tower". "We've got incoming."


"I knew we should have let one of the Elites fly this thing!" Buck coughed as he shakily stood up.

"I'll have you know that I just saved our lives!" Mickey argued. "Do you know how hard it is to gently touch one platform when there's a tree any which way you steer? No? I didn't think so."

Buck stared at the damage alarms flashing red and blue all across the control panel. "Gentle, yeah."

"Heads up, it looks like the Brutes got here first, we've got incoming," Adam's voice echoed.

"Buck!" Dare barked. "Get topside, we need to secure this LZ."

"Mickey, take stock of the drop ship and see if we can fix it or if we need to snag another one from the Brutes," The gunnery sergeant unlimbered his MA5C and charged out of the cockpit. He slid to a stop just inside the bay door and took stock of the situation.

N'tho Sroam and his Grunts had set up a line of deployable covers and were pouring their fire into the lower level of the Courtyard. The Brutes and their troops were outnumbered at least two to one, and the Phantom's door gunner was forcing the hairy apes to keep their heads down.

'So far, so good,' Buck thought as he leaped to the ground. "Rook, sitrep on our specialists!"

The combat medic stayed back and patted down the specialists, the Marines complaining before he stood up and gave Buck a thumbs up and a whistle.

Then the plasma started moving. A few shots from a Brute Spiker or plasma pistol shattered harmlessly against the deployable covers. It was coming from the other towers. If there were any defenders left inside the Courtyard, they didn't dare expose themselves through the doorway.

With a soaring cry, N'tho charged out of cover towards the Courtyard, urging the Grunts to follow him. Buck signaled the ODSTs to fan out and provide covering fire, but that was when all Hell broke loose.

A Brute Major stepped out of the doorway, a Brute shot up and at the ready. His first shot went high, too high, and for a heartbeat Buck hoped the baby kong had missed. Then the grenade exploded above and behind him, and the door gunner quit firing.

The Brute emptied the grenade launcher's magazine, and the rest of his grenades went low. N'tho dodged, but the rest of the Grunts weren't so lucky. If the Major had timed it better, if more of the Grunts had been out from behind the deployable cover, it would have been a massacre.

N'tho brought his plasma rifle up, pouring fire into the enemy, the weapon glowing as the shots melted away the Brute's shields.

The Brute didn't even bother to reload his grenade launcher. He reversed his grip on the weapon to brandish a bayonet as large as a car fender and charged. Once, then twice he swung the blade, and N'tho barely dodged each time.

Buck snapped his MA5C to his shoulder and squeezed off single rounds. It was so damned hard to get a clean shot, and the Elite didn't have much more room to dodge.

N'tho fell to the ground and rolled to avoid a third strike. His plasma rifle sounded again, and at long last, the Brute's shields gave way. Plasma bolts scorched armor and cut into the flesh underneath.

The catastrophic failure of his armor seemed to spook the Major out of his rage. He turned and ran for cover.

"Get this!" one of the Grunts yelled, a plasma grenade flying through the air and sticking to the now unarmored foe. The Brute twisted to claw at the grenade, but then it detonated, the white-hot flash of the plasma all but vaporizing him.

"Well thrown!" N'tho ignited his energy sword and dove into the first line of grunts. "Now come, let us see what manner of foe they are."

"Entho just took out that Major!" Buck barked. "Let's mop up the rest right now, before they realize that they've gotta think for themselves."

"Which tower?" Dutch asked.

"On your left," Buck replied. "We're going to clear it out!"

There was a bridge that angled up from the crash site toward a landing and then turned south to the second level of the tower. The troopers leapfrogged up the ramp. Buck and Dare took the lead and held position while Rook and Dutch advanced. The specialists brought up the rear.

A Grunt peeked out of the doorway. Buck put a thirty-caliber bullet through its head. That caused some commotion in the tower, so Dutch lobbed a grenade, and they all charged in.

The second level was empty of hostiles. Buck put a few rounds in the corners, just to be safe, but the only alien occupants were the dead Grunt by the door and two more that had been taken out by the grenade. There was some equipment that Buck didn't recognize, most of which was cracked open and venting blue flames.

"Rook, Dutch, Check out the next level, make sure that sniper doesn't bother us again."

"On it," Dutch and the Rook took positions on either side of the entrance to the ramp leading to the next level.

Dutch looked at Rook and nodded, and their hands flashed.

One pump,

Two pumps,

Three,

Reveal.

Dutch sighed as his scissors were beat by the Rook's rock, and moved to take point.

"On me," He barked over his shoulder, pieing the corner before moving up the ramp, his SMG moving back and forth as he adjusted his aim.

The Rookie tapped Dutch's shoulder, letting him know that he was on his six as they cleared the area, the duo attuned after the last few ops they'd had on Earth.

"Looks like two," Dutch whispered, his feet moving slower and treading lightly on the metal. "Spotter and a Sniper."

Rook whistled twice, indicating that he would get the sniper as he drew a bead on the Jackal.

"Go!" Dutch barked, moving forward as both of their suppressed weapons coughed, one single round leaving the Rook's and punching the Sniper's head in while a controlled burst from Dutch got his own target.

"We should secure their weapons," Dutch grabbed the Covenant Carbine off of the spotter, the Jackal's ammo pouch getting slung over his back. "Never know when we might need the extra range."

Rook gave a thumbs up as he pulled something out of his rucksack. A sling he'd pulled off of a duffle bag somewhere fell into his hands as he cut away at the Beam Rifle's shroud with his knife. He cut a small hole in one side and then around the other, looped the sling through and tucked it in tight against his pack as he shouldered his SMG again.

"Sniper duo's down, Sarge," Dutch reported before pausing and looking around from the Sniper tower."Thank you, Lord, for the great view up here. Dead aliens, and a gorgeous copse of redwoods."

Rook simply shrugged and went back to defacing the beam rifle, as the sling still did not quite feel right.

"Ya'know, Rook," Dutch sighed. "I think break time's over." He pinged N'tho storming the West tower with his VISR. "We've still got work to do, and we can't have some split-lips show us up."