The Major
ONI Alpha Site
14 Hours After Rupture
The ONI headquarters was thankfully still standing when he and Seela backtracked their way to the surface, if one could call a building engulfed in flames as standing. Rings of flame still engulfed the high walls, the wreckage turned black within the smouldering inferno. As the two clambered out of the shaft, they heard one of the supports collapse somewhere above them, the clanging metal ringing out like a gong. The Major imagined that had they been delayed during their return trip, this way might have been blocked for good.
They had no choice but to retrace their steps through the Hive after recovering the data, as he had no sense of direction in the mazes on those sublevels. They had prepared for another fight with the buggers, Seela using the dead Brutes near the tower to refill on ammo, but the catwalks were somewhat absent of bugs when they returned. There were only a few handful of drones waiting for them, nothing for the hardened pair to worry about. Either they had killed enough of the aliens to keep them from mounting another attack, or the insects had simply lost interest in them. Seela thought it was a combination of both.
"The Covenant may have deployed the Yanme'e to help secure your data core," she'd said. "Now that is gone, they left behind only a small holding force, and the rest moved on. That is my assumption."
"Remind me to tell the Navy to burn out the city underground when we kick the Covenant outta here," he'd replied. "Place is infested."
When they emerged from the burning headquarters at long last, the Major had to shield his eyes as golden light poured down on the pair from above. This light wasn't born from flames, however. It was sunlight, struggling to filter in through the cloudy sky. The rain had even ceased as well, the ground still covered in a wet sheen, but beginning to dry in the morning heat.
While the warmth of the sunrise was a welcome sensation, he and Seela still swept their weapons about as they moved out of the ruined Site, ready for any Covenant that might be waiting. The artificial island was still deserted, fortunately, the two lowering their guns as the battlefield loomed ahead of them.
As they began to walk back down the island, the ground suddenly began to quake, the two jerking their heads around in alarm. The noise morphed into a cracking sound, not unlike thunder, and a massive shape appeared in the sky above the city.
It was a Covenant cruiser, its purple hull glittering in the morning light. It was flying so low that it would collide with the skyscrapers if its pilots manoeuvred any closer, the ship looking enormous at this low altitude.
At the centre of its bulbous hull was a giant circle of light, beginning to glow with broiling energy. It discharged without warning, a pillar of plasma descending from the circle and lancing towards the city. He and Seela weren't in immediate danger, the cruiser drifting towards something further inland, the roar of its devastating cannon soon drifting into a low thrum.
"The fleet begins its glassing," Seela said, her head raised as she tracked another massive shape in the sky. Two more cruisers jumped in, the world trembling as they warped into the atmosphere, simply appearing in the span of a few seconds, the shimmering air the only indication of their imminent arrival.
"I knew a few people who said the homeworld would never get glassed," the Major muttered, watching as the newly arrived cruisers activated their belly cannons. Glassing was the Covenant's way of making a world unable to support life, melting away the crust of a planet until all that was left was a layer of superheated bedrock. "Guess they were wrong."
"This is your homeworld?" Seela asked, her eyes wide. "I'm… sorry. I had no idea."
"Don't apologise," he said. "You're not the one burning our world. If these cruisers managed to get through the orbital defences, New Mombasa's just the beginning…"
"Then we will stop them before that happens," Seela said, patting him on the arm. "Your data, it will help the humans fight back, yes? We must get it to your superiors as soon as possible."
"You're right," he said, pushing his gloomy thoughts aside, there was no point getting distracted on something he couldn't control. "Come on, let's get out of here."
They made their way back across the former battlegrounds littering the artificial island, the various alien species and the humans laying exactly where they'd left them on their initial trip through. They passed beneath the gate on the far side, rushing around the Brute Choppers and moving for the idling Warthog.
He climbed into the driver's seat, slotting his shotgun into the rack behind the seat, hitting the ignition with his thumb. Like before, the dashboard lights flickered on, joined by the satisfying purr of the engine as the vehicle rumbled to life.
He pressed down on the accelerator a little, the satisfying rev startling Seela as she rounded the hood, lifting a hoof over the passenger side of the chassis.
"It's too cramped," she complained, the chassis creaking as she clambered into the seat, her knees level with her face as she placed her hooves on the carpet.
"Gun's there if you want," he suggested, jerking a thumb at the flatbed.
She climbed back out, moving to the rear of the Warthog, the suspension shifting as she gripped the mounted gun by the handles, hauling herself up. The weapon was mounted on a rotating dial, and she brought the weapon forwards, the Major explaining how to fire it. She was a little tall to use the gun properly, but as long as they didn't pass underneath any overhanging bridges, she'd be fine.
"Ready?" he asked, looking over the backrest at her, Seela giving him a thumbs up as the barrels of the chain gun rotated.
"Oh yes," Seela replied. "Drive us to victory, Major."
Pulling the vehicle into gear, he floored it, swerving round the Choppers and angling towards the light bridge. The horizontal plane was a little faded in the sunlight, but still activated, the Warthog lurching like they'd driven over a speed bump as they transitioned to its off-blue surface.
Driving over the hardened light was an odd experience to put it lightly. There were no flaws, no bumps, the suspension completely level as they crossed the alien pontoon. It was like driving over ice, not a hint of friction until they made it to the other side.
Since Warthogs were armoured enough to withstand small arms fire, the Major rammed straight into a derelict vehicle sitting on the street just for kicks, the small car simply crumpling as the Warthog rolled over it.
"We should have found one of these things much sooner!" Seela laughed, the Warthog ploughing through the street and leaving a clear path in their wake.
The Major chuckled, driving through the blast door imbedded in the wall that circled the lake, returning once more to New Mombasa's streets. Unlike before, the claustrophobic sensation he'd felt in the dingy city was no longer there, the Warthog bulldozing into anything blocking the way. Nothing short of another heavy vehicle would stop them now, and the Major wasn't about to waste time demonstrating the fact.
He gunned the engine, Seela's joyful chuckling just reaching his ears as the speedometer ticked up to eighty, then ninety. The lack of rain, the heat of the sun, it felt nice to be able to experience these things after the night they'd gone through together.
He made a handbrake turn as the street split off in two directions, the Major spinning the wheel so they went to the right. Despite his lack of orientation in the streets, he knew off by heart where the extraction point was in relation to the Alpha Site, so he didn't need the kiosks anymore.
The wind swept past his visor as he drove down the twisting streets, dozens of buildings and windows whipping by on either side, another junction closing in up ahead. As he made to make the turn, something further up the street caught his eye. There was a figure standing on the sidewalk, waving its arms above its head, and it wasn't an alien.
"Who is that?" Seela called out, swivelling the mounted gun down, not quite aiming at the figure, but close enough to warrant caution.
The Major slowed down, the tires squeaking as they pulled up to the figure. They were dressed in armour not so different from the Major's own getup, orange paint strips trailing down the chest plate breaking up the darkly-coloured Kevlar. They spread their two arms out in surprise, a battle rifle clutched in one of the gloves.
"Holy shit! Major is that you?"
"Good to see you, Joker," he answered, his relief palpable. He hadn't seen any sign of his squad mates after their botched crash, but at least one of them had made it.
"Likewise Sir. What the hell happened to you? Been trying to raise you all night, and…" Joker did a double-take on Seela, the alien giving him a friendly wave as he stared up at her as though only now noticing her presence. "Um, why do you have an Elite on the Vulkan?"
"Why do you have that Gods awful thing on your helmet?" Seela shot back. She was talking about the smiley face decal on Joker's visor, the man struggling to form a sentence at the odd reply.
"I… how… when… you…?"
"She's a friend, I'll explain it all later when we're outta here," the Major said. "Get in, we're exfilling."
"I… okay!" Joker answered with a resigned shake of his head, taking the Major's offered hand, hauling himself into the passenger seat. "Guess I'm calling shotgun," he added, stowing his rifle as he settled in.
The Warthog roared to life once more, the Major pulling a one-eighty as they turned round, making for the junction. "So aside from picking up a hitchhiker, where have you been Sir?" Joker asked. "Hell would be my guess, you're covered in blood and scratches, both of you."
"We secured the Superintendent's data," the Major answered, patting the harddrive on his belt. "There were a few... complications, but it's mission accomplished for us."
"Really? We scrapped the mission soon as we landed miles from the Site," Joker said, lurching in his seat as they drove over a piece of rubble.
"'We'?" the Major asked. "The rest of the team, they're…?"
"Holiday and Rebar were moving to the evac last I heard," Joker said, the Major relaxing in his seat. He'd assumed the worst, but they were all still kicking, it was a massive weight off his shoulders.
"You didn't go with them?" the Major asked.
"Nah, doubled back to check on your pod while they did a little subterfuging. Didn't fancy going around solo, but they drew enough attention for me to slip through. When I couldn't find you, I didn't know what to think, either you were dead or out there someplace, and I couldn't get you on the horn."
"Busted my helmet during the drop," the Major explained. "Comms were shot."
"Well we had to assume the worst after you didn't check in. I was making my way to the evac when I heard the Warthog, and what do you know? It's my CO with an Elite at his back. Fucking crazy night."
He imagined Joker must have gone through some shit if he searched for his pod by himself, he probably had all sorts of encounters he wanted to share when they were as far away from New Mombasa as possible.
"And what's your story?" Joker asked, looking over his seat as Seela, the alien jerking the mounted gun to the side. He didn't seem all that fussed about her after the initial shock, maybe because she was clearly on their side, being on the gun and all that. "Noticed a bit of infighting in the Covenant recently. You an outcast? Turncoat?"
"Protector," Seela answered. "the Major's cause is my own, and I have saved him many times during our mission."
"It was a group effort," the Major interjected. "Plus I saved you in more ways than one, didn't I?"
"And I rewarded your efforts to my fullest capability," she replied, the Major's cheeks warming beneath his helmet. Joker wasn't quite following along, glancing between them as he settled in his seat.
They weaved through the streets, knocking aside any obstacles in their way. The road began to slope lower and lower, the urban landscape slowly losing its density as they transitioned into the outer limits of the city. In the distance, hills of earth began to take precedence, their peaks capped with rock formations with the occasional leafy canopy sprouting between them. It was almost like they were driving up to a Safari, and in a way that was exactly what it was.
Like the walled-in lake surrounding the Alpha Site, a twenty foot tall barrier enclosed these distant hills, the Major driving the Warthog down one of the streets that ringed the wall, the team soon pulling up to an entrance. He drove beneath the arch, the fluorescents on the roof lighting up a small stretch of sheltered road/ The engines echoed as they drove through the short tunnel, and then the world opened up once more.
Marula trees dotted the yellow landscape stretching out before them, their leaves waving in the gentle breeze. Walls of rock broke up the area, dirt tracks between them creating wide paths for vehicles to follow. Strips of grass added a splash of green to the otherwise dry surroundings, the air shimmering as the sun began to bake the rocky ground. In the backdrop, the towering skyscrapers of the city loomed, the urbanicity contrasting with the sudden blanket of nature.
"What is this place, Andrew?" Seela asked breathlessly, the mounted gun swivelling as she drank in the sights.
"Did she just call you Andrew?" Joker balked.
"It's a nature reserve," the Major explained. "Gives the locals a chance to see the native animals in their natural habitats, or at least it used to."
"I much prefer this place over the city," Seela replied. "The rock formations remind me of the homeworld."
The Warthogs wheels churned up the gravel as he shifted gears, trundling their way deeper into the park. He knew from his mission reports that every aspect of the reserve was completely artificial, the park situated on a manmade island in the middle of the ocean, but the illusion was pretty convincing.
"Something up ahead," Seela reported, her gun spinning up in preparation for a fight. They drove over a slight incline, the Major and Joker angling their heads to the right as they passed a pair of dead animals laying in the shade of a tree.
"Now that's just cruel," Joker said. "Covenant invade our home and kill our Zebras? Come on."
"Why is it black and white?" Seela asked as the curve of the hill slowly concealed the animals behind them. "It does not blend well at all in this environment."
"The black stripes absorb the heat while the white stripes cool them down," Joker answered. "Keeps them nice and cool when they're out in the sun."
"Why do you know so much about Zebras?" the Major asked.
"Hey, I got interests outside of punsand guns," Joker replied.
"And those?" Seela asked, pointing down the slope on the left, where more corpses were sprawled along the path. "What are they called?"
"Giraffes," Joker said, chuckling bitterly behind his helmet. "I feel like we're on a tour bus and I'm the info guy. If you look to your right: you'll see dead, exotic animals. And if you look to your left: you'll also see dead, exotic animals."
"Can you get in touch with the rest of the squad?" the Major said before Joker could get another word in. "Tell them we're on the way and to stall the boat?"
"One sec." Joker put a hand to his helmet, tuning the commlink into their shared channel, fiddling with his wrist-mounted terminal as he patched in. With the open skies above them, there was much less interference, Joker able to interface into the team-wide frequency.
"Did you say boat?" Seela asked, turning on the flatbed to lean towards the Major.
"Yeah, we're supposed to exfil to a Navy cruiser just off the coast," he said. "they're meeting us on a beach on the other side of the reserve."
"Holiday, Rebar?" Joker asked, turning up the volume so the Major could listen in to the exchange. "It's Joker, come in."
"We read you," a woman's voice answered. It was Holiday. "What's your status? Thought we'd lost you for a second there."
"Status is green and mean. Picked up a couple of stragglers on my way back," Joker replied. "Well, technically, they picked me up, but tomato tomato. The Major says hi."
"He's alive?" another voice answered, this one belonging to Rebar. It felt good to hear their voices, even though Joker had said they were alive, it was still a liberating experience. "So he was in his pod?"
"Not, uh, really," Joker answered. "You know him, never one to stand around waiting for rescue. Tell you everything later, point is we got ourselves a Hog and we're zooming over."
"Good," Holiday said, her voice coming through tinny on the speakers. "Navy boys were starting to get cold feet. I'll tell them you're almost here."
"Don't forget about my friend," the Major said as he swept the wheel round, the truck trundling down the bend.
"Oh, right! Before you go," Joker added. "Don't uh, shoot the Elite. 'Kay?"
"Very funny Joker," Holiday answered. "See you soon. Out." The connection severed, Joker giving the Major a sheepish shrug, who was frowning back at him.
"Hey, I tried, alright? Not my fault I'm the funny one. Anyway, I'm sure they won't plug her full of holes. She'll be fine."
"She certainly will," Seela answered. "She will simply put the 'funny' Imp in front of her to act as a shield, should the humans try anything."
The Warthog drifted as they rounded a wall of rocks, the Major occasionally lifting his eyes up to the broken tether and the alien cruisers on the horizon. They were so close to leaving this place, but the Covenant was moving fast, soon the city would be lost for good and the whole city would be glassed.
"So," Joker began, stealing a glance to make sure Seela wasn't listening in. "You and an Elite, hm?"
"Yeah," the Major replied.
"A whole night with an alien must have been quite the experience," Joker continued. "You both seem more than acquainted."
"We worked well together," the Major said, looking at him, then back at the road.
"Well enough to be on a first name basis," Joker noted. "You improving interspecies relations, Sir?"
"What are you getting at?"
"I think you know what," Joker said, holding the Major's gaze when they shared a glance. Joker's visor was reflective, but he had an inkling the clown had a stupid smile on his face behind the helmet.
"Ready yourselves!" Seela said, her raised voice snapping the two into action. "On the left, aircraft!"
The Major looked through the windshield to where she was pointing, his eyes tracking a pair of Covenant aircraft swooping over the canyons. These were single-occupant, propulsion fighters, with a rounded nose and a pair of wing canards which terminated in small gravity drives. The fighters were small, six meters from nose to tail, but they were packed with firepower and were more manoeuvrable than the standard human fighter craft.
The Banshees soared low across the park, flying perpendicular to where they were driving. Seela turned her gun on them, tracking their progress, but refraining from pulling the trigger, as it didn't seem like they'd been spotted yet.
"They're going straight to the evac!" Joker said. "Heads up Holiday," he added, patching into the channel. "You got Banshees moving in your direction."
That wasn't all the Covenant had, however. Following the Banshees at a distance was a Phantom, painted over in the same purple colour that was present on every Covenant dropship, the only difference being the alien symbol decaled onto the nose.
"It's him," Seela growled, turning the chain gun on the flying dropship. "This is no stray patrol."
As if to confirm her words, the Phantom banked in their direction, its nose dipping as it picked up speed. He could make out the pair of guns bristling from its belly swivel on their gimbals, tracking their Warthog.
"What does she mean, it's 'him'?" Joker asked, pulling back the bolt on his rifle in preparation.
"She's being hunted by this Brute leader," the Major explained. "That's his dropship. Seela do me a favour and bring that thing down for good."
"With pleasure." She opened up on the approaching dropship, a stream of tracer rounds connecting the barrel to the aircraft's signature decal, the Major's helmet dulling the roar of the mounted Vulkan gun. The Phantom banked away, sparks flying off its hull, its chin-mounted turret rocking back into its housing as it returned fire. Unlike before, he and Seela now had a weapon that could penetrate its armour, the Phantom's pilot aware of the fact as it swerved out of the line of fire.
The trail of plasma bolts cut through the road ahead of the Warthog, the Major swerving the truck out of the way, Joker lurching in his seat as he pulled a rough turn.
"We got more Banshees nine o'clock!" Joker warned, pointing his rifle over the Major's helmet.
From roughly the same direction the Phantom had appeared, another pair of Banshees flew into view, banking their noses down in a dive. He could hear their gravity drives scream as their pilots gunned the propulsors, the Covenant dropship pulling back to give them a clear shot.
The leading Banshee fired the fuel rod cannon mounted on its chin, the bright green bolt falling to the road like a comet. The Major pulled the wheel hard, narrowly avoiding the resulting blast by a couple of meters, the Warthog lifting onto two wheels by the shockwave.
"Can you keep us steady?" Joker complained, shouldering his battle rifle as he took aim at the retreating Banshee. The weapon was semi-automatic, the recoil jumping in his arms as he tagged it with armour piercing rounds. The bullets ripped into one of the wings, severing it near the middle of the length, the aircraft listing as it swooped high into the air.
The second Banshee was readying its own dive bomb, but Seela was ready for it, the chain gun making the truck shake as she opened up on it. The thin armour on the aircraft's nose broke apart, flames seeping out of the fuselage as it plunged to the ground, detonating like a grenade as it smashed into one of the rockwalls on the right.
"I'm starting to become partial to Heretic weapons!" Seela said, seemingly enjoying herself as she watched pieces of the ruined Banshee roll down the slope.
She turned the Vulkan on the Phantom, but the pilot wasn't taking any chances after the Banshee's demise, dipping behind a canyon and breaking line of sight with Seela's gun.
The second Banshee returned for another pass, the Major swerving out of the way as it sent a stream of plasma down at them. It was flying so low that they could have reached out and touched its hull as made a pass over the Warthog. Joker and Seela spun round to track it, Joker twisting his torso slightly as he strafed it with bullets, catching the other wing and breaking that apart too, the aircraft delving into a spiral as it plummeted to the ground behind them.
"One for me," Joker said, ejecting the mag on his rifle and slapping in a fresh one.
"Surely you jest?" Seela exclaimed over the roaring engine. "I shot it more times than you did."
"Hey I took out both its wings, that makes it my kill."
"Both of you stow it," the Major snapped, pointing ahead of them. "You've both got plenty of chances to rack up your kills!"
Rounding the next bend, they came across a small expanse, the canyons spreading apart to make an oval-shaped clearing. There was a building off to one side, presumably a tourist centre, and in the carpark surrounding it was a group of Grunts, plus a few Jackals. They were lingering around a pair of Ghosts, the vehicles sitting idly on the concrete. The squat aliens seemed to be taking a nap, and they jumped out of their skins as the Warthog closed in, Seela spinning up the chain gun as she took aim.
The Major pulled the Warthog into a continuous drift, circling the group of Covenant in a clockwise direction, giving his companions an open line of fire. Joker peered down the scope as he unloaded round after round at the aliens, the methane tanks the Grunt's wore splitting apart to spill their collected gases. It was like a shooting gallery, made all the more chaotic as Seela pulled the trigger on her mounted gun, her sights trailing from the Jackals to one of the idle Ghosts, cutting a line through the alien ranks.
She riddled the smooth hull of the Ghost with bullets, leaving craters in the plating, blue-coloured flames leaking from the damaged seams. Her rounds must have tagged some vital system, the vehicle soon exploding in a cloud of smoke, shrapnel raining down on the Covenant and sending the ones closest to the blast flying.
The Major saw one of the Grunts push aside a panicking Jackal to climb into the remaining Ghost, the engines lining the belly of the vehicle igniting. The vehicle rose off the ground, as though an invisible force was pushing it away from the concrete.
The thrusters on its skirt ignited, the craft pivoting until the forward-facing cannons on its nose were aiming at their Warthog. It peppered their truck with two continuous streams of plasma, the bolts of gas splashing against the windscreen and the front tires, the Ghost starting to mirror the Warthog's drift.
The windscreen broke apart, the glass melting in the upper corner, but the Warthog was designed to take punishment, the Major gunning the engine and initiating another turn to try and through off the Ghost's aim.
"Take that Ghost out!" he ordered, reaching up to wipe the frame clear of glass, shards raining down onto his lap.
Seela swivelled the mounted gun on the Covenant vehicle, the Ghost sliding over the ground without any hint of friction, like a giant floating hockey puck. Tracer rounds filled the gap between the circling vehicles, Seela catching the Ghost on one of its skirts. The craft crashed against its own inertia, tipping onto its side, the Grunt pilot spilling out to fall to the dirt. Seela cut it down with a short burst of fifty-calibre rounds.
Joker had mopped up the rest of the Covenant with his rifle, leaving the carpark a bloody mess of ruined vehicles and fallen aliens. The Major swerved the Warthog round the massacre, the suspension sagging as they drove over a bump, moving down a path leading out of the clearing.
"Alright you definitely got more kills than I did," Joker admitted. "I'll give you that one, even though you've got the bigger gun."
"That sounds like a you problem, Jester," Seela replied.
"It's Joker," he corrected. "You wanna swap seats? It's a lot harder to aim without a stabiliser and Major shortshift over here who can't drive straight."
"Anyone got eyes on the Phantom?" the Major asked, ignoring his squad mate's words. His chair shifted on its springs as they drove up and over a crest, the road bending to the left.
"No, but I can hear it," Seela answered. "The Brutes linger, they want to see where we go, or perhaps they await reinforcements."
"We're going to lead them straight to the evac point," Joker warned.
"Haven't got a choice," the Major replied. "We can't wait around, we'll just get overrun. Best bet is to just get outta here."
For a few minutes they were left alone, Joker slotting a fresh mag into his rifle, Seela pulling back the loading bolt on the chain gun. She kept her eyes to the sky as they crested another hill, Covenant spaceships filling the clouds as more cruisers began to jump in, disgorging Phantoms and Banshees from their docking bays. There had to be thousands of Covenant aircraft up there by now.
"At least you got the data in the end," Joker muttered, his helmet angled upward. "Don't know how it'll help us wipe out these alien freaks, present company excluded, but here's hoping."
"ONI wouldn't send us out here if it wouldn't make a difference," the Major replied.
"Yeah, well, data or not, that's a lot of alien ships in Earth's atmosphere right now."
They took another turn through the canyons, and then their vision opened up, a giant unimpeded view of the ocean spreading out before them. The dirt road sloped down towards a beach, soil and grass giving way to sand and shallow water. The clearing was dotted with tall pine trees, and the Major could see figures standing behind them, rifles trained at the road as they took up firing positions.
Sitting in the middle of the strip of water was a Navy patrol boat, the radar dish on its roof spinning slowly. There was a mounted Vulkan gun on its prow, nearly identical to the one on the Warthog, a human standing behind it clutching the handles. He could see a few figures moving inside the raised cabin where the Captain would stand, its roof sprinkled with antennae and other sensory equipment.
There were about ten figures surrounding the boat, the Major recognising the signature green armour used by the common Marine. They looked antsy, but they lowered their weapons as he pulled the Warthog to a stop nearby. They soon raised them again, however, when they noticed Seela manning the gun.
"Marines!" the Major shouted, vaulting out of the truck and removing his helmet, raising his voice so all could hear him. "I am Major Dawson, ONI, and unless you want me to have a strong word with your superiors, you will stand down! This Elite is not to be harmed, she's carrying vital intelligence on the Covenant's plans, intelligence that's beyond your pay grades."
At the mention of ONI, the Marines got the message, lowering their guns while giving Seela exasperated, if suspicious looks. She stepped off the flatbed, the Warthog's suspension rocking, standing by the Major's side and giving him a confident nod, wary to keep her hands clear of her sword and carbine. He might not see her as a threat, but Marines had been trained to shoot Elites first and ask questions later.
"Welcome back to the living, Major," one of the soldiers present said. It was Holiday, her lighter variant of specialist armour giving her away. Her synthetic arm whirred as she offered him a handshake, the Major noting it was scorched near the elbow joint. "See you've been busy," she added, nodding towards Seela. "And that Joker wasn't… joking. Suppose we'll get at least something out of this mission."
"That and more," he replied, giving the hard drive a pat. "Copied the Superintendent's data, that's a wrap in my books."
"Then let's get the hell out of this city," she said. She turned to the rest of the onlooking troops, raising her voice. "Marines, back on the boat, we're-"
The report of a plasma cannon drowned out her words, the Brute leader's Phantom appearing over the hill and banking to the side, its ventral doors wide open. A Grunt manning the side turret in the bay hammered their position with plasma fire, the chin cannon of the dropship joining the volley of fire, the specialists and the Marines diving for cover as the beach was strafed.
One of the trees stood in the way of the barrage of plasma, the wood severing near the base, the trunk listing with a loud snap. Seela launched towards the Major as it began to fall, pulling him close and shielding him with her body before he could even think, the trunk bouncing harmlessly off her back.
"Thanks," he said, Seela nodding as she hauled him to his feet. As the Marines turned their rifles on the dropship, the Major noted the boat had been its target. A line of plasma had scorched it from prow to stern, the glass canopy on the driver's cabin slagging in on itself. He watched as a pair of Marines leapt off the bow, and not a second too soon, licking fires blooming from one of the rear compartments, what must have been the fuel tank cooking off.
As the men emerged from the water, wading back to shore, he noticed one of them was a specialist. It was Rebar, the man clutching a sniper rifle in his hands. Wiping his visor clear, he levelled the long barrel of the rifle, aiming up at the circling Phantom. There was a loud bang as he pulled the trigger, the Major just able to catch the contrail of the round as it lanced into the sky, hitting the door gunner right between the eyes, the Grunt falling into the water with a splash.
"You good, Rebar?" the Major called out, his counterpart giving him a curt nod.
"Better than our ticket out of here. Instruments are fried, she's dead in the water, literally."
"Call in another one," he ordered, Rebar nodding as he put a finger to his helmet. The chorus of gunfire began to recede, the Phantom falling back after making its initial pass, the decal on its nose catching the light as it pivoted. It dropped low over the canyons they'd driven in from, the unmistakable silhouettes of Brutes filling the troop bay as it neared the ground.
"What do we do, Sir?" one of the Marines asked, directing his question at the Major. As the highest-ranking officer around, they were looking to him for leadership.
"Form a firing line, Marines," he shouted, his tone commanding as he pointed. "Navy's sending us another boat, and we're gonna hold here until they arrive. Rebar, status?"
"Replacement's on the way," Rebar answered. "ETA: not soon enough. Ten minutes."
The Marines shuffled behind any bit of cover they could find, kneeling behind fallen trees and going prone around the chassis of the Warthog. An alien cry carried on the wind a moment later, the expanse of the park giving it a foreboding echo.
"The fuck was that?" one of the Marines asked.
"The call of a Brute," Seela answered. "They're alerting any other packs nearby."
He could see the Marine's helmeted heads were swivelling towards each other, the men clearly unnerved about the destruction of their boat, and the strange alien shouts that were responding. He had to say something to keep them in line.
"This is Earth, Marines," he yelled. "Make these Covenant bastards bleed for every inch of her! Hold the line!"
They gripped their guns with a fresh determination, the specialists joining the defence, their backs lit by the glow of their flaming would-be rescue boat. Together they numbered at thirteen, including Seela, the alien waving at Joker to get his attention.
"You can have your big gun, Jester," she said. "I shall stay on the ground."
Joker climbed onto the flatbed, sliding back the loading bolt on the mounted gun as he swerved the barrel towards the slope. The road they'd driven down was the only land path leading out of the beach, which should provide enough of a bottleneck to give them an edge.
The Major took up position beside the Warthog, crouching shoulder to shoulder with Seela and Holiday, the Major lowering his voice so that only the two of them could hear him.
"If anything happens to me," he began. "Take the drive and get out of here. This data is all that matters."
"With respect Sir, stow that crap," Holiday answered. "We've survived more botched missions than this."
"I concur," Seela added. "Only Jiralhanae lives will be lost in this glorious stand of ours."
"Been a bit of a circle for you, hasn't it?" he asked her, loading slugs into his shotgun, as they would add to his weapon's effective range. "When we met, you were holding out against the Covenant."
"But this time, I have a little help from my fellow Heretics," she said, patting him on the back. "And now I follow a much more noble cause, rather than self-immolation. Let us make sure the Brutes never forget what we accomplished this day."
After a few tense moments of waiting, a wave of Grunts crested the hill, their stumpy legs slipping in the dirt as they waddled down the slope. Jackal snipers peaked their feathered heads over the terrain behind them, levelling needle rifles in their thin arms. Lastly came the Brutes, a collection of Minors and Majors wielding everything from carbines to rifles to spikers, Brute-made weapons that were a blend between ballistic and plasma-powered guns, capped with wicked bayonets. The aliens outnumbered the humans two to one, though that was par for the course for humanity at this point.
The Marines opened up on the charging aliens, hundreds of tracer rounds filling the air as the Grunts were gunned down, the soil splashing as stray bullets chewed up the earth. Some of the waddling aliens were simply dismembered in the maelstrom of bullets, blue blood spraying, their bodies and pistols tumbling down the incline.
The Jackals and Brutes fired from the top of the slope, the plasma leaving green and blue contrails as the bolts sailed towards the beach, the Marines ducking as the gas sailed over their heads. Rebar rested the bipod on his sniper against a fallen tree, peering through the scope as he began to counter-snipe the Jackals, felling the Covenant ranks with frightening precision.
While the cannon fodder fared poorly in the charge, the Brutes were able to gain ground, but Joker was ready on the Warthog, the ends of the barrels glowing red-hot as he filled the charging aliens with lead. The Vulkan gun was designed to counter vehicles, and the Brute's shields didn't stand up to the barrage for long, the giant aliens slumping to the ground, pieces of their power armour shattering under the concentrated firepower.
Four Brutes lingered at the top of the hill, deterred by their decimated charge and keeping out of the line of fire. Some of the Marines took advantage of the lull to whoop and holler, but Holiday was quick to put them in their place.
"They're just testing our defences!" she called out. "Get ready for more!"
The screech of engines drew the eyes of the defenders upward, a pair of Banshees breaking off from the Covenant airforce and diving towards the beach. Joker brought the Vulkan round, and opened up, the aircraft banking away to try and make themselves as hard a target as possible.
Lower in the sky, another Phantom broke off from its patrol route deeper into the park, its mounted guns hammering the beach as it hovered over to the other side of the crest, another squad of aliens jumping out of its loading bay. One of the giant plasma bolts collided with a Marine to the right, the man crumpling without a sound, his comrades shifting him onto his back to check his vitals.
"They charge once more!" Seela announced, her carbine jumping in her hands as she fired up the slope.
Another wave of Grunts came into view, the Marines meeting them with a hail of bullets, the weapons only ceasing when the men needed to reload. As the Grunts were mopped up, small, cylindrical devices arched over their falling bodies from the opposite side of the hill, the pieces of metal rolling to a stop in the gravel. They landed too far away to cause any real alarm, until they activated.
Parts of the small devices lit up in bright blue, a wall of plasma the shape of a scale projecting out of the points of light. The Major had seen portable barriers in Covenant staging areas, but never used to cover an advance like this before. They were being tossed by Brutes, he noticed, the aliens sprinkling the shields down the slope randomly, only stopping when there were ten or so barriers littering the area.
Only now did the Brutes and Jackals make their descent, skidding to a halt behind the deployed shields, the former knocking some of the surviving Grunts aside so that they could fit their larger bulks into the new cover. Bullets bounced uselessly off the wavering walls of energy, the Brutes holding their weapons out and sending bolts down at the beach, exposing as little of their bodies as they could.
"Seela, focus on those shields!" the Major ordered, Seela switching her fire onto the barriers. He noted that Holiday was holding a plasma pistol in one hand, joining her as they overwhelmed the improvised defences with energy, as they were more effective in bringing down shields than conventional bullets were.
The Covenant made some progress down the slope, but the barriers were only big enough to fit one Brute behind them, the aliens scrambling for any free piece of cover, the Marines mowing down those unlucky enough to be caught in the open. The barriers were a hindrance, but not invincible, the Major seeing one such shield collapse, the Brute hiding behind it quickly riddled with bullets soon after, but they used up a lot of ammunition, something they didn't have an abundance of.
As the Covenant pushed through the bottleneck, Joker was fighting his own battle for the skies, steam rising from the barrels of the mounted gun as he continued to ward off the swooping Banshees. The Major glanced up to see him clip one of the aircraft along the wing, the nose plummeting down to the beach as the flight systems failed, the craft leaving a giant groove in the sand as it crashed into the ground, tossing up a huge cloud of sand. As the powder cleared, he saw the Banshee was remarkably intact despite the crash, the craft landing in the middle of the battlefield.
The fuselage opened up like a peg, and a Brute tumbled out, the Major noting the inside of the Banshee was lined with hundreds of little lights, the dash and control systems angled so that the pilot had to basically lie prone to fly the craft.
The Brute pilot lifted himself to a knee, reaching for a sidearm on his thigh, but the Marines quickly put him down, the Brute slumping against the crashed Banshee without a sound.
The Major pumped his shotgun, the spent casing flying out to join the growing pile of empty shells at his feet. When he was reloaded, he riddled a sprinting Jackal with a slug, sending it toppling over with a chunk of its torso missing. The next wave was hammered into the ground, the surviving Covenant pushing one another aside like they were playing some perverted version of musical chairs as they fought for the limited amount of barriers protecting the slope. He almost felt bad for the poor Grunts. Almost.
The Phantom with the decal hovered behind and above the advancing Brutes, the troops framed by its glowing engines that shimmered the air, the plasma turrets taking the occasional potshot at the defenders, the bolts sailing right over the heads of the alien troops.
"Joker focus on that Phantom!" the Major yelled. "If we don't take it out they're just gonna tag our boat as soon as it gets here!"
"I can't!" Joker answered. "Clever asshole's staying out my line of fire!"
As if to demonstrate, the moment Joker banked the gun on the dropship, the pilot would dip away, the Phantom hiding behind the walls of rock like it was taking cover. Joker couldn't exactly afford to switch his focus off the remaining Banshee anyway, the fighter occasionally diving low to strafe the beach, a Marine caught in the path of its cannons crying out as his green chest plate was slagged.
The Marines and specialists reloaded during the lull in the fighting, before another wave of Covenant moved into view. The park must have been crawling with Covenant if there were no other Phantoms around to drop them off. The Major's shoulder began to sting with all the shooting he was doing, the Covenant taking more ground as the Brutes chucked more portable barriers like they were softballs, the slope becoming more and more obscured behind the walls of energy. He set his sights on a Brute darting between the shields, its giant hand rising over his shoulder, a spike grenade clutched in its furred fingers. A slug tore its shields apart, startling the Brute long enough that a follow-up shot from Rebar brought the alien down. The spike grenade stabbed into the dirt, but didn't go off.
Tens of Grunts and Jackals began their advance, the Major directing the Marines fire on the Brutes in charge of deploying the barriers, as they were the bigger threat. The alien bodies were starting to pile up now, some piles two or three deep, the newly arrived aliens having to step over their fallen brethren in order to continue their descent.
"I'm outta ammo!" a Marine to the left yelled, his assault rifle firing off one last burst. Another man tossed him a spare, but his rigging was nearly empty too, their stand couldn't last much longer at this rate if they had to resort to sidearms.
The Brutes at the forefront of the charge tossed more barriers towards the beach, the lines of fire slowly cutting off as the shields reached the level ground. One of the Marines stood out of cover, pulling the pin on a fragmentation grenade and tossing it over the shields, the explosive detonating and sending a pair of Jackals flying, clouds of soil raining down on the heads of the nearby Brutes.
Some of the other Marines joined in, the explosives leaving craters in the sand as the front ranks of the charge were cascaded in shrapnel. It was like the beach was being pounded by mortar fire, the Brutes wary of advancing much further as the bolder members of their packs were dismembered in the blasts.
The Covenant charge started to falter, but just as the Major began to think their reinforcements were spent, another pack of Brutes appeared at the top of the hill, one of them standing out more than the others. His armour was the colour of a setting sun, his ornate helmet adding two feet to his overall height. A large gravity hammer was glued to his back, but that wasn't what had the Major concerned. Hauled over the alien's shoulder was a fuel rod gun, the Covenant's more portable version of their heaviest weapon.
"The coward reveals himself at last," Seela growled. "It's the Captain Major."
"Just how big of a boner does this guy have for you?" Joker asked, turning the Vulkan on the Brute leader, having finally dealt with the last Banshee, the craft plummeting into the water.
"The biggest," Seela answered.
Joker opened up on the Captain Major, but he barely sent the beginnings of a burst downrange before the Brute fired his heavy weapon, the handheld launcher rocking in his arms as a bolt the size of an engine block arched through the air.
"Get clear!" the Major shouted, hauling a Marine away. "Outta the Warthog Joker! Now!"
Joker leapt clear, shouting a string of curses as he barrelled into Holiday, the two tumbling into the sand. The fuel rod impacted the vehicle a moment later, the chassis splitting apart like an eggshell, a green-tinted mushroom cloud erupting from the Warthog's compromised fuel tanks, wheels and parts of the armour thrown away by the blast. The Major felt his feet leave the sand as the shockwave rolled through the beach, his helmet meeting the sand a moment later as he landed hard on his front.
As the ringing in his ears settled, he lifted himself onto his elbows, his senses slowly returning as he looked round. It was chaos. The Brutes had used the blast to close in, deploying more of those barriers, some of the aliens going berserk and rushing into melee range. The Marines cut one of them down as it hobbled on all fours like a giant ape, but another got in close, swiping at the man unfortunate enough to be in its way, his helmet twisting with a sickening crack as he was sent back, tumbling into the surf.
He turned and saw Rebar moving in, firing his sniper rifle from the hip at the attacking Brute, the round packing so much kinetic energy it simply blew a chunk through the alien's torso, leaving a gap the Major could see straight through.
He looked round for his shotgun, seeing nothing but boot prints in the sand. His search was cut short as someone grabbed at his rigging, Seela thrusting her carbine into his hands as she sat him up. "Help your squad," she said, reaching down and turning on her energy sword with a flex of her hand.
"Where are you going?" he asked, Seela turning her back on him.
"To avenge my kin."
He couldn't get another word out before she fell into a run, delving into the fray, swiping a Jackal across the neck with her sword, the little alien dying before he could even turn his beak on the charging Elite.
He peered down the blocky housing of the carbine, firing the weapon just like he would a battle rifle, bringing down a pair of Grunts circling to the left. It was hard to tell who'd been lost alongside the Warthog's destruction, but he saw that Joker was still up, hauling a wounded Marine towards the surf, as far away from the fight as was possible. Holiday was nearby as well, handing her magnum to a Marine who's rifle was running dry.
As he emptied the carbine into the Covenant, he paused to watch as Seela plunged her blade into a Brute that stood in her way, pushing her way through the Covenant lines until she was in the back ranks. It didn't take a genius to see where she was going, the ten foot tall Captain Major bellowing orders from the rear.
The Brute leader noticed her approach, Seela cutting down a Minor that made to intercept her, slicing through its power armour almost in annoyance. The Covenant were starting to thin out, a temporary halt in the gunfire allowing the Major to hear her exchange with the Brute in the golden armour.
"Hello again, little sister," the Captain Major said, his footfalls leaving small craters in the dirt as he approached. "You've eluded me for so long, yet now you come directly to me? Looking for a good death?"
"Yes, yours," Seela snarled, holding her sword out to the side.
"Your brothers sought the same thing," the Brute replied. "I sucked the marrow from every one of their bones, you will be no different."
He levelled his fuel rod gun, Seela charging towards him at the same time. The Captain Major fired off a single bolt, but it went wide, Seela circling the ball of plasma and lunging for the Brute, her sword aimed for his chest.
The Brute clocked her over the head with the fuel rod, Seela stumbling back, planting her hooves in the dirt to steady herself. Her shields had weathered the blow, framing her body in white light as she dropped into a crouch, swiping her sword from right to left. Her opponent stepped out of the arc, quickly realising she was keeping close enough to render his fuel rod ineffective. He dropped the massive weapon, reaching over his shoulder and gripping the haft of his gravity hammer, brandishing it at her in a challenge.
They began to circle one another, the number of portable barriers nearby creating a small ring for the two to square off amidst the firefight, the sightlines too broken up for the Major to help her.
The Brute swapped his hammer from a one-handed grip to two, keeping Seela guessing as he darted in for a swing, the generator on the head making the air around the hammer quiver as the gravity pulsers idled.
She parried the strike with her sword, the weapons interlocking, a bright flash of sparks accompanying the collision. Seela pulled away, the Brute swiping at her legs as she backed up, kicking up a curtain of soil as the hammer grazed the ground, the sheer mass behind the hammer nothing short of titanic.
Seela squared off with him, her opponent constantly angling the hammer in different directions, striking out again, this time with the haft. She knocked the attack aside, but the Brute followed up with another swing, bringing the hammer in for an overhead strike, like a lumberjack about to sever a log of wood.
She stepped to the side, the ground shaking as the hammer dug a pit into the dirt, the Brute heaving it out of the crater, but not before Seela darted in, swiping at his ribs. Her sword clashed against his shields, bouncing off them as though they were magnetically opposed, the Brute snarling in his native language. It was a battle of attrition, to see who could get through the other's shields first to draw blood.
Pressing the attack, Seela threw herself into the Brute, hammer meeting sword as the two aliens parried one another. Seela was more agile, but the Brute had the strength and mass that even a glancing strike from his hammer could be fatal, the design of their weapons reflective of the species' favoured fighting style.
The Brute held his hammer horizontally, pushing the long bar into Seela's chest, knocking her off balance. Taking advantage of the breathing room, he raised the hammer like it was a baseball bat, giving it a monumental swing.
Seela blocked it, another shower of sparks raining onto her hooves as the weapons clashed, stopping the hammer inches from her face. The Brute exposed his tusks in a grin as he activated the gravity generator, a sonic blast sending Seela reeling. She tumbled to the ground, her knees slipping in the dirt as she was sent a good five meters back. A blast that close would have crushed a human's skull, but Seela wasn't out of it yet, clutching her head with a trembling hand.
"How pitiful, that the last of the Sangheili is female, and a Heretic," the Captain Major chuckled, stalking towards Seela as she struggled to her knees. "Your ancestors must be so disappointed. Perhaps you can gleam back some dignity, and accept your fate."
He beckoned to Seela, heaving his hammer over his shoulder as he chuckled, Seela shooting him a disdainful look. Her mandibles flexed in a silent rage, but she held herself back as she wiped at the blood leaking from her temple. The Seela in the past might have taken the bait, but she wasn't about to throw herself into death for the sake of honour, the Major could tell by the look on her face that she was done with that outlook.
She glanced to the corpse of a nearby Brute, Seela sliding over the dirt and reaching for it, plucking a plasma grenade from its belt. Still crouching, she tossed it, sticking the Captain Major on the thigh, the Brute snarling in surprise by the swift throw.
Blue flames engulfed her opponent, but rather than end him right there, his shields protected him from the blast, the shimmering barrier collapsing as the sudden influx of collecting energy melted away his defences.
Her powerful legs flexing like springs, Seela launched towards the Brute, bringing the two points of her sword down on the disoriented alien. The Captain Major blocked with his hammer, planting the haft into her stomach with enough force to impale her, had her shields not been there to deflect the blow.
They were trading jabs, the Major unsure of who was getting the upper hand as they danced round each other, Seela putting her agility on display as she swapped from dodging to blocking, some of the swipes of the hammer coming dangerously close to severing her head from her shoulders.
He held his breath as Seela's shields also failed, the barrier breaking with a snap of parting energy as the Brute caught her on the ribs with his hammer. Rather than fall back, she pressed in close, throwing all her weight into a cleave. Her opponent raised the hammer like a giant quarterstaff, the two weapons colliding. Seela dragged her sword down the hammer's length, a piece of decorative cloth tied to the shaft burning to cinders, the sword moving down until it connected with one of the Brutes hands. With his shield broken, the alien roared in pain as most of his hand fell to the ground, the flesh trailing wisps of smoke as the severed digits cooked.
The stubborn alien refused to give up, holding the hammer with its intact hand and sweeping it from side to side. Seela didn't block, dodging out of the way instead, letting the Brute's own momentum create an opening for her.
She swiped across his chest, leaving glowing hot lines in the Captain Major's chest piece, a sliver of burning fur visible between the grooves as the Brute stumbled, the stump of his ruined hand clutching at his wound. Seela planted a hoof in his sternum, the Brute falling back into one of the portable barriers behind him, his hands slipping against the curved light as his rump met the dirt.
Laying there, he tried to swing his hammer at the approaching Elite, but she knocked it aside, twisting the sword round in one motion, so that she was pointing it like it was a giant hand saw, driving it into the Brute's stomach. The armour melted into liquid as the heated blades slipped through the armour, the Brute lurching as she embedded the sword in his torso.
"Tell your ancestors a female Heretic sent you to them," Seela growled, leaning close so that her and the Brute's snout practically touched. "See how disappointed they are."
She flexed her wrist, the sword twisting inside the Brute's gullet, the Captain Major writhing one last time before going still. She slid the blade out, the Brute's blood boiling on the hardened light and leaving it pristine.
"My kin are avenged," she declared, meeting the Major's eyes over the battlefield. He sighed in relief, lowering her carbine as the last of the Covenant were mopped up. They'd thinned out the rest of the aliens while she'd had her duel, and the loss of their leader sent the surviving aliens into a panic. As the last Brute was felled, a grating silence followed, the wind taking on an eery quality after so much continuous gunfire. There had to be at least fifty aliens littering the beach, with at least four entire packs worth of dead Brutes laced through the corpses.
"I can see the boat!" one of the Marines shouted, the Major turning his eyes to the ocean. Maybe a hundred meters out was another patrol boat, rising and falling as it barrelled through the waves, identical to the one still burning away on the shore.
"Uh, guys?" Joker called out, pointing at the sky. "Did everyone forget about the Phantom or something?"
The Captain Major's personal Phantom rose over the park, its pilot not averse to what they were doing. In some last-ditch effort, it banked towards the beach, its weapons turning not on the exposed humans below, but the newly arriving boat.
"Open up!" Rebar shouted, slotting a fresh clip into his sniper and firing from the hip. Joker and Holiday joined him, as did the Marines with ammo to spare, battle rifles and magnums barking as they threw everything they had at the dropship. The rounds bounced off its armoured hull, making little pinging sounds as they ricocheted. They all knew the craft was too heavily armoured to be in danger of small-arms fire, but the humans tried anyway, they didn't have the manpower to hold out against much more if this boat was destroyed too.
The Vulkan on the newly arrived boat opened up on the dropship, but they didn't have enough time to chew through the pilot canopy before the Phantom would be on them. The Major felt a pit form in his stomach, his head darting around in search of something, anything they could use to stop the ship.
"Leave this to me!" Seela shouted, the humans looking over to see she was clutching the Captain Major's fuel rod gun in her hands. She hoisted it over her shoulder, peered through the lenses that served as its targeting package, and pulled the trigger.
A brilliant bolt of green energy arched through the air like a blazing meteor, Seela leading her shot to compensate for the travel time. The Major felt the backwash of the Phantom's engines as it flew over the beach, praying the bolt wouldn't miss.
It did not. The bolt slipped through the ventral doors, the mounted guns on the sides having long been sniped clean by Rebar, impacting the ceiling on the inside. Some critical system erupted, a chunk of the purple alloy above the pilot's canopy blowing apart from within, the front engines losing power.
The craft tipped until its nose was facing the water, momentum still carrying it horizontally as it began to arc towards the ocean. The boat swerved out of the way, a giant wave engulfing the Marine standing on the prow as the dropship collided with the water. As the spray settled, they saw the tail-end of the craft jutting out of the water, almost like a capsizing ship, the purple dropship slowly disappearing beneath the bobbing water after a few moments.
The Marines hollered and whooped, directing their praises towards Seela. Her brow jumped in surprise, but she quickly masked her astonishment with a satisfied grin, nodding stoically as she tossed the fuel rod gun to the ground.
"Everyone alright? Sound off," the Major ordered. There was a chorus of replies saying they were okay, all the specialists reporting they were fine. The same could not be same for the Marines, three of them reporting wounds, four lying in the shallows, dead.
As the Marines began to haul the injured and the dead towards the approaching boat, the Major stooped to retrieve his shotgun, wading into the surf as their rescue pulled up to the shallows, water sloughing off its grey hull. One of the men aboard lowered a ladder, and the specialists helped the injured up first.
"Let's go, let's go!" the Marines who'd dropped the ladder said, the Major vaulting over the railing as he clutched at the knotted ropes, his soaked boots leaving puddles on the metal deck. Last to come up was Seela, the alien so tall the waterline barely reached her knees, while everyone else was soaked from the torso down. The Major offered her a hand, Seela chuckling as he struggled to lift her weighty frame onto the boat, Joker lending a helping hand when the Major couldn't lift her up on his own.
"Hell of a shot you made on that Phantom," Joker said, giving Seela a playful shove on the arm. "just wait until the Corps hears about your kill count."
"Indeed," Seela replied. "Tell all of what you saw this day, so that my deeds may be… ubiquitous among humanity. I said it!" she added excitedly, a hand on her chest as she blinked her eyes. "Major! I said the word!"
He chuckled at her, Joker and the rest of the team giving them odd looks as they shared their little in joke.
"That's everyone," the Major said, thumping his fist on the driver cabin. The boat lurched into motion, peeling away from the shore in reverse, listing into a spin until the nose pointed out to sea. The engines rumbled to life, the patrol boat picking up speed as the shore slowly began to recede into the distance.
The Marines collapsed onto the deck, exhausted, the Major all too eager to find his head a pillow. He told the Marines he'd let their superiors know of their hard work, before moving towards the back of the boat, passing the driver's cabin where Joker was poking his head out of the doorframe.
"Coming in, Sir? Radio's working in here."
"Just a sec," the Major replied, the boat jumping beneath him as the vessel speared through the rough waters. He put a hand on the railing as he reached the stern, looking out at the shrinking New Mombasa. The skyscrapers were framed by the glassing cruisers, the beams of light too bright to look at even at this distance.
"The day is ours," Seela said, moving to stand by his side, the two looking out over the water. The only other thing filling the sky aside from the Covenant fleet was the tether, or the bottom half of it at least. He could just see the fallen rings dotting the landscape towards the right, sticking out of the ground like massive armbands.
"Doesn't really feel like a victory," he replied.
"Do not go all gloomy on me just yet," she replied sternly, looking down at him. "Your mission was a success, and we escaped. Even took out the commander of the Brute forces, that's a tremendous victory from my point of view."
"You're right," he said, taking her hand in his and giving it a squeeze. "Forgot one thing, though," he added, Seela blinking at him. "I found an asset, someone I think is a little more important than the data."
"Oh yes?" she cooed. "And what do you plan to do with this, 'asset'?"
"I'll keep her around, make sure everyone treats her right," he said, glancing back at the Marines. "Not that I think that'd be a problem, everyone's seen how much Covenant she killed on that beach, word'll spread fast."
"And what of your organisation?" she asked. "This 'ONI'? Your superiors will want to extract information from me."
"Technically you're in my custody," he replied. "Means I'm responsible for you, and I'll have to stay by your side for the foreseeable future."
"See? Told you it was a victory."
He laughed at that, the two going silent as the city shrank in size until the Major could cover it with a hand. They stayed like that for a while longer, the boat accelerating deeper into the sea, bouncing off the waves like a skipping stone until New Mombasa was just a bump on the horizon.