Chief, Linda, Boss and Sev punched through the Maintenance section of the ship, a damp, dark side tunnel that led away from the main corridors. The two officers of the team fired their weapons back into the advancing crowd of mutant monstrosities that had taken over the ship, with Boss himself shooting the door's mechanism to lock it shut the moment all of them had gone through.
All four seemed to pause for a moment to gather their thoughts, with Sev quipping, "That was cutting it kriffin' close..." only to immediately swivel about and point his weapon at the door with the others as the beasts started smacking against it. He looked to Chief and asked, "Just what the hell are these things...? Give us a straight answer," with a lot of edge in his voice.
"Flood," Chief replied, checking his weapon over. He dropped the spent magazine and inserted a fresh one in three quick motions, then looked at the two Clone Commandoes and told them, "They're an ancient, smart parasite. Capable of adapting the strengths and abilities of its hosts to its advantage. Case in point-" and the entire team winced as blaster fire started hitting the door, heating it. The Spartan motioned wordlessly to the door.
"Great," Boss sighed in annoyance, then radioed, "Fixer, Scorch, status on getting to that rendezvous point?"
"Making our way right now, Boss, but this place crawls," Fixer replied. His com muffled it, but the group could hear the cracks of a rifle and his own blaster firing. There was a lot more of these alien rats between them and the bridge, too. Force only knew how many, Boss thought as he reloaded his own blaster and looked to Chief and Linda. The Spartans nodded and lead the way forward while the two Commandoes brought up the rear.
"Fixer ain't wrong... Force, it's like I'm looking at a body horror holo," Scorch added, though it was quiet on his and Kelly's end. Scant few emergency lights shined their way through the ship's corridors as they advanced. Scorch asked Kelly, "You ever seen this stuff up-close, Petty?" only to get a negative hum from the girl. The usual jokester laughed nervously and said, "Great, well, at least we'll both die a little stupid..."
"We'll make it, you nerfherder," Sev quipped as they advanced, scanning every nook and cranny for a sign of Flood infection. He continued to reassure his brother, "You still owe me that drink you stole after all," which got Kelly to chuckle over the com. Chief, meanwhile, linked to her helmet camera, watching the way they were moving through, only to pause as he saw the wall growths of Flood biomass starting to overtake that corridor.
"Ha," Scorch let out a singular vocalization of amusement at that, but it was clear it eased the tension a little bit.
Fred spoke over the com, "They're thinning out on my and Fixer's end, but be careful. They might be dividing to hit us all at the same time," his usually calm voice mixed with the crack of his DMR. Chief clicked his com once in acknowledgement, raising his rifle up to greet any oncoming threats. Still, as they marched down the dark corridors and took a right turn past some debris, they couldn't find any signs of the Flood.
Or anything else, really.
Chief pied the corner as they moved along the wall, all while keeping tabs on his Motion Tracker. Boss, meanwhile, scanned the ceiling and Sev, the ground, while Linda covered the rear now. The woman hit a door lock and watched the bulkhead seal shut behind them as the monsters screamed, their voices reverberating across the hull of the desolate Ghost Ship.
The door shit behind the Spartans and Commandoes. She slammed her fist clean through the computer mechanism, her shields flaring for a moment as electricity coursed through the armored gauntlet, then she retracted her hand and shook it. It felt slightly numb, like she'd stuck it in poison ivy, but the door was shut and locked and the bastards would need to spend time cutting through it.
Cortana spoke, "... Deeper we go, the more I can feel this place is in complete shutdown. The reactor is running on safety mode and, obviously, the Hyperspace Core is disabled, so that means it can't jump or move out of here. Now, if only we could find whatever's jamming our coms, we could call in a NOVA... Chief, slot on the left. Hold position and yank me."
The Spartans and Clones formed a perimeter near by a damaged console. Chief removed the Chip from his helmet and looked at it, watching the AI's avatar form ahead of him out of a flurry of blue pixels. She smiled at him and shrugged, to which he simply said, "Be careful..." only to slide the chip into the port and join the perimeter, rifle trained outward. Distant groans, yet again, human, clone or Trando, filled the halls.
"Any ideas on how we can trigger the ship's self-destruct?" Chief inquired, looking at Boss.
The man nodded, "One well-placed charge on the reactor core would've worked if it wasn't on Safe. Otherwise? Re-enabling controls and engaging self-destruct from the Bridge is our best bet, but we have a hundred corridors filled with those things between us and it," and he sounded particularly disgusted when he pressed on the word 'things'. Understandably. The infected aboard were all their brothers, regardless of if they were Regs or not.
"Nothing a little Blaster fire won't fix," Joked Sev, slamming the tibanna gas cell on his DC-17m to emphasize the idea. Linda gave a nod of approval, scanning the ceiling and floor, still. There were grates and loose panels the Flood could use as surprise ambush sites. She paused as the console behind them flickered to life, glowing green. Chief turned about, pulled the Chip and slotted it into his helmet.
Cortana told them, "I have updated schematics of this section's damaged interior. We're not far from one of the landing legs... Gonna have to cross it in order to reach the RV point," giving them a mark on their HUDs. A NAV Point. She said, "Be careful, though... What little remains of internal sensors has picked up quite a few contacts holed up in the landing leg area. Not sure if any are friendlies."
"Wish we carried a flamethrower for this op," Linda murmured. Chief and Boss took point again, marching them through the collapsed corridor, many parts of which looked like they'd been burnt through by fire. Was one to assume a clone trooper was quick enough to get to the Acclamator's armory and pick up one such flame weapon, that meant that some clones may have yet been alive.
A sliver of hope. The shipboard PA played a garbled, seemingly looping message as they walked past one of its broadcasting systems. The Spartan and Commandoes continued their advance, slowly creeping forward, each footstep reverberating in the deathly quiet of the ship. The hull rumbled in the distance, a metallic creak of armor pressing against armor and girders barely supporting the weight of some of the ship's inner structures.
The group reached a doorway and flanked each side. The Spartans looked at their Clone counterparts, both of which gave them nods. Motion trackers registered the possible contacts beyond the door, so the Spartans prepared to poke their heads out and, if need be, throw grenades. Chief hit the door-opening button and brighter light poured through the door-frame into the dark corridor. The two Spartans scanned the room ahead and paused.
Trandoshans gripped their shotguns, aiming them at the door. Two Trando mercs with assault weapons aimed their guns, while a third manned an autocannon on the far side of the chasm in which the massive landing leg of the Prosecutor resided. A Trandoshan hissed, "Come out and die, freakssss!" only for the soldiers to immediately lob their grenades in.
The Trandos gasped, then saw the blur that was Linda move in a split second, drawing her Sniper. She zeroed in on the head of the autocannon gunner and sniped it clean off, the shot reverberating through the hold, followed by the thumping detonations of the grenades. The Spartans and Clones breached next, moving forward and into cover behind crates and indents in the walls. Bullet holes marked the walls and sparkling wires hanged from above. A singular recessed light flickered above nearby the chasm, hanging loosely, swinging back and forth.
Another Trandoshan barked, "Leave this place!" as blades were audibly unsheathed. He poked his head out and a blaster bolt nailed him right between the eyes, sending the corpse falling to the floor. Linda hit the door button again, letting it close before slamming her fist into the panel again. She peered through her sniper and heard her clone counterpart beside her switch out his own weapon through a series of quick movements into the ion pulse sniper variant of the 17m.
He knelt beside her, breathed to steady his aim and domed the first Trando merc trying to go for the gun again. He and Linda nodded to one-another, then looked to Boss and Chief. The team leads replied with similar nods, then stood up and pushed forward, spreading out to avoid a possible enemy grenade throw down the corridor they were coming from. Chief peered left and Boss took right, but the rest of the Trando contacts soon emerged from the right.
Bullets zipped past the Chief and struck the Commando's Katarn shielding. He called out, "Twenty plus Trandoshans, moving up!" which made the Chief tense and aim his rifle. When the first sword-wielding trandoshan appeared, his head was turned into a yellowish bloody pulp by a burst of assault rifle fire, all while Boss continued to poke out and engage. Linda ran forward, sliding across to just within an inch of the chasm while firing her sniper rifle. She took cover behind another box and sniped three Trandos with one shot.
Sev was quick, too, running forward and throwing a grenade over the Trandos' heads, before aiming and sniping said grenade, which rained shrapnel down upon them and killed three Trandoshans as well. Chief and Boss exchanged a look that told both were thinking of the same thing:Their snipers were now in an unspoken competition. They ran out into cover, pressing their advantage and gunning down several more trandos on their own.
One rushed Boss, slamming into him and pinning him to the floor. It was a sword-wielding, armor-less trando. He lifted up both blades to try and come down on the Katarn-wearer, but the gauntlet-mounted vibro-knife punched a hole clean through his jaw and into his brainstem. Boss pushed the corpse off and sheathed the knife, drew his pistol and fired repeatedly at another advancign one while his fellow special forces laid waste to anything else that moved.
Sev ran to him and helped him to his feet, stating, "Nice kill, Boss."
"Thanks, Sev," The man replied, wiping some of the gooey blood of the Trandoshan off his chest. He grabbed his DC-17m and looked up just in time to see Chief surge forward, slamming into a pair of the lizards. One fell to the ground and had his head stomped in, while the other received an M6 Magnum round in his left eye, which tore his head in half.
The Delta Sniper quipped, "Starting to like them," as they walked back over to the Spartans. Boss let out a hum, then a nod of approval.
Chief wiped his boot on the dead Trando and asked, "They usually this viscous?" while looking at the remnants of the green lizard's head, plastered across the steel floor. Above, a hydraulic liquid pipe burst a tiny leak, droplets of the gunk dripping down, mixing with the blood of the alien bastard. Boss let out the first short laugh he'd ever let out this mission, then sighed and nodded.
All four looked back, hearing the noises of the Flood grow closer, then decided to take the ramp up to get across. Linda also noticed and pointed, "There's explosive charges on the supports. They were probably going to collapse the roof if the situation got bad enough," and they marched past the 'secondary' controls to the main doors below the landing leg.
"Lucky us, they didn't have time..." Sev replied, "Good eyes."
"Thanks," Linda replied, "Good aim."
Sev gave a a nod of approval back. The four-man team continued forward to the RV point, with Chief listening to Cortana as she mumbled something to herself. He hummed once, really quickly, but just slow enough for her to pick it up. She sighed and said, "Sorry... Remembering some not-so-pleasant memories back on High Charity. I'll be fine, though..."
"Okay," He replied. He fully trusted his partner.
Looking upon Boss, he realized that he was starting to properly trust the clones, too. Despite being a bit more talkative and zany than the average Spartan-II, almost on par with IIIs, in fact, they were professional, well-kept, well-trained and well-equipped. The four-man fireteam pushed forward like a more well-oiled machine now, eyes peeled for any possible breaches, until they reached the side of the chasm and the door opposite the way they came in.
Chief showed the group to halt, then pointed at the pillars on which bombs were placed, asking, "Those walls don't lead to the outside, correct?"
"No," Boss replied, "Closest point to the void is below the strut itself. The doors are reinforced enough for meager det charges like that not to do anything, though," before humming. He understood why the Chief asked and gave him a nod of approval while Sev got to work on cracking open the door. Linda drew her sniper at John's order, aimed and fired at the det charges. A daisy-chained explosion collapsed a chunk of the armored roof down onto the catwalk and dented even the landing strut, blocking the path of the Flood.
Sev gave a thumbs up as the door opened to another cramped corridor. The entire group paused, however, as they shined lights inside and started seeign the faint traces of biomass growing out of the walls, the lights flickering, dust and spores floating in the air. The four sealed their suits tightly, to make sure not even one supercell could breach their defenses, then marched forward. Boots first clanked against metal before they made contact with the gunk-covered portions of the fleshy floor.
"Status?" Boss inquired over com, only to pause as they turned a corner and saw the team already at the door. Both pairs, weapons ready and boots soiled by the biomass, worked to unlock the door. The Spartans pulled, tugging the locked metal gate to try and either rip it open or force it aside, but it was stuck due to flesh in the mechanism. Scorch gave a quick wave to them, Boss sighing deeply, "Nevermind. Chief, Petty Officer. If you don't mind..."
"On it," The Spartans replied, then walked over to help Fred and Kelly prop the door open, both sides pulling with all their might in the same general direction. The rejoined squad, however, paused as the rumble of the Flood grew louder behind them. The Commandoes drew their blasters and aimed them, Scorch and Fixer aiming through the slowly-expanding opening...
The teams prepared for a Droid counterattack, with Ordo coordinating their troops into position just in case the Seppies would decide to do anything a little more brash than their usual. Simulations could never really prepare him, however, as he glanced over his shoulder at the body bags being taken by Marines and fellow Clones down to the LZ. Overhead, in space, the UNSC Infinity and their fleet engaged an outpouring of CIS Reinforcements.
They must've not liked that the Republic had decided to land right in their backyard to look for something or other. He knew from briefings by the General that they were looking for some alien artifact, a chunk of a map of some kind. He cradled his DC-15 blaster as he sat himself down by a heat lamp, not wanting to concern himself with that for now.
He looked over to his right, to see the two UNSC Marines he and his command platoon had moved up this hill with sat by a similar heat lamp. Victor's Machine Gun was set up on a perch, ready to fire at incoming enemy units, while Vesna's rifle lay off to her side, the two of them laughing and reminiscing about something or other from their lives. He wondered what that felt like, to be in love, to feel normal stuff like a normal human being instead of continuously thinking about war.
He almost jumped when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw the Spartan-III, Richard, handing him a ration bar. He sat down by the officer and asked him, "You gonna go on Night Watch after your Sergeant, sir?" to which the Clone nodded. He handed the officer a can of some sort of energy drink, then told him, "Should help you stay awake during the Watch."
"Thank you," The Clone nodded, taking his helmet off and setting it aside. He sipped from the drink, then coughed hoarsely as he tasted what must've been the sweet'n'sour taste of battery acid. He shook his head and raised a brow, confused, before asking, "Why did you give me battery acid in a can...?" while a slow buzz started creeping up on him, his heart suddenly beating just that little bit faster.
Richard took his own helmet off, joking, "We don't drink Rip It for the taste, sir. Damn thing survived for five hundred years because it's the Marine's preferred poison when it comes to staying awake," before sighing. He looked back, watching as Six and Meetra were engaged in small-talk while checking the lines, then said, "Weird time, this is. Having to fight a war in another Galaxy..."
"Can't guess how you must feel," The Commander nodded, sighing and deciding to just stick with drinking the item he was given, "But imagine how we feel. I and my brothers were made to fight for the Republic in this war and now we hear we're under the command of a specialized, joint human-alien military force from an entire other Galaxy, not to mention working with a four thousand-year-old Jedi..." and he gave an awkward smile, "It's not exactly that easy for me or them to get used to this."
"Amen," Snorted Richard. He paused, however, his right ear twitching. He slid his helmet on. The last face Ordo had managed to see the boy wear was his combative poker-face. The Clone Commander put his own helmet on, grabbed the blaster from beside his seat and watched the boy walk toward the defensive perimeter. Six seemed to have noticed this, drawing his rifle while Meetra drew her saber's hilt, but didn't ignite it.
Victor and Vesna both soon stood to their feet, grabbing their weapons and shouldering them. Over the radio, Meetra's voice called out, "All units, prepare for contact..." in a low whisper. The Spartans tensed, while the Clone Troopers, roused from slumber or relaxation, joined the Marines. The thundering, distant steps of the supporting AT-TE and crack of the Scorpions' tracks filled their ears, while Gunships began to hover gently just behind the treeline.
The Commander watched Richard shoulder his rifle, aiming down the sights... Then he blinked as a burst of tracers lit the night sky. The Spartan's rifle coughed again and the Clone officer soon followed where the shots were going with his own. The two hilltops parallel to each-other and the road erupted in bursts of automatic fire as Commando Droids streamed through the treeline.
Some were shot down mid-sprint. Others managed to climb the hills, firing their own blasters with one hand while drawing their blades with the other. Vesna lifted her rifle and cut one down just as it was climbing to attack them, while the heavy weapon clone behind them also lit the area ahead up in a cone, his Z6 spitting blue bolts at the advancing Droids.
A pair of Clones attempted to fight off three enemy mechs beside Six. One of the Clones lost his head to a vibroblade before the Spartan intervened, punching clean through the first droid, drawing his pistol on the second and nailing it with two SAPHE rounds to the core and engaging the third in hand-to-hand, the agile machine's blade flashing off the shield-coated titanium as the Spartan drew his own knife and swept the legs out from under the droid before pummeling it to the floor and cutting its head off in one swipe.
Meetra ignited her lightsaber and slashed two more droids in half, then grabbed a third with Force Push and clenched her fist, crumpling it into a ball of scrap that she threw at her enemies. She spun the blade and stabbed behind her, cutting clean through a Droid's chest. Katja and Paul soon joined, with Paul's rifle ringing aloud while Katja threw grenades and droid poppers at the enemy units.
The other side reported casualties, too. Some clones, a pair of Marines. The second wave of Mechs washed over the line, Meetra cutting three more down in a brilliant display of swordfighting skill while Six simply relied on his tried and true method of shooting them. Vesna yelped audibly, causing Meetra to swivel about and watch as a droid pounced on her, readying to stab her through the chest.
Her husband grabbed the mech, slammed it against the wall and kicked its head clean off, before helping her up and handing her her rifle. The two smiled and nodded to one-another, before continuing to gun down the mechs. It made Meetra crack a small smile, too, though she focused on helping the Spartans defend against the onslaught, watching Richard manage to duel the Bots hand-to-hand like a pro, gutting several of them.
Six pushed up beside his adopted Brother, the two of them now switching back to firing their weapons while Ordo showed off his own CQC skills, dodging several swipes and slashes from the mechanoid trying to gut him. He parried a strike with his DC15, which was cut in half, but stopped the strike. He then twisted the weapon, disarming the mech and grabbing its sword for himself.
He vivisected the robot with its own blade, then grabbed a fallen M6 Magnum off the ground and utilized the two weapons in conjunction with each-other. His voice bellowed, "TROOPERS, GAMMA FORMATION!" which caused his brothers to form up into two ranks, first firing their blasters at the advancing assault while the second lobbed Droid Poppers over cover, defeating the advancing force.
The droid raiding party soon retreated, leaving behind two dozen destroyed Commando Droids and maybe a dozen dead from the UNSC's troops. General Surik sighed as she clipped the hilt to her belt, then crossed her arms, looking at the dead as they were put up in body bags again, then looked over to the enemy's last distant AAA position, before stating, "Might have to really accelerate the program..." to nobody in particular. The lights of the city they were gonna surround flickered in the corners of her peripheral vision, too...
Hell of a rough fight was waiting.