Chapter 2 - Indespectus
July 2nd, 2544 (13:45 Hours – Military Calendar)
Aratus Sulfi System, Near former colony world of New Bara
Osiris-7, inside crashed CCS Battlecruiser
:********:
Duncan scanned the smooth purple walls of the hallway leading deeper into the ship. Nova moved beside him with her SMG, the two of them taking point as the rest of the squad followed.
The strange part about how they got here, at least strange to Duncan, was that while everything else seemed relatively offline, the door to this passageway had enough power to open for them. He snuck a glance at the Lieutenant Commander. She walked with the rest of the squad as if she were one of them, examining the way ahead with her M6 Magnum. For some reason he found it mildly off-putting.
He'd heard even more rumors about ONI during his downtime in the Dante Building and hanging around ODSTs from Bravo's sister companies. What he had hoped was that someone like what he'd heard would seem a lot less like himself. Yet Cordova melded in with their ranks easily. He couldn't help thinking of her as a bear in wolf's clothing.
More importantly, he still had no clue where they were going. At Cordova's orders they would go down one corridor then come up what he felt was the same passageway. Everything looked the same in the dark.
"How much further, Lieutenant Commander?" The Staff asked.
"It should be-"
The lights in the hallway they were in suddenly turned on. The polished purple sheen of the interior possessed a surprisingly majestic and refined quality that was striking compared to its UNSC counterpart. There was, however, an eyesore. It was an Elite Minor sprawled over the floor just several meters ahead of them.
The ODSTs centered their gunsights on it and carefully advanced. Duncan reached it first and gave it a wide berth as he sidestepped around it. The Elite looked like it had been clawing at the deck with one hand while clutching its neck with the other. The way it was decaying told Duncan it had been dead for some time. He softly kicked the larger creature's hand.
It didn't move.
Zack came up and unabashedly socked it in the side of the face with his boot, causing the body to shift a bit before resettling. "What'd you think happened to this one?"
"Doesn't look like he was fighting anyone." Cordova commented, examining the body. "Looks like suffocation."
That was a clue, Duncan realized. "Is that it then? A bad-hull breach somehow caused the ship to crash here?"
Cordova looked at him but said nothing else on the subject. "Let's keep moving."
Orders were orders. Still, he wanted at least one question answered about this whole situation.
Duncan carried on with Nova down the hallway. But the further they went the more questions he had thanks to the growing number of bodies they started running into. They found a pair of the humanoid, avian reptiles lying dead against the walls of the hallway. Their U-shaped plasma pistols rested loosely in their hands.
"I guess these guys suffocated too?" Nova asked.
Cordova repeated her earlier response. "Keep moving."
They did. After turning another corner Duncan almost tripped over the cone-shaped methane tank of one of the five Grunts lying facedown on the floor. Hector caught him by his rucksack and helped him back on his feet, an uneasy balancing act for the larger ODST given the SPANKR on his back.
On closer inspection the team of Grunts looked more like alien turtles. To Duncan their amphibian features, arms and legs looked ready to retract into their orange chest armor like a shell. While they were squat beings they could probably reach up to his shoulder if they stood upright. But he would probably unload half a clip into their face if they tried it.
"Geez." Zack said. "Even the Fart Breathers are dead?"
Duncan turned to him. "What?"
"You ever smelt what they breathe in, man?" He pointed to their masks which had been pulled out of their mouths to reveal a more than unsettling sight for a dentist. Maybe it was a good thing Deaks wasn't here.
"Are you saying you actually tried one of their masks before?" Nova asked.
Zack traced a smirk across his visor. "I'm open to new experiences."
Nova and Duncan shook their heads and started stepping over the bodies.
"These set don't rely on oxygen, they're methane breathers." Cordova said. "Suction from a breach in the hull likely pulled their masks off and they never got them back on."
"So, a hull breach then?" The Staff asked, having watched her from the side of his visor.
Cordova ignored him. "Let's keep moving."
Duncan almost had it with her telling them to keep moving when he stopped, although not out of disobedience. It was more so because while being on a derelict alien ship, the last thing he was expecting to see was a human being.
Well, it wasn't a human exactly. The holographic figure glowed a ghostly green. He wore an emerald suit and tie and sat in a wheelchair. The way his elderly face and thoughtful eyes turned to the ODSTs as they rounded the corner made Duncan think he had just come from a somber conversation with someone. Then that melancholy feature transformed to genuine joy, like a grandfather seeing his grandchildren at a family reunion.
Duncan knew who he was. At the same time, he didn't have a clue. In high school he had studied North American history. He'd learned about the former United States that fought in the Second World War. He started piecing it together. That was it. He was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Then Duncan realized that couldn't be right because FDR had died almost 600 years ago. He mentally slapped himself at remembering it was just an AI with his exact appearance, not the man himself.
The green Roosevelt held up a holographic martini cocktail in one hand and tipped it towards them. "Its about time you showed up." He said boldly. "I was worried Churchill would've gotten to me sooner so he could bug me about getting more involved in Europe." He took a sip of the martini and looked reflectively at the digital fluids swirling inside.
Duncan and the others slowly approached the AI, still uncertain why it was even here. Its 2-foot tall projection sat atop an active Covenant holotank which emitted his image with crisp resolution.
The troopers stopped a few steps shy of his tank. He noticed. "Well come on now, I'm not going to bite. Not you of course." He cocked his head, looking past them. "You on the other hand…"
He was gesturing at Cordova who stepped out in front. She took off her helmet, allowing her dark wavy hair to fall freely onto her shoulders. She returned a small smile. "It's good to see you too, Mr. Green."
The AI did a graceful bow in his wheelchair. "Took you long enough, dearie. All I've been able to do this whole time is think, and you know that's not good for my health." He knocked back the rest of his cocktail, looked at the glass and flicked his hand. The glass shattered into a shower of broken fragments. He stretched out his hand beneath it and it began to take shape. It formed into a labyrinth of interconnected hallways and chambers.
"You are here." He pointed out a hallway where multiple yellow dots glowed.
"I, however, am in the Transmissions Section of the ship here." He highlighted an ovular chamber that lay a few hallways away. "I'll send the directions to your Heads Up Displays. Please don't take forever. I'm still not certain that I've successfully dealt with all the crew."
The AI's image disappeared as the holotank deactivated. His quick departure left the rest of the squad reeling.
"Umm…what was that?" Zack asked.
The Staff rounded on Cordova and refined the original question. "What exactly is our actual mission here?"
Before the Lieutenant Commander could answer, a NAV Marker appeared on their HUDs. It showed 197 meters distance to their objective, whatever that was.
"Our goal." Cordova began. "Is to reach the Transmissions Section of the ship for the purpose of securing an Armored AI Matrix stored there. We can worry about the SOS later."
"Armored Matrix?" Nova questioned. "Mam, are you saying that the AI we just saw is connected to the ship?"
Cordova gathered her hair up and slid her helmet back on "Yes. It's our job to extract him from the ship at all costs. His safety is currently our top priority."
Nova shook her head. "But…how can that even be? You're saying he's in control of the ship? How did he even get connected, yet alone know how to pilot this tub?"
"You have a lot of questions and I can't give all the answers. So, let's go." Cordova walked on. The ODSTs had no choice except to follow her.
Duncan sensed this mission was getting stranger. First there was an enemy ship crashed in the middle of nowhere and now they were about to rescue the human AI piloting it. Then again, this was an ONI-supervised operation. That was probably for good reason.
:********:
Garrison observed the perimeter that his ODSTs had setup around the ship with eyes set for details. He patrolled around the vessel checking for weaknesses. On the portside he had already ordered 5th Platoon's Squads Goliath and Guardian to form a tighter defense around the midsection and had 2nd Platoon's Squads Horus and Hornet spread out more around the bow. His primary concern now was 1st Platoon.
They were the smallest platoon in Bravo with only three squads. And one of them was currently running through the CCS. That left the rest of the platoon undermanned as they setup a defensive line near the hanger. He worried that they wouldn't be enough to protect that part of the ship. While they were admittedly one of his best platoons, he didn't want to take any chances. But it couldn't be helped. There weren't more ODSTs to grant them a stronger defense. His only option was to hope that Epsilon's sniper would be able to detect any threats afar off.
Under Captain Harper's orders, Corporal Deaks had setup an overwatch position atop the cruiser. He'd fired a harpoon using his SRS-99 into the hull then climbed up an attached rope onto the top of the ship to setup his rifle.
Garrison watched him swivel his sniper from left to right, slowly scanning the tree-line. Hotep-3 had also setup a sniper post on the opposite side of the cruiser to provide overwatch for Squads Goliath and Guardian. They were an early detection system for any approaching threat.
Garrison's attention switched to the Spear of Odysseus as his HUD received a hail request from the ship. "This is USC Spear of Odysseus to Neptune-Actual; do you copy?" It was the man in charge of the cruiser, Captain Archibald.
"Go ahead, Spear."
"We're getting a little antsy just hanging around up here. So far, no Covenant have showed up but we don't want to press our luck. Any updates?"
"The Lieutenant Commander hasn't said anything yet. I'm checking up on them in a minute for a progress report."
"We're counting on it-"
"This is 5-Actual to Neptune-Actual, we've got a problem, sir." The Captain of 5th Platoon's voice came in over another frequency, the urgency evident in his voice. Garrison quickly squelched the conversation with Archibald.
"What's the situation, 5-Actual?"
"It's Hotep-3, sir." The Captain answered. "He's not responding. We can see him on top of the cruiser. He's just lying there."
Garrison instinctually flicked the safety off his rifle. "Any shots fired? Any ordinance?"
"No sir. From what I can see he's just unresponsive."
That was strange. Unless…
Garrison whipped his head around to where he knew Ep-3 would be. Only, the ODST wasn't there. Instead, he was casually walking away from where he had been lying down on the cruiser's topside, his sniper already on his back as he headed for the rope. Confusion hit Garrison like a tidal wave at seeing the ODST seemingly abandoning his position without any express permission to do so. Yet he was walking as if it weren't a problem.
:********:
It started the moment Deaks felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. His instincts told him to move. He was only able to confirm what the problem was when there was comm-chatter about his counterpart, Hotep-3, who had gone silent on the other side of the ship. It was then that he understood that the top of the cruiser was probably the last place he wanted to be. So he got up, packed up his sniper and went on his merry way.
But the hair on the back of his neck was still standing. He could sense what the cause of the sensation was. He amped up his armor's auditory sensors and picked up more on the sound of his own boots clanking across the metal surface. Then he gradually detected another set of footsteps coming from behind, slow and cautious but keeping pace.
Deaks slowly eased one hand towards his M6 magnum while he hooked his thumb into the firing pin of an EMP grenade with the other. He pulled the pin on the grenade and started counting off the seconds. All the while he kept walking casually down the sloping surface towards the rope.
Five.
Garrison came in over comms. "This is Neptune-Actual to Ep-3. You mind telling me where you're going, son?"
Four.
Deaks spotted the Lieutenant Colonel staring up at him from the ground with Harper and a few others. He didn't like the audience they were giving him because he knew there was a good chance that they were about to watch him die.
Three.
"Don't worry sir." He replied, his grin evident in his voice. "I just need to kill this jerk in active cammo up here."
Two.
"What?" Garrison asked.
Deaks didn't hear the rest of what he had to say. Without warning he swiveled about and threw the EMP grenade. He fell into a crouch and took aim with his pistol, watching the explosive sail through the air.
One.
The grenade detonated in a blinding flash that forced his helmet to polarize. The brief illumination faded away, allowing him to see the shimmering outline of a figure that staggered back from the force of the detonation. Its translucent shields flickered then failed, revealing the crimson and silver armor of a Spec Ops Elite. At two meters tall it easily towered over him and the blazing blue eyes of its helmet stared down the barrel of his M6.
"Hey there." Deaks said and pulled the trigger. He didn't miss. With its shields down, two 40mm rounds caught it in the chest and another in the arm. The Elite ducked beneath the last shots and lunged forward with unreal speed. An energy sword flashed to life in its hand. Deaks threw himself onto his stomach, dodging a wide swipe meant to cut him in half. The weapon's intense heat washed over him and his skin bristled. He rolled away and down towards the rope. The Elite pursued, leaping forward again. Deaks pulled his legs in close to his chest which saved him as the twin forks of azure energy stabbed down into the hull an inch away. He slid over the edge, spotted the rope, grabbed it with both hands, clamped his boots around it and rappelled down to safety.
He lost his grip a few meters to the ground and landed hard on his back. Winded by the fall, he blinked away the stars from his vision and looked up. The Elite stared down at him from the edge of the top of the cruiser. Its freehand balled into an enraged fist.
ODSTs from Squad Echo ran up to him and dragged him away while the rest of 1st platoon took aim. The Elite now found itself in their collective sites and it turned to retreat.
"Open fire!" Garrison ordered.
In an instant the air was full of hot led all aimed at the Elite. A few well-placed shots found their mark. However, the Elite managed to dash far enough away from the edge to be out of range.
No sooner did he disappear than a hail of green plasma fire washed over them, catching two troopers in the back. They screamed and fell over as their comrades ducked and crouched to their cover.
Figures moved under the shadows of the trees. Scores of Grunts and Jackals armed with energy shields opened fire from behind them. Among them were Elite Minors who directed them while squeezing off bursts of blue energy from their plasma rifles.
"Contacts!" Harper yelled. "Twenty meters out!"
"Return fire!" Garrison ordered. The ODSTs' weapons stuttered out bursts of ballistic death at the enemy. Led rounds and blue and yellow plasma filled the air between the CCS and the surrounding forest as Covenant forces around the ship revealed themselves and engaged. The troopers met them with fierce resistance, using the debris field and boulders for cover and filling any enemy they saw with bullets.
"Bravo Company, hold your positions!" Garrison said over Company comms. "Focus on pushing them back! Search and Destroy can come later!"
He switched to a direct comm-link to Deaks.
"Ep-3, target their officers!" He ordered while reloading his MA37 then peeking out to squeeze half the magazine into a duo of advancing grunts. Blue blood flew out and they yelped in high pitched squeals as they were cutdown.
"No problem sir." Deaks replied. He crawled on his hands and knees through the debris field and crab-walked along boulders until he found one of suitable size. He shouldered his sniper, slid around the side and sighted down the scope. His trained eyes sifted through the tree-line and spotted at least nine good targets in less than two seconds.
He homed in on an Elite in orange armor ushering a squad of Jackals and Grunts forward. His circular targeting reticle turned red when he centered it on its head. He thought better of it and aimed at its mouth which showed rows of razor-like teeth as it gave out orders.
"Hello officer." He grinned and pulled the trigger.
:********:
Duncan spotted the last door and called it out. Unlike the several that they had already passed through on their way here, the lights on this one glowed red. It was locked.
"Green." Cordova said.
The AI's voice quipped over the ship's comm system. "Don't rush me dearie, I didn't rush you with how long you took to get here. One moment please."
A second later the door slid apart.
The ovular chamber on the other side spanned a diameter of 30 meters from side to side. Several large pillars containing inactive communication conduits dominated the space. They formed a circle around a central pillar.
Duncan spotted something inside a capsule within the central pillar. It was a cylindrical device with handles on both ends whose form was hooked up to multiple wires that pulsed a vibrant blue.
Cordova placed a NAV Marker on it. "There's the Matrix."
"Ep-2, get on it." The Staff said.
Nova flashed her acknowledgement light and the squad moved forward. There was still collective concern regarding the fighting outside that they heard over comms. Like the AI had suggested, there were some survivors left from the crash. For the time being the rest of Bravo were holding fast.
Duncan was wondering where these survivors could have been hiding until Hotep-1's frantic voice came in over comms. He heard gunfire.
"Hotep-1 to LC! We've encountered multiple Spec Ops Elites in active cammo and are pinned down! We cannot, I repeat, we cannot make it to Transmissions!"
Duncan glanced at the others who were all tense with their weapons up, scanning the room for shimmers.
"Hold your ground, Hotep." Cordova replied. "Forget reaching Transmissions and eliminate the enem-"
They all heard it at the same time, the sound of the door they had come through hissing open again. They spun around and fired through the doorway. Their bullets hit nothing but the walls of the empty hallway.
Before they could investigate, bursts of plasma fire launched at them from several different directions.
"Cover!" The Staff ordered. The troopers fell back behind the pillars and aimed out. There was nothing there. Then plasma shot at them again, materializing seemingly out of thin air.
:********:
Paro Cassumee had stalked the humans through the fallen battlecruiser all the way to the Transmissions Section. His subordinates, much like himself, had remained at a distance, stopping when they stopped and watching for when they moved again.
For the seasoned Sangheili Special Operations Unit Commander, the entire occasion was humiliating beyond words. He swore to himself that if he survived this then his disgrace would never make it to being recorded in the Cassumee Saga on the walls of his clan's Keep. It wasn't only the fact that he was cautiously following humans within the very ship that he had once proudly walked through, but the fact that they were doing so as the result of his own ambitions.
It had all started what felt like an eternity ago. Back then, this very same battlecruiser, the Heart of Sacrifice, had been a part of a fleet of holy ships. After seizing navigational data from the dead hands of the crew of a captured human freighter, they had discovered another one of their worlds: Estuary. The very fact that the vile creatures had the gall to name a planet filled him and countless other Holy Warriors with rage. Their impassioned anger was brought to full fruition as their Supreme Commander ordered its destruction.
They cut down the defenders easily, both in space and on the ground. Before they began the righteous work of cleansing the surface, Paro and his team went down to search a certain structure that they believed might contain valuable information on more human settlements. His warriors discovered a strange device. It had been of keen interest to the humans since they sacrificed so many of their number simply to protect it. So he decided that he would take it with them. He'd believed it would reveal useful information that would help in their crusade against the humans. What he hadn't known at the time was that by bringing it onto the ship, he had consequently damned everyone onboard.
As the cleansing of the world began, he gave the device to a group of Huragok to keep it in storage.
He only understood later that something was wrong when he, like many others onboard, suddenly found that they couldn't breathe. He was fortunate enough to have his armor on which possessed a sufficient amount of oxygen. His Spec Ops team also mostly survived. Most of the crew were not so fortunate. He was forced to watch many of his brothers die by slow asphyxiation.
Then the ship moved as if of its own mind. It turned away from the dying human world and quickly entered slipspace.
Paro tried contacting the bridge but it was useless. The ship's comms were dead. Then the doors started to lockdown, cutting him and his team off from any survivors.
Something was wrong and he knew it. They had received no orders from their Supreme Commander or their Fleetmaster to leave the system. Either their Shipmaster had lost his mind or something else was at play here.
He led his team in carving through the sealed doors until they reached the bridge. By then the oxygen was returning to the ship. It had come too late, however, to save the bridge crew. Even the Shipmaster had perished with his hands at his throat.
With no one at the helm, not visibly at least, he accessed the ship's camera systems and found the source of the problem. It was the transmission's section. Someway, somehow, the Huragok had gone against his orders and placed the device in a connective terminal within the Transmissions Section of the Sacrifice, then proceeded to link it to the ship. All of this without his expressed permission. The Huragok lay dead, having asphyxiated also. He wondered what had possessed them to disobey to such a drastic degree. But it was already too late.
Whatever was inside the device was in control of the Sacrifice.
Paro led his team to try and disconnect it from the vessel but were held back by more locked doors as well as times when the oxygen would run out. This unknown enemy was resisting them fiercely. He decided to instead disconnect the Transmission's Section from the ship's slipspace drive manually.
Immediately the ship fell out of slipspace. However, their sudden entrance into real space damaged their shields. They began to fall. He headed back to the bridge and saw that they were plummeting through the atmosphere of a natural sattelite.
With their foe still in control of the ship, the CCS' shields dissipated and the reentry flames burned the hull which explosively decompressed in multiple sectors. Some of the crew were set aflame and burned alive while others died as the air was sucked out of their compartments.
They were thrown about wildly as the Heart of Sacrifice crashed into a mountain. They speared through the forest vegetation before sliding to a halt, leaving a two-Why can't they just let the kilometer scar in the ground.
Paro got the hanger bays open and helped the survivors limp out. Before they could gather their wits and come back onboard to gather supplies, the ship's bulkhead doors slammed into place and sealed them out completely. No matter how they searched there was no way in. So they were stuck on the surface of this moon.
For days the surviving crew were forced to forage off of what the surface had to offer. However, a number of them refused to eat or drink anything from this world. From what he knew, they had detected the remains of a human presence on the neighboring planet. Logic dictated that this moon had been defiled by the humans. Though they never encountered any in their sojourn here, the fact that the vegetation came from their hands was enough to make many of the more zealous Sangheili within the crew engage in a fast. He admired their zealotry but didn't indulge in it. Afterall, a living warrior was more useful to the Covenant than a dead one.
He watched them slowly waste away until the last of them perished. They decided not to bury them since it would desecrate their bodies to inter them in such a filthy place.
Not long after they crashed, they discovered that the ship's SOS was activated. The unknown enemy had probably initialized the beacon. His sole question was why. It had to have known that it would get the attention of more Covenant ships, reinforcements. So why?
It gave Paro the impression that it was enacting some plan. He decided to have the crew of the Sacrifice remain hidden, camped within the surrounding forest just in case.
Then the humans came.
Paro ordered the crew to wait for his orders while he and his team inserted into the ship. The goal was to use the humans to regain access to the interior. That plan was working well so far as he was now firing on them inside of the Transmission's Section. He and his subordinates hosed them down with plasma fire, keeping them pinned behind the pillars of the communication conduits. Behind them was the origin of this entire problem, the cylindrical construct nestled in the central pillar. He was going to destroy it no matter the cost.
"Vek, Ca'ul." He said over his personal comms. "Rush them and force them to the other side of the pillars. I need an opening to destroy that wretched device."
His warriors replied with heated fervor.
"It will be done, Commander."
"We'll tear them apart and retake the ship."
Paro nodded. "Go!"
On his signal, the two Sangheili rushed forward, firing, their plasma rifles. The blasts scorched and melted through the pillars' metal casings, causing the humans behind them to duck back. The Sangheili had to move quickly before they could respond.
Paro rushed forward a few stretches behind them. He saw something round fly out from behind one pillar. He instantly recognized it and leaped back. Vek who was closer also recognized it and jumped to the side as it landed, bounced and detonated.
Vek had landed close to Ca'ul and they ran forward. However, both of them didn't see the second grenade in time as it landed a footstep away then bounced between them.
Paro watched them momentarily disappear in the explosion then reappear as they came out of the smoke. Vek hurdled through the air and landed on the ground, motionless. Ca'ul came out clutching the innards spilling out of his chest but kept charging and firing. Paro charged as well, firing at the humans as they stepped out from behind their cover.
He watched Ca'ul become the focus of a hail of human ballistic fire that ripped through his unshielded armor. After three straight seconds spent enduring the barrage he fell forward and hit the ground. An honorable death.
Paro only hoped he could do the same. Ca'ul and Vek had bought him the time he needed to get so close that he rushed past the humans. He ignored them, whipped out his energy sword and activated it. He leaped up with his sword arm leading and arced towards the cylindrical device, ready to lash out.
He heard a thumping sound and a flash of light in the corner of his vision caught his attention. His eyes twitched to the right and saw something large zooming towards him. It was the last thing he ever saw.
:********:
Duncan watched the rocket slam into the Elite's frame. The explosion engulfed it in flames. From the resultant smoke came nothing but an arm and a lower torso that spiraled away then fell to the ground in a bloody heap.
"Got'em." Hector said, sounding proud as he lowered the smoking barrel of his SPANKR.
Cordova rounded on him. "What was that, trooper!? You almost hit the Matrix!"
Hector looked at her and shrugged. "No one else could've killed it in time, I had no choice."
Cordova stared at him hard then refocused on the Matrix. "Let's get this over with."
By then Nova was already climbing up the pillar. Once she reached the terminal, she took a small blowtorch from her rucksack. She started searing through the pulsing wires connecting it to the ship. "Sorry about the rough extract, Green. I hope you disconnected yourself already."
Emerald light flashed from the glass of the matrix. A projection of the AI appeared on the ground with everyone else and he pushed his wheelchair forward. "That's Mr. Green to you, young woman. And also,"
He turned to Cordova. "You should know that once you disconnect me, the SOS signal will be out of my control."
Nova stopped. "Wait, what!? I thought we were trying to get him out to stop the signal."
Cordova slowly shook her head. "No."
The secretive tone of her words and what they entailed got everyone's attention. They peered over their shoulders at her while keeping their weapons aimed out.
"Our complete goal." Cordova said. "Is to extract this AI and leave the SOS signal going."
"And why's that?" The Staff asked, suspicious.
Mr. Green answered by holding out his palm. Over it, the image appeared of the planet of New Bara and its two moons. Then the image changed when a CCS highlighted in red exited slipspace near the former colony. Two more immediately followed, then another six.
"That's why." He said.
Duncan felt a familiar chill run up his spine at the sight of the cruisers. The enemy was here en masse.
Cordova looked up to Nova and nodded. The Specialist held the blow torch and the last several wires like the heart of a dying patient. Her grip tightened around the torch.
Mr. Green's projection faded away when Nova cut the last wire and pulled the Matrix free.
Lieutenant Colonel Garrison came in over comms, sounding alert. "Squads' Epsilon and Hotep, get back out here ASAP! Covenant ships have entered the system! We're leaving now!"
"On our way." Cordova answered. She switched to a direct line to Hotep-1. "Get out of here, Hotep, we've gotten what we came for."
"No problem. Spec Ops Elites are down and we're out of here."
Nova slid down the central pillar and handed the matrix to the Lieutenant Commander who connected it to the magnetic harness on her back. "Let's move out."
Squad Epsilon rushed out of the chamber and back down the hall they had come in through. They dashed through the hallways and around corners while checking every shadow for a shimmer that might betray more camouflaged Elites.
Thankfully, there were no more ambushes along the way.
They came back out into the hanger. Beyond the door they saw scores of ODSTs rushing past, heading towards the bow. They leaped outside and joined them.
Around the debris field they saw scores of dead Covenant soldiers lying on the ground. Elites, Jackals and Grunts had bathed the dirt in their blue blood, the sign of a total defeat. There were spots of red blood sprinkled throughout the scene, however, attesting to a hard battle won.
A dozen Pelicans soared overhead. The dropships landed at the space near the bow of the CCS two at a time due to the closeness of the forest. Troopers swarmed into their blood trays until they were filled to max capacity. Some of the troopers even had to hold onto the overhead handles since there were no more seats. Some carried body bags between them. Then they took off, allowing the next pair of Pelicans to land.
Garrison ushered the troopers onboard. He spotted Epsilon and quickly pointed them to one of the Pelicans. They rushed aboard. Deaks was already sitting inside with helmet in hand. He grinned at them as they settled in. "Had a nice field trip?"
"Not really." Nova sighed.
Deaks spotted Cordova taking the matrix off her back and cradling it in her arms so she could sit down. "What'd you guys get out of the ship exactly?"
"Good question." The Staff said, looking at her as he took his own seat opposite the officer. She said nothing in reply, only watched the cylinder closely.
The door to the blood tray closed. The Pelican rose twenty meters then rocketed upwards. The trip lasted less than three minutes and was mostly quiet. Thankfully, the trip was shortened since the Spear of Odysseus had come deeper into the atmosphere to make the pick-up. The hanger doors opened wide to receive them.
The rest of Bravo Company came in after them. After ten minutes the last Pelican had come aboard. They felt the ship turn and leave the atmosphere of Osiris-7. A moment later the Spear of Odysseus lanced into the depths of slipspace.
Indespectus – Invisible