Chapter 17 – Evadere
May 9th, 2545 (12:24 Hours – Military Calendar)
Aquilla System, Actium
High Mediolanum, Republic of Pavia
Undersea Covenant Command Center, Central Hub
:********:
'...ODST BDU Unit-75441/_Misriah Armory - Epsilon ERDI Distribution Facil. 'Adorjan'/_Distribution Date: Jan 5th, 2544 – To: (7th Shock Troops Battalion HQ 'Falchion Base')/ _User: 35549-80061-DI'/_...Back-up utilization process..._Active_'
Duncan watched the last, blinking underscore of the sequence scrolling across his HUD. Everything else beyond the bright text was dark and featureless. He had a foggy idea that he had passed out. From his orientation he could tell that he was lying down face first.
His arms and legs felt stuck in place. No matter what he tried, he couldn't move. Everything was uniformly locked down, leaving him proverbially buried in his own armor.
The black-armored Elite came back to his mind. He quickly became alert and just in time as his gear began loosening around him. Slowly, stretching a leg and moving an arm became easy again. He eventually pushed himself onto his knees, grunting from the unexpected effort. He heard others struggling to get up as well. It was a good sign. It meant whatever had happened earlier wasn't serious, or at least he thought so until he saw the Master Chief.
The Spartan was on his hands and knees with his rifle lying beside him. At first, he seemed winded. Then he realized that the soldier was utterly stiff. His armor lights were all dark. If anything, the Master Chief looked as if someone had shut him down like a robot.
Duncan tried switching on his VISR mode. Much to his relief it actually turned on, causing the reboot code to vanish as the surrounding room was painted in a fresh green glaze.
He saw the others scattered around him on the upper platform of the control hub. They all looked slightly dazed, taking hesitant steps and scanning the darkness for signs of an ambush. The sole outliers were the Master Chief and Spartan 087, both of whom lay motionless on all fours.
"What just happened?" Duncan asked. No one answered. His voice wasn't registering on their comms. Neither was anyone else' on his. The Staff bumped him on the shoulder and pointed to his external speakers. He turned them on and was able to hear his own voice again. "What happened?"
"EMP." Nova replied, hobbling over to them. "That split-jaw on the screen fried the whole center, caused our armor systems to enter emergency shutdown. My guess is we got knocked out for a few seconds thanks to the over-pressurization." She nodded down towards the two statuesque Spartans. "Same goes for them it seems."
The rest of Epsilon, Hotel, Apex and Goliath regrouped around the two supersoldiers. While some of the troopers called on them to ask if they were alright, no response came.
"We can't just leave them here." Nova said.
The Staff thought over their options. "We'll have to pull them out to a more secure location. We'll figure out what to do from there."
Zack crouched down beside the Chief and unapologetically knocked on his helmet. "Hey, you still alive in their?"
"Ep-7, get-"
"Hold on a sec. Let me try something..." Before anyone could stop him, Epsilon's radioman reached for the seal on the back of the Master Chief's helmet. The moment his fingers gained purchase on the release device the Spartan's armor lights flickered on, spooking him. He fell backwards as the two-meter-tall soldier arose from his mechanical paralysis to once again stand tall. His helmet lights came online, highlighting the inactive display on the other side of the hub.
"Woah, did I do that?" Zack asked from the floor.
The Chief looked down at him, shook his head and walked over to his counterpart. He kneeled down and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Her back-up systems should be coming online now. It takes a little longer for us to get our armor operational after EMPs."
A moment later the lights on Kelly-087's armor returned to an active state. Then she sprung onto her feet with a single, sinuous pushup. Instantly her hand was around her shotgun, reminding Duncan that he had somehow kept his grip on his own SMG.
"So much for a warm welcome." She hissed; irritation evident in her voice. "Chief?"
The Chief knowingly nodded. "Those pulses Linda detected must have been separate devices planted on the infrastructure."
"Which means this was a setup." Kelly sighed. "What do you bet there was no Minister of Iconography to begin with?"
"No, he's on Actium somewhere...just not here."
A sharp cracking noise caught everyone's attention. They looked around with their weapons raised. Another crackle sounded, this one more distinctly glass-like.
They looked up to the crescent-shaped window spanning the ceiling. There were cracks in the glass spiderwebbing from a dozen circular objects that glowed an increasingly angry-red. Duncan identified them as plasma breaching charges, twelve that were about to breach the only thing between them and millions of gallons of seawater.
"We shouldn't be here either." The Chief pointed to the door. "Troopers, fall back, double-time!"
The hub was immediately filled with desperately fast footfalls, too many for Duncan to track except those of his own as the ODSTs dashed for the doors.
Muffled explosions above were followed almost immediately by the sound of onrushing water. The moment the last of them made it through, Kelly and the Master Chief slid inside. Either Spartan grasped the deadened frame of the doors and pulled. Water spewed through the closing gap at a rising pressure. The ODSTs ran over to help, grabbing whatever they could to pull the barrier along. After what Duncan felt were the longest ten seconds of his life, they forced the doors to close, the locking mechanisms sealing it shut.
The water had already reached up to the trooper's knees and halfway up the Spartans' calves. Moreover, the inside of the hub sounded like an exploding waterfall. Even the door itself groaned under the stress.
"That won't hold for long." Kelly noted.
"We'll buy ourselves some time." The Chief planted a Nav point on the passageway where Epsilon and Hotel had come in.
The others went after him into the hallway. They began systematically closing several of the inactive doors leading to the control hub. At pulling the fourth one into place, the Chief had them withdraw to the Prophet's chambers. Much to everyone's consolation, the room itself was completely dry. However, sounds of onrushing water coming from another connected passageway prompted them to close that door as well.
They regrouped at the center of the room where their focus was redirected towards getting their comms back online. After a minute of trying, the Master Chief got through on the groupwide communications. "This is Blue-1 to Blue-3, status report."
The strained voice of Fred-104 answered, though it was occasionally overwhelmed with the sound of grinding metal. "This is Blue-3, we...managed to get out of the hall we were in when everything...started pouring in."
"Copy that. Blue-4?"
"We're here, Chief. We're hunkering down at our entry chamber...sorry I wasn't able to see those EMP sources for what they were."
"And what were they?" Kelly asked.
"Deployable Power Drain Devices, multiple. I contacted a few of the Demolition Teams after their comms came back on. They found dozens of them nested in compartments around the support struts. We also found a good number of them in the hull all probably connected to a one-way signaling system. Chief, the frames are down across the board. The pulse struck them as well so the carrier teams are just floating out there. Same with the Demolition Teams since the initiators on the C-12 shaped charges they planted are out of commission. I can't even contact the Theseus or Odyssey" There was a hesitant pause. "What do we do from here?"
All eyes turned to the Chief.
While he stood at the room's center, visibly unwavering, he didn't give an immediate answer. He moved for the inactive stasis field projector and briefly stared at it. Then his head slowly rose, struck by an idea. His focus shifted to the window. "Blue Team and all Bravo Company personnel, we have a new objective." He turned to face everyone. "We're going to destroy the main support struts from the inside."
"How do we do that, Chief?" Hotel-1 asked. "The only thing we have that still works are our BDUs, rifles and some grenades."
"That's all we need. From the dossier our intelligence provided about Covenant command structures such as these, they tend to have supports with inbuilt plasma energy repulsion units. They're devices that release bursts of radiation strong enough to keep away natural fauna in an environment. That's why those crabs we saw didn't bother trying to climb up here. We'll need to reach the main struts in each of the wings and destroy them simultaneously, and we already know where they should be. Once that's done, we'll evacuate to the entry chamber where me and my teams got into the Eastern wing. The chain reaction from the repulsion units should be enough to lift us close to 200 meters off the seafloor, close enough to have the Odyssey and Theseus reel us in."
Fred whistled. "It's a high-risk plan Chief. I get the picture but why do we all have to gather at the same entrance?"
"That makes it easier for us to escape. In case the reaction doesn't get us to 200 meters we'll have to mount an emergency decompression."
"Decompression." Linda said, catching on to just how crazy his plan really was. "Chief, are you sure?"
"It's the only way to be sure." He said firmly. "We'll need it as a back-up option in the scenario that we don't get as far as we need to. Demolition Teams, if you can hear me, I want you to plant your remaining C-12 on the bulkheads of the main entrances. Make sure it's enough to breach the whole barrier material."
Leaders of the Demolition Teams responded in kind.
"Hotep-1 to Blue-1, no problem Chief."
"This is Guardian-1, copy that. Beginning distribution now."
"Angel-1 here, we'll help Guardian over at the eastern wing, over."
"Good to hear." The Chief said. "Carrier Teams, hold your positions. You'll be taking the brunt of the ascension force where you are but there's no safe way for us to let you inside without prematurely compromising the entire structure. The Demolition Teams will regroup with you and use the anchored CF89s to ride this center to the surface. Do you copy?"
There was a detectable hesitation on the part of the carriers. Duncan knew what the Chief was asking of them. Their rapid rise to the surface could cause problems that no diver in his right mind wanted. Even with their pressurized submersible maneuverability apparatuses, their internal pressure could not be regulated at fast speeds such as that of a building riding an explosion, hence why they came down here so slowly.
"Charon-1 to Blue-1, can't we just swim to the surface sir? Our PSMA-92s are still good and the chances of getting messed up by that ascent would be pretty high, not to mention if you decompress those chambers then you'll also be at risk of getting messed up like us. Shouldn't everyone just abandon ship on this one?"
"We'll need this structure for data recovery so the extraction teams will be required to stay onboard to make sure it reaches the surface...unless we're forced to evac." The Chief said. "Even if you did go ahead of us, we couldn't wait until you were completely clear of the water to detonate. At this rate, I estimate this C&C doesn't have longer than 15 minutes before we face full structural integrity failure as the flooding spreads, which will leave more of the center potentially too compromised for data recovery. That's not enough time for you to get up there and call the Albatrosses back so you'll be stuck. The explosion of the sulfide fields will briefly cook the water and everything in it within a 3-kilometer radius, everything, even you. But if you stay atop the C&C the thermal expansion won't hit you hard. Nanolaminate material like the one this place is made of is good at heat energy absorption. You'll need to remain shielded on the topside to survive."
"...I copy, Chief."
The Chief looked around. "I'm not just putting your lives on the line because I want to." His gaze settled on Reece. "I want as many of you to make it out of this as possible. But to do that we'll have to run the risk of none of us getting out of here at all. Our mission comes first. Is that understood, Helljumpers?"
Duncan had never heard the Chief say so many words except during the initial presentation. He was mostly quick to his point. But by his explanation, he sounded as if he wanted them to know exactly what his motivations were. His focusing on Private Reece made him think back to their exchange at the armory. He wondered if the Spartan was saying all of this for their sake, as a response to the story Reece had told them.
The ODSTs of Bravo Company, however, responded with a resounding affirmation of his orders, sounding off their ballsy willingness to finish what they'd started.
"We got this Chief!"
"Semper fi, it's time to do or die!"
"Let's just get this thing started already, I'm getting bored as it is!"
Epsilon, Apex, Goliath and Hotel were in heated agreement as well since no one, not even Reece, wanted to just quit and die, or more importantly risk tarnishing the record of the 105th in being outdone by a bunch of Spartans. Duncan had even felt a strong sense of competitive pride rise up within himself whenever he was around them. He wasn't about to let them get all the credit from doing the job he'd trained for.
Seeing that they were ready, the Chief gave further orders. "Spartans, we'll send half our teams to stand guard at the entry chamber. Those escape pods are likely offline as well but any surviving Covenant will probably try reaching them. We don't want them compromising that chamber. Lead the other half to hit those repulsion units, then double-time it to the rendezvous point."
"Understood." The three Spartans said in unison.
"Epsilon, you're with Kelly. Apex, Hotel and Goliath you go to the chamber."
The ODSTs winked their acknowledgement lights. But Kelly remained uncertain. "Why Epsilon?"
"They'll be able to keep up with you better than anyone else."
"And you?"
"I'm going alone. The strut on the other side is the riskiest target considering the distance."
The Chief cut her off before she had a chance to voice any potential opposition. "Move, out! Be back to the entry chamber in 7!"
The ODSTs moved for two of the chamber's three other doors they had yet to use, pulling them open to run out. Duncan looked back to see Kelly watching the Chief as he disappeared down the third passage. Then she turned and went after Epsilon.
:********:
Squad Epsilon fought to keep up with the female Spartan racing ahead of them who seemed to be having a brisk jog while they were busy sprinting in her wake.
Kelly-087 led them down hallways, around curving passages and through the occasional ovular room. She pried doors open for them and would regularly navigate them along a different path when they encountered flooded rooms. They soon reached a lengthy hallway headed straight to where they needed to go. The Nav-point beyond the door at the end read '127m'.
Mito spoke up through concentrated breaths. "I still think whoever planned this really didn't think twice about...this. How can they hope to...drown us if we've got this gear?"
Renni ran in beside him. "That's not what they're after. That Elite with the red visor, he looked like some new special forces that-"
"Wait, new? Even doesn't know about them?" Zack gasped. "That's crazy to think there's something you actually don't know, I mean, being ONI and all-"
"My point is these Elites aren't trying to drown us. They don't have to."
"Then what-"
"They're trying to use our plan against us."
Zack started to slow down in thought then caught back up to her. He depolarized his visor to make his visible confusion plain to see.
"You didn't think we were the only ones that knew about the hydrogen sulfide mists, did you? They probably planted this structure here from the start to lure them in." She nodded at Kelly. "There were plenty of other spots without vents but they chose this one specifically, and even stationed forces here to make us think they were protecting something important. Then they could flood this place piece by piece, using the disabled doors to trap us and temporarily contain the flooding like an active time-bomb.
Once enough time passed, there'd be mass explosive decompressions that would strike the facility's main power core which the repulsor units we're after are connected to. It wouldn't have been affected by the EMP since it has its own energy shielding. But the way this place is setup would cause an overwhelming amount of pressure to eventually build-up then strike the center and the core. While that would already be enough to crush us, the water this far down would break those shields and destroy the core. The overpressure could obliterate this entire center and likely light the sulfide fields, causing that thermal expansion effect the Chief mentioned."
"Hey, can you turn that into English for me?"
Renni depolarized to show she was dead serious. "In a few minutes they're going to turn this place into a giant, fiery vortex. We need to get this thing to the surface before that happens."
The distant groaning of metal yielding before seawater hammered her words into even sharper clarity.
"Then why not just plant explosives at the core?" The Staff asked. "That'd be easier than using the sea, wouldn't it?"
"It would, but then they would chance some of us surviving in scattered pieces of wreckage and they're probably not planning on taking those chances given how tough the Spartans are. It's better to try and kill them with the precision of the rapid decompressions while simultaneously keeping them trapped. That way no one escapes, and if that fails then the inflow suction would keep everyone inside in proximity of the core when it goes off."
"I see. Then why have two private quarters rather than one?"
"My best guess is that they were expecting us to come from either or both entrances. So, they created those quarters to make anyone coming from any direction arrive at the same conclusion that a prophet really was here. Then they could bait us with that radio-signal leading to the central hub for them to spring their trap. Its genius."
"Are you sure they're genius ones here?" Yuri asked. "You figured out their whole strategy off top of head. And we are heading to disrupt plan. It's definitely not foolproof."
"We'll see." Kelly remarked as they stopped at the door. The Nav point read '10m'. Their objective was just on the other side. She forced her fingers into the divide of the door and tried pulling it open. She gained a little headway then suddenly stopped and began straining.
She glanced at the ODSTs. "Ep-4, help me with this."
Hector jogged to the other side, grabbed the ornate patterning and pulled. Together they pried the door half a meter, enough for everyone else to see the glowing eyes of the cause of their struggle.
An Ultra was fighting to hold it closed on the other side.
The Staff reacted first. He leaped forward, leveled his shotgun at the alien's midsection and fired point-blanc. The blast flared its energy shields as it reeled back, freeing Kelly and Hector to pull the door the last of the way and whip around with their weapons.
The Spartan burst its shields with her own shotgun. A combined follow-up from the entirety of Epsilon quickly reduced the alien to a rag doll of breached armor and blue blood. It collapsed onto its back, soundly defeated.
Kelly took point into the cylindrical chamber beyond.
A large pillar occupied the center, descending from a socket in the ceiling down into one on the ground floor. It had a 5-meter-wide diameter and a height eight times that. Multiple lines of radiating plasma energy ran up and down its frame with pulses of light flashing down their length. Along the lines were bulb-like conduits where the plasma cycled about, becoming more radioactively dense then surging down the line to another conduit for further radiological condensation. Those had to be the repulsor units.
The support strut was encompassed by an alcove baring step-like attachments that connected and stabilized it to the wall.
"This is it." The Staff said as they approached.
"Blue-2 to Blue-1, we've reached our support strut, over."
"Copy. The others have also reached theirs. I'm still on my way to mines. We start in 1 minute. Be ready."
"Roger." Kelly nodded to the troopers and they fanned out around the target, searching cautiously for signs of anything hiding above. However, the fluctuating lights from the plasma caused the shadows of the wall attachments to regularly elongate and angle around like the hands of a clock, making their chances of spotting anything all the more difficult. Still, they kept their eyes out in case the Ultra hadn't been alone.
At ten seconds to the end, the troopers all set their gun sights on the bulbs. All the while, Kelly patrolled around the alcove, searching for signs of an ambush.
The Staff counted the last seconds aloud. "Five...four...three...two...open up!"
A collective barrage of SMG, AR and DMR fire lashed out all at once, striking bulbs along the support struts. The repulsor units proved easy to destroy. Many of the glassy conduits were shattered completely, causing the plasma within to pour out like molten lava that became brighter the further down they fired. Newly arriving plasma began spurting out from the damages, melting the metal where it landed.
Duncan had to side-step a few times to avoid the deadly rain as he popped several bulbs with his first magazine. He ejected the spent clip. As he was reaching for another, he saw a figure leap down from the fluctuating shadows of a wall attachment above.
In the split-second before it was right on top of him, he saw its glowing eye-visors and an energy sword flicker to life in its hand. He was about to roll away when another shadow shot over him.
Kelly slammed into the Ultra in mid-air, sending them both flying over the ODSTs. They crashed into the nearby wall of the alcove. Both combatants shot to their feet and leaped at each other. The Ultra swiped at her head but she ducked beneath the swing of its sword while bringing her shotgun up to blast it in the face. Although its shields held the Elite staggered back, giving Kelly an opening to gun-butt it in the chest, finally shattering its protection. Then the Elite grabbed the weapon as it toppled back, pulling them both down with it.
The moaning of stressed metal resounded a second before the ceiling split apart in several places, permitting jets of highly pressurized water to rain down into the chamber.
The two combatants wrestled in ankle-deep water, Kelly fighting to restrain its sword arm and the Elite trying to keep the barrel of her shotgun pointed away from its torso. She stayed on top of the scuffle, keeping it pinned beneath her knee while resisting its efforts to get the upper hand.
"Spartan!?" The Staff called out.
Kelly spoke through gritted teeth. "Keep...shooting!"
The water continued to surge in around them but the ODSTs followed through on their orders.
Kelly pushed her shotgun downward, taking advantage of the Elite's grip on the pumping mechanism to force another shell into the chamber. Then she flexed her own grip on its hand, twisting and breaking its wrist. As it cried out and dropped its sword, her left hand was free to punch it in the side of the head, denting its helmet. She pulled her shotgun free from its loosened grasp, slammed the barrel into its forehead and pulled the trigger. Buckshot blew out from the back of its head in a flash of blue blood. She rolled off the body which floated almost to her knees, only to see a plasma grenade fall out of its hand into the water.
It brightened.
She threw herself out of the way before the detonation. But while she escaped, the explosion struck the support strut. It channeled into one of the already damaged plasma lines in a continuous eruption of blue flames until it ran out of sight. Fires erupted through the strut's upper socket from a hidden reserve. Successive destruction began carving its way down the rest of the architecture.
"We've done our job, Epsilon, now get moving!" Kelly shouted.
The ODSTs ran for the door, almost having to wade through the tides. Kelly was the last to leave the room as the strut behind them lit up in an eruption of pure white flames.
They had gotten 10 meters from the chamber before the blast whipped them forward. A massive roar of grinding metal struck their ears just as part of the command center disconnected, causing the passageway to lift up and send them sliding forward. The passage leveled out once the structure fell back down but remained slanted, forcing them to run up an incline.
"Blue-2 to Blue-1, we just took out our main support strut, over!"
There was another distant explosion, then another, and a third that threw them into the air again. Everyone managed to land well enough to keep running save for Zack who was flung into the ceiling. He still managed a roll and came up sprinting, winded yet undaunted.
"This is Blue-1, I just destroyed mine as well! Blue-3 and 4, report!"
"We just blew ours too, heading back now!" Fred replied.
"Same here!" Linda answered. "We're on our way!"
Another deep rumbling commenced beneath their feet. Racing past a viewing window, they saw the visible seafloor disappear beneath a blinding flash as the fires made contact with the sulfide mists.
Again, they were sent careening around. They grabbed onto what they could to hold against the tumultuous upheaval then started off again as the floor rumbled like a rocket beneath them.
They circumvented areas where the flooding was severe, barely avoiding doors about to burst. Gravity along with the ever-tilting nature of the center caused the tides racing towards them to instead veer left and right, away from their path. All the while the command center shook around them. Looking at their depth gauges they could tell that they were shooting towards the surface a meter a second.
Explosions within the partially diagonal hallways they ran through tossed heated shrapnel and erratic bursts of fire that pinged and washed over their armor. At one point the Staff had to push Yuri and himself to the ground to avoid a ragged disk of nanolaminate material large enough to cut them both in half. It harmlessly embedded into the wall behind them.
They ducked under more flaming conduits that sizzled and popped out from above as well as jumping over slagging floor plates in their rush for the rendezvous point.
Epsilon soon found itself running across the rounded window of a partially inverted room. It cracked under their boots, mainly the Spartan's that carried the rear of the group. Somehow, she didn't accidentally trigger a breakdown until the moment she leaped off the window to head after them into a connecting corridor. Then the glass imploded, swallowing the room in water. It would have shot into the corridor in hot pursuit were it not for the curving architecture which caused it to level out behind them.
Once they'd cleared another flaming corridor and started crossing over a three-way intersection, Duncan risked a brief glance at the Nav point. The reading '70m' meant they still had a way to go.
Suddenly as he and Hector were crossing the intersection there was a nearby interior explosion accompanied by a shift in gravity. While the rest of the squad had already made it, Hector and Duncan were thrown down the perpendicular hallway as the art of the command center they were in bucked upwards.
Hector managed to grab onto the edge of the other hallway and held on. Duncan wasn't so lucky. As he fell, he saw the Staff and Nova pull Hector in then stare helplessly at him, as did the Spartan trapped on the other side of the gap.
He plunged into the water 20 meters below. Conflicting currents yanked away his gear like a ravaging assailant. Any resistance was beaten out of him each time he crashed into an unseen piece of disformed structuring and damaged conduits. He felt himself beginning to black out when he shot back to consciousness at sensing something familiar slipping out of his back pocket. He immediately grabbed it and held on with everything he had. Then he slammed into something headfirst and went limp.
:********:
Kelly watched Ep-8 vanish into the roiling waters below.
She shifted her attention to his squadmates who were searching for any signs of him. "Go!" She shouted. "I'll find him! Just get going!"
The troopers turned to her, to themselves and looked briefly unsure of what to do. But the Staff gave her a firm nod, spared a final look at the surface below and kept moving. One by one the others followed his example. Ep-2 was the last to leave. She took one final look at the Spartan then ran.
Not even a second after Kelly looked for a way down, the inclined passageway became aglow with fires spreading from leaking coolant. The angry waves were slowly rising.
The Master Chief's words rang through her mind; "Keep an eye on your extraction teams. Make sure not to leave any behind." She wasn't about to either. Those troopers were counting on her to save their comrade, their friend. As she maneuvered herself to climb down, a memory caught her attention. It was of that day when the Spartans first received their armor and were sent to board a Covenant ship. She saw Sam in her mind's eye. He was standing there on that ship with a plasma mark on his left breastplate right below the numbers '034', his young face remaining strong even at knowing what needed to be done. That wouldn't happen here, she decided, not again, not while she could still do something about it.
She pushed off and dove headfirst into the fiery waters below.
She torpedoed through the surface and arced upward, becoming momentarily reliant on her headlights to see. The shadows were peeled away by smaller explosions further down the hallway, illuminating jagged wall fragments and sparking conduits like the mouth of a macabre cave. She soon spotted what she was looking for.
Ep-8 was entangled in a mesh of live wiring off to her right. He wasn't moving.
Fortunately, he was still breathing. Nevertheless, the main body of his PSMA-92 was completely missing.
A lack of response from him over the comms made her conclude he was unconscious. With his CBRN module gone his suit was probably relying on its own air reserves which, for an ODST, wasn't much. She started untangling him from the wiring, careful to keep the sparking ends from making contact with her own armor. At this rate he was lucky that he hadn't been fried to death thanks to the external resistive layers of his suit.
She hefted him over her shoulders and saw an object fall from his hand, a rock. She easily caught it, thought to throw it away but then considered something. It had to be important to him if he chose to hold onto it after coming well within death's crosshairs.
Kelly placed it in her utility belt. She worked her way to the surface and began climbing back towards the hallway that the rest of Epsilon had gone through. A moan drew her attention to the wall of the intersection that had only recently become the ceiling.
Water dripped from emerging cracks, poured and finally burst in through the growing gash to rush over her like a waterfall. She tightened her grip on her charge and clambered on.
Halfway to the top she was alerted to the sound of something else giving way and leaped to the other side just before a piece of flaming debris twice her size came crashing down. Nearly there she was forced to leap again to the other side to avoid a sheer tidal wave that came surging down the hallway they had used to get here.
Just barely safe, she pulled herself into the adjacent hallway. She resecured Ep-8 over her shoulder and ran, ducking underneath flaming obstacles and vaulting over other vertical shafts with volatile, watery basins.
"Blue-1 to Blue-2, everyone's here at the rendezvous point including Epsilon. Where are you?"
She checked the Nav point ahead which read '54m'. "I'm 50 meters out Chief. Had to rescue one of my troopers. Can you hold the door for me?"
"We'll try, but the hall outside is ready to buckle. Use your best speed."
"Goes without saying." Kelly grinned. "I guess this is the first time you beat me in a race, hey Chief?"
"It's because I went alone. Think you can make it?"
Kelly rounded a corner and slid to a stop to see that the Nav point '40m' lay at a door in the middle of a long hallway more than twice that distance. John and Fred were holding it open from the other side.
"I'm coming in."
No sooner did she say it did the door on the far end finally give way before a raging tide that surged forward.
She moved Ep-8 off her shoulder to cradle him so that she could move faster and pushed off.
In under a second she cleared the first 7 meters to press into her top speed. At 2 seconds she was halfway there. At 3 seconds she had reached within 5 meters of the door.
The incoming flood attempted to beat her, shooting outward in a broiling flood. Knowing she would have no time to stop herself, she found her solution in the curving braces along the walls. In the last half second, she leaped onto a brace directly opposite her destination, pivoted and jumped off.
Kelly flew through the gap in the doors and landed in a forward tumble yet was careful to hold Ep-8 in a way that kept her MJOLNIR from crushing him. She skidded onto her feet with him still in her arms and turned back. She had arrived just in time as the water began bursting in after her. Once she was through, John and Fred pulled either side of the door closed, cutting off the rapid inflow.
Linda and the other ODSTs were standing around the support braces over the entry hatch. Some of them were checking out the escape pods docked further up. There were indications that the Covenant had tried to make a few breakthroughs here. A number of freshly slaughtered Elites and Grunts lay around or near the chamber's two doors along with two deceased Hunters.
Kelly hefted her charge back onto her shoulder as Epsilon spotted her and came over. Ep-8's squadmates checked him out, trying to see if he was alright. His unconsciousness and lack of his major diving equipment was an understandable cause for concern.
"He's okay for now." Kelly said. "Without his gear I'll have to carry him. It'll be easier for me."
"What about his CBRN module?" The Staff pointed out. "His extended air tanks are missing too."
"I'll share mines with him."
There were a few hesitant looks between them. Ep-7 seemed the least convinced. "Can you actually hold your breath long enough for that?"
"My armor has its own air, enough to reach the surface. And even if it didn't, you'd be surprised what a Spartan can do, trooper."
"I wouldn't be surprised at all." Fred said as he jogged over. "Even considering the fact you managed to get close to Mach speed, your new personal best. Good job saving him." He gestured at Ep-8, causing the rest of the squad to understand what was missing. They each thanked her in turn for helping rescue their squadmate.
Kelly knew, however, that he wasn't really safe yet. None of them were. She turned to John who was making his way over to them and talking with the teams outside.
"Keep yourselves fastened out there. If your frames don't last, you'll need to find any possible handholds."
"No worries Chief, we can ride this one out." Charon-1 reassured despite the audible strain in his voice. "Everyone's in place. How much longer until we're back in communication's range of the Odyssey and Theseus?"
"We're already 140 meters up. The rigs won't pick up our signals until 180 meters where the radio disturbance will no longer be a factor. Another 40 and we should be clear to chat, then engage their harpoons at 200."
"What if we don't make 200?" Linda asked. "Can they do anymore than that?"
"Their limit is 220. At that point we're pushing it."
"Speaking of pushing it Chief!" Charon-1 shouted, more alert than before. "A few of my people are starting to blackout! It's getting hot up here and we're already leveling out! Might want to tell...rig crews to...fire ahead of...schedule..."
Charon-1's fading voice was drowned out by static.
"Blue-1 to Charon-1, if you can hear me, respond, over."
No answer came. Despite the Chief's repeated calls, the link remained down, as it did with multiple ODSTs presently taking refuge atop the command center.
"That doesn't sound good." Fred said worriedly. "Think they'll manage?"
"They'll have to. There's no other way aside from getting them boiled alive or losing this C&C entirely."
The Staff spoke up over the troubling silence. "It's no worries, sir. Everyone topside is as tough as they come. They'll make it."
But Kelly wasn't so sure. She considered whether his words were only what he wanted to believe or his own intuition. Helljumpers were as tough as they came aside from Spartans. That said, this was a watery hell rather than the fiery one they were used to and even she wasn't sure if she could survive what the men and women above them were enduring.
Just as Charon-1 had said, they were leveling out. Everyone could see it on their depth gauges where their speed was slowing dramatically. They were about to plateau much earlier than anyone either expected or wanted. There was only one option remaining now besides falling back to the seafloor.
At 175 meters of ascent the Chief sent the order over the comms to the Demolition Teams. He had delayed until the last of their speed was gone since what they were planning next could actually have the opposite effect of slowing their rise, that is if they did it wrong.
"All Demolition Teams, detonate your remaining C-12 on the bulkheads! Do it now!"
There was no vocal answer over the coms, merely a few delayed winks of green acknowledgement lights on the ODST roster.
Then the explosions began, distant at first then intimately close.
Everyone in the chamber held onto what they could find before an explosion went off beneath the main hatch. Follow-up implosions occurred less than a second later.
There was a feeling of upward momentum generated from the air that exploded out of the command center's southern and northern wings as well as part of the eastern wing, propelling the entire structure closer to the surface. However, the main hatch in their chamber had held. As a result, the room began to tilt off-balance.
The Chief didn't waste a moment. "Blue Team, switch to Plan B! Fred, on me! We'll have to pull the bulkhead open!"
"Copy!" Fred raced with him over to the hatch. Sliding down to either side, they braced their feet against the encompassing frame then dug their fingers into the central groove, causing pressurized water to shoot through the gap. They began to pull. As they did the streams of water quickly transformed into a geyser. Seawater poured in with enough strength to throw both Spartans back had they not anchored themselves in place. They continued to pull.
The Extraction Teams clung to nearby control stations, the support braces themselves or even spots on the flooring to resist what became a flash flood. Within the span of a few seconds the rapid inflows submerged a third of the room.
Kelly fought against the currents by maintaining her hold on the same support brace that Epsilon, Hotel and a few other squads were using. At the same time, she held Ep-8 in place so that he wasn't sucked away. That became the fate of Helljumpers that she saw lose their grips and were sent careening into the currents. A few crashed around, going limp from hard impacts.
After ten seconds the last air pocket in the chamber was filled, leaving nothing free of the water's embrace. Soon the equalizing pressure leveled them out with the rest of the center.
On her depth gauge Kelly watched the meters go by: '177m...178m...179m...'
The moment it hit 180 meters, John sent out a handshake signal to the communication's relays of the Odyssey and Theseus control stations. To everyone's relief, the signal went through.
Sergeant Major Rubello's voice came on. "This is Odyssey control station, I'm seeing a boiling sea over your entry vector, Blue-1. What's your situation down there?"
"Change of plans, Odyssey Control. We need both rigs to fire harpoons on us now. An EMP took out our booster frames so we've got have no other options."
Rubello didn't voice any concern at the news or the potentially risky idea whatsoever, replying with a simple "Roger that, we'll reel you in."
Captain Jean's voice joined the conversation ten seconds later. "Be advised Blue-1, Magnetic Harpoons inbound from Theseus and Odyssey. Should reach you in five, four, three, two, hold on!"
True to her word the underwater chamber shook once more. Anyone looking up got to see the emerging metal head of a harpoon the size of a Scorpion tank that pierced the hull and into the ceiling in the blink of an eye. The main spearhead proceeded to break apart like a blooming flower into secondary hooks that latched onto the interior.
There were over a dozen simultaneous thumps possessing a similar resonance across the C&C. A subsequent renewal of their upward movement resumed at an even faster rate.
The ODSTs that still could cheered over the comms, raising celebratory fists. Their celebration was cut short when tertiary detonations went off, ones unaffiliated with the harpoons.
Suddenly a massive conflagration of burning plasma and coolant rumbled through the two doors of the entry chamber, roughly bursting them out of the way to fill the outer-edges in an advancing wall of blue flames.
To Kelly it looked a lot like watching a solar flare coming from two directions to span towards the same target: them. "Chief!?"
"I see it. Blue-1 to Odyssey and Theseus, change of plans! Keep reeling in the C&C! We're going to abandon the structure to head for the surface, over!"
Again, Rubello was straight to the point despite the further risks involved. "We'll call your rides back from Icaria to come pick you up. Do what you have to, Master Chief."
"We've got your back, sir!" Jean agreed.
"Roger that! ODSTs, move out! Head for the surface!"
Troopers streamed down from their refuges around the room towards the entry hatch. Many carried their less lucid comrades who had floated around the room after having been battered about. John and Fred held the hatch open for all of them. They streamed through the decompression chamber then angled up along the blackened undersides of the structure to reach open sea. From there they were free to head for the surface.
As the wall of flaming materials came closer, Epsilon was one of the last squads to leave, going after Hotel and Apex.
Kelly followed. Linda went next. Fred maneuvered into the decompression chamber and held the hatch long enough for John to slip inside. Then the bulkhead closed shut, sealing away the sight of the aquatic inferno that had just reached the escape pods on the support braces.
Blue Team went out together, navigated out from under the rising bulk of the command center and headed upwards.
They were still 200 meters down in the darker depths. Nevertheless, they could see the lights of the ODSTs' apparatuses a good distance above them. They could also see the blinking lights along the silvery visages of more than a dozen steel harpoon lines running between the C&C and the surface.
They had reached the 150-meter mark when Kelly felt her charge beginning to gasp on her shoulders. His BDU's oxygen was running low. There was no way around it. She removed her CBRN module and inserted the rebreather onto the chin section of his helmet. Ep-8's ragged and short breaths became long and calm again.
She knew the rebreather would only grant him a little over a minute without the main air tanks of his harness. Hoping that her speed on land would translate to speed in water she began kicking her legs with greater ferocity. Her PSMA-92's thrusters responded with a rapid increase in output, propelling her faster than the rest of Blue Team.
Soon her harness was no longer able to move faster than her and she quickly became the one carrying it along regardless of its thrusters.
She reached the 50-meter mark, rocketing past the last of the ODSTs. At 25 meters she surpassed the frontmost group who were briefly alarmed at her velocity.
At 10 meters the waters around her became brighter. She fought aside every thought to push the muscles in her legs to their limits.
Kelly breached the surface, automatically switching off her reliance on her armor's own oxygen and causing the regular intake systems to kick in. She took a deep breath of the salty air and heard Ep-8's BDU start reacting similarly to allow active intakes. He was safe now, at least in terms of breathing.
She saw where the harpoon lines drew up from the water a few meters away to the oil rigs kilometers to her left and right. The lines were moving backwards as they continued raising the command center. She had to admit, if all UNSC personnel were as calm and collected under pressure as Rubello and Jean then this war would be a lot closer to ending in humanity's favor.
A minute later the first ODSTs appeared like emerging buoys. They began gathering above the waves in greater numbers. Much to her concern, many of them floated face-up and face-down in the water. While they were probably still alive the chances of them being affected by the rapid ascent was high. She had even risked the same fate for Ep-8 just to get him to the air he needed.
Blue Team arrived last. The three Spartans waded around, working with other Helljumpers to check troopers floating motionlessly about. They secured them with safety tethers connected to conscious ODSTs to ensure they didn't sink away.
Then, like an impossibly massive whale leaping out of the water, the C&C rose from the depths, the harpoons dragging up its three bulbous sections to make it float on the surface a short stretch away. While fires still raged along its sides there was no sign of them having spread to the top. But there was also no sign of any movement atop the structures save the water that rushed off the hull.
Kelly maintained her hold on her unconscious cargo. Amidst waiting for their pick-up, she remembered the object she had found with him. She took it from her utility belt and held it out in front of her. It was a dark rock with no particularly interesting details about it that could answer her question as to why he had kept holding on. She lifted it towards the afternoon sun to check for any kind of unique features. There were none at first. Then she rotated it. As she did, she saw a squadron of six Albatrosses descending through the skies above towards their location. At the same time the sunlight highlighted the faintest etching on the rock. She was able to make out a smiling, winking caricature of a face next to a few words.
'A rock from Harvest as promised. They don't get much farther from Earth than this, kiddo. Oh, and make sure to tell your mom not to throw this away. You know how she gets whenever you've got too many toys lying around. Happy Birthday, D. Keep holding down the fort for me. Love you, be seeing you real soon. - Dad.'
Evadere - Escape