Chapter 16: Ship Raid
Shore leave is over with the crew heading back into the Eternity to return to space. Rose and Alisa are in their room keeping certain things in a slot on the floor. "Well that was pretty fun," Alisa said to sit on the bottom bunk bed.
"Hello there, enjoyed your shore leave?" Sage appears on a holodeck nearby appearing as a small hologram the ghostly young girl being amused by all the stuff the two female Spartans gathered from their trip from Falaknuma.
"We did, it was wonderful. We went to this big underground mall complex and the beach. It was wonderful," Alisa said.
"I am happy you had a good time. We have word of a distress signal from our fleet guarding a transport ship holding Forerunner artifacts," Sage said.
"Seriously?" Rosa asked.
"Yes, we need to go over to take on the Forerunner fleet which is attacking them," she said.
"Never a dull moment around here," Alisa said.
"We will be there in a few hours. Get suited up and go the hanger," Sage said as the two women headed off to get into their suits. Swiftly get into their armor with Alisa grabbing Sage's data chip and put into the back of her helmet to integrate with her.
"Good to have you riding in my head," Alisa said as she liked the cute AI swimming into her head.
"It does feel safe here. Get your gear and hand for the hanger. We are going to board and repel the Forerunner forces," Sage said as Alisa checked her GEN2 Helioskrill armored suit. They go into the armory to grab their weapons with Alisa using a Battle Rifle with a grenade launcher and a Bulldog shotgun. Rosenda has a SAW and M41 SPNKr on her person.
They go to the hangar to see the rest of the Omega Fireteam in their armor and holding their weapons. Yuri holds a DMR and a Sidekick, Cortez holds an MA5D and M45D while Olympia has a Plasma Pistol and M20 PDW.
"Well seems like these machines are on the move," Sela said with Vela by her side to be both in Scion Combat harnesses. Vala has a Needler and a Pulse Carbine while Sela has a Scattershot and a Particle Carbine.
"That weapon looks familiar," Alisa said as she remembered using it on the field during the war.
"Oh yes, this is an energy-based variant of the Mosa Carbine. Switching out the top loading magazine with an energy battery able to fire pink beams similar to the Beam Rifle but close to a tactical rifle like the original," Sela explained to show a heat gauge on top of the gun able to pop off 12 rapid fire shots before overheating.
"It was fielded during the end of the Human-Covenant War and now it's a current weapon for the Swords," Sage said to scan the rifle to confirm this. They see Elites getting into positions to go into the Phantoms and Lichs to prepare for boarding action.
They see the other Sangheili approaching Sela. "Madam, we will take your command," the Elite commando said.
"Of course," she said as the Elite saluted her to get into the Phantom. "I will see you in combat Alisa. Be careful, including you Yuri," Sela presses her hand on his shoulder to go off with Vala.
"Time to dance," Rosa said going into a Pelican with them getting close to the location.
They exited out of Slip Space to see the friendly fleet being struck by a large ship with cruisers fighting with the defense fleet. Dropships were coming in to drop the Promethean forces inside the huge transport ship along with Sentinels swarming into the ship through the hangers.
"This is May 013, we are being attacked," the Spartan 2 said as she was within the ship fighting hordes of alien machines trying to get to the secured room where the forerunner artifacts were located.
"This is Alisa-B312, been a while," Alisa said as she was using her MA5K peppering incoming swarms of Crawlers letting the bullets tear into the four-legged machines all over the hallways.
"Oh Alisa, good timing. A few Spartans will help me lighten the load here," May said lightly kicking a Crawler into a wall to punch the machine in half.
"We got Spartans and Elites along with a ton of Marines who got your back," Alisa said as May could see a Snipe Crawler dodge an incoming hard light shot from its Binary Rifle in its mouth. She fires her assault carbine to tear up the machine to flop lifelessly on the floor.
"The marines here were getting destroyed. Our security detail was small and didn't stand a chance," she said as she saw Crawlers and Watchers coming in the tens firing their Boltshots and Suppressors.
She has her shields peppered with her tossing a Bubble Shield to cast a dome of energy to block the incoming shots.
She uses her Grapple Shot to grab a Trishot which is a Promethean 6-round burst pistol to grab onto her hands to unleash a barrage of hard light pellets tearing into Watchers and Crawlers. This Trishot holds 36 rounds as she grabs the second one to dual-wield the alien machine pistols to unload into the swarming enemies.
She uses her thrusters to swiftly move backward to see the Bubble Shield deplete with her dodging and weaving through the energy bolts while taking down enemies. "Are you nearby?" May asked.
"Yes, we are going to enter into the hangar," Alisa said as the Eternity along with the defense fleet are fighting the enemy ships while the dropships head for the transport ship to prepare to board inside.
They see Enforcers and Knight Battlewagons guarding the hanger to blast them with anti-matter and hard light projectiles taking down Pelicans and Phantoms.
"Time to get inside," Sela said as she and her team hop out with the Phantom using its guns to take out enemies. Sela uses her Particle Carbine to strike one of the three Battlewagons to strike the shield to knock it out. Vala uses her Needler to pump several rounds into the Battlewagon to trigger a super combine to damage the large machine.
An Elite Commando pulls out a Plasma Launcher to lob 5 sticky plasma orbs to latch onto an Enforcer to see a set of explosions taking it out.
The Battlewagon wields a new weapon called the Razor to fire six hard light shards to strike an Elite to trigger instant vaporization to turn him to dust.
"What was that?" Cortez asked.
"New weapon unknown," Sage shared between the Spartans' fireteam comms. "Seems similar to a Needler, a certain amount of hits triggers a powerful explosion resulting in an instant vaporization," Sage said.
"The Didact is upgrading his forces," Rose said unloading her machine gun into the unshielded Battlewagon to cropped it to finish it off with two rockets from her M41 SPNKr.
The last Enforcer gets destroyed by rockets and fuel rod shots while Vale uses her Plasma Pistol to use an overcharged bolt to disable the Battlewagon's shield. She goes forward to dump all 80 rounds from her PDW to break apart the large machine soldier. The Battlewagon swings its hard light blade arm trying to stab Vale.
She slides under the strike to use her thrusters to go between the legs of the Battlewagon. She switches around to fire its weak point at the back to fire another Overcharged shot to strike it causing it to burst into a flash of light.
The last Battlewagon is trying to hold them back but gets overwhelmed by firepower to be turned into fading light. "Okay, we managed to get inside," Alisa said.
"All units have managed to gather into the hangers and clear out the heavy defenses," an Elite commander said on the radio.
"Good, keep moving and secure the warehouses of the Forerunner relics," Sela said.
"Yes milady, we will fight these machines and turn them into scrap metal," the Elite said as she checked her Particle Carbine.
"Let's move," Sela said as her team along with the Spartans went into the hallways to see it was a nightmare rows of marines were wiped out by the alien machines.
"What a mess," Yuri said to hold onto his DMR to see tons of dead bodies on the floor and red blood painting the walls of the ship.
"The Didact's forces went through this place," Alisa said as they saw a wave of Watchers and Aggressors coming their way firing their beam weapons.
"So many of them," Rose said using her LMG to let the bullets take down multiple enemies with plasma and bullets tear into the flying machines.
"We will split up and cover more of the ship. Clear out all the hostiles within," Alisa said.
"I agreed, meet you later," Sela said as she, Vala, and her commandos went to the left to encounter Eliminators armed with Heatwaves and Cindershots.
"Duck," Vala said as a Sentinel fired a hard light grenade to strike two Commandos to pierce through their shields and vaporize them instantly. Vala fires her Storm Rifle to pepper the Eliminators to knock them down.
Sela uses her arm shield to block an incoming hard light explosive to return fire to take them out while a Commando tosses a Needle Grenade. The blast unleashes a ton of purple shards to strike the rest to wipe them out in sets of bright pink explosions.
"Gee, looks like the Didact has taken the Sentinels to add them to his fighting force," Sela said.
"Indeed, we need to crave a path to the artifacts and safeguard the human ship," Vala said as they pushed forward.
Fireteam Omega comes in with Alisa coming into the room to see Watchers coming to shoot her shields to see her Overshield going lower. She fires her underbarrel M301 lobbing a Frag grenade into the crowd of Watchers to take them all out.
The Fireteam enters the room to see a bunch of Armiger Soldiers and Snipers in position around the wide space. "Safeguards get into position," the Officer ordered as a few powerful new models of Watchers called Safeguard Watchers appeared to have Safeguard beams and Suppressors.
"Interesting, these Watchers are more combat-ready," Sage said scanning them to see if they had better armor and weapons.
"Suppress and subvert," the Officer said wielding a Splinter cannon to fire explosive bolts of hard light while the Soldiers came in with Suppressors putting in heavy fire onto their positions. A Sniper with a Binary Rifle is looking to see the five Spartans spreading out to fire the incoming forces of Soldiers, Snipers, Safeguards, and their Officer.
The robot sniper fires its shot at Olympia to nail her in the head to pop her Overshield leaving her vulnerable. "Shit," Olympia uses her Grapple Shot to gain height to get into cover. Yuri leaps onto a higher platform to set up his DMR to begin picking shots to take out the Armiger Snipers.
Cortez fires bursts into the chests of the Soldiers to stun them and then follows up with another burst to finish them off.
Alisa uses her Battle Rifle to fire a burst into the Safeguard to make it flinch to put another three rounds to damage it. The Safeguard makes an Autosentry to give it some extra backup to use the drone to draw fire.
Olympia fires her M20 to take out the drone with her using her Plasma Pistol to take out the Safeguard to crash onto the floor.
"Thanks for the assist," Alisa said as she lobbed a grenade into a group of Soldiers to take them down.
"No problem," she said to use her thrusters to give herself a boost to head for a group of Soldiers to put plasma bolts into their chests and heads to take them down.
Yuri is putting shots onto the Snipers to take them out one by one while sniping the Safeguard with each precise shot to knock them out of the air. Cortez pushes forward to use his thrusters to boost upward to rush at a group of Soldiers to use his shotgun to blast them to pieces.
He dashes to the side to avoid a blue beam of energy from the Safeguard to take it out with two buckshots. Yuri keeps picking off Snipers to give his team cover. Rosenda jumps onto the next level to use her machine gun to kill off several Soldiers and Safeguards.
"Nice work Yuri," Rosenda said as she got on top to see the Officer wielding the Splinter Cannon trying to hit her with explosive bolts of hard light.
She uses her M41 rocket launcher to roll away from the bolts. She fires two rockets, and the first one takes out its shield and the second kills it off.
"The Officers have shields now?" Cortez asked.
"Seems like the Didact is making improvements across the board," Sage said as she scanned the alien machines.
"Keep pushing," Rose said as Alisa grabbed her Bulldog to see a Safeguard blocking their block firing its Safeguard Beam to strike her shields to melt through half of it. She boosts to the right to avoid getting vaporized to pops three buckshots into the drone to destroy it.
Elsewhere May 013 is rushing through the battle-soaked hallways to use her MA5K to unload rows of bullets to see Alpha Crawler leading packs of Crawlers and Snipe Crawler. She tosses a Gravity Grenade to draw in the swarms of robots into a gravity well and then implodes killing everything inside the well.
A Knight teleports in front of her to swing its hard light blade arm at her. She uses her weapon to block it but it gets sliced in half.
She grabs a Boltshot to begin charging it up and fires a powerful close-range shotgun like a blast to strip the shield of the Knight and fires a second charged shot to stun and damage it. She uses her Grapple Shot to pull a Binary Rifle into her hands to fire a headshot to kill the Knight.
She goes into the warehouse area to see Aggressors and Watchers firing their weapons at her. She tosses Gravity Grenades to suck them into the voids and imploding to crush their metal shells. She fires her Boltshot to knock them out of the air into busted heaps of metal.
The Alpha Crawler is firing bolts of energy from its mouth dodging the bolts with her firing her Boltshot to strike it and stun it. She runs up to grab the head of the metal beast and rip it off its body killing the machine.
She meets Safeguards and Eliminators using their Bishop Beams and Heatwaves trying to strike her with her powerful shields holding off the beam attacks. She uses her Boltshot to put in hard light shots to put down the flying machines.
She grabs the Bishop Beam pistol which fires a beam of energy like a Sentinel Beam which can charged to fire an orb of hard light that vaporizes anything it touches that is not shielded. She fires the strong beams to burn into the flying machines to take them out leaving them burning metal husks. Aggressor fires a gravity orb from its Arc Charger to hit May to slow down her movements to be nailed by a Charged shot from the Safeguard's Bishop Beam. It strikes her to nuke her shields and send her flying across the room to slam into a wall.
"Damn it," she said rushing away from away charged orb to avoid it as she fires at the flying machines. She uses her Bishop Beam to strip them of their shields to fire another charged orb to vaporize them into dust.
"Enough of these flying devils," May said to keep moving forward to meet up with Fireteam Omega.
"Oh good to see you alive old lady," Alisa said lightly.
"Good to see you are in one piece Six. Come on, the artifacts are over here," May said to lead the Spartans further into the transport ship. "Nice suit," May comments on her Helioskrill Mjolnir armor.
"Sela gave it to me when I saved her life from Llsa Zane," Alisa said as May nodded in respect.
"I heard about that. Good work on that," May said as the Spartans head toward the warehouse to secure the
Elsewhere Sela and Vala get reports about the Eternity getting backup from the sword's navy to fight the powerful capital ship backing the Forerunner fleet. "The humans have a strong ship but more is better," Vala said as she pulled up her Needler to take out a Soldier in a pink explosion.
"We got word that a nearby Sword fleet is coming to aid us. We got a big surprise for these machines," Sela said as she used her particle carbine to put in headshots to take down the Soldiers and Crawlers.
She tosses a Needle Grenade into a room of Soldiers to be showered with bright hot needles to see all the Forerunner machines get destroyed in a series of pink explosions. Vala slips into the room to use her Storm Rifle to pick off the rest of the weakened machines.
"Hey look up there," Sela said as they saw long lean bodies looking very familiar.
"By the gods," Vala said as they saw three Prelates on top of containers wielding Razor assault rifles and Bishop Beam pistols. These prophets became Forerunner machines built for war and made to be assassins and Special Force units of the Didact's forces.
The lead Prelate triggers a hard light gauntlet on its left arm forming an arm shield.
"So they got their great joinery after all," Sela said as she fired her particle carbine with the three using their anti-gravity to dash in mid-air to reposition to fire onto the commandos. Several commandos were killed off but the Razors' hard light shards triggered explosions to strip their shields and vaporize them into dust.
"Damn it," Vala said as she uses her Needler to fire several rounds but the lead Prelate used its arm shield to deflect them away.
It fires a charged orb which zips towards them as they dodge to see a few commandos get their shields destroyed and vaporized by the orb. The orb bounces around to strike a few more commandos to knock their shields out to then the orb explodes killing them off via vaporization.
"This isn't good," Vala said.
"No kidding, our long-time enemies became what they always wanted. To become one with their gods," Sela said as she tossed a Needler Grenade into a Prelate to get hit with a few super combines but managed to still be able to fight back with powerful shields.
Sela rolls away from the hard light shards to grab a fallen Plasma Pistol to fire an overcharged shot to strike the Prelate to take out its shields. Vala fires her Needler to trigger two super combines to kill the first Prelate.
The Second Prelate is picking off the rest of the commandos with its Razor and carefully placed gravity grenades to crush them in powerful implosions crushing them to death. Sela fires another Overcharged shot at the Prelate but it manages to use its hard light arm shield to deflect it away.
"Great," Vala fires her Storm Rifle to pepper its shield to drain some of it away to toss Plasma Grenade at the foot of the Prelate to trigger a plasma blast which strips its shields while Sela uses her Particle Carbine to strike its head a few hits to stun it.
Sela tosses the Needle Grenade which managed to take out the second Prelate in a series of pink explosions. Leaving one Prelate left to deal with as it fires its Razor rifle at them to take cover. "I will distract it while you go in to engage it in close combat," Vala said to fire her Storm Rifle to suppress the target.
Sela uses her Active Camo to sneak up the room to get behind the Prelates. The two get into a gunfight as she dodges incoming shards, gravity grenades, and pulse grenades. Sela pulls out her Energy Sword about to get the jump on the Prelate.
Sela grabbed onto the prelate's long neck and sliced right through it to sever its head from its body putting down the late Prelate.
"I don't believe it. These people are now the slaves of the Forerunners," Sela said.
"Can't believe we used to worship these guys. Turning people into metal monsters. Insane," Vala said.
"Jun was insane to release the Didact for the first time. A Mad Forerunner bend of reconquering the galaxy. The Sangheili will not be slaves to the Forerunners unless the San'Shyuum has become. The Arbiter needs to know about this. The Prophets have become a bigger threat than we can imagine," she said as the Promethean Prelates are the strongest units they faced so far along with the Promethean Knights.
Back with the Spartans, they managed to get into the main storage area where the relics were located to see a towering foe holding onto something. "Seems like you made it inside," the Warden said to turn to them to have an army of Soldiers and Watchers.
"Who are you?" Alisa demanded as all the armored soldiers aimed their weapons at the tall machine.
"I am the Warden Eternal. Loyal to the Didact and his second in command. We are taking back the Mantle of Responsibility from humanity. A young and immature species who don't deserve it," the Warden said.
"We are Reclaimers, the ones who are the successors to the Forerunners," Olympia said.
"Not anymore, at the state of the current galaxy. You are doing an awful job of doing anything worthwhile. I got a special piece of technology. I will be going now. Take care of the trash here," Warden teleports back to the main ship to see a Prelate appear to order the troops to attack.
"Alisa, be careful of the Prelate. The Didact has turned the Prophets into weapons," Sela said on the radio.
"What?" Alisa questioned as she turned invisible to spread out from the conflict.
"She is right, they are constructs now. Adding to the Didact's war machine," Sage said as she went to sneak on Prelate to pull up her Energy Dagger. The other Spartans deal with the machines clearing them out as Alisa swings her dagger to slice off the gun arm and pierce its shield to stab into its head.
The Prelate goes back into Alisa to shove her away. The Prelate uses its Arc Charger pistol to hit her with gravity orbs to slow her down. It makes its' hard light gauntlet into a blade to slash into her chest leaving a scar behind.
She uses her energy dagger to deflect and block incoming slashes. She gets into its defenses to slice off the head to sever it from the neck destroying it.
"Are you okay?' Sage asked to check her life signs.
"I am fine, the metal got scratched. Nothing nanobots can fix," Alisa said as the artifact was taken from the pile.
"Well, the Didact has a new second in command and brand-new toys to play with. This needs to be forwarded to command," Rose said as the Sword ships appeared to deal with the remaining Forerunner ships for their mission to save the ship was completed.
The Warden is on the flagship to hold onto the artifact. "Didact, I managed to grab a data unit that holds some interesting designs left in the past," Warden said via personal link.
"Good work, we need to keep improving our forces to better against the current conditions of the galaxy," Didact said.
"I am preparing to raid a Storm fortress on Kor. The Janus Key will be ours," Warden said as his other body was on another ship across the Milky Way to lead a massive force to lead siege to the Storm-led world of Kor willing to take back the Janus Key so humanity didn't get it.