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2553
Interior of the MAC platform Cairo
0527 hours
"Will, heads up!" Ryan cried and fired a stream of high velocity rounds over the other Spartan's head. The Elite that turned the corner took a barrage of the projectiles in its massive chest, while an encore of the bullets tore apart his vulnerable throat. Outside thousands of hellfire streaks of gold and crimson raced through the vacuum, seaming to tear through space and they traveled towards their targets. The two super soldiers cautiously turned each corner, but no matter how careful they were, more Covenant soldiers always seemed to be waiting on the other side. "Firing!" Ryan called and his assault rifle let loose a volley of armor piercing rounds.
"Where's the Chief?" Will asked as he took several snap shots at the Jackals at the end of the corridor.
"I don't know, I thought he was behind you!" Ryan answered and slid a new magazine into his rifle with a satisfying click.
Exterior surface of the Cairo
0530 hours
John propped his head on a fallen piece of debris, due to his collision with the wall, and opened his eyes to see the Elite standing over him seem to fall apart at a hail of shredder rounds tore it to ribbons. Two figures stood over him, one was clad in Mjolnir armor, but John's HUD didn't tag him as one of his Spartans, and the second was an ODST. The Spartan offered him a hand up. John took the armored hand and it pulled him up.
"Master Chief, it's good to see you Sir." The anonymous Spartan stated with a crisp salute. "I'm First Sergeant Elias 014, Sir; the rest of my team is inside."
John nodded as if understanding but behind his mirrored visor, he had no idea what was going on. Elias? He wasn't a member, even in my original squad, where did he come from? John pondered in his head.
The airlock cycled through and the two Spartans exited. Several Marines stiffened, but then relaxed to see their allies and not more of the Covenant horde.
"Sir, your team is back that way, holding off the covies in Commons-B, right over there," The Australian Lance Corporal pointed to a blast door and past several fallen Marines.
John nodded and strode past the hastily erected defenses, fed a new magazine into his pistol and turned the corner. Five UNSC combatants were defending a door leading to the Command Center at the parallel side of the room. John fired a trio of 12.7mm rounds, then primed and threw a fragmentation grenade. The bullets cracked through the lead Grunt's chest plate and his breathing apparatus. The Grunt fell with a squeak and methane vented from the Grunts breathing device. Elias turned and fired a sustained burst into a Jackal pair and watched the rounds tear through their unprotected flesh. Four Spartans stood as the last of the Covenant troops fell in bloody heaps. John's HUD tagged Ryan and Will but the other two were yet again, anonymous.
"Master Chief, Sir! It's good to see you. I'm Master Sergeant Chase 026, I see you've met Elias, and this is First Sergeant Ian 093. Ian and Chase gave crisp salutes and stood at attention.
"At ease, Spartans, we need to get to the Control Center." John ordered and turned towards the blast doors. None of this made sense, none of these Spartans were of his team, his thoughts flashed back to a time that seemed a lifetime ago. To the words of Admiral Stanforth, he had said, "Chief Petty Officer Mendez will be departing from us to train the next group of Spartans." John silently mulled this over. Group? There are only three of them here, was there more, or was this it? John had no time for this, the Covenant where here, even though they couldn't glass the Ring where the humans had held up, they could decimate the UNSC fleet above the Ring with relative ease. Where ever these Spartans came from, if they were even half the soldiers his team was, he could use their help. The Bridge's blast doors creaked and slid open, three Naval Lieutenants stood on the opposite side of the door with their side arms raised and leveled. The lead officer relaxed and waved them in, then took a weary look around and closed the blast. Three Delta Ops marines were the only combat personnel in the immense room. Each of them wore uniform and gear separate from the ODST or marine regular, being tiger striped fatigues, and worn black armor plates. They wore SF helmets and goggles, which had been placed on the brim of the helmet until use, and carried specialized weaponry. Two carried MA7Rs, which are the step up from the 5B, with silencers and laser guided scopes, and the third carried a L85A2, a medium range cut down sniper's rifle. Camouflage paint smeared their faces, evidence from their recent ground engagements. The alien blood that smeared their armor proved their skill, and John knew they could be depended upon. An explosion rocked the deck as several of its personnel fell to the floor. An alarm shrieked and the forward display showed atmosphere venting in several areas. Hood turned to look at the Spartans.
"Master Chief we have a problem." Hood began. "Another two dozen Covenant ships just jumped in system, Two MAC stations have been decimated, along with a decent portion of Admiral Shires' task force…we cannot win this battle, Chief, but we can get out of here." Hood stated.
"Admiral, I—
"Chief, half of the fleet is jumping back to Earth, a few regiments of marines and several Spartans have been fighting on the surface for some time, and a UNSC prowler has reported that the planet has not been glassed, but is being inhabited by the Covenant, the prowler also reported that the Covenant Fleet has been severely reduced in our absence, therefore most of our ships are going on the offensive to the Earth front…Chief I'm sorry, the Brass in all its wisdom has assigned your team and 026's team to the surface for a stand long enough for the Fleet to take back Earth." Hood said regretfully. "It's a waste of the best soldiers I've ever had the pleasure to serve with, I hate to give this order Chief, I'm sorry."
John didn't hesitate. "Affirmative Sir, understood." John saluted along with the other Spartans on the deck.
Hood nodded and turned to the view screen. "The platforms will stay in place and hold off the Covenant until you and your team are ground side…" Hood said, not turning away from the displays. "Dismissed."
John saluted, spun on his heel and strode towards the elevator to the drop craft. The six super soldiers stepped aboard and the lift dropped four levels. Twenty drop craft slots dominated the large hanger. The stubby drop craft was the Pelican's predecessor, though not out of date. The drop craft were the step above a lifeboat, while the drop craft were usually occupied by eight soldiers and held a M41 LRV in the center. The standard craft opened in three directions, and when open looked vaguely skeletal. John gripped the frame of the craft, satisfied that it would safely escort them to the surface, waved his men aboard. The Spartans filed in and took their seats in the craft as the pilot climbed aboard and into the small cockpit. Two more Spartans finally arrived; John's HUD tagged them as the last of Chase 026's team. Malcolm 081 and Aaron 053 climbed aboard and took their seats. The bay doors of the drop craft gave a creak and closed with a groan of titanium-A and the interior of the craft was pitch black. "Stand by, detach!" the pilot called, "good luck Cairo."
The plate of armor beneath the craft lowered into a sort of airlock, gave a hiss of decompression and a snap. The plate slid away and sickening free fall invaded everyone's stomachs'. Tiny strobes of yellow lights flickered to life and dimly lit the craft. Light gleamed off the LRV's surface and back towards the wall. Their stomachs settled as the pilot regained control of the craft and sent it soaring towards the Ring.
The Delta Ops marines took one last look around the Bridge, took several seconds to assist several wounded naval personnel to reload their assault rifles and stepped aboard the lift down to the drop bay. The lift creaked to a stop and as several drop craft jettisoned from their slots. Sergeant Samuel Easley was the name of the lead Delta Ops soldier, and his team consisted of Corporal David Brookes and Corporal Brandon Vaughn. Sam secured his rifle to the anchoring points below his seat and buckled his harness around his chest. The other two marines were buckled in already, with their gear secured. Several marines filed into the craft but a bone shattering explosion rocked the deck. The airlock doors broke away and atmosphere vented. Sam only had time to grab two Marines by their combat harnesses and glimpse the pilot leap inside the craft as its atmospheric doors closed. Besides the two Marines buckled in, the two Easley had held on to, the Delta Ops and the pilot, everyone else in the hanger bay was sucked out into the vacuum. The pilot scrambled into his seat and released the clamps that held the ship to the station, the craft plummeted from the station as the Cairo was rippled with red orange explosions and imploded, just before the interior of the craft went black and it fell to towards the surface of the Ring. The craft broke atmosphere and a jolt of turbulence exploded through the craft and everyone aboard lost consciousness.
Sergeant Easley blinked away the black clouding at the corners of his vision and came back to reality. He was lying half buried in the sand of a beachhead, not far from the drop craft's skeletal form. His teammates lay prone around him, along with the four marines. Sam slowly pulled himself to his feet. He was grateful to see that LRV had survived the landing, but he could not say the same for the pilot. The marines rose to their feet, all but one, who had his midsection blow apart by something Sam, had no clue. He looked under the seat he had and was relived to see his rifle was still in place. He retrieved a magazine from his belt and slid it into the receiver. His men were on their feet soon after, dragging out the titanium barricades included in the craft and set up a perimeter with the marines. The Warthog's anchoring clamps disengaged and the LRV rolled slightly down the ramp. After a quick reconnaissance of the island the Marines realized their were two Covenant squadrons that had been recently dispatched to the island. The land mass sported a large signal outpost in the center, but other than an odd tree or bush, no other structure. Several of the Jackal sniper towers rose from the ground and outlines of Covenant Elites dotted the walls of the outpost. Sam and the other marine slid down from the rock and into the concealed landing zone. The landing craft had provided a fair amount of cover, and where it did not, the marines had set the titanium barricades in its place. The marines included PFC. Mackenzie and Dominic and Lance Corporal Hawkins; all of which had been a help to Samuel's men, and he was sure sooner or later he would need them.
An hour had passed when a duo of Covenant Grunts rounded the corner into the crash site, with their plasma rifle lazily slung over their shoulders. When seeing the large drop craft both of them jumped, scrambling to bring their rifles to bear. Mackenzie stood up unaware, realized the threat and knew he had no time to reach his rifle, which was lying on the barricade several meters away. Just as the Grunts leveled their rifles they fell pray to Brookes and Vaughn, who dispatched them with iron hard blows to the skull with their rifles. Sam emerged shortly there after, his L85A2 resting on his shoulder. Two Elite corpses lay behind them.
"Marines! Mount up, we're moving out!" Easley called and pulled himself into the passenger seat of the LRV. The other two Deltas hopped aboard along with Hawkins, while Sam had ordered Dominic and Mackenzie to stay and hold the area. Hawkins regretfully stepped aboard the M41, reluctantly to leave the last of his squad behind. The LRV roared and sped over the sand straight towards the outpost. Jackals snipers in their towers had no time to react with volleys of 50mm bullets shredding through their exposed bodies. Four arrogant Elites had taken positions to stop the light reconnaissance vehicle…but were transformed into speed bumps by the LRV's massive tires. Brookes hit the brakes and the M41 skidded to a stop. The marines didn't wait around, Easley and Hawkins cut into the Covenant position on one side of the relic while Brookes and Vaughn took the other. If the outpost had been manned by the Covenant's Elites, it would have taken hours to free from their grasp, but being made up of mainly Grunts and Jackals, Easley had assumed most of the field officers had been decimated by Brookes' driving. Easley fired off a quick succession of 9.82mm rounds from his rifle and a trio of unsuspecting Jackals flinched as the impacts of the armor piercing rounds dove through their flesh. Vaughn and Brookes had cleared their side of the platform and dropped into its lower level. This level however, was occupied by three platinum clad Elites, which were fired upon with a hail of armor piercing rounds. One Elite staggered and fell into a shallow puddle of thick purple liquid that was his entrails. The remaining duo returned fire. Ice blue laces of plasma raced towards the Deltas as they dived into a small nook in the wall. The aliens approached and leveled their rifles. They paused, curiously and as if in slow motion their breast plates blossomed open like a purple flower…even through the pedals were internal organs. Hawkins stood in a half crouch at the edge of the level above and Easley with his rifle at his shoulder. Sam dropped through into the hole with the rest of his squad while Hawkins stood above, watching out for more Covenant. The three delta force marines stood in a rough triangle formation, slowly approaching the panel which the Elites were so interested. Easley propped his rifle under his arm and let go with his other hand and stretched outwards towards the panel. It was holographic, yet solid, and Sam's hand met resistance. The room shook as Sam's hand shoved the button further into the panel. Circles of blue lights garrisoned at the corners of the room. The high, thin half triangular tower shuddered slighted, groaned as the ancient metal reacted to something, gave a roar of fusion and glowed with blue light. Hawkins eyed the tower then back towards the Deltas. Easley disappointedly began to climb back towards the gap to the next level when the entire chamber was filled with blinding white light, and then with an ice blue flash. Hawkins lowered his hand from his eyes and looked down into the chamber. Easley and his men were gone, not dead but gone, no carbonized bone, blood or bodies. Hawkins swallowed his fear and slowly turned to the Hog. He was half way between shock and just plain angry. Their best chance of survival had just been zapped by some ancient alien piece of crap, he paused to kick one of the over religious Elites in the teeth before heading to the LRV. The marine climbed into the M41 and gunned the engine; the tires spat up dirt and sped towards the beach. The island was rather small all things considered. The LRV rolled to a stop at one of the Covenant sniper towers. Hawkins stepped in a a beam of gravity swept him up onto the platform. His own assault rifle had had a scope mounted on it, but diving for cover from a plasma grenade on the Cairo had mortally wounded the device. The Lance Corporal hefted the fallen beam rifle and looked through the scope. By now a thick pillar of black smoke had risen from the humans' crash site, and to his horror he realized a Phantom touching down very near to the smoke. Hawkins jumped over the side of the tower without thought and landed in a heap in the sand below, quickly came to his feet and jumped inside the warthog. His foot landed on the gas the again the LRV sped away from the alien structures.
"Dominic! Another one comin' left!" Mackenzie warned as his rifle thundered over Dominic's head. The Jackals wouldn't stop coming, and there was only a few Elites, which Dominic had accidentally dispatched when he threw a grenade at a Grunt, which sprayed the field commanders with a lethal wave of shrapnel. The two PFCs' rifles chattered as round after round entered and left the chamber, peppering the rocks and aliens with fist sized bullet holes. They had been fairing surprisingly well until a dark blue tank waddled into the canyon. "Oh, great! Another freakin' walking tank!" Mackenzie called. "At least there's only one!" Dominic answered, just before the next behemoth waddled around the corner, a, orb of green energy grouping at the edge of the creatures rifle. "You just had to open your mouth didn't you?!" Mackenzie cried as he quickly switched his ammunition to shredder rounds. Dominic stood up and fired the grenade launcher mounted on his rifle. The shaped round detonated just under the Hunters shield and caused the beast to falter a step back, but was far from out. Both marines clenched their triggers. The shredder rounds pinged off the massive shields, and only dented the mirroring blue body armor. For the thousandth time, Dominic wished Ortega; their team's sniper was still alive…but in this case, he'd even take their loud mouthed platoon sergeant. Too bad the sarge, Ortega and the rest of his squad had been sucked out into the vacuum as the Cairo was destroyed. The Hunters approached, curiously not firing their fuel rod cannons. Dominic primed two fragmentation grenades and tossed them under the Hunters' tree trunk-like legs. The pillar of shrapnel and flame engulfed the nearest Hunter and the alien went down wit a thud. While leaving its extremely pissed off partner to tear the humans apart, which is precisely what he planned on doing…if a LRV M41 and flattened him from behind. Hawkins had already dismounted and fired sustained burst into the straggling Jackals and head towards the exhausted Dominic and Mackenzie.
"Sir, it's good to see you, we couldn't hold out much longer, where are the Delta guys?" Mackenzie asked.
"They're gone." Hawkins replied flatly. Dominic opened his mouth the say something, but seeing the icy look on the Corporal's face he decided against it. Mackenzie retrieved a fallen magazine that still contained thirty rounds; he knocked it against his helmet several times to free it off dirt and sand and slid it into the rifle's receiver. The Marines were quiet for the most part, salvaging alien weaponry, scouring the area for ammunition for their MA5Bs and trying to repair the drop craft's radio. After two hours or sparking wires and roaring static, they finally tapped into the UNSC E-band.
"This is Julian two-four to any UNSC personnel," Hawkins rasped. "We are stranded at grid thirty three by thirteen, we need immediate evacuation, Covenant resistance is getting stiff, and we're running dry on ammo, does anyone read me? Over." The piece in Hawkins ear hissed with static followed by a male response. "Julian two-four this is Chalk four, its good to see you guys made it, our bird isn't far off, ETA to your position is ten." More static belched from the transmitter. Hawkins slumped back into the ravaged seat in the cockpit of the drop craft. The pilot and Ortega's bodies lay neatly outside, but the lieutenant's blood still flecked the control board. Hawkins slung his rifle over his shoulder and hopped down into the troop bay of the craft. The LRV was again parked inside, while Dominic and Mackenzie sat outside, leaning lazily at the titanium barriers. The roar of a UNSC Pelican dropship's engines filled the area near them as the bulky craft slowly sat down several meters into the island. Hawkins slowly brought his rifle to bear and signaled for the two PFCs behind him to follow. The small canyon went on for about fifty yards when it opened into a grassy clearing, spotted with several fir trees, a gigantic gray hulk lay in the centre on the clearing, with the word MARINES scrawled across its tail. The pelican was the most pleasing thing the trio of humans could have wished for at the moment, along with a fire team of Marines which was tagged and Chalk four. Only two of the marines were laden with full body armor, while a majority was them wore the brimmed hat's snipers favored, or bandana wrapped around their skulls. Their was five of them, Staff Sergeant Adrian Jones was the forward marine, a dull olive bandana tied about the top of his head, hiding his shorn brown hair. The others had set a loose perimeter before Hawkins had a chance to glance over their names. Jones shook his hand as he approached and helped him aboard the dropship, past the dropship's door gunner. One by one the rest of Jones' team filed into the Pelican and it lifted off the ground with a roar and left the small island.
The icy blue light surrounded Sam and his men as something extraordinarily cold lanced through him the seemed to slowly dissect him from the inside and place him back together. This painful process repeated several times until blinding gold light filled his vision. He hit the ground with a thud and slowly rose to his feet, his rifle unsteadily raised. Vaughn and Brookes dropped in behind him, showing similar symptoms Sam had felt moments ago. The golden flash cleared from their vision and left them on an icy metal floor. Frost had gathered around the corners of the platform and clusters of icicles surrounded the edges. The marines found themselves inside of a Forerunner fortress complex, a few hundred miles from any of the human bases of operation. Sam strode to the low wall at the edge of the floor. Then he realized what we was standing on: a high wall, with several battlements placed along the expanse. Only meters to his right stood an abandoned thirty caliber stationary turret. Humans had made a stand at this facility after all. Sam surveyed the white blanket of snow, with turned out to be dotted with violet clad Elites patrolling the area, while Sam sighted the outline of another wall estimated to be about four hundred meters away. Metal structures were present along the surface, distinguished by the pure white of the snow around them. A small tower rose above the rest on them, only a dozen or so yards away, four Elites clustered around it. Sam curiously took in everything thing else outside, which included several of the troublesome "Ghosts" the Covenant's rapid assault and reconnaissance vehicles and a stout pair of Hunters, located near the icy wall of the canyon. Brookes and Vaughn patrolled behind the walls, finding a landing platform that harbored a Banshee, two LRV M41 Warthogs, and an armory, which contained mostly plasma weaponry, but some UNSC contraband. "The Marines must have only pulled out a few hours ago, they left a lot." Vaughn stated clutching a bandolier of high velocity magazines for his rifle. Brookes had busied himself with an immense locked door at the end on the cave-like fortress. Spots of red blood flecked the doors surface, while bullet casing carpeted the area around it. "I dunno what happened here, Sarge…there was a battle all right but where are the Cov—" Brookes began but was cut off by a sonic boom behind them. Sam spun on his heel and ran to the edge of the wall. Another drop craft had crashed in the center of the snowy valley. The purple outlines of the Elites hastily surrounded the craft and readied for an attack. The three titanium doors flew open to leave the drop craft a skeletal hulk. Human warriors clad in iridescent green MJOLNIR armor flowed from the hatches. There was eight of them, eight . A single Spartan had killed hundreds of Covenant soldiers, while eight of them just plain annihilated the Covenant reaction force. Another group of the armor-clad warriors burst from the other wall, tearing through the Covenant defenses.
John emptied the last of his clip into the final Elite, which keeled over, clutching its escaping organs. Chase, Ian, Malcolm, Ryan, Elias, and Will were fine, though Aaron, one of Chase's men, had recently fallen victim to a plasma grenade, but not before he threw himself into the Covenant front line. John turned to see explosions ripple through the ramps doors on the nearby wall. It fell with a crash and Fred, Kelly and Troy emerged, firing rapidly at the rear lines of the Covenant. After a mere three minutes of skirmishing, the valley was stained with alien blood, and the Spartans owned the real estate. Sam gaped at the warriors, while even he and his men would've taken at least an hour to decimate a Covenant platoon. Just then Brookes peeped up. "Got it!" he said cheerfully as the metal plates of the Forerunner blast door. Two lifeless marines tumbled out and the third gave a shortened yelp of fear. Brookes' pistol was already leveled with the man's head. He was Private of the Marine Corps, though the fact that his squad was scattered dead throughout the room gave him a small excuse for his uneasiness. Brookes lowered his pistol and stood sighing. "We're clear Sarge, we got wounded." The Delta began to turn when a lance of green plasma seared through his shoulder and threw him to his knees. The private swung around clenched his trigger firing at full automatic. The rounds pinged harmlessly off the walls until his magazine went dry. Vaughn primed a grenade and tossed it inside, grabbing the marine by the collar and pulling him outside and closed the door. Vaughn felt the ripple of the explosion and watched through the small window and purple blood spattered across it. Brookes remained on his knees, holding his rifle in one hand while the other clutched his shoulder, which welled dark red blood. Easley ran to him, keeping his eyes on the door.
"Brookes? Brookes are you alright?" Vaughn asked. Brookes looked up at him slightly annoyed while slinging his pack and carefully extracting his field med kit, a strong quiver in his hand. Sam took the bio foam injector from his housing and filled Brookes with the anti-infection formula. Sam coolly cleaned the wound and set a temporary dressing over the marine's shoulder. Sam turned to the newcomer. "Who are you and what happened in there?" Easley asked impatiently. The marine gave a short sob but snuffed and brought himself together. "Private Lee, s-Sir, my whole squad, was patrolling the hatch, just after the dropship had picked the last of second squad's men. A few of those commandos got past the w-wall, and killed Sergeant Boxen…and his men. Corporal Darlington and the six of us fell back when a few of those invisible guys came in for the kill…something made them start to leave…when you guys opened the door…I-I –I don't know anything thing else Sir, there was nothing I could d-do, I'm sorry about your man…" the marine broke down again, recalling the thought of his squad being killed before his eyes, and asking himself why he was allowed to live. The Private began to curl himself into a ball when Vaughn reached down and tugged him to his feet. Tear streaked down his face and cut through the frost that had gathered on his cheeks. Sam turned falling backward, his L85A2 up and ready, only to face three armor clad Spartans striding towards them. Relief coursed thickly through them as the super soldiers helped them to their feet and escorted them to the dropship which was settled in the center of the icy valley, they had escaped death once more, only to face it on another front.
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