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Dangerous Voyages[Part 6]
Posted By: Elizar<kopaka2219@hotmail.com>
Date: 18 May 2006, 8:59 pm
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The first thing Darius noticed as getting to the control room were the bodies of the fallen soldiers, he checked few of them to find out that the dog-tags were already taken. He then noticed the two hunters. The sheer magnitude of resistance Central's team had to face made Darius even further suspicious that there was something wrong with the whole thing.
The doors were opened for him, and a small team of humans had the weapons trained on him until they realized that he was a human, not Covenant.
"Welcome, to our little fortress." Central said as he entered inside. The bodies of the Covenants were lying where they had died, with exception of the turrets on the ground, there was always a marine not far from it.
"Thank you Central." He said, noticing that Central's team had suffered a great loss.
York took longer time to arrive, having run into two patrols on the way. But his team hadn't faced any serious loss, only two marines died and three injured, none of them seriously.
"Central, York, come with me." Darius motioned. They went to the corner of the control room, where he deemed it would be from most of the danger. The ODST had already familiarized themselves with the control room to be on guard against any attack.
They three stood there for a moment in silence, for whatever reason. Darius was still unsure about bringing the subject up to them, and wondering what could really be going on, and if ONI was part of it in any way, since they had asked him to perform that little job.
"Alright." Darius begun. "I have noticed something odd regarding this mission, tell me if you have had the same feeling."
Central and York didn't said anything, but they both nodded.
"Then I know I have not gone completely paranoid." Darius said in a mock reassuring tone. "Central, you had to face against enemy even I think is too much, we all were attacked by special ops on our way to our objectives, and there are no weapons on board in the only location they can be. I have already my suspicions of what this is, but I want to hear you out."
Central and York glanced at each other for a second, but it was Central that took the initiative.
"A trap." She said. York nodded with her on that.
"Good, but why? Why did they set up such elaborate trap?" Darius asked again, but didn't expect Central or York to answer it, but he had put it differently than intended.
"Meant to lure us away, away from the real fight." York answered, thinking about how weak Nykeir's defenses were at the moment.
"Yes, but that doesn't explain why we at first meet so low resistant, only for Central to meet up with the real team. There is something about this, this place, our situation, and maybe even the ONI mission." Darius made small hand gestures.
"They meant to kill us, all of us." Central said, her face did not reflect any kind of fear nevertheless. She believed that the Covenant didn't plan it right, and she had gotten rid of the real force behind it during the takeover of the Control room.
"Straight to the point, explains a lot, but there are several ODST around, why us? Why this particular team?" Darius asked.
York thought about it, but couldn't come up with any reasonable answer. Central was silent. She had few ideas, but most if not all were not in par with what she regarded as normal Covenant behavior pattern.
Darius saw that the other team leaders had gone short on explanation, and sighed. He himself couldn't figure out why. Then it dawdled on him, after few more seconds of thinking.
"This thing, is just a big execution." He said.
"For whom?" Central asked.
"Me. The ship I managed to destroy from the inside. You weren't under my command at that time, but I lead the team, I planted the charges, and I pushed the button. A report of a single human leader capable of such feat would certainly be demoralizing for the enemy, so they have to strike back, hard and true.
"Hell, what we got for ONI may be just some trash, probably in case we didn't buy the story about a supply ship with engine failure."
"Oh no." Central muttered.
"What is it?" Darius asked.
"Sir, the engine failure, if that is fake, they are able to fly us off the planet. They are able to fly this thing." Central said.
"That is…" Darius paused. "Quite right. Even though we have the control room, they most likely have an override station in the engine room or near it. That is our next objective anyway. Get to the control room, prevent them taking over the ship and fly it out. We will plant the charges and get a ride out of here via the hangar bays. We will steal a phantom if we have to." Darius said to the team leaders.
"I will stay here, in case of if the Covenant plan to retake the control room. Central, York, you will team up and proceed to the engine room. Central, you get the demo expert, Private Smith. He has the satchels. I will hold onto the detonator. Get the teams together, tell them of the plan, and we will move out on my mark, in about fifteen minutes."
Olma smiled as he checked the feed from the surveillance cameras located in the control room. Teya's death had been unfortunate, but nevertheless, the human he was to kill was identified.
"Captain Darius Striker." He said, even for his extreme distaste for humans and whatever that was related to them. "Your time has come."
Teya had been reckless when guarding the control room, and let it easily fall into the hands of the humans. The humans however, with their numbers, would easily hold the control room. Olma saw that if he was to kill the human, he had to wait for him to move out of the control room. Even if it meant risking the ship itself. The Prophet of Guile would certainly accept it as collateral damage, as long as the human's blood was spilled onto the floor.
"The humans are trying to get to the engine room, do not allow them that. I want all able hands to defend it, with exception of those I have chosen beforehand." Olma Sernkalee ordered as he watched the number of humans approaching the engine room. The command post he was situated at was not far from the engine room, but he knew of a passage where he could slip by the human team without being noticed.
"Wow." Central muttered as she looked through a glass to the engine room. It was huge, and she had a good vantage point. It was three levels high, compared to the levels that surveyed over the control room. She hadn't seen the blueprints for the engine room, but she recognized the layout of it as of the hangar bays. Running the length of the room was a cylinder that appeared to have red liquid sloshing in it. Near her down on the floor, she saw a white elite working on some kind of interface. An overwrite station.
"They know we are near." York said, pointing towards the Covenants working around. There were more Covenants armed to their teeth than Covenants doing general work in the engine room.
"That is to be expected. I think there is a command post here nearby." She looked again over the room, trying to find a commander over the whole army in the engine room. "Haldir." She said, motioning to Haldir Smith, the demolition expert Darius had sent with her.
Haldir came over to the window and checked the room out. "At least three satchels by the cylinder, and we need to hide them. I would say we put one or two by whatever command console the white one is working on, and few others by the support engines. Even if they find all of the satchels by the crystal, we can cripple them by taking out the support engines."
"Good work. Stay in the middle, we don't want to lose you. Remember to set the timer to one hour, they might be able to jam the detonator." Central said and motioned the team to continue onwards through the doors to the engine room.
As they entered through the doors, all hell broke lose.
"I'm running dry!" Anne yelled as slamming in her third last clip for her S2. The second sniper, situated on the floor above her, concurred with her.
"Get them beam rifles! If we lose the snipers, we will lose our cover fire!" York yelled, motioning James and Rint with few other ODST, a second later he fired to a group of grunts that had come through a door near him. They weren't being lead by an elite though, which made it the only good thing about it.
An ODST had managed to get a fuel rod gun one special ops grunt had dropped when it died. At the same moment, a fuel rod beam just managed to miss him. He turned around and fired two shots in quick succession to the source of the beam, a hunter that had come through the doors on the opposite side of the room. Another fuel rod shot and supporting fire from the rest of the ODST took care of the other hunter.
"Haldir! What is the status?!" Central yelled through the com.
"Just two more near the supporting engines, then I am done!" Haldir called back.
The Covenants fought even harder than they had in the control room. Central felt that she had entered a new kind of hell, where she thought it wouldn't have gotten any tougher than the control room. Around half of the team was down, and they were being pressed into retreat. That was not acceptable at the moment, with the job unfinished.
"Darius!" Central opened a comlink to Darius. "We are almost done here, and got it on a timer, we got an hour once all the satchels are here."
"Roger that." Darius said. "Forget about locating the second command post, you are in too much trouble already. Once you get back here, we will go on the double to the hangar bay, there are pelicans waiting to get us out."
"Roger that, over and out." Central closed the link, raised her shotgun and took care of a rookie elite that thought she would be easy to take while distracted. She had spotted him in time.
"Central!" Someone yelled in a warning.
"Central stood still for a moment, trying to figure out what she was being warned about, but as she saw a plasma sword appear out of nowhere, she jumped back, but wasn't quick enough. She yelled as she felt the tip of the sword barely mange to penetrate the skin and form a long cut from her right shoulder to her left leg. One of the snipers took it down in one shot using a Covenant beam rifle.
"Are you okay?" Baldvin, the same who had tried to warn her, asked.
"Yes, didn't hit anything serious. These things are that hot they burn the wounds in the same instance they make them." She said, taking off her helmet as the sword had hit a part of it.
"I'm done!" Haldir said.
"Alright people, retreat! Back to the control room!" Central gave the order as she stood up on her own. She took up her shotgun but saw as the barrel of it had been cut. She groaned. "I need a weapon." She said to Baldvin.
Baldvin silently handed her his battle rifle, and took up a plasma rifle he had taken in the battle.
Central nodded and headed to the doors which would lead her to the upper floors, back to the control room and back to Darius.
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