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Halo 2- The saga continues, Chptr. 2
Posted By: Andy<eagle41366@hotmail.com>
Date: 12 April 2003, 6:35 PM
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"Chief……Chief?" Cortana's holographic body flickered into focus, and John lifted his head from the control panel. Cortana shook her head. "You never change, do you?" He smiled at her and looked out into the inky blackness of Slipstream space.
"How much longer until we can enter Alpha Sol system?" "ETA is 7 minutes, Chief. You've been sleeping for a while." "Good." He growled, "I just hope we're not too late."
The Long sword fighter shot across open space, slowly approaching the drifting black globe that was magnified millions of times on John's view screen. It was earth, but not earth as he remembered it from 20 years ago, when it was still blue, and the air was still clean. This black sphere was dotted with yellow circles……small nuclear blasts triggered to stop the onslaught of covenant forces invading humanity's last stronghold. Above the fray on the ground, he could see flashes of blue and red……the plasma and MAC rounds flying across space. He could even make out the menacing shape of a covenant Battle Ship, the flagship of the covenant fleet.
Cortana saw all this as well, but she was never content with just seeing. She tapped the local channels, which had been shut down by the EMP's from the nukes that had been detonated in the sector. That wasn't good, but she was still in range of most of the ship's com channels, which didn't rely on the space based network of signal relay stations. She quickly found a trace of a signal from the closest destroyer and traveled with it on an IFF line to another destroyer. She clased the circut, terminated the backward line, and was in. Now, all she had to do was listen. She fed her tap into the Longsword's speakers so John could hear too. The speakers crackled for a moment, and then……
"I repeat, under attack!" This is the Destroyer Embassy, 20 to 30 covenant fighters have engaged us, and we are nearly out of ammo for point defense. We are risking the capture of our AI and the Secretary of State! We need reinforcements now!"
"Captain, you need to hold your ground!" replied a voice. "Two frigates have been dispatched to your location, and a flight of Longswords are on their way. Hold your ground, Captain."
"They've breached our hull, I repeat, we have been breached!" He faded off, and then, said, in a now positively frightened voice "Wait! Oh God, no! Admiral, four covenant cruisers have materialized above us. They are only a few hundred kilometers away from the orbital MAC 's. Request repositioning of orbital MAC's to fire on these ships."
"Go ahead Captain! I have uploaded MAC control to your station!"
"Sir, my firing controls are off line, I can't get those cannons to fire! " The voice faded in a crackle of static, came back on again for a split second, saying "finished" and then went out for good.
"Chief, we need to help them!" Cortana cried "We need to get on one of those orbital guns now to activate the manual firing mechanism!" John nodded in acknowledgment, but looked too shocked to do anything more.
The interceptor, now dormant, floated serenely over the massive battle. It was a wonder that none of the thousands of fighters below noticed the lone ship above them, but it would have been folly to attack that long sword anyway. Cortana was not an everyday shipboard AI construct. She already had a missile lock on the closest 100 covenant targets.
"Ok, Cortana" The Chief replied. "Let's get on board that thing" Cortana smiled, and let loose a barrage of missiles from one of the underwing pods. The Archer II seekers rocketed away from the ship, and John saw dozens of little yellow dots appear below, where Covenant Shiko fighters were blasted unexpectedly into pieces.
"Where are your manners, chief? I think we forgot to welcome our old friends to our home."
* * * * *
John was back in his essence. He now donned his helmet again, and had his pistol held firmly in his gloved hand. As he strolled down the access corridor of the MAC orbital platform, he noticed the red lights above his head begin to flash, and a shudder resonated throughout the 3-mile long space station. Almost instantaneously, he felt the pull of gravity leave his body, and then slowly return as he entered an undamaged section of the station. A shot had been fired from the main MAC capacitor, and it must have impacted one of the cruisers. He could not hope that it had been a kill, however. The MAC round would have been lucky to take down the shields of a ship that size. It would have been a miracle to even scratch the surface.
He quickly walked towards the lift that would bring him to the lower hanger bay that was used to ferry the crew in and out of the station. Just before he reached the lift, Cortana whispered to him "I think you might find one of these helpful" a panel swung out of the wall, revealing 6 Battle rifles, modified versions of the standard MA5B. They were more versatile, more accurate, and had a scope, but they were also slower and had a smaller clip.
John grabbed one, and slipped his pistol into its armored holster. He got onto the lift, and it began it's rapid decent to the bottom of the station. As he plummeted downward, he locked his rifle and shoved a clip into, then closed the chamber. Suddenly, the local com channel Cortana had been listening to began to fade. The battle outside was going down quickly. "Captain! She said suddenly, "tell your men to hold their positions. Reinforcements are on the spoke!" The Chief crossed the distance into hanger and looked out the large glass panels in the blast doors.
"With respect, Cortana," Captain Longley, who had been furiously explaining to one of the generals who was groundside that they couldn't spare any fighters, replied, after identifying her signal. "What the hell kind of reinforcements have you got?"
John walked quickly back to a large steel girder that was in the hanger. With his back to the wall, he reached up and took a firm hold on the door's release mechanism.
"What if you miss?" Cortana asked inquisitively.
"I won't" The Chief replied, as he yanked down the release.
Immediately, an alarm sounded, as the massive hanger doors slid open. John felt the atmosphere rush out around him, but he was held into place by the pillar.
He edged his way toward the end of it, and then, with all the strength he had, he leaped off the platform and flew noiselessly into space.
"Oh God" he whispered. John spiraled down, slowly, but with a perfectly calculated arc, into the earth's atmosphere. He watched as his shields slowly depleted on the descent, burning hot from the beginnings of air resistance. Suddenly, after about 10 horrifying moments suspended in the atmosphere, he landed with a dull clunk on the ship the MAC heavy round had just disabled.
He reached cautiously across the purple metal of the ship and slipped his hand into one of the thousands of small curves that were on the cruiser. He pulled himself towards a shiny reflective window, and paused. He couldn't think of how he could get in. No, there was no other way. It was risky, but worth a try.
John carefully placed the anti-matter charge onto the window. He climbed away from it, clutching the ship with a death grip. With only 5 seconds on the clock, he got clear of the explosive, and heard it go off.
Crawling carefully back, he saw that the window was gone, and six grunts were floating off, lifeless in the vacuum of space. John crawled into the room, where he drew his rifle from it's pack. He took the safety off, and moved toward a sliding paneled door that was at the corner of the room. After opening it, and depressurizing the room he was going into, he timidly forced open a door that lead into the cruiser's main access hallway.
The first thing he saw was the reptilian back of an elite. With a solid blow from his rifle, the elite fell dead on the floor with a broken neck. John stepped on it's face and rubbed the bones down to mush, making sure it was not living. He picked up his gun, and continued down the corridor, which seemed to be a half a kilometer long and devoid of anything except the eerie purple light.
"OK, Chief..." Cortana said. "I tapped the covenant battle net, and I have an over view of this ship's schematics."
"Put them on screen, Cortana" The chief said. instantly, the floor plans from the ship flickered onto his HUD, and he began searching through the decoded script until he found what he was looking for.
"The control room to this beast is about five-hundred meters up, chief. I think I can access covenant controls from there.
"Ok, Cortana, let me know if there's anything going on in here, and make sure the MAC's and UNSC ships don't target us, please."
"I'm on it"
With that, the chief began to move quickly down the corridor, to where he spotted a glowing set of symbols that was translated as "Control" by Cortana.
Halfway there, one of the doors on his right slid open, revealing a very stunned elite. John, who was equally as stunned, swung his rifle around and without hesitation, unloaded the clip into the elite's chest. The alien dropped to the ground, dead before he could retrieve his plasma rifle. John smartly kicked the alien body back into the chamber it had emerged from, in case a sentinel patrolling the corridor should find the body and raise an alarm.
2 minutes later, John found himself outside the control center, breathing heavily, with the blood of a half-dozen more aliens splattered on his gun. He took a deep breath, steadying his pulse.
"Ready, Chief?" Cortana asked
"Let's go." He said.
The magnetically locked doors broke open with a flash of John's green armor. Inside, a few Elites and a dozen grunts stood looking terrified at the door. When they saw it was only one human though, just one bold human with a shiny space suit, their fears subsided. Those aliens didn't know it was a Spartan. The elites made the first move, 3 of them approaching John with a hail of fire from the grunts behind them. John ducked behind a purple crate and lobbed a grenade over his head. The effortless throw propelled it faster than a major league fastball, and it detonated on impact at the back of the alien bridge, punching a hole in their navigation equipment and killing a half dozen grunts.
The first elite jumped up onto the crate, only to receive a fixed bayonet in the midriff. It penetrated his shielded suit, but not his thick alien hide. The elite laughed, and leveled his rifle with Johns head.
The second elite caught a splatter of his comrades blood in the face when he approached. John yanked the barrel of his now smoking rifle out of the Elite's body and pushed a button to retract the bayonet. He ducked, rolled, and came out in front of the remaining two elites. With a burst of automatic fire, he caught one of them off guard, hitting him in the bony arm. The elite was out of the fight for a moment while he shook off the pain and readjusted his rifle for the other arm. In the mean time, John engaged the other. He raised his battle rifle and shot the elite 5 times in the face. The Alien shields caught most of the impact, but the it was still shaken.
John took this advantage to snap a kick into his plasma rifle, shattering it like it was a tortilla chip. The elite turned with surprising speed and caught a joint in it's muscular arm in John's Midriff. Reeling back, and leveling his rifle with one hand, He let off another burst of fire, and caught some fire too. A few grunts had regrouped behind the now recovered elite, and they sent a volley in john's direction.
John was now desperate and looking for options. He had one disarmed elite, one with 5 grunts behind him, and one more he would have to deal with later that was presumably still piloting the ship.
"Chief, to your left!" Cortana shouted at him, just as the disarmed elite found one of his comrade's pistols.
John tucked, rolled, and popped up holding a fizzing plasma grenade with speed unrivaled by any of the covenant that had been trailing him with bolts of plasma. He lobbed it into the center of the grunts, where the elite stood. It stuck right onto the largest alien, who roared in fury and leveled his rifle with john.
The fuse went off before he pulled the firing mechanism. The covenant troops were torn to shreds and tossed around the bridge like grotesque pieces of molten candy. The only remaining elite looked vaguely puzzled, and John could not feel any pity as he unloaded the last of his clip into the alien's side, leaving it too, crumpled in a heap on the floor.
Now, with blinding speed, he approached the last elite, who was immersed inside a holographic piloting display that looked like it was a chair that had a helmet over it to cover the pilot's head. Judging on how it didn't react in the slightest way to the battle, it was totally unaware that the bridge had just been taken by a lone human boarder. John replaced the clip on his rifle, and poked it's barrel into the elite's neck before squeezing off a dozen rounds into the unsuspecting pilot.
John turned, and looked triumphantly at the path of absolute carnage spread so efficiently across the bridge of a "superior" enemy.
"Nice work, there cowboy." Cortana interjected playfully. Now I think we could do a lot for the navy if you were to plant the uplink so I can directly access their systems.
John nodded, and placed a small transceiver dish on top of one of the many control panels filling the room. Out the front, a large, dark green-hued glass like surface showed a brief view of the space beyond. He flipped up a small screen, with an attached data port and holo-projector, and locked the device into place.
After removing Cortana's matrix processing cube from his own neural uplink, he placed it securely into the transceiver, and powered it up.
Cortana's slim image flickered on above the dish, and she stretched.
"Wow, this is one place I never thought I would see." she folded her minuscule arms and tilted her head, deep in thought. "Well" she said "I guess we had better make sure we aren't surprised while we're in here." She smiled deviously at John, who felt no remorse as he realized what she was about to do.
A few panels flashed on the Hologram in front of John, and then...
The entire ship vented it's atmosphere. Every surface on the entire cruiser opened to space, and all separating doors were opened. In 10 seconds, the only living creature on board was John, safely behind large blast doors that had been put down over the bridge. They were emblazoned with the large covenant crest, but they were also smeared with blood.
"That's better" Cortana smiled. "The interface that they use is made to be easily accessible. Probably for their own AI constructs."
"And you...." John asked "Can you access everything?"
"Anything you want, Master Chief."
"Good. Let's give the home team some help."
"I'm on it, Chief" Cortana lapsed into silence, and then flickered out of the Holo projector. In her place, a view of the outside of the ship appeared, and what John immediately recognized as plasma torpedo charges were gathering on the recesses on the side of the hull.
"Their weapons are enormously efficient," Cortana remarked. They can be fired in what seems to be in a nearly constant pattern if I divert all power to them.
A number of sudden tremors ran throughout the giant ship, and with amazing speed, John watched the plasma bolts streak away from the ship and towards the other 3 cruisers that were part of the battle group. Cortana flickered back onscreen, and gave a grin as she said "You know, the system they use to guide the plasma really isn't all that different from that which guides the needles on a needler, or the supercharged plasma from one of their pistols. I think we can start looking into better anti-covenant technology with this ship in our hands.
The plasma raced across space, turning a deadly bluish white color as they streaked towards their targets. The ship shuddered again. Another salvo of plasma torpedo fired away from their ship, followed by a series of pulse lasers, which were effective against the nearest ship. Cortana was having a blast...literally.
The first salvo of plasma impacted the 3 nearest covenant cruisers, the ones that had slowly been advancing in towards the MAC platforms. The effect was interesting, to say the least. The plasma struck the shields of the ship, causing them to move in ripples, then in waves, and finally, into tsunami sized blasts. The effects of this on the shields was interesting as well. They dipped further up and down, penetrating the superstructure of the enemy ships, further and further until there was less ship than violent plasma. In a brilliant flash of white, the ship detonated, scattering bits of plasma with it. The other two cruisers quickly followed suit, and so did three inbound covenant frigates. Another ship, a much smaller covenant gunship or cutter, simply detonated on impact, like a supernova. These weapons were affecting the covenant ships worse than they affected human ships. The pulse lasers, too, were taking down their shields at an alarming rate, and then over penetrated their armor. It was unbelievable.
Soon, there were no Covenant ships left near that cruiser. Cortana informed the entire fleet that the Covenant Cruiser Strife Enducer was under their control, and that it was not hostile.
"Cortana!" Screamed Admiral Stanforth over the com link "You get that goddamn ship on the ground now! If you get it blown up in this mess, there's no telling what information we may miss."
Just then, 2 covenant destroyers that had made a pinpoint slipspace jump next to the Battle Cruiser Anteitem, where the captain was located, were blown to oblivion by twin bolts of supercharged green plasma. There was no argument when Cortana told him to respectively shut the hell up.
******
"Lieutenant!" shouted Captain Freeman "Get this thing in orbit!" We need to take down that frigate, and we need to take it down now.
"Sir, we have just entered orbit, and are on a direct angle of attack with our designated MAC orbital cannon."
"Good work. Now, lieutenant Daniels, get me a firing solution on the ship that just jumped next to the cannon. Fire archer missile pods A1-C1, and give me a solution for the second MAC to hit 3 seconds before the missiles. And Lawrence!" shouted the captain
"Awaiting your orders sir."
"Get Epsilon and Falcon wings out on patrol. they have permission to launch their thermo nuclear munitions, but they must be 50km clear of this ship unless capture or destruction is unavoidable."
"Right away captain"
"And get the evac-groups together. Call all marines up to combat status Alpha and have Charlie through Gamma battle groups ready to repel boarders."
"Making it happen sir..."
"And Lawrence!"
"Yes sir?"
"For Christ sake, if that MAC stops firing, we die, so divert all power but 5% of the engine to the MAC capacitors."
"Of course, sir." The bridge stirred, and people jumped to work. Alarms went off, and Lawrence began giving emergency instructions.
"Captain, MAC's are hot, firing solution online, archer missile safeties are off. Awaiting your word, sir" One of the bridge lieutenants shouted nervously.
"Send them to hell, lieutenant!" The Captains face was grim as he watched hundreds of missiles streak away from his ship, followed by two resounding thuds. The frigate they had been pursuing was now very close to the MAC orbital stations. The ship had been making a suicide blitz towards it, and almost succeeded, until the MAC's struck...
The first round blew out the glossy, shimmering shields. The second round tore a hole through the center of the ship, disabling it entirely. seconds after, the missiles took the rest of it, striking the engines with a tremendous explosion.
"Nice shot, Lieutenant!" called Major Rembrel, who had been standing with the bridge crew. The Secretary had since taken a seat near the captain, facing the view screen and a number of tactical computers. He smiled appreciatively at the flawless work of the bridge crew, and nodded in polite acknowledgement at Lawrence's figure that was being projected in front of him.
"Couldn't have done it better myself."
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