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Ascendant Part IV
Posted By: Archangel's Blade<archangels_blade@hotmail.com>
Date: 9 June 2002, 8:34 pm
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Former Colony Summer
Covenant POW camp
6:29 p.m.
Com. Mike 235, Spartan mark VII
We arrived back in the Summer system, hoping to find some form of human life on the planet. We found that there was life on the planet, but the humans that were there, well, weren't running around killing Covenant. Instead of killing them, however, the Covvies kept them alive for some unknown reason at a large, heavily guarded base.
We were dropped off outside the base with orders for an offensive. With the Spartans backing up the regulars, we figured that we should be able to hold our own. Hefting my new best friend, a phase rifle, I quietly ducked through a small hole in the plasma fence surrounding the POW camp. My HUD infrared detected multiple other soldiers doing the same. I didn't, however, detect my fellow Spartans, as the new MJOLNIRNX armor adjusted to the heat of the surroundings, making us virtually invisible to heat sensors.
Sneaking up behind a sleeping grunt, I bashed the back of his skull in with one swift blow from the butt of my phase rifle. Spotting another grunt snoozing away, far from the watchful eyes of the elites and jackals, I moved toward it.
It wasn't sleeping.
Jumping bolt upright, the faking grunt prepared to scream, when a silenced pistol shot shut him up. I should have noticed that one.
"You were lucky," stated my AI, Archangel.
"Not as lucky as I was to survive the grenades that ended me up in this armor," I retorted.
"Just read the motion detector next time," reminded Archangel. "Sleeping grunts don't move, but that one was."
Advancing behind a lone jackal, I noticed something I hadn't before. The jackal was watching a procession towards an altar in the middle of the courtyard. A group of red-robed Covenant priests were escorting a lone human officer towards the altar. One produced a smaller version of the plasma sword. Human sacrifice. So this was what the Covenant were keeping them alive for. I wasn't going to let this happen.
Radioing my squad of Spartans, I jumped into the glow of the courtyard, and immediately began loosing plasma-charged rounds. All at once, things turned to hell.
A squad of hunters appeared from nowhere, and made mincemeat of a group of marines. Another group of marines made the mistake of running for cover in a Covenant barracks. I watched helplessly as their corpses flew out the door accompanied by a hail of plasma. Jeez, were these guys trying to get themselves killed?!
Dodging the returning plasma fire, I dived for a box of some unknown Covenant military supplies, and hoped that it wasn't filled with plasma grenades.
"Scanning the cargo of that crate," mentioned Archangel as he practically read my mind.
"You're lucky. It only contains some packets of organic material. Probably somebody's blood."
"Hope mine won't join it!" I added.
"If you play your cards right, you can cakewalk out of here. Just listen to my info. There's a squad of Covvie grunts right about there," a nav point came up to my right on my HUD, " and they're trying to circle around you. I would use a grenade."
I hurled a grenade right into their midst, and watched with satisfaction as the grunts learned how to fly the hard way.
"Don't get cocky now, Mike, 'cause there's lots more where that came from. I just detected an incoming Cov dropship. Apparently, the one of the cruisers up there managed to find the time to launch it in between getting slagged by our battlecruisers. Get ready, I can't quite tell, but I think there's hunters aboard."
Swinging to the left, I watched three Spartans ice a squad of elites without any difficulty. Realizing that I had backup, I stood up over the crate, and wasted a couple of jackals with their shields pointed in the wrong direction.
My shields started taking hits, and my HUD pointed to the right. One of the grunts I blew up apparently survived, and was draining the power core in his plasma pistol in my direction.
Bringing my powerful phase rifle to bear, I blew his head clean off its shoulders with one round, and detonated his grenades with another. One less problem to worry about.
An elite started yelling at his retreating squad of grunts, and noticed me. Drawing his plasma rifle, he leveled it at me, and prepared to loose a rapid volley of plasma in my direction. He never got the chance. A plasma-charged round blew out his shields, and another punched through the hole in his armor over his eye. Damn, my accuracy sure had improved with my bugblasting on Argos 9.
Upon the arrival of the dropship, several of my fellow Spartans, 80 in all, lobbed grenades in unison. When my eyes finally focused, I noticed the massive pile of scrap metal in the middle of the courtyard, with the parts of the bodies of the unlucky Covenant flying their last few meters to hit walls and floors.
"See, I was right. At least half of the passengers of that dropship were hunters. Their fuel rod guns would have vaporized you and your men."
"Now don't you get cocky, Archangel, 'cause the fighting's not over yet. Get me a fix on the brass I saved and the rest of the prisoners."
"Right. Scanning-got it. The brass was shot soon after you freed him, but the rest of the prisoners are still alive. They are in that building over-there."
A nav point appeared on my HUD pointing 20 meters to my left. Hefting my powerful weapon, I ran to the building.
"Funny thing is, Mike, is that they aren't moving. Scanning-they seem barely alive down there! You'd better hall ass and get them outta here!"
Like all the Covenant structures I have ever seen in my life, the building was pink and purple. Were there ever exceptions to this rule? Jeez! Racing down the corridors, I nearly ran over a small group of Specops grunts, which seemed to be running from something themselves. Leveling my gun, I leveled them. The phase rifle was more effective than I thought!
Upon reaching the doors to the area where the humans were being held, I noticed that there hadn't been any Covenant since the Specops grunts. Where had they all gone? What were the Specops grunts running from? I guessed that I would soon find out the answer to both.
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