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Halo Side Story Chapter Six: Boarding Action
Posted By: Jordan Dotson<juniormint37@hotmail.com>
Date: 26 December 2002, 7:32 am
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Dotson felt the desert air play across his face, it was a good feeling to have right before a mission. It made you feel alive, something that you might not be able to enjoy after the mission, or ever again for that matter. He made a mental checklist of the usual pre-mission rituals he'd taken care of. He'd already prayed to himself, multiple times, he'd given Colonel Curtis the just-in-case letter for his family if he didn't make it, he was ready.
Dotson watched the desert flash by not more then fifty feet below him, as the drop ship flew over the desert as gracefully as a hawk. The pilot assigned to the Angels, Lt. Majorie Stinson, was definitely a skilled pilot. She was an Australian, and a tough one at that. She was a new addition to the Angels, assigned to them at the start of the mission. Dotson would've preferred to have time to train with her, to get used to her style as a pilot, but one had to make allowances at times, and he could already see that Stinson was one hell of a pilot.
"We'll be at the LZ in ninety seconds." Stinson said over the Tactical Network.
Dotson sighed and cleared his thoughts; he needed to be thinking with a clear head now. It was the first time he had seen action in two years. Some instinct inside him told him that it would not be a good day. Dotson readied his mind and body for combat as the Pelican began to approach the drop-zone.
Stinson eyed the drop-zone as she approached, it looked clear. She slowed as she began her pass over it; no volley of plasma fire came to greet her arrival. I guess we caught them with their trousers down this time, she thought with a shark-like smile as she turned to begin her final approach.
Dotson's body tensed as the Pelican approached the LZ. His body began coiling like a spring for his leap from the Pelican. The Dropship slowed to a hover three feet above a flat patch of rock. Dotson sprang from his seat like an arrow from a bow. He landed and felt himself begin to lose his balance; Dotson went with it and rolled to his feet. He sprinted a short distance from the Dropship, and then dropped to one knee and began scanning the area, just like he'd done hundreds of times before. He finished scanning his sector and looked to see how The Angels were doing. They had all fanned out to their assigned sectors and were covering them with their weapons. He turned to watch Stinson lift off to a safe distance. The entire sequence had taken less than twenty seconds. Dotson stood up and motioned for his squad to gather around him. They approached and stopped within earshot
"Right now that we're here, let's get down to business." Dotson said quietly, "First thing we need to do is find one of those Covenant portable terminals. If we secure one of those so we can contact Six Team and make sure everything went all right with them. Next, we need to get to the RV point at the grav-lift and board the ship. Finally, we need to place the nuke in the engine room and get the hell out. Any questions?" Dotson glanced at his squad; no one spoke up, "Good, I'll carry the HAVOK and the detonation cards. Let's move out."
Curtis seated himself at the main screen of the command shuttle, he typed in his priority code for the Mandolin Military Observatory Satellite Network. He waited for the network to process his request, a message flashed onto the screen. "Please wait, Processing request............" Goddamn ONI security paranoia. Curtis thought as the message scrolled across the screen. The message disappeared and a new one flashed onto the screen, "Request received and processed, beginning uplink...............Uplink achieved,
Please enter name, rank, clearance, and personal code:
Name: Curtis, Paul
Rank: Colonel
Personal code: 220-913-8817
Clearance code: *********
Clearance Authorized By: Gen. Jason Rice
Information received, Processing........................
Welcome to the ONI Satellite Network, Colonel
Enter Operation Code: **************
Code received and authorized, Re-tasking satellite 00-193-7531
Visual in 3..........2........1.........0 An image formed on the screen, it was the entire mission area, complete with a very large and very ugly Covenant ship. Curtis highlighted an area in the southeast quadrant of the mission area; he tasked the satellite to begin a search for the Angels. A Smaller screen closer to Curtis activated and a zoomed in view of the highlighted area appeared, the screen's view scrolled around until it locked onto a series of figures moving in a single file line down a canyon. All the better to see you with Curtis thought as he watched the Angels move down the canyon. This was a critical time in the mission, the Angels had to find a Covenant portable transmitter and take control of it. Until they did that, Curtis had no way of contacting them or tracking them, except via satellite image. A second screen next to Curtis came on; it showed the ODST's 6-team moving slowly across an open plain. Curtis didn't remember tasking the satellite to find the 6-team; he jumped as a voice unexpectedly reprimanded him.
"You forgot something, Colonel."
He turned around to find the head of ONI's Special Operations Division, Colonel Jennifer Turner, standing behind him. She was a very odd woman, her green eyes had a piercing look to them that made it seem like she could look right through you and read the writing on a bathroom wall a hundred miles away. Her medium length black hair was drawn close to her head and done up into a simple bun. She had a very serious and cunning personality, but always enjoyed having a good laugh, which for her usually meant some kind of evil prank. She was notorious for her clean, efficient, and rather messy operations. The entire special ops world relied on her in some way, anything from the occasional anonymous favor to getting the entire UNSC bureaucracy to look the other way while someone did something that they shouldn't be doing.
"Turner what are you doing here?" Curtis exclaimed, surprised.
"The Military Oversight Committee wanted someone here to make sure you didn't fuck up too bad, and Rice thought I'd be a better choice then some overpaid moron from the MOC. That and I need to show Tanner here her new unit in action."
Curtis noticed a person standing behind Turner for the first time. She was a woman of medium height, about 5' 6". She had strawberry blond hair that fell to her shoulders. She had jade green eyes that at the moment had a look that was similar to a startled rabbit and flicked nervously around the room. She was fairly shapely for someone who was in ONI. She wasn't astoundingly beautiful, but she had an air about her that made her very appealing to Curtis. Some instinct told Curtis that her and Dotson would be getting along just fine.
Curtis turned back towards the screen to watch the Angels again. They had already arrived at a Covenant transmitter. Curtis watched the two Grunts and a Jackal that stood guard over the transmitter. One of the Grunts watched over a small basin, it's plasma pistol hanging lazily at it's side, blissfully unaware of the black suited figure sneaking up on it. Judging by the size of the figure, how it moved, and the weapon slung over it's back, Curtis guessed it was David. David pounced on the Grunt, one arm wrapped around it's throat, choking off it's airway and the yelp of surprise that it struggled to let out. The other arm reached around and grabbed it's breath mask, tearing it from the Grunt's face. The grunt clutched at it's throat as it tried to breathe in an atmosphere that was toxic to it. The remaining Grunt and Jackal spun at the sound of their dying comrade, a second figure, probably Dotson, grabbed the second Grunt from behind. Dotson got the grunt in a headlock, combat knife ready. In one quick movement, he had slashed the Grunt's throat and ended it's life. The Jackal had it's gun raised and aimed at David until a flash of movement cut across the screen and ended with a combat knife embedded in the Jackal's skull. The Jackal slumped, dead instantaneously. Several figures ran in from off screen. One ran to the transmitter and began to pull items from it's rucksack, another walked over to the jackal and pulled the combat knife from it's head and casually wiped it off. The Angels had lost none of their cool over two years of inactivity. The figure at the terminal gave a hand signal to Dotson, who nodded and walked over to the figure and pulled a hand set out of his rucksack. A voice crackled over the speakers in the command shuttle.
"Alpha Zero reporting, stage one complete."
"Roger Alpha," Curtis said, "Beta Zero, what is your status?"
Hersch's voice responded, "Lead, we are doing A-OK, time until arrival at RV point, about ten minutes."
"Roger Beta," Dotson responded, "we'll be at the RV point in approximately 10 minutes too. Lead, what's the stage three insertion point look like?"
Curtis panned the screen to the grav-lift, "Not too good Alpha-Zero, I'd say four Shades, three Banshee's patrolling overhead, several Elites, including two commanders with Plasma Swords, a few dozen Grunt's and Jackals, plus two Hunters. No spec ops, thankfully."
"Shit, no way we're blasting our way through that crowd," Dotson said, "There any crates lying about?"
"Yeah a whole shitload," Curtis responded, "what kind of evil scheme are you planning Alpha-Zero?"
"You'll see, Lead. Alpha-Zero out."
Ten minutes later, the Angels and 6-Team sat on a ridge over looking the grav-lift's loading zone. Both units huddled under a rock outcropping while Dotson outlined his plan to get onboard the Covenant ship.
"Alright," Dotson started, "There is no way in hell we're going to get through that crowd intact, we'd have the entire ship coming down on us before you could say 'blown mission'. So I suggest we get into the crates, they're fairly well distributed and several of them are big enough to cram an entire squad into, once they load the crates we get out and make our way to the engine room. Sounds good to every one?"
"Not really, sir," David responded, "There isn't too much of a chance that we could get every member of the assault force into the crates without getting noticed."
"So what do you say we do?" Dotson said looking at David, quizzically.
"I say we have a small team get inside the Covenant ship and take control of the command center. Shouldn't take more than two or three people at the most."
"Alright, no problems with me." Dotson answered, "James, Matt, go with David and secure the command center. Keira, Jzou, Trevor, Fincher, Daniels; you come with me to make sure they get to the grav-lift in one piece. The rest of you, stay here."
Dotson and his selected party snuck towards the grav-lift, they stopped near a large crate. Matt broke the lock on the crate and checked to see if it was empty. There was nothing. Matt waved David and James in, while the rest of the party waited outside. Dotson waited until they were set up and then closed the crate. Him and the rest of the party returned to the RV point.
After the crate was taken into the ship and stowed, Matt, James, And David exited the crate and started towards the command center. They snuck through corridor after silent corridor. Not once did they have to kill any sentries, nor did they even see any Covenant. Frankly, it was beginning to scare the hell out of David. He voiced his thoughts when they were just out side the command center.
"This is too damn quiet." He said in a whisper
"No shit." James responded, his back to the wall next to the door.
"Alright, I got it," Matt said, done breaking the lock on the door, "Get ready."
The door opened with hardly a sound. David leaned in, his sniper rifle raised and aimed. He took out an Elite standing on the command platform with a single shot to the head. It spun sideways and gracelessly flopped to the floor. James whipped around the corner and raised his gun. He peppered a trio of grunts with a storm of high caliber rounds. Matt raised his SMG and drilled a Jackal with a three round burst from across the room. Matt grabbed his lockbreaker from the door and ran up to the command platform with David and James. James looked up at the screen and noticed the Angels had center screen. No wonder they're not here, he thought. Worse yet the Angels were unaware that they were being watched.
"Shit, Dotson's got center screen." James said, a note of urgency in his voice "Get that grav-lift activated now!"
"Gimme a minute," Mat responded, "crap, what button should I push?"
"Try the big button it's usually the good button." James said with out taking his eyes off the screen.
"But what if it's a bad big button?" David said over his shoulder, his sniper rifle aimed at the door.
"Just push the fucking button, Matt!" James barked.
Matt punched the button; Alarms began blaring all over the ship. The sound of Covenant running could be heard outside the door. A screen showed Banshees launching from the docking bay.
"It's a bad big button." They all said in unison.
James and David knelt at the top of the ramp leading to the command platform, their guns aimed at the door, Matt worked frantically to activate the grav-lift. The door hissed open and David shot the first Elite through the door in the head. James opened fire with the SSW. The first two rows of Covenant fell under a deluge of bullets. Matt punched at button and smiled as a screen showed the grav-lift activating. He then ran to join David and James in holding off the Covenant. A sound behind Matt made him turn around, a Commander Elite towered over him. It lifted him with one hand and hurled him off the command platform. Matt's head glanced off a pillar and he slipped from consciousness. James spun as he saw Matt fly into space, the Elite backhanded James across the face with it's plasma rifle. James spun through the air and landed three feet down the ramp. David stopped reloading his rifle and rolled off the ramp to dodge the Elites attempted rifle smash. David landed in a crouch on the deck below; he tossed his sniper rifle aside and raised his battle rifle. He fired a few bursts into the Covenant at the door. A plasma grenade landed a few feet in front of him; he turned around and dived away. The Grenades concussion blew him into a quarter flip into a pillar. He hit the ground hard and the last thing he saw before it all went black was the Commander Elite slowly walking towards him, laughing and cracking it's knuckles...
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