Chapter 5
After dropping out of slipspace, it was a slow crawl to a lone planet orbited by a single Covenant space station. All seemed still and quiet on the outside, but the radio transmissions were loud and loosely encrypted. This far behind human controlled space, the aliens didn’t seem to worry about security; which would make the Spartan’s operation that much easier.
The team’s time window was twenty-four hours, and a rescue mission would be underway if they missed their rendezvous window. The Spartans wouldn’t have any kind of communication during that time in fear of detection.
With this information, the infiltration team departed the Prowler and began their slow ride to their destination. The ONI vessel the rest of the team stayed on was running on its absolute lowest power. The interior lights were dimmed, and its engines ran silent.
Jackson stood in the cockpit watching the planet as It slowly spun above them. His arms were held at his sides and fists clenched in a subconscious acknowledgement of nervousness. The squad leader’s mind spun with a thousand possibilities as he watched the Pelican drift away. His team had done this countless times before in their hunt for Grizer, but this was different.
It was an hour into the mission when Perish came into the cockpit. He had removed his helmet, revealing tightly kept silver hair and a face that spoke volumes of their decade of training.
“You can’t stay here until they return,” Perish said.
“24 hours isn’t that long.”
“While I agree, worrying will only impact your decisions.”
“They need me, and I’ll be damned if I’m the reason we lose them.”
“Do you not trust the Spartans you sent out?”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Then why do you worry?”
“These are Covenant, not Innies. This is only our second time seeing them, and I sent my team into possibly the most dangerous situation I could have.”
“Are you saying the ten years we spent training means nothing?”
Jackson sighed and shook his head. The rough awakening from cryo had begun to take its toll. He was more exhausted than he wanted to admit, and the squad leader realized it was affecting his judgement more than he thought. “Of course that’s not what I meant…”
Perish took Jackson by the arm and pulled him out of the cockpit, then planted his feet and pointed towards the bunks. “Go to bed,” he demanded.
Jackson started to argue about keeping watch, but Perish gestured again with his finger. The squad leader sighed then turned away from the cockpit and started off towards the barracks. His bed was at the front of the room, one of the two rows that sat facing each other. The Spartans had remodeled the space and laid the beds out in rows rather than having them stacked to better accommodate their armor if they didn’t want to remove it.
The chamber had been ransacked by their Covenant intruders, and hadn’t yet been put back together. The sheets and pillows lay scattered around the room in unkept piles which the squad leader sorted through to meticulously remake each of his teammate’s beds, ensuring to match the personal bedding to the proper bunks.
After this was done, Jackson lay on his back on his bunk and tried to relax. It was difficult to wrangle his thoughts into a box long enough for him to drift off to sleep.
Jackson was awoken to a kick that made him jolt awake and reach for the knife on his chest.
“Oh knock it off, it’s just me,” Chase said, smacking away the squad leader’s arm. “Perish thought you’d want to know the away team’s headed back.”
The squad leader blinked away the sleep and got to his feet. “Thanks for letting me know,” Jackson said, patting Chase on the shoulder.
Jackson met Perish on the bridge who was leaning over a console checking its readouts. He turned as the squad leader entered, revealing the dark circles under his eyes and the exhaustion that pulled at his face.
“Melecia and Kia sent a ping out sixty minutes ago. They’re on their way back,” Perish reported.
“That’s good news,” Jackson said. “I’ll go get the hangar ready.”
“Charlie’s got that covered,” Perish told him.
“Okay. Guess I’ll prep the armor stations.”
“Kia’s on that one as well.”
“Med bay?”
“Chase is already there.”
“Mess hall?”
“Janet’s making stew.”
It was then that the squad leader realized everybody else had to be as tired as he had been, yet stayed up to man the ship and let him sleep peacefully. He was both impressed and emotionally moved, yet refused to show it.
“Guess all that’s left is to wait for the away team,” Jackson decided.
Perish stayed in the cockpit while the squad leader went down to join Charlie in the hangar. He was sitting on a crate watching a holopad that rang with the sounds of some action movie. “’Sup squad lead,” Charlie said, nodding a greeting. “Get a good beauty nap?”
Charlie’s helmet was off and his dark features shared the same look of exhaustion Perish had. The Spartan liked to complain, but when it came down to it he helped just like everybody else.
Jackson touched the bandage over his face and shuddered at the raw memory of the flash of blue and the roars of the Elite.
“Apparently not,” Jackson responded.
“It’ll take more than a nap to fix that ugly mug,” Charlie said, leaning back on his seat with a smug look.
Jackson smiled and shook his head, then approached the door control on the hangar to ensure it was set properly. It was then that the docking alarm sounded in the hangar and lights strobed alongside the blast doors. Jackson stood back as Charlie got up to approach the keypad. “Lets bring ‘em in,” the Spartan announced.
Seconds before the doors opened, a blaring alarm sounded throughout the ship. The blast doors sealed over the hangar and the two Spartans felt the Prowler jolt beneath them as the pilot made an abrupt course change.
“Oh shit,” Charlie said, voicing Jackson’s own thoughts.
Both of the Spartans ran to the cockpit to see what was the problem and met the rest of the team watching a Covenant Cruiser jumping out of slipspace, escorted by two Corvette’s.
Jackson leaned over Melecia’s shoulder and keyed the communication channel to the away team. “Ilos to away team, break radio silence now!” the squad leader demanded. There was a moment before the other side responded.
“Already on our way back down. We’ll be fine, 332. Get out of there!” Kia answered, then cut the channel.
The short transmission could have cost them everything, but Jackson didn’t think the aliens would be looking for such a small target. The squad leader wanted to make sure they would be distracted, though.
“Make us a target, Melecia,” Jackson ordered. “Give them time to escape.”
“I can give two minutes max. They’re charging weapons,” Melecia said.
The Prowler’s engines surged to life and the ship shifted to face parallel to the enemy forces. A flash on the other side signified the launch of a plasma torpedo that chased the ONI vessel as it aggressively swung around the Covenant ships.
Melecia suddenly cut power to the Prowler and forced it into an abrupt drift that knocked every Spartan off of their feet that wasn’t strapped in. Jackson got to his feet just in time to watch the plasma torpedo streak overhead and come curving back as the Prowler roared back to life and headed the other direction.
This time, the slipspace engine began to charge as Melecia made a mad dash to outrun the tailing torpedo. With what the Prowler lacked in arms, it made up for in speed and it crawled its way into slipspace long before the torpedo could reach them.
“There’s no way we’re getting away with this a second time,” Chase said. He stood at the back of the cockpit, hands on his hips as he watched the eery void through the windows.
Melecia tapped at the console and shook his head. “You’re right, we’ve been followed,” the pilot said grimly. “Good news is only the Cruiser is on our tail. The Corvettes stayed behind.”
“Not good news,” Jackson replied. “It means they suspect something, and may be looking for the away team.”
“They’ll be fine,” Chase said. “Its us we have to worry about. How the hell are we going to fight a Cruiser this far from UNSC lines?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Better get brainstorming,” Melecia said.
The Spartans went to the war room and pulled the information on the system that was chosen. It turned out to be a human colonized system that was lost three years prior when the Covenant swept in, and contact was lost with the colonists. The UNSC had written it off as another glassed system and the file was closed.
The presence of the formerly populated planets may be an advantage in giving the Prowler a place to hide planetside until the Cruiser left. The Spartans decided that was the only viable option they had, and disbanded to await the transition back to normal space.
An hour later and Melecia called Jackson to the cockpit, and both were seated as the Prowler was thrust back into normal space. Immediately Melecia engaged the stealth systems and faded from sensors. This gave them only a momentary advantage as a much bigger signal emerged behind them, and the Prowler was engulfed in the Cruiser’s shadow.
Using the few seconds it would take for the Cruiser to sniff them out, Melecia pivoted away to crawl as fast as he could towards the nearest defunct colony. He knew their cover was blown when the Covenant ship turned its broadside to face the ship and glowing lines pulsed up and down its side as the weapons heated up.
The pilot dropped the stealth and threw the ship into maximum throttle, making alarms wail in Jackson’s ear and red lights to strobe at the helm. The Cruiser disappeared behind them, and the stars began to blur with the sudden speed.
It was as the console began to smoke did Melecia throttle down to a safer speed and adjust course to the selected planet. Jackson then realized how hard he had been clenching his teeth and removed his helmet to massage his sore jaw.
“Pushing it a little close, 336?” Jackson asked through gritted teeth.
“We’re alive, yes?” Melecia said. “I just outran a Cruiser, I wouldn’t complain.”
The squad leader couldn’t argue with that.
It was a rough five minutes to their destination where the reactor nearly had a critical meltdown, but was stopped by Janet, Charlie, Chase, and Perish who were all fuming at the pilot after putting out the flames.
All went silent once Melecia called out the approach to the planet. When in visual distance, it was clear this small colony was spared the complete destruction of orbital glassing. Even so it was completely devoid of human life, and more than likely had been the victim of a landfall siege to recover a Forerunner artifact.
They had gotten near enough to initiate orbital cruise when a brief signal lit up on one of the smaller consoles. It disappeared quickly, then pinged again in a rhythmic pattern.
It took Jackson a moment to decipher the signals to be morse code by way of old UNSC radiowaves. The Spartan’s Mjolnir systems began a translation before it began to repeat. It stopped after the second time and went silent. The message was clear, though. It was coordinates to the dark side of the planet, located near the remnants of one of the cities.
“What’s your call, squad leader?” Melecia asked, turning to the other Spartan.
The code of ethics was there. The Spartan was required to investigate any potential UNSC distress signal. Though Jackson weighed his options if he could risk the attempt.
Finally, the squad leader stood and opened a channel to address his team. “Load up and lock down, Spartans. We’re going planetside.”