Halo: Fireteam Phoenix

Chapter 8: Desperate Times

The discussion continued for a few more minutes. It almost came to blows once or twice. Finally, when Aaron was preparing to batter the door down even if it took years, a low bong came from the door, it flashed purple and slid open noiselessly. The four Spartans darted inside. A lone grunt waddling to the door was trampled in the stampede. It was calm. The covenant were, as of yet, unaware of their presence. So, they took stock of what they could see.The bridge was a rectangular room with four supporting pillars around an upraised centre platform. The space between the base of the pillars and the platform held a pair of grooves. These were as tall as a man and filled with smaller, secondary command sections.The crew were armed to the teeth. This was the belly of the beast. Masses of high ranking covenant lined the consoles, barking orders and laughter. The ramp leading to the control centre was flanked at the base by two brute guards. Richard peered round for a closer look. He leaned too far. An elite raised its eyes in surprise and pointed with its weapon. Richard cursed and raised his rifle, but Marie pushed the barrel to the floor. "Wait!"A second, grander elite stepped forward carrying a load. It tossed it down the ramp. Richard tried to raise his weapon again, but Marie again stopped him. Without her helmet, the spartans recognised Sarah-bloody, bruised and barely conscious. She grumbled in pain as she tried to crawl away. The grander elite, a shipmaster, grasped her by the skull and, raising her onto her knees, bared her neck like a vampire, igniting his energy dagger. It illuminated Sarah's face with a cold light, and she started to sweat. The room went silent. Aaron bubbled with hardly contained rage. Only the commanding look in Sarah's eyes held him back. Marie, having released Richard's weapon, eyed up their odds. She didn't like them. Richard was at the centre of the pack and, cooled off by Marie, strode towards the elite. "Richard, stop," Sarah said breathlessly."Commander?" Richard stopped dead in his tracks."Stay where you are, and do as I say,""Commander, you are in no position to give orders," Marie said."Lieutenant, don't lecture me on command! I'm you're CO and you'll do as I say!" The elite tugged on her neck and she hissed when the blade singed her throat. "Commander, what do we do?" Aaron finally asked. He was level with Richard now, pushing the other spartan behind him. "You know what to do." Sarah's eyes began to close. "Finish. The mission.""Understood." Aaron breathed deeply, about to order the others to retreat.Before he could, a crack of a sniper round split the skull of the shipmaster like an overfull shopping bag. Sarah collapsed to her chest and the wind left her. A second later, a massive arm pulled her to her feet and she lashed out. "Commander, it's me," Aaron said. Sarah stopped her arm mid-jab. "Aaron?" "Get behind a pillar and stay down," The other spartans continued the sudden attack. Marie moved back into cover and fired a few more times. Richard went left, cutting off the elite coming from the secondary section. Aaron thrust Sarah to the pillar, despite her protests. Derek shouted to them, "What's the plan?""Kill anything that moves," Aaron replied. He looked back at Sarah and shook his head as she struggled. Sinking back in defeat, she sighed like a toddler told no. Aaron then went to support the assault. He took down a pair of jackals with practised ease, faltering only when an elite grasped his shotgun barrel. It twisted the barrel away from its face and pulled Aaron close. Mandibles wide, it roared, spittle coating Aaron's visor. With a grimace, he pulled the trigger on his shotgun. The buckshot flew off harmlessly. Aaron had meant to miss. The sudden heat on the barrel scorched the elite's palm and it staggered back in confusion. It looked down to its burnt hand, then back to Aaron. Before its head even finished turning, he emptied a shell into its chest. The shield shattered in a flash of blue light and the elite fell down in a mist of purple blood. Breathless and confused, Aaron put the shotgun on his back and reached for a new, loaded weapon. His hands fell on a plasma rifle and he engaged the nearest brute guard. The hail of plasma churned through the stomach of the first Brute to challenge him. A ruby haze of blood made it difficult to see. Or was it just bloodlust?Whatever it was, it enraged the other Brute. It tossed its spiker aside with a bloodcurdling roar. It leapt at him with groping fingers and grasped only air. The coy dodge only enraged the beast. It pounded its chest in rage and roared. Standing on its hind legs like a silverback, it prepared to charge again. Standing his ground, Aaron drew his blade, relishing the rasp as it left the sheath.The spartan was fast for his size, first plunging the blade into the chest of the brute. Elegantly, he sliced a gaping gash into its hairy chest, coating the matted fur in blood. The brute swung wildly and cried out in pain. The wind milling arms almost hit him, but Aaron ducked beneath its blow, knife outstretched. When he rose again, he did so dripping blood, leaving two parallel cuts across the brute's chest. The spartan pulled the knife out, cringing as it grated against the collar bone. Already dead, the brute was half-standing when Aaron finished it off. He tossed the knife from hand to hand and plunged it into the brute's skull, piercing the bone and mashing the primate's brain into a thick, soupy mush.The brute didn't fall backwards. It simply slid to the floor, silent but for the gooey brain and bloody mush dripping into a pool. Aaron stood over his kill, panting from exhaustion. He took a long look around at the chaos they had caused. They had started it. He was going to get out of here, they put everyone at risk.He followed orders.Richard ran up to the main console. An elite's corpse was draped over the console. Richard yanked the body to the floor, kicking the stiff leg aside. Derek, cradling Sarah beneath his arm, brought her closer. "What does any of this say?" Richard asked softly. Sarah sighed and began to translate. "What's the plan, Derek?" Richard asked."Order for all fusion cores to be delivered to the main hangar bay. Fuel cells, explosives, ordnance, everything." Derek said, watching the doors. Aaron called down from the base of the ramp. "Hold on a second. What the fuck was that there? Who gave you the order to engage?""I-""Who gave the order? Who had authority?""You," Richard said. Sarah looked up, a pained look in her eyes. "LC, not now. I..." she breathed deeply, grimacing, "I agree, but, we have more pressing issues,"They all looked to the door. "Hurry," Marie suggested, flinching at the sound of the inbound Covenant outside the door. "We're going to have company," Derek warned.Aaron drew his shotgun, which he had reloaded. He took mines from Derek and planted them near the door, taking up a position near the support column closest to the door. Marie took a sniper position on the upper command centre. "Commander, keep watch for yourself and Richard." Marie handed Sarah a pistol then turned attention back to the door. When he saw the smoking hole emerging in the centre, Derek swore. "Fuck off, of course you lot can open it!"The doors flung open, tearing through the air and narrowly missing Aaron's head. Combat erupted once again, shots flying throughout the room. Richard's fingers flew from console to console, sending whatever he thought might be useful to the hangar. He had no idea what Derek intended to do, but it couldn't hurt to be prepared. When the final core was being transferred, Richard turned to Sarah. "Time to go, Commander." He said, slinging her arm over his shoulder to support her. Her weak frame trembled when he picked her up. She stifled a cry of pain, but her eyes rolled into her head and her pale face grew clammy between the blood and cuts.Aaron's mines had managed to destroy the first force. The missing limbs and burned skin littering the approach to the doorway would welcome the second assault. "We need to move, now," Richard said, firing into the hallway. "Want to go first?" Derek asked. When Richard didn't reply, he tossed a grenade into the hall, waiting until it exploded to dash out and finish off the foes. Richard whistled, impressed. "Take point more often,"The hallway itself was mostly unchanged-minus the blackened entrance. It was also mostly empty, with a corpses and equipment being the only sight until the final door. "Can you break that open?" Marie asked. Derek, cracked his knuckles, his pride wounded by the covenant's superior demolition. "I'll get it down." He slung his backpack to the floor, reaching deep. He withdrew what looked like a control panel, stuffing the wires into the smoking hole Richard had made earlier. "I can't believe this; the circuits still work! Covenant sure know how to make it.""Admire the workmanship later, get the door open now," Richard said impatiently. "What's the plan, anyway?""We get in there, fire at the coils and get out," Derek finally explained. "Hopefully, the chain reaction will do enough damage to split the ship in half.""That sounds...dangerous," Richard said. "I put enough explosives in that hangar to level a city. Won't we kill everyone on the ground?""Not so long as the shields stay up and contain the explosion,""How will we escape if the shields are up?" Marie asked."Leave that to me," Derek said, winking at her. He forgot, for a moment, the visor blocked any view of his face. When he looked back, the door slid open and they were back in the hangar.Derek looked around and recognised very little. The huge pile of fusion coils, plasma cores and explosives didn't help him get his bearings. Neither did the legion of Covenant. "Fuck," He muttered. "I told you we needed to hurry," Aaron said, looking for a vantage point, a better route, anything. When nothing came to him, he fell back on what he knew. "What do we do, LC?""Well, it's not an original plan, but we can be sure it'll work. 4, same as before. Get us a ride. 3, guard the commander. 5, you're with me.""How do we detonate the explosives? Are we shooting it, or a timer?" Richard asked."I was gonna time it, but now? I don't know. That's a lot of covenant, and I can't be sure they won't disarm it," Derek said. He sounded afraid. Aaron screamed internally in frustration. "Fine, change of plan. We get a phantom and fire at them as we leave,""Negative, lieutenant commander," Derek said. He had a finality in his voice that nobody missed. "That'll kill us all. I'll fit a timer.""5, n-no!" Sarah stuttered, reaching out an arm. She would have collapsed had Marie not caught her. Like one would a child, Marie hushed her, laying her down.With her sniper back in hand, Marie said to Richard "Follow 2 and get us a ship. Now!" "Roger, lieutenant." He saluted, circling the hangar for a ship, trailing Aaron's hulking form.Derek, meanwhile, had managed to approach the explosives undetected. The timer trembled in his hands. Breathe, he thought. You got this. His hands, steadier now, stuck the timer to the casing noiselessly. Without a sound, he tapped away at the screen.Richard had had a stroke of luck. Unbeknownst to him, his mad redirection of any and all available equipment had sent a phantom. Pristine and new, it was fresh off the line. Literally. Richard found it still hanging from the cargo loader. "Give me some time to get her going and fetch the others," Richard said, fiddling with the controls. They didn't have much time.Outside, the Marathon-class had arrived in the fight. It immediately made its presence known. Even when outnumbered, even in the face of the massive assault carrier, the cruiser attacked. Its primary target was the battlecruiser, as even 'daring' was not 'suicide'. "Admiral Ball, this is captain Hayes. We require a sitrep, over,""Captain, we require you to engage the carrier. I cannot assist, but spartan fireteam phoenix has boarded the craft and plans to destroy it from the inside, over,""Say again, admiral. It sounded like you said 'boarded', over,""I did. Hit the battlecruiser and drive it off, then get the shields down on that carrier. Out."The captain was speechless, and only the crew responded to the admiral's orders.The hangar of the carrier was close to chaos. The air was thick, tense. The majority of phoenix had boarded the phantom, with only Derek still on the ground. He had put his helmet aside to focus on his task. The cries of his team on the radio fell on deaf ears. Immersed in his task, his mind was unaware of anything else going on.The team however, saw everything. From his abandoned helmet's camera, they were furiously debating helping him. "He'll make it,""He won't, we need to help him! Remember what he missed in the forest? He's got tunnel vision!" Richard snapped."4, if you leave this ship we all die," Aaron said. His voice was calm but filled with authority. Marie was similarly immersed as Derek was, but she was not silent. Not close. "Derek, look behind you! Wake up you fool!" The camera showed shimmering air, moving closer. Close and fast, waving crazily. It was silent, the only audio a muffled hiss as the blade activated, then a pained noise.Derek hit the deck, his chest bloody."Derek! No, no! We have to help him!" Derek's ears heard that. Voices, vaguely. It was quiet, fading rapidly to silence. He heard their cries now, too late. "No, we can't help him," He heard Aaron say. His hand strayed to his chest, feeling it come away scarlet.Odd, it didn't hurt. Or, it did. Yes, it hurt. But not enough. He blinked like an owl, his hand brushing the helmet. It rolled away, rattling on the deck. Mustering his feeble strength, he pulled himself closer, grabbing it tightly. "Co-commander..." He drifted off. Flashes of light filled his mind and he snapped awake. Was he dreaming? Or was it that he was dying? "Get out of here," He said, his lips fumbling on the words. He heard more arguments, maybe even a thrown punch. But sure enough, the phantom took off, leaving the hangar fleeing a trail of plasma. Derek smiled, drawing his pistol. The lone elite that had brought about his demise was working away at the timer, unaware of his presence. "Pay-payback," He whispered, bringing the trigger down. The round sailed into the core, and then his world went black."Captain, I'm detecting a massive energy spike from the carrier!" A crewman warned, drawing Hayes' attention. "A what?" All cannons, get that shield down! MAC gun, fire!" He ordered. His knuckles went white and his hands felt numb on the rail he held in a vice-like grip. The shield cracked as tungsten rounds smashed away at the surface. "Any sign of enemy forces escaping? Or the spartans?" He asked."Negative, captain. Nothing. Unless...I've got a signal! Visual contact, phantom!""Amplify! I want all eyes on," He exclaimed, slamming his hand down onto the rail. Sure enough, a single phantom, packed with IFF transponders, was heading straight for them. "Guide them in, they're heroes." The carrier bubbled, plasma leaking from the core. "That's gonna blow!""The shields are back up," Even as the burning, smoking destruction raced along the hull, the energy projector was still firing. Until the emitter imploded with the force of a small star, it was raining hell on their ground forces. By the time phoenix were aboard, the ship was in pieces, sinking to the earth. The falling rear engine demolished the final spire in a fiery collision, and the final battlecruiser fled.