- Colonel Corbec
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- Exalted Mythic Member
Information-Part Four
1200(Local Time), September 19, 2552 (Military Calendar) /UNSC research base, Chiron TL34/ surface.
The Spartans were receiving their ration in The Canteen, just an ordinary day. As far as they could tell, The Covenant had not yet found ONI’s secret research base. As bases went, this was very well defended. Not only was it occupied by the Spartan III subjects, but several squads of Marines also held the fort. Chiron TL34 had been burrowed into a mountain and layers of Titanium, Concrete and solid rock formed an even stronger defence from bombardment. On the surface, dozens of hidden automated SAM launchers and AA guns hid in gun nests built into the plateau above the base.
“I had the dreams again” said Nathan #005 honestly.
The tall Spartan was the tallest of the group on the ring. Before the augmentation, he had been outgoing and loud, and after he was quiet and sullen. His Blonde hair had gone white after the augmentations. The poor guy had been hit hard.
Sitting at the table with him were Spartans #020 and #014, Harry and Alison respectively.
“What was it this time?” Alison asked.
“Well,” Nathan replied in between bites of his steak, “I was back in the corridor, and I think those people were my parents, though I can’t be sure. And I went back to when Ackerson ‘recruited’ us into the project.”
“Man, that was a while ago.” Harry remarked.
“Hey, did you hear about what happened to the two miners earlier on? They apparently died in a rock fall in the Deep Workings, but I checked it out and it reeks of a Cover up Operation.” Alison revealed.
“Yeah and Fhajad’s been acting shifty recently.” Harry observed.
Fhajad had been completely incapacitated in the augmentation procedure. He was so badly hurt that he now had to spend his time in a wheelchair.
“Speaking of operations, you know we’re scheduled to pay our good friends The Covenant a visit, right?” Nathan relished the chance to get into the fight again…
Deployment+05 hours:00 minutes: 40 seconds (Crauford’s Mission Clock)/Cave system on Ring World’s surface.
After the ambush, Andrew, Kaori and Wayne decided to lay low in the mouth of the cave. Wayne had set up tripwires and set C12 traps outside. Throughout the day they could hear detonations and crumps as The Covenant advanced into the forest. It was a tactic to keep The Covenant guessing as to where they were. Eventually, The Covenant turned to bombing the area into a glassy, burning hell.
Choto, watching the Cave entrance from a safe distance with his supplies of Methane and a small radio he’d pilfered from a dead Elite, relayed to his superiors that the humans were going deeper into the cave. They ordered him to follow them in. They would soon be sending in teams after him to help. Pelted by rain, Choto was more than happy to get into shelter. Checking that his light source worked, he inserted a methane bottle into an injection port in his armour, ejected the empty bottle and went inside.
Deployment+00 hours:04 minutes: 40 seconds (Nathan’s Mission Clock)/Covenant Camp on Ring World’s surface.
Nathan #005 had selected nine Spartan threes for his operation. Their job was to disable Covenant AA capabilities in a camp not far at all from The Chiron research site. They also had to eliminate Covenant air strengths and long range communications. The cause for such an Op. was the flotilla of Stealth ships. They had stopped off in the shadow of the gas giant Threshold’s moon, Basis and were preparing to slip past The Covenant fleet. If they were to land on the mountain plateau and airlift the humans inside to safety, they needed clear skies.
In Nathan’s hit squad, he had taken his close friends Alison and Harry, and others that he could trust with his life. He split them into two teams of five. Blue team, his, would slip into the camp and find the communications array. They would hack into The Covenant database, take any information they needed then wire the place with C-12. On their way out, they would detonate the bombs and blow the entire camp apart. Red team, led by Constance #002, would find any Banshees, AA emplacements and parked vehicles and wire them with explosives. To maximise confusion, they would detonate at the exact same time on Nathan’s order.
It was dark now, and the torrential rain had let up. The Covenant camp was pretty big. It was in a field where a lifeboat, presumably from the allied craft Mendez had mentioned, had landed. In the direction of Chiron TL34, the forests at the base of the cliff that made up the base’s wall had burned from a plasma bombardment. It seemed that the gunners had not been aiming at the cliff, but the forests. He guessed that it was an attempt to clear out survivors from the lifeboat.
On their bellies, the Spartans snuck up on the sleeping base. Clad in the new experimental MJOLNIR Mark V shield armour, they stayed silent, dodging sentries and selecting targets.
Before long, Red team had found a small airstrip/motor pool. A row of parked Banshees stood unguarded. On the far end of the motor pool, a pair of Grunts in green armour were inspecting a damaged Spectre. Other than that, the grass airstrip was poorly lit and deserted. They sniped the Grunts with silenced weapons and hid the bodies. They then laced the vehicles with C 12 and went in search of some AA guns.
Blue team had a harder time of things. The Communication centre was still occupied by Grunts sitting at chattering consoles and a Jackal stood guard. They watched, and every ten minutes, a new Jackal arrived to take another’s place. Upon further inspection, they confirmed the route the replacement Jackal would take.
They waited ten minutes and jumped the next guard before he could reach his post. Having hidden his corpse, Alison noticed that the other Jackal had left his post, assuming his comrade was en route to replace him. The sleepy Grunts sat under the soft purple lights The Covenant favoured. Quietly, a couple of objects rolled into the room. The Grunts heard this and turned to look.
The Flash grenades went off and blinded the occupants. Quietly, Blue Team snuck in and eliminated every Grunt with their silenced guns. They now had ten minutes to wire the place and hack the systems for information. Nathan had Alison and Harry set up the bombs, whilst the other two Spartans watched the entrance. He plugged his PDA into the nearest console and began ripping as much information he could off their systems. Two pieces of news stopped him. The first was news of a new race on what they called Halo. This “Flood” warranted attention and he took every scrap of information on them. The second made him stop. One of the Spartans at the door came over to him with a med kit, thinking he was hit. The Spartan looked at Nathan’s small PDA screen. It couldn’t be…
Red team had found the AA guns. They were unguarded besides a Blue Elite that was berating a trio of fearful Grunts. Sneaking around this threat, they planted explosives in the insect shaped plasma turrets.
However, one Grunt noticed something peculiar and pointed it out to his Elite leader. The Elite gestured to follow. They peeked around a corner to find a human in strange armour wiring something. (Constance #002.) There was an uncomfortable pause between the two sides. Constance was outnumbered, but she was well armed and was sitting next to enough high explosives to kill them all. On an externally silent com link, she pleaded for urgent assistance. The Elite was shocked, and his Grunts had seized up with terror. What in the name of The Forerunners should he do? Could this be the infamous Master Chief? He had heard stories of warriors in strange armour tearing apart entire cruisers. Eventually, the choice was made for him as sniper rounds punctured all four of The Covenant troops. Constance breathed a sigh of relief and finished her work.
Nathan had found information that Spartan 117-John-was on the “Halo.” He had apparently taken part in a raid on a Covenant ship and rescued the captain of the downed human ship.
“Wow.” he said.
He never thought that he’d see any of his old team again. Pictures showed that John was using the old Mark IV armour and MA5B rifle. Nathan looked at his equipment, The Mark V armour, the BR55 experimental rifle. He realised that John was still the best that either Spartan project had to offer. Either way, they were done here and both teams snuck away.
The Jackal walked into the Communications post and was shocked to see all these dead Grunts. What had they been doing? Then the bombs went off. The explosions set off the plasma munitions being kept in the Motor Pool and triggered a chain reaction. The Banshees were torn apart by the energy of the explosion. The insect like AA guns were ripped off the ground and thrown all over the base. An entire Grunt Methane tent was flattened as one gun landed on it. The Covenant camp was in disarray. Nathan’s Blue team stayed a little longer to cover Red Team’s escape. They picked off any group that seemed to have any formation and eventually left to escape through the secret tunnels in the cliffs. It would lead into the Number 17 Deep working, but it was the only way to get inside without revealing the base.