An explosion sent a dull thud through the air and ground, as shrapnel hissed by Viper’s ears. Taking but a second to regain his composure, he aimed his shotgun at the offending brute, and tore him down with a hail of buckshot. The grunts and jackals, deterred by their fallen commander, devised a hasty retreat. Bertha took the opportunity to cut them down, a firestorm from a pair of rockets into their midst. Bodies flew, foes dropped, and the smell of methane and fire lingered.
This part of Halo had much colder features, easily evident by the crunching snow under the combatants. White cascaded down the cliffs and across the plains. The captain signaled the group to cease fire, as the last of the enemies crumpled into the snow. Eagle took the opportunity to scrounge around for a beam rifle and some grenades, while Aura replaced her spent plasma rifles with a plasma pistol and a needler. Crackshot punched the eject on her empty needle rifle clips, entering a new clip into each weapon.
The odor of burnt flesh replaced that of the methane and fire as the latter eased and dispersed.
Admiral Kai, who had avoided the quick firefight, walked calmly to the epicenter of the battle site, surveying the debris with a click of his mandibles. He nodded to Viper, who in turn motioned to the rest of his soldiers to advance toward the objective. They scurried toward a looming structure, a Forerunner architecture embedded into a cliff wall. A jackal sniper posted on one of its ledges took offense to the advancing party, and fired a pair of searing-hot plasma at Eagle. At this distance, Eagle easily sidestepped the burning retorts, and sent his own regards downrange. The exchange alerted more combatants, including numerous grunts and several brutes, and the next firefight began.
Plasma fire hissed all around, but few managed to connect with the invaders, flaring their shields. Bertha fired a second salvo of rockets, and they detonated among the grunts. A pair of brutes advanced, but Kai unslung his brute shot and leveled it, and them. Additional brutes poured out from nooks, crannies and doorways, but Eagle and Crackshot sent volleys of rounds to impede their forward advances. Viper moved to one side of the large central entrance, signaling Aura to cover the other side.
His caution was justified; no sooner had the two taken position, a large bolt of plasma roared from within the depths of the Forerunner structure. Eagle, Crackshot and Bertha leaped away to avoid the blast, as well as the series that followed the first. Kai brought the brute shot up and parried the shots skyward, where they dispersed into a haze. The admiral then motioned to Bertha, and the two unload their explosive munitions into the maw. Several thuds and booms, as well as shrieks of terror, radiated in response.
Viper took the opportunity to enter the room; his subordinates followed suit. A quick round of the half-charred, metallic foyer was sufficient to pick off any stragglers. The room, although filled with many geometries, was surprisingly expansive. “Some of the bodies are brute bodyguards.” Viper reported. “That means we’ll be meeting a chieftain any mo–“
As if on cue, a rather large and heavily armored brute barreled into the space, recklessly swinging a gravity hammer. Aura and Eagle took direct hits, draining their shields and sending them off to a wall. Bertha and Crackshot strafed the chieftain, avoiding the whoomps of the weapon, but the bombs and needles failed to deter the brute from his course, forcing the pair to retreat behind pillars, reloading.
Viper rushed forward, shotgun booming as round after round sparked the chieftain’s shields. The brute let out a great roar as he brought his hammer right down on Viper. He jumped, but nevertheless was propelled from the hammer’s pulse, slamming into a wall, draining his shields to half. He dropped his shotgun with a resounding clack.
But the chieftain was not finished, and ran after his prey. Viper shook his head, clearing the impact’s disorientation, before reaching for an energy sword. It hummed to life, and Viper lunged to the brute’s left, chipping the shields with the blade. The chieftain swung the hammer in a wide arc, catching Viper on the side, sending him sprawling to the floor, this time emptying his shields.
Bertha and Crackshot ran toward Aura and Eagle, assisting their fallen comrades as they groggily picked themselves up. They all stood, and while retreating watched as the lumbering brute chieftain leapt forward at Viper again. The captain jumped back up, reaching for his second energy sword. Crackshot took a few potshots, but again failed to stop the chieftain.
Kai clicked his mandibles disapprovingly at the situation and fired a trio of rounds at the beast, causing the brute to stumble into its own momentum. Viper took the opportunity to lunge and pierce straight through the brute’s armor, shield and all, with both of this swords. The chieftain let out a great cry, before he unsheathed his blades and let the beast crumple to the ground.
The subordinates, having recovered fully, congregated around the brute’s body. Kai slung his brute shot, and picked up the fallen chieftain’s gravity hammer, inspecting its craftsmanship. A golden glow appeared around Viper as his shields sluggishly replenished itself, siphoning energy from the suit’s small fusion reactor.
The admiral approached the captain. The superior shook his head slowly, before turning to a deeper part of the structure.
“What?” Viper snapped, following Kai. “I could have taken him down without your interference.”
But Kai did not respond, continuing down the passageway unstopped. Bertha, Aura, Crackshot and Eagle looked at one another, perplexed, before following their leaders down the path.
The rest of the journey into the bowels of the building was, for a team of Spartans, uneventful, as the group systematically eradicated grunt, jackal and brute patrols. Several drones flew out from an air duct, but Kai simply rent them asunder with his newly acquired gravity hammer. Neither the subordinates nor the commanding officers uttered a word. The four were curious why their leader was acting so rashly, a dramatic change from his normally stoic nature.
At one chamber of the labyrinth of a Forerunner structure, a second chieftain awaited their arrival, this one armed with the potent fuel rod gun. Everyone strafed to pillars and walls to avoid the incendiary response, but Viper leaped over the well-aimed shots, straight for the brute. In one fluid motion, he fired one round into the chieftain’s chest, draining the shields, dropped his shotgun, unsheathed his energy swords and sliced away at its midsection. The corpse was nearly cut in half, red blood oozing onto the cold metal floor.
Without a word, the captain wordlessly retrieved his shotgun and started toward the next doorway. Bertha grabbed the fuel rod gun to replace her spent rocket launcher. Kai, Crackshot, Aura and Eagle reloaded their weapons, and continued on.
They had traveled for the better portion of an hour and a half, down another hallway that eerily mimicked many they have passed, when Kai was the first to break the unsettling silence.
“Glad to see that you havn’t lost all of your luster.” He cracked.
Viper huffed at that statement, preferring not to respond to it. He gunned down a brute unfortunate enough to patrol down the passage, and stepped over the body without slowing.
Bertha opened a private channel to Viper. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Viper replied sternly. A second brute came into view, but he lost his head when Eagle sniped it off. “Let’s just get this mission done with.”
Bertha paused for a second, frowning, before responding to a pair of jackals, who fired overcharged plasma pistol bolts at them. One shot went wide, while the other connected with her, draining her shields; she rebutted them by vaporizing the two with a single shot.
“Corey,” Kai said, “do you have a reading on the relic?”
“Standby,” the AI replied. The HUD blinked once, then an arrow appeared onscreen, revealing the objective to be a few hundred meters away.
“Thank goodness.” Eagle moaned. “I thought my legs were gonna fall off.”
At last, they had reached their initial objective, as the hallways opened up to an agoraphobia-inducing cavern of sorts, complete with artificial stalactites and fifteen-meter towers. Strange symbols dotted the floor and radiated various colors and shades; some appeared to even float out of the ground. In the center of this circular room was the relic: a sizable item of irregular shape, it could be best described as a “rock,” though wisps of energy hummed through and around it. Between it and the team was nothing less than an army; numerous grunts covered the floor, many jackals, some with shields, others with beam or focus rifles, a score of brutes, led by a single chieftain with familiar ornate armor, and an assortment of vehicles from ghosts to banshees and wraiths that hovered and soared back and forth.
One grunt screeched at the sight of the intruders, and hollered at the chieftain. He roared a command, and every gun seemed to turn toward the six.
To that, Eagle could only mutter, “shit.”