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Hidden Threat: Chapter 2 - Exit Dropship
Posted By: NBD24<NBD24@aol.com>
Date: 17 February 2004, 2:53 PM
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1000 Hours, August 19, 2535 (Military Calendar)/
UNSC Annihilator, traveling through slipspace
en route to Zeta Omicron III
The slapping sound made by the Master Chief's boots reverberated through the Annihilator's docking bay. It was just then that the Master Chief realized how big the room was. Near the end of the monstrous hangar, a couple of Longsword fighters sat, waiting to be deployed at a moment's notice.
In front of him, four Pelican dropships were busily being repaired. To the right, in a small room, about ten Warthogs lay in silence.
The Master Chief continued on to the black-coated Pelican. Several technicians and his Spartans were hastily making repairs, or rather upgrades. Sparks flew from the other side of the ship, but the Chief couldn't see what they were coming from. He smiled as he approached Sam and James, who looked like they were adding a twin chaingun to the Pelican's starboard wing.
"What's going on?"
James spoke first, "We're upgrading the Pelican's arsenal. According to Captain Carlson, a Pelican is not going to last long in the upcoming fight."
Sam added to James' assessment, "Fred and Linda are welding more armor plating around the hull." The Chief nodded. Sure enough, he saw Fred clamber onto the Pelican's roof as Linda chucked a blowtorch at him. Fred immediately turned it on, and set to work. "Also, Kelly is-" As if by cue, a rumbling behind the Chief made him turn around. Kelly was in the driver's seat of a Warthog. Or was it a Warthog? They don't usually come with a pair of neatly mounted fuel rod cannons.
Kelly's voice was clearly heard above the Warthog's rumbling thanks to the COM. "-is mounting, or should I say, has mounted, a pair of fuel rod cannons to our M12LRV Warthog. I guess the Office of Naval Intelligence spooks wants to field test the 'far superior' Covenant technology. Or maybe they don't even know how to work the damn things, and want us to figure it out." All the Spartans laughed. It was well known that the ONI are rivals of Dr. Halsey. They raced to create a weapons program better than the Spartan project. The Chief stepped out of the way, and Kelly neatly aligned the Warthog with the clamp on the Pelican's underside. She jumped out and ran to the cockpit. A moment later, the Warthog attached to the Pelican and was secured.
The Chief welcomed the alterations. Even if they were captain's orders. Sam and James didn't even pause what they were doing to talk. The Chief saw no hesitation as his Spartans worked. They made decisions so quickly, it seemed as if their brains processed as fast as a supercomputer.
The Master Chief was about to join in the commotion, when the elevator opened up to reveal 6 marines. They stepped out and started towards the Spartans.
The leader spoke, "which one of you is the Master Chief?" The Chief stepped forward. The marines responded with a crisp salutes. "Sergeant Jennaro reporting for duty."
"Relax, Sergeant. What do you want?"
"The Captain told us to accompany you on your mission." The Master Chief frowned behind his helmet. Marines would just hamper he and his teammates. Well, he might as well put them to use.
"Okay marines, you can start by helping us with repairs." As everyone turned to work, an unannounced explosion rocked the deck and knocked him off his feet. He saw Fred fly off the dropship and his MJOLNIR armor make a dent in the metal floor of the docking bay.
A frantic voice opened up on his COM. "Chief, we've reached Zeti Omicron III. Our sensors indicate....Lt., what do our sensors say....there's readings of some type of facility on the planet. We'll make a slipspace jump out-system. We'll contact you at 1400 hours tomorrow. You better get off this shi-" An explosion occurred on the other end, and the COM signal diffused into static.
The Chief opened his COM and addressed his teams. "Let's move out!" The Master Chief, Fred, Kelly, Sergeant Jennaro, Privates Fitzgerald and Green jumped in the modified Pelican. Linda, Sam, James and the other marines took one of the regular dropships. The Chief took a seat as Kelly thundered the engines and closed off the loading drop ramp.
Fred turned to him. "Chief, what do you think we'll find down there?"
"I couldn't begin to guess. Let's just hope that there'll be loads of Covenant to kill." The Chief brought back to memory the repairs. "Fred, how many upgrades did you finish?"
Fred replied, "Sir, we mounted a second pair of chainguns on the wings. Linda and I also finished plating the port and starboard sides of the hull. And, as you saw, Kelly made some modifications to the Warthog as well."
A sudden lurch and continuous roaring told the Master Chief that the Pelicans had taken off. The Pelicans soared over the Longsword fighters and exited the docking bay.
The Chief flicked his COM on, "Kelly, upload the external cams to my HUD."
"Uploading now, Master Chief." As she said that, the center of the Chief's vision was cut off by an endless black. As the Pelican dove towards the planet, the Chief saw the battle. Streams of plasma fire shot out towards the UNSC ships. The lines of blue-white pierced holes in the ships, explosively decompressing the immediate parts of it. It was then that the Master Chief saw what the explosion over his COM caused: the bridge of the Annihilator was gone. Fire erupted around the edges. The Chief saw the shut bulkheads that cut off the ship's interior from the vacuum of space.
But that didn't stop it. Engineering must've routed the bridge controls to their control.
Fire erupted around the UNSC force, but the captains wouldn't give up without a fight. Hundreds of Archer missile pods volleyed into the covenant lines. The subsequent explosions revealed the silvery-white shields enveloping the Covenant ships. The obstruction flickered and died away. The Covenant were open to another probable round of Archer missiles. The second barrage arced away towards the enemy. Multiple explosions raced through the ships like a string of detonating landmines. A couple of ships lost power, and started a deadly spiral into the planet's atmosphere. Then the Chief saw it: a single bluish-white line speeding madly towards the dropship.
The plasma missile raced hungrily through space like a young child going for the dessert bar. A single plasma missile was almost always deadly to a single Pelican dropship. The Master Chief watched ionized gases sizzle as the plasma sped a path right into an unlucky Longsword fighter.
Most of the fighter melted on impact, showering the nearby Pelican with superheated metal. Globules of melting metal landed harmlessly on the armor plating. The Master Chief cautiously strapped himself in, just in case this turned into a zero-g mission.
Longsword fighters were engaged in heated dogfights with the Covenant seraphs. The Pelicans joined in the fight, spraying fighters with chaingun rounds. Some punched holes in their hulls, decompressing them and killing the pilots inside. One unlucky bastard flew straight into a plasma battery. Fire engulfed the Longsword tailing it. A fighter positioned between the modified Pelican and the nearby ship was shot down. It inherently flew into the dropship's trajectory. Kelly dove and rolled, corkscrewing the Pelican to avoid the danger.
Kelly turned back hard, rolling the dropship into a path leading towards a Covenant frigate. Plasma streaked by inches from the altered Pelican's hull, then abruptly stopped. The Chief recognized what was happening: the plasma turrets on a Covenant vessel weren't able to turn fully inward, exposing a blind spot. Very clever, and daring on Kelly's part. If one of those plasma missiles hit the dropship, UNSC crews would have to figure out how to pry MJOLNIR armor from a warped dropship.
The COM unleashed a yell, "Chief, this is Commander Clark, get outta there! We're launching MAC rounds!" It must've been an open channel, because Kelly pulled back on the yoke, almost slamming into the Covenant ship. Fire shot out from the Covenant frigate at odd angles towards the two dropships.
On his HUD, the Master Chief could see the Covenant fleet. Several MAC round catapulted away from the UNSC force. MAC or Magnetic Accelerator Cannon rounds, in essence, were gigantic bullets, launched at amazing speeds towards the enemy. Most of the time, a single one could cut a ship in two. The first round slammed into the nearest Covenant ship with tremendous force. A sickening crunch accompanied the huge hole dug by the enormous slug. The rear off the ship was broken off, shooting metal debris towards the Pelicans. The Pelicans sped away unscathed towards the planet.
The rest of the MAC barrage was met with three times the number of plasma fire. Plasma connected with some of the rounds, and melted them into nothing. The rounds that did make it through slammed into the Covenant onslaught, lowering their shields and punching gaping craters into them. One round obliterated a Covenant fighter and continued along it's path into the center of a Covenant cruiser, taking out it's bridge. Blue-white fire made drew lines through the space between the two forces. UNSC ships were literally fried with the ensuing fire. Those ships that weren't disabled including the Annihilator, made a run for it, jumping into slipspace.
The battle was interrupted by the sudden burst of white fire from the first Covenant frigate. The fusion reactor overloaded, turning the ship into a mini supernova. Since the Covenant fleet was tightly grouped, the ships boxing in the frigate were eaten by the blinding light. The outermost ships safely made it out of the maw, but those was few in number. The explosion ringed out and chased the dropships. The other Pelican managed to negotiate a safe path through the deadly turbulence, but Kelly didn't pull up fast enough. The ring hit the dropship and violently shook it. The Master Chief and the occupants were thrown from their seats. The dropship was shoved into an awkward roll.
Kelly jerked and pulled the yoke around, compensating for the ship's sudden lurch, but it was too little, too late. Gravity took control, and the Pelican was pulled towards the atmosphere, and almost certain doom.
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