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Attack on Sol (Part 10)
Posted By: Slit Throat
Date: 27 June 2004, 3:16 AM
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"We'll meet you back at the reactor chamber," finished Linda's voice over the com.
"Acknowledged," replied the Master Chief, "we'll see you there." The Chief scanned the command room once more to be sure it was empty, then nodded to Fred. "Lets go."
The trip back to the reactor chamber was uneventful as there were no Covenant encounters, blocked hallways or locked doors. The Chief and Fred arrived back in the large reactor chamber ahead of Linda and Will.
The reactor chamber was unchanged since they had been there last. The main power generator was still humming away in the center of the room, accompanied by the high pitch wining of the other machines. However, it appeared that the two Engineers that had left earlier were back to work. They floated around the power generator, occasionally stopping to run a tentacle over its surface to fix some microscopic error.
The Chief and Fred ducked behind a storage container on the right side of the door so as not to be detected. The Chief looked at Fred, held up one fist and wrapped his other hand around it, the Spartan's signal for capture target. Fred nodded and crept out to the right as the Master Chief, after setting down the Prophet, did the same to the right. The Engineers had their backs to the Spartans so it was easy for them to sneak up behind the aliens and drop them with blows to the back.
Fred knelt and verified that each Engineer was still breathing. He then stood and glanced around.
"Linda and Will should be here soon," he said. As if their names were a que, the two absent Spartans appeared on the upper level.
"Sorry we're late," apologized Will as they slid down the ladder. "We ran into a few old friends."
"What are we going to do now," asked Linda. "We've completed our mission objectives, so I would recommend that we leave."
"We're leaving soon," replied the Chief, "but first I would like to give our Covenant friends something to remember us by. Will, do you have any more charges?" Will nodded and pulled out three. "We're going to blow the power generator with those," the Master Chief announced. He switched to a private freq with Cortana. "Will three charges be enough to destroy that thing," he asked.
"They should," answered Cortana, "but they need to be placed on the exhaust ports on either side. The explosives should shatter the ports and open the casing. You can then place the last charge inside and detonate it remotely."
"Thank you Cortana," said the Chief. He switched back to his team's freq and relayed Cortana's instructions.
"I'm on it Chief," assured Will. He handed one charge to Fred and they moved to both ends of the generator. There were two clicks as the charges attached to the surface of the generator then a series of high pitch beeps as they armed.
A countdown appeared on the Chief's HUD; ten seconds to detonation. He picked up the Prophet and Engineers and the Spartans ran to the entrance they had first used. They secured and entered the hallway and Fred hit the button to close the door. The Chief's timer clicked to zero just as the blast door slammed shut.
The roar of the charges tearing through the outer surface of the generator was somewhat dampened by the heavy blast door, but it was still loud enough to set the Chief's ears ringing. The blast door shook slightly as the explosion rattled the immediate area, but held firm.
When the sound of the explosion died away and the shaking stopped, Fred touched the door control. The blast door slid open and The Spartans stepped into the room to survey the damage. The reactor room was a mess.
The floor was blackened in a ten meter radius around the power generator and other nearby machines sparked and crackled as a result of the detonation. The generator itself had suffered serious damage. The outer casing had been cracked open like a chestnut and the silver liquid inside had sprayed all around the room. Several plumes of smoke and steam rose from where the exhaust ports had once been.
The Master Chief turned to Will. "You know what to do." Will saluted, pulled out his last charge, and jogged over to the generator. He placed the charge on the inside surface of the generator, just above the fluid line. There was a click and two low pitch beeps as Will armed them for remote detonation.
Will jogged back and said, "charges armed sir. They're set to a different frequency then the weapon center charges so we can detonate them separately."
"Good work," answered the Chief, "now we can leave." The Spartans turned and moved back into the hallway. They moved swiftly along, dispatching small groups of Covenant that came to investigate the source of the explosion.
When they reached the entrance to the supply room where they had entered the base, the Chief paused. They could either leave the way they had come, through the sewage system, or, they could try to find another way out. The Chief glanced at Fred who gave an almost imperceptible nod in the direction that they had come in. The Chief understood; it was time to leave, not explore.
The Spartans entered the supply room and climbed down the ladder into the sewers. They walked along, hunching beneath the low ceiling, for the better part of fifteen minutes. Finally, Cortana announced that they had arrived back at the duct they had entered through.
The Master Chief stood beneath where the grate had been, handed his burden to Will, and took out the optical probe. He linked the view to his HUD and climbed up the ladder until he could poke the probe out into the street. The alley was clear of contacts. The Chief motioned for the other Spartans to follow him and climbed the rest of the way up the ladder. At the top, he hid behind the large pile of rubble that hid the manhole from view.
Fred was the next up and he moved off the the left of the manhole and verified that the next street was clear as well.
As soon as Linda and Will had climbed out, the Chief slowly walked to the corner that Fred was covering and checked both directions. Just because the mission was nearly over did not mean the danger was. His caution was justified. A patrol of three Blue Elites came around a corner about a block away.
The patrol, luckily, did not see the Chief as he ducked back around the corner. When he peeked out again, the Elites were gone. The Chief motioned for Fred and Linda, for long range support, to take point. They moved along, not as slow as they had going in, but still very cautiously.
Two blocks from the dropship, the Spartans turned a corner and found themselves face to face with the patrol of Elites the Chief had seen earlier. Three Elites alone was not so bad, but when they were accompanied by six Special Ops Grunts with fuel rod guns and a pair of Hunters, they became a problem.
Fred and Linda dropped to their knees as the Chief and Will, after dropping their unconscious cargo, fired over their heads. Linda managed to drop one Hunter as it reared in surprise, but the other brought up its shield and ducked behind it, rendering itself safe from the Spartan's fire. The Elites and Grunts however, were not so lucky. Another round from Linda's rifle took an Elite through the chest and another was downed by the explosion of a dead Grunt's fuel rod gun with a bullet chaser.
Within the first few seconds of combat, four Grunts were killed. Another died by his comrade's exploding weapon. The last Grunt dropped his gun, without hitting the fail safe, and tried to run; he only made it a few meters.
The last Elite and Hunter returned fire. Plasma bolts slid off the Spartan's shields like water and the Elite collapsed in a pile of purple gore. The Hunter's first shot went high and its second was thrown off by the Spartan's barrage, but it hit a nearby building draining the Spartan's shields and ripped out a chunk of concrete and melted steel.
Finally, the mighty warrior took a round in its shield arm, causing the shield to drop. Linda took it down with a shot to its orange midsection.
Without saying a word, the Chief and Will picked up the Prophet and Engineers and the Spartans ran the short distance to the dropship.
As Fred climbed inside, with the Prophet and Engineers, to ready the small ship for takeoff, Will removed the charges from the base of the craft. The Chief and Linda covered their six.
A few minutes later, Will announced, "she's ready to go. Should I blow the charges?"
"Set a delay of thirty seconds," ordered the Master Chief. He waved for Linda to board then climbed in himself. Will, now in the cockpit, activated the engines and the dropship lifted into the air.
Twenty-five seconds later, there was an explosion inside the Covenant base. The entire base went dark. Several plumes of smoke rose from the general area of the reactor chamber.
A few seconds after the first explosion, there was a second from the weapon control center. The turrets that had been scanning the sky for incoming targets stopped moving.
On the ground around the base, Covenant patrols scurried about searching for the cause of the explosions. None of them suspected or even noticed the dropship flying rapidly away from the moon's surface.
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