//------------------------------// // Chapter 20 // Story: Contact Harvest // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// "There are very few problems that cannot be solved by a suitable application of high explosives" -Scot Adams It was silent. After being launched from the prowler into the vacuum of space no more sounds other than my own breathing, and beating of my heart accompanied me. The occasional blast of the thrusters would break the silence momentarily but other than that there was nothing. The radio silence did nothing to lighten the disconcerting atmosphere such a void of sound provided either. The worst part was that only really the electronic systems told me the others were still around me somewhere as we travelled through the blackness of space towards an asteroid we couldn't even see yet. five more minutes... I put a hand on my rifle that was mag-locked to my chest so it wouldn't fly off when we decelerated into the asteroid base, tapping it rhythmically. The Pelican that would be our extraction was already somewhere ahead and would be waiting in the void for our extraction. Two minutes... The asteroid was becoming a lot bigger than the small dot it had been before and started growing at an increasingly rapid pace. The pre-programming for the thrusters made sure I decelerated at the proper speed, the counterparts the rest of our team had also did the same thing, giving me an idea where the others were. The energy barrier approached at terrifying speed but if the g-force on my body indicated anything it was that I wasn't going to smash into a red pool of gore the moment we got through the shielding. Three... Two... One... Sound returned to me instantly as we breached the shield, in the brief seconds of our approach I spotted the cruiser that was guarding the entrance, the one thing that could give us some serious grief when we were leaving. The hangar was lined with covenant structures, the signature purple metal being everywhere but also some much more ancient-looking building was encapsulated in the rock. We came to a sliding halt on a large platform that had a row of banshees parked on it, a small group of grunts froze in surprise at our sudden entrance. They lasted seconds as the power armoured members of our team tore into them with their combat knives. "Breach successful. Team two, find a suitable weak point to place your bomb. Team three, good hunting," Maria stated over the short-ranged comms, if the Covenant hadn't detected us entering through the shield then it probably wouldn't take long for them to realize they were going to be losing people. We all clicked our comms in acknowledgement and ran off to do our allotted tasks. ONI had provided us with what was their best guess of Covenant standard layouts for ships and bases so we could identify and eliminate command positions more easily, information that now was going to be invaluable. Linda only communicated through hand signals as we moved through the corridors, the tight spaces not being great for our sniper rifles. The lighting in the hallways suddenly started blinking red, an announcement in the Sangheili language being blasted through invisible speakers indicating that we'd been made for sure. It wasn't very long after that that we encountered a group of disorganised grunts scrambling to repel us. "Contact," Linda stated as we saw the creatures, two shots ringing out and five grunts falling as the tight corridors in combination with armour piercing rounds had devastating effects. The grunts that were left didn't take much more time to kill and we were soon back to running through the hallways. "Breaching door." The spartan placed an explosion on a door that was in our way while I took cover. The loud bang was muffled by my helmet and the pressure from the shockwave was much less impactful with the pressure suit I was wearing. Peeking past my cover with the sniper rifle I glanced through the hole with the thermals of my scope, an elite was visible right on the other end of the portal who was looking positively dased... Bang! My rifle, which was significantly more powerful than the standard rifle Linda was carrying, punched straight through the elite's shielding and went right through the shell of armour it was wearing too, splattering the ground with its purple blood. Linda, with her immensely superior physical abilities, was the first through the gap in the doors, her rifle giving a series of loud reports as she targeted the various other opponents. "Clear," she reported as I followed her in, a massive internal room, probably spanning most of the asteroid's interior, was revealed to us. A large central structure of the same older-looking architecture that was definitely not Covenant was being excavated. "Lead one, this is lead three, sending video feed now," Linda stated as we observed Covenant craft flying around the structure, there was activity everywhere around here, Sangheili shouting orders to legions of grunts that were all carrying either equipment or weapons of sorts. A shot impacted the wall next to Linda's head, the Spartan having had just enough time to roll out of the way. My immediate reaction was to fall to a knee and fire at the location the shot had originated from. The unfortunate sniper Jackal that had fired was ripped to shreds as I hadn't bothered to lower my rifle's power level, not that I had any sympathy in the first place for the alien. "Lead three, shift objectives and find access to that structure to take a look inside," Maria replied over the radio after that brief engagement, a small moment of calm that couldn't last as we had the attention of the entire chamber. Banshees were screaming down towards us, their cannons glowing bright green from the plasma inside them. "Understood," Linda replied to my astonishment. "Belle, provide shielding." Knowing that I wouldn't be changing the mind of the Spartan, I sprinted after her as she headed for the centre structure, calling on my magic to create a shield around the two of us. Hell started breaking loose not very soon after as the amount of fire being shot in our direction was beyond withering, my shield making sure we made it from cover to cover without being burned to a crisp. Plasma from the Banshees manoeuvring through the relatively crowded airspace rained down on our position, the splash damage from the large cannons scorching my shield further and putting an immense amount of strain on my magic. "We're not going to make it at this rate, those Banshees are draining my reserves too fast and I'd like a way back out too!" I called out over the roar of plasma weapons. Linda swirled around and fired two shots at a pair of passing Banshees, the craft flying out of control and crashing into the old structure. "I'll keep the sky clear, make sure that shield remains intact," Linda stated as she started focussing down the aerial threats, nailing every single one of them with a single shot. Sweet Celestia, she's so fucking good... The strain got a little lighter without the constant heavy fire, allowing us to reach an alcove into the central structure, but as we got into the bit of cover the back wall slid open. The two of us rushed in, turning as we expected elites to pass through the doors very soon... we waited... and waited longer... the doors didn't open again. "...the fuck?" I said as I slowly lowered my rifle slightly, there was no way a group of elites or grunts hadn't reached the door either. "Something to ponder later. We should look around this place," Linda stated as she turned and scanned the hallway ahead. I didn't like the luck we were having, it was too easy, like someone wanted us inside... and that someone sure as hell wasn't the covenant. We could hear the shouts from elites and grunts echo through the structure as we sprinted around the corridors of the complex. "They don't sound very, happy," I commented as Linda tried every terminal we found, all of them just being controls for doors. "Probably some religious things," Linda answered shortly tapping another control panel and having more success than on all our other attempts. A hologram sprung to life showing a string of symbols before turning into a three-dimensional representation of the structure. "Well, then they probably don't want us getting to that central area there," I pointed out a place deeper into the structure where all hallways seemed to converge, quickly recording the hologram so we had a copy to navigate on. "Probably not. Let's go take a look," Linda said after finding that she really couldn't do anything else with the console. The Spartan took point once again and we altered our route so we'd end up. It didn't take long before we ran into the inevitable resistance, though the severity of that resistance was something else entirely. A small team of elites clad in blood-red armour, armed with energy swords, got uncomfortably close to the two of us. The last one of that particular group managed to get into hand to hand combat with Linda before I painted the wall purple with its brains. "Those hingeheads definitely weren't normal, if this is the quality of troops here we simply don't have the firepower to deal with them between the two of us," I stated as I got in front of Linda who's armour had a shallow gash from an energy blade going across the titanium chestplate. "Not conventionally, no," Linda was forced to agree as she picked up the hilt of the energy blade and managed to activate it, pressing it down into one of the dead elites as a test. Its energy shielding, which had recharged again, popped the moment it came into contact with the blade. "My guess is these things use very hot plasma to instantly cut through anything in its path." "Go on?" I stated, not exactly seeing her point. "Agent Shimmer was able to create a firestorm of sorts with her magic, could you recreate that?" Linda asked, mag-locking the energy blade to her armour for later use. "With the amount of energy that requires you'd be carrying me for the rest of this mission," I pointed out blatantly, knowing that displays like that put even Sunset out of commission for a while. "Maybe scale it down?" Linda proposed. "Well..." I sighed as I focussed on my magic and started creating the spell matrix, focussing on making it a short but powerful pulse. It didn't help that fire magic wasn't really my affinity but I was proficient enough to put some substantial power behind the spell now. A green coloured ball of plasma was flung away from my outstretched fist at a significant speed, smashing into the strange stone and tearing out a chuck on impact. "I don't think I have all too many of those in me but if we dose it out..." "You'll make it work. We're close to the centre and we should at least take a look." Linda turned back to the hallway and slammed a fresh magazine into her rifle. I, on the other hand, put my rifle onto my back and was going to go ahead purely on my pistol and magic alone. I opted to have a directional shield matrix ready over the plasma spell as we got to the entrance to the central chamber, preferring the extra bit of defence as we entered. A massive chamber with a circular centre platform made up the main chamber, various drones of unknown origin floating around the middle structure and performing whatever task they were assigned to do. There were already a few terminals we could try to access I could see in the few seconds we had to observe the room before a barrage of plasma and needles impacted onto my forward shield. "Elites, two o'clock high," Linda sated as another group of three red-clad elites looked down on us. I didn't hesitate to holster my pistol and calling on my magic to toss a bolt of plasma in their direction. The glowing bolt of green flew across the space between me and the lead elite combatant and smacked into its shield. To both my and the elite's surprise the bolt instantly collapsed his energy shield before exploding and sending him flying. He didn't get to experience the shock for long for long as Linda did not let this opening go to waste and blew his brains out. The other two remaining elites roaring in anger and charging forward, dropping down from high and bolting from cover to cover while firing potshots. “I don't have a clear shot!” I called out as I had to strain to keep my shield up while also keeping the plasma spell ready with my other hand, the elites did not give me any opening to use my magic on them again. “Hold and draw them in,” Linda ordered as she took shots back at them from cover. Oh yeah, that sounds like a great plan. Let the sword wielding aliens get into close combat range... With a roar I flung another, more powerful bolt at a cover the elite was using before switching back to my pistol. The bolt exploded against the cover it was using and staggered him right as he wanted to bolt for the next usable cover, a bullet from Linda ricocheted off of his energy shield. Fuck, they're getting close... Oh to hell with this. The two elites split up, one going for Linda and the other for me. I emptied my entire pistol magazine into the elite before I had to duck out of the way of a strike with the energy sword, not willing to test if my magic shield was up to the task of blocking it. “You missed, split-lip!” I called out as I tried to load a new magazine, only to get backhanded and flung into the air. My pistol flew from my grasp as I landed hard, I barely had the chance to put up my shield again before the energy blade slammed into it. “You will pay for this incursion into this holy sanctum, human,” the elite spat to my surprise, the first time I'd heard an elite speak in a language I understood. I didn't reply as my entire focus was on stopping the energy sword from piercing the shield, my magic reserve quickly draining under the strain. Go to Tartarus, bastard. Forming a quick telekinesis spell I pushed myself away from the elite, allowing me to get up and draw my combat blade. The alien charged after me without hesitation only this time I didn't dodge out of its way but closed in and prayed my next attack would work as I cooked up a new spell. My blade, coated in green fire and shimmering, slammed into his neck as I jumped into his embrace, piercing right through his shielding and leaving the knife there. He gurgled up purple blood as he staggered back, eyes wide as I used the final bit of my magic reserves to conjure the plasma spell, hitting the elite full blast. Half his midsection just exploded as the spell got through the weakened shielding and exploded inside the elite. I wanted to collapse as the amount of energy I'd expended there was vast but managed to keep myself together. Turning to face Linda and her opponent I saw the spartan was struggling to keep her elite at bay with her captured energy blade, the alien clearly being the better swordsman. Pulling my stanchion rifle off my back, I set its power levels way past maximum, something that would certainly burn out its coils in a single shot but deliver an incredibly powerful shot down range. “Hey, ugly, chew on this one!” A plume of sparks and smoke shot from my rifle's barrel as each one of its internal parts burned out, the effect of the shot though could not be argued with. The elite was bodily thrown to the side and the entire right side of his torso had ceased to exist, his arm laying some way away from his bleeding body. “Thanks for that,” Linda panted as my knees gave out. I pulled off my helmet, coughing up a glob of blood and spitting it out. “Let's see whatever the fuck those bastards were protecting and get out of here,” I grunted as I clamped my ruined rifle to my back and tried getting back onto my feet, only succeeding when Linda pulled me off the ground. Supported by the spartan, I made it to the center of the chamber where various holographic consoles were lit up, clearly a location of interest to the elites. Linda propped me up against a bit of cover where I'd have a good view of the chamber and could keep watch while Linda tried to get as much intel as possible. I just checked my ammo reserves for my pistol as a hologram jumped alive all around us. "Whoa, what the hell is this?" "It's... a star chart," Linda stated as she took in the sight and undoubtedly recorded the entire thing, I was doing the same thing after all. "Lead three, I don't know what you found but get clear right now. Covenant forces are retreating from the facility en masse, we're extracting ASAP," Maria informed us. I cursed under my breath, pulling up the image I'd taken of the layout of this structure. "Alright, time's up, let's get out of here," I stated as Linda pulled me back off the ground, only for me to cough up some more blood into my helmet. "It might be faster to just pick me up and run, we can't lose time having me stumbling along." "Agreed." The spartan immediately hefted me onto her back and set off, sprinting down the corridors at full speed. As we navigated I provided her with directions to go in, making the process a whole lot faster and navigating us to an alternative exit to the one we came in through. The areas we passed were eerily quiet, clear evidence of a hasty retreat visible as stuff was littered around. "We activated our IFF tags, our time's up. We just got informed the cruiser is powering up, this rock is not going to be very hospitable for too long," Maria informed us as their beacons lit up fairly close to us, I immediately activated my own to show we were closeby. We found the four of them defending Grace who was rigging up some explosives. "Shit, Sweetie-" "I'm good," I cut off Scootaloo as she checked me over for any injuries. "Just used a tad too much magic." Scootaloo huffed as she had her scanner check me out fully. "Yeah, a tad too much magic my ass. You have four cracked ribs and one that's poking your lungs in a way I don't like at all." "I'd say that's better than being impaled on an energy sword," I shrugged, the motion more painful than I liked to admit. "Tell me about that later. We should get to cover, Grace is going to blow a hole in this rock soon." The spartan in question gave a thumbs up to Maria who ordered the rest of us to advance deeper into the structure to avoid getting caught in the blast. As we got to a safe distance Grace detonated the explosives she'd rigged up, at the same time I could hear a bunch more explosives go off in different sections of the facility. "Activate your thrusters and set them to form up on me," Maria ordered as I was carried back to the hole that had been blasted in the rock. Air was rushing out through the hole at a rapid pace into the void of space. We pushed off through the hole one by one, leaving the effects of Covenant arteficial gravity and returning to the minor gravitational effects of the asteroid itself. Above us the cruiser was moving, it's massive plasma bombardment cannon bussing with energy. That bloody thing is going to turn this rock into a molten pile of slag, they really don't want us to have this info. The thrusters on our armour flared as Maria took off, staying in close formation to the spartan. My attention though was closely centerred on the cruiser as it took in fleeing craft from the base. How long is it going to take before it notices us... Not long it turned out as we could see the vessel turn to bring its large plasma weaponry to bear. "No offence but I hope wee have a way to deal with that cruiser in short order or my shielding is going to be laughably insufficient." I stated, breaking the mostly radio silence we'd been working under. "We do. Grace, detonate." Grace tapped the console on her armour a couple of times and not more than a few seconds later a bright flash came from the cruiser, a section of its belly cracking open and the purple flames bursting out sending it off course. "We rigged a bunch of the dropships to blow and attached a nuke to one of the remaining ones. We might not be able to damage that shield but once inside a nuke is fairly devastating," Anna laughed as my suit gave a radiation alarm, the nuke having sent a fairly high dosage out, something that would require some treatment back at the prowler. "Yet that ain't even the main attraction," Apple Bloom chuckled, tapping her own arm mounted console. "Permission to detonate?" "Granted." Another spike of radiation was picked up by my suit, though this one not as bad as the other one. Below me I could see the asteroid being ripped apart, sending chunks of rock in every direction. "Oohrah!" Scootaloo laughed at the utter destruction. "The debris should make it much harder to track us, we maintain radio silence until we reach the pelican." We all clicked our radio's in acknowledgement before shutting down any signals that could give us away, quietly soaring back to the pelican that was our ticket out of this system.